Paradoxical Sleep
Chapter the Third: In Which Thoughts are Wont To Wander
Penny glanced around the laundry room, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. She carried a laundry basket, but it was empty; she tried the door, but it was locked. Worst of all, she couldn't even remember coming down to the laundry room at all. "This doesn't make any sense."
Knock knock knock. "Penny."
That voice, the source of so much irritation, rang through the silence. Something itched in the back of her brain, something important that she knew she should remember, but it was just beyond her. It was like when she would wake up to her phone going off, but it was just out of reach. She would inevitably fell out of bed trying to grab it.
Knock knock knock. "Penny."
"It's locked, Sheldon!" she called back.
Knock knock knock. "Penny."
She tried the door again, but this time it swung open easily. Sheldon strode in, glaring at her. "What possessed you to lock the door?"
"I didn't lock the door," she said, feeling anxious.
"You most certainly did. That was not a detail I included in my version of the dream, which is why you had to let me in." He huffed, and she rolled her eyes. He could be such a crotchety old man sometimes.
Oh. Dream. That's what she'd been forgetting. "So," she said awkwardly. She had no idea what kind of plans Sheldon had in store, and she was almost starting to regret asking for his help. How perfectly ironic; now she's the socially awkward one, and Sheldon's in control. That was weird, but actually kind of hot.
Did she really just think that?
She noticed for the first time that he held a clipboard in his hand. At some point, she must have dropped the laundry basket; she lifted herself onto the nearest dryer, watching him as he hummed to himself.
"All right, trial one," he said finally, setting the clipboard on a washer. "Try to make something appear."
"Um...okay." Penny closed her eyes and concentrated on the image of a newborn kitten. She could use some more cute in her day—well, night. She opened her eyes again, to see a thoughtful Sheldon in an otherwise empty laundry room. She grimaced. "No dice."
"Hmm." He marked something on the clipboard. "All righty. This time, keep your eyes open." His tone was bright and cheery, and, not for the first time, she realized just how much he loved science.
Keeping her eyes open (he was watching her like a hawk), she imagined new Jimmy Choos on her feet. The only thing she succeeded in doing was discovering a new hole in her ratty old sneakers. Sheldon made another mark and pursed his lips. "Penny, this time—"
"Why don't you try?" she said, smiling. He looked taken aback, but nodded. His eyes closed for a minute, but he appeared unsurprised when nothing changed. He then concentrated at the wall, with similar results. More notes were written.
"Try to take possession of my body," he said, setting the clipboard aside.
Penny gaped at him. "Sweetie, I don't think that came out quite right." She fought the urge to giggle.
Sheldon glowered. "This is not the time for your crude innuendo. We need to know if we are truly beings of free will within this dream world, or if we can consciously influence each others' actions."
She took a deep breath and counted to seventeen before replying, a holdover from her days of endless acting classes back in high school. They had always started with deep breathing, and she had found it to be a useful coping mechanism whenever the creepy guy in sound crew would hit on her. "Okay, I'll try. Eyes open or closed?"
"Why don't we try closed, first?" he said pleasantly. Experiments really did seem to make him giddy.
So she tried it both ways; so did he. Penny expected that at any moment he would slump down, disappointed, but with every successive test his smile became wider, until he almost resembled a normal human being.
"Within the shared dream universe, as in the 'real world', we have full possession of our free will. We cannot change our surroundings consciously, although I have reason to believe that we may be able to unconsciously morph the objects and situations around us." He looked up at her, and she tried her best to feel as excited as he obviously was.
"What reason would that be?"
Sheldon looked down. He was embarrassed, she realized. "When we were dancing, we were always in the exact center of the floor, an impossibility in the physical world considering the range of movement we performed. The room shifted position with us."
"We're making these dreams together," Penny said suddenly, putting the pieces together. "That was my dream, but there's no way that I would have noticed the exact center of the room."
He nodded. "My conclusions exactly. We are not simply invading one another's dreams—we are actually creating a shared world within our minds."
She bit her lip, noticing vaguely how his eyes cut down as she did so. "Does that mean you actually wanted to dance with me?"
Sheldon looked away. She smirked; obviously, he'd hoped that she wouldn't be bright enough to figure that out. "Well, you must have desired to learn more about your DNA, by that logic."
Penny might not have been beautiful-mind kind of brilliant like he was, but she had common sense enough. "I must have, because we can't influence each other."
"Consciously," he added.
"Sheldon, if we could influence each other at all, you wouldn't be getting on my nerves so much right now," she said through her teeth.
He clasped his hands together. "Very well, we will operate under the assumption that our free will is complete and total, and that we cannot influence each other, consciously or unconsciously, unless we discover evidence to the contrary. Happy now, Miss Snarky-pants?"
She stuck her tongue out at him childishly. "Hey, what about our clothes?" she wondered.
