Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

  

 

            The attendant continued, “She works here a couple days a week. Did she do something to piss you off? She does that a lot.”

            “No, nothing like that. I was just curious. She looked a little familiar, that’s all,” Jenson replied, trying to keep his wits about him. He grabbed his receipt from the attendant’s fat sausage fingers and started to walk out the door.

            “Dude, you forgot your candy bar,” the man called after him, but Jenson ignored him. He had no appetite at the moment and knew he needed to hurry to the car to sit down. His legs were suddenly shaky and threatened to buckle beneath him.

            When he made it to the car and plopped into the driver’s seat, Maggie gasped.

            “Your face! God, you look so pale! Are you ok?”

            “Her name is Kristine.”

            “Shut up,” Maggie replied, surprised.

            “Seriously. The guy behind the counter told me. I honestly didn’t expect it to be true.”

            “Wow. You must be psychic!”

            Jenson didn’t reply. He started the car and drove back to the expressway. Maggie tried to start up a conversation with him a few times on the way home, but he was too befuddled to maintain one. He had just received further proof that he had experienced something beyond explanation, and it consumed his thoughts. When they arrived home, Maggie had to call after him to remind him to grab the bags from the car, as he was already running toward the apartment to get on his laptop and begin his research. He hurriedly returned to the vehicle and took two of the bags, leaving the last bag for Maggie, and ran toward the apartment again. He heard an exasperated grunt from Maggie, but he was too excited to care.

            Once inside the apartment, he dropped the bags on the floor in the kitchen and sat down at his desk in the living room. He stared at his laptop screen, trying to sort through the jumble of ideas in his head, and ignored Maggie’s complaining regarding his placement of their bags. He decided to perform a search on remote viewing and dreams, just to see what came up. He was surprised by the overwhelming number of theories he found. As he sifted through all the information, trying to weed out the plausible from the insane, he came across a theory that intrigued him: alternate realities and alternate dimensions. He ran a search using the topics of mind travel, dreams, and alternate dimensions, and what he found greatly interested him. He read about how many of the great thinkers and geniuses in history allegedly had their moments of enlightenment and strokes of genius while in a deep meditative state. Einstein would sit in a chair silently and run “thought experiments” for hours. Leonardo da Vinci would lie in his bed with a lit candle at his feet and stare at the light that flickered off the ceiling until he fell into a meditative state. Socrates would reportedly stop in the middle of what he was doing and stand still and silent for long periods of time, oblivious to his surroundings, as a deep thought overtook him.

Jenson was fascinated by all of this, but one story in particular caught his attention. Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician, claimed that all of his brilliant, groundbreaking formulas and equations came to him in his dreams when the goddess Namagiri revealed them to him. Some of his formulas were subsequently proven to be correct, and some of them are still in the process of being proven. In the articles he read about Ramanujan, the theory of the Akashic record was also mentioned. He learned that a Hindu legend describes the Akashic record as a plane of existence that holds all of the information of the universe. The articles he read postulated that Ramanujan and other geniuses may have been able to connect with this realm of knowledge while in deep meditative states. As he read this, he was reminded of James’s theory of the “plane of destiny.”

Only a few days ago he would have thought all of this information ludicrous. After his experience, however, he found himself nodding enthusiastically in agreement as he read each article. He felt like he had just arrived at the greatest “Aha!” moment in his life. What he was reading was making sense to him.

            After several hours of staring at the computer screen, Jenson’s eyes were beginning to ache, and his stomach was growling incessantly at him. When he looked at the clock in the corner of the screen, he was surprised to see that it was already past 9PM. He decided it was time to take a break. He stood up from his computer chair and headed to the kitchen. As he sat on a stool at the bar in the tiny kitchen, a bologna sandwich in his hands, he pondered the validity of what he had read. The theory of alternate realities and mind travel were interesting, but did it exactly explain what had happened to him? If his dream with Kristine had taken place in a shopping mall or a meadow, he might’ve believed it did. But demon hunting? Was there really an alternate reality where people hunted demons?

