Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (81 page)

When she finished, she rubbed her eyes, stared at Dressler in silence while Ginger shut off the recorder.

Finally, Dressler shook his head. “Amazing . . . beyond amazing . . . so much feeling, so much detail . . . and you remember
everything
.”

Ginger shook her head. “Wow. Just wow. What a story. You couldn’t do a book or a movie this good—so gut-wrenching, so much first-hand feeling.”

“Well, it may be amazing, but I’m sad as hell right now, and all I want to do is go home and cry.”

Dressler studied the tabletop with ominously tight lips, complicated eyes.

Allie read the look, sensed another twinge of alarm. What’s he thinking?

After a protracted silence, he looked up at her. “Allie, this session has made me question the wisdom of conducting experimentation at your apartment.”

Allie’s jaw dropped; disappointment dulled her eyes. “But—”

“It’s not your ability to conduct good experimentation that I’m worried about. It’s your potentially serious, perhaps even dangerous, reactions to additional tragic events. Think about it. What if Ginger and I hadn’t been here this morning? You could have injured yourself and possibly damaged the equipment—due to no fault of your own. But it would have been a serious setback for the program.”

Allie shook her head. “Steve, I . . .”

“All I’m saying is there’s a risk, and we need to understand it and mitigate it. Like maybe we should continue here in the lab . . . or maybe Ginger or I— probably Ginger, for propriety’s sake—should be at your apartment to monitor things when you’re asleep . . . help you, if necessary. What do you think?”

Allie saw her opportunity fading away like an old echo; she suppressed an overpowering urge to cry. “Doc, I understand your concern . . . it’s valid. But first of all, I promised I’d follow your rules, and I will.” A flicker of guilt wisped through her mind. “Second, last night was a bad time, and as you acknowledged, totally unanticipated by all of us. Now that I know what
can
happen and how it can affect me, I won’t
let
it happen. I just won’t. And third, since it’s specifically the presence of other people when I’m trying to sleep that makes me self-conscious, both continuing here
and
having someone in my apartment are total nonstarters. I don’t want to eat sleeping pills for dinner every night; and unfortunately, that’s what it would take . . . just like now.” Another lie, Allie. You’re something else!

“Hmm.” He massaged his chin with his thumb and index finger, studied her face. “Well, I know you think you can control things, but we don’t know what’s going to happen to Emily; and honestly, you could reasonably have a tougher time than you did last night. That worries me.”

Allie’s insides burned like a hot branding iron. Everything’s ready. Can’t give in. “I hear you, Doc, but I simply can’t do this with other people around. Period. And who’s to say my discomfort doesn’t affect the data in some way we don’t yet realize? No, I just can’t do it, but I desperately want to continue the project. For God’s sake, at this point, my PhD depends on it. So please give me a chance.” She sighed, gave him a pleading look.

Dressler took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Okay. We’ll try it.” He glanced at Ginger, who was smiling. “And what are
you
smiling about, Ms. Ginger?”

The smile broadened. “Oh . . . nothing. Just listening.”

“Really?” He smirked like a parent hearing an obvious fib from their child. “So how’s the Stanford equipment . . . ready to go?”

“Yup. All checked out and working great.”

“Alright. Allie, if you’re up to it, why don’t we have Ginger check you out on the equipment right now. Then you can sign it out, and Ginger can go home and get some sleep. And maybe you and I can go grab a bite and talk some theory. What do you say?”

Allie nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Allie swallowed a sip of juice, stared vacantly through Dressler, thought of Emily sitting by the fire in shock, staring into its depths, desperately searching for an escape from her nightmare. Allie’s somewhat-disheveled sandy hair hung below her shoulders to the tops of her breasts, which were visible in the cleavage of her blouse. Her eyes had a sad veneer that, with her unkempt appearance, gave her an uncharacteristically helpless but sensuous look.

“Allie, you’re elsewhere . . . with Emily, no doubt.”

She blinked. “Oh. Sorry, Doc. You’re right. I’m afraid that nasty
D-word
has a grip on me right now.”

He gave her a somber psychologist look.

“I know what you think, but like you said earlier, I’m not the depression type. I’ll get through it, and knowing we’re getting after the why of this really helps.”

He nodded, but doubt lingered in his eyes. “Well, we need to watch it. Anyway, what I was asking was whether you’ve had a chance to get into the devil’s advocate stuff we talked about yesterday.”

“I’m afraid not. I wanted to start by getting a better understanding of morphic resonance, but I haven’t had a chance yet. Also wanted to check out activation synthesis and Lamarckian inheritance to see how they play. You mentioned both yesterday, but we didn’t discuss them.”

