The Experiment of Dreams Read online

  It was a large open room with a long counter running the full length against the left wall, covered with vials full of colorful liquids and thin tubes that twisted this way and that out of glass beakers. Shelves lined the walls above and below the counter—everything neat, everything tidy, everything organized. Three tables were set in a row beside the long counter. Looking down at the room from above, the left side would resemble the letter E. Computer monitors, an unidentifiable box-like apparatus, greasy mechanical parts, and strips of wire covered the three counters in an orderly fashion—although, Ben had no idea what that order may be. Several cube-shaped machines, some four feet high with thick cords jutting out from random slots, sat heavy on the ground. Red and green LED lights blinked in random intervals from various parts. A CAT scanner, or what looked like a CAT scanner, sat large in the opposite corner. Thick black cords trailed from the back, connecting to a desk covered with computer monitors and blinking control panels.

  “Welcome to our lab, Ben,” Dr. Wulfric said, walking from desk to desk, turning on switches and bringing computer monitors to life.

  “Nice lab,” Ben said, not sure how to reply since he had no idea what he was looking at.

  “Fortunately for us, our lab is in a house rather than a hospital. It gives the room a rather, well, warm feel. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Ben looked around. He noticed the same playful sconces lining the inside walls. They cast a reddish glow from their swirled glass covers along the room’s highly detailed molding and trim. A light gray plastic—or perhaps rubber—mat covered the floor, but Ben could see hard wood along the edges. If it were not for the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, the lab would certainly resemble a sitting room rather than a lab.

  “Yes, Dr. Wulfric, I have to agree with you. This is much better than a hospital.”

  “Please, Ben, call me Peter.”

  “Peter, does the lab extend back there?” Ben pointed to a set of double doors in the middle of the far wall, and one singular door to the left of it.

  “Um,” Dr. Wulfric began, staring at a monitor as it spewed numbers, “Not exactly.” He looked up. “The one on the left goes to the second floor. The other leads to a separate room—nothing to do with the lab. Come, Ben. Take a seat.”

  Ben sat on a swivel-stool next to Dr. Wulfric. A moment later the single door on the left side of the room opened, and a tall man wearing a lab coat entered.

  “Ben,” Dr. Wulfric said, not looking up from the computer, “this is my assistant, Dr. Charles Egan.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Dr. Egan shook Ben’s hand.

  “Likewise.”

  Ben recognized the nasally voice from the telephone call the previous day. Dr. Egan was a gaunt man with prominent facial bones and thick glasses. Under his lab coat, he wore the same generic button-down shirt as Dr. Wulfric, only his tie was plain and drab. Dr. Wulfric’s tie, Ben noticed, was vibrant, resembling modern art.

  Dr. Wulfric looked up from the monitor. “Dr. Egan,” he said, “would you please lower the lights?”

  Dr. Egan nodded and went to the light switch. The atmosphere immediately became subdued. Fluorescent lights gave Ben a headache—not an aura migraine—but a headache nonetheless. Plenty of natural light came in from the high windows bordering the ceiling.

  Dr. Wulfric typed something on the keyboard, and the numbers disappeared from the computer screen, replaced by a still image. “Here we are,” he said. “Sit back and enjoy the show.”

  Dr. Wulfric hit play, and the images on the screen came to life. Whatever they were watching was shaky and fuzzy. It looked like a home movie from the ‘80s—like something his father with no photography experience would have taped when he was a child. There was a small pond, with maybe … something moving … birds, perhaps. Yes, definitely birds, distorted and pixilated. They flew upward. The camera panned along the horizon, following them until they disappeared out of view.

  Then the screen flashed and displayed just a jumble of colors and thick pixilated shapes. Ben squinted. It was nonsense. There were people on the screen, lost behind distortion and blur, oddly shaped and almost impossible to make out. Someone walking away—no, not walking. Gliding? Yes, gliding. Now turning to smile at the camera. Suddenly, the image became sharp. It was a young girl, a child maybe six or seven with long blonde hair. She was smiling at the camera while waving and talking, although there was no sound. Ben thought she looked familiar, but then again, all cute little blonde children looked alike to him.