            Maggie strolled into the kitchen and stood with the refrigerator door open, contemplating what to make herself for dinner. She looked at Jenson and furrowed her brows.

            “A bologna sandwich for dinner?”

            “Why not? It was quick and easy. I would’ve made you one too, but I know how you detest heavily processed meats,” he replied.

            “Damn right I do. I shouldn’t even allow them in the apartment. Do you have any idea how bad that stuff is for you?”

            “Yep. You’ve told me many times.”

            She sighed disapprovingly and removed a bag of salad from the fridge. As she poured the contents into a bowl and began sprinkling sunflower seeds and frozen peas over it, she asked him how his research was going.

            “I found a lot of interesting information.” He shared with her what he had learned about alternate dimensions and the habits of certain historical figures. He was pleased to see that she was showing some interest in what he was telling her.

            “So you think you travelled to an alternate reality?” she questioned as she stood across the bar from him and munched on her salad.

            “I’m not sure. If that was the case, then that would mean that Kristine would’ve had to have travelled too, at the same time, to the same place.”

            “Do you suppose that’s why you had such a bad migraine yesterday morning? Maybe your brain did do something extraordinary, and your migraine was due to whatever it was that you did,” Maggie theorized.

            Jenson hadn’t even considered that possibility. Whenever he had a migraine, it would start in the morning shortly after waking up. But it usually happened after a lack of sleep, which was exactly what had happened yesterday.

            “I think my migraines are from a lack of sleep, but I guess I can’t rule anything out right now.”

            “Maybe your brain is more likely to do its weird psychic thing when you are overtired, when you go to bed too late,” she reasoned.

            Jenson was surprised at her ideas. He hadn’t expected her to actually get involved in helping him figure out theories. She was an intelligent woman, but physics, psychology, and astronomy weren’t subjects in which she had ever shown an interest. She was usually more into economics and political science than physical and applied sciences. He was glad for her interest and input, and it was times like this that made him remember why he loved her.

            “I do have my craziest dreams when I’m overtired,” Jenson acknowledged.

            “Are you going to do any more research tonight?”

            “I don’t think so. I’ll go to the university tomorrow and search their databases for any scientific papers relating to the theories I read online. For now, though, I think I’m going to go to bed. I think a good night’s sleep will do me good.”

            “Agreed. Just try not to do anything too crazy in your dreams tonight,” Maggie teased.

            As Jenson lay in bed that night, he wondered what his dreams would bring. He felt slightly apprehensive about falling asleep now that he knew his brain might do something psychic or supernatural while he slumbered, but he also knew he had nothing serious to worry about. He would still wake up in the morning, regardless of what transpired in his dreams. He thought about all the outlandish dreams he’d had throughout his life and wondered if any of them had anything in common with the dream from two nights ago. He often dreamed of strangers, so was it possible that those strangers were real people, like Kristine? He also had dreams that were so jumbled and nonsensical that he could barely piece them together when he woke up and tried to remember them. Were those dreams anything special? He continued to think about his past dreams as he drifted into a deep sleep.

            Jenson walked out of his bedroom into a living room that he knew to be his, unaware that it was completely different than the living room he was used to. It was filled with people that he knew to be his roommates, though for some reason he couldn’t remember any of their names. Two young men were planted on a green plaid couch, watching a football game on the wide-screen television. One man was tall and thin, with a long face, bright blue eyes, and short blond hair. The other was shorter, with dark hair, a five o’clock shadow, a stocky build, and dark brown eyes. They both sported football jerseys and had beers in their hands. A third man, about the same age as the other two, was walking out of the kitchen with a long-neck bottle of beer and a bag of beef jerky. He was rather tall, with a muscular build, and had a round, bearded face with a pug nose.

            “Hey, Jenson, come watch the game with us,” the muscular one said, gesturing for Jenson to join them as he plopped down on an old leather recliner next to the couch. “Dave and Tom here are rooting against our team. I need some backup.”

