At a quarter to eleven that evening Corey left his room at the hotel, again formally dressed, and stepped into a taxi. He didn't look behind him to give away that he was aware of the Fed's or anyone else's clandestine presence in or around the hotel.

"To the Bayview Sleep Clinic . . . over on Bay Circle Drive," he told the driver.

At that hour the traffic was minimal, and he arrived at the clinic exactly on time. Going to the front entrance, he was met by a middle-aged African American uniformed guard, obviously working security for the university.

"I have an appointment with Dr. . . "

"Yes. Could I have your name, Sir?"

"Jameson's the name."

The guard looked at a clipboard he carried. "First name?

"Lawrence. . ."

"Fine. Right this way."

The uniformed man took him around the building to a side door along a dimly lit sidewalk. Corey could feel his pulse speeding up as he realized his present vulnerability at that moment.

The guard took out a set of keys and opened the door. He stepped in first and turned-on lights that showed the way across the marbled-floor interior of the clinic. The guard closed the door behind them and proceeded to the elevators. There he took out another key to activate the power to the lift. The well-lit doors opened, and the guard held an open hand outstretched for Corey to enter.

"You'll find Dr. Dimaras on the fourth floor," he said quietly. "He often works late. He'll be expecting you this evening."

"Thank you . . . And when I . . ."

"I'll be waiting here on the ground floor when you return, Sir. To show you out."

"Perfect. Thanks, man."

"Not a problem."

Corey entered the elevator and took it to the fourth floor as he had done earlier that day. Arriving with a jolt, he was surprised to see Dr. Dimaras standing in front of the doors as they opened."

"Thank you for your punctuality, Mr. Jameson. May I call you Lawrence?"

"Sure. And I thank you for this opportunity."

The research coordinator led the way along a brightly lit hallway to his office. There he invited him to sit as he had done before.

"Well, as you know, Hopkins leads the way in a number of medical disciplines, and we are proud of our work here in psychology, studying all matters of sleep and dreaming behaviors."

Corey nodded.

"As told you we do have several programs going on presently that your benefactor's family may be interested in to help fund. However, you specifically requested dream research. And something cutting-edge. Apparently you feel the third option I shared with you would be the most desirable to your clients."

"That's correct, Doctor. This estate I'm representing would certainly be interested in that program, the last of those summarized for me earlier today. The anonymity of the gift would appropriately be then beneficial to both parties."

The coordinator smiled and nodded. "Well, it's not something we do every day, enlighten someone outside our labs about our work. And especially the a project I'm about to introduce you to. It will understandably be a brief view, and unfortunately quite limited."

"Yes. I realize and respect your security here, Doctor."

"Excellent. So let me explain a bit about the background of this program. After that, I'll give you a peek into the laboratory being currently used for its experimental design."

"Wonderful."

Corey took out a small note pad from the breast pocket of his sports coat and a pen.

"That won't be necessary, Lawrence," the professor quickly added. "In fact, I'll have to ask you to put all notes away for the duration of this presentation."

"That's fine," Corey said, stowing the materials back in his pocket.

"Now I'm going to assume you have no cameras or recording devices either. Is that correct?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Sorry, but as I've told you, the government's pretty tight when we work with them on any projects, and this one is particularly sensitive."

"I fully understand."

The professor leaned back in his chair a little more comfortably.

"You see, Lawrence . . . back when I was just a student of psychology on the West coast. Berkeley, in fact. I attended a lecture about a study that had become instantly controversial and, well . . . it was immediately attacked on all sides when written up in a serious academic journal. The work was conducted by serious UCLA researchers in 1973, and causeed quite a stir."

"Interesting."

"Yes. It was exactly that. Not only to me, but to the entire community in their early work on dreams. Just a bit too much for those who had pre-conceived ideas about the limited nature of our dreams and their influence on our actions."

"I see. . . but now hasn't that changed?"

"For some. Many like myself became fascinated by the findings and potentials of the study. Some of us after graduate work went on to explore it further. You see, Lawrence, that seminal study basically supported evidence that during our sleeping hours we might all be more susceptible to telepathic phenomena."

"Wow."

"In lay terms, that simply means that when we are asleep, our dreams might become a pathway to receive others' thoughts and messages"

"That's amazing if true."

"It's what we are proving each day here in our sleep lab."

"I guess you could say, that is pretty cutting-edge."

