Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (21 page)

He shook his head in a slow, continuous motion; his face projected acute boredom and impatience.

“Second, the dreams had very real, movie-like features; third, they were extremely intense; fourth, the dream persons were all unrecognized.”

The head shaking continued; he rolled his eyes.

Allie wanted to scowl at him, stand, and walk out. “Fifth, the dream dialogue actually made sense and was accompanied by taste and smell; sixth, dream light was in color.”

Jackson checked his watch again.

Allie felt like a volcano seconds from eruption, decided to de-stress with a pithy insult. “I’m sorry, Doctor Jackson, I should have asked. Are you familiar with these dream terms I’m using? You seem rather uncomfortable.”

He looked at her with a surprised, insulted look. “Of course, I am. Go on.”

She nodded, wondered how badly she’d pissed him off, decided she’d blundered badly, hadn’t learned what she’d come to learn. She unexpectedly thought of Emily showing off her knowledge to White the first night on the island, wondered why she’d thought of it, then smirked imperceptibly at the similarity. “Okay. So for seventh, let’s say the dream frequency was every night and always featured the same people and the same scenario; but eighth, the dreams progressed in real-time sequence, like a movie
during
the dream, but faster-than-real-time
between
dreams; and last—”

He emitted a couple of condescending groans. “There are no such dreams as you describe, especially with the same scenario, format, and sequence. Dreams have no order; they’re largely haphazard, definitely not repeatable in the scenario sense; and continuing stories simply don’t happen. So I’m afraid your underlying premise is flawed, which, therefore, from the outset, undermines the validity of what you’re trying to prove. In all candor, Ms. . . . uh. I’m sorry. What was your name again?”

“O’Shay. Allie O’Shay.” Jerk!

“Oh, yes. So, Ms. O’Shay, if I were on your dissertation committee and you presented what you’ve just told me, I’d tell you to find another topic.”

Allie’s heart sank like a loose anchor. Well, she thought, at least he was honest and gave me what I came to find out—psychologists, at least this
one, don’t think dreams like mine are possible. But I didn’t think they were possible either . . . before they happened. And now I know they are, so I’m not letting go. “I understand, Sir. Have you, by chance, heard of
far country dreams
, or dream theorists like Hobson or Goodwin or Sheldrake?” She was totally winging it now, her knowledge less than skin deep.

“Actually, I have. But their theories are only quaint thoughts at this point—no proof. Far country dreams? Maybe. But I’m pretty much a Freudian traditionalist—psychoanalytic approach and all that, if you know what I mean.”

Allie nodded. “Well, those guys clearly do
not
subscribe to Freud’s theories, so I’m not real sure why you do. There’s no proof for Freud’s stuff either.” She felt reckless, enjoyed pushing his limits, pricking his sense of academic security and superiority. “But for the sake of discussion, what if I could prove that someone—let’s say a patient—
did
have dreams like I described. And let’s suppose they’d also been subject to a great deal of stress—certainly, you know that people dream more and remember more when they’re under stress?”

He suddenly looked more interested, perhaps even impressed. “I’ve heard such . . . even that it’s somewhat proven.”

“And what if, by eliciting good leads and information from the stressed-out patient, I could discern, trace, and relate the content of those dreams to some Freudian-like repressed thoughts, sexual or otherwise, or to some series of events the patient had witnessed or experienced, or perhaps both?”

He focused his eyes, which held a glimmer of new interest, on Allie’s. “Go on.”

She felt encouraged. “So the idea would be to use that connection between dream details, repressed thoughts or desires,
and/or
witnessed or experienced events, to identify and isolate the factors causing the patient’s stress. Then we could diagnose the causes of the factors and mitigate them, to help the patient cope with or eliminate their stress. That’s it.” Allie felt liberated, de-stressed, satisfied, thought she’d made a good case.

He continued to study her with a deadpan, unblinking look, his mind clearly spinning like a top.

“Obviously, I haven’t nailed this down yet, and that’s why I’m talking to you . . . so I can get ideas to flesh it out. Because in spite of what you believe, I actually know someone who has dreams like I described, and they aren’t a wacko or a druggy either.”

After a long, unsettling minute, he said, “You know, Ms. O . . . O . . . was it O’Shay?” He broached a smile, his first of the meeting.

She nodded.

“Uncommon name. Anyway, I think you may be onto something worthwhile here. I still have doubts that dreams such as you describe actually occur, but if you truly have firsthand knowledge of such, I’ll have to respect that. It doesn’t really matter anyway because even commonplace, haphazard dreams could be used—admittedly to a lesser degree—to do what you suggest, and I
do
realize that this dream connection is only a subset of your overall topic. I must tell you, however, that others have tried similar approaches—all with little success. So, in the interest of originality, which is of course paramount for a dissertation, I’d recommend you focus the dream part of your research on figuring out how to discover, define, and analyze patients’ dream
details
well enough to use them in the manner you describe. That’s the long pole in the tent because people who have serious stress problems are often extremely difficult to elicit accurate information from. Same goes for repressed feelings. But I suspect that once you define the dream meanings and details, the job of tracing to repressed feelings will go smoother. So I must admit, I’m intrigued . . . as Jackie is.”

Allie tingled all over as she nodded in unison with each of his statements, realized she was starting to like him, and actually felt guilty for being over-reactive and rude.