            A female voice then came from the kitchen, “No amount of backup is going to save your team from losing!” Jenson watched as a woman stepped around the corner from the kitchen and came into the room. He was instantly attracted to her. She was tall, thin, and beautiful, with long, voluminous, dark brown hair that hung down to her large, perky breasts. She had a rich, honey colored complexion and large, deep brown eyes that hinted at a Latino heritage. Jenson was mesmerized, and though he knew she was his roommate and that he must’ve seen her every day, he felt like he was seeing her for the first time. She was wearing a low-cut, v-neck t-shirt that exposed a small amount of cleavage that Jenson had a hard time keeping his eyes away from. As she turned to set her beer on the coffee table, he noticed how tight her jeans were and how perfectly shaped her bottom was. He looked away to avoid staring, and walked to the couch where the first two roommates were seated. They moved over to allow him seating space. As Jenson sat and watched the football game with them, it didn’t occur to him that he didn’t particularly enjoy football. He spent much of his time stealing glances at the lovely brunette to his right, whom he soon found out was Andrea.

            Before he knew it, the game was over. To celebrate their team’s victory, Dave and Tom invited the others to join them at the bar for drinks. The five of them walked to a bar only a few blocks down the street from the apartment. It appeared that they lived in a busy downtown area of a large city, which Jenson didn’t find strange in the least. As they sat at the bar, talking about the next big game and their Super Bowl picks, he noticed that Andrea, who was seated at the barstool next to him, wasn’t joining in the conversation.

            He turned to her and asked, “Why so quiet?”

            She looked him in the eyes, distress written on her face. She then took a sideways glance behind her. “My ex is sitting back there with his new girlfriend. You know, the one he cheated on me with.”

            Jenson took a quick look behind him, but he didn’t see anyone familiar. Though he couldn’t remember any details, he seemed to know what she was talking about. “Maybe they’ll leave soon,” he said.

            “I doubt it. If he sees me, he’s going to stay as long as he can just to make me uncomfortable. You know how he is.”

            “You want to go? I can take you back to the apartment if you want,” he offered.

            “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

            Jenson told his buddies about the situation, and they promised they’d meet them back at the apartment before too long.

            At the apartment, Andrea flopped down on the couch and started to cry with her face in her hands. “God, why does it bother me so much? I should be glad that she stole him away from me. He was such an a*****e! He was always cutting me down and picking fights with you guys. It was exhausting to be with him. Why the hell do I still have feelings for him?” she wondered aloud.

            “It’s hard to get over somebody that you loved, even if he was a terrible person. I know exactly how you feel. But I promise you, someone wonderful will come into your life and completely wipe those remnant feelings off the map,” Jenson consoled.

            “I don’t know if ‘love’ is what you would call it. He was too horrible to love. It was more of an attachment, I guess you could say. It’s just hard to sever that attachment and be alone, you know?”

            “You’re not alone. You have all of us,” he reminded her.

            “I know. I’m lucky you guys didn’t allow him to push you away from me, or I’d have absolutely no one right now. Thank you for that,” Andrea said as she smiled at him through her tears. Jenson noticed that she was one of those rare women that could still look beautiful when she was crying.

            Jenson reached over and pulled her to him. He wrapped his strong arms around her dainty figure and held her against his chest in a comforting embrace. He lightly kissed the top of her head, discretely inhaling the lovely floral scent of her hair. He then rested his cheek against the spot he had kissed, and held her while she cried. He realized that he badly wanted to be the man that made her forget all about her feelings for her ex.

            When Jenson awoke the next morning, he clearly remembered the dream. He could even remember the way Andrea’s hair had smelled. He looked at the empty spot in the bed where Maggie had been, and thought about how different Andrea had been from his Maggie. She didn’t resemble Maggie at all, and in his dream it appeared that Andrea hadn’t been wearing a spot of makeup. Andrea also seemed much more free-spirited and more open to discuss difficult emotions than Maggie. With Maggie, the only time Jenson knew something was bothering her was when she was being exceedingly difficult, and when he would try to pry from her what was truly bothering her, she’d close up and refuse to talk about it. Even when they had first started dating, Maggie never would have been able to have a conversation with Jenson like the one he’d had with Andrea. He couldn’t help but notice the strange longing he felt for Andrea, even though he was now awake.

