Free Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis Page B

region of the brain in each test. After each session, the patient would report that he had had the same dream as before, but when questioned about individual details he told an entirely different dream, though he persisted in his belief that the dreams were identical. Persistence of dreams again. Lincoln would naturally have many images of the living Willie stored in his memory that could be stimulated.”
    “What about Lincoln’s dream of his own assassination?” I asked. “That couldn’t just be Lincoln putting all the day’s junk in some kind of mental file cabinet, could it? All the details fit—the coffin in the East Room, the guard, the black cloth over the corpse’s face.”
    “Because his conscious mind
made
them fit. Remember,we have no idea of what the dream was really like.” He turned and smiled crookedly at Broun, then turned back to me. “What we have is Lincoln’s account of the dream, which is something completely different.”
    “Secondary elaboration,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said, looking pleased. “You
have
been doing a lot of research, haven’t you? Lincoln’s real dream would have been a sequence of unrelated images, a stairway, a memory of Willie Lincoln in his coffin, a cloth of some kind, a napkin or a handkerchief or something. It wouldn’t have to be black or even cloth, for that matter. It could have been a scrap of paper.”
    A scrap of paper, a cat, a Springfield rifle. It won’t wash. Dr. Stone.
    “… and in the process of bringing the dream up to the subconscious and then telling it, the dream took on a coherence and an emotional importance it simply didn’t have.” He put both hands on the arms of the chair. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to get back to the Institute.”
    “What if I dreamed I was upstairs in the White House and heard crying but couldn’t see anyone?” I asked. “What if when I went downstairs there was a coffin in the East Room?”
    Broun reached for his cup. Coffee slopped onto his notes.
    “I’d say you’d spent the whole day doing research on Lincoln’s dreams,” Dr. Stone said.
    “Did you dream that?” Broun said, still holding the cup at an angle. More coffee spilled out.
    “No,” I said. “So you don’t think Lincoln’s assassination dream means anything, even though everything in it happened two weeks later? You think it’s all just a matter of what he did that day and what he had for dinner?”
    “I’m afraid so.” Dr. Stone stood up and set his cup on the tray. “I know this probably isn’t the sort of thing you wanted to hear, especially when you’re trying to write a novel. One of the greatest difficultiesI encounter in my reasearch is that people want to believe that their dreams mean something, but all the research I’m doing seems to indicate just the opposite.”
    You didn’t see her standing there in the snow, I thought. You didn’t see the look on her face. I don’t know what’s causing her dreams, but it’s not random impulses and it’s not indigestion. Annie’s dreams do mean something. There’s a reason she’s having them, and I’m going to find out what it is.
    “You’ve been a great deal of help. Dr. Stone,” Broun said. “I appreciate your giving us so much of your time. I know you’re very busy.”
    He walked Dr. Stone downstairs. I waited till they were almost at the bottom of the steps and then went over and hit the play button on Broun’s answering machine. There still wasn’t any message.
    I tried to call Annie. She didn’t answer. Broun’s cat jumped up on the desk and dipped its head into Broun’s Styrofoam cup and began lapping delicately at the coffee. I put down the phone and picked him up by the back of the neck to throw him off.
    “I take it you didn’t think too much of Dr. Stone’s theories,” Broun said from the door.
    “No,” I said, depositing the cat on the floor. “Did you?”
    “I thought he had some interesting things to say.”
    “About Lincoln’s