The Lathe Of Heaven

“Do you try to deprive yourself of food and water, Mr. Orr? Have you tried doing without air lately? ”

He kept his tone jovial, and the patient managed a brief unhappy smile.

“You know that you need sleep. Just as you need food, water, and air. But did you realize that sleep’s not enough, that your body insists just as strongly upon having its allotment of dreaming sleep? If deprived systematically of dreams, your brain will do some very odd things to you. It will make you irritable, hungry, unable to concentrate— does this sound familiar? It wasn’t just the Dexedrine! — liable to daydreams, uneven as to reaction times, forgetful, irresponsible, and prone to paranoid fantasies. And finally it will force you to dream—no matter what. No drug we have will keep you from dreaming, unless it kills you. For instance, extreme alcoholism can lead to a condition called central pontine myelinolysis, which is fatal; its cause is a lesion in the lower brain resulting from lack of dreaming. Not from lack of sleep! From lack of the very specific state that occurs during sleep, the dreaming state, REM sleep, the d-state. Now you’re no alcoholic, and not dead, and so I know that whatever you’ve taken to suppress your dreams, it’s worked only partially. Therefore, (a) you’re in poor shape physically from partial dream deprivation, and (b) you’ve been trying to go up a blind alley. Now. What started you up the blind alley? A fear of dreams, of bad dreams, I take it, or what you consider to be bad dreams. Can you tell me anything about these dreams? ”

Orr hesitated.

Haber opened his mouth and shut it again. So often he knew what his patients were going to say, and could say it for them better than they could say it for themselves. But it was their taking the step that counted. He could not take it for them. And after all, this talking was a mere preliminary, a vestigial rite from the palmy days of analysis; its only function was to help him decide how he should help the patient, whether positive or negative conditioning was indicated, what he should do.

“I don’t have nightmares more than most people, I think, ” Orr was saying, looking down at his hands. “Nothing special. I’m. .. afraid of dreaming. ”

“Of dreaming bad dreams. ”

“Any dreams. ”

“I see. Have you any notion how that fear got started? Or what it is you’re afraid of, wish to avoid? ”

As Orr did not reply at once, but sat looking down at his hands, square, reddish hands lying too still on his knee, Haber prompted just a little. “Is it the irrationality, the lawlessness, sometimes the immorality of dreams, is it something like that that makes you uncomfortable? ”

“Yes, in a way. But for a specific reason. You see, here … here I. .. ”

Here’s the crux, the lock, though Haber, also watching those tense hands. Poor bastard. He has wet dreams, and a guilt complex about ‘em. Boyhood enuresis, compulsive mother—

“Here’s where you stop believing me. ” The little fellow was sicker than he looked. “A man who deals with dreams both awake and sleeping isn’t too concerned with belief and disbelief, Mr. Orr. They’re not categories I use much. They don’t apply. So ignore that, and go on. I’m interested. ” Did that sound patronizing? He looked at Orr to see if the statement had been taken amiss, and met, for one instant, the man’s eyes. Extraordinarily beautiful eyes, Haber thought, and was surprised by the word, for beauty was not a category he used much either. The irises were blue or gray, very clear, as if transparent. For a moment Haber forgot himself and stared back at those clear, elusive eyes; but only for a moment, so that the strangeness of the experience scarcely registered on his conscious mind.

“Well, ” Orr said, speaking with some determination, “I have had dreams that. .. that affected the. .. non-dream world. The real world. ”

“We all have, Mr. Orr. ” Orr stared. The perfect straight man.

“The effect of the dreams of the just prewaking d-state on the general emotional level of the psyche can be—”

But the straight man interrupted him. “No, I don’t mean that. ” And stuttering a little, “What I mean is, I dreamed something, and it came true. ”

“That isn’t hard to believe, Mr. Orr. Fm quite serious in saying that. It’s only since the rise of scientific thought that anybody much has been inclined even to question such a statement, much less disbelieve it. Prophetic—”

“Not prophetic dreams. I can’t foresee anything. I simply change things. ” The hands were clenched tight. No wonder the Med School bigwigs had sent this one here. They always sent the nuts they couldn’t crack to Haber.

“Can you give me an example? For instance, can you recall the very first time that you had such a dream? How old were you? ”

The patient hesitated a long time, and finally said, “Sixteen, I think. ” His manner was still docile; he showed considerable fear of the subject, but no defensiveness or hostility toward Haber. “I’m not sure. ”

“Tell me about the first time you’re sure of. ” “I was seventeen. I was still living at home, and my mother’s sister was staying with us. She was getting a divorce and wasn’t working, just getting Basic Support. She was kind of in the way. It was a regular three-room flat, and she was always there. Drove my mother up the wall. She wasn’t considerate, Aunt Ethel, I mean. Hogged the bathroom—we still had a private bathroom in that flat. And she kept, oh, making a sort of joking play for me. Half joking. Coming into my bedroom in her topless pajamas, and so on. She was only about thirty. It got me kind of uptight. I didn’t have a girl yet and. .. you know. Adolescents. It’s easy to get a kid worked up. I resented it. I mean, she was my aunt. ”