Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (48 page)

He’d returned to penning comments on her log. “Well, maybe we’ll figure it out. Lots of dots to connect. Oh, before I forget”—he picked up two small digital recorders, handed them to Allie—“use these as your logging devices, primary and backup, so you can capture your dream events more quickly. We’ll transcribe the recordings each day for backup, but I’d still like you to write them out for me if you can . . . and always state the date and time and what kind of mood you were in, and how tired you were when you went to bed and when you woke.”

“Sure, Doc, but I don’t really need recorders. I still remember every detail of every dream I’ve had since they started.” She then related Elyoner’s revelation, her hopefully safe voyage to Chesapeake with two infants, Tayler and Emily courting, George and Emily’s discussions, the Spaniards, Emily’s emotional conflicts and feelings for the men in her life. A thin dampness spread over her eyes like morning dew as she described George’s death, Emily’s gut-wrenching agony, her desperate plight. She hid her face in her hands, whimpered softly for a few moments, then rubbed her eyes, looked at Dressler. “Sorry, Doc . . . this really sucks, and it’s not fair . . . too much for a kid her age . . . but somehow, she just keeps on pushing through it. She deserves to be happy and carefree, and it tears me up that I can’t do anything about it.” She started crying again.

Dressler’s pen was still; he looked at Allie, again marveled at how deeply connected she was to Emily, felt his heart swell with compassion. Without thinking about it, he stood, walked to her, then sat beside her, put
his arm around her and pulled her against his side. My God, she moves me, he thought. This is torturing her—feels so close to Emily, so emotionally entwined; it’s painfully personal. But why? “Hang in there, Allie. I know it’s tough, but we’ll figure it out . . . and knowing the why of it will make it much easier to handle. We’ll get there.”

Allie rubbed her eyes. A good comforter, she thought with a sniffle— gentle, reassuring, like Mom and Dad. She blubbered, “Thanks, Doc. I just can’t help it . . . like one of my best friends died and my closest friend is about to die. I’m okay.”

“Sure?”

She nodded.

He walked back to his chair, looked at her for a moment, then scanned her logs and his notes. “There’s a lot here . . . a whole lot of things going on in you all at once . . . so many, in fact, it’s hard to know where to start, but here’s my thought.”

Allie watched him with an intense, expectant look.

“I think we first—like, today—make a list of all of your dream characteristics and then place them in order of importance.” He shook his head. “No. That’s not right. Importance doesn’t play. What matters is
causality
, or
sequence
. Follow me?”

“I think so. You want to arrange all my dream characteristics in order of what-causes-what, or what happens first in the chain of events. So the first thing causes the second thing to happen; and that second thing
can’t
happen unless that first, causal thing happens; and then that second thing enables, or causes, the third thing—a chain of events, where each event enables the next. I like the word
enables
better than
causes
because the first event doesn’t necessarily
force
the next event to happen; it just
lets
it happen if it wants to.” She thought for an instant. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s both.”

Dressler locked his eyes on her, nodded, mentally smirked. Got a damn good head on her.

“How about this?” she said. “In the beginning,
something
makes me start the dream sequence; then
something else
figures out what I’m going to dream, plants it in my head, and hits the
start
button; but there’s no
pause
button, so the dream keeps on going when I’m not dreaming, whether I’m asleep
or awake . . . I think.” She gave him a quizzical look. “And it keeps on going until who-knows-when because I don’t know how or when it’ll end. But the important thing is that once the causal events happen, all the real dream characteristics—like recall, knowing languages, the fact that it seems to be true history, sensing emotions and thoughts, pain, et cetera—get turned on, or enabled, and happen continuously and simultaneously. So the first mystery is why and how my dreams happen, and the second mystery is why they’re the way they are. See what I’m saying?”

