Dreamology by Lucy Keating

Author:Lucy Keating
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-03-07T23:00:00+00:00

17

We Missed Everything

“DID YOU KNOW that every time we dream, we basically just become certifiable lunatics?” Max calls out.

It’s another beautiful fall afternoon, but we can’t see that, because we’re in the Dozing Center, which is kept at a perfect level of dim for optimum comfort. I also can’t see Max, so I crane my head over the top of my sleep pod. The pods are a genius solution that Petermann devised to help his subjects relax and eventually fall asleep. He was so excited when we came in today for our first day of real research that I thought he would short-circuit. “Now is where the real fun begins!” he said as he rubbed his hands together.

Sleep pods, by the way, are exactly what they sound like. Large couches shaped like seashells or the head of the flower in the Bennett greenhouse that looked like it was going to eat me. You wedge yourself right in the middle and it closes around you, submerging your body in total comfort, like lying on a cloud. It’s so comfortable that even claustrophobes like me don’t mind.

“I always say my sleep is where my true crazy comes out,” I reply, then I chuckle.

“What?” Max asks. I like the way he asks, like he’s already excited, like he trusts that whatever I’m going to say, it’s gonna be good.

I pause to explain. “Just that we’re talking about how sleep makes us crazy, while we lie here looking like a couple of hotdogs in buns like it’s totally normal.”

Max lets out a genuine laugh, and I wonder why, after all this time, making him laugh still makes me feel like I just pulled the lever in a slot machine and millions of gold coins are spilling out on top of me.

“I did some reading about it,” Max continues. “It turns out that the five main characteristics of dreaming can also all be attributed to mental illness. One, heavy emotion. Two and three, illogical thought and organization. Four, acceptance that what one sees, however bizarre, is true. And of course five, trouble remembering the experience. All of these things are also the experiences of patients with delirium, dementia, or psychosis. The only reason we accept ourselves as not being insane is because we are asleep at the time and none of it’s voluntary in our minds.”

I try to nod my head in understanding, but the pod doesn’t allow for much movement and it’s not like he can see me anyway. I think about Jerry’s enormous footprints yesterday and wonder what this means for me.

“Sorry about the other night,” Max says then. And it takes me a moment to figure out what he’s talking about.

“With your parents?” I ask. “They were great.” Then I wince. I forget that Real Max still may not know me very well, but Dream Max definitely does. And he knows when I’m lying.

“Well, they are certainly something,” he says. Neither of us speaks for a little while, and all we can

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