Dangerous Dreams: A Novel

by Mike Rhynard

  “Nothingness is black,” she replied to herself.

  “And when do you see nothingness?”

  “When you’re not dreaming.”

  “But when you don’t dream, you’re not conscious of not dreaming. The only time you’re conscious of anything is when you dream.”

  But when you dream successive dreams, Allie continued in her mind, you know there was something in between them. And since I’m a lucid dreamer and often know when I’m dreaming, by inverse logic, I should also know when I’m not dreaming, like during NREM sleep. And since black is nothingness, it must be what I see in NREM sleep—sorta like looking at a TV screen when the TV’s turned off. “Humph! Never noticed that before . . . but the NREM connection is there because of the five regular patterns and black being nothingness.”

  “So what was the gray, Allie?”

  “Well, if the pattern theory is correct, then the gray has to be REM sleep.”

  “But why gray?”

  “Don’t know. It was like a TV that’s on, but with no programming on the selected channel.”

  “Why no programming?”

  Allie’s face lit up like Hollywood lights. “Maybe it was a different kind of dream, an almost dream, a dream that was trying to happen but couldn’t get the scheduled program to play . . . like a TV channel having technical difficulties.”

  “But why, Allie? Your REMs always have live dreams.”

  Her look saddened again. “Because . . . because maybe I wasn’t dreaming my own dream. Maybe I was dreaming what was in someone else’s mind . . . or maybe what they were trying to dream . . . but couldn’t . . .”

  “Come on, Allie. This is like pulling teeth. You know where this has to go, so go there!”

  “Okay. If Emily’s my conduit to the Roanoke dreams, maybe I dreamed what was in Emily’s mind, which was nothing, because she’s . . .”

  “Come on, Allie, say it. Because she’s what?”

  Her heart raced; her spirits abruptly rose like a helium balloon. “Because . . . because maybe Emily’s in a coma, a coma so deep her unconscious is dormant, and she can’t dream. That’s it! Gotta be it! She’s alive, somewhere—maybe out there in the forest, maybe in her house . . . maybe with . . . oh shit! The Panther. Oh my God. Please let her be alive. Please, God.”

  “Bravo! But keep going, Allie. One more step.”

  A shadow of doubt swept her face like a dark cloud drifting over the moon. If the gray in my dream was what Emily’s unconscious saw in her coma, then the Viking ship was my dream switching channels to one without technical difficulties—a new dream—which means . . . which means Emily died at that moment.

  As she walked toward her meeting with Dr. Dressler, an onerous new depression possessed Allie’s mind like the onset of a long, cold winter, a depression born of her disquieting but convincing deduction that Emily was dead, a depression that sapped her desire to meet Dressler, soured her interest in discussing or even thinking about her dreams. A morbid helplessness she likened to watching a loved one drown overwhelmed her entire psyche; and as she struggled to escape its clutches, she revisited her analysis, strove assiduously to reach a different conclusion. The light . . . what about the light? I saw the light when George Howe died . . . also right after the Panther hit Emily, but it went away almost instantly. Why?

  Only two possible answers: she died and went to hell, or she didn’t die . . . I wouldn’t think she’d go to hell after seeing the light, so maybe she didn’t die . . . and maybe that’s when she entered the coma. Whoops! But there was blackness right after the light, and blackness is NREM; so maybe I went into an NREM period, in which case, the light might have continued and she is dead. Damn it! But maybe it didn’t continue; maybe it was a near-death experience, and the black right after the light was the first stage of her coma. Jeez, this is hard . . . but maybe she is alive.

  But what about the Viking dream, Allie?

  Wish it hadn’t happened. Blindingly clear that Emily’s dead, and I started a new dream. Damn it! Getting a headache.

  Ten feet from Dr. Dressler’s door, a new twist wormed its way into her mind. What if Emily had NREM and REM periods in her coma, and they were integrated with mine. Then maybe I dreamed what she was dreaming, and maybe it suddenly switched from the gray of the coma to the Vikings because she came out of the coma and started dreaming about the Vikings for some reason. Wow! That would be cool, but can you dream in a coma?

