Gilman begins experiencing bizarre dreams in which he seems to float without physical form through an otherworldly space of unearthly geometry and indescribable colors and sounds. Among the elements, both organic and inorganic, he perceives shapes that he innately recognizes as entities which appear and disappear instantaneously and at random. Several times, his dreaming-self encounters bizarre clusters of "iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles", as well as a rapidly changing polyhedral-figure, both of which appear sapient. Gilman also has nightly experiences involving Keziah and her rat-bodied, human-faced familiar, Brown Jenkin, which he believes are not dreams at all. In other dreams, Gilman is taken to a city of the "Elder Things" and even brings back evidence that he has actually been there—a miniature statue of an "Elder Thing" which he breaks off from a balustrade within the city. The statue is made of unknown materials and a strange kind of alloy.