After the first revelation, the revelation paused for a while. Muhammad ﷺ's life resumed as normal until, while walking, he again heard a sound and looked up to see the same angel he had seen in the Cave of Hira, seated on a throne between the heavens and the earth. Trembling again, he rushed back to Khadija RA asking to be wrapped up. It was only once he was in her house (Jibril having followed him home rather than speaking to him on the mountain itself) that Jibril revealed the opening verses of Surah al-Muddaththir [74:1-7].
Accounts differ on how long this pause (fatrat al-wahy) lasted: some say two or three years, though this is considered far too long; a narration from Ibn Abbas puts it at 40 days, and Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri described it as around a month, together suggesting roughly a month and ten days. Throughout this period Muhammad ﷺ was troubled and afraid he was hallucinating (he later said, "I was worried for myself") and he would go every day to Jabal al-Nour hoping to see Jibril again, only to find nothing there.
Scholars have suggested the pause served to prepare Muhammad ﷺ for what was coming, to let him recover and feel ready for the mission, yet even so, he still trembled with fear when Jibril finally appeared to him again. This very human reaction, rather than any grandiose account of himself as a hero, is held up as evidence against the idea that he was inventing his prophethood: a fraud inventing such a claim would not portray himself this way.