  Doubtful.

  But if you could, how would the REM and NREM periods play? Now my head really hurts, but maybe, just maybe . . .

  As she reached for Dressler’s doorknob, the door opened, and the female professor from the day before walked out of his office. “Oh, excuse me,” Allie said.

  The professor gave Allie a snobby, who-the-hell-are-you look off the end of her pointy little nose, started down the hall without responding.

  Bitch, Allie thought.

  Dr. Dressler stood in the waiting room of his rather large office. “Oh, hi, Ms. O’Shay. Good timing. Glad you could make it. Let’s go in here.”

  “Okay, thank you. Good to see you, too, Sir.”

  As he led her into his office, he thought how attractive she looked, much dressier than at the lecture but with the same aura of natural, untamed, unassuming loveliness; her skin-tight jeans and emerald green blouse accentuated every inch of her finely proportioned body, complemented her fresh, wholesome face as elegantly as if she’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Whew, he thought, coeds keep getting better looking . . . another diversion. He checked his watch. Got a half hour; hope she doesn’t waste it. He wasn’t excited about losing a chunk of his day, had agreed to meet her only in deference to Jackson’s judgment about the quality of her topic—eliminating doctoral-candidate meetings from his daily agenda had been a welcome bonus of his new position, and he hoped this one would be the first and last.

  As she followed him into the office, Allie noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, thought it unusual that such a decent-looking, successful man of his years wasn’t married—probably divorced, she concluded.

  He motioned her to sit down in the armchair across the room from his desk then surprised her by picking up a folding chair, placing it directly in front of her, and seating himself on it. “So let’s see. Where are we?”

  Okay, kid, don’t blow it, last chance. “Dr. Dressler, I don’t want to talk about my dissertation . . . I don’t even want to pursue that topic anymore.”

  His surprised, questioning eyes looked like two giant, white marbles with large, green discs and pinpoint black dots superimposed on them .

  Before he could speak, she handed him the presentation, set her own copy on her lap, and started talking her way through the points with her eyes fixed stoically on his face.

  He kept his eyes on Allie while he recovered from the unbalancing effects of her shocking pronouncement then glanced down at the presentation, started following her words, and settled into the content.

  She watched his face for expressions of what he might be thinking as he flipped through the pages but saw nothing, other than an occasional raised eyebrow, a narrow squint, or a penned comment. At least he’s reading it, she thought, looks engrossed.

  When she had finished with the dream characteristics and dream logs, Dressler looked up at her, noticed her copy of the presentation lay unopened on her lap, again stared into her eyes; he discerned a tenacious, yet somehow sad, conviction. After a prolonged, discomfiting pause, he said, “Did you just tell me all that off the top of your head?”

  She nodded.

  “So you still remember everything. You must because you didn’t say it like it’s written on the pages. You said it from your heart and soul . . . and your memory . . . told me what the people looked like, what they said, what they thought and sensed, what you felt for them. Did you realize you were doing that?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You feel it all inside . . . like it’s part of you,
don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  He glanced at the presentation for a second then back at Allie. “Can you tell me what, uh . . . what Emily dresses like and her mannerisms? And maybe the same stuff for”—he glanced at the page—“ Roger Baylye.”

  Allie smiled. “That’s easy; they all wear the same thing every day. Em wears a long, heavy, red wool skirt and a blue shirt with removable sleeves, which she has off most of the time because it’s so hot . . . and a round-crowned, light-gray hat with about a six-inch brim and a two-inch dark gray ribbon tied around the crown. She walks with a sexy, coordinated spring in her step that all the men think is totally sensuous, and she always looks people in the eye when she talks to them. They sometimes try to look away because her eyes are so intense and overpowering, but they always look right back. What’s funny is she doesn’t even know she affects people that way. She’s really modest and humble most of the time, but she’s feisty when she needs to be.” Allie’s eyes began to mist. “And . . . and as far as Roger Baylye . . .”

