Traumphysik

 

Begin Reading

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

 

Thank you for buying this

Tom Doherty Associates ebook.

 

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.

 

Or visit us online at

us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

 

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at:
us.macmillanusa.com/piracy
.

 

 

I suppose that, after a brilliant coed graduates from MIT and volunteers for the war effort, the only place the Navy can bear to send her is a nameless atoll in the Pacific.

They're lucky it suits me.

I've been assured my job is tremendously important. I believe them. I know it is. I maintain a generator that powers a signal light that is visible up to thirty thousand feet, vertically. Our planes fly much lower than that, of course, but I mention the strength of its output because it's a bragging point.

I maintain the signal. I am the landmark, the light in the dark.

This atoll is approximately an acre in size. The Japanese don't have a name for it. We don't have a name for it. So I am trying to think of a suitable name for it. Something to do with my name. Lucy, Lucia, Lucid, Lucifer. I'm not sure the US military would take kindly to the last one. Oh, too late, it's done, then. The name of the atoll will be
Lucifer.
It means ‘light-bearer,' so it's very appropriate. It's a reclamation of the name: not the Judeo-Christian bogeyman, but the light of science and reason.

Actually, my current situation—isolated, with limited responsibility and an overabundance of free time—is an ideal situation in which to run my dream experiments. I've brought with me Professor Gaertner's text on lucid dreaming. The first step toward lucid dreaming, he posits, is hyperawareness of phenomena in the waking state. For example, I must count the fingers on my left hand several times a day. The reasoning being that, when I do the same thing out of habit within my dream and come up with a nonstandard result (three fingers, or nine), I will know that I'm dreaming.

And when I achieve this state, and keep it stable, I can begin my experiments.

*   *   *

Last night I had a breakthrough. While still dreaming, I opened my eyes and held my left hand in front of my face and counted five fingers;
however,
each of the fingers appeared cracked and roasted, like pork on a spit. But I was not alarmed. I simply recognized that this was a nonstandard result, and therefore that I must be lucid dreaming. I sat up on my mat. I managed to touch my right hand with my left index finger before my excitement woke me up. I considered it excellent progress.

I'm supposed to walk two brisk laps around the atoll every morning and log it in the station log, to assure the Navy I am keeping myself fit and alert and occupied. I did when I first arrived. But now I just wander at will.

In my notebook, I'm keeping a record of the tides. I've also begun to classify all the species here, like Darwin on Galapagos, except on a far more humble scale. For example, there are geckos, gnats, crabs, and little pigs. Albatrosses come and go. I've seen at least one frigate bird from a distance. I make note of the markings on their bodies and their habits of locomotion. I've developed a rudimentary classification matrix for the entire ecosystem, including the seagrasses that grow like so much hair between my shack and the sea, based on what will probably prove to be meaningless characteristics. But I have to occupy my time somehow. I have a newfound appreciation for history's naturalists who made it their life's work. Linnaeus, I hardly knew ye.

When I was finished cataloging everything, I did something I now regret. I carried one of the little pigs—a female, who was quite docile, and seemed happy to go for a ride—into the surf. I wanted to see if it could swim. I thought it must be able to swim, the species being so proximate to water, even though its ancestors were likely ship-borne vermin.

So I carried it down into the surf until I was knee-deep. In retrospect, I shouldn't have gone so far out. I let it down into the water. At that moment, a wave of unusual force slapped my midsection and I fell into the water. I lost sight of the little pig. Then I glimpsed it again, underwater, twitching and writhing and sinking, clearly unable to swim. I reached for it but just then, another wave slapped me back, leaving me even more disoriented than before. I lost sight of it altogether this time. I didn't recover it, or even see it again.

I felt quite bad. Maybe I should stick to physics.

In my dream last night, I managed to stand up in front of the full-length mirror I'd positioned at the foot of my mat. (The Navy sent it with me. Of course I must have a full-length mirror. God forbid I should be unaware of my appearance.) I was very intrigued to see that my image was
not
inverted—the MIT insignia on my nightshirt read MIT, not TIM as it does normally in waking life. I remember receiving that nightshirt my sophomore year; it was a gift from Professor Gaertner—-the wife Sofia, not the husband Bernhard; I should clarify, as they both bear that title—who thought I might be lonely as one of the only coeds at the Institute. I appreciated that.

And now here I stood, wearing the same nightshirt, noticing how MIT stayed MIT. This is the first deviation from known physics in waking reality.