  Suddenly the camera veered to the right, and in a flash, the scene cleared, and focus and clarity popped in great detail. It was a roller skating rink with people skating in circles. Only the people now were fuzzy and stick-like. The shiny pine-colored rink, the bright blue and red waist-high wall that encircled the rink, and the rotating disco ball flashing different colors and casting them about the room in a circling array—those colors were vivid, in amazing clarity and detail.

  The scene seemed limited by the resolution of the monitor. Ben could practically hear “YMCA” playing in the background. It looked identical to the roller skating rink his parents took him to as a boy. The colors coalesced with such force, the room so realistic and nearly three-dimensional, that a spike of pleasure—a sudden release of endorphins and adrenaline—went off in Ben’s brain, trailing down his spine in a shiver. The hairs on his skin stood on end.

  The camera swung back to the blonde child, skating away on small uncertain legs, her arms stretched out from her body like a tightrope walker. The hand of the camera operator waved to the little girl. She turned again to face the camera, only her face had become blurred, the features no longer crisp.

  “What is this?” Ben asked.

  Dr. Wulfric paused stroking his beard. “Just keep watching.”

  The scene disintegrated into a swirl of pixelated color. It reminded Ben of one of his aura migraines. Images resembling buildings and people appeared among the swirling sea of pixilation, only to drown back down in the tide of colored noise.

  “Just a moment,” Dr. Wulfric said, using a swivel knob on the keyboard to fast-forward the scene. He stopped as the images cleared to what looked like mountains; only they were very blurry. Then the image again snapped into unimaginable clarity, the brightness of which startled and entranced Ben. His brain let loose a sense of euphoria that swept through his body. The camera was high in the air—in an airplane or helicopter—flying above a colorful mountain range or deep valley, perhaps the Grand Canyon. Ben didn’t know.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ben said. “Is that the Grand Canyon?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Patches of brush in the far distance appeared in such detail that Ben doubted that he’d be able to see it any clearer if he were there himself.

  Suddenly the camera dropped, diving straight into a massive gorge. The plane barreled down, and then quickly leveled itself, going faster and faster—like a jet. Ben felt his stomach lurch as the camera swung straight up, hugging the wall of the canyon. It was so close to the rocky edge that whatever aircraft was taking these pictures was in serious danger of crashing into the wall. Flashes of dark brown, yellow, and orange whizzed past the screen at amazing speed, yet the image was never blurred; only his eyes couldn’t process the speed in which they were passing. When Ben blinked and held his eyes shut, the exact image of whatever was flashing by on the screen stayed in his mind like a photograph—no streaking or blurring whatsoever. It was so fast—too fast. The scene swooped down and back up through the valleys and gorges, in unbelievable detail.

  Ben’s mind whirled. Dr. Wulfric hit a button and the screen went black. Ben shuttered his eyes, letting his brain rest.

  “So, what did you think of my video?” Dr. Wulfric asked.

  “I don’t know. Those colors … I’ve never seen colors that vivid on a TV screen. What is this, some new high-def system you’re testing?”

  “Not exactly.” He chuckled. “The little girl was my daughter, although she’s no lo
nger a child. The roller skating rink is just like the one we went to on her third birthday, maybe a little different. The mountains, though—I have no idea where they came from.”

  “Okay …”

  “That, Ben … was from a dream I had a few days ago. I don’t remember dreaming it, but that was indeed recorded from my dream.”

  Ben looked about the room—the CAT scanner, the computer monitors and blinking machinery, and the Pyrex beakers and other labware. “What exactly are you guys doing here? You recorded your dream? Is that what that thing does?” Ben pointed to the scanner.

  “Sort of,” Dr. Egan replied before Dr. Wulfric could answer. “What we have here are two separate technologies. We’ve created a serum that actively monitors the neurological activity in the brain during REM sleep and transmits the activity to that piece of equipment over there. That instrument is called a Frequency Responding Lucid Transmitter. The serum works off the electrical output of the brain, triggered in part by the release of serotonin in the pineal gland, which lies above the medulla—”

  “Yes, Ben,” Dr. Wulfric said, waving Dr. Egan down—who was pointing at the base of his head to his own medulla oblongata. “To answer your question without confusing you any further …” He looked again at Dr. Egan, “that device can read and transmit the images from your sleep—from anybody’s sleep. Presently, it can only transmit during the REM cycle, but that is about to change. This machine can record a dream in greater length and detail than the dreamer is aware when he’s dreaming.”

