Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (69 page)

“You might as well take a shower and freshen up. Doctor Dressler and I will collect the data and be ready to debrief when you get back. Want a cup of coffee and a doughnut?”

“Sure on the doughnut, pass on the coffee. Got any juice?”

“Yup. Orange okay?”

“Perfect. Thanks. See you in a bit.”

When Allie returned, Dr. Dressler sat at a long table across the room from the bed. A partially unrolled scroll of paper with rows of squiggly lines on it spanned the table in front of him; an empty chair sat beside him; and Ginger sat behind, holding a small tape recorder. “Hi, Doc. How’s it look?”

“Hi, Allie. Looks really good. Certainly leaves nothing to the imagination regarding your emotional involvement. Here.” He pointed at the doughnut and bottle of juice. “Grab a bite, and we’ll get started.”

“Thanks.” Allie sat, wolfed the doughnut, chugged the juice, then looked self-consciously at Dressler and Ginger, smiled. “That wasn’t very ladylike, was it? Must be hungry.”

Ginger looked amused. “Want another doughnut?”

Sheepish, tentative grin from Allie. “Sure. Thanks.”

Dressler had his eyes on the data chart. “Dreaming must make you hungry . . . and I see why.” He pointed at the printout. “You really get involved.”

Allie looked at the lines. “Wow. Lots of activity, huh.” She wondered if the Panther had killed Isna . . . or vice versa.

“Yup. But let’s debrief while everything’s fresh in your mind, and then we’ll compare with the data.” He reached behind, took the recorder from Ginger, pressed
record
. “Allie O’Shay, dream one, July 31, 2000, nine thirty a.m., Dr. Steven Dressler and tech Ginger Johnston present.” He pushed
stop
. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Okay. Just talk like you’re telling us a story and tell everything you can remember, starting from the beginning of the first dream if you can remember it . . . also state when each dream ends and the next begins. Okay?”

She nodded.

He pressed
record
, set the recorder on the table in front of Allie.

Two and a half hours later, Allie said, “And that’s it . . .
fini
.”

Ginger blew out a long, breathy whistle. “Wow! That’s incredible. I’ve done a ton of these, and I’ve never ever seen recall like that . . . or such intimate detail. Amazing!”

Dressler looked at Allie, nodded repeatedly as if his head was locked in motion. “Allie, I thought your earlier summaries—the ones you gave me in the office—were detailed, but good grief. This was like a book reading: every word, detail, thought, feeling. I mean everything . . . it’s unfathomable.”

“Am I a freak, Doc?”

Dressler and Ginger laughed. Dressler said, “No. Not at all. There may be some kind of mutation—along the lines we discussed—that lets you dream like this, but hell no, you’re not a freak. You just have a gift that’s more astounding than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of in my entire life. That’s all.”

“Well, they’re all like that . . . and they always leave me hanging at the end . . . like we talked. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

He nodded philosophically. “Yes, it does . . . it would definitely be gratifying to get closure on each dream, but look on the positive side. You can’t sleep and dream all day and night.”

“Why not?” She smiled. “Just kidding.”

“Because if you did, the whole story would be over before we had a chance to analyze and try to validate anything. I mean, even Allie O’Shay couldn’t remember all the details if she dreamed Emily’s entire life in one or two long sleeps. So your waking up, albeit frustrating, gives us a little reaction time to try and figure out what’s going on before the next dream. What amazes me is the amount of time it took you to tell us all that . . . it was far longer, by at least an hour, than the amount of time most people spend in REM sleep each night, which means two things: you probably have more frequent and longer-than-normal REM periods, and you have near-total recall, which is completely unheard of. And your incredible recall will, of course, make correlation with the data much easier. Here, let me show you.” He stood, leaned over the table.

Allie and Ginger stood on either side of him. Allie wondered if Emily would really leave the village with Tayler after promising Elyoner she wouldn’t. He’s pressing her too hard; something’s wrong . . . but what if he’s telling the truth?

