The forms disappear and reappear, judgements evaporate and solidify, senses stop and continue- death hushes, death amplifies. A perpetual swing between the known and the unknown, leaves us in a state of neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, but rather in a state of the eternal sleep, a sleep that some may call death.
"Start floating," she said.
The thought came gently and steadily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rishing decent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, and night were the universe.
"Go back to your form for a moment," she said.
How long it lasted of course, I know not; but when once again I unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible. By a wild sulphurous luster, the origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the prison.
(italics- Edgar Allen Poe)
