The Shadow Out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft (Audiobook)

The Exploring Series・2 minutes read

The narrator recounts a terrifying experience in Western Australia in 1935, questioning its reality due to its hideous nature and cosmic implications, urging against unearthing unknown primordial masonry fragments. His journey leads him into a mysterious underground structure filled with ancient knowledge, triggering unsettling memories and fears tied to a hidden Elder City of Dreams and the beings that dwelt there.

Insights

  • The narrator recounts a terrifying experience in Western Australia in 1935, questioning its reality due to its hideous nature.
  • The narrator, Nathaniel Wingate Peasley, experienced a strange amnesia from 1908 to 1913, during which he lost consciousness and his identity.
  • Nathaniel displayed unusual knowledge and behaviors after awakening, causing fear and aversion in those around him, leading to estrangement from his family.
  • Rumors linked Nathaniel to occultist groups and ancient texts like the Necronomicon, suggesting a dark influence on his activities.
  • The dreams of the narrator revealed a highly specialized organic type of beings known as the great race, with unique physiology and advanced technology.
  • The narrator's descent into a mysterious underground structure in Western Australia led to the discovery of an Elder City of Dreams, filled with cosmic history and terrifying revelations, ultimately concluding with a return to the waking world in the Australian desert.

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Recent questions

  • What is the narrator's terrifying experience in Western Australia?

    The narrator recounts a terrifying experience in Western Australia in 1935, questioning its reality due to its hideous nature. He warns of cosmic implications and a lurking peril that may bring horrors to certain individuals. The experience involves uncovering ancient stone blocks with hieroglyphs, triggering unsettling memories and fears tied to local folklore about malevolent winds and ancient stone huts. Despite initial skepticism and attempts to dismiss the encounter as an illusion, the narrator's discovery of a unique stone block matching his dreams leads to a descent into a mysterious underground structure, facing perilous abysses and familiar yet decayed rooms. The journey culminates in a circular crypt with hieroglyphs and symbols, revealing the underground archival structure he sought, built with incredible skill and strength. The narrator's exploration of the buried city with aisles and shelves filled with metal cases and books uncovers a book with unusual text symbols from a non-terrestrial planet, sparking a surge of inexplicable emotion and a sense of reality amidst disturbing winds and whistling noises.

  • What happened to Nathaniel Wingate Peasley from 1908 to 1913?

    Nathaniel Wingate Peasley experienced a strange amnesia from 1908 to 1913, during which he lost consciousness and his identity. After awakening, he displayed unusual knowledge and behaviors, causing fear and aversion in those around him. His family, except for his son Wingate, reacted with horror and loathing towards him, leading to a legal divorce and estrangement. Nathaniel embarked on peculiar travels to remote places and engaged in intense study, showing signs of disappointment and strange activities. He displayed rapid assimilation of knowledge, phenomenal reading speed, and reports of influencing others' thoughts and actions. Rumors linked him to occultist groups and ancient texts like the Necronomicon, suggesting a dark influence on his activities. Nathaniel hinted at a forthcoming change in 1913, returning to Arkham to set up a mysterious mechanism in his house, leading to a peculiar incident involving a foreign-looking man and a fainting spell. The doctor found the narrator unconscious in their home, with scratches on a table indicating a missing machine taken by a mysterious Foreigner.

  • What did the narrator's dreams reveal about a great race?

    The narrator's dreams revealed a time approximately 150 million years ago, during a transition from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic age, featuring a highly specialized organic type of beings known as the great race. The great race had unique physiology, reproducing through seeds or spores, with a lifespan of four to five thousand years, no sex, and a deep greenish blood-like substance. They formed a loosely knit nation or league with fascistic socialist political and economic systems, advanced technology, and a focus on intellectual and aesthetic activities. The text hints at a looming doom related to an Elder race of half-polypus entities that dominated Earth 600 million years ago, leading to fears and precautions taken by the great race. The great race sealed paths to inner Earth to prevent the resurgence of the Elder things, described as alien entities with monstrous plasticity, control over winds, and colossal footprints, foretelling a potential catastrophic eruption.

  • What did the narrator find in the underground structure in Western Australia?

    The narrator, driven by madness and a burning curiosity, descends into a mysterious underground structure in Western Australia, facing perilous abysses and scrambling down a cyclopian incline with a torch to light the way. He reaches a level floor strewn with fallen blocks and detritus, surrounded by massive walls culminating in huge groinings and arches, with carvings beyond his perception. The vaulting overhead, reminiscent of his dreams, terrifies him, and he feels an uncanny familiarity with the carvings on the stones, matching his dreams for years. The narrator realizes he knows the structure intimately from his dreams, feeling a hideous certainty about its place in an Elder City of Dreams and the beings that dwelt there. Contemplating the history and mysteries of the place, including the central archives that supposedly hold the cosmic space-time continuum's history, written by captive minds from various ages, the narrator explores a buried city with aisles and shelves filled with metal cases and books, uncovering a book with unusual text symbols from a non-terrestrial planet.

