“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality…” - Yoko Ono
From the comfort of my elevated position in the Control Room, I watched on the monitors as my assistant began fastening the straps to her wrists and ankles.
They both looked nervous.
She was staring up at the lights above the gurney she was laying on, trying to trick her mind into believing she was somewhere else, detached from the uncertainty of what she was about to face. And he was failing to mask his trepidation at being down there alone for the first time, without me at his side to guide him.
But as much as she tried to fool herself those bright bulbs illuminating the space they were in were the rays of the Sun on some distant beach, it was clear she was not succeeding, and I could see her shaking, as his hands tried desperately to strike the right balance in the tension he was applying between secure and overkill.
She winced as he made some final adjustments to the padded restraints, ensuring her movement was completely restricted, before she turned her head towards him and with just the hint of a playful smile said, “You’re not going to be satisfied until I’ve gone blue, are you?”
She tugged at her bonds, in a futile attempt to free herself, but she was completely pinioned.
In the most soothing voice he could muster, he told her they were just a precaution.
For her own safety.
The procedure, and the stimulation we employed to capture the most vivid and intoxicating dreams and nightmares, was somewhat unpredictable.
While most subjects remained passive, others became more erratic, and slipped into a state similar to somnambulism, where they had a tendency to start acting out what was being shown to them in their mind’s eye.
“And it’s quite a long drop from this building”, he said, “If you head for the window, believing you can fly.”
“Oh God”, she said, thumping her head against the pillow in resignation, “Let’s just get this over with.”
And those were the last words they exchanged, before he attached the wireless electrodes that would facilitate the whole process to the area around her frontal cortex, then made his way towards the sliding doors, as she resumed her impossible task of trying to seek out her happy place and pretend none of this was happening.
Beyond the fascination the world now had with exploring the recorded dreams and nightmares of others as a form of interactive entertainment, and all the excitement the discovery of that new technology had generated, the only person I’d ever been hoping would enter this building and be desperate enough to sell the innermost concoctions of their mind was her.
And now she was here.
All the painstaking years of research, all the hours I’d toiled refining what many had said was a delusional concept into something tangible and marketable, and everything I’d sacrificed to get here, had all been in the pursuit of reaching this one moment.
Because I had to know.
I had to know if she still dreamed about me, the way I dreamed about her…
This story was inspired by a Prompt from
, which you can find out more about here…
The ‘Tales of the Zeitgeist’ Anthology is available now on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
I love the world you created here. And, oh, that ending—so good!
This is way too cool to be this short! Great world you created so quickly and an idea so intriguing I wanted to see more of these characters interacting with it. Great story!