This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives).
by Trevor Mendham
The train meanders through the countryside, rocking softly as it does so. The gentle clattering sound of its wheels and the rhythmic vibrations are relaxing and peaceful. Outside, trees pass as a blur and the sunlight coming through the windows flashes as they do so. Occasionally in the distance there are houses; from here they appear like simple boxes, as if crudely drawn by a child.
Paul is the only person in the carriage. He sits in a corner seat, staring out of the window. How much longer? he wonders. When are we going to arrive?
He frowns as another question enters his mind: Where am I going?
He looks around the carriage. It is somehow familiar yet also entirely wrong. Everything is old-fashioned, trains haven’t looked like this for years.
Not only can he not remember why he is on this train, he can’t even remember getting on board. He thinks hard, but there is nothing before the train. He tries to rewind back through the day but it’s just a blank. So where’s he going?
On the wall of the carriage is a map showing the railway line and the stations. Now he is standing in front of it, studying it. He tries to read the names of the stations but the words fade in and out, he can’t focus.
The train dives into a tunnel and everything goes black for an instant. Then light returns.
Now there is a woman standing beside him. She is in her early thirties, with clothes and hair as dated as the decor of the carriage. She smiles at him and he recognises her instantly as his mother.
He also now recognises the carriage. He knows this train: it’s a memory from when was eight, travelling with his mother for a weekend holiday at a seaside resort. It was his first time on a train, an exciting adventure.
Now Paul is sitting on one of the benches in the carriage, wearing shorts and a sky blue shirt. On the seat next to him are the brand new bucket and spade his mother bought for him yesterday. “Mum,” he says in his eight year old voice to the woman sitting opposite, “Are we nearly there yet?” His mother smiles and shakes her head.
Now he is no longer on the train. He’s in a bedroom - his bedroom. He stands next to the bed where he can see himself, his adult self, lying asleep. On the table next to his bed is a book, the title of which he can’t read. There’s also a lamp which is attached to some sort of electrical mechanism. The lamp is flashing.
The constant blinking is annoying him so he goes to turn it off. It should be a simple switch but it isn’t. There are wires, dials, strange pieces of equipment that he doesn’t recognise. They don’t even seem to be assembled in any sensible way, just thrown together.
No problem, he can just unplug the whole thing. Except that when he traces the wire back it goes straight in to the wall without a plug or socket.
Now he is on the train again, once more an adult. His mother has gone and he is sitting alone in the carriage.
There is a man in uniform standing in front of him. “Ticket please,” he asks.
Paul begins to check his pockets. He can’t find the ticket. In fact he can’t find anything. No wallet, no keys. He starts to panic, especially when he realises the reason he can’t find anything: he’s standing naked on a sandy beach. Around him is a group of people laughing and pointing, cameras flashing as they take pictures of his humiliation.
No, this can’t be real. He doesn’t want this. “Stop it!” he cries out, “Stop it!”
And now he is back in the bedroom again, watching himself in his bed, his sleeping eyeballs darting back and forth beneath his closed eyelids. The light on the bedside table still flashes. The cover of the book is still unreadable. But now he knows what the book is, he remembers the title:
Inducing Lucid Dreams
On the beach, Paul smiles.
The flashing lights, the unreadable writing, the incomprehensible technology, even the public humiliation. They are all Dream Signs that he has been recording, training himself to spot them. It took his sleeping brain a while to catch on but now that it has done so he realises that he’s dreaming. He’s asleep yet fully conscious within the dream. He is Lucid Dreaming.
Now that he knows he is dreaming, he can control the dream and enjoy it. He snaps his fingers and the laughing crowd turn into pillars of sand that collapse slowly on to the beach.
What next? Oh yes, he could do with some clothes. He snaps his fingers and is now wearing designer beachwear, complete with expensive sunglasses. The warmth of the sun is wonderful on his now-tanned skin. He reaches out an arm and from the air he plucks an ice cream cone complete with lashings of chocolate sauce; it’s the sort of thing he’d never eat in the real world, but dream food has no calories or fat.
He walks a little way along the beach, viewing the landmarks he passes as he does so: the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. For the latter he flies into the air to get a better view.
Returning to the ground he looks around at the other people on the beach, admiring the young women in their skimpy bikinis. He congratulates his imagination, this is definitely the best part of the dream so far! One girl in her early twenties is especially attractive, however she’s playing beach ball with a muscular hunk of a guy. In the real world he’s the type who could break Paul in two, but this is Paul’s dream. He’s in control.
He walks over to the couple. “Excuse me,” he says to the man. “I think you’ll find that’s my girl.” The hunk snarls and approaches menacingly. Paul bunches one hand into a fist and lets fly. In terms of technique and power it’s a dreadful punch, but in this dream it’s enough to knock the hunk to the ground and leave him groaning. Paul can’t resist the opportunity to kick sand in the downed man’s face.