“I do. And I think you’re absolutely right.” Got a
damn
good head. “For sure, there are causal, enabling events, and pure characteristics, but I think the approach I mentioned is still appropriate. So let’s put all the things that happen—causes, enablers,
and
characteristics—on a hierarchical chart, based on causal and enabling sequence, and go from there. And where we’ll go is the development of possible theories for each cause and characteristic—both existing and new, both single and multiple. Then we’ll devise experiments to evaluate each theory, and based on results, tie the causal, enabling, and characteristic theories together in an overall governing theory, evaluate some more, and finally . . . hopefully . . . settle in on an all-encompassing theory we can extrapolate to
normal
people.” He looked suddenly embarrassed. “Excuse me, Allie. I said that poorly. You’re not
abnormal
; you’re just incredibly
unusual
because you’re a live, walking, vivid, percolating dream lab that’s directly and visibly connected to whatever forces out there and inside you stimulate your dreams and make them happen the way they do. Are you with me?”

Allie smiled, nodded. “Yup . . . and I like it. Cool stuff. So let’s get movin’. We’re burnin’ daylight!” She handed him a piece of paper. “Here’s a list of my dream characteristics, all lumped together. It’s more organized and complete than what I gave you before. We can start from there.”

He took the paper from her, held his eyes on hers for a moment, then scanned the list:

        
1.
Probably stimulated by stress

        
2.
Subject-matter-selection methodology unknown, but content new and unfamiliar

        
3.
Historically accurate content

        
4.
Some dreams cover several scenario days

        
5.
Scenes seem to accelerate between REM periods, but I see them in real time during REM

        
6.
Also at an accelerated pace when I’m awake

        
7.
Same story from dream to dream—story-like (movie-like) content

        
8.
All dream characters unrecognized, but recurring

        
9.
At least one mutual dream with Emily Colman, who lived (maybe) over 400 years ago

        
10.
Hear and remember dialogue—all dialogue sensible

        
11.
Understand different languages and Indian hand signs

        
12.
Feel emotions and thoughts

        
13.
Emily seems to be the conduit to dreams—she’s in majority of scenes, and I feel her emotions and thoughts the strongest—but also see and feel others in scenes without Emily

        
14.
Lifelike reality, intensity, and vividness; true color, sound, smell, and taste—not bizarre in any way

        
15.
Emotionally attached & close to dream characters (especially Emily)— things that happen feel personal, as if happening to me or a close friend

        
16.
Butterfly birthmark becomes warm and itches just before, during, and after dreams

        
17.
Detailed breadth and depth of events recalled after each dream—retained for (at a minimum) days, perhaps longer—TBD

        
18.
Lucid dreams—real time awareness that I’m dreaming, but no ability, thus far, to affect content

        
19.
Frequency is every time I sleep

        
20.
My mother says the dreams occur to female family members every 4 or 5 generations—great-great-grandmother was last known dreamer

        
21.
Said she knew the dreams were true, but my mother doesn’t know how she knew

        
22.
Mother knows more than she’s told me, and it scares her a lot

He shook his head. “This is amazing when you see it all together; and I can’t help thinking there’s a key in here that’s going to unlock
mysteries . . . all because your characteristics are so visible, sharp, and repeatable. So over the next few days, I’m going to study the list and start trying to figure out theoretical bases for each item . . . likely more than one in many cases. And I also expect a fair amount of overlap between characteristics. Meanwhile, we need to get you going in the sleep lab and do some correlations between your dream logs and polysomnograph results. Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright. Well first, it’s awkward to work with people on a last name basis. So if I’m going to call you Allie, you have to call me
Steven
. Okay?”

Allie nodded. She’d never called a professor or teacher by their first name, felt awkward doing so, especially when they were nearly twenty years her senior. But something about him put her at ease, overcame her inhibition. “Okay . . . Steven . . . Steve?” She chuckled. “Which do you like?”

He smiled back at her. “Well, my mom called me
Stevie
, but I thought it sounded wimpy, so I ditched it when I went to college. My colleagues call me
Steven
, and my friends call me
Steve
. . . and my ex-wife called me
Doc
, like you do. So why don’t you call me
Doc
or
Steve
.”

