At irregular intervals I am compelled, though with extreme reluctance, to witness supernatural phenomena. Every haunted place seems longing to reveal its secret to me. There is a ghostly understanding between me and the Restless Ones. The experience I am about to relate was the fifty-sixth of its kind, and experts in this shadowy commerce tell me I am probably the most gifted clairvoyant known to the world. They yield me this dubious palm for the certainty, precision and vividness of my recorded “successes.” For some time I tried to keep my dismal talent secret, but I betrayed it unconsciously far too often. I regard this peculiarity of mine as a nuisance, often a profoundly disturbing nuisance. From none of my experiences have I gained anything of good, and as far as throwing light on the nature of this or any other world they seem utterly useless. I have called them “supernatural,” but they may be nothing of the kind; sometimes I doubt profoundly if they are. As I say, I have no pride in my performances. I feel myself to be merely a peculiar kind of camera, the lens of which is sensitive to things to which an ordinary camera is insensitive. The preliminary symptoms are always the same. Suddenly every sound, from the loudest to the softest, seems frozen in dreadful suspense. It is something more active than the mere absence of sound. Simultaneously everything is dimmed--a consistent toning down of every shade. It is as though I am gazing through one of those glasses used by artists when painting outdoors in too dazzling a light, and the world becomes sullen, brassy, livid. I feel that I am both within and without the bounds of reality, as though, as I have suggested, I have strayed into a fourth spacial dimension, a region dim, motionless, soundless. Once, when these first preliminary warnings came to me, I attempted to avoid seeing the vision I knew was coming, but it was in vain; some irresistible force compelled me to go through to the end--and now I never struggle.