Waking Dreams

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

(William Shakespeare, A Midnight’s Summer Dream)

Day four: Kauffman Case

0300 Hrs

“Impossible. The child is only four months old and the readings from IMAGER are quite disturbing. Morbid is the only word I can think of to describe them,” Dr. Geffory Thames said .

He leaned over the IMAGER monitor in disbelief for the fourth day in a row. The screen was blank, black as a starless night. But the sounds emitting from the systems speakers were those found only in horror movies. Muffled cries, a scraping as of fingers scratching against the closed lid of a coffin, the cough of what sounded mysteriously like machine gun fire. These were the articulation of newborn Willabe Kauffman’s dream.

“You’re sure a complete background check has been conducted concerning the patient’s parents?” Dr. Darleen Craft, resident psychologist and Dr. Thames's leading assistant, asked. “These dreams could be signs of child abuse or negligence.”

“You’re the psychologist - you tell me," Geffory said with more venom than he'd intended. Both researches were at their wits end due to the Kauffman case, Geffory more so than she it seemed. After all IMAGER was Dr. Geffory Thames pilot program, one of which the United States government in conjunction with the Ludwig Research Foundation had granted several million dollars to see to fruition. They and he expected, no, demanded success.

Still it would do him no good to anger Darleen. She was his lover, as well as his most trusted and influential partner in the project. He waited for her to snap back, but no retort was forthcoming. If Darleen had noticed his irritation, she gave no indication. In a far less agitated tone, Geffory continued his line of questioning, "What did the Kauffman report reveal to you?”

“They’re a Caucasian, middle class family. The father works to support the family while Ms. Kauffman homesteads and nurtures the child. They're your normal apple pie American family. Willabe is their first-born. And from all accounts the child is well cared for."

"Why is he here then? Why these persistent night terrors?”

Geffory heaved a sigh, disgusted by his inability to piece together the enigma which was the child’s disruptive and violent dreams. To date his dream decrypting device had aided more than a dozen previous patients, enabling researchers the ability to peer into human dreams with the ease of turning on a television set.

The idea had been simple. The human mind when viewing the world around it , generates consistent neural patterns in the brain for each distinctive object seen. For instance, a dog and the word dog each have separate and distinct neural patterns. IMAGER was built to recognize each pattern and create a digital lexicon, a library of neural patterns. Using brain scans of a sleeping patient IMAGER used the neural patterns generated during dreams and correlated them with the lexicon of appropriate images. These images were then displayed in real time at a consistent rate so that the result was essentially a video of the patient's dream.

So far IMAGER’s success had been unquestionable. The twenty-three patients sent to the Sleep Deprivation Center located high in the mountains of Denver, Colorado, had been cured of their nightly ailments with assistance of IMAGER and a staff of the most qualified psychologist and neurologist.

Unlike young Willable, these other patients had been easy to diagnose. Their dreams read like screenplays. Forgotten abuses, buried or erased violations, had been displayed on the IMAGER screen. Most of the time the visions were cryptic. The psychologists of the IMAGER project were there for that explicit reason, to decipher and remedy the night terrors of the patients. Willabe Kauffman, however, presented an unusual, if not unsettling problem. He had no apparent history to draw from. There had yet to be even a title dedicated to the play of his life.

Geffory felt two hands slowly massaging his shoulders. At first tense, he soon gave into Darleen's ministrations.

Smiling contentedly, Geffory said, "The staff will talk."

"They already do," Darleen purred in his ear

.

It was true, of course. But if the SDC administration, and offshoot of DARPA, had any reservations concerning the fraternization of its two key researchers, it kept them to itself. Markedly due to the success doctors Thames and Croft had had until now. If Geffory failed to solve the Kauffman case, the higher ups might not turn such a blind eye to his and Darleen's romantic relationship. Thus reminded, as much as he'd love to trade sweet nothings with his partner, Geffory continued their earlier conversation.

“The Kauffman's came to us. They were even willing to give up what little savings they had to cure their son of his nightmares. They had no idea our project was government financed. No, if the Kauffman’s had something to hide, then I don’t think that Willabe would be here."

