"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by H. P. Lovecraft

BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP was written in 1919 and first published in Pine Cones in October of that same year. The story is narrated by an unnamed researcher at a mental hospital who becomes fascinated by a violent, backwoods patient named Joe Slater. Slater, a degenerate from the Catskill Mountains, suffers from strange, vivid dreams in which he experiences celestial visions and claims to transform into a luminous, cosmic being.