Allie’s face was the color of a boiled lobster. “I’m sorry. I . . . I . . .”

His smile took on a soft, gentle curve. “Nothing to be sorry about, Allie. Don’t worry about it.” She’s even prettier when she’s upset: fresh, natural, genuine . . . smart; really like her. “So, here’s the plan. Come to the lab tomorrow about 7:30 p.m. Dress relaxed . . . bring whatever you normally sleep in, and we’ll get you wired up with the various polysomnograph leads.”

Allie frowned, decided she’d better wear a lot more than usual.

He smiled. “Don’t worry. A female tech will do all the wiring. Then after you fall asleep, I’ll be in the adjacent room watching the poly data on a remote monitor. So backing up a bit, after you’re wired, we’ll do a test run to make sure everything’s working right and then let you fade off to sleep.”

“How many wires and where?”

“Good question. There’ll be nearly thirty data channels, which will measure primarily brain activity because that’s what we’re most interested in; but we’ll also measure breathing rate, pulse, leg movement, and eye movement. So when you wake up and complete a dream log, we’ll try to correlate all the squiggly lines with the events you report from your dreams. Then based
on what we find, we may change a few measurement parameters to focus on something in Allie O’Shay’s brain that catches our eye . . . like unusual activity in different regions, but the routine will be about the same. And depending on what we find, we may even move on to PET scans and MRIs, start looking at neuronal balance and synapses in different parts of your brain. The bottom line here is that you’re incredibly unique; and though I hesitate to use the word, you truly
are
a mutation from the norm. So your brain activity is probably far more pronounced and dramatic than a normal person’s would be, which I hope will make it easier to trace to the point, or points, of activity origin in your brain, so we can see what’s going on.”

“Makes sense . . . intuitively. Something’s going on, for sure. But can people really fall asleep with all those wires and electrodes on them?”

“Most do.”

“Well, I think I’ll be
very
self-conscious, and I’ll be amazed if I can fall asleep.” This ain’t gonna work. Can’t afford to lose a minute of sleep time. Stuff happens too fast, might miss something.

He shrugged. “Well, we’ll just have to try it and see what happens; and if you can’t sleep, we’ll try some low-grade sleeping pills . . . here.” He pulled a sheet off the top of the prescription pad on his desktop, scribbled on it, handed it to Allie. “Take this to the hospital pharmacy, and bring the pills with you tomorrow in case you need a little help falling asleep. The
U
has an account for this project and will cover the charges.”

Allie suppressed the smile that wanted to appear on her face.

“So since we’ll be looking at how all those parameters I mentioned change with the happenings in your dreams, and to get the max amount of recall, we’ll wake you up right after each REM period, and—”

“What? No, Doc. I can’t do that.”

His eyes widened. “May I ask why not?”

“Sure. I can’t afford to miss a second of dream time. I’ve got to know what’s happening to Emily. Can’t be waking up and going through all the NREM stages again. I just can’t.”

“Hmm. I see your concern; and I guess since your recall is so extraordinary, we could dispense with the wakeups . . . at least give it a try.” Can’t chance disrupting her, he thought. Got to keep it as normal as possible.

“Great.” She squinted, pursed her lips. “You know, there’s another reason not to do it. I may be dreaming in NREM as well as REM, and we’d lose that if you woke me up after each REM.”

“Good point”—she’s quick—“though NREM dreams are usually scary, and yours aren’t . . . I mean, in the bizarre sense. But no matter, at this point, I’m not taking anything for granted. We’ll skip the wakeups.”

“Okay.” She smiled. “Wish I could start tonight.”

“Me, too. I’m really excited about this, Allie.” He stared into her eyes, lingered a moment.

Allie stared back, wondered why his wife had divorced him. She stood to leave. “Hey, Doc . . . Steve, I’m curious. How did you convince the committee to let me be your assistant?”