Compleat Dream-Letters of H.P. Lovecraft

[WFHermans]

:shock::shock::shock:

At night, when the objective world has
slunk back into its cavern & left dreamers to
their own, there come inspirations & capabilities
impossible to any less magical &
quiet hour. No one knows whether or not
he is an author unless he has tried writing at
night. Many a mind closed & sluggish in
sunlight opens up rare & magnificently
exotic vistas in the beams of the moon.

:eek::eek::eek:

To Rheinhart Kleiner :jew:
Nov. 16, 1916
My dear Kleiner:-
[...]
In January, 1896, the death of my grandmother
plunged the household into a gloom
from which it never fully recovered. The black
attire of my mother & aunts terrified & repelled
me to such an extent that I would surreptitiously
pin bits of bright cloth or paper to their skirts for
sheer relief. They had to make a careful survey
of their attire before receiving callers or going
out! And then it was that my former high spirits
received their damper. I began to have nightmares
of the most hideous description, peopled
with things which I called "night-gaunts"- a compound
word of my own coinage. I used to draw
them after waking (perhaps the idea of these figures
came from an edition de luxe of Paradise
Lost with illustrations by Doré, which I discovered
one day in the east parlour). In dreams they
were wont to whirl me through space at a sickening
rate of speed, the while fretting & impelling
me with their detestable tridents. It is fully
fifteen years-aye, more-since I have seen a
"night-gaunt", but even now, when half asleep &
drifting vaguely along over a sea of childhood
thoughts, I feel a thrill of fear-something like
that in Mrs. Jordan's poem "The Pool"-& instinctively
I struggle to keep awake. That was my one
prayer back in '96-each night-to keep awake &
ward off the night-gaunts!
[ ... ]
With sincerest wishes,
I am, Sir,
Yr most obliged & obt Servt
H Lovecraft

[WFHermans]

To Maurice W. Moe :jew:
My dear Mo:-
598 Angell St.,
Providence, R.I.,
May 15, 1918

[...] If there not be some virtue in plain
TRUTH; then our fair dreams, delusions, & follies,
are as much to be esteemed as our sober waking
hours & the comforts they bring. If TRUTH
amounts to nothing, then we must regard the
phantasmata of our slumbers just as seriously as
the events of our daily lives. Several nights ago I
had a strange dream of a strange city - a city of
many palaces & gilded domes, lying in a hollow
betwixt ranges of grey, horrible hills. There was
not a soul in this vast region of stone-paved
streets & marble walls & columns, & the numerous
statues in the public places were of strange
bearded men in robes the like whereof I have
never seen before or since. I was, as I said,
aware of this city visually. I was in it & around it.
But certainly I had no corporeal existence. I saw,
it seemed, everything at once; without the limitations
of direction. I did not move, but transferred
my perception from point to point at will. I occupied
no space & had no form. I was only a consciousness,
a perceptive presence. I recall a
lively curiosity at the scene, & a tormenting
struggle to recall its identity; for I felt that I had
once known it well, & that if I could remember, I
should be carried back to a very remote period - many
thousand years, when something vaguely
horrible had happened. Once I was almost on
the verge of realisation, & was frantic with fear
at the prospect, though I did not know what it
was that I should recall. But here I awaked - in a
very cramped posture & with too much bedclothing
for the steadily increasing temperature. I
have related this in detail because it impressed
me very vividly. This is not a Co* romance of
reincarnation - you will see that it has no climax
or point - but it was very real. I am now trying to
recall if I felt any sensation or had any notion of
heat in the dream. The excessive covering would
account for that, if I did. But as a matter of fact. I
cannot remember such an impression. At this
point you ask me whence these stories! I
answer - according to your pragmatism that
dream was as real as my presence at this table,
pen in hand! If the truth or falsity of our beliefs &
impressions be immaterial, then I am, or was,
actually & indisputably an unbodied spirit hovering
over a very singular, very silent, & very
ancient city somewhere between grey, dead
hills. I thought I was at the time - so what else
matters? Do you think that I was just as truly
that spirit as I now am H. P. Lovecraft? I do not.
"'And there ye ar-re', as Mr. Dooley** says."
[...]
Yr most obliged obt humble Servt
Lo.

