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"I don't understand"

"Have you ever heard of the subliminal consciousness, Mr Baxter?"

"No"

Therun to death just now Well, I'll put it in an untechnical way There is a part of us, is there not, that lies below our ordinary waking thoughts--that part of us in which our dreams reside, our habits take shape, our instincts, intuitions, and all the rest, are generated Well, in ordinary dreams, e are asleep, it is this part that is active The pot boils, so to speak, all by itself, uncontrolled by reason Alife as well Well, it is through this part of us that we communicate with the spiritual world There are, let us say, two doors in it--that which leads up to our senses, through which co experiences to be stored up; and--and the other door"

"Yes?"

The medium hesitated

"Well," he said, "in some natures--yours, for instance, Mr Baxter--this door opens rather easily It was through that door that you went, I think, in what you call your 'dream' You yourself said it was quite unlike ordinary dreams"

"Yes"

"And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances"

Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair

"I don't quite understand," he said sharply "You mean it was not a dream?"

"Certainly not At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense It was an actual experience"

"But--but I was asleep"

"Certainly That is one of the usual conditions--an almost indispensable condition, in fact The objective self--I mean the ordinary workaday faculties--was lulled; and your subjective self--call it what you like--but it is your real self, the essential self that survives death--this self, sih the inner door, and--and saas to be seen"

Laurie looked at him intently But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too

"You mean," he said slowly, "that--that all I saw--the limitations of space, and so forth--that these were facts and not fancies?"

"Certainly Doesn't your theology hint at so of the kind?"

Laurie was silent He had no idea of what his theology told him on the point

"But why should I--I of all people--have such an experience?" he asked suddenly