  • What were the narrator's experiences with the great race in his dreams?

    The narrator's dreams delved into experiences with the great race, a highly specialized organic type of beings from approximately 150 million years ago. These beings reproduced through seeds or spores, had a lifespan of four to five thousand years, and formed a nation or league with advanced technology and intellectual pursuits. The dreams revealed a looming doom related to an Elder race of half-polypus entities that dominated Earth 600 million years ago, leading to fears and precautions taken by the great race. The narrator's exploration of a buried city with aisles and shelves filled with metal cases and books uncovered a book with unusual text symbols from a non-terrestrial planet, sparking a surge of inexplicable emotion and a sense of reality amidst disturbing winds and whistling noises. The dreams provided misty fragments of daily life, including vivid travels, sea voyages, and explorations of dark ruins, with a focus on a mechanized culture devoid of domestic beasts, hinting at the great race's advanced civilization and intricate history.

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Summary

00:00

"Terrifying Amnesia: Cosmic Peril and Dark Influence"

  • The narrator recounts a terrifying experience in Western Australia in 1935, questioning its reality due to its hideous nature.
  • He warns of cosmic implications and a lurking peril that may bring horrors to certain individuals.
  • Urges against unearthing unknown primordial masonry fragments due to the dangers involved.
  • The narrator, Nathaniel Wingate Peasley, experienced a strange amnesia from 1908 to 1913, during which he lost consciousness and his identity.
  • After awakening, he displayed unusual knowledge and behaviors, causing fear and aversion in those around him.
  • His family, except for his son Wingate, reacted with horror and loathing towards him, leading to a legal divorce and estrangement.
  • Nathaniel embarked on peculiar travels to remote places and engaged in intense study, showing signs of disappointment and strange activities.
  • He displayed rapid assimilation of knowledge, phenomenal reading speed, and reports of influencing others' thoughts and actions.
  • Rumors linked him to occultist groups and ancient texts like the Necronomicon, suggesting a dark influence on his activities.
  • Nathaniel hinted at a forthcoming change in 1913, returning to Arkham to set up a mysterious mechanism in his house, leading to a peculiar incident involving a foreign-looking man and a fainting spell.

19:52

Mysterious amnesia leads to unsettling dreams

  • The doctor found the narrator unconscious in their home, with scratches on a table indicating a missing machine taken by a mysterious Foreigner.
  • Ashes in the library suggested the burning of all written material since the amnesia began.
  • After a hypodermic injection, the narrator's expression started to resemble their normal self, with muttering in English about economic theories.
  • The narrator resumed teaching in 1914, but the experience had shaken them, leading to vague dreams and disordered time perception.
  • The narrator's investigation into their amnesia revealed similar cases throughout history, involving a secondary personality acquiring vast knowledge.
  • The narrator's dreams and disturbed feelings intensified, leading to a scientific study of similar cases and folklore theories.
  • The narrator's visual disturbances and abstract fears were linked to fleeting visual impressions of a vast chamber with strange objects and writings.
  • The narrator's dreams expanded to include sweeping through massive stone corridors and structures, feeling like a prisoner in a terrifying environment.
  • Visions of giant buildings, gardens, and cylindrical towers with an aura of menace haunted the narrator's dreams, along with strange and unsettling vegetation.
  • The omnipresent gardens in the dreams were filled with bizarre and unfamiliar vegetation, creating an atmosphere of fear and strangeness.

40:27

Mysterious Gardens, Alien Skies, Forbidden Myths

  • Terrace and rooftop gardens featured large, vivid blossoms with offensive contours, hinting at artificial breeding of fungi of immense size.
  • The scene displayed patterns of unknown horticultural traditions, with more selectiveness and evidence of topiary art on the roofs compared to the larger ground gardens.
  • The skies were often moist and cloudy, occasionally witnessing tremendous rains, with glimpses of an abnormally large sun and a moon with unique markings.
  • Constellations in the night sky were nearly unrecognizable, hinting at being in Earth's southern hemisphere near the Tropic of Capricorn.
  • Outside the city, vast jungles of unknown tree ferns, calamites, lepidodendra, and sigilaria were visible, waving mockingly in the shifting vapors.
  • By 1914, infrequent dreams of strange floatings over the city and through surrounding regions began, with visions of forests, cities, and colossal stone ruins.
  • The dreams evolved into terrifying memories, linking to abstract disturbances, mnemonic restraints, and loathing of one's own person, leading to intensive studies of amnesia and visions.
  • Extensive research into psychology, medical, historical, and anthropological records, including forbidden elder lore, revealed a consistent mixture of myth and hallucination.
  • Myths depicted a highly evolved race that conquered the secret of time, projecting minds into the past and future to study Earth's annals, histories, species, arts, and psychologies.
  • Captive minds were allowed to roam the habitable world in airships or atomic engine vehicles, exchanging thoughts with consciousnesses from different ages and writing documents for the Great Central Archives.