The research coordinator smiled. "Well, it turns out the phenomenon is more of a reaction. A response to thoughts and images we receive from others sometimes inadvertently. And in our experiment work, it can be applied more intentionally. You see it all happens within a very short window of time just before a dream is created. But dreams as we well know can influence our attitudes and behaviors."

Corey was surprisingly intrigued by the professor's explanation and could immediately see why it would be of interest to governments. All people of power, and specifically the military.

"That's fascinating. Please go on."

"You see it's during this alpha wave pattern of our brain activity when our thoughts slow down, and our mind begins to idle. It's when we are most susceptible to all messaging. Those few minutes when we descend into this receptive window momentarily. Our responses to these signals . . . our dreams . . . are actually reflections and reactions to such messaging. The vivid scenarios we create as a direct result of this external information coming into our consciousness is this critical time of early sleep. And yet, we are completely oblivious to the period, and its effects upon us."

Corey was silent, still pondering the immense possibilities of what he was hearing. The coordinator reached across his desk and opened a laptop computer.

"Look here," he said, switching it on. He then turned the computer around for Corey to see. There was a dark screen with an illuminated jagged white line, jig-jagging across the screen with an erratic but sometimes repeating pattern.

"This is an EEG report. A brain scan of a subject's conscious mind activity. This is how we are while awake and during concentrated activity. Reading in this subject's case. Or listening to speech, as you are here."

"Alright."

The professor then turned the computer back around, pushed a few keys and returned it to Corey. This time the lines had morphed into smooth, regular oscillations. Like a series of gently repeating ocean waves.

"Here you're looking at the same subject. The EEG graph was taken while laying down to fall asleep. You can easily see that all windows of the subject's perception are closing down at that point and the subjects mind is at rest. This is our alpha wave. Our critical reception point for incoming messages."

"Yes, I see that. And I've felt it. It's pretty nice."

"Exactly. You're calm, quiet. No thoughts. No outside stimulation. Few sensations. But wait. . ."

He did the same again with the computer, turning it for Corey to see the screen once more. This time the line was beginning to gently move erratically again. Slowly picking up its jagged brain activity. It was as if the subject was again performing a task, but slightly different."

"The subject here is dreaming, Dr. Dimaras explained, smiling. "You are witnessing the mind reacting, responding, creating a scenario . . . about some incoming images or unrequested messaging coming in to disrupt that previous peaceful brain activity. The subject has picked up mental images to create an individual dream."

"Amazing. If that's what dreams really are."

"I can tell you Lawrence, from those original studies in the 1970's where this phenomenon of responding to merely the mental thoughts of others was observed in a laboratory setting, it gave us a revolutionary idea of what dreams are. How we develop them. I think you can see the potentials of this. If it is better understood and employed under the right conditions and for the right reasons."

Corey could feel that old familiar pulsing in his neck.

"And those right or wrong reasons . . . might be?"

"That's why the ethical concerns of this work are so critical, so sensitive. The mere concept, Lawrence, if controlled and put in the wrong hands . . . well, I believe you can imagine the negative potentials of that. How someone else's intentions could be forced upon others, with real effects."

"Yeah. I guess people could be fed harmful images and thoughts. Ideas which . . . they may not want to have."

"Precisely. And consequently, behave accordingly. That hypothesis is at the core of our studies here. With this classified study."

Corey was compelled at that point to ask about the US Government's participation and interest in the program. But he logically refrained, as it could bring on unwanted suspicions about his interests there."

"So, Mr. Jameson. Would you like to see the lab where the design for these experiments is happening?"

"Sure. It's all so fascinating."

The professor took a set of keys out of his desk and led Corey out of the office and down one of the hallways on the same floor. Opening a door to the lab, he turned on the lights and Corey could see a large room with three equal sized cubicles. They partitioned the large space into three sections. He directed him into the center cubical where there was a desk, a large screen monitor, wires going out into each small side room and a small control keyboard on the desk.

"This is the researcher's area," he said. "Our Control station."

He then showed him the adjacent room to the left. Inside was a hospital bed, and next to it a large medical-looking machine.

"Here we call the Sleeper's Room. A volunteer. . . usually psychology undergrads from over on campus, who have agreed to recline on the bed and simply sleep, are wired up harmlessly to monitor their brain waves while going through the stages of sleep and dreaming—those three waves I showed you."

Corey's heart jumped when he realized this was what Henley may have been participating in while back at Hopkin's the previous summer. And even helping to administer the research while working from her laptop.