“True. But there is such thing as unconscious neglect. Perhaps while Willabe slept between them, as the Kauffman’s have said he has, one of the parents accidentally rolls over young Willabe nearly smothering the child. At the same time a movie was playing on the TV. Willabe would then associate darkness with the sounds he heard while in a near death situation,” Darleen suggested from behind him.

The theory had merit. It was more than a possibility, but for reasons he could not quite pin point, Geffory didn’t buy it. Twisting to escape Darleen’s seductive and sedative hands, the neurologist faced his partner. Grasping her smooth brown face with his own dark hands, Geffory affectionately shook Darleen’s head back and forth.

“No,” he said, releasing her. “I don’t see that here. The Kauffmans are too competent. The incident they reported only happened once. Besides, wouldn't such an incident would have to be of great length and repetitivity to have such a profound effect?"

"Yes," Darkeen said, folding her smocked arms in front of her chest.

She looked terse to Geffory, whether because of his questioning of her supposition or their abrupt cessation of affection he did not know. Nonetheless, he pressed on. "Willabe would likely be with no one if that were the case. Don't you think?”

“Okay” Darleen conceded, throwing her arms wide in frustration. “Then what do you believe is troubling our little friend?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

Geffory scanned the IMAGER’s diagnostic monitors.

Cortical readings from the electroencephalograph were low as was usual during the REM-rapid eye movement stage of sleep in which dreams took place. Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing were also decreased. Gastric and alimentary activities, however, were increased by Willabe Kauffman’s cradle dream.

Everything was as it should be, except the child below in the viewing room was obviously in distress. Geffory and Darleen moved to the one-way mirror that allowed them to see the Kauffman child rolling in his disturbed slumber on an antiseptic bedding. This alone was reason for concern since most people are effectively paralyzed in the clutch of REM sleep.

Numerous sensors covered the child’s body. Willabe resembled an agglomeration of wire and plastic tubing planted on pallid flesh. Yet, even without the suction held probes the Kauffman child would have been restless.

Since his induction into the SDC, Willabe had exhibited all the signs of reduced health due to lack of sleep. His attention span and dexterity were depleting because of the increase in disruptive and repeating dreams. Symptoms of sleep deprivation were difficult enough to diagnose with an adult, nevertheless a toddler, but the Kauffmans had spent enough sleepless nights with their child to recognize its effects. For this reason the Kauffman parents had brought their son to the SDC.

Dr. Thames and his staff had rapidly made world wide new with their initial success by viewing, interpreting and solving the causes of sleep deprivation through use of the IMAGER. Although the Kauffmans did not yet know it, they had brought a daunting enigma to the IMAGER project.

“Finally. He’s ascended,” Darleen said. Below, in the observation room, young Willabe had ceased his twitching on the medical bed.

Geffory consulted the monitors again. Darleen was right. Willabe had entered ordinary, orthodox sleep.

“To sleep, and perhaps in slumber, to dream.” Geffory miss-quoted the Shakespearean line.

“Or not.” Darleen said stiffly

.

Geffory gave his partner a dry smile, then grabbed her about the waist and lightly butted head with her. They stood forehead to forehead, clutching one another tighter as time ticked by. When at last the tension of an unsuccessful day bled from them in an almost tactile wave, the two scientists turned their backs on IMAGER.

They resigned for the night. IMAGER and all its sophisticated accouterments were switched off. From there on, until Willabe’s next nightmare, a trained staff of pediatricians would give into the child’s every need. For the next three days, such would be the Kauffman child’s life. If the IMAGER project could not produce an answer by then, it would be assumed that more conventional methods were necessary to cure Willabe of his incessant dark dreams.

The IMAGER crew had three days in which to solve the Kauffman child’s dilemma, when the child was as yet of experience and age to have had any.

Day five: The Kauffman Case

0100 Hrs

Willabe’s tiny hands were curled in his already lengthy tuft of hair. His pink flesh was flushed. For more than an hour he’d descended the comfortable delta condition and into the murky depths of paradoxical sleep. His eyes moved sporadically behind his eyelids. REM had taken over, yet for the fifth day in a row, the scientists of the SDC could not fathom the visions held therein.

