his aversion for the place. This continued
indefinitely, till he awoke.

You perceived the vague sense of "ominous locality" developed out of the
simplest details. There is a recognizable introduction, the field, the
stone wall, the grass striking his fingers; but there is no ending,
nothing happens; the dream-spell at last dissolves, and the sleeper
wakes. His aversion to the sound of the brook can, therefore, come from
no conscious knowledge of a portending catastrophe in the dream. It was
always Auber's fancy that the dream would really end in a catastrophe,
which, though the mind proper continue in ignorance, casts its ominous
shadow through the subconsciousness upon the surroundings of the event.

It was also a fanciful idea of his that dreams in general imply a
subconscious state coexisting constantly with the actual realm of
thought, but penetrated by our consciousness only when the will is
least active, or during sleep. With ordinary mortals sleep and
consciousness are so nearly incompatible that the notion of actual
mental achievement during sleep is unthought of. Dreams are allowed to
run an absurd riot through the brain, disturbing physical rest. The
remedy for this universal ailment and waste of time was to be found in
"white sleep," a bit of Indian mysticism, purporting to accomplish a
partial detachment of mind and body, so that the will, which is always
the expression of the link between these two, is, for the time,
dissolved. The body rests, but the unfettered mind enters upon a
"will-less state of pure seeing," where dreams no longer remain the
meaningless fantasies of blind sleep, but become luminous with idea and
sequence. With the body thus left behind, the intellect rises to the
zenith of perception, where the blue veil of earthly knowledge is
pierced and transcended.

How often had we heard Auber talk in his fantastically learned fashion,
with an amused seriousness lighting up his face. At what point he began
to see something more than amusement in his dreams and theories, I never
knew; but the serious beginning of the thing took shape in an incident
which not even the most fervent theorist could have created for the
sake of a theory.

It was up among the little knobby hills to the north of my farm. We were
as usual sketching, and Auber had been going on all the afternoon about
the mournful scenery, talking of nothing but browns, and grays, and
"mountain melancholy." He had a way of stringing o