Daniel's Dream (20 page)

Daniel flipped absentmindedly through the channels. He settled eventually on a Channel Four documentary. lt was already half over, and as soon as Daniel realised the subject matter he cursed silently his lack of discipline in the matter of reading television schedules.

The documentary was about dreams.

Daniel tuned in intently to what remained of the programme. He was surprised and delighted to discover that the subject was being treated seriously: all too often, programmes about dreams were just an excuse to flood the screen with clichéd special effects (dissolves, soft-focus shots, anachronistic psychedelia and outrageous makeup) before wheeling in a bunch of spaced-out mystics and hippies (usually Californian) who spouted nonsense about ecstatic visions, expanded consciousness and alternative realities.

This particular documentary eschewed such trite techniques and focused, in particular, on the work of a German professor who had spent years investigating the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. Daniel had never come across the term before, but as soon as it was defined, he understood it completely.

Apparently, there existed a small percentage of individuals who regularly became self-aware while dreaming and, having established for themselves that they were within a dream, could then direct the dream more or less according to their whim. Daniel had never experienced quite this degree of control, but even before discovering Atheenaton he had known what it was to become aware that you were in a dream.

It had happened on a few occasions, all of which followed the same pattern. The dreams were always nightmares, he was always being threatened with torture by individuals whom he did not know or recognise. Often, as the terror reached its zenith, he would realise he was dreaming and knew that he had only to commit some act of self-injury (of a fairly radical nature) to wake himself up and thus escape. Hence, rather than face the punishment threatened by his dream-villains, he would choose to throw himself through a window or leap off the top of a tall building or use whatever was to hand in the dream to shock himself back to wakefulness.

It was not an ideal way in which to emerge from sleep, as when he succeeded in escaping from whatever imperilled him in his nightmare he would wake in a panic, a cold, clammy sweat slithering from his face, neck, chest and groin, his heart racing, his throat dry and sore. But, as he usually appreciated once his heartbeat had returned to normal, anything was preferable to the grisly, surreal horrors that his nightmares could conjure up.

So, though lucid dreaming
per se
was not one of Daniel’s talents, he recognised the principle. More to the point, the fact that some leamed professor had dedicated herself to studying the phenomenon meant he was not a complete fool for wanting to take his dreams seriously.

Daniel watched with increasing interest, as various experiments were detailed, results compiled and theories expounded. The professor - a down-to-earth, no-nonsense woman - clearly believed that there was a good deal more to dreaming than the standard scientific explanation that dreams were just a way of reprocessing information or playing out possible alternative scenarios. Neither was she an advocate of Freud, whose emphasis on children”s sexuality failed to explain so much that went on in dreams. If anything, her views tended towards those of Jung although in many ways she went beyond Jungian analysis to suggest, albeit in passing, that when dreamers dream, they may be inventing domains which, in some obscure way, actually exist.

To demonstrate this notion, the documentary team filmed an experiment which, for Daniel, had mind-numbing consequences.

The professor enlisted the participation of three lucid dreamers. The three men - A, B and C - were unknown to each other before the experiment, but all had a history of being able to control their dreams. The professor introduced them to one another, then separated them and kept them in isolation in three individual bedrooms. She then gave the same task to each man. That night, while they slept, they were to meet up with one another. That was it. No further information was given, and the men were not allowed to have any further contact. That night while they slept their brain activities were monitored and the periods of rapid eye movement (indicative of dreaming) recorded.

In the morning, the professor interviewed each man individually and asked each to recall his dream.

Man A had dreamt that he was walking through a huge, lush forest that seemed to go on without end. He wandered along aimlessly for some time before he remembered that he had to meet the two other men. Eventually he came to a large oak tree in a clearing and thought it a good meeting place, so he stopped walking and waited beneath the tree. After a while, man B appeared and came to stand beside him. They chatted and waited for man C to arrive, but man C did not appear, That was all.

Man B too had dreamt he was walking through a huge forest. He walked for a long time without meeting either of the other two men, and was just about to give up when he spied a large oak tree in a clearing in the distance. He walked towards it and there he found man A waiting peacefully. He joined man A and they talked for a while. They waited, he said, for man C to appear, but man C didn’t arrive.

Man C’s story was much simpler. He had found himself walking in a huge forest. He walked for hours and hours, but never saw another soul.

By this time the hair on the back of Daniel’s neck was prickling as if an electric charge had been passed through it. But the most interesting part was yet to come.

The final few minutes of the programme were devoted to interviewing a pleasant middle-aged Englishman who, it transpired, had dropped out on the hippie trail in the late sixties and eventually wound up in Tibet, where he spent the next twenty years living with an arcane Buddhist sect. These particular Buddhists - some esoteric offshoot of Lamaism, a branch of the Mahayana stream of Buddhist thought - placed great emphasis on the importance of dreams. In fact, long periods were given over to teaching initiates how to dream properly, that is, how to take control of one’s dreams and fashion them. This particular novice had spent half his life to date in a world where dreams were accorded equal status with waking experiences.

In particular, the Lamas taught initiates how to return to a dream, how to re-enter it and, it transpired, how to pick up where they had left off. After fifteen years of training, most members of the sect had mastered this procedure and consequently experienced and enjoyed serial dreams which were internally consistent and in which they participated not as puppets, guided and moved by external forces, but as individuals, fully in charge of their thoughts, actions and movements.

