you're going to be driving or operating heavy machinery.
For people who suffer from occasional sleeplessness, a Sominex every now and then may work. It gives them a nudge. But they wouldn't work for you in any case, because your problem isn't getting to sleep, it's staying asleep. correct?"
"Correct."
"Can I ask you a delicate question?"
"Sure. I guess so.
"Do you have a problem with Dr. Litchfield regarding this Maybe have some doubts about his ability to understand how really pissy your insomnia is making you feel?"
"Yes," Ralph said gratefully. "Do you think I should go see him?
Try to explain that to him so he'll understand?" To this question Wyzer would of course respond in the affirmative, and Ralph would finally make the call. And it would bel should be Litchfield-he saw that now. It was madness to think of hooking up with a new doctor at his age.
Can you tell Dr. Litchfield you're seeing things? Can you tell him about the blue marks you saw shooting up from the tips of Lois Chasse's fingers? The footprints on the sidewalk, like the footprints in an Arthur Murray dance-diagram? The silvery stuff around the tips of Joe Wyzer's fingers? Are you really going to tell Litchfield that stuff?
And if you're of, If you can't, by are you going to see hill, in first Place, no matter what this guy recommends?
Wyzer, however, surprised him by going in an entirely different direction. "Are you still dreaming?"
"Yes. Quite a lot, in fact, considering that I'm down to about three hours' sleep a night."
"Are they coherent dreams-dreams that consist of perceivable events and have some kind of narrative flow, no matter how kookoo-or are they just jumbled images?"
Ralph remembered a dream he'd had the night before. He and Helen Deepneau and Bill McGovern had been having a three-sided game of Frisbee in the middle of Harris Avenue. Helen had a pair of huge, clunky saddle shoes on her feet; McGovern was wearing a sweatshirt with a vodka bottle on it. ABSOLUTELY THE BEST, the sweatshirt proclaimed.
The Frisbee had been bright red with fluorescent green stripes.
Then Rosalie the dog had shown up, The faded blue bandanna someone had hung around her neck was flapping as she limped toward them, All at once she had leaped into the air, snatched the Frisbee, and gone running off with it in her mouth, Ralph wanted to give chase, but McGovern said, Really, Ralph, we're getting a hole case of them for Christmas. Ralph turned to him, intending to point out that Christmas was over three months away and to ask what the hell they were going to do if they wanted to play Frisbee between then and now, but before he could, the dream had either ended or gone on to some other, less vivid, mind-movie.
"If I understand what you're saying," Ralph replied, "my dreams are coherent."
"Good, I also want to know if they're lucid dreams. Lucid dreaills fulfill two requirements. First, you know you're dreaming.
Second, you can often influence the course the dream takes-you're more than just a Passive observer."
Ralph nodded. "Sure, I have those, too.
In fact, I seem to have a lot of them lately. I was just thinking of one I had last night. In it this stray dog I see on the street from time to time ran off with a Frisbee some friends of mine and I were playing with. I was mad that she broke up the game, and I tried to make her drop the Frisbee just by sending her the thought. Sort of a telepathic command, you know?"
He uttered a small, embarrassed chuckle, but Wyzer only nodded matter-of-factly. "Did it work?"
"Not this time," Ralph said, "but I think I have made that sort of thing work in other dreams. Only I can't be sure, because most of the dreams I have seem to fade away almost as soon as I wake up."
"That's the case with everyone," Wyzer said. "The brain treats most dreams as disposable matter, storing them in extreme shortterm memory."
"You know a lot about this, don't you?"
"Insomnia interests me very much. I did two research papers on the link between dreams and sleep disorders when I was in college."
Wyzer glanced at his watch. "It's my break-time. Would you like to have a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie with me? There's a place 'just two doors down, and the pie is fantastic."
"Sounds good, but maybe I'll settle for a n orange soda. I've been trying to cut down on