* A reference to Ira A. Cole, one of the members of the
'Kleicomolo' correspondence cycle (the others were Rheinhart
Kleiner, Maurice W. Moe, and H.P. Lovecraft). Lovecraft later noted
Cole's mystical inclinations: "His imagination was the most
weird and active I have ever seen in any human being. But
in the end that very streak of overdeveloped imagination
and emotionalism was his aesthetic undoing. Worked
upon by a hectic and freakish 'Pentecostal' revivalist. he
'got religion' and became an absolutely impossible fanatic
in his eccentric sect. He even reached the hallucination
stage - he fancied strange voices spoke gospel messages
through his tongues - in languages he did not understand".

** A reference to a character created in sketches by Finlay
Peter Dunne (1867-1936) that appeared in newspapers
across the country beginning in 1898 and were also collected
in several books.

[Edmonds Fitzgerald]

Last night I had a dream that God appeared to me. And it felt like this really holy experience until I saw that God was in fact Col. Sanders(who coincidentally looks very similar to my maternal grandfather). The dude that invented one of the greatest fried chicken recipes of all time.

http://warokponorogo.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/colonel-sanders.jpg

I'd also like to state that anyone who is against putting honey on fried chicken is an enemy to not just Aryan Man, but all mankind. Honey does not ruin or overwhelm the flavour of the chicken. It enhances the taste, really brings out all that great deep fried greatness.

[WFHermans]

Col. Sanders is the living proof that most niggers wish that slavery had never ended. They prefer benevolent White masters over their current jewish masters.

Almost always I make the mistake of not writing down vivid weird dreams. I assume the dream was so crazy and distinct that I will never forget it, and I will of course remember it so I won't have to make notes. Ten minutes later it is all gone.

It's even more excruciating to hear music or see views in a dream that I can't put to paper when I awake because I don't know musical notation and cannot draw.

[Edmonds Fitzgerald]

You should write them down. It's very rare when I can remember a dream after some time has passed. I still recall a couple dreams from childhood. I had recurring vampire dreams, nightmares really(I watched alot of horror movies). Sometimes they'd kill me, other times they'd bite me and i'd turn into one of them. Then i'd join them in their killing spree. I still remember this one dream where I was flying in the sky and I swooped down and killed a couple people hanging out on a jungle gym. Another dream i'll never forget was this one time I got stabbed and it hurt, and I knew I was in a dream but couldn't wake up. I'd often get the same feeling with the old vampire nightmares as well.

[Bluto]

Last night I had a dream that God appeared to me. And it felt like this really holy experience until I saw that God was in fact Col. Sanders...

http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/090311-colonel-sanders-vlrg-1130a.widec.jpg

“Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things...

[I is]... [Colonel Sanders], king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Apologies to da long dead poet, Shelley.

[Ilsa]

Col. Sanders is a god to niggers.

[WFHermans]

