Dreaming in the Dream Research Lab

All my dreams were about the dream research lab.

I’m dreaming about the dream research lab, I said to the dream researcher. That’s all I’m dreaming about these days. The dream research lab.

The dream researcher pondered. I knew she was pondering because she put her hand to her chin and went hmmmm.

Hmmmm, she said.

She tapped the keyboard of the dream research terminal. On the screen, apparently, were my dreams. She wouldn’t let me see them. And believe me, I’d asked.

Can I see them? I asked again. My dreams?

For the forty-eighth time, no, said the dream researcher. It would ruin our research.

I don’t want to ruin your research, I said. You’ve worked so hard on it, your research.

Thank you, said the dream researcher.

You’ve dedicated your life to your research, I said. You’ve sacrificed so much for your research. You’ve put your own dreams on hold for your dream research.

Your electrode is coming loose, she said.

I reached up. She was right. The electrode on my left temple had become unstuck. It dangled limply against my earlobe, like the snout of a sniffing dog.

When a dog sniffs your ear like that, my grandmother had said many years ago, it means you have brain cancer.

I had thought it a strange thing to say on Thanksgiving. But grandmother had said so many strange things in her final years. She had died how she’d lived: in a house next to a cornfield.

Do I just stick it back? I said.

Just stick it back, she said.

I stuck it back. I imagined I could feel the waves of newly affixed dream research surging through my cerebellum. But in reality the electrode was merely cold and a little damp, from my spit.

I think I’m dreaming of the dream research lab so much because I’ve been spending so much time in the dream research lab, I said. Maybe I should go outside and soak up some rays.

You can’t soak up any rays, said the dream researcher. Do you know why?

It would ruin your research? I said.

It would ruin our research, she said.