He Never Slept
- by John Russell Fearn
- Novella
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Debatable Time Travel
- English
- “He Never Slept” by John Russell Fearn , in Astounding Stories, June 1934.
The famous Dr. Jason Veldor has made a potion that eliminates the need for sleep. The only trouble is, it’s devastatingly addictive, and for better or worse, it takes Veldor’s mind into the lives in other times and other dimensions.
—Michael Main
To come to my point, Richard, I have for many years been very disgusted with the fact that all the human race—indeed every living organism—must waste a third of its life in sleep. Think what a race we’d be if we never slept!
Tags
(14)
- Time Periods
- Stone Age (3.4 Ma to 3000 BC: Paleo/Epipaleo/Meso/Neo/Chalcolithic): on a bare and windy prehistoric plane
- Circa AD 1800 to 1899: Victorian England
- Circa AD 1900 to 1929: Veldor’s youth, circa 1910
- Circa AD 1930 to 1939: home time of the story: November 1930
- Circa AD 1940 to 1949: part of Veldor’s second trip: Picadilly Circus, June 1940
- Timeline Models
- Noniteracting Traveler: “phases of life from other lives”
- Unexplained Timeline Model
- Time Travel Methods
- Hypnosis, Mental Powers, Potions, and Drug-Induced Travel: “I took a full dose of the overpowering, insidious Veldoris and lay on the table directly beneath those swirling lights.”
- Themes
- Mind Travel
- Travels into Yourself: Veldor’s first trip took him into his own youth, moments after his father turned him out into the world.
- Real-World Tags
- Neanderthals and Other Cavemen: In Veldor’s second trip, he is partly “a squat, peculiar man of little brain” on a prehistoric plain.
- Victorian Era: Adeline, “a very-much-sought-after young beauty of the Victorial era”
- Fictional Tags
- Parallel Universes or Dimensions: “What strange dimension had I got into this time?”
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “He Never Slept” by John Russell Fearn , in Astounding Stories, June 1934.
Indexer Notes
(1)
- TIme Travel—It could be argued that all of Veldor’s trips are dreams, but the trip to the future makes us claim that he has actually traveled, but only as a noninteracting observer.