HP Lovecraft has always been one of my favorite authors. He is one of the ONLY writers whose horror fantasy can actually give me chills and make me wish I had more light at night when I'm reading "The Rats in the Walls" or "The Lurking Fear".
I think part of that is because I dream the same way he describes in "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath". In my own dream worlds (I don't have nightmares, just very involved dreams), I do exactly as Randolph Carter does - I create a dream-scape to which I can return over and over again, and I can remember from dream to dream the places I've been, and my experience "extends" the dream-scape (I won't call it a dream "world" because they are not that extensive) each time I come there.
Well, there's no doubt in my mind that Lovecraft had read and absorbed Eddison's "Worm Ouroboros" (published 1922) when he finished "Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath" in 1926. Matter of fact, it's documented that Lovecraft owned a copy of "Worm" at his death. When the "Dreamer" Lessington is escorted to Mercury in the introductory or "framing" story, it has very much the flavor of Randolph Carter entering his dreamworld.
And so I'm ready for the rest of it ... It's like I know the place!
A Well of Heroes: Two:
Literary Impressions of the Prose and Verse of Robert E. Howard
Dreamscape is one of my fave HP tales as well. Love all his stuff. I recently got all his stuff for free at Amazon...........enter free e-pubs. They also, right now, have all of the Conan series..............also free.