"I see," Linda replied.
He patted her on the shoulder. "But we promise to only wake you two times per night." After the brief meeting, her career as an oneironaut began. She changed into comfortable flannel pajamas that she felt might help her relax and fall asleep easier. Another lab assistant, Geraldine, fastened the sensors to her eyelids and helped her adjust the mask so that it fit snugly without being too tight. Geraldine was tall, also and wore her shimmering brown hair pulled tightly back from her face. She wore glasses.
Once Linda had placed the mask on her face for the night her entire world turned black. The door creaked shut as Geraldine walked out of the room. With only Jay and Geraldine plus a handful of other oneironauts in the room, Linda knew that she should have felt relatively isolated and secure. Still, she felt that the eyes of the entire Psychology department were upon her as she struggled to sleep. After what seemed like a half hour on her side, lights flashed in her eyes.
They startled her, but she realized it was the first of the tiny bulbs firing.
When she turned on her other side, to get comfortable, the wire for the battery wound around her forehead. She had to reach up and push it away, as if it had been a cobweb. Another half hour passed and she felt as wide-awake as she'd been when she arrived at the lab. As a last resort, she rolled onto her back and tried to lull herself by thinking of the most relaxing music she could. Eventually she would fall asleep, she told herself.
Halfway through the night, after Linda finally did fall asleep, she heard her name being called and her arm jousted. Instinctively she pushed up the mask, squinting at the bright light in the room, seeing Geraldine perched on the chair in front of her. Still groggy, she asked "What is it?"
Geraldine held a clipboard containing paper and had poised a pen above it. "You had a series of rapid eye movements. Did you dream?"
"No," Linda said, feeling embarrassed and guilty.
Geraldine stood, picking up her clipboard. "Okay. Then we'll let you get back to sleep."
Linda strapped the mask on and fell back to sleep quickly, though dreamlessly. In what seemed to her a short while later, someone knocked on her door. "Come in," she said.
She heard Jay's voice after the door creaked open. "Good morning," he sang.
After she'd crawled out of the bed, put the mask away and dressed in her street clothes, she drank a cup of coffee in the lounge with a couple of the other oneironauts. "I don't know if this is going to work out," she said. "I think I did it wrong."