  “That’s just crazy,” Ben said. “I mean in a good way. It’s amazing. I’m starting to see where I fit in with all of this.”

  Dr. Wulfric smiled. “We would like to further explore the extent to which this machine can operate. We need someone who can utilize their REM cycle to its fullest potential. Someone like you, Ben.”

  “So, I would have to sleep in that thing overnight?” Ben pointed to the bulky machine, covered with cables and blinking lights. The bed was nothing more than a thin pad, and barely wide enough to support the width of a man’s shoulders.

  “We call that old girl Lucy, short for Lucid Transmitter, which is short for Frequency Responding Lucid Transmitter. Lucy sounds better.”

  “Right. Lucy, then.”

  “We’ve come up with an updated model—a much smaller unit that fits right over a bed frame. All you have to do is sleep. There’s a bedroom upstairs. The test requires that you stay the night.”

  “And what was that about a serum?”

  “Yes, the serum works to communicate information from your body back to Lucy. It transmits at a frequency produced by the neurons in your brain and sends that information to Lucy, where it is further processed. That’s all I can tell you about the serum right now. I’m sure you understand, but until you decide to go forward with this project, there are certain things that will need to remain private. What I can tell you is this: the serum possesses no direct or indirect health threats or problems, whatsoever. It is not dangerous or toxic. In twenty-four to thirty-six hours after injection, the compound stops working, shuts down, and basically dies. It filters from the body the same way as everything else.”

  “You pee it out?”

  “Among other bodily functions, yes.”

  “Okay, okay …” Ben was rubbing his temples. “This is a lot to take in.”

  This certainly was not a simple sleep deprivation test. Contemplating whether to accept this experiment or not could take some time. This was, after all, not the usual hospital setup.

  Ben was about to say, ‘Let me think this over.’

  But he didn’t.

  He could leave, go home to his couch and the bottle. He could spend the night drinking alone, staring at the painting, bawling and crying until he was blacked-out drunk. God knows he’d spent enough nights doing just that.

  But if he left—if he walked out the door—he would never know more about Lucy or the experiment. Maybe one day he’d hear about it on the news. He would never know what it would be like to see his own dreams, the parts he could not remember, play out before his eyes. He would never know what Lucy was capable of doing.

  Besides from his own curiosity, he had to remind himself that this experiment was what Dr. Wright thought was best for him, for his future. His employment with the doctor was over, and he would either need to pick up more shifts at the bar, or look for another job. Another bar. Another restaurant. The thought was not appealing.

  So, what did he have to lose?

  Money, for one. An income. Not to mention the loss of knowledge. To do something with his mind other than rotting it away with whiskey.

  The serum did not bother him—he had taken so many mysterious drugs in the past that one more couldn’t hurt. It probably was not much different from the stuff he’d been injected with before taking a CAT scan, the dye, or whatever it was. Ben never had a serious complication from any of the experimental medications, other than occasional nausea and headaches—but the discomfort was little in comparison to a bad hangover.

  I can always leave, Ben thought. If the test goes sour, I can back out.

  “All right,” Ben said, sitting straight in his chair. “Let’s skip ahead a bit, and talk pay.”

  Dr. Wulfric’s eyes widened. “We’ll have to get Mr. Marcus on the line. But what I’ve been told is that after the papers are signed, you’ll be paid a thousand dollars for the first night—a sort of test night to see if future experiments will produce results. Judging from your previous work with Dr. Wright, I don’t think we’ll encounter any problems. Future tests will vary in pay.”

  “What’s that about paperwork? I thought this was all cash.”

