state
of very low circulation. The last thing I was conscious of,
as I drifted off, was the cold, the low sound of the wind,
and the rain beating upon the roof....

"There was a cohering line through this dream, every detail
stamped upon my consciousness so deeply that the memory of it
upon awaking was almost as vivid as when I was immersed....
It began very slowly with a growing perception of a low
monotonous lap and wash of water and a slight heaving,
lifting sensation, as of my being swayed gently to and fro.
It was very cold, not the biting cold we know, but a dank,
lifeless, penetrating cold of water and darkness.... The
manner of my own form was not clear to me; I was of too low a
consciousness to be aware of many exterior particulars. I
merely knew I belonged to darkness and deep water. In fact,
during the dream I had hardly a sense of _being_, except
through the outer stimuli of cold and danger. These were
horribly plain. That I was a creature of the depths and dark,
a bleached single-cell, was doubtless a mental conclusion
from the waking contemplation afterward. In the dream, I
seemed of vast size, and I believe all little creatures do,
since they fill their scope as tightly as we. The spark of
consciousness, or life within, seemed so faint that part of
the time my body seemed a dead, immovable bulk. No sense of
self or body in comparison to outer things, was existent,
except when a larger form instilled me with fear.

"My dream seemed a direct reversion back into the Beginnings,
in form, consciousness, state of being, perception and
instinct--everything--so that I actually lived, in infinitely
dwindled consciousness, the terrible water-life.

"All was blackness. I possessed some slight volition of life
that contracted in the cold. I was not in any keen suffering;
I seemed too low and numbed to sense to the full the
unpleasantness of my condition.... Presently there came a
dawning light which gradually grew stronger. I did not seem
to have eyes, but was conscious of the ray seemingly through
the walls of my body. Slowly it increased, to a sickly wan
filter of grey. It was light shining through water, a light
which would have been no light to a human being. To me it was
intense and fearsome, seemed to reach centres