Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy
(by Johannes Kepler- excerpts circa 1610)
"In my sleep I seemed to be reading a book..."----------
The Daemon from Levania
"In every instance the take-off hits him as a severe shock, for he is hurled just as though he had been shot aloft by gunpowder to sail over mountains and seas. For this reason at the outset he must be lulled to sleep immediately with narcotics and opiates. His limbs must be arranged in such a way that his torso will not be torn away from his buttocks nor his head from his body, but the shock will be distributed among his individual limbs. Then a new difficulty follows: extreme cold and impeded breathing. The cold is relieved by a power which we are born with; the breathing, by applying damp sponges to the nostrils. After the first stage of the trip is finished, the passage becomes easier. At that time we expose their bodies to the open air and remove our hands. Their bodies roll themselves up, like spiders, into balls which we carry along almost entirely by our will alone, so that finally the bodily mass proceeds towards its destination of its own accord. But this onward drive is of very little use to us, because it is too late. Hence it is by our will, as I said, that we move the body swiftly along, and we forge ahead of it from now on lest it suffer any harm by colliding very hard with the moon."
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The Hemisphere of the Subvolvans
"To us who inhabit the earth, our moon, when it is full and rising and climbing above distant houses, seems equal to the rim of a keg: when it mounts to mid-heaven, it hardly matches the width of the human face."
