"The Dreams in the Witch-House"

by H.P. Lovecraft

originally published Weird Tales, July 1933

Young Walter Gilman, mathematics major folklore minor at Miskatonic University, rents an attic at Arkhams's "witch-house", an old place with a bed rep.  It used to be the home of Keziah Mason, an accused witch who vanished out of Salem prison in 1692.  Ever since then, occupants of the attic room tend to come to bad ends.

One curse on the place seems to be architectural.  Gilman believes the dimensions conform to some kind of unearthly geometry and may be the key to interdimensional travel.

Gilman starts having strange dreams about drifting bodiless through an otherworldly space of unearthly geometry, indescribable colors, and sounds.  At times he encounters bizarre clusters of bubbles and polyhedral-shaped figures, which appear to be sentient life forms.  

Keziah Mason and her human-faced rat-familiar "Brown Jenkin" also appear in his dreams, and in his waking life as well.

Strange findings evince that Gilman's dreams may not be dreams after all.  He further experiences visiting a city of the "elder things", signing his name in "The Book of Azathoth" under the influence of Keziah and an ominous "Black Man".  He is taken before the throne of Azathoth and apparently takes part in the kidnapping of a local infant.

On May Eve Gilman dreams of a sacrificial ritual involving the infant.  Gilman throttles Keziah, but Brown Jenkin bites through the child's wrist, completing the blood sacrifice, then escapes into a triangular abyss. Awakening, Gilman hears an unearthly sound that leaves him deaf. He tells his neighbor, Frank Elwood about his dream.  The next night, Elwood sees Brown Jenkin eat its way out of  Gilman's chest.

The house is ultimately abandoned and ruined in a storm.  Wreckers eventually find Keziah's skeleton, books on black magic, a sacrificial knife, and a bowl made of some metal which scientists are unable to identify, the skeleton of an enormous deformed rat, with hints of human or primate anatomy,a strange stone-statuette of the star-headed "Elder Things" from Gilman's dreams, and the bones of many children. 

"Dreams" is one of HPL's more controversial tales.  HPL himself called it "a miserable mess".  Derleth, Lin Carter, and S.T. "He Who Knows All" Joshi are all on record with a low opinion of it.  

I'm on board with Lin Carter, who called it "minor" on this one.  I don't think I've read "Dreams" since high school, and all I really retained from it were Gilman's weird dreams, the unexpected appearance of "elder things", and Brown Jenkin.  Re-reading it now after more than thirty years, I'd say that's because that's really all there is too retain.