"What you see next to that bed is an electroencephalograph. A machine that when attached to a subject's head, reveals the brain wave patterns back to the control center."

"Right."

"While in the control room next door, the researcher can pinpoint when the subject is moving through the three periods of dream formation. He/she is first awake, then in alpha relaxed state, and then our dreaming state."

""Yes, I see the process of that."

"But now in here . . ." The professor walked Corey into the third cubicle. "You'll see our Sender's Room.

Corey could see a simple desk, chair and five large white sealed envelopes spread across the desk. He could also see a red light on the wall across from the Sender's desk, obviously to signal something.

"What you are seeing here is the station for another volunteer. He or she will sit at this desk and wait. When the control researcher has seen from the EEG machine that the Sleeper in the room has moved from a conscious waking brain wave, we call beta. . . to the more relaxed and dream-ready state, alpha, the researcher signals the Sender to perform his task in that separate room. The Sender randomly opens one of the envelopes on the desk at stares at the photo image. He or she has been instructed to try and mentally send the contents of the image into the Sleeper in the adjacent room."

The design of the experimental cubicles and apparatus in each was staring to make sense to Corey. He understood that when the Sleeper was mentally in alpha wave, Sender was notified to try to mentally send the randomly selected picture to the Sleeper, just before dreaming. The researcher in the room between them could monitor when the sleeper's mind had moved from the conscious beta, awake state, to the relaxed alpha state. The outside messaging would then begin, presumably beginning the subjects directed, controlled dream.

"Do you understand the design of this lab then, Lawrence? How the telepathic messaging is controlled and initiated? We call the dreaming brin wave the subject begins from the messaging, theta wave. A sign that the transfer from Sender to Dreamer has been complete.

"Yes. I understand. And you're finding that these messages do appear in a dream?"

"Yes. Details from the dream correspond to the image chosen statistically much higher than chance. The subject's dream relates to the photo sent if timed during that window of brain activity. During alpha wave."

"Wow. That's really amazing!"

"We know this occurs consistently through our experiment's design. And that's because after the subject is allowed to dream for five to ten minutes, he or she is wakened and asked to verbally report into an audio recorder what he or she dreamed. The contents of that recording are then transcribed into a written document for the researchers to compare words, details and descriptions reported about the dream with the actual image the sender had used. Once again there is a very high relationship between the sender's mental activity and the Sleeper's dream."

"Wow. I see the implications. The possibility of putting images . . . ideas and even beliefs into people's minds through their dreams. And all though just a precisely timed window."

"Precisely. What is critical to the success of the image and telepathic thoughts of the Sender being received and dreamed upon, is that the sleeper's mind is in that brief and fertile time--alpha state. It's a magical time and place, Mr. Jameson. Alpha exists between our beta wave consciousness, and our dream activity, the theta wave."

"It sounds so technical here in the lab," Corey said, sincerely. "But I can see it's really a simple process. We're most susceptible to others' thoughts and messages while just falling asleep. When our minds are most at rest. Not distracted by any other activities."

"You're exactly right. And when a more powerful message or vivid image is sent, it more successfully transfers. Strong messages from a Sender can produce the most memorable dreams,, with predicable effects on our actions, beliefs and ultimately, our behaviors. That is why our mission in this project is to investigate the potentials for what we now widely accept as Dream Telepathy, more specifically what we call Nocturnal Extrasensory Perception."

Corey had heard and seen enough. He now knew the horrific implications of the dream research going on at the Hopkins Sleep Clinic—the possibilities it could have when controlled by nefarious parties. He wondered again what connection Henley had to all of this, and especially how or why she had become victimized by it.

It was now more obvious than ever that the U.S. Government's involvement in the program had for some unknown reason singled Henley Marlow out. And that involvement was possibly not even fully known to Dr. Dimaras. Cory could see how this was possible if the professor was unaware his research techniques were being secretly utilized by some rogue agency or the military apart from the clinic.

He took one last look into the face of the erudite and seemingly innocent researcher with whom he had spent that fascinating portion of the evening. He was then escorted by him back to the elevator of the clinic. Corey told Dr. Dimaras in leaving that he would share only the general idea of the project with his benefactor's family for their eventual decision. This seemed to satisfy the researcher during their final handshake.

In strolling into the cool air that night with the security guard, Corey looked our across at the now dark Baltimore Harbor. He could not help but wonder about the immediate condition of the beautiful dreamer, still not seen alive by her mother, friends, or lover for nearly two weeks.

* * *