01:00:38

"Exploring ancient cults and otherworldly beings"

  • Mankind learned about the great race from distant worlds through ruins of stones in far places and under the sea, along with fragments of narcotic manuscripts.
  • Memories were erased to the point where only faint, fragmentary visions of the past remained, with some minds recalling more than others.
  • A cult hinted at in the Necronomicon aided minds traveling through eons, while the great race explored other planets' pasts and futures.
  • The great race, older in mind than body, migrated its best minds to new bodies for longevity, while the remaining minds faced death.
  • In 1920, researches led to a slight lessening of tension, with forbidden legends and ancient cults influencing dreams post-amnesia.
  • Attempts to verify points through known cult leaders failed, leading to reflections on the universal nature of folklore.
  • By 1922, improved nervous equilibrium allowed for regular work as a Psychology instructor at the University, alongside the author's son.
  • Detailed records of vivid dreams revealed monstrous living entities, described as iridescent cones with appendages and unique characteristics.
  • The author's dreams evolved to include bodily existence among the entities, engaging in reading, writing, and communication with otherworldly beings.
  • Conversations with minds from various planets and times, including philosophers, generals, and magicians, provided insights into a vast, interconnected universe.

01:20:09

Encounters with Ancient Civilizations: A Dreamer's Odyssey

  • The text delves into the experiences of the narrator, who encounters various individuals from different historical periods and civilizations, learning shocking secrets and marvels from them.
  • The narrator struggles with verifying or discrediting the information received, finding traditional facts taking on new and doubtful aspects.
  • The narrator awakens in a fever, trying to comprehend the mysteries of the past and the potential menaces of the future, including hints at a post-human beetle civilization.
  • The narrator dreams of writing a history of their own age, preparing it in a colossal subterranean structure near the city's center, storing records in rustless metal cases with curvilinear hieroglyphs.
  • The dreams provide misty fragments of daily life, including vivid travels, sea voyages, and explorations of dark ruins, with a focus on a mechanized culture devoid of domestic beasts.
  • The dreams reveal a time approximately 150 million years ago, during a transition from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic age, featuring a highly specialized organic type of beings known as the great race.
  • The great race had unique physiology, reproducing through seeds or spores, with a lifespan of four to five thousand years, no sex, and a deep greenish blood-like substance.
  • The great race formed a loosely knit nation or league with fascistic socialist political and economic systems, advanced technology, and a focus on intellectual and aesthetic activities.
  • The text hints at a looming doom related to an Elder race of half-polypus entities that dominated Earth 600 million years ago, leading to fears and precautions taken by the great race.
  • The great race sealed paths to inner Earth to prevent the resurgence of the Elder things, who were described as alien entities with monstrous plasticity, control over winds, and colossal footprints, foretelling a potential catastrophic eruption.

01:40:07

Unearthing ancient civilization in Australian desert

  • The Monstrous entities preferred Earth's inner abysses over the storm-ravaged surface, possibly weakening with time.
  • The Great Race maintained vigilance with potent weapons despite the banishing of the subject from common speech.
  • The narrator's dreams contained echoes of a horrifying world, leading to a defense against the feelings through rational explanations.
  • The narrator prepared articles summarizing the dreams and related folklore, published in the Journal of the American Psychological Society.
  • A letter from a mining engineer in Western Australia described ancient stone blocks with hieroglyphs, possibly linked to the narrator's dreams.
  • The stones were weathered and pitted, with deeply carved lines resembling the descriptions from the narrator's dreams.
  • The mining engineer proposed an expedition to excavate the site, revealing an unknown civilization older than imagined.
  • The narrator, along with professors and experts, embarked on the expedition to the Australian desert, uncovering cyclopian masonry blocks.
  • Over 1,250 blocks were unearthed, some with carvings and symbols fitting into ancient legends, hinting at unimaginable age and cosmic upheavals.
  • The narrator's son's aerial scans revealed shifting sand patterns, triggering unsettling pseudo-familiar memories and a sense of dread towards the northeast region.

