Free Poltergeist by James Kahn Page A

this, we’ll be monitoring your brain waves, measuring ambient room ionization, and so on—and then we’ll wake you up after each dream, and ask you to recount as much as you can remember into this tape recorder. Any questions?”
    “Are we getting anywhere?”
    Lesh smiled sympathetically. “Yes, I think we are. Truly. Tonight we’ll be tracking some specific functions that I think are beginning to correlate.”
    “Ah. Correlations.”
    “We are doing our best, you know.” Lesh felt a little deflated.
    Tangina just felt tired. “I’m afraid I’m as skeptical of all this as Ryan is of me.”
    “We must trust each other—it’s the only way this will work.”
    “Oh, I trust you ,” Tangina assured her. “It’s your machines I don’t believe in.”
    They shared a brief, frustrated, but not-yet-hopeless glance, and settled down to the business at hand. “Well,” said Martha, “why don’t we get started?”
    Tangina closed her eyes lightly. Lesh dropped her voice to a monotone, and continued speaking. “Now I’m going to count from one to ten, and I want you to concentrate on the sound of my voice. And as I count higher, you’re going to let yourself become more and more deeply asleep, more relaxed, more receptive. And when I reach ten, you’ll be completely asleep, completely relaxed, completely asleep in the deepest, fullest sleep you’ve ever known, a deep dark sleep. Already, now, you’re aware only of the sound of my voice, only my voice, relaxing you and soothing you, letting you glide into sleep. One . . . starting to get sleepy now, just beginning to feel that sensation wash over you, letting yourself follow the sound of my voice into deeper, darker sleep. Two . . . the higher I count, the deeper you can feel yourself going, now, floating deeper and deeper on the sound of my voice. Three . . .”
    Lesh, Marty, and Ryan sat quietly checking readings in the receiving room. Two television monitors showed Tangina and Rita, sleeping soundly in their respective rooms in different sections of the building. Marty fiddled with the Balance and Gain dials on the electroencephalograph, as twelve red pens scratched out Tangina’s brain waves onto the paper that slowly rolled from the machine into a pile on the floor. Lesh studied the tracings. Ryan ran sound checks, zeroed all the gauges.
    “How we doin’?”
    “Everything as planned. Tangina seems to be in, oh, looks like Stage II sleep now. Rita should be having her first Transmission Dream shortly.”
    “Transmission you hope.”
    “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
    “What’s the subject matter tonight?”
    “Let’s see,” said Dr. Lesh. “I told Rita first to dream about the merry-go-round at the circus, then her second dream will be about her puppy running away, and her third will involve a fight with a policeman. Tangina, of course, I just told to dream’ about whatever comes into her mind.”
    “Ah, but what a mind.”
    “I wish the Nobel committee could see us now.”
    “Now there you go, prejudging the experiments,” tempered Ryan. “This is empirical research. We observe, we record. If possible, we conclude.”
    Lesh rubbed her eyes. “I think I’m becoming solipsistic in my old age.”
    “What’s that?” Marty demanded suspiciously. He hated it when she used words he didn’t understand.
    “It is the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist,” she explained. “Everything else, all this—the entire universe—is an invention of the self. Even you, my friend, are only one of my illusions. A ghost of my mind.”
    “I’m one of your ghosts, huh?” Marty cackled. “That’s a laugh.” He wiggled his fingers in her face. “Booga booga booga.”
    “Now Marty there,” noted Ryan, essaying his most academic manner, “is an empiricist, I’ll wager. He believes all knowledge is derived from experience via the senses. Reality is observed, sensually.”
    “I’ll drink to that,” Marty smiled