By the time the disciple left Tibet, he no longer knew which of his two worlds - his dream world or his waking world - was the ‘real’ world: they were equally authentic.

When Daniel heard this his flesh went cold. Lisanne, although involved in her manuscript, saw the change in him. She looked over towards the television but saw nothing particularly disconcerting, and returned to her reading. When the programme came to an end, and without drawing undue attention to the matter, she asked Daniel what the documentary had been about.

‘Lucid dreamers,’ said Daniel flatly. He was disturbed by the Buddhist’s confession, but also excited. Someone else knew; someone else had experienced the same sensation, had lived in a dream every bit as real as waking life. He wasn”t mad, he wasn’t hallucinating; it happened. And if it had happened to him, who could say how many other people had experienced similar circumstances?

‘Ah,’ said Lisanne, her suspicions aroused. ‘Like Janice.’

‘Janice?’

‘Yes. She’s often talked about how she controls her dreams.’

‘Janice? Our Janice? I mean, Vince’s Janice?’

‘Yes, of course. Who else?’

‘And she’s talked about her dreams, lucid dreams, to you?’

‘Yes. What is it, Daniel? What’s the problem?’

‘No, nothing. When did she talk about it? I mean, how come I’ve never heard her talk about it?’

Lisanne frowned. ‘I don’t know. Presumably you weren’t around when she told me... hardly surprising when you think how often you used to be away..’

Even before the final word had left her lips Lisarnne realised she had made a terrible
faux pas
. She looked away, not daring to meet Daniel’s eyes. He was so sensitive these days, so touchy, that anything could set him off. But drawing attention to Daniel’s peripatetic past was the sort of thing that was guaranteed to upset him - as if he wasn’t already rattled enough. Jesus, me and my big mouth, thought Lisanne.

She looked up and was surprised to see Daniel staring blankly into space, as if he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps he hadn’t been listening? Lisanne examined his expression for a few moments. There was no doubt about it: Daniel was miles away.

Daniel?’

‘Huh? Oh, yes... sorry. You were saying. About Janice.’

‘Oh, nothing. Daniel, is this about the nightmares?’

Daniel shook his head lackadaisically. ‘No, not really.’ He gave a long sigh that turned into an even longer yawn. ‘I’m off to bed,’ he said, rising from the armchair, his voice tired, his whole body drooping, as if his skeleton had suddenly turned from rigid bone to pliable rubber.

Lisanne could hardly believe what she was seeing. He slouched out of the living room like an old man, leaving Lisanne more disconsolate than ever. 

‘Sleep well?’ Daniel opened his eyes to see Kate standing over him with a cup in her hand. ‘Here; I brought you some coffee.’

‘Uh, thanks,’ mumbled Daniel drowsily. He sat up and reached out his hand. ‘Good morning, by the way,’ he said as Kate handed him the steaming black coffee. 

‘Aftemoon, actually,’ said Kate, ‘but I thought I’d let you sleep... you looked so tired last night, and there was nothing much to get up for. Anyway, take your time; when you’re ready to get up you’ll find me on the veranda.’

As Kate drifted out of the bedroom, Daniel pushed open the wooden shutters and allowed the day to flood into the room. He sipped the strong, aromatic coffee, and gazed out at the range of mountains that stretched from one edge of the window to the other, and reached almost to the top of the frame. He tried to focus on the foreground, but it was still too early for him, and he had difficulty fixing his gaze on anything. All he registered was a wash of pale, bleached hues and random, unidentifiable shapes.

Daniel swung his legs out of bed and set his feet on the cool, tiled floor. He threw a towel around himself and went in search of a shower. The villa was not large - just two bedrooms, a combined kitchen and dining room, and the small bathroom - but it was comfortably fumished and had a light, spacious feel to it.

Clean and refreshed, he put on a pair of shorts and wandered outside to join Kate. The sun was high, and Kate was lying on a blanket on the stone veranda, luxuriating in the heat of the aftemoon. Daniel walked up to her and sat down on the edge of the stone patio, allowing his feet to dangle over the edge into the long, unkempt grass that led from the villa to the dirt track a few metres away. A few flies buzzed around in the otherwise still, humid air, and a solitary goat lunched on the long grass beside the track.

‘What a beautiful day,’ said Daniel, not to start a conversation but because it was the dominant thought in his head. 

‘It’s never less than glorious,’ replied Kate, opening one eye to look at her newly acquired houseguest. ‘If you want some breakfast, there’s heaps of food in the kitchen; just help yourself.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t feel the least bit hungry; probably all that food we ate last night.’

‘Oh God yes,’ said Kate, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘We made such pigs of ourselves! But it was a lovely night.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Daniel as his mind flicked through these most recent of memories. ‘Did everyone get home okay?’

‘I suspect so. I saw Barry briefly this morning. He was nursing a fabulous hangover.’

‘And what about the girls?’

‘Marianne and Véronique? No idea. But they didn’t have far to go.’

Ah,’ said Daniel, attempting nonchalance, not altogether successfully. ‘Where are they staying?’

‘They have a room above a taverna down the beach -
Kyma
- the Waves. That’s where Kostas dances.’

‘Right,’ said Daniel, not wanting to appear too interested, even though he could not erase from his thoughts the vision of Véronique laughing.