Author's Note: This is my journey in the world of sci-fi level dream technology, and the impact that powerful dreams have on the human psyche. Most of the story events will be going along with the original plotline, with reasonable leeway given the self-insert in THoND. This will be as the original story – of intrigue, passion, and adventure – but also calling into question whether the world is truly black and white, or if we are forever surrounded in different hues of gray. Rated T for swearing, rating may change depending on development.

CHAPTER 1

"… and that finishes up my analysis on The Dream-State: Current Technology and Applications. Thank you all for coming. If you have any questions, please feel free to see me at the reception."

As the lights in the crowded lecture room brightened and back doors opened, the previously hushed whispers of the audience grew to a casual din of conversation while people headed towards the exit, eager for the tasty treats awaiting them. Not many paid attention to the woman walking against the flow of the crowd towards the stage, though her appearance was in clear contrast to the dresses and suits that adorned the other guests.

With her bare feet, sweatpants, loose long-sleeved shirt, and buzzed hair, Claire weaved in and out of people until she made her way to the stage, her soft-blue eyes ever reflecting an undercurrent of bubbling fascination and curiosity.

"Oh Captain, my Captain!" Finally at the podium, Claire roughly patted her friend on the back then chuckled as his glasses went askew. "Another great speech by future Nobel Prize winner, Brian Casey!"

Brian exhaled his frustration flashing across his face. Adjusting his glasses and running a hand through his curly brown hair, he muttered, "I'd feel better about the whole thing if I didn't think half of the audience was asleep before I got past my abstract. I mean, hell, I rented a suit for this?"

After giving him a quick once-over, Claire nodded sympathetically and added, "Ah, but that makes it easier for you to test your theories! Quick, let's talk to some of the guests that have marks on their forehead from falling asleep on the chair in front of them, or the ones who are rubbing sleep out of their eyes. Maybe you'll stumble upon some new information for that project that you haven't told me about, and in appreciation of my marvelous idea, you will finally spill the beans."

Claire batted her eyelashes, feigning innocence, but it felt and looked so ridiculous that they both let out a burst of laughter at the failed attempt. Wiping a stray tear from his eyes, Brian shook his head. "You know I'm not allowed to tell you… yet. Soon, though. I promise. We're almost done. Man, Claire, you'll be so excited. The implications of the device, what it'll mean for understanding the human mind…"

"AHA! So it's a device, eh? Haha, I'll get the truth out of you yet!" Seeing his mouth 'pop' open and sensing a freak-out to come from her friend, Claire gave him a quick push to get him down the stairs, grabbed his hand, and pulled him along. "Come on, I'd have figured it out anyway, let's go get some snacks before smoke comes out of your ears."

Two Weeks Later

Outside Claire's apartment a gentle breeze rustled through the trees, the whisper of the leaves drifted through her open window and tickled her ears. Sprawled out and with half the blanket twisted around, she gently snored while dreaming of fantastic worlds caught in a powerful but fleeting state of existence, never to be seen again.

It was in the midst of a particularly powerful dream that Claire was awoken by the harsh buzz of her phone. "Ugh… I need to put that damn thing on 'silent' when I go to sleep." Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she squinted at the bright screen. "Brian… goddammit, you know I have an early morning lab! What is it?"

"Claire! I'm sorry it's late, it's just… no, I can't do it justice over the phone. Quick, head over to the Human Studies building. I'll meet you at the front in 15 minutes."

Claire stared at the phone for a second, her brain still processing what happened. Then with a quick scramble she untangled herself from the blanket, threw on some clothes, and checked her watch. "What an ass… that's a 20 minute walk! Ugh." She jumped up and down a few times to get her blood pumping and then briskly jogged to the university.

13 minutes later, lungs heaving and face flushed, Claire plopped down in front of the Human Studies building. "Figures he'd be late… damn. I'm starting to get out of shape. Less Oreos, more cardio. Heh, that rhymed."

