Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (20 page)

After the shower, Allie decided to write up some talking points about her dreams, something to use when she spoke to Doctor Jackson. Ought to have a short summary of each dream, too, in case he asks what they’re about. Oooh! Dummy! She remembered that the ostensible reason for the meeting was to explore potential stress-coping therapies related to dreaming, decided she’d better have a little meat on
those
bones, as well, so she could make a credible case for her quickly contrived hypothesis and get things started in the right direction. She’d then transition into her dream
questions—the true, unspoken reason for the meeting. Actually, she thought, my dream hypothesis isn’t too bad, maybe even halfway legitimate. Need to think about that, but meanwhile get something on paper. Then worry about the dreams.

Damn it! I never looked up that place they talked about a couple dreams back. What was it? Wrote it down somewhere. She flipped through several pieces of paper on the desk. Here it is.
Chesapeake
. She percolated with excitement as she started typing the word into her search engine; but she abruptly stopped, bit her lower lip, stared at the keyboard. In addition to being intelligent, Allie was well-imbued with common sense and discipline; and these now-instinctive attributes had just seized control of her will, convinced her to read about Chesapeake later, told her to
now
focus on preparing for her meeting.

A short time later, she finished her talking points, solidified what she thought was a clever strategy for picking the professor’s brain about her dreams without him knowing what she was doing. She then surveyed her collection of dream-related library books, which included
An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming
by Bulkeley,
The Dreaming Brain
by Hobson,
Dreamlife
by Goodwin,
Lucid Dreaming
by Waggoner, and
The Presence of the Past
and
Morphic Resonance
by Sheldrake. She had no idea why she’d picked any particular title or even what some of them meant; but they’d all come up in her search, along with myriad others, and she’d randomly selected these to review. Since she’d already started Bulkeley’s book, she decided to pick up there and take a more detailed look.

Three hours later, Allie leaned back from the computer, read through the notes she’d made. She’d put an asterisk by comments that seemed particularly pertinent to
her
dreams; and she now focused on those notes, pausing after each to analyze how they might connect with her dream characteristics.

-
*“Psychology of Dreaming”—Bulkeley—summarizes other dream theorists

                
o
Jung

                        
✓
Some of what’s in our dream comes from ancestors
.

                        
✓
The scope of the unconscious greatly exceeds the limits of our own lives
.

Now that’s interesting because my dreams have zero to do with my personal life; and this basically says some content can be inherited, and that the contents of the unconscious go way beyond what’s happened to us in our lives.
Inherited
. . .
unconscious
. Next to the entry she penned, “how, from who, why?”

                
o
Hobson—“reciprocal-interaction” theory

                        
✓
“Groups of neurons” vie with each other continuously—result is our repeating “cycles” of wake-sleep-dream
.

                        
✓
The periodic dominance of one group of neurons over the others causes the cycles
.

Reciprocal
basically means return-in-kind; so this would mean that the dominance of various neuron populations ebbs and flows, and whichever one’s dominant at a given moment determines which cycle you’re in—awake, sleeping and dreaming, or sleeping and not dreaming. Pretty logical.

                        
✓
Process happens automatically and in a repetitious manner— inherent in our physiology
.

Well, that’s interesting, too. Physiology and neurology interacting. Makes intuitive sense. Second time I’ve seen that. She looked back at her earlier notes. Yeah, it was Goodwin. Starting to sound like the psychology-science connection I’ve been looking for.

                
o
Hobson—“activation-synthesis” theory

                        
✓
After reciprocal interaction stimulates REM sleep, more-sophisticated processes in the brain integrate arbitrary input data into dreams
.

                          
•
Dreams visual because during REM certain of the brain’s “neuronal processes” activate vision receptors
.

                          
•
Dreams emotional because brain’s emotional elements are randomly stimulated
.

                          
•
Mind reacts by trying to generate sensible stories via integration of available inputs (pictures and tales)
.

So it’s all about groups of neurons competing with one another to determine the stage we’re in and then activating various receptors and systems—and feelings, too—in the brain to produce dreams. But all this is just as unproven as Freud’s stuff. Still . . .

                
o
Hall

                        
✓
We dream about things we’ve encountered when awake, such as things, personalities, and situations
.

                        
✓
The things we hope for and are afraid of in dreams do not differ from those we experience when awake
.

Nope, not me. Not with
these
dreams, anyway.

                        
✓
A succession of dreams is easier to interpret than a single dream
.

Makes sense. And I’m watching a whole story, about people I don’t know; but I feel strangely close to the girl, and it’s all unfolding in chronological sequence. And I’m certainly not seeing anything that requires interpretation. These dreams have no meaning at all—just stories with no relation to me. Makes me wonder why all these guys keep looking for hidden meanings, like Freud. Why does there have to be hidden meaning . . . or any meaning at all? Maybe some dreams just happen and tell a simple story—without deep, dark repressions or unpleasant happenings from someone’s past . . . but why so many times? Why these people? Why me? But maybe there
is
meaning, and maybe that’s where the answer is.

                
o
Foulkes

                        
✓
Dreams not crazy, spurious things. On the contrary, they’re quite organized
.