"What about them?" Sheldon looked puzzled.
"When we danced...you wore a tux. It didn't really look like something you would have picked for yourself."
"Ah, yes. I believe that was a result of the setting; part of the shared dream environment. It was suitable attire for the ball, so my mind dressed my illusory body accordingly. I assume that your clothes have been chosen in the same manner, explaining our normal appearance tonight. This particular reality is not so different from our own."
Penny swung her feet. "So what do we do now, Mr. Scientist? Laundry?"
"Don't be absurd," he said harshly. "It's still Tuesday night. As for your first question, we could physically explore our environment. Theoretically, our minds should build the world as we encounter it; by leaving the laundry room, we should be able to walk up the stairs to our apartments as we would do in the 'real' world." Sheldon was delighted at the prospect, judging by his expression.
They walked up all the stairs, but when they reached the fourth-floor hallway, Sheldon paused. "Which apartment should we enter?"
Penny raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "You're asking me?". Aloud, she said, "I don't have my key."
"Darn. Our apartment it is, then." He unlocked the door speedily. Penny couldn't help but feel a little surprised when the apartment was completely vacant.
"Aww, nobody's here," she said, rather sadly. Sheldon quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Penny, if anybody else was here, you do realize that they would be constructs of your mind, not real people?" He crossed over to the DVD collection, running a long finger along the titles, as if he hadn't committed them all to memory.
"I know that, Sheldon. It's just kind of depressing how empty it is in here."
"I prefer to think of it as uncluttered," he replied lightly, slipping a disc from its case. "Why hello there, old friend!"
She watched as he turned on the electronics and inserted the disc. "Honey, don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be, you know, experimenting, not watching..."
"Doctor Who," he finished for her. "This is part of the experiment. According to my theory—our theory, we are creating this reality as a mutual effort. You have never seen this episode, therefore it will be up to my eidetic memory to reconstruct it for your viewing pleasure."
Penny admitted mentally that the idea was interesting, but she wasn't overly fond of what she'd seen of the show. "Couldn't you pick something more...you know, not boring?"
"I chose the two-parter 'The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit'." He pronounced the slash in the middle; she tried not to giggle. "While it is perhaps not as overtly romantic as those godawful 'chick flicks' you so adore, it should prove mildly entertaining for you at the least."
"Oh." That was...almost considerate, especially for Sheldon. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," he said primly, taking his place at 0,0,0,0.
She did end up enjoying the two-parter, so much so that she made him promise to watch more of the series with her in real life. They ordered non-existent Chinese takeout and she ended up shedding a couple of tears. The most interesting event of the evening, though she did not realize it at the time, happened when, returning to her seat with a glass of water, she sat a little closer to Sheldon than she regularly did. The television blinked out momentarily, which confused her, but she didn't really care. Maybe it was part of the dream logic shutting down. It was almost morning; she felt it somewhere deep within her. The only thing that really surprised her about the entire circumstance was that her friend didn't dwell on the short-out. She shrugged, and the menu screen faded into reality.
Sheldon awoke with the most peculiar sense of calm. He was suddenly reminded of the idiom "like something out of a dream"—amusing how appropriate the meaning of that phrase was for the previous night. Watching Doctor Who (or rather, his memory's perfect recreation of Doctor Who) with Penny, eating Chinese food, even though it was not Friday; how could a simple combination of these factors prove so wonderful?
He wrote a few equations on his notepad, but they were altogether unsatisfactory. He would have to wait until he had use of the whiteboard, and it would probably be wise for him to use it when Leonard was not present. Sheldon was a terrible liar, after all, and this dream experiment was, to put it quite simply, none of his roommate's business.
"Good morning," Leonard said, in a tone that suggested either surprise or disgust—context suggested surprise. "You seem awfully chipper. New experiment in the works?"
"Actually, yes," Sheldon replied, pleased that Leonard had given him an easy way out without forcing him to resort to untruths.
Work was predominantly uneventful; Sheldon spent the time crafting a perfectly-worded summary of the evidence collected in the dream scenario thus far. Even browsing the new comics felt surreal and unimportant, as his thoughts kept returning to new theories, trials, and controls. He wondered suddenly if Penny considered these things, as well. Waitressing was only menial labor, and he knew that she would have to occupy her mind with something more worthwhile than simple food orders.
Did her thoughts wander to him, at times? Of course, they must; he was an important part of her life. Something strange bubbled in his abdomen at this realization.
When Penny arrived for Halo night, she seemed somehow deeper to him. Perhaps "deeper" was inaccurate; "sharper" might be more true. It was as if she had gone from a two-dimensional figure to a three-dimensional object, from a circle to a sphere. This sense was disconcerting, but not unpleasant. His cognitive capacities so distracted from their aim, Sheldon found himself losing terribly to his neighbor.
