PART TWO
April 1974
O N E
Remember not the sins and offences of my youth —1662 Prayer Book
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 f*cking 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.