Mine sure are.

                        
✓
Since dreams appear to incorporate recollections from our near-and far-term experiences, they might assist us in recalling and blending certain types of memory
.

Hmm. She reread the statement. So, what if my dreams are from something stashed away in the deep recesses of my memory rather than being something I’ve repressed? But how would they have gotten there? I’ve
never, ever
seen or read anything like what’s in these dreams. And what would have caused them to surface? Crazy. But wait a minute. She looked back at the top of the page to Jung’s theory.

                        
✓
Some of what’s in our dream comes from ancestors
.

                        
✓
The scope of the unconscious greatly exceeds the limits of our own lives
.

Wonder if there’s a connection between Jung’s and Foulkes’ theories. She looked at her notes on Jung—
comes from ancestors—exceeds the limits of our own lives
, then Foulkes—
near- and far-term experiences
. She penned a note: “What are his
far-term experiences?
How far is
far-term
? Is it far enough to be ancestral?” Now that’s
really
something to think about.

                
o
Belicki

                        
✓
Sleep lab subjects seem to have greater “dream recall.”

                        
✓
Stress appears to increase dream recall
.

                        
✓
People with better imaginations & enhanced capability to visualize and create when awake seem to have better recall
.

Don’t know about labs, but the other two sure fit; and
this
is my stress connection for the dissertation: if someone is stressed from something, they should have greater dream recall, which means we should be able to analyze their dreams more easily and accurately, figure out how they relate to their particular stress generator, and finally, use that knowledge to develop a coping strategy that helps them. “Yes! Good job, O’Shay!”
She reached around and patted herself on the shoulder. I think you’re onto something, kiddo. She looked away from the desk, let her mind run for a moment. But why am I having
these
dreams? Well . . . they
did
start right after the fight with Erik—an unqualified stressful event, but—her heart suddenly accelerated; a warm glow tickled the back of her head and neck. Haven’t thought of him today, wonder how he’s doing. Really want to see him, but . . . but better give it more time. She looked at her watch. Time for one last look.

-
*“Morphic Resonance”—Sheldrake

                
o
“Formative causation” proposes that “nature is habitual”—creatures and things of a species both take from and give to a “collective memory of their species.”

Wow.
Collective memory of their species
. Hmm. There it is again. She penned, “like Jung’s collective unconscious?” And
memory
, like Foulkes said. Could all of our memories be floating around out there somewhere in a collective
memory
of our species? If they’re out in space somewhere, I have the same question I had with Jung’s collective
unconscious
: how do we access specific things? And what happens to our memories when we die? Do they go with us, or do they stay in the collective memory? I think Sheldrake’s saying they stay in the collective. She shook her head several times. Starting to hurt. Last one.

                
o
“Memory is inherent in nature”—communicated via “morphic resonance,” which uses “morphic fields” to do so
.

So morphic fields, whatever
they
are, transmit memory. Another memory connection; but damn it, I’ve never seen the stuff I’m dreaming before. Never, never, never! So how could it be in my memory . . . but what about someone else’s memory . . . that I have access to? Wow! She looked at her watch. Whoops! Gotta go.

He looks like a bird, Allie thought, a blue jay to be exact—hair on top all pushed back, some of it sticking straight up—weird-looking guy. Also has that
I’ve-got-a secret-and-you-can’t-know-it
look so many professors seem to acquire, thinks he’s really important and wants me to know it. Pinhead!

“ . . . and I’m very busy and don’t have much time, so let’s get on with your questions. Your advisor, Jackie Russell, who’s a good friend, said you wanted to talk about dreams.”

“Yes, Sir, I do. First, thanks for finding time to talk to me, I—”

“You’re welcome, now let’s get on with the questions.” He glanced at his watch then his calendar.

Asshole, thought Allie. Just what I expected, but bite your tongue, O’Shay. “Yes, Sir.” Allie quickly briefed him on her basic dissertation topic, noticed how he displayed all the personality, emotion, and feeling of a door knob; a shrink through and through, she thought. After she had laid out the dream connection she wanted to explore, she paused to let him comment; but he said nothing, kept his eyes fixed on the floor beside her, except for another quick glance at his watch.

Allie looked at the floor to see what he was looking at, saw nothing, decided he was thinking about something else: probably all the papers he had to grade, or how neat it was to be tenured. Tool! Pissing me off.

After a protracted silence, during which Allie expected him to pontificate but was disappointed, he finally said, “Sounds reasonable. What do you want from me?”

Allie’s hackles were at maximum pitch. “Well, I’d like to get your thoughts on an example of how I’d implement the dream connection.”

He gave her a single, impatient nod she interpreted as, “Get on with it.”

She clenched her fists, felt her blood sizzling, pumping in overdrive. “Okay.”

He studied the floor again, which convinced Allie he thought of the meeting as a shrink session, imagined she was his patient. “So let’s suppose a patient had a series of dreams with the following characteristics: first, a series of five or six dreams, and all of the dreams were extremely vivid and followed the same scenario.”