  “Talking about her seems to upset you.”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Because I know she’s dead. It’s just like thinking or talking about a close friend or family member who just died.” She sniffled, wiped her eyes. “Excuse me, I’m sorry.”

  “Not necessary. This is absolutely incredible. This level of detail, recall, and feeling is unheard of. I have heard of such dreams ococcurring throughout history, but not in our times. Don’t bother with Baylye.” Like the sun rising over a mountaintop, his face progressively brightened with excitement, as if he’d just made his earthshaking discovery, found the Grail of Dream Science. Not even an actress could pull this off, he reasoned. She’s totally for real. Too precise, confident, certain, and emotionally engaged to be otherwise. “I’m excited, Ms. O’Shay—the repeatability and continuity, the things you perceive and feel—totally phenom.”

  “Well, you’re going to think this part is way over the top . . . but go to the next page, the one titled ‘Family History.’ ”

  Again his analytical eyes lingered on hers for a long moment then shifted to the papers.

  Allie told him everything her mother had related about Great-Great-Grandma Ian, watched his eyes widen with every line and word.

  Dressler abruptly looked up at Allie, squinted, chewed on his lower lip. “Do you know more about her than what you’ve written here?”

  “No, not yet, but my mom does. I know she’s holding stuff back, stuff she knows happens to the people who dream the dreams—scary stuff, stuff she’s afraid is going to happen to me. And I also think she knows how my great-great-grandma knew her dreams were real. But that must scare her, too, because she gets real upset and worried when I press her about it. I could be wrong though . . . maybe she doesn’t know, other than Great-Great-Grandma telling her it was so, and maybe it’s the unknown that scares her.”

  “I was going to ask you about both of those things.” Connect the dots, Steve. Her mother knows full well what happens to the dreamers, and it’s possibly connected with the dream verification . . . and it’s something bad . . . something bad that’s going to happen to Allie O’Shay . . . unless . . . unless you can do something to mitigate or neutralize it.

  But damn it, that’s not why I’m here, not why the university put me in this position. A wave of conflicted guilt inundated him as he drilled into the depths of her eyes, searched for any faint sign that her story was contrived, any glimmer of uncertainty; again saw only sincerity and conviction, nodded his head slightly as if accepting her words. “Wow.” He smiled a faint, resigned smile. “Funny. I rarely use that word, but it’s definitely the right one for this discussion.” He tapped the package with his fingertips.

  She noticed a sudden disquietude in his eyes, concluded some big issue or doubt about her legitimacy was gnawing on his mind like a little dog chewing on a big bone. “There’s more, Dr. Dressler.”

  He looked surprised as he glanced back at the package. “Please continue.”

  “This next section talks to what I think could be happening to me, based on my very limited, one-page-deep analysis.” She took a deep breath. “I think there has to be some sort of collaboration of theories going on here that enables all my dream characteristics to activate and play out—theories like the collective unconscious, morphic resonance, formative causation, others I don’t yet know of. And the real mystery is how they do so and what activates the dreaming process, selects the story I’m going to dream about, and lets it continue with continuity from dream to dream . . . with ever-increasing intimacy.”

  Dressler looked baffled, uncomfortable, stared at the wall, the gears of his mind turning at a blistering pace. Then, after another annoyingly long silence, he looked at her, his face suddenly alive with enthusiasm. “Intuitively, I believe your hypothesis—albeit only a feeling at this point— is absolutely correct. I further believe you’re a one-of-a-kind walking test bed, an active, direct link to the unknown truths I seek in my research.”

  Allie’s heart raced, her eyes filled with anticipation; she wanted to celebrate as if she’d just scored a game-winning soccer goal.

  But his face suddenly went dour. “Ms. O’Shay, I’m very excited about what you’ve told me . . . my concern is where we go from here. And—”

  Allie interrupted, a nervous, excited quaver in her voice. “Dr. Dressler, please take a look at the next section. I have a proposal for you.” Her nerves tensed. So far, so good. Lord, please let him accept it.

