I was writing – rather, I was dictating – a story to a young woman who was writing the story for me. Composing the story in this fashion was more efficient, since I only had to concentrate on the words and speaking them, and not worry with writing them down. And my words and sentences were strikingly more stylized than usual. I only needed to concentrate, and the words – and the story itself – seemed to appear in my mind. Without commanding, I seemed to command the language.

After dictating about two pages, I suddenly snapped back to normal. Only now did I realize that while I had been dictating, I had been in a trance-like state. I had never had this type of experience before. Over the years I had come to believe that certain writers were able to receive what they wrote from someplace outside of themselves. But this had never happened to me before now – I was amazed. Yet now, as I tried to recall the words I had just finished dictating, I couldn't recall them. The young woman had disappeared, and try as I might, I could recall nothing that I had said to her.