01:59:29

Mysterious Stone Unearths Dark Secrets in Outback

  • On July 11th, during a moonlit night, the narrator discovered a unique stone covered in sand, unlike any previously encountered, being square-cut and dark basaltic.
  • Recognizing the stone from his dreams and ancient legends, the narrator ran back to camp in fear, later regretting his reaction and wishing for a discoverer's enthusiasm.
  • The narrator shared his find with others, including his son, and attempted to locate the stone again but failed due to shifting sands.
  • Feeling compelled to record his experience, the narrator details a night of strange events on July 17th to 18th, where he wandered towards the northeast under an evil moon, causing concern among camp members.
  • The narrator's absence during a violent windstorm led to unsettling feelings among the miners, influenced by local folklore about malevolent winds tied to ancient stone huts.
  • Upon returning to camp battered and without his torch, the narrator was tended to by Professor Dyer and Dr. Boyle, experiencing an extraordinary psychological state and urging a halt in digging towards the northeast.
  • Despite his concerns being dismissed, the narrator decided to leave the expedition due to his nerves, requesting his son to fly him back home to Perth.
  • A survey flight over the region revealed no trace of the anomalous stone block, leading the narrator to believe his experience may have been an illusion.
  • The narrator, accompanied by Wingate, left for Perth on July 20th, pondering the events and deciding to inform his son of the full details for consideration.
  • During a night of eerie compulsion towards the northeast, the narrator discovered a mass of ancient masonry hidden beneath the sand, revealing intricate designs and triggering unsettling memories and fears.

02:18:18

"Descent into Ancient Underground City"

  • The narrator descends into a mysterious underground structure, facing a perilous abyss and scrambling down a cyclopian incline with a torch to light the way.
  • He reaches a level floor strewn with fallen blocks and detritus, surrounded by massive walls culminating in huge groinings and arches, with carvings beyond his perception.
  • The vaulting overhead, reminiscent of his dreams, terrifies him, and he feels an uncanny familiarity with the carvings on the stones, matching his dreams for years.
  • The narrator realizes he knows the structure intimately from his dreams, feeling a hideous certainty about its place in an Elder City of Dreams and the beings that dwelt there.
  • He contemplates the history and mysteries of the place, including the central archives that supposedly hold the cosmic space-time continuum's history, written by captive minds from various ages.
  • Driven by madness, the narrator descends further, navigating familiar but decayed rooms and corridors, recognizing metal ruins and colossal pedestals from his dreams.
  • He faces a chasm, recalling legends of what lurked beneath, and vaults across to reach the lower levels, passing through rooms of machines and debris-filled corridors.
  • The narrator's journey leads him to a circular crypt with hieroglyphs and symbols, realizing it is the underground archival structure he sought, built with incredible skill and strength.
  • He turns through an archway, finding clear passages to all surviving levels, with blocks of immense size suggesting a construction meant to last as long as the solar system itself.
  • The narrator's impressions become hazy, possibly due to fever and delirium, as he continues his descent into the depths, facing familiar yet decayed walls and carvings, driven by madness and a burning curiosity.

02:37:43

"Exploration of Buried City Reveals Alien Text"

  • The protagonist explores a buried city with aisles and shelves filled with metal cases and books.
  • The shelves are covered in hieroglyphs and symbols, indicating classes and subclasses of volumes.
  • The protagonist finds a book with unusual text symbols, different from known alphabets, from a non-terrestrial planet.
  • The book is well-preserved, with tough cellulose pages and a peculiar language from a captive mind.
  • The protagonist's torch starts to fail, prompting them to change the battery and continue exploring.
  • Racing through the aisles, the protagonist feels a force of evil pulling at their will and buried recollections.
  • Descending to the lowest level, the protagonist encounters trap doors and fallen cases, feeling a sense of panic.
  • The protagonist notices irregularities in the dust on the floor, hinting at footprints in threes, leading to a trap door.
  • Overcoming fear and compulsion, the protagonist unlocks a metal door, retrieves a book, and prepares to inspect it.
  • The protagonist finds a book with familiar hieroglyphs, causing a surge of inexplicable emotion and a sense of reality.

02:56:42

Whistling winds and demonic obstacles in ruins.

  • Strange winds and whistling noises are associated with prints, leading to thoughts of modern black horror tales.
  • A carbon wall symbol guides entry to a circular space with branching archways.
  • A metal-cased burden complicates movement through debris and fragments.
  • Passing through a ceiling-high mound of debris, a narrow crevice is navigated with difficulty.
  • A disturbing clatter and echoes are caused by the case falling down a slope of debris.
  • A shrill whistling sound triggers panic and a frenzied escape through nightmare ruins.
  • A mangling avalanche of sliding masonry leads to a chaotic flight through a basalt crypt.
  • A demon wind hindering progress, a leap across a chasm is attempted in a state of madness.
  • Visions of a cyclopian city, struggles against tentacles of wind, and a return to the waking world in the Australian desert conclude the harrowing experience.
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