“So let me suggest this. It turns out that your timing is excellent because there’s a highly regarded psychologist who’s just been named the Endowed Chair of Dream Science here, with the express purpose of putting the university on the world map in the field of dream science. I know he’s into the modern theorists you mentioned; and though I may not agree with some of what he believes, he certainly comes with very impressive credentials: a PhD in psychology, PhD in combined genetics and molecular biology as they relate to genomics, as well as considerable additional study and
practical experience in neuroscience—in other words, all the right tools to be a game changer in dream science, and—”

“Excuse me, Sir, what’s an
endowed chair
? I’m not familiar with that term.”

“That’s not surprising because we’ve never had one here before. It’s an honorary position tied to an endowment that’s funded by a combination of the university, private individuals, firms, and foundations. He’ll focus almost exclusively on dream research but will probably give a guest lecture now and then. Actually, he gave a guest lecture here last year, which is how this all got started.”

“I went to a guest lecture last year on unexplored powers of the mind, and the guy talked a lot about dreams. What’s his name?”

“Steven Dressler, but—”

“That’s him. That’s the guy. I remember now.” Allie’s heart felt light, airy, halfway to the ceiling, dragging her body in tow. It had been Dressler who completely reoriented her interest in psychology, turned her fancy from clinical psychology to investigative science of the mind, perhaps to dream research itself.

“Well, what I was going to tell you is that he’s giving another guest lecture tomorrow, and it might be worth your while to go see what he has to say. I’ve met him, and if you want, I’ll ask him to chat with you for a few minutes after the lecture or some other time.”

Allie looked like a young child on Christmas morning, eyes aglow, eager anticipation beaming from her broad smile. Finally, some hope, she thought. God, make him talk to me, tell me what’s happening with these dreams. “Oh my God, yes. Please, Doctor Jackson. That would be wonderful. Thanks so much. I’ll sign up to attend as soon as I leave. Thank you. Thank you.”

After signing up for Dressler’s lecture, Allie sent Doctor Jackson a thank you note for his help. Filled with hope, she then typed a summary of every detail she could remember from each of her five dreams: names, settings,
conversations, feelings, events. The summaries read like an outline for a novel; she shook her head when she read them. How can this be? How can it happen like this? Dear God, please let him help me; he’s my only hope. Jackson had emailed her that Dressler would look for her after the lecture and would be happy to meet with her; though like everyone else around there, he had limited time. Her disposition brightened; she felt a surge of excitement, imagined Dressler saying, “Oh, yes, people have had dreams like this for eons; they’re very well documented and are the result of . . .”

As Allie waited for her mother to arrive, she again flipped through her notes and dream summaries. Halfway through, her butterfly birthmark began to itch; the feeling of foreboding again swept her mind. Something’s gonna happen, she thought, but what? Is it here in this world or in the dreams? She shuddered as the feeling intensified.

She’d long since learned to respect and believe her feelings of foreboding. Though infrequent, they were powerful, sometimes overwhelming, always unnerving and scary, and almost always valid. She’d had them the day her grandfather died, again on the day her horse dumped her and broke her arm, yet again when she had a serious car wreck back in undergraduate school, and most recently, a month ago when she hurt her knee playing soccer and required arthroscopic surgery. There had been many other cases, some serious, some not so serious; but she believed the feelings implicitly, listened intently when they spoke. Yet, there had also been times when nothing had happened. She’d pondered and wrestled with the
why
of it, finally concluded that the feelings were about things that
could
happen. And some
had
happened, while others had been precluded by her or someone else’s freewill interventions—like Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol
, with the Ghost of Christmas Future. Regardless, she always paid attention and exerted great care in everything she did when foreboding wormed its way into her mind.

She finally decided that her current premonition of evil was about the dreams, resolved not to have them that night, but had no idea how to prevent them. For the first time, she realized the dreams had insidiously worked their way into her psyche, generated an irresistible curiosity that she now interpreted as incubating addiction. She decided the dreams had sucked her
in, hooked her like a good TV series, and created a thirst to know what would happen next. “What am I gonna do? I’m scared as hell that something bad’s gonna happen, but I’ve gotta know what happens next.” Damn it, I really
am
crazy.

Having acknowledged that she now
had
to dream, she wondered how she could dream
more
to avoid missing so much between dreams. REM sleep is when you dream, she recalled, so how can I increase REM sleep? Hmm. Lots of melatonin? Not so effective, but maybe. Sleeping pills? Yeah, but side effects suck. What else? Nothing. So I need to research ways to increase REM. “Good Lord! What am I doing?” I’m talking about taking drugs to dream more so I can scare the dickens out of myself with a story about a bunch of people I don’t even know, somewhere back in history. She smiled sheepishly. But I’m
getting
to know them. She suddenly felt like a young girl who’d had sex a few times, realized she loved it, and been determined to be indiscriminately promiscuous as often as she could. “What are you doing, O’Shay?”

She checked her watch. Mom’ll be here soon. Can’t wait to hear what’s on
her
mind, but I don’t think I can tell her what’s on
mine
. Oh! Need to look up that place name. What was it? Oh yeah,
Chesapeake
. She typed it into her browser then clicked on
Chesapeake Bay
.

Chesapeake Bay lies inland from the Atlantic Ocean and is the largest body of its type in the US. The northern bay is within Maryland, the southern portion within Virginia, and more than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the bay’s 64,299-square-mile drainage basin.The bay is approximately 200 miles long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean, and is 2.8 miles wide at its narrowest and 30 miles at its widest. It was once the home of the Chesapeake Indians, who lived at the south end of the bay, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. English colonists settled in the same vicinity in the 1600s
.

“Oh my God!”

The doorbell rang. Allie’s mother opened the door, poked her head into the room. “Hi, Allie.”

“Hey, Mom, come in.” She stood, glanced yearningly at the computer screen, then sighed as she turned away and walked into the living room.