Falling Awake

some ways. She had even toyed with the idea of using her as a role model. Lately she had begun to wonder how she herself would look with red hair. But there was no getting around the fact that Amelia occasionally exhibited a certain lack of tact.
    That did not make her unique on the center’s staff, Isabel reminded herself. No one except Dr. B. had ever taken the tiny Department of Dream Analysis seriously and that meant that no one had ever taken her own position as the center’s one-and-only dream analyst seriously.
    She summoned what she hoped was a cool, confident smile. “Shortly before he died, Dr. B. made it clear that he intended to appoint me head of the Department of Dream Analysis. Now that he’s gone, I’m really the only one qualified to take the position.”
    Amelia’s eyes widened faintly. Then, somewhat to Isabel’s surprise, she nodded crisply, as if the thought had not occurred toher prior to this moment but now that it had, it made perfect sense.
    “That’s true, isn’t it?” she said, her expression brightening. “Good luck to you.”
    “Thanks.” Isabel turned to rush off down the hall.
    “By the way,” Amelia said, “I mentioned to Dr. Belvedere that you were the person who found his father’s body.”
    Isabel paused again. “Did you?”
    “Yes. Just thought I’d warn you in case he brings up the subject.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Finding the old man dead at his desk must have been a terrible shock for you.”
    “It was. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
    “Certainly.” Amelia actually winked. “I’ll look forward to seeing your name on the next list of department heads.”
    Absurdly pleased by this small show of collegial acceptance, Isabel inclined her head and tried to appear modest.
    “I hope so.”
    She turned the corner and walked swiftly toward her destination. Visions of her future flashed before her eyes. The promotion to department head would not only elevate her status at the center, it would mean a hefty increase in salary. She did the calculations and concluded that if she was careful, the raise would enable her to pay off her credit card debt ahead of schedule. In a few months, she might even be able to start looking for theDream House. She was tired of living in apartments. She longed for a home of her own.
    She stopped thinking about her potentially rosy future when she drew closer to the door of the office. A wistful sensation went through her, a mixture of sadness and regret. She was going to miss Martin Belvedere. The old man had been irascible, short-tempered, self-absorbed and secretive. But he had recognized her unusual abilities and gave her the first serious, professional post she’d ever held in the field of dream research. She would be forever grateful to him for rescuing her from the Psychic Dreamer Hotline.
    Belvedere had possessed a number of unsociable traits but there was no doubt about his commitment to dream research.
    In recent years Martin Belvedere had developed an obsession with a phenomenon he claimed to have discovered in a small number of dreamers. He had created the term “Level Five lucid dreaming” to describe it. In his opinion it was a highly developed form of what was commonly referred to as lucid dreaming, the experience of knowing that you are dreaming while you are actually in a dream and the ability to exert some control over the dreamscape.
    Lucid dreaming had been written about and discussed for centuries from the time of Aristotle on down to the present. The phenomenon had been studied off and on in modern laboratory settings but little progress had been made toward understanding the lucid dreaming state. Many scientific researchers hadabandoned the effort altogether in favor of conducting research on sleep phenomena that could be recorded and analyzed by their instruments. They preferred to examine changes in brain waves, blood pressure and heartbeat. They talked of REM and NREM sleep and published papers that were heavily weighted with statistics, charts and graphs.
    But Martin Belvedere had gone much further than other researchers. He had taken a bold leap into the unknown and theorized that some people could achieve a very advanced state of the lucid dream experience. He claimed that in what he called a Level Five state, certain individuals could access their powers of intuition, insight, creativity and unconscious observations in ways that enabled them to see what they could not in the waking state. Belvedere was