"We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight"

H. P. Lovecraft’s line, “We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight,” conjures an atmosphere thick with unseen terror and primal instinct. The reference to animals, particularly dogs and cats, appeals to a notion older than civilization, the belief that these creatures are attuned to dimensions of reality unavailable to human senses. Dogs, howling in the darkness, are responding to phenomena invisible to their human companions, suggesting the presence of forces malevolent or inexplicable. Their howling is both an alarm and a lament, an unconscious acknowledgment of the uncanny or supernatural lurking beyond the flickering edges of perception.

Cats, creatures of the night, possess an enigmatic connection to the mysterious and the supernatural in many cultures. The imagery of them pricking up their ears after midnight suggests heightened alertness when the world is at its quietest and darkest, the hour when uncanny things are said to emerge. Midnight, here, is not merely a point on the clock but a symbolic threshold, the dividing line between the mundane and the magical, the known and the unknown.

Lovecraft’s words express humanity’s simultaneous curiosity and dread toward what lies outside ordinary understanding, those cosmic horrors or hidden realities that elude rational explanation. He invokes a sense of awe at the universe’s vastness and strangeness, implying that humans, if only briefly, might catch glimpses of these profound mysteries. The suggestion is both alluring and terrifying: to see as animals see is to risk confronting ancient fears, to occupy a liminal space between knowledge and madness. In Lovecraft’s mythos, such vision often carries a heavy, sometimes dreadful, price, insight into the world’s true nature can shatter the comforting illusions that shield the mind from the abyss. His aphorism thus captures the essence of cosmic horror: the seductive terror of perceiving hidden truths that lie just beyond the reach of human comprehension.