For a long time I sat and smoked in some kind of glade. When I returned to the house it was already dark on the small veranda. Thinking that everyone had gone to bed I went to my own room and went to bed myself. As a matter of fact G. and the others were at that time having supper on the large veranda. A little while after I had gone to bed a strange excitement again began in me, my pulse began to beat forcibly, and I again heard G.'s voice in my chest. On this occasion I not only heard but I replied mentally and G. heard me and answered me. There was something very strange in this conversation. I tried to find something that would confirm it as a fact but could find nothing. And after all it could have been "imagination" or a waking dream, because although I tried to ask G. something of a concrete nature that would have left no doubt about the conversation or his participation in it, I could not invent anything weighty enough. And certain questions I asked him and which he answered I could have asked and answered myself. I even had the impression that he avoided concrete answers which later might serve as "proofs," and to one or two of my questions he intentionally gave indefinite answers. But the feeling that it was a conversation was very strong and entirely new and unlike anything else.
After one long pause G. asked me something that at once put me all on the alert, then stopped as if waiting for an answer.
What he said suddenly put a stop to all my thoughts and feelings. It was not fear, at least not a conscious fear when one knows that one is afraid, but I was all shivering and something literally paralyzed me completely so that I could not articulate a single word although I made terrible efforts, wishing to give an affirmative reply.
I felt that G. was waiting and that he would not wait long.
"Well, you are tired now," he said at last, "we will leave it till another time."
I began to say something, I think I asked him to wait, to give me a little time to get accustomed to this thought.
"Another time," said his voice. "Sleep." And his voice stopped.
I could not go to sleep for a long time. In the morning as I came out onto the little terrace where we had sat the evening before, G. was sitting
in the garden twenty yards away near a round table; there were three of our people with him.
"Ask him what happened last night," said G.
For some reason this made me angry. I turned and walked towards the terrace. As I reached it I again heard G.'s voice in my chest.
"Stop!"
I stopped and turned towards G. He was smiling.
"Where are you going, sit down here," he said in his ordinary voice.
I sat with him but I could say nothing, nor did I want to talk. At the same time I felt a kind of extraordinary clarity of thought and I decided to try to concentrate on certain problems which had seemed to me to be particularly difficult. The thought came to my mind that in this unusual state I might perhaps find answers to questions which I could not find in the ordinary way.
I began to think about the first triad of the ray of creation, about the three forces which made one force. What could they mean? Can we define them? Can we realize their meaning? Something began to formulate itself in my head but just as I tried to translate this into words everything disappeared.— Will, consciousness . . . and what was the third? I asked myself. It seemed to me that if I could name the third I would at once understand everything else.
"Leave it," said G. aloud.
I turned my eyes towards him and he looked at me.
"That is a very long way away yet," he said. "You cannot find the answer now. Better think of yourself, of your work."
The people sitting with us looked at us in perplexity. G. had answered my thoughts.
Then something very strange began that lasted the whole day and afterwards. We stayed in Finland three days longer. During these three days there were very many talks about the most varied subjects. And I was in an unusual emotional state all the time which sometimes began to be burdensome.
"How can this be got rid of? I cannot bear it any more," I asked G.
"Do you want to go to sleep?" said G.
"Certainly not," I said.
"Then what are you asking about? This is what you wanted, make use of it. You are not asleep at this moment!"
I do not think that this was altogether true. I undoubtedly "slept" at some moments.
Many things that I said at that time must have surprised my companions in this strange adventure very much. And I was surprised at many things myself. Many things were like sleep, many things had no relation whatever to reality. Undoubtedly I invented a lot. Afterwards it was very strange for me to remember the things I had said.
At length we went to St. Petersburg. G. went to Moscow and we went to the Nikolaievsky Station straight from the Finland Station.
A fairly large company had met together to see him off. He went.
But the miraculous was still far from ended. There were new and very strange phenomena again late in the evening of that day and I "conversed" with him while seeing him in the compartment of the train going to Moscow.
After this there followed a strange period of time. It lasted about three weeks. And during this period from time to time I saw "sleeping people."
This requires a particular explanation.
Two or three days after G.'s departure I was walking along the Troitsky street and suddenly I saw that the man who was walking towards me was asleep. There could be no doubt whatever about this. Although his eyes were open, he was walking along obviously immersed in dreams which ran like clouds across his face. It entered my mind that if I could look at him long enough I should see his dreams, that is, I should understand what he was seeing in his dreams. But he passed on. After him came another also sleeping. A sleeping izvostchik went by with two sleeping passengers. Suddenly I found myself in the position of the prince in the "Sleeping Princess." Everyone around me was asleep. It was an indubitable and distinct sensation. I realized what it meant that many things could be seen with our eyes which we do not usually see. These sensations lasted for several minutes. Then they were repeated very weakly on the following day. But I at once made the discovery that by trying to remember myself I was able to intensify and prolong these sensations for so long as I had energy enough not to be diverted, that is, not to allow things and everything around me to attract my attention. When attention was diverted I ceased to see "sleeping people" because I had obviously gone to sleep myself. I told only a few of our people of these experiments and two of them when they tried to remember themselves had similar experiences.
Afterwards everything became normal. I could not give myself a clear account of what exactly had taken place. But everything in me had been turned upside down. And there is no doubt that in the things I said and thought during these three weeks there was a good deal of fantasy.
But I had seen myself, that is, I had seen things in myself that I had never seen before. There could be no doubt about it and although I afterwards became the same as I had been before I could not help knowing that this had been and I could forget nothing.
One thing I understood even then with undoubted clarity, that no phenomena of a higher order, that is, transcending the category of ordinary things observable every day, or phenomena which are sometimes called "metaphysical," can be observed or investigated by ordinary means, in an ordinary state of consciousness, like physical phenomena. It is a