The dreamer finds housed within himself -- occupying, as it were, some separate chamber in his brain -- holding, perhaps, from that station a secret and detestable commerce with his own heart -- some horrid alien nature. What if it were his own nature repeated -- still, if the duality were distinctly perceptible, even that -- even this mere numerical double of his own consciousness -- might be a curse too mighty to be sustained. But how, if the alien nature contradicts his own, fights with it, perplexes and confounds it? How, again, if not one alien nature, but two, but three, but four, but five, are introduced within what once he thought the inviolable sanctuary of himself?