Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (71 page)

“Yeah.”

“Well, what if
he’s
the one we’re descended from, not Emily? What if he came to America with a later colony, looking for Emily and his father? I mean, couldn’t that happen?”

Allie hesitated. “Yes . . . it could. But from what we think right now, he would have carried the dreaming gene dormantly . . . because he’s male.” Allie’s confidence evaporated like a raindrop in a forest fire. She’d never considered such a possibility, at once recognized the sharply higher likelihood of its occurrence than Emily’s surviving the colony’s known demise. She felt as if a scorpion had stung her heart; her mind tumbled in confusion.

“Sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to . . .”

A tiny tear rose in each of Allie’s eyes. “Mom, it’s . . . it’s okay.” She sniffled. “You may be right . . . but I have to dream about Emily until the end . . . no matter what it is, and”—she looked at her watch—“I need to head for the lab, Mom, so—”

“Wait a sec. Dad wants to talk to you.”

Allie’s heart calmed then warmed with anticipation. She closed her eyes.

“Hi, Baby. Mom tells me you’re having some tough times right now. Are you okay?”

Allie spoke in a glum tone. “Hi, Dad. Yeah, I’ll make it . . . I think. Damn. I haven’t talked to you for so long. I really miss you, Dad.” The eternal adoration Allie felt for her father flowed like warm blood to her heart and mind, filled her eyes with tears.

“And I miss you, Allie . . . more than you’ll ever know . . . wish my right-hand gal was here beside me.” He hesitated. “Hang tough, kiddo, and—hey, do you remember the time when you were about seven, and you did something you were real worried about, then you kept it secret for a week, held it inside, got upset, and were desperately afraid we’d find out? Remember that?”

Allie smiled through her tears. “Yes, I do, Dad.”

“And Mom and I sensed something was going on, and then you and I took a long walk up on the mountain and sat together on that big boulder up there. And I asked you what was wrong; and you suddenly burst out crying, fell into my arms; and I held you on my lap, hugged you, and rocked you back and forth for half an hour. Remember?”

Tears cascaded down Allie’s cheeks; her voice squeaked, “Yes.”

“Well, maybe you’re suffering through that same kind of moment now, and I’m frustrated as hell that I’m not there holding you in my arms again, helping you through it. And I want you to know that I love you with all my heart and soul and miss you more than I can ever say. Know that I’m with you, will
always
be with you, have a special bond with you, and will do anything to help you. Please, Allie Girl, be wise in what you do; do the right thing as you always have, and be my girl. I love you.”

Allie’s heart swelled with angst and guilt, like an over-filled balloon ready to pop. “Thanks, Dad. I love
you
. . . Dad, I’m sorry . . . I miss you so much . . . head ’em up, move ’em out! Bye, Dad.” She hung up, lowered her face to her hands, let her tears flow.

Dressler said, “Well, Allie, you told her right. Though they don’t seem to dream like you, the males in the family quite probably carry the gene. So yes, it’s possible that you’re descended from Emily’s brother rather than
her
; but it also appears you’re going to dream about Emily until the end of her story, whatever and whenever it turns out to be; and as your mom told you sometimes happened to Ian, the ending could be unhappy . . . even if she
is
your ancestor. I know that’s a disconcerting thought; but based on the history, it would seem possible. Remember though, so far we’re dealing only with theories here and don’t know anything for sure . . . yet.”

Allie stared at him with despairing eyes and a faraway look. Her mind swirled as she tried to fathom life without Emily, concluded that she could
not
and that Emily would therefore survive. Great logic, O’Shay. “Okay. What will be, will be. So what’s next?”

“Well, I spent some time reviewing theories—some pretty interesting and potentially applicable stuff—which, by the way, you should begin delving into, as well. You know, it’s funny. I’ve read this stuff lots of times before, but the context added by your involvement and capabilities is astounding in terms of the life, realism, and perspective injected into what were previously dry, lifeless theories on a piece of paper . . . like a jigsaw puzzle of a map, where you can write a name and location on each piece of
the puzzle until you identify them all and put them together.” He shook his head. “For sure, we’re only beginning, but I couldn’t be more excited about where we’re going.”

Allie forced a smile.

“There seems to be a fair amount of acceptance as to
what
happens, but the theories focus mostly on
how
it happens, and there’s some divergence there. But although there are divergences, there also appear to be connecting threads that draw theories together. And as I’ve said, what we need to do is weave the right threads together into the best possible theory and then focus our analysis on testing it.”

“So which ones did you look at?”

“Morphic resonance, formative causation, activation synthesis, and Lamarckian inheritance, but mostly the first two.”

“Let’s see, I’ve read a little about morphic resonance . . . that’s Sheldrake, isn’t it?”

“Correct, Ms. O’Shay.”

She nodded. “And didn’t he basically say that all flora and fauna, wherever and whenever, withdraw from and input to—how did he put it . . . oh yeah—a
collective memory of their species
? And didn’t he also say that memory of previous generations is part of nature and integrated with it?”

“He did indeed. And he believes it’s the result of a theory called
formative causation
, which suggests that organisms are ‘influenced and stabilized’ by
all previous
generations of the same organisms, whenever or wherever.”

“Okay, so what does that mean?”

“It
is
a little obtuse first time through, so let’s start with an example. When an animal of species
A
learns something—a hunting technique, for instance—we know that later members of the same species, under like circumstances,
worldwide
, and without any sort of contact with the first animal, will learn the same technique, but faster. And the greater the number of animals that learn the technique initially,
wherever
they are, the quicker the learning of the subsequent members occurs,
everywhere
.”