            He wondered if this dream had been anything like the demon-hunting dream. Was Andrea a real person? If she was, and he ever met her, he worried what it would do to him. He loved Maggie, he was sure of it, and he was a faithful man. But he had to admit that he was mesmerized by the woman from his dream, and it would be difficult for him to forget her.

            When Jenson went into the bathroom to use the toilet, Maggie was still in the shower. She heard him come in.

            “Any crazy dreams last night?” she asked.

            Jenson knew better than to share his dream with Maggie, so he told her, “Not that I can remember.”

            “Yeah, me neither. Though I never remember my dreams the way you do, anyway. I don’t think I even dream half the time,” she said as she shut off the shower. She pulled back the curtain and stepped out of the shower, quickly wrapping her towel around herself. “So what are you going to be doing while I’m at work today?” Maggie inquired.

            “I’ll work for a while, but I’m anxious to do some more research. I think I’ll go to the university library today to see what kind of articles I can find in their online databases of peer-reviewed journals. I’m not expecting much, but we’ll see.”

            “Why do you need to go to the university for that? You have a computer here.”

            “I don’t have remote access to the database since I’m not a student anymore. You need a student ID and password to get onto the library’s database if you aren’t on one of the campus computers.”

            “Oh, I see. Well, good luck with that. I hope you can find something. But do make sure to get some work done too, because I don’t want you to get so sidetracked by this dream business that you put your art on hold. You have a gallery show in three months, remember?” she said.

            “I know,” he replied reproachfully. “I’ll get my work done.” He felt like she was treating him like a child, telling him he had to eat all his peas before he could have ice cream.

To prove his ability to prioritize, he left the bathroom and went straight to his work corner in the living room. He wished he could call it a studio, but it was more of a nook. He had his table, which served as his easel because he preferred to paint with his canvas lying flat rather than upright, and a wide array of brushes and paints scattered about upon the table. He sat down in his creaky wooden chair and looked at the wilderness scene upon which he had been working. He wondered if there was anywhere on earth that looked exactly like that scene. Had his mind completely fabricated the landscape, or had he seen it somewhere? Perhaps he had seen it in a dream, or visited it in a dream. He squeezed some paint onto his palette, selected a brush, and began blocking in the moose that would be the focal point of the piece. He heard Maggie dashing about the apartment as she hurriedly grabbed her briefcase from the counter in the kitchen and her lunch from the fridge. She was cutting it close on time, as usual, so she gave Jenson a quick kiss on the cheek and ran out the door, barely getting “I love you” out of her mouth before the door slammed shut behind her.

Jenson felt a familiar calm wash over him that always presented itself when Maggie left the apartment. He subconsciously kept himself tensed whenever she was around, and it wasn’t something he could control. He wondered if he would feel the same way if he lived with someone more like Andrea.

            As Jenson painted, his mind became focused on his work, and for several hours he wasn’t plagued by thoughts of his problems. He was calm, centered, and happy. When his subject was completed, he looked up at the clock on the wall. It was already lunch time, which meant he needed to put down the brush and head to the university. From his experience as a student, he knew that if he didn’t get to the library before 2 PM, there would be no open computers. He quickly changed into some presentable attire, foregoing his shower for the sake of time.

            Once he found an open parking space in the metered lots at the school, he deposited two hours’ worth of change into the meter and walked toward the library. He felt a strange nostalgia as he walked the familiar sidewalks and navigated his way through the bustling crowd of college students. It had been ten years since he last stepped foot on campus, but his college days flooded back to him like a tidal wave. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much he missed those days. It was a time of fun, friends, women, and few real-world responsibilities. Now here he was, ten years older, not much richer, and a hell of a lot less happy. What had happened? He ignored the little voice in his head that shouted Maggie!

