A young man working in an intense laboratory falls madly in love with a machine that can invent new sensations on this skin - until the experiment is destroyed.

An embittered teacher takes an inner-city Black boy under her wing and discovers his immense academic and personal gifts. But even as he begins to escape the drugs that have defined his upbringing, dealing threatens to tear his loved ones away forever.

On the brink of death, an elderly man recounts his life to his great grandson, revealing that his mother's schizophrenic delusions of an otherworldly fantasy land were no delusions at all.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

In the Land of Witches, an enslaved girl learns the magic of Dream Science and liberates herself from her master. Her account of the town inspires a present-day researcher, trapped in her war-torn hometown, and a band of witches to pilgrimage to the site. An enslaved girl's fantastical account of the Land of Witches encourages a group of witches and a present-day researcher, marooned in her war-torn hometown, to locate the site through the magic of dreams.

Though most of a prep school's students are away for the long weekend, a few boys stay behind at the dorms and are invited to dinner with a wealthy boy and his stepmother. At the dinner, the stepmother's attitude and appearance are just as alluring as the food, but the wealthy student acts strange and detached the whole evening.

An archaeologist on a dig in Africa uncovers a shard that brings the dark magic of the Brotherhood of the Higher Ones to the present day.

A wealthy but sad merchant meets a man in the City of Peace who tells him of a gate that will allow the merchant to step twenty years into the past and visit his former self. He travels back in time and learns that nothing can erase the past.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

A scientist reminisces about an old affair while he watches his time-machine lab burn down.