He turns to the surprised looking girl. “Hello gorgeous,” he says. “How about we go somewhere more intimate?”
With another snap of his fingers the scene changes again. The two of them are now sitting in a small, dimly lit restaurant. He is wearing a dinner suit, she a classy yet revealing red gown. On the table between them burns a candle. There are no other diners, the restaurant is theirs.
A waiter hurries over. “Welcome back, Sir,” he bobs his head. “And welcome to the lady who is lucky enough to be your partner tonight. Will you be having anything to drink this evening?”
“A bottle of my usual please,” says Paul, “The Chateau Lafite Rothschild 2005.”
“Of course, Sir.” The waiter leaves two leather bound menus on the table then scurries away. The flame on the candle seems to flicker a few times and his companion stares at it then blinks.
“Oh,” she says, speaking for the first time. “So you’re a wine snob then? I should have guessed.”
Paul frowns. That’s not right. She’s meant to be impressed and tell him how much she adores men with refined tastes, how much they turn her on. He needs to concentrate harder.
Looking her in the eyes he responds: “I enjoy the finer things in life, which is why you’re here.” He smiles.
“Nice line,” she replies. “And after a few glasses of expensive wine I’ll fall into bed with you? No, I think not.” She stands up from the table and turns to walk away.
“No!” Paul rises and slams his fist on the table. “You can’t walk out on me. This is my dream and that means I get what I want. What I want is you.” With a snap of his fingers she is standing naked.
She shows no sign of embarrassment but just turns back to him then sighs and shakes her head. “Is that it? You really do have a very limited imagination. Let me show you something.” She blinks slowly and her clothes return. She blinks again and...
The two of them are standing in a bedroom - but this time it isn’t his. Instead she is the one who lies sleeping. Like him, she has a light flashing by the side of the bed. Like him, she also has a book nearby. It’s too far away to read the title, but it’s title somehow enters Paul’s thoughts:
Controlling Mutual Dreams
She smiles, then blinks.
The bedroom fades away. The restaurant has also gone; the two of them are standing on an empty plane that extends to infinity, lit from an unknown source.
Paul opens his mouth to speak and she blinks again.
He freezes. There’s nothing holding him in place, but he’s unable to move. No matter how hard he tries his muscles just refuse to obey.
She looks at the red gown he conjured for her, studies it then nods. “You know,” she says “I actually quite like this. Especially the colour. But,” she reaches out and ruffles his jacket, “This will have to go.” She blinks and the top half of his outfit disappears, leaving his chest exposed. She runs her right hand across his skin, playfully tweaking his nipples.
“Nice,” she says. “I have so many fantasies, so many things I want to do...” she pauses, then continues: “To people. But the real world is so up tight and I don’t want to get into any trouble. Which means I have to indulge myself in dreams. But dreams are no fun on your own. That’s why I’m in yours.”
She raises her arm and a gleaming knife appears in her hand. Unhurriedly she slashes the blade across his throat.
At first there’s very little pain, just a stinging sensation. Then his head droops of its own accord, but not enough to stem the blood that is gushing forth. The blood seems to be everywhere, consuming everything. Now the pain comes and he wants to scream but is unable to do so. He remains in frozen agony, unable to move, watching his life pulse out from his throat whilst she just stands and laughs. Mercifully he feels blackness begin to creep up on him, an oblivion he craves.
She blinks and the pain stops. But this is not mercy.
His neck is whole again, there is no wound. The blood has gone from both him and her with no sign that anything ever happened. But he can remember the pain and he still cannot move.
She gives a smile that would make him shiver were he able to. “Oh no,” she says, “You don’t get away that easily. If you die then you’ll wake up and I don’t want that. I’m in control here and you don’t die until I say so.”
She runs the blade of the knife slowly down his chest, leaving a thin line of red.
“Time goes differently here, a moment in the real world can be stretched out almost indefinitely. A dream can seem to last for hours, days or even weeks if the dreamer has enough experience. And I have a lot of experience.”
She blinks and the rest of his clothes disappear. She continues running the knife blade downwards.
“I think this dream will last a very long time...”
The End
Author’s Notes:
This story first appeared in my self-published collection Rest In Fear 2.
The flashing lights, unreadable writing and weird machines mentioned here are all standard ‘dream signs’ used when trying to have lucid dreams. The repeated use of the word “Now...” is also intended to suggest the way dreams cut from scene to scene like films.
A lot of people worry about getting ‘trapped’ in a lucid dream. In my experience the opposite is more likely to be true: it’s staying in the lucid state that’s the problem, I usually wake up annoyingly quickly after becoming lucid.
As to the risks of a mutual dream... well, I’ve never experienced one.
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