  “Yes, absolutely. However, Mr. Kalispell has to protect his interests—like this experiment; this is sensitive technology we’re dealing with. And the potential for reading a person’s dreams is … well, limitless. The general public will be able to spend a night in a clinic and go home the next day with a copy of their dreams. Eventually, Lucy will be able to work in a person’s home and have the dreams loaded instantly onto a PC or tablet wirelessly.

  Imagine what people will learn about themselves, about the nature of the human brain, the nature of humanity, art, and philosophy. Psychologists, judges and juries could watch the dreams of serial killers and murderers, learn about the darkest corners of the darkest minds. Or perhaps the brightest corners of the most intelligent mind: a Buddhist monk, world-renowned artists and thinkers, cutting-edge scientists. The applications are huge, endless.

  The paperwork is basic nondisclosure stuff. As long as you don’t go public with anything you see or hear, there will be nothing to worry about. We have an opportunity to be part of something big, history in the making, the biggest scientific breakthrough of our lives. At the end of the day, we will all go home happy and wealthy.

  “I can’t say much about it, but I want you to know that Mr. Kalispell has some very exciting and lucrative business opportunities for you, as long as the first few tests go well. But again, judging from your previous work with Dr. Wright, I don’t think that will be a problem. Mr. Kalispell, he’s a, well … different sort of man. He has many interests and hobbies, and plenty of money to make his interests and hobbies become realities.”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Okay. I have to admit … I’m intrigued. So, the next step is talking to this Mr. Marcus guy? Why don’t you get him on the line, and let’s get this show on the road.”

  “I believe he’s at the house.” Dr. Wulfric turned to Dr. Egan, who was already picking up a phone receiver. “When do you think you could start? What’s a good night for our first test? You would need to be free the next day, until about noon. We would have to give you a basic physical, mostly to get your weight and blood pressure. The experiment itself is basic, just some memory and observational tests. Then we’ll show you images and videos and see if you can recall any or all of what you’ve seen while sleeping. Since we know that you have good control of your awareness during
REM, we would be testing the clarity of your memories while sleeping. If you can get into a lucid state of dreaming, that is.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve practiced getting into a lucid state for years. I can choose when and how long I want to dream. I can dream lucidly almost all of the time. My mind is very much awake soon after I fall asleep.”

  As long as I’m not drinking, he thought.

  “Excellent! That is excellent. I have a host of acetylcholine-inducing supplements available if you feel inclined to use them. I believe you are familiar with several different nootropics—various memory and neuro enhancers. I have it written down here, somewhere, that you tested many with Dr. Wright.”

  “Nootropics, oh sure. Which brand you got?” Ben laughed.

  “I, uhh, let me see here.”

  “I’m kidding, Doctor, I’m kidding. I’m familiar with them. I’ve tested more than I can count. Thank you, but I’m fine without any supplements.”

  Ben had undergone a long stint of tests with supplements designed to increase the brain’s function and potential, called nootropics. The typical nootropic claims to increase acetylcholine levels, which are neurotransmitters in the human body with links to cognitive brain function and long-term memory. A common side effect of many nootropics—based mostly on claims—is that the drugs help the user enter a lucid dream state.

  Along with the nootropics, Ben had gone on restrictive diets meant to further increase his acetylcholine levels, eating mostly meat, wheat germ and nuts. Some of the drugs he’d tested included GPC choline, phosphatidylcholine, acetyl-L-carnitine, vitamin B-5 and B-6, and L-Alpha glycerylphosphorylcholine—just to name a few. They were always dispensed to him as nondescript white capsules in nondescript white Dixie cups. Most of the time he did not know what he was taking until after the experiment was over, and he never cared so much as to remember any names.

  The majority of the supplements he tested did little-to-nothing for him—no increased attention span, no shortcut to REM, no increased vivid dreams, no boost to his intellect. Perhaps his brain had more than enough acetylcholine to begin with. The results of those tests were inconclusive; however, many other test subjects claimed positive results. During the time of those tests, Ben was drinking heavily. It was impossible to know if a supplement was giving his brain an increase in focus and awareness when a hangover was making him sick and delirious. However, he did notice that some of the supplements shortened the severity of his hangovers, a fact he did not share with Dr. Wright since he wasn’t supposed to be drinking during the trials.