The Trance of Sleep

I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The ghastly danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In all that I endured there was no physical suffering, but of moral distress and infinitude. When nature could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I consented to sleep. And when, finally, I sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of phantasms. On the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision. Me thought I was immersed in a catalyptic trance of more