To the Gallomo*
Providence, R.I.,
December 11, 1919

Before quitting the subject of Loveman** :jew: &
horror stories, I must relate the frightful dream I
had the night after I received S. L.'s latest letter.
We have lately been discussing weird tales at
length. & he has recommended several hair-raising
books to me; so that I was in the mood to
connect him with any thought of hideousness or
supernatural terror. I do not recall how this
dream began, or what it was really all about.
There remains in my mind only one damnably
blood-curdling fragment whose ending haunts
me yet.
We were, for some terrible yet unknown reason,
in a very strange & very ancient cemetery which
I could not identify. I suppose no Wisconsinite
can picture such a thing - but we have
them in New-England; horrible old places where
the slate stones are graven with odd letters &
grotesque designs such as a skull & crossbones.
In some of these places one can walk
a long way without coming upon any grave less
than a hundred & fifty years old. Some day,
when Cook issues that promised Monadnock,
you will see my tale 'The Tomb" which was
inspired by one of these places. Such was the
scene of my dream - a hideous hollow whose
surface was covered with a coarse, repulsive sort
of long grass, above which peeped the shocking
stones & markers of decaying slate. In a hillside
were several tombs whose facades were in the
last stages of decrepitude. I had an odd idea
that no living thing had trodden that ground for
many centuries till Loveman & I arrived. It was
very late in the night - probably in the small
hours, since a waning crescent moon had
attained considerable height in the east. Loveman
carried, slung over his shoulder, a portable
telephone outfit; whilst I bore two spades. We
proceeded directly to a flat sepulchre near the
centre of the horrible place, & began to clear
away the moss-grown earth which had been
washed down upon it by the rains of innumerable
years. Loveman, in the dream, looked exactly
like the snap-shots of himself which he has sent
me - a large, robust young man, not the least
Semitic in features (albeit dark), & very handsome
save for a pair of protruding ears. We did
not speak as he laid down his telephone outfit,
took a shovel. & helped me clear away the earth
& weeds. We both seemed very much
impressed with something - almost awestruck.
At last we completed these preliminaries &
Loveman stepped back to survey the sepulchre.
He seemed to know exactly what he was about
to do, & I also had an idea - though I can not now
remember what it was! All that I recall is that we
were following up some idea which Loveman
had gained as the result of extensive reading in
some rare old books, of which he possessed the
only existing copies. (Loveman, you may know,
has a vast library of rare first editions & other
treasures precious to the bibliophile's heart.)
After some mental estimates, Loveman took up
his shovel again, & using it as a lever, sought to
pry up a certain slab which formed the top of the
sepulchre. He did not succeed, so I approached
& helped him with my own shovel. Finally we
loosened the stone, lifted it with our combined
strength, & heaved it away. Beneath was a black
passageway with a flight of stone steps; but so
horrible were the miasmic vapours which poured
up from the pit, that we stepped back for a while
without making further observations. Then Loveman
picked up the telephone outfit & began to
uncoll the wire - speaking for the first time as he
did so.
"I'm really sorry," he said in a mellow, pleasant
voice; cultivated, & not very deep, "to have to
ask you to stay above ground, but I couldn't
answer for the consequences if you were to go
down with me. Honestly, I doubt if anyone with
a nervous system like yours could see it through.
You can't imagine what I shall have to see & do not
even from what the book said & from what I
have told you - & I don't think anyone without
ironclad nerves could ever go down & come out
of that place alive & sane. At any rate, this is no
place for anybody who can't pass an army physical
examination. I discovered this thing, & I am
responsible in a way for anyone who goes with
me - so I would not for a thousand dollars let you
take the risk. But I'll keep you informed of every
move I make by the telephone - you see I've
enough wire here to reach to the centre of the
earth & back!"

