than you think.
11:36 p.m.
What does it mean?
11:39 p.m.
She still doesn’t know.
11:58 p.m.
Nope.
November 26, 2005, 9:59 a.m.
Janie waits at the door of the public library. When it opens for business, she meanders through the nonfiction section. Self-help. Dreams.
She pulls all six books from the shelf, finds a back corner table, and reads.
When a group of sleepy-looking students comes in and sets up at a nearby table, she moves to a different section of the library.
And she waits patiently for the computer in the corner to open up. Spends an hour there. She can’t believe what she finds with Google’s help.
Of course, there’s no information on people like her. But it’s a start.
5:01 p.m.
With four of the six books in tow, Janie drives home. She is fascinated. She makes dinner with a book in her hand. She reads until midnight. And then she takes a deep breath and talks to herself as she gets ready for bed.
“I have a problem,” she says quietly, trying not to feel like a dork. “I have a problem, and I need to solve it. I would like to have a dream about how to solve this problem.”
She concentrates. Climbs into bed, closes her eyes, and continues in a calm voice. “I would like to dream about what I can do to block out other people’s dreams. I want—” she falters. “I mean, I would like to help people, and I also…would like…to live a normal life. So their dreams don’t fuck up my life forever.”
Janie breathes deeply. She stops speaking, and instead focuses her mind on her problem. Until she remembers. “And I would like to remember the dream when I wake up,” she adds out loud.
Over and over, she repeats the words in her head.
She peeks at the clock quickly and chides herself for messing with the mojo.
12:33 a.m.
She focuses again. Breathes deeply. Lets the thoughts float around and meld together in her mind.
Slowly, she feels the thoughts filling the room. She breathes them in. They caress her skin. She lets her mind be free, allows her muscles to relax.
And she lets the sleep in.
Nothing happens at first.
Which is good, she discovers.
Lucidity comes late.
2:45 a.m.
Janie finds herself in the middle of a dark lake. She treads water for what seems like hours. She grows weary. Panics. Sees Cabel on the shore with a rope. She waves frantically to him, but he doesn’t see her. She can’t hold on. The water fills her mouth and ears.
She submerges.
There are many people under the surface of the water—men, women, children, babies. She looks at them with panic, her lungs bursting. They stare at her, eyes bulging in death.
She looks around frantically. The pressure in her lungs is overpowering. Everything dims, and goes black. She feels her eyeballs bulging, and hears the haunting inner laughter of the floating bodies around her.
Janie gasps and sits up. It’s 3:10 a.m.
She breathes hard. Writes down the dream in a spiral notebook.
Tries not to feel bad that she failed. She expects this.
It’s not over, she tells herself, lying back down.
Let me dream it again, she thinks, calmly. And this time, I won’t drown. I will breathe under water, because this is my dream and I can do what I want with it. I will swim like a fish. Because I know how to swim. And…and I have gills. Yes, that’s it. I have gills.
She repeats this to herself as she lies down.
3:47 a.m.
She doesn’t have gills.
She rolls over and groans, frustrated, into her pillow. Repeats the mantra.
4:55 a.m.
It begins again.
When Janie slips under water, exhausted, her lungs burning, she looks around at the others who are floating under the surface.
She begins to panic.
The bulging eyes.
And then.
Miss Stubin blinks at her from under the water. She smiles encouragingly. She is not one of the dead.
Floating next to Miss Stubin is another Janie, who nods and smiles. “It’s your dream,” she says.
The drowning Janie looks from Miss Stubin to Janie. Her vision dims.
She grows frantic.
“Concentrate,” Janie says. “Change it.”
Drowning Janie closes her eyes. Falls farther under the water. She kicks her feet as she loses consciousness, struggling to move, to get back above the water.
“Concentrate!” Janie says again. “Do it!”
Gills pop from the drowning Janie’s neck.
She opens her eyes.
Breathes. Long, cleansing breaths, underwater. It tickles. She laughs in bubbles, incredulous.
She looks up, and Miss Stubin and Janie are smiling. Clapping, slow motion and soundless, in the water. They swim over to her.
The formerly drowning Janie grins. “I did it,” she says. Bubbles come out of