Beyond the Wall of Sleep Summary

This story begins with a medical internist from a mental hospital discussing the possibility that in sleep, the human mind is sometimes able to visit alternate realities. The intern says that this was only a groundless theory until he encounters a patient that makes him believe that this possibility is real. In 1901, a patient entered the mental hospital where the narrator interned named Joe Slater. Described by narrator as the upstate New York variety of "white trash" or a "hillbilly", Slater was known in his hill town as a drunk who would sleep at odd times and cry out about demonic visions in his sleep. One night, he awoke from a whiskey-induced coma to kill another man. He was subsequently arrested and put in the mental institution.

In the institution, the man continues to rant...