In honor of the Gaertners' German heritage, I've decided to call my experiment (and the universe it elucidates and its attendant systems)
Traumphysik,
which sounds more rigorous than “dream-physics.” Everything sounds more rigorous in German.

*   *   *

I had my daily check-in with base at noon. I'm told the war is going well. I take their word for it.

They asked whether I was keeping up with my fitness routine. I said yes.

They asked whether I had enough food and water. I said yes.

They asked whether I was having any trouble with the generator. I said no.

I heard another voice ask me if I was lonely and then muffled laughter and then shushing and then silence. I said nothing.

I lit the signal in the evening as a new squadron flew over. Supply planes, using my atoll for a landmark. I could make out the numbers on their underbellies. They looked like a school of flying fish overhead—and I, at the bottom of the sea. They flashed their call sign in Morse code and I flashed back. Lucifer. I am the light-bearer.

I'm developing quite a taste for coconut. I'm not tired of it; on the contrary, it's the only thing I crave now. I split the hairy brown ones on a spike and then carve up the flesh with my knife.

*   *   *

Another breakthrough.

It's 3:14 a.m. (pi! How serendipitous!) and I write by candlelight. I just succeeded in performing Galileo's experiment on falling objects—
in my dream.
Before going to bed, I had placed a feather and a watch on my bedside table. When I got up in
Traumphysik,
I picked up the two objects, remembering to remain very calm. I raised my hands so that they were spaced above the floor equally. Then I let go. The watch and the feather both floated down, impossibly, maddeningly slow, like particles sinking in a column of water, but
at the same rate of acceleration,
as theorized would occur in a vacuum or (observably) in the absence of an atmosphere.

But oddly enough,
neither the feather nor the watch dropped in a straight line.
They fell diagonally and away from each other, tumbling as if down opposite sides of an invisible mountain.

I was so excited I woke up. I couldn't help it. I had enough wit to light my candle and open my notebook. So here I record: This is the second deviation from the known laws of physics in waking reality. The next step is to repeat the process twice, to confirm the result.

But for now—back to sleep.

*   *   *

When I woke up today, I found that my watch was broken.

I didn't actually drop it, of course—I was lucid-dreaming, not sleep-walking. It was still on my bedside table where I had left it. But it was stopped at 3:14 a.m., at the moment I woke to record my progress. It's too bad. It was a graduation gift from the Gaertners.

But aside from that regret, this is an interesting result. It could be mere coincidence. Or it could be that the waking and dreaming worlds are related. Freud would furrow his brow and shake his head at me—
How obvious, Lucy, how very obvious.
But Professor Gaertner's work takes the null hypothesis, as it should; he assumes that the dreaming and waking worlds are entirely uncorrelated, even despite all anecdotal evidence (and cultural momentum) to the contrary.

Regardless, I intend to continue with my experiments. I have to continue work on the dream world. Or is it only my dream world? Is the
Traumphysik
the same from person to person, or different? It would be fascinating either way: If
Traumphysik
is the same from person to person, that suggests the existence of a real physical world to which we collectively travel each night; on the other hand, if
Traumphysik
varies from person to person, then one's own
Traumphysik
must represent the subconscious world in which one lives. One's own Platonic cave. One's own fires and figures and shadows.

There is no way to test other peoples'
Traumphysik
at this time, as I am alone. Therefore I assume the null hypothesis: My
Traumphysik
is entirely uncorrelated to others'
Traumphysik.
It is my own place.

*   *   *

I am thrilled to report that the first Galileo dream-experiment yielded the same result twice more: The watch and the feather fell at the same rate, down opposite inclined planes, and hit the floor at the same time. The watch is still broken, and the feather appears unchanged.

I'm recording all of my results in this notebook, as I was trained to, by Professor Gaertner. It's a pity his other students were so susceptible to prejudice. My time there was calm at the beginning, and I was treated kindly as the only coed in his class. But then it became clear that I was the brightest student in the class. The others didn't take it well. I recall a time when I was crossing campus at night, in the Cambridge winter, and was waylaid by several figures in black cloaks, who blindfolded and gagged me. I thought it might be a harmless “hack,” but I began to perceive malice on the part of my interceptors, as they called me rude names, and then led me to a place where I was stripped of my coat and shoes and outer garments until I was wearing nothing but my underclothes. I was told to count to twenty. Of course I could only do so in my head as I was still gagged.