What Dreams May Come in the book are derived from my wide range of reading." One of Matheson's influences was Harold W. Percival, an adherent of Theosophy, a belief system with a strong Eastern and Hindu influence. The story also shares the same theme of the ancient Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the gifted musician makes a challenging journey to Hell to retrieve his wife. One character quotes from the writings of 18th century Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Matheson bases his descriptions of the death experience itself on studies by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Raymond Moody. When reading these accounts, Matheson found that
Eridanos (river of Hades) with the excavations for construction of the Athens Metro. Eridanos is the name that has been applied by geologists to a river which flowed where the Baltic Sea is now, a river system also known simply as the "Baltic River System". Eridanos (river of Hades) The river Eridanos or Eridanus (; , "Amber") is a river in northern Europe mentioned in Greek mythology and historiography. Hesiod, in the "Theogony," calls it "deep-eddying Eridanos" in his list of rivers, the offspring of Tethys and Oceanus. Herodotus suspects the word "Eridanos" to be essentially Greek in character, and notably forged by some