I argued with him, but he replied that if I did
not agree, he would call the thing off & get
another fellow-explorer - he mentioned a "Dr.
Burke", a name altogether unfamiliar to me. He
added, that it would be of no use for me to
descend alone, since he was sole possessor of
the real key to the affair. Finally I assented, &
seated myself upon a marble bench close by the
open grave, telephone in hand. He produced an
electric lantern, prepared the telephone wire for
unreeling, & disappeared down the damp stone
steps, the insulated wire rustling as it uncoiled .
For a moment I kept track of the glow of his lantern,
but suddenly it faded out, as if there were a
turn in the stone staircase. Then all was still.
After this came a period of dull fear & anxious
waiting. The crescent moon climbed higher, &
the mist or fog about the hollow seemed to
thicken. Everything was horribly damp &
bedewed, & I thought I saw an owl flitting some-
where in the shadows. Then a clicking sounded
in the telephone receiver.
"Lovecraft - I think I'm finding it" - the words
came in a tense, excited tone. Then a brief
pause, followed by more words in a tone of ineffable
awe & horror.
"God, Lovecraft! If you could see what I am
seeing!" I now asked in great excitement what
had happened. Loveman answered in a trembling
voice:
"I can't tell you - I don't dare - I never
dreamed of this - I can't tell - It's enough to
unseat any mind - wait - What's this?" Then a
pause, a clicking in the receiver, & a sort of
despairing groan. Speech again -
"Lovecraft - for God's sake - it's all up - Beat
it! Beat it! Don't lose a second!" I was now thoroughly
alarmed, & frantically asked Loveman to
tell what the matter was. He replied only "Never
mind! Hurry!" Then I felt a sort of offence
through my fear - it irked me that anyone should
assume I would be willing to desert a companion
in peril. I disregarded his advice & told him I was
coming down to his aid. But he cried:
"Don' t be a fool - it's too late - there's no
use - nothing you or anyone can do now." He
seemed calmer - with a terrible, resigned calm,
as if he had met & recognised an inevitable, inescapable
doom. Yet he was obviously anxious
that I should escape some unknown peril.
"For God's sake get out of this, if you can
find the way! I'm not joking - So long, Lovecraft -
won't see you again - God! Beat it! Beat it!" As
he shrieked out the last words, his tone was a
frenzied crescendo. I have tried to recall the
wording as nearly as possible, but I cannot reproduce
the tone. There followed a long - hideously
long - period of silence. I tried to move to assist
Loveman. but was absolutely paralysed. The
slightest motion was an impossibility. I could
speak, however, & kept calling excitedly into the
telephone-~Loveman! Loveman! What is it?
What's the trouble?" But he did not reply. And
then came the unbelievably frightful thing - the
awful, unexplainable, almost unmentionable
thing. I have said that Loveman was now silent,
but after a vast interval of terrified waiting
another clicking came into the receiver. I called
"Loveman - are you there?" And in reply came a
voice - a thing which I cannot describe with any
words I know. Shall I say that it was hollow-very
deep-fluid-gelatinous-infinitely distant-unearthly-
guttural-thick? What shall I say? In
that telephone I heard it; heard it as I sat on a
marble bench in that very ancient unknown cemetery
with the crumbling stones & tombs & long
grass & dampness & the owl & the waning crescent
moon. Up from the sepulchre it came, &
this is what it said:
"YOU FOOL, LOVEMAN IS DEAD!"
Well. that's the whole damn thing! I fainted
in the dream, & the next I knew I was awake - &
with a prize headache! I don't know yet what it
was all about - what on (or under) earth we were
looking for. or what that hideous voice at the last
was supposed to be. I have read of ghouls - mould
shades - but hell - the headache I had was
worse than the dream! Loveman will laugh
when I tell him about that dream! In due time, I
intend to weave this picture into a story, as I
wove another dream-picture into "The Doom that
Came to Sarnath". I wonder, though, if I have a
right to claim authorship of things I dream? I
hate to take credit, when I did not really think out
the picture with my own conscious wits. Yet if I
do not take credit, who'n Heaven will I give credit
tuh? Coleridge claimed "Kubla Khan" so I guess
I'll claim the thing an' let it go at that. But
believe muh, that was some dream!!
Well. God rest you, Merry Gentlemen, may
nothing you dismay.

Your affectionate Grandfather.
M. LOLLlVS. TIBALDVS

* I.e., Alfred Galpin, Maurice W. Moe :jew:, and HPL. a correspondence
cycle.
** Samuel Loveman (1889-1976), a kike with whom Lovecraft
had come into contact in 1917. He destroyed Lovecraft's letters
after finding out Lovecraft was an 'antisemite', thus depriving
us of ever reading them.

[WFHermans]