"Claire!"

Through the dimly lit hall she saw Brian hustling over to her. I bet he thinks it only takes 15 minutes to walk – hell, he could make it here in 7 minutes! Stupid twig. "What's so important that you had to call me at 2 o'clock in the morning and have me run all this way to see? You know I –"

A closer look at Brian shut Claire up. His hazel eyes shone with excitement, his lips were turned in a quirky grin, as if he was so happy he forgot how to smile properly, and he couldn't stop moving. "Claire, the device is ready! Years of work, begging for grants and our department has completed its greatest work yet. I wanted to show you before the news gets out tomorrow. I had to wait for everyone else to leave before I could tell you to come, and Tim was the last one to go a few minutes ago. Come on, come on!"

He pulled her up and started dragging her towards one of the secured-access labs. "Just a sec, there are a couple of codes." He fiddled with the encrypted lock, entered in his PIN, and then sheepishly turned around. "Um, hey, could you plug your ears for a second? Gotta do my voice recognition pass code."

Claire crossed her arms and shrugged. "It shouldn't matter if I know what your code is; in case you just joined us, you have a deeper voice than I do."

"Yeah, but, just in case, I don't want to get in trouble…" noting the skeptical look in her eye, Brian rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, but don't laugh." The voice prompter crackled slightly as he whispered quietly as possible, "Barefoot Claire." A curse tumbled out of his mouth at the giggle from the woman behind him, and he was grateful for the small mercy that the shadows hid the slight flush on his face.

When the door clicked open Claire nudged her friend to keep going. "Come on, we can discuss your foot fetishes later – I want to see what you've been up to!"

With a dramatic flourish of his hand, Brian guided Claire through the door and turned on the lights. For a few moments Claire just stood and stared, not knowing how to react. In the center of the room was a machine. It had what looked like a stainless steel table, the kind used for autopsies. Attached to the table and curving slightly over it was a casing shaped like a generic human body, with gel pads inserted inside.

"Brian… what is this? What does it do?" She ran a finger over the table, tracing around it till she placed her hand on the gel, which started molding perfectly around her hand.

"This is the next step of understanding the mind, and the power of dreams. You are familiar with the concept of lucid dreaming, right?"

"I think we've been friends long enough that you've mentioned it once, twice, maybe 87 times…"

"You're so funny Claire. Seriously, though! Come over here and take a look." Brian pulled up a couple of figures on a display screen, his fingers flying across the keyboard to open up a matrix of images of the brain and various calculations. "The electromagnetic signatures generated from the machine stimulate the brain stem, which then excites different areas of the prefrontal cortex that heretofore were typically 'shut-off' during the REM state, or dream-state. This in turn leads to-"

"Brian? Biomed major here. I get the gist of what you're saying, but what's the overall effect?" Claire leaned over his shoulder, a critical and inquisitive gleam in her eyes as she scanned the various spreadsheets and documents on the screen.

"Essentially: we are becoming masters of the dream-state. What we dream becomes as reality; we smell, we taste, we interact fully in our dreams. There's one side-effect we've detected, though – our interactions with the objects and people. The pre-frontal cortex helps the brain interpret the dream as reality, which allows for the full-body experience; however, as such we interact with the dream objects and people as if they were real, with their own independent behaviors. We are not omniscient or omnipotent. We're still studying the effects that has on someone dreaming and how we can change it to be able to better alter the 'reality' of our dreams." Brian turned from the screen to study Claire's face. Her eyebrows furrowed close together in a pensive stare. "I take it you have questions, then?"

Claire ran a hand over her fuzzy head and scratched the back of her neck, humming. "Well, shit. Where do I start? Hmm. How does the dream initiate, if the person is for all intents and purposes, mentally awake? Wouldn't they be incapable of activating a dream-state? And what about the amount of time they're in REM stage of sleep? Does the machine monitor that and shut off accordingly, or does it keep them in suspense till they wake? I assume it monitors the brainwaves and heart rate, etc., of the subject."

