Before Adam | Page 4

in my sleep.
This, as you have already discerned, violates the first law of dreaming,
namely, that in one's dreams one sees only what he has seen in his
waking life, or combinations of the things he has seen in his waking life.
But all my dreams violated this law. In my dreams I never saw
ANYTHING of which I had knowledge in my waking life. My dream
life and my waking life were lives apart, with not one thing in common
save myself. I was the connecting link that somehow lived both lives.
Early in my childhood I learned that nuts came from the grocer, berries
from the fruit man; but before ever that knowledge was mine, in my
dreams I picked nuts from trees, or gathered them and ate them from
the ground underneath trees, and in the same way I ate berries from
vines and bushes. This was beyond any experience of mine.
I shall never forget the first time I saw blueberries served on the table. I
had never seen blueberries before, and yet, at the sight of them, there
leaped up in my mind memories of dreams wherein I had wandered
through swampy land eating my fill of them. My mother set before me
a dish of the berries. I filled my spoon, but before I raised it to my
mouth I knew just how they would taste. Nor was I disappointed. It was
the same tang that I had tasted a thousand times in my sleep.
Snakes? Long before I had heard of the existence of snakes, I was
tormented by them in my sleep. They lurked for me in the forest glades;

leaped up, striking, under my feet; squirmed off through the dry grass
or across naked patches of rock; or pursued me into the tree-tops,
encircling the trunks with their great shining bodies, driving me higher
and higher or farther and farther out on swaying and crackling branches,
the ground a dizzy distance beneath me. Snakes!--with their forked
tongues, their beady eyes and glittering scales, their hissing and their
rattling--did I not already know them far too well on that day of my
first circus when I saw the snake-charmer lift them up?
They were old friends of mine, enemies rather, that peopled my nights
with fear.
Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what
eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature,
starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up,
ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight
for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in
the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting
monsters.
When I was five years old I went to my first circus. I came home from
it sick--but not from peanuts and pink lemonade. Let me tell you. As
we entered the animal tent, a hoarse roaring shook the air. I tore my
hand loose from my father's and dashed wildly back through the
entrance. I collided with people, fell down; and all the time I was
screaming with terror. My father caught me and soothed me. He
pointed to the crowd of people, all careless of the roaring, and cheered
me with assurances of safety.
Nevertheless, it was in fear and trembling, and with much
encouragement on his part, that I at last approached the lion's cage. Ah,
I knew him on the instant. The beast! The terrible one! And on my
inner vision flashed the memories of my dreams,--the midday sun
shining on tall grass, the wild bull grazing quietly, the sudden parting
of the grass before the swift rush of the tawny one, his leap to the bull's
back, the crashing and the bellowing, and the crunch crunch of bones;
or again, the cool quiet of the water-hole, the wild horse up to his knees
and drinking softly, and then the tawny one--always the tawny one!--

the leap, the screaming and the splashing of the horse, and the crunch
crunch of bones; and yet again, the sombre twilight and the sad silence
of the end of day, and then the great full-throated roar, sudden, like a
trump of doom, and swift upon it the insane shrieking and chattering
among the trees, and I, too, am trembling with fear and am one of the
many shrieking and chattering among the trees.
At the sight of him, helpless, within the bars of his cage, I became
enraged. I gritted my teeth at him, danced up and down, screaming an
incoherent mockery and making antic faces. He responded, rushing
against the bars and roaring back at me his impotent wrath. Ah, he
knew me, too, and the sounds I