The Dream Snake, first published in Weird Tales in February 1928, concerns a man haunted by a recurring dream in which an unseen giant snake draws closer each night. The story may have been based on a dream of Howard’s own. Howard received $20 for it.

Howard first mentioned the sale in a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, circa mid-September 1927 (letter #053):

P. S. I have sold five poems and a short story since seeing you last.

The short story was The Dream Snake; the poems were Sea Curse, Crete, The Moor Ghost, The Riders of Babylon, and Easter Island.

In another letter to Smith, circa mid- to late September 1927 (letter #054), Howard contrasted the story’s psychology of dreams with the “primitive psychology” of the manuscript he had just sold:

P. S. Since writing you that other letter I’ve sold another mss. I got a hundred dollars for it; that is, I am to get it on publication. I don’t know when it will be published or whether you’ll like it or not. I enjoyed writing it more than any piece of prose I ever wrote. The subject of psychology is the one I am mainly interested in these days. The story I sold before this3 was purely a study in psychology of dreams and this ms. deals largely in primitive psychology. I don’t know whether they’ll publish it as a serial or as a “complete novel.”

The manuscript just sold was The Shadow Kingdom; the earlier “study in psychology of dreams” was The Dream Snake.