He ran his index finger across the chart. “Now the horizontal axis is time, and here on the left end”—he pointed at the vertical axis on the left edge of the strip chart—“at
time-equals-zero
. . .” He glanced at Allie, who
was staring at the wall, imagining Virginia lying motionless and clammy white in her crib. “Hello, Allie.”

“Oh . . . sorry, Doc.”

“So here at
time-equals-zero
, we have the name of each data parameter and its unit of measure. And as we proceed from left to right with time, you can see right here”—he ran his finger across the chart—“ when you’re still awake and most of the lines have some jitter in them. Then here in NREM, all of the parameters change.” He pulled the chart across the table to his left. “And here when you begin REM sleep, they all change again and show a very high—wow, incredibly high—level of activity, mental and physical involvement, and excitation.” He looked at Allie. “You really get into it.”

“I know.” She looked at him with hopeless resignation.

“And look at this.” He ran his fingers back and forth across the chart. “Your first REM occurred way sooner than normal, and—wow again— looks like you
do
have more frequent and longer REMs than normal, which gives you far more dream time than Ginger or I would have.” He looked at her, smiled. “No, Allie. You’re
not
a freak. But what’s strange is that this sort of behavior is typical of someone who’s had acetylcholine injected into their bloodstream, but it happens naturally with you.”

Mestinon will give me more. A guilty tremor raced down her back. She gave him a bored look, “Why am I not surprised? But why are my excitation levels so high?”

“Probably because your mind is right there in your dream . . . like,
physically
there; and the intensity you feel is real, lifelike, vivid . . . as if you were awake and experiencing real emotional extremes like fear, compassion, love, or whatever. Look here.” He ran his index finger across the horizontal lines. “Here’s brain wave activity, and muscle tone . . . see how tense you are . . . and heartbeat . . . same thing . . . really takes off. Probably something frightening you right here . . . and here. Look at that eye movement. It’s a fact that everyone feels desperately involved in their dreams but not to the degree that you do; and you yourself aren’t even
in
your dreams, which makes it that much more surprising.”

“I see what you mean . . . probably why I always feel wiped out when I wake up. Here, let me look at something.” Allie pulled the chart back to where she
had started dreaming, traced her finger along the bank of lines to a big, momentary blip in each parameter. “I’ll bet this is where Tryggvi was thinking about his true love back in England, when he teased her about her weird dreams. Right?”

Ginger said, “Exactly right! Look here.” She pointed to a red hash mark on the timeline at the top of the chart. “That’s what we call an event mark, and it can get there either from me punching a button or automatically if the data really go crazy. That mark is mine, and I put it there because you actually sat up and opened your eyes for half a second . . . then flopped back and immediately resumed your sleep. I knew something important had happened, so I hit the button, but it’s also possible the system beat me to it and put the mark there because the readings were so dramatic.”

Allie nodded. “Interesting. I must have been lucid because I remember twitching and sitting up. And that was because I realized Tryggvi’s Brit girl was a dreamer . . . like me . . . and Ian . . . and Emily; and we’re somehow connected, maybe related; and damn, this is cool.”

Dressler smiled at Allie. “Good work, Allie. I don’t know what’s going on yet, but I’m damn sure there’s something incredible happening, and we’re going to bust our butts to figure it out. At a glance, it looks like there’s excellent correlation between your debrief and the data. So let’s let the analysts”— he looked at his watch—“ do the detailed data correlation. They should be here any minute. Meanwhile, Ginger can go home and get some sleep, and how about you and I grab a bite somewhere and continue the discussion?”

“Sounds good.” A dour look shadowed her face. “While we’re at it, can we discuss the lab format? I had a helluva tough time last night, Doc”—she smiled at Ginger—“and I’m afraid Ginger got the worst of it. Sorry.”

Ginger shook her head, smiled. “Not to worry. All in a night’s work. It was worth it just to hear your debrief . . . got me hooked on the story.”

Dressler smiled at Ginger then looked at Allie. “Sounds good. Remind me at lunch.”