“Any new speculations?” Geffory asked of his three assistants.

For a moment, no one answered. Darleen was present, as well as Thea Licari and Ronald Creely. Dr. Licari, a heavy set Italian psychologist from the Bronx leaned against a laboratory wall, arms folded and scowling as if contemplating the destruction of all the complicated equipment of the IMAGER project just because of its ineffectiveness in this specific case.

Ronald Creely, also a psychologist, was a tall thin Anglo American of the species nerd. His birth control glasses sat perilously on the edge of his aquiline nose as he paced recklessly close to the fragile equipment.

Twirling a pencil through his fingers was a nervous habit of Dr. Thames. A Papermate weaved about his right hand as Geffory watched the two ponder the Kauffman child’s perplexing dream. Despite both psychologists being of questionable mental stability, Geffory had invited them because of their equably questionable minor professions. Both were self-acclaimed paranormal practitioners.

Darleen was beside Geffory but had as little to say as the two assistants. In fact, she’d had little to say to him when he’d first suggested using the dubious knowledge of the two inductees into the IMAGER project. Troubled by her silence, Geffory placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She scowled but did not shrug him off. That was a good sign at least.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, wishing to break the ice crystallizing between them.

“I’m thinking you were out of your mind to invite these two X-file rejects into the program. Their presence alone jeopardizes the validity of our work.” She whispered to Geffory. They’d already had this conversation a hundred times so Geffory wisely did not respond. “Besides that, I’ve been looking at the ALF and wondering if this child’s emotional status rates with those of adults we’ve evaluated.”

“The Advanced Laser Flow meter is even further from being proven reliable than IMAGER. There is no way to know if the emotions Willabe is experiencing are those of the dream or those caused by the dream.” He too had pondered the ALF readings. They were too disturbing to lay credence to.

Despite the obvious trauma his dreams were delivering him, the child’s emotions, registered by changes in body temperature during his dream, indicated that young Willabe Kauffman was enjoying his persistent nightmare. On a separate screen from that of the IMAGER, Willabe’s face glowed red in exuberance as his body twisted now and again in defiance of his dreamscape. Which device was revealing the truth of Willabe’s condition? Watching the squirming babe and listening to the sounds produced by IMAGER, Geffory could not imagine anyone enjoying such torment.

“What was it you just said Dr. Thames?” Ronald had been behind the couple all along. He did not seem upset or surprised to have been referred to as a X-file reject. “These manifestations on your machine could be that of the dream or the child?

“No,” a startled Geffory blurted. “That is not what I said at all. I was telling Darleen that the emotional state of the patient maybe something other than his own.”

“How can that be?” Creely asked.

“As you must already know Dr. Creely, the true reason why dreams are a necessity of human existence is not known. Dreams have been thought to be a manner of dealing with stresses buried or forgotten. But as our researchs here at IMAGER are showing and earlier works of other scientist have shown, dreams do not always involve the dreamer. You’ve no doubt at some time have had dreams in which you were not yourself.”

“Yes, I have.” Creely answered.

“Well if someone is dreaming that they are someone else, how can we be certain that their actions or emotions are those of the dreamer? Perhaps everything occurring in that dream would be an empathetic response to another person’s experience.”

“Care to give me an example Dr. Thames?” Creely piped.

Dr. Thames chose to humor the parapsychologist even though he knew that Creely understood what he was attempting to explain.

“Say your great grandmother has died. You are young and never got to know her too well. That day at the funeral you see your grandmother crying as never before. During the night you dream that you are crying over the coffin of your great grand mama. Are you lamenting for her or for your grandmother in the dream?”

“Interesting”, Creely said with a hand cupped to his chin, looking ridiculously like a Dr. Spock impersonator.

Dr. Licari too, seemed to be pondering the question. She pushed herself from the wall gracefully for such a large woman and walked to the glass wall partitioning the laboratory from the patient room. She glanced down at the child struggling beneath his sheets then turned with something akin to a smile on her face.

“You know,” she began, thick Italian accent inflected into every word, “this could be a sign of a transgression.”

“Trans what?” Darleen queried.