Allie looked at him quizzically. “Wow! You mean it just happens . . . with no physical contact . . . but how?”

“According to Sheldrake, via
morphogenesis
—in my words, the genesis of characteristics and shape in living organisms.
Characteristics
would be
instinctive behavior
, such as that displayed by the animals learning the hunting technique; and
shape—
he calls it
form
—is the outer look and internal
structure
of something, like a cell, a plant, an animal, or even a galaxy— pretty amazing concept.” He paused for a breath. “Now, Sheldrake describes form and characteristics in terms of
morphic units
, which are unique to each form or characteristic. Think of
morphic
as meaning
to-do-with-form
or
to-do-with-characteristics
.”

“Okay.”

“Then, he says things called morphic
fields
organize the morphic
units
through a process called morphic
resonance
.”

Allie’s eyes bloomed with mixed interest and bewilderment. “Too much
morphic
. What’s it all mean?”

He nodded. “Okay. Let’s start with morphic
fields
. They’re influential fields, like gravitational, electrical, quantum, or electromagnetic fields, in that you can’t see them, but you know they’re there. They
organize
the basic structure and patterns of activity of their morphic
units—
somewhat like earth’s gravity, a morphic
field
, determines what the atmosphere, a morphic
unit
, looks and acts like.”

“And how do they do that?”

“That’s where morphic
resonance
comes in. According to Sheldrake, morphic
resonance
affects and actually steadies the morphic
field
s—and this is the most important part—it steadies the morphic fields with
resonance
, or
synchronizing
, if you will, by all earlier, comparable morphic units,
without regard for time and space
—like the animal hunting-technique example. Now that’s one powerful concept, and he says it’s the process by which the
past
influences and actually becomes the
present
within morphic fields.”

Allie stared at him for a moment, her lips parted but wordless. “I think I get it, but what makes the resonance
by all earlier, comparable morphic units
happen? Like, what
physically
makes the past become the present?” She smiled. “As they say, the devil’s always in the details.”

“I love your critical thinking, Allie. To begin with, morphic resonance seems to happen all by itself—there are four theories on
how
. Again from
Sheldrake, but in my words: the first is sort of like the old time travel idea, where people go through some kind of
warp
that circumvents space and time and lands them in some other age and/or place. Second is via some as yet unknown level of existence or consciousness. Third is through some kind of wormhole. And last, maybe the morphic presence of the past is always here and everywhere else, and all around us; in which case, a specific instance of the morphic presence of the past, and its
present
system, would somehow have to find each other and merge.”

Allie whistled softly. “And your favorite is?”

He laughed. “It’s all a giant extrapolation from the world of organisms to the human body and mind, but why not? And if we take that leap, the basic paradigm is that through formative causation,
all the memories and experiences of our ancestors
are morphic units organized by morphic fields, stabilized by morphic resonance; and therefore, all those ancestral memories and experiences become part of our present . . . whether or not we know they’re there. And to your question,
I
think it happens via the fourth possibility I mentioned—the morphic presence of the past is right here and everywhere else all the time—and that thought, by the way, meshes rather nicely with Jung’s theory of the
collective unconscious
, which we agreed we’d henceforth refer to as the collective
memory
. Also recall that the collective unconscious is where Jung believed all those ancestral memories and experiences reside. So the operative question
then
becomes, if the morphic presence of the past is
right here and everywhere all the time
, and it and the
present
system need to find each other and integrate, how the hell do they do that?”

Allie waved her hand like a first grader. “I know, I know! By having something like my ability to dream the past.”

Dressler pointed at her. “Bingo! I think you and any others with your gift somehow have the ability to reach out and grab, or find, all this knowledge and experience, feeling, thought, desperation—the morphic presence of the past—of your ancestors, that’s floating out there, perhaps in the collective memory, and instantly pull it into the present; and meanwhile, the rest of us aren’t even aware it exists. In other words, it’s functionally inaccessible unless you have the right search software and inputs to find it and download it. And Allie O’Shay has that . . . but the rest of us don’t,
except for occasional instances where smidgeons of information somehow randomly slip through to us.”

“I love it.”

“And somewhere in here, we need to address the possibility of something very special also going on with your family’s genetics . . . and perhaps the possible mutation we discussed that enables some women in your family to express those genetics by dreaming like you do, every fourth generation or so, while the others can’t. So, we’ll also do some genetic analysis on you and your family to explore what’s there, but I’m getting way ahead of myself. You know, Allie, we’re barely scratching the surface of the relationship between the brain-mind, genetics, psychology, molecular cell biology, and physiology, and we’re going to have to delve into them all to get just an inkling of what’s
really
happening. But I think we have a start; and I’ve got to say, it’s intoxicating.”

Excitement percolated in Allie’s eyes; her smile was broader, deeper, and more consuming than any she had worn since her dreams began. “It’s like several ideas nibbling on the same chunk of cheese from different sides, but sometimes together. This is totally cool, Doc.”

He smiled. “Good. I’m glad you’re turned on because I have an assignment for my only PhD candidate . . . for her spare time.” He handed her two books:
Morphic Resonance
by Sheldrake and
The Dreaming Brain
by Hobson. “I’m betting you already have these from the library, but take
these
copies and mark them up at will. The assignment is as follows. First, I’d like you to carefully read
Morphic Resonance
with the doubting, jaundiced eye of a devil’s advocate. I want you to challenge every assumption, every leap of faith, anything that sounds like arm waving. We’ll have to defend our work, both to the research committee and to the world; and you, Allie O’Shay, will have to convince your PhD committee that we’re on solid theoretical ground.”