Read Online The Experiment of Dreams by Brandon Zenner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brandon Zenner
Ads: Link
doorway to the stairs.
“Ah, Ben! You’re up!”
Ben was sipping at a steaming cup of coffee.
“How did you sleep?”
“Good; slept good.”
In the past, Ben participated in tests where he had slept on nothing more than an examination table with a thin white sheet. The room he slept in the night before was luxurious in comparison. He slept like a baby until this morning when the mechanical noises from the wall behind his room grew louder—much louder than previously.
“I would like you to know,” Dr. Wulfric said, pulling up a chair across the table from Ben, “that everything went exceedingly well. We just started analyzing the results, and they’re proving to be quite extraordinary.” The doctor smiled from behind his thick beard, gleaming like a little boy. “Do you remember your dreams from last night?”
“Sure I do.” Within the first several minutes of waking, Ben could remember his conscious and subconscious dreams very clearly. Typically, the images would fade throughout the day, unless the dream had some significance or effect on him. In a case like this, when he was truly focused, Ben could remember the dream as long as he liked. “I viewed the pictures just as you asked,” he said. “First I looked at them from far away, passively. Then I scanned them up close as best as I could.”
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Wulfric nodded.
Ben smirked. He hoped he gave them a good show. In between his assignment, he took his dream on a little thrill ride. First, he flew into the sky like a bird, soaring over the tops of trees and sweeping down close to the ground, speeding down streets and alleyways inches above the pavement. He flew to the tops of skyscrapers to perch for a moment, only to dive back down, head first and recklessly fast.
Next, he swam—or more accurately, he walked—into a large body of water. His feet mired in the thick sandy bottom as he walked. He felt the tides pull and sway his legs. The water was warm, tropically warm. He looked at fish, coral, and an oddly fluorescent eel. His subconscious conjured up the details: the fish, the sand, the coral, the sky, and the climate—everything, really. All he had to do was think beach, and there it was.
Doing these things, like breathing underwater and flying, took years of practice, and he was no master. His initial response when presented with these impossible feats was fear and panic. It was difficult for Ben to separate reality from what was happening in his subconscious world, the land of his dreams.
Many dreams end abruptly with Ben waking in a state of near panic. He would hyperventilate while dreaming of drowning underwater. Or, his heart would practically beat through his chest after taking a sudden nosedive back to Earth on one of his high-altitude flights. While he is dreaming, he has to remind himself that in real life, he is lying in bed breathing fresh air, and that the water in his thoughts can’t hurt him.
Breathing underwater was a difficult feat to master. Flying, on the other hand, was not as challenging. The flying part was easy; controlling where he went and how fast he wanted to go was another story. A person does not fly naturally, so there is no logical way to know how to direct and control the ability of personal flight.
Even after years of practice there were times when Ben would spiral out of control and shoot up into the air past the highest trees and tallest buildings, his body tumbling uncontrollably upward, his heart pounding wildly. The laws of gravity felt completely unreal. His mind and body responded to these events with the natural panic a person would experience if these things were really happening. Sensations felt during sleep—hot, cold, pain, and pleasure—were all just as vivid as in real life, and sometimes even more realistic and exaggerated.
He had developed a failsafe mechanism to get himself out of these predicaments—a last-ditch technique when a good dream went sour. It had started with a
“Ah, Ben! You’re up!”
Ben was sipping at a steaming cup of coffee.
“How did you sleep?”
“Good; slept good.”
In the past, Ben participated in tests where he had slept on nothing more than an examination table with a thin white sheet. The room he slept in the night before was luxurious in comparison. He slept like a baby until this morning when the mechanical noises from the wall behind his room grew louder—much louder than previously.
“I would like you to know,” Dr. Wulfric said, pulling up a chair across the table from Ben, “that everything went exceedingly well. We just started analyzing the results, and they’re proving to be quite extraordinary.” The doctor smiled from behind his thick beard, gleaming like a little boy. “Do you remember your dreams from last night?”
“Sure I do.” Within the first several minutes of waking, Ben could remember his conscious and subconscious dreams very clearly. Typically, the images would fade throughout the day, unless the dream had some significance or effect on him. In a case like this, when he was truly focused, Ben could remember the dream as long as he liked. “I viewed the pictures just as you asked,” he said. “First I looked at them from far away, passively. Then I scanned them up close as best as I could.”
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Wulfric nodded.
Ben smirked. He hoped he gave them a good show. In between his assignment, he took his dream on a little thrill ride. First, he flew into the sky like a bird, soaring over the tops of trees and sweeping down close to the ground, speeding down streets and alleyways inches above the pavement. He flew to the tops of skyscrapers to perch for a moment, only to dive back down, head first and recklessly fast.
Next, he swam—or more accurately, he walked—into a large body of water. His feet mired in the thick sandy bottom as he walked. He felt the tides pull and sway his legs. The water was warm, tropically warm. He looked at fish, coral, and an oddly fluorescent eel. His subconscious conjured up the details: the fish, the sand, the coral, the sky, and the climate—everything, really. All he had to do was think beach, and there it was.
Doing these things, like breathing underwater and flying, took years of practice, and he was no master. His initial response when presented with these impossible feats was fear and panic. It was difficult for Ben to separate reality from what was happening in his subconscious world, the land of his dreams.
Many dreams end abruptly with Ben waking in a state of near panic. He would hyperventilate while dreaming of drowning underwater. Or, his heart would practically beat through his chest after taking a sudden nosedive back to Earth on one of his high-altitude flights. While he is dreaming, he has to remind himself that in real life, he is lying in bed breathing fresh air, and that the water in his thoughts can’t hurt him.
Breathing underwater was a difficult feat to master. Flying, on the other hand, was not as challenging. The flying part was easy; controlling where he went and how fast he wanted to go was another story. A person does not fly naturally, so there is no logical way to know how to direct and control the ability of personal flight.
Even after years of practice there were times when Ben would spiral out of control and shoot up into the air past the highest trees and tallest buildings, his body tumbling uncontrollably upward, his heart pounding wildly. The laws of gravity felt completely unreal. His mind and body responded to these events with the natural panic a person would experience if these things were really happening. Sensations felt during sleep—hot, cold, pain, and pleasure—were all just as vivid as in real life, and sometimes even more realistic and exaggerated.
He had developed a failsafe mechanism to get himself out of these predicaments—a last-ditch technique when a good dream went sour. It had started with a
Similar Books
