I do nurse the opinion that in such an account as this, care should be taken to gather all facts and to avoid the omittance of elements seemingly not related to the matter, so as not to display an accidental tendency. And did I yet not with a hair´s breadth succumb to such a formula! I confess upon having returned several times to my recollections of the dream I had on RMS Muriel out to sea, three days short of my arrival, but the old faux pas of chronology has evidently obscured my judgement – just because the event took place before my arrival, I have naturally assorted it to a category cohering with the journey to, rather than my visit in the Gulf of Finland. Now, though the very dream may have absolutely nothing to do with anything, I realize I am starting to find it to be of disturbing importance and perhaps, in some strange and incomprehensible way, may be connected to my entering into this thwarted reality. It is because of this I will now write down those hallucinative visions, as far as I can recall them, before continuing with the events which have led me here.

Let me just point out, that the causes of vivid dreaming are, as medical science and common sense have long demonstrated, due to such factors as an excessively heated bedroom, certain aliments or traumatic events. Though none of these conditions were in any relation to myself the late evening of 14th, I have and still hold as the most probable cause of my condition something not terribly far from the aforementioned factors, namely sea sickness. The motion of the sea was at the time rough and that was the reason I sought out my cabin earlier than usual. Once there, having no interest to read, I drifted off into slumber. It must at first have been quite light, since I could feel the swings of the ship in my sleep. I had vague impressions of pummels, as the waves must have pounded the ship´s hull. They seemed to increase in strenght, so that soon they became a rythmic pounding, the vocality transforming from a metallic hollowness into an organical sucking thump. Suddenly, before my eyes were great oceanic vistas, their underwater horizon dissolving into a blur of tourmaline green.

I have always suffered from a slight anxiety when confronted with the ocean, and I remember, as I went deeper into sleep, surrounded by these vast quantities of water, a sense of panic that I was unable to influence by any degree. I found that I was able to breath and function, although it was much different from any normal breathing. Then I understood that my fear derived not from the deep sea surrounding me, or indeed my exposed location, but rather the realization of a transmutation of form. And even so, the panic did yet not reach it´s height until from a distant recess within my mind, the acceptance of this new form overshadowed whatever human objections I might have fostered. Thus, in this state I went deeper, below a vast ridge of ancient petrifications, into a gorge of indeterminable depth. I was not alone, but swam in the company of other forms, their shapes of a perversity which I find difficult to define, since it is impossible to determine whether they were marine mutations of human form, or human elements as grotesque deviations from an otherwise true structure.

We then reached the ocean floor and below us were cairns of stones of great size, which in the distance amalgamated into a towering cyclopean view, a megalithic construction of unmeasured size. Swimming into the subways of this hyperbolic structure, we feasted on the abundant fish that were unaware of our coming. It was then, by god, as we entered an open space, the size about that of many fields, that I glimpsed the horror that roused me from sleep, gasping for air and soaked with sweat. The rythmic beating that had filled my ears continually since my strange voyage began, seemed to come from an opening in a structure of cut off pyramidic shape, it´s height easily surpassing that of the highest buildings in the world´s metropoles. In the distorted distance, a fumbling and ungainly movement of something colossal protruded from the opening in the pyramid. The outlines of that which cast me even from my bed as I shrieked, lies yet beyond my ability to describe, or even relate, so the reader will know of it´s enormity purely through my pitiful reactions, here described.

I have now recounted the dream of the 14th, as far as I am certain of it´s correctitude. As a last note, I may add that I upon waking up had a notion of having uttered something else apart from my shrieking, but have no apprehension as to what it would have been. It was probably nonsensical, instilled by the terrible nature of the dream, only leaving me with a sense of having my mouth filled with accidental materia, causing me to lisp.