“Fair enough. They’re examples of what you were saying about several ideas nibbling on the same chunk of cheese from different sides but sometimes together. According to Hobson, activation synthesis kicks in after pro-REM neurons dominate the anti-REM neurons and REM sleep begins. The brain then strives valiantly to integrate its inputs—the same as it does for our more
focused
inputs when we’re awake. But when we’re asleep, those inputs are mostly random and
unfocused
, so it’s much more challenging for the brain to construct a sensible tale. Thus, the brain creates, or
synthesizes
, its own stories from these rather random inputs, and the result is dreams—often bizarre dreams. But in your case, the higher brain functions find
real
,
meaningful
inputs to integrate; and those inputs are
always
very
focused, which
occasionally
happens with normal people—sorry again, I didn’t mean
normal
the way it probably sounded.” He smiled, hesitated a moment, studied her amused eyes. “The question then becomes, how does
your
brain do this, and how does it do it
every
time you dream? Theory says that individual dreams can reveal specific conscious mental styles or elements of an individual’s view on something but also—and this is key— their
specific historical experiences
. But with you, those historical experiences are those of your ancestor . . . we think . . . which brings us back to morphic resonance, the collective memory, and your unique ability to summon therefrom the experiences and feelings of that ancestor. And this, in my hypothesis, suggests a unique blend of neurophysiology and genetics, which inputs a special code, passed to you by your ancestors, that grants you unique access to the collective memory—like a secret username and password to access special data.”

“Oh my God. This is fascinating.”

“It is indeed.” He studied her for a moment then continued. “So Lamarckian inheritance is the inheritance of characteristics
absorbed
by previous generations of a species, which would seem to be related to atavism—which, as we previously discussed, is the
reemergence
of long-dormant or periodically dormant
ancestral
characteristics in current generations of a species. Given that both Lamarckian inheritance and atavism are real, one must conclude that genetics play a pivotal role in your dreaming ability . . . probably that of others, as well, but in some different way. Thus, while we proceed with neural testing, which, as I’ve said, will become much more focused as our theories mature, we must also incorporate genetics into our theories and conduct focused testing there, as well.”

“Which is why they chose a psychologist-geneticist-molecular biologist-practical neuroscientist like you for this job. And here I am back in the Dark Ages.”

He smiled. “Well, I may have academic credentials, but you’re the living laboratory, the walking, talking—smart, if I may say so—vivid exemplification of every aspect of dreaming. So I’m confident we’re going to figure
this out and, in the process, learn a whole lot about how other folks dream, as well . . . and we’re going to get Allie O’Shay through it in one piece.” He searched her eyes with a look that went beyond academic esteem.

She met the look, read its intensity and meaning, felt a twinge of embarrassment but let her eyes linger.

“I’m glad I met you, Allie O’Shay.”

She forgot her embarrassment. “I was thinking the same about you . . . Steven Dressler.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay alone? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about you.”

She took a deep, trembling breath. “I’ll be alright. Thanks . . . guess I better get going.”

Allie checked her email inbox. Hmm. Nothing from Mom, surprising. Must be busy with something. Probably moving cows and had a train wreck going through that patch of timber. Call her tomorrow. She’s holding something back about Ian . . . something big . . . gotta find out what it is. She opened a file on her desktop entitled
Ian
.

        
Know:

        
•
Every 4 or 5 generations a woman in family dreams past—events, feelings, thoughts, emotions
.

        
•
Great-great-Grandma Ian last to dream—4 generations before me
.

        
•
“Ian” was Mom’s nickname for her—couldn’t pronounce real name—why not? What was it?

        
•
Ian:

        
-
Had butterfly birthmark like me—same place, shape, & size
.

        
-
Everyone thought she was crazy
.

        
-
Addicted to dreams like me
.

        
-
Had meltdowns, tried to kill herself—scary
.

        
-
Didn’t die of old age
.

        
•
Ian said:

        
-
I’d be next to dream
.

        
-
Dreams are real history, but Mom doesn’t know how she knew
.

        
-
Dreams always about family ancestors, but Mom doesn’t know how she knew—maybe why I feel so close to Emily
.

        
-
Not always of direct ancestors—some sibs—many died young = trauma for Ian and me
.

        
-
When one story ends, another follows but not right away
.

        
-
Stressful events stimulate dreams
.

        
-
Huge emotional burden
.

        
•
Concept of dreaming ancestral stuff corroborated by article about genetics, DNA—can possibly dream ancestors’ experiences
.

        
•
Mom knows how dreams end, but won’t tell me, acts like it’s bad
.

        
Don’t Know:

        
•
Ian’s real name
.

        
•
How dreamers keep dreams from dominating/ruining their lives
.

        
•
If all dreamers have birthmark
.

        
•
How Ian knew dreams were real
.

        
•
How Ian knew dreams were about ancestors—some direct, some sibs
.

        
•
If she dreamed about Em
.

        
•
How Ian died—illness? suicide? accident? drug OD???

Okay, Mom. We’re gonna hit this stuff next time we talk. If it’s bad news, I’ll handle it. Gotta know . . . but some of it we may never know . . . unless we get more data from somewhere . . . or Steve and I figure it out. She closed the file, opened her browser, typed in
symptoms of depression
, selected the top entry. She copied the content, pasted it into a new file she entitled
Depression
. Next she typed the date at the top of the page and headlined a parallel column entitled
Comments
, which she then filled in for each symptom. When she’d finished, she reviewed the list.