"Well, I think that answers any question about who would be the best supersoldier," Penny said smugly, setting down her controller with glee. She yawned. "All right, I guess I'm going to make it an early night."
"Unlikely," Sheldon muttered. "Penny, we are all aware that Wednesday night is your 'So You Think You Can Dance' night."
"We are?" Leonard said, sounding, as usual, dreadfully lost.
Sheldon turned to look at him. "Why else did you suppose Penny retired early each and every Wednesday night? You honestly chalked that up to...to coincidence? No wonder your research proves to be a consistent failure."
"Are you telling us that you've memorized Penny's schedule?" Howard said slowly. Sheldon resisted the urge to apply his palm to his face—these people were considered his peers!
"You say that as if it's a Herculean task. She keeps no rigid schedule, but Wednesdays are 'So You Think You Can Dance' night, Sundays she always eats chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream, and on Friday nights she prefers to go out for a night of dancing, if her work schedule allows."
As if they had a hive mind, the entire room blinked at him in silent unison.
"Well, anyway," Penny said after 13.4 seconds (although, oddly, it felt like longer). "I should go...watch my show."
He leaped up immediately. "And I will accompany you."
She raised an eyebrow at him. Bizarrely, he thought about what his mother would say were she there ("you keep makin' faces like that, you'll get stuck that way!"). "I hardly need...accompanying."
"Nevertheless, I shall accompany you. You never know what danger could be lurking in these halls." Sheldon tried to appear as if he believed any of his own words, but he knew well that his skills in the art of deception left much to be desired.
"Okay," Penny said, another indecipherable look crossing over her pretty features. "Whatever."
Once they were in the safety zone on the other side of 4B's door, Sheldon let out a large, relieved sigh, and handed Penny a stack of papers. He relished the shocked look on her face when he did so. "What is all this?"
"A compilation of our current data, possible hypotheses...oh, there's a chart on dream stability. Some information from past sleep and dream research studies, most of it useless. I copied and pasted the parts that might be relevant, for your convenience." He realized that he was nearly bouncing up on his tiptoes, but it was impossible to refrain.
She flipped through the pages quickly, at a speed much faster than what Sheldon knew was her typical reading speed. "Sweetie, I have to work. You remember that, right? Waitress? Cheesecake Factory? Your Tuesday cheeseburger?"
He nodded proudly. "Which is why I 'watered down' the content to a high school reading level and removed any details you considered extraneous. It should take much less time to read than even one of your trashy, over-romanticized novels."
Penny frowned. "I don't read romance novels, Sheldon."
"That's irrelevant. Also, your mention of your workplace brings me to my next point, the location for tonight's dream experiment."
She smiled, although why she did this, he couldn't fathom. "Are you saying that you want to dream about the Cheesecake Factory?"
"Precisely," Sheldon said, feeling pleased. "We are both familiar with the interior and exterior of the building, as well as the objects and situations that may be found therein. It is an entirely reasonable choice, and it should give us a chance to test a few new ideas of mine." He smiled, showing his teeth, in a gesture of goodwill; judging by her expression, Penny did not translate the expression correctly.
"Okay, I guess that makes sense," she mumbled.
"Of course it does, good night." He turned to leave. After all, he still had company, and as the nucleus of his friendship atom, his presence was, no doubt, already missed.
"Sheldon?"
The company could wait. Around he turned again. "Yes?"
He dearly wished that he better understood the meaning of the face Penny was making. Perhaps there was a guide on YouTube for interpreting subtle female expressions. "What was all that, back there?" she asked. "About my schedule, I mean."
"Was I incorrect in any way?" he said, making it clear that he doubted this.
"No, it was just...I don't know, it was kind of weird. How much attention you pay to stuff like that, about me."
His skin was beginning to feel quite warm. Sheldon wondered vaguely if he had contracted a disease. "It's not just about you, Penny. For example, I am well acquainted with Leonard's schedule."
"You live with him," she pointed out.
"I fail to see how that is relevant.'
"Fine. How 'well-acquainted' are you with, say, Raj's schedule?" Penny crossed her arms.
"Not very, but as we've discussed before, Raj is the disposable member of my circle of friends," he said.
"Howard, then."
Sheldon snorted. "Howard doesn't even have a PhD."
"Neither do I."
"That's different."
"How?"
"I don't know, it just is!" Sheldon glared at her. "Good night." He snapped his body around resolutely and returned to his apartment, where pleasant dreams should await him.
Endnotes: The most important resource in this entire work has been "Sheldon's OCD Calendar" on Google. Unfortunately, I don't possess an eidetic memory, so I'm liable to forget which night is Pizza Night and which night is Vintage Video Game Night.
This chapter actually split into two chapters, so I now expect at least seven chapters in this story. I have such difficulty with outlines!