"Hah, good questions. The person falls asleep with assistance, and only after they are asleep does the machine activate. The timing must be right, though, based on the person's normal sleep cycle. What a person dreams about is controlled by some brief mental exercises before we 'put them under.' As to your other questions… the machine is supposed to monitor the subject's brain waves to determine what time to stop emitting the signals." He moved away from the computer and walked over to the machine. After he pressed a couple of buttons, a faint glow emanated from the gel pads. "This is the machine's dormant state, where it's set to envelop the body – the gel has a special secretion that makes it more oxygen-rich, so breathing will not be affected. It emits low-wave signals to the brain, which can sometimes help the body reach the REM state more quickly."

Claire looked at Brian, then at the machine, hopped on the machine table, and scootched back a bit to lie down. "Ok, I'm ready!"

After a second or two of determining whether this was a serious request, Brian walked over to the table, put his hands down, and leaned over to give her the sternest glare he could muster. "Claire… you know you can't. I don't care what kind of cute faces you can make, or what logical arguments you can concoct to support the idea that it's ok for you to try this. The machine's finished, but we're still in the baby steps of understanding how this works! It's probably not dangerous, but we don't know all the side-effects on the mind from experiencing an enhanced dream-state."

The next few moments were spent with Claire making as many pouty and sad faces she knew of, until she huffed and slumped down from the 'bed.' "Brian, I'm aware of potential risks. But come on, you woke me up early to see this and won't even let me try it? Not even for a little bit? It doesn't take too long for me to enter REM sleep, and we both know it's a short period." A little smirk on her face, she stepped closer and let her fingers dance up his chest to tap him on the nose. "I'll owe you. Anything you want, just let me try it out for a little bit. Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaassssseeeee."

"Claire…" Pinching the bridge of his nose and acknowledging he would never win this battle, Brian nodded. "Alright. But remember this day – you owe me BIG time. I'll discuss your 'payment' later. And as soon as you're out of REM, you're coming out of that machine faster than you can say sleep spindle."

Claire clapped her hands and squealed like a little kid getting candy, and gave Brian a quick kiss on the cheek before hopping back onto the machine bed. "You're the BEST! Ok, let's get started. Woo!"

"Hang on, it's not that easy. There are some procedures to take care of first. While I get that prepped, you prep yourself mentally. Do that hippie meditation stuff you love, focus on the general concepts of the dream you want to have, and relax." Brian walked over to one of the monitors, and then turned back around. "Claire, please try to make it a SAFE dream. Wander through an open field or something, nothing too dramatic. Like I said, this is a new development – I don't want you to get hurt. If that's even possible."

"Keep it safe. Got it. Now go, go, go, get started on your bit, I know what to do." Claire hummed quietly as she began to clear her mind, letting thoughts come and go freely as she escaped the pulls of the world. I'll keep it safe enough, but it still has to be interesting… I don't want to fall asleep from boredom in a dream while I'm asleep here. THAT would be pathetic. What if I went with a famous story? Can't just be a book, need a movie-form to get the images right – at least for my first time. I'm no artist, and my brain might screw up the descriptions. Hm. This would help if I watched more movies. Oh, what about a Disney movie? Those are safe enough; at least they always have a happy ending. Not a 'princess' movie, I want something deeper. Got it! Hunchback of Notre dame. The powerful, beautiful, noble Paris, full of culture and life and sound. The bells, chiming, ringing, the living city of passion and intrigue… I just watched the movie a couple of weeks ago, so I think I've got a general layout…" The room echoed with the tapping of fingers on keys as Claire continued her meditations, waiting for Brian to finish.

"Alright, everything's set. You ready to start?"

Claire nodded & winked at Brian before lying down, smiling as the casing began to lower over her, with the quiet hum of the machine lulling her gently back into sleep as the gel enveloped her.