His breathing was getting deeper. Was it time yet? His mind was getting … wavery; yet it was still … too alert; just a touch of wakefulness of the wrong kind. His breathing was even deeper—and deeper—he was so near sleep. Yet at the same time, craftily, he held the image of himself intact in his mind’s eye. He mentally watched it. It was perfect: thinning brown hair, hawk-like nose, red dressing gown. He avoided getting sidetracked by details, though, and felt his consciousness gently begin a rolling motion that by now he’d learned to recognize. It was as if his consciousness were about to roll off a hill, into sleep’s oblivion. And just when he got that feeling, George (Eureka! he shouted mentally) rolled his consciousness into the image, in which he was now fully awake. He congratulated himself and avoided the temptation to go back and look at his body because sometimes when he did, he just fell right back into it, so to speak, and that was that.

“Now then. What now?” he mused, listening and watching. Was everything as it should be? It was still night. He was still in the hall, so he went down to the second floor.

What a delicious secret triumph, to be walking around out of his body! George thought of indulging in his favorite sport—walking or flying around the block at night out of his body. The only thing that stopped him was that once he went through the front door, the outside environment frequently changed, and then he had to be very alert and in good shape to handle the situation. As he mused, he walked down the hall of the second floor and paused. The bedroom doors were closed. Suddenly he knew that he wasn’t alone.

Cautiously, George Brainbridge walked through the first door into the western bedroom. The moon shone through the window, and George noted several things at once. The familiar bedroom furniture was gone. The gas lamps were gone from the walls, and lamps without wicks sat on the bedside tables.

Now what was going on? George wondered. Excited, he bent down to get a closer look. Wires running from the lamps led to an outlet of some kind in the baseboards; he had to be in the future. These must be future electric lights, amplifications of the simple models he’d read of in his journals. What a boon to dentistry!

He almost chortled. Yet at the same time, he knew that if he got too excited, he might lose control and be swept back to his body. Was this his house, in the future? Then who was sleeping in the bed that stood where his own should be? He bent closer. The moonlight shone on a man’s face, and George Brainbridge stared; there was definitely a family resemblance. This man looked more like him than his own son did. Zounds! He bent closer.