Thus with my dream, compared to common, waking, every-day experience; only instead of being mere flat, silent little images moving on a dozen square feet of Bristol-board, and appealing to the eye alone, the things and people in my dream had the same roundness and relief as in life, and were life-size; one could move among them and behind them, and feel as if one could touch and clasp and embrace them if one dared. And the ear, as well as the eye, was made free of this dark chamber of the brain: one heard their speech and laughter as in life. And that was not all, for soft breezes fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave out its warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion complete. And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible and audible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent of the sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hers I felt as though I were drawing all her life into mine. With the exception of that one figure, all had evidently been as it _had_ been in _reality_ a few years ago, to the very droning of an insect, to the very fall of a blossom! Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longed to do a few hours before. What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest? Five senses in all. The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of miles away, what are they for us but mere shiny specks on a net-work of nerves behind the eye? How does one _feel_ them there? The sound of my friend's voice, what is it? The clasp of his hand, the pleasant sight of his face, the scent of his pipe and mine, the taste of the bread and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, what are they but figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain--little thrills through nerves made on purpose, and without which there would be no stars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, no voice, no friend, no me? And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded somewhere in the thickness of the flesh--some survival of the past, of the race, of our own childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudiment, some effort to begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into a future source of bliss and consolation for our descendants? some nerve that now can only be made to thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yet to ply its function in the light of common day? And was I, of all people in the world--I, Peter Ibbetson, architect and surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville--most futile, desultory, and uneducated dreamer of dreams--destined to make some great psychical discovery?