In 1971, William Davis returns to the US after serving in the Vietnam War. His battlefield trauma has dulled his emotions. Hoping to preoccupy himself, he moves to Portland and works as a stenographer for a job agency called Temp-O. William developed his talent for stenography through his relationship with his late sister, Sissy. The work at Temp-O is manageable but unpleasant because of an incompetent coworker named Pearson.

William answers an ad posted by a “gentleman scientist” seeking a stenography assistant. The scientist, Elgin, lives in a large lakeside house in Castle Rock, Maine. William encounters a former Temp-O colleague, Diane, leaving after an interview with Elgin. Elgin indicates that Diane couldn’t even spell “phlegmatic,” a behavioral requirement included in the ad. Elgin gives William a technical stenography test and is impressed with the result. He withholds the nature of his experiments but shows William two books about dreams by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Elgin later says that he wants to “go under [the wall of sleep]” (423), which he believes will change not only the understanding of dreams but the world itself. William moves into Elgin’s guest house.

Elgin gives William a book of test subject profiles to study.