Allie took a swig of lemonade. “But when both brothers decided to ranch, well . . .
game over
. Don’t get me wrong; they’re both totally cool guys, and
we love each other as much as siblings possibly can . . . but that’s just the way it is . . . kind of
old Europe
. . . the guys get everything, and the girls do something else. But it’s okay. I understand it. So I got into psych because I was always interested in why people act the way they do . . . and here I am, a mutant eccentricity of nature—feeling alternate exhilaration and sorrow over someone else’s life, utter hopelessness and pessimism about their prospects because I know the ending, total frustration because I’m more emotionally involved with them than I’ve ever been with any person or thing in my
own
life, and guilty as hell because I can’t do a frickin’ thing to help them. Oh yeah, and I also get to look forward to a nervous breakdown, or maybe suicide, when it all comes crashing down. And that’s my story, Doc.”

Dressler displayed a classic psychologist pose: massaged his chin, studied her eyes as if trying to interpret their secrets.

Allie scowled at him. “Jeez, Doc. You’re making me feel like I’m in the shrink chair. What is it?”

“Sorry. Just thinking how this is getting you down. To be candid, I see symptoms of depression, and I know you’re not a depression-type personality. So it worries me. Trouble is . . . I don’t think it’s a therapeutically treatable problem. And I don’t think anti-depressants would help either, other than to reduce your dreaming, and that would frustrate you even more.”

Allie bristled like a she-bear with threatened cubs. “No way, Doc. I’m not stopping dreaming—no way, no how! Don’t even—”

“I know, I know”—he held up both hands—“ and I conclude the best thing we can do is what we’re doing: try to understand the dreams and then discover how to control their effects. Meanwhile, I’m afraid you may have some tough times ahead . . . but we’re going to tackle them together.” He reached across the table, patted her hand.

His touch surprised her; it lifted her spirits, brought a smile to her face. “I . . . I’m glad you’re with me . . . Steve . . . so why did Steven Dressler become
Doctor
Dressler?”

He grinned. “Well, I started out to be an engineer—mechanical—but it was too dry. And like you, I was always interested in what made people tick. Why were some people nerds and some cool; why were some nice and some mean, some generous and some selfish? So I started down the
psych path; but when I read a couple books on dreams—one by Hobson and one by Sheldrake, who I actually met once—that was it. I was hooked, entranced by the fact that we know relatively zero about this powerful thing called the human mind and nearly less than zero about dreams and their genesis and meaning. I’ve had the fever ever since; and you, my dear young lady, are an open window to their essence, and . . . and I’m very glad you’re here . . . and not just because of your dreams.” He eased into a soft, mellow smile.

Allie looked into his eyes, nodded, felt a ripple of warmth in her heart. How can you deceive him, Allie—steal, break the law, possibly destroy yourself? Don’t do it. Help him help you. No! Gotta dream more, know what happens. Emily, don’t go with Tayler. “Thanks, Doc.” She looked at him with a broody look, canted her head slightly to the right. “You make me less afraid of where this is taking me . . . this big, scary unknown . . . and I really enjoy being with you.”

Their eyes dallied a moment before he spoke. “Back at the lab you said you wanted to talk about format.”

Allie nodded.

“Well, I’m thinking we need to do this the smartest way we can, and if there’s a better way than what we’re doing, let’s look at it.”

She nodded. “Good, because I don’t like the lab environment at all. It’s too formal and I’m too self-conscious. I know we got some good data last night, but good Lord, it was painful as hell getting there, and I missed a lot while I was trying to fall asleep. That frustrates me, you know. I mean, if it was up to me, I’d sleep all day and night; but I know your thoughts on that subject, and I also know it’s not very practical. Yet I sure don’t want to miss any more than I absolutely have to, and trying to fall asleep on cue is like showing up for a retail job and punching a time clock, and it isn’t gonna work for me. So is there a way we can do this in a more natural surrounding, like home, with some kind of portable equipment?”