"Common Time" is a science fiction short story by American writer James Blish.
It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros (1965); in The Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus (1973); and in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories.
[2] A man named Garrard is a test pilot for an experimental space ship bound for Alpha Centauri.
Around him in the space ship is a group of dreamlike beings that call themselves "the clinesterton beademungen" and speak to him in dream-language, which he understands perfectly.
James Blish (quoted by Damon Knight [2]) said about Knight's interpretation of his story: The reference to the Alpha Centauri stars as 'the twin radioceles' obviously comes from varicocele, a common form of hernia involving the testicles, and I think now that the whole thing was suggested by the Earth-Moon balls on the cover around which I wrote the story.