To the Gallomo
[January] 1920

Speaking of the "Carter" story, I have lately
had another odd dream--especially singular
because in it I possessed another personality-a
personality just as definite & vivid as the Lovecraft
personality which characterises my waking
hours.
My name was Dr. Eben Spencer, & I was
dressing before a mirror in my own room, in the
house where I was born. in a small village (name
missing) of northern New York State. It was the
first time I had donned civilian clothes in three
years, for I was an army surgeon with the rank of
1st Lieut. I seemed to be home on a furlough-slightly
wounded. On the wall was a calendar
reading "FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1864". I was very glad
to be in regular attire again, though my suit was
not a new one, but one left over from 1861.
After carefully tying my stock, I donned my coat
& hat, took a cane from a rack downstairs, & sallied
forth upon the village street. Soon a very
young man of my aquaintance came up to me
with an air of anxiety & began to speak in
guarded accents. He wished me to go with him
to his brother-my professional colleague Dr.
Chester-whose actions were greatly alarming
him. I, having been his best friend, might have
some influence in getting him to speak freely
for surely he had much to tell. The doctor had
for the past two years been conducting secret
experiments in a laboratory in the attic of his
home, & beyond that locked door he would
admit no one but himself. Sickening odours
were often detected near that door ... & odd
sounds were at times not absent. The doctor
was aging rapidly; lines of care-& of something
else-were creeping into his dark, thin face, & his
hair was rapidly going grey. He would remain
in that locked room for dangerously long intervals
without food, & seemed uncannily saturnine.
All questioning from the younger brother
was met with scorn & rage-with perhaps a little
uneasiness; so the brother was much worried, &
stopped me on the street for advice & aid. I
went with him to the Chester house-a white
structure of two stories & attic in a pretty yard
with a picket fence. It was in a quiet side street.
where peace seemed to abide despite the trying
nature of the times. In the darkened parlour,
where I waited for some time, was a marbletopped
table, much haircloth furniture, & several
pleasing whatnots covered with pebbles, curios,
& bric-a-brac. Soon Dr. Chester came down-&
he had aged. He greeted me with a saturnine
smile, & I began to question him, as tactfully as I
could, about his strange actions. At first he was
rather defiant & insulting-he said with a sort of
leer, "Better not ask, Spencer! Better not ask!"
Then when I grew persistent (for by this time I
was interested on my own account) he changed
abruptly & snapped out, "Well. if you must know,
come up!" Up two flights of stairs we plodded, &
stood before the locked door. Or. Chester
opened it, & there was an odour. I entered after
him. young Chester bringing up the rear. The
room was low but spacious in area, & had been
divided into two parts by an oddly incongruous
red plush portiere. In the half next the door was
a dissecting table, many bookcases, & severa l
imposing cabinets of chemical & surgical instruments.
Young Chester & I remained here, whilst
the doctor went behind the curtain. Soon he
emerged, bearing on a large glass slab what
appeared to be a human arm, neatly severed just
below the elbow. It was damp, gelatinous. & bluish-
white, & the fingers were without nails.
"Well, Spencer," said Dr. Chester sneeringly, "I
suppose you've had a good deal of amputation
practice in the army. What do you think, professionally,
of this job?" I had seen clearly that this
was not a human arm, & said sarcastically. "You
are a better sculptor than doctor, Chester. This is
not the arm of any living thing." And Chester
replied in a tone that made my blood congeal.
"Not yet, Spencer, not yet!" Then he disappeared
again behind the portiere & emerged once more.
bringing another & slightly larger arm. Both were
left arms. I felt sure that I was on the brink of a
great revelation, & awaited with impatience the
tantalisingly deliberate motions of my sinister
colleague. "This is only the beginning. Spencer,"
he said as he went behind the curtain for a third
time. "Watch the curtain!" And now ends the fictonally
available part of my dream, for the residue
is grotesque anticlimax. I have said that I
was in civilian clothes for the first time since
'61-& natura!ly I was rather self-conscious. As I
waited for the final revelation I caught sight of
my reflection in the glass door of an instrument
case, & discovered that my very carefully tied
stock was awry. Moving to a long mirror, I
sought to adjust it. but the black bow proved
hard to fashion artistically. And then the whole
scene began to fade-& damn the luck! I awaked
in the distressful year of 1920, with the personality
of H. P. Lovecraft restored! I have never seen
Dr. Chester, or his young brother, or that village,
since. I do not know what village it was. I never
heard the name of Eben Spencer before or since.
Some dream! If that happened to Co, he would
be duly seeking a supernatural explanation; but I
prefer actual analysis. The cause of the whole is
clear-I had a few days before laid out Mrs. Shelley's
"Frankenstein" for re-reading. As to
details-Ambrose Bierce supplied the Civil War
atmosphere, no doubt; whilst it is easy to trace in
Dr. Chester & his brother-facially, I mean-the
likenesses of my boyhood friends Chester &
Harold Munroe; those brothers of whom I spoke
in one of my ancient KLEICOMOLOES. I am not
sleeping much this week, but last night I had a
promising fragment of a dream that was cut
sho rt by premature awakening. I was alone in a
black space, when suddenly, ahead of me, there
arose out of some hidden pit a huge, white-robed
man with a bald head & snowy beard. Across
his shoulders was slung the corpse of a younger
man--clean-shaven, & grizzled of hair, & clad in a
similar robe. A sound as of rushing wind or a
roaring furnace accompanied this spectacular
ascent-an ascent which seemed accomplished
by some occult species of levitation. When I
awaked. I had an idea for a story-but queerly
enough, the idea had nothing to do with the
dream!