  As if uncertain whether to proceed, he reluctantly lowered his gaze, flipped to the next page, then read along as she proposed collaborating with him in his quest to discover and validate the elemental nature of dreaming, volunteered to be his living dream-science laboratory, subject herself to any dream measurement device, and do whatever else he deemed necessary for success. Last, she proposed changing her dissertation topic to one they would jointly define, one that would be based on their research and its results.

  His eyes dwelled belatedly on the proposal; his mind raced as if he couldn’t process the words or formulate a response. She’s amazing: brash, direct, courageous, creative, confident, sincere, smart, organized, unpretentious, enthusiastic, committed, passionate, and most importantly, endowed with an incredible capability—probably unique in the world, an accessible, living, vivid, testable connection to the fundamental essence of why and how dreams happen.

  But I can’t simply go to the governing committee and tell them I have this incredibly unique person in my possession, a person who’s going to answer all the questions and make everything fit neatly into place. No, I’ll have to tell them every detail of her dreams, why she’s so tantalizingly, irresistibly perfect for this project. In short, I’ll have to tune a bunch of doubting academic snobs in to her private emotional life. I can’t do that to her . . . and being who they are, they probably won’t believe me anyway, not to mention the fact that most of them have their own favorites for the position. But I can’t let this opportunity escape, nor can I walk away from a chance—no, an obligation—to help her, perhaps even save her life if it comes to that. But how do I make it happen? “Ms. O’Shay, as I’ve said, I’m extremely excited by your incredibly unique capabilities—all of them, not just your dreams—and also by your proposal for employing those capabilities in this endeavor, but I must explain some challenging realities.”

  Allie’s heart dropped like a five-pound hailstone. She wanted to bolt from the office and cry.

  “First, as you know, there’s a plethora of theories and a paucity of proof out there, which means there are no limits to where we could go in this investigation. But therein lies the risk for you. The basic pathway you and I believe is the right one is greatly in conflict with established scientific thinking. Nothing new there—pretty typical for new ideas since the beginning of time—but it means there will be concerted resistance, that the possibility of failure is real. I would, therefore, be ir
responsible if I encouraged you to pin your PhD hopes on the success of this risky endeavor. If it fails, you fail. Better that you base your dissertation on some less sublimely challenging subject than this and then, diploma in hand, pursue dream research with some—”

  “Dr. Dressler, I don’t give a flying F about the PhD. I just want to understand my damn dreams and figure out how to make it through life coexisting with them.” She struggled valiantly to hold back the flood of tears tenuously dammed behind her eyes.

  Dressler’s jaw dropped. He nodded, tried to continue but couldn’t, stared blankly at Allie. His brain muddled with sympathy as he watched her struggle with her tears, waited for her to control them. “I was also going to tell you that dissertation committees look very askance at candidates who want to change their topics, and frequently disapprove such requests, but I guess that point’s irrelevant now. So the last reality is that the university has a structured process for choosing major research assistants, and there are already no less than ten applicants for the assistant position, several with doctorates and considerable experience in hand. It’s a tough, qualified field.”

  Allie’s emotions ricocheted like a golf ball, hard-pitched into a tile shower. “But what if you told them you wanted me?”

  “That would certainly help, but there are other factors involved that I’m not at liberty to discuss.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her how the selection process would wreck her privacy, perhaps her life. “Suffice to say, we’re dealing with a committee of stodgy, political, egotistical, career academicians—like me—who have a favorite in the selection process and are already out lobbying for them. And I see I’ve completely disappointed you and ruined your day.”

  “You’re right, Doc. But it’s partly my fault. My expectations were too high, and I didn’t do enough homework on the process. And now I’m going to cry.” The tears rolled down and off Allie’s cheeks. “Sorry,” she blubbered, “it’s not your fault. Don’t feel sorry for me.”