e death I had gained, and shifted my
concentration to my fingers. My brain cleared again, and the death of my
arms to the shoulders was most rapidly accomplished.

At this stage my body was all dead, so far as I was concerned, save my
head and a little patch of my chest. No longer did the pound and smash
of my compressed heart echo in my brain. My heart was beating steadily
but feebly. The joy of it, had I dared joy at such a moment, would have
been the cessation of sensations.

At this point my experience differs from Morrell's. Still willing
automatically, I began to grow dreamy, as one does in that borderland
between sleeping and waking. Also, it seemed as if a prodigious
enlargement of my brain was taking place within the skull itself that did
not enlarge. There were occasional glintings and flashings of light as
if even I, the overlord, had ceased for a moment and the next moment was
again myself, still the tenant of the fleshly tenement that I was making
to die.

Most perplexing was the seeming enlargement of brain. Without having
passed through the wall of skull, nevertheless it seemed to me that the
periphery of my brain was already outside my skull and still expanding.
Along with this was one of the most remarkable sensations or experiences
that I have ever encountered. Time and space, in so far as they were the
stuff of my consciousness, underwent an enormous extension. Thus,
without opening my eyes to verify, I knew that the walls of my narrow
cell had receded until it was like a vast audience-chamber. And while I
contemplated the matter, I knew that they continued to recede. The whim
struck me for a moment that if a similar expansion were taking place with
the whole prison, then the outer walls of San Quentin must be far out in
the Pacific Ocean on one side and on the other side must be encroaching
on the Nevada desert. A companion whim was that since matter could
permeate matter, then the walls of my cell might well permeate the prison
walls, pass through the prison walls, and thus put my cell outside the
prison and put me at liberty. Of course, this was pure fantastic whim,
and I knew it at the time for what it was.

The extension of time was equally remarkable. Only at long intervals did
my heart beat. Again a whim came to me, and I counted the seconds, slow
and sure, between my heart-beats. At first, as I clearly noted, over a
hundred seconds intervened between beats. But as I contin