Dreamside (6 page)

LUCID
   
DREAMERS

Lucid
dreamers are subjects who, while dreaming,

are
also capable
of becoming aware that they are

dreaming
and in
certain cases capable of controlling

the
direction of
their dreams. Volunteers who have

experienced
this
phenomenon are required to participate in practical research experiments under
the

supervision
of the
Department of Psychology
.

The poster, hand-written in bold
red marker pen, was displayed
in the main
university concourse, and Lee was pretending to read it. He was pretending to
read it so that he could stand next to Ella, the girl with the spray-on blue
jeans. She was also studying the poster, and he had to strain to hear the words
she was speaking to her friend. Lee stood close enough to take in her scent of
patchouli, baby soap, unruly pheromones and warm apple-blossom skin. He had
spotted her once before, in the university library. He'd been dozing over his
reading, and his first sight of her had been enough to make him leave tooth
marks in De Quincey's
Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
How was
anyone expected to study?  So when he'd seen her here he'd had to go and
stand behind her. He still hadn't thought of anything sparkling to say, when
she turned from the poster and walked right into him.

"Sorry," he said. It was his best line.

But
she and her friend had
gone,
leaving Lee defeated and
slumped against the noticeboard. When he recovered he was able to read the
poster for himself. He thought he was probably not a lucid dreamer (whatever
animal that might be), but he had heard Ella saying that she was going and
guessed that he could always do a good job of pretending; at least until he was
found out, or for as long as it took to get on coffee-bar terms with Ella,
whichever came first.

So why not?
He set off across the university lawns. Spring was on him like a drug, as if
the air was full of music, there until you tried to stop and make it out.
Spring in the air, like the confirmation of a rumour.

Lee
arrived at the small seminar room in a state of high anticipation. About a
dozen people, none of whom he knew, sat around in a rough circle. Ella wasn't
there. They sat whispering to each other while on one isolated chair, hands
folded on his lap and gazing with expressionless interest at the floor, sat the
Head of the Department of Psychology, Professor L. P. Burns.

Now
nearing retirement, Burns had led a distinguished but unspectacular academic
career, making a number of suitably perplexing contributions to educational
psychology and parapsychology, although he always maintained that the latter
interest ranked only as a hobby. He wore a drab mottled green suit. His hair
was thin and his skin stretched like parchment across his face, but his eyes
were alert, and the angular characteristic of his features dissolved easily
when he smiled.

Lee
was already thinking about how he could get out of this when the professor
suddenly spoke as if he were addressing a full lecture theatre. "It is
some five minutes after the appointed time. I don't think we are going to be
joined by many more, given that we compete with the thousand and one delights
offered by the university on such a spring evening, so we will make a start.
But even as I speak I see I am to be contradicted. Come in, ladies, do come in."

Two
girls hovered doubtfully behind the open door—Ella and her companion. They
stepped into the room. Ella wore a black beret and black tights, and took a
seat opposite Lee, crossing her legs as she sat down. Lee crossed his.

"Excellent,"
declared the professor, passing a list around the circle for everyone to sign.
"This is almost a better turn-out than I get at my lectures." A
polite titter went around the circle.

"Are
any of you psychology students? I don't recognize anyone."If any of them
were, they didn't own up.

"Excellent
again!" said the professor. "We might just get some intelligent
contributions."
Another polite titter, dying after a
single circuit.
"So, you are all lucid dreamers? Yes? No? You all
spend your nights dreaming lucidly in your beds? Yes? No?" He looked
around jovially from face to
embarrassed
face. With no
answer forthcoming he continued. "What is required is a corpus of willing
volunteers, such as yourselves, prepared to take part in a scientific,
accurately documented piece of research into the interesting subject of lucid
dreaming; a phenomenon which, however commonplace it may seem to you," he
smiled at Lee, "is not, after all, experienced by many of us. I for
example am not a lucid dreamer. Unlike you I have never experienced the what to
me would be thrilling prospect of controlling, manipulating, directing or
merely influencing the course of my dreams; nor even the sensation of knowing
that what I am experiencing is a dream, and of therefore being able to say to
myself that shortly I will awake from this dream into another reality."

"Excuse
me," a girl with an Irish accent said shyly, "I'm not sure whether
I'm a lucid dreamer or not."

"We'll
come on to that," said Burns. "What I would like to establish first
is whether the people here would be prepared to make the necessary commitments
involved. The research must be scientifically handled and this will involve
keeping diaries of your dream experiences, the introduction of certain
exercises into your dreaming and the faithful participation in a weekly evening
seminar, hopefully in more convivial surroundings than this, for the further
discussion and exploration of your respective dream studies and experiences. Of
course this will require a certain discipline, something which I find to be
rather a dirty word amongst today's students."

Another
snigger went around the room, but it was arrested at the boy sitting on Lee's
immediate left, a dark-haired youth with deep-set eyes and a chinful of
stubble. "How much will we be getting paid?" he demanded.

"A good question.
Let's clear that up without further delay. And you are . . . ?"

"Brad,"
said the boy, rather taken aback at the professor's smiling response, "or
rather Brad Cousins."

"Well
now Brad, or rather Brad Cousins, we must get that matter straightened out
before there is any confusion. I hope not to disillusion you by saying that
there is no payment. No, on the contrary, the principle involved is similar to
that of the donor system at the medical centre; only it's not your blood or
your semen we are after, it's your dreams."