“Trans-gres-sion...Similar to what you were suggesting earlier. Only the emotions are not empathetic reactions. They are the actual emotions of a person passed on residing in the soul of the afflicted person.”

Darleen chuckled. “Your not talking about reincarnation are you? Because if you are, I...”

“We already know what you think of our dubious practice, Dr. Crafts. But the truth remains that all your million dollar gadgetry and your Harvard educations haven’t come up with anything anymore feasible.”

Darleen began to open her mouth in protest when she was interrupted by a soft yet commanding voice.

“It can’t be a transgression.” Creely, who had otherwise been as silent and still as a scarecrow during the little spat, said. “At least I hope it isn’t.”

Geffory didn’t believe that the Kauffman child was experiencing transgressed memories or a possession any more than Darleen, but he was intrigued as to why Dr. Creely refused to give credence to the suggestion as well. “Why is that Dr. Creely,” he asked

.

“The ALF. If those are emotions of a transgressed soul, then its not one I’d care to meet.”

No one could argue with that. Though the sounds issuing from IMAGER were hellish, according to the ALF, Willabe was in a state of enlightenment. Like a malicious cherub Willabe Kauffman‘s face glistened on its screen.

Day Six: The Kauffman Case

0100 Hrs

“I can’t believe your actually going to entertain those lunatics opinions.” Darleen snarled into her cup of piping hot chocolate. She and Geffory were the first to arrive for the IMAGER analysis the next morning. They’d spent the majority of the previous night throwing alternate diagnostic solutions at one another. The love making there after had been more an act of routine than one of passion. Both doctors were as passionate about their work as they were about one another, but the Kauffman Case had become a chastity belt between them.

“I’m not agreeing with them Darleen! I just wanted a new perspective. Lord knows we need something.”

“I agree, but voodoo men and witches we don’t need.” She took a sip of her beverage and then asked.

“What about the idea I had last night?”

“You mean the dopamine-4? We’ll need to get a blood chemistry analysis to find Willabe’s MAO levels. You know how long that could take. We just don’t have that much time,” Geffory grumbled. “Besides, the ‘thrill seeker gene’ is in as much debate as the presences of ghost.”

Just then the twin laboratory door opened and Dr. Lacari sauntered in with all the grace of a hippopotamus. She held a box of doughnuts in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. A glazed pastry protruded from her thick lips and some crumbs cascaded to the front of her otherwise white lab coat. Behind her, totally eclipsed save for his flaxen-coated head, was Dr. Creely.

“What was that about a thrill seeker gene?” Creely asked as he pigeon toed around Dr. Lacari.

“A professor by the name of Marvin Zuckerman discovered that certain arousal attributes in human beings could be accredited to heredity. His findings were further supported by the detection of the dopamine-4 receptor.” Darleen informed the twig like doctor as he took a seat beside his cohort at the coffee table set in a corner of the lab. Dr. Lacari continued to devour her breakfast without comment. She merely nodded as if to say it was all right for Darleen to continue.

“If it can be shown that Willabe has low levels of monoamine oxidase; an enzyme that regulates chemicals like the dopamine-4 receptor associated with arousal, then the ALF readings might be explained at least.” Darleen spoke enthusiastically now that she was in her territory. “In theory, people with low MAO are hereditarily thrill seekers. Things that tend to frighten others excite them. Thus Willabe’s puzzling emotional readings can be accounted for.”

“Assuming your right and our Willabe is the next Evil Can Nevil, that still doesn’t explain a lot of things.”

Elbows on the table and his hands cusp together in the form of a steeple, Dr. Creely brought up another point for debate. “While I was sleeping last night, an abnormality with IMAGER presented its self. How is it that your device delivers sound as well as video? I can’t ever recall hearing anything in my dreams. Sure, I connect objects seen in my dreams with sound, but I’ve never actually heard anything.”

Geffory was more than obliged to answer the question. He and numerous computer engineers had meticulously developed the means to hear dreams. It was a privilege to discuss the method by which they had succeeded.

“Dr. Creely, IMAGER is not so much a recording device as it its an interpreter. As you well know, the human senses are not solely restricted to physical input.”