            When he entered the expansive library, he was immediately disoriented. The layout of the first floor had been changed, and he had to refer to a map on the wall to locate the computers. He trudged up two flights of stairs and, after several minutes of searching, found one open computer. He sat down and began his search for answers.

            An hour and a half later, Jenson was feeling discouraged. He’d read through several dry articles that had sounded promising in the abstract, but had revealed nothing of interest within their pages. Finally, however, as he was scrolling through the journals one last time, just about to turn over his computer to an awaiting student, an article caught his eye: Dreamscapes as Parallel Universes by Dr. Donald Wesson. He let out an audible gasp of excitement, ignoring the strange looks it had earned him. He quickly opened the link and began scanning the pages. He was not disappointed. Dr. Wesson’s paper was hypothesizing that the mind, when in a certain state of sleep or meditation, may be able to transport an individual’s consciousness into another reality. Through his research, he had discovered that certain individuals exhibited strange brain function patterns occasionally during their dream state. When they were in such a state, they were exceedingly difficult to awaken, and when they were asked to recount their dreams, there were similarities in the descriptions. The dreams always contained people the dreamer didn’t actually recognize from real life and seemed more real to the dreamer than most dreams.

            Dr. Wesson’s article went on to describe several cases in which he had trained individuals to practice lucid dreaming so as to consciously gather information from their dreams. In many instances, the dreamer was able to learn something in their dream about which they had no knowledge before falling asleep, then accurately describe it once they were awake. In one case, the individual was asked to look up and memorize pi to the fifteenth decimal place, and after a dream that produced strange brain functions, he woke up and correctly wrote out pi to the twenty-third decimal place. The individual claimed that in the dream he actively found a computer and looked up the number online and memorized it to as many decimal places as he could.

            Before he was able to finish the article, Jenson noticed that he was almost out of time. His meter would be running out soon, and he knew that an expired meter always resulted in a parking ticket due to the heavily patrolled parking lots at the university. He quickly printed out the article and ran to his car. He drove home with an excitement akin to a child on Christmas Eve.

            Jenson sat at his computer desk at home and continued reading Dr. Wesson’s paper. He was intrigued by the accounts of Dr. Wesson’s study subjects and the information they were able to gather in their dreams. According to Dr. Wesson, he always asked his subjects to gather information on mathematical formulas and equations as it was generally accepted that math was the language of the universe and should remain constant regardless of what universe his study subjects visited in their dreams. At the end of the article, the subject of the Akashic record was introduced. Dr. Wesson indicated that he believed that such a plane of existence was entirely possible, if not probable, and planned to focus future research efforts to discover it.

            When he had finished reading the paper, Jenson wanted more. He needed more. He felt like he had just discovered a rich vein of coal, but knew that if he dug deep enough, he’d find diamonds. Dr. Wesson’s paper proved to him that he wasn’t crazy �" or, if he was, then there was someone else out there who was just as crazy. He had to tell Maggie what he had discovered.

            “I’m busy, dear,” Maggie greeted him when he called her cell phone.

            “I know, but I found something amazing,” he replied. “There is a scientist who actually studies the very same thing I experienced! I just finished reading his paper, and it validates everything I suspected.”

            “Huh, I didn’t expect that,” she replied simply.

            “I didn’t either, but it’s true. I need to know more, though. I can guarantee this guy knows more than what he put in his paper. Who knows what he could have discovered in the five years since this paper was published?”

            “Well, maybe you should try to contact him. He might be interested in what you have to share,” Maggie suggested.

            “I know, I was thinking the same thing. I have to get involved in some way. I just hope I can find a way to get a hold of him.”

            “Sounds like you’ve got work to do, then. I’ll talk to you when I get home tonight. Good luck,” she said before ending the call.

            Jenson turned on his laptop to begin tracking down Dr. Donald Wesson online. When he ran a search of his name, he was surprised to find more than one Dr. Donald Wesson. After reading about each of them, he almost fell out of his chair when he found the Dr. Wesson he sought. He is a physicist who specializes in quantum theory, and he is located at the University of Michigan �" two hours away from Jenson’s apartment.