Yet, impossibly, my hand was playing in a pool of water, and my arm felt as if
it was stuck down through the floor. I was surely wide awake and the
sensation was still there. How could I be awake in all other respects and still
"dream" that my arm was stuck down through the floor?
The vibrations started to fade, and for some reason I thought there was a
connection between my arm stuck through the floor and their presence. If
they faded away before I got my arm "out," the floor might close in and I
would lose an arm. Perhaps the vibrations had made a hole in the floor
temporarily. I did not stop to consider the "how" of it.
I yanked my arm out of the floor, pulled it up on the bed, and the vibrations
ended soon after. I got up, turned on the light, and looked at the spot beside
the bed. There was no hole in the floor or rug. They were just as they always
had been. I looked at my hand and arm, and even looked for the water on my
hand. There was none, and my arm seemed perfectly normal. I looked about
the room. My wife was sleeping quietly in the bed, nothing seemed amiss.
I thought about the hallucination for a long time before I was able to calm
down enough to sleep. The next day I considered actually cutting a hole in
the floor to see if what I had felt was there on the subfloor—the triangular
chip of wood, the bent nail, and the sawdust. At the time, I could not see
disfiguring the floor because of a wild hallucination.
I told Doctor Bradshaw of this episode, and he agreed that it was a rather
convincing daydream. He was in favor of cutting the hole in the floor to find
out what was there. He introduced me to Doctor Lewis Wolberg, a psychiatrist of
note. At a dinner party, I casually mentioned the vibration phenomenon to Doctor
Wolberg. He was only politely interested, and evidently in no mood for
"business," for which I could not blame him. I did not have the courage to ask
him about the arm in the floor.
It was becoming fairly confusing. My environment and personal experience
had led me to expect some kind of answers or at least promising opinions
from modern technology. I had an above-normal scientific, engineering, and
medical background as a layman. Now, I was faced with something where
answers or even extrapolation was not quickly available. In retrospect, I still
cannot envisage having dropped the matter entirely at any time. It may be
that I could not have done so if I tried.
If I thought I faced incongruities at this point, it was because I did not know
what was yet to come. Some four weeks later, when the "vibrations" came
again, I was duly cautious about attempting to move an arm or leg. It was late
at night, and I was lying in bed before sleep. My wife had fallen asleep beside
me. There was a surge that seemed to be in my head, and quickly the