Creely acknowledged this fact from the table with an imperceptible nod.

“Vision is one of our most impressive senses. The sight of a food can conjure memories of a taste just as the sight of a train, for instance, can recall the sound of a moving locomotive. We taught IMAGER to construe sounds associated with the patient ‘s visions.”

“There is just one problem.” Dr. Creely said as his steeped hands collapsed and pointed to the blank IMAGER monitor. “There are no visions here to interpret.”

Dr. Thames’s shoulders fell dejectedly. The quintessential nerd had struck another soft spot.

“Yeah, we’ve noticed.” he admitted. He was beginning to lend credence to Darleen’s original theory of neglect.

“Whaff, phat?” Dr. Lacari asks around a mouth full of doughnuts.

“What are you saying?” Darleen snarled at Lacari. Geffory could see that she was becoming irrepressibly annoyed with the parapsychologists. Either they would have to add something productive to the project or he would have to dismiss them; that or find a storage room to sleep in.

Thea Lacari squinted her eyes then took a swig of coffee to clear her throat. “SSSSH!” she said. “In between all your yapping have any of you ever stop to listen to those sounds.”

“Of course!” Darleen began, but was silenced by another growl.

“Ssssh!”

They were all quiet then. Save for the sounds emanating from Willabe’s dreams through Imager there was the incessant bleeping of monitors and chugging of data recorders that vomited out paper reports of the night's observations in to a metal bin. There was nothing new that Dr. Thames could hear. The scratching as of fingers rasping at a coffin lid, the bark of what still sounded inconceivably like gunfire, and the shrill screams were all the same.

He was about to voice this observation when Dr. Larari raised a finger to her lips. “Listen to the cries. There is something about them I recognize.”

Neither Darleen nor Geffory could make heads or tails of the cries. If they had been able to, Dr. Creely and Dr. Lacari would not have been necessary. But there was something else...

Were those words he heard in the wails? Now that he focused solely on the lamentations of the dream, Dr. Thames could distinguish patterns amid the incoherent moans. Patterns of sound were significant indicators of a language. If so, what language? It wasn’t one he recognized.

“Brighton Beach,” Dr. Lacari mumbled. “The Ruesskie district”

“What do you mean by that?” Darleen asked without the slightest note of sarcasm now that she heard the inflections within the sounds herself.

“Back home the neighborhoods are separated by ethnic groups. Brighton Beach is where the Russians live. I thought I heard a curse or two that I’ve had thrown at me in the noises we’ve been hearing.”

Quick as a whip Darleen was inquiring whether the Kauffman’s had any Russian in their genealogy. Geffory shook his head, and found himself inching closer to the speakers to pick out the specific words, but he was not familiar with the Russian dialect. He turned a questioning head to his companion and saw that Darleen was inexplicably pale. To Dr. Lacari he asked, “What does it mean?”

“I can’t be sure. Ya know us Italians and Ruesskies don’t get along so much. But I think it’s something like, ’Die you devil!’” Thea’s pasty cheeks blushed and she admitted, “Die and devil are words I was used to hearing in several languages.”

All this time Dr. Creely hadn’t said a thing. The other three scientists turned about to see him sitting silently at the coffee table. Even Darleen had admitted that Creely may have had an insight that was recognizably valuable to the project, though she had done so grudgingly and in the privacy of her and Geffory’s bed. They all awaited his opinion.

“I don’t hear anything.” Creely announced stiffly and then rose and left the laboratory.

“Bullshit,” Grinned Dr. Lacari, though neither Darleen nor Geffory could foster nearly as much enthusiasm.

Day six: The Kauffman case

0500 hrs

She sat on a bar style stool beside the alpine speakers in the darkened laboratory. About her, green and yellow lights flickered from equipment like distance stars, but Dr. Craft’s attention was on the pitch-black monitor of IMAGER. For the last half a hour she’d been trying to disbelieve what she had been hearing ever since Dr. Lacari’s observation. And it wasn’t ‘Die you Devil!’ It was something worse.