This time a laugh did a couple of
circuits. Brad shrugged.

"For
incentive," the old academic continued, "the departmental budget might
be seen to extend to the provision of a glass of wine and a dice-shaped piece
of cheese or two at our weekly gathering, and possibly even to an end of term
dinner party; beyond that we offer but the thrill of the intellectual hunt, in
the hopefully not vain speculation that Mr. Cousins and the rest of you will be
stimulated and satisfied by this more metaphysical payoff."

"Glad
I don't have to go to his fucking lectures," Cousins whispered at Lee.

Lee
broke his gaze, which had hitherto been fixed on the tiny Himalaya of Ella
Innes's kneecap. Ella's own attention was concentrated upon the professor, and
her face had already assumed the irritating expression of
the disciple
at the feet of the avatar.

"Let's
see what we've got," said the professor clasping his hands together and
indicating the person on his right. "Let's go wither-shins—why do you
think you are a
lucid
dreamer?"

Each person
was invited to summarize their experiences. Lee was relieved that he was not
obliged to go first.
Most simply declared that they were
often vaguely or partially aware while dreaming that they were in a dream
state.
One or two sometimes felt able to influence the direction their
dreams were taking. Ella spectacularly declared that she had, on occasion, been
clearly able to control the course of her dreams, but she was outdone by Brad's
contribution, for it was Brad who asserted, almost with disdain, that he was
sometimes able to reactivate a dream from a previous night.

"Like putting a tape into a
cassette," said Burns.

"Almost," said Cousins.

"I
think I'm probably a possible lucid dreamer, or perhaps a half-lucid
dreamer," said the Irish girl.

"I
think it probable that that's possibly enough for you to be of great interest
to this company," Burns replied, with exaggerated gallantry.

When it was
Lee's turn to speak, with all eyes sharply focused on him, he became acutely
self-conscious. Ella leaned forward, her lips parted and her eyes expectant—a
solicitous fascination she had offered to all contributions short and long but
which touched him like acid on litmus. He parroted a few words stolen from one
of the earlier speakers, unexciting remarks about occasional awareness. Ella
fell back in her seat. Lee felt as though he'd had his testicles calibrated
and was found lacking.

"But I
do sometimes have premonitions," he almost shouted as an afterthought,
hoping the lie would rekindle some interest. Lee glanced over at Ella. It had
done the trick. She smiled at him briefly.

"A
different matter," said the professor, "but one which I predict will
be interesting to test."

"Would
you mind if I talked to the chaplain before agreeing to go ahead with these
experiments?" asked one girl. "Only I would like his reassurance that
I'm not, you know,
dabbling."

"Dabbling?
Hmmm. Talk to the chaplain by all means; I'm sure he will let you dream with
his blessing." The professor suppressed a smile.
"Any
further questions?
None?
Good. Start keeping a
diary of your dreaming. I don't want you to do anything unusual, just make a
daily record of the scenario and figures of your dreams. Concentrate on detail.
I want no interpretation, thank you very much: Messrs Freud, Adler, Jung and
all those other old bores are not invited to the party and will be regarded as
gatecrashers. For this week I simply want you to find your way into the habit
of recording. That's all.
Nothing arduous in that.
You
may or may not find that this in itself begins to have an effect. If you don't
dream, write clearly in your diary that you were unable to recall your dream
but that it is your intention to recall subsequent dreams. A small tip: set
your alarm clocks half an hour earlier than you normally wake. We will, if at
all serious about this, make a few sacrifices. We shall meet at the same time
every week, for a slightly longer period, having more to talk about.
All clear?"

Everything was clear.

"So."
The
professor got up and walked to the door. Before closing the door behind him he
turned and looked back. "Sweet dreams," he said darkly.

The
students pushed back their chairs and made movements towards the door.

"Anyone going for a drink?"
Brad shouted.

"I
could go for that," said Lee, looking encouragingly towards Ella and her
friend.

Ella,
along with the rest of the students, shuffled out without replying. Bollocks,
thought Lee.

TWO

Youth,
which is forgiven everything,

forgives
itself nothing

—George Bernard Shaw

Brad
Cousins was exercising his favourite habit of speaking
to
one person as if they were a gathering often. Lee was
his audience. Against the backdrop of the student bar, pinball tables
chattering, crack of pool balls striking and muted Stones' classics piped
through a stuttering PA system, Lee was regaled with an accumulating list of
Brad's personal antipathies. He was half-way down a pint of flat amber beer by
the time he had been instructed on Brad's aversion to basketball, brazil nuts
and beehive hairdos, his detestation of Liverpudlians, lavender perfume and
loose-leaf ring-binders, his hatred of trade unions, tapioca and television
journalists. Lee groaned inwardly at the thought of another dismal half-pint's
worth of cataloguing before he could make his excuses and leave.

"She's
dirty," cackled Brad, breaking off from his inventory of rancour, "I
like her; dirty."

Lee
followed Brad's gaze and locked on to a figure in black beret and black tights
standing at the bar. Having shaken off her shadowy friend, Ella Innes had
arrived and was ordering herself a drink. As she turned from the bar Lee
semaphored wildly to attract her attention. But she looked through him without
recognition, and settled at a nearby table where she expertly proceeded to roll
a cigarette in brown liquorice paper.