and now , the brief intermission between dreams was finally drawing to a close and the next story commencing : this time , he began not as a particle , nor as a serf at the dawn of an iron age empire , but simply , as himselfor rather , what he knew to be himself , which was equivalent in his mind to an experiential certitude , a set of necessarily convenient prejudices which framed and rendered navigable his reality external to dreamsfor it seemed now that he had drifted close enough to his waking state to remember who he had been , or rather , his position within the context of his waking life , thus , bringing familiar constructs of identity to descend upon and reshape the formless sentience he had briefly , in that ephemeral void , occupied .