Dr. Darleen Craft was a rational woman. She’d been top of her class at Cambridge University and although she’d never had day one training in neurology, she’d fathomed her lover’s practice and theories in record time. But this was something else.

“Can‘t sleep.” Dr. Creely stated. He was standing silhouetted in the entrance to the laboratory between the twin steel doors. He moved no further into the room, but kept the two doors open with his arms.

Darleen acknowledged with a nod in the dark.

“So you heard it too.” Once again, it was not a question, but a statement of fact. This time Dr. Craft was slower to accede, but she did.

“What are you going to do about it? What are you going to tell Dr. Thames?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. It could still be unconscious neglect.”

“You refer to the day four report? About the TV and smothering? You don’t believe that any more than I do. Who’s the X-file reject now, Scully?” Dr. Creely giggled at his pun. Such stoic men were not built for laughter and his was a grating tone.

Darleen swivelled in her chair to face the parapsychologist, a scowl plastered on her lips. “What do you expect me to tell Geffory? That this baby is the reincarnation of a monster?”

Creely adjusted his birth control glasses then answered promptly, “You heard it as well as I did. What surprises me is that none of the others were as perceptive. German and Russian dialects aren’t nearly that close. Perhaps there in lies another study in denial.”

“Assuming your right.” Darleen said, “How do we know that this child will grow to be the same type of person? His parents apparently are devoted to him.”

“That is a common fallacy in the history of the man we speak of. He too was well loved. His mother dotted on him and his sister. His father, in fact, was a customs official in Austria. They were not poor. Schicklgruber had as much an opportunity to grow into a well-structured individual as anyone else under those circumstances.”

Creely paused, cupping the scrawny goatee dripping from his chin with one skeletal hand. “You're no doubt aware of Price's mathematical computation of genetic altruism. The fact that kindness is nothing more than evolutionary trait traceable through mathematic formula. Does it not follow that the opposite is true? Myself, I believe in genetic evil. Some people are just born bad. I’m afraid our Willabe might be one of those people.”

Darleen chortled, then after a few seconds found the will to compose herself. “Do you realize how insane we sound?”

There in the oblivion darkness that surrounded her, Darleen envisioned a night sky choked by the fog of war. Man-made thunder roars in those clouds and tracers pierce the air like shooting stars. She barely heard the scarecrow thin parapsychologist’s question.

“Yes”, Creely agreed taking his had from its prop, “But if we are right, is the world ready for the rising of a new Adolf Hitler?”

In Darleen’s imagination, men scurry through the remnants of a garden, its daffodils and magnolias trampled beneath booted feet. These men are excited; whispers of blood and victory pass from their lips for their quarry is near. How close they will never know, for even further beneath the Reichskanslei lies the bunker for which they seek. A man and a woman lie dying in the rubble of the shelter, unscathed by the falling bricks and debris, but not by the poison of which they have digested. The man smiles knowingly in these last moments, for even in defeat he has denied those above closure. They will lay awake at night, fearful of the day that the Fuhrer would return...

“Fuhrer”, Darleen whispered to herself. How had the others missed so common a word amongst the IMAGER’s rambling?

“The Tyrant”, Creely said from his perch. “I ask again, what are we to do?”

Darleen turned in her chair so that she could look at the babe shrouded in the darkness of the examination room. He was sleeping peacefully now that the dream had subsided. Young Willabe’s tiny pink hands were clasped together as he slept, absurdly bringing to Dr. Craft’s mind the gestures of a mad man.

This is insane, she thought again. But there was that word, clearly heard now that she had recognized it. ‘Fuhrer’. She was a scientist and so she resolved herself to think like one and not a crazed woman on a witch-hunt.

“We wait. We watch.” she muttered judiciously. To judge a child based on the assumed actions of a past life. Unbelievable as it seemed, Dr. Craft intended to do just that. Tomorrow the Kauffman parents would come to claim their dream beleaguered son. Then the true observations would begin. How, Darleen was not sure. But that it would be done was no question.

“Good enough.” Dr. Creely responded grimly from the door. He retreated then, allowing the doors to close and leaving Dr. Craft in the benighted room with only the bleeps of machinery and the blood curdling ululations of a child’s cradle dream.