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“You know how when you reach that fitful dream state, especially when trying to nap during the day? Your mind comes awake enough to be aware of your surroundings yet you cannot move or open your eyes?” asked Gina. They both nodded and she continued. “Dreams take strange turns because, while you cannot move you can hear, briefly. May not even recognize what you hear yet it finds its way into your dream. Many times you don’t even know it is the world around you influencing your dreams. People seem to remember dreams from that state for days, even years. Some believe it is how I remember dreams so well. The low tech method is the most straight forward because we can tell when a person has entered that state and the phone can simply say something.”
Both Janet and Bobby were stunned. They both believed direct manipulation of dreams was years off, yet here it was, something they both knew to be true. It’s one of the reasons you are not supposed to fall asleep with a television or radio playing. There were already tons of apps on the market to play rain and other pleasant sounds so people could fall asleep more easily. A few free ones of those could be put on the market today and nobody would look twice. Then the real bomb landed.
“The subconscious mind has a different hearing range than the conscious” Gina stated. “While it is better to have the phone speak at the conscious hearing level your subconscious can hear something like a dog. It’s why a dripping faucet keeps so many people awake. It’s also why some places just give people the heebie-jeebies. It’s not so much that they are haunted but that the place has a sound the subconscious mind can process even while you are awake. For whatever reason most instruments tend to not identify these frequencies or more accurately, nobody has found them interesting so nobody made a machine to do it” continued Gina as she looked Bobby directly in the eye.
“Hint taken sis” answered Bobby. “Do you happen to know the ranges?”
“I have a few, but it would be best if you just made something small and portable which focused on what none of the mass market equipment focuses on today. If we are ever called on it you can show them the research saying ‘for these frequencies there was either no equipment or it was massively expensive.’”
Bobby nodded in response. “Something you can connect to a laptop via USB with an appropriate software package” he stated, engineering mind already at work. “One of the biggest problems with such a task is all of the ambient noise computers and other things generate. Even wifi is ambient noise. Just because it is outside of normal human hearing doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be interfering with sensitive sound sensors . . .” Bobby trailed off deep in thought.
Silence filled the outdoor sanctuary as the ladies listened to what sounds of nature could be heard over the gears of Bobby’s mind turning. If there had been a laptop on the table he wouldn’t have even known the girls were there. Gina poured the last of the wine into their glasses and Janet topped off her tea. It would be another night Gina would have to stay at Bobby’s because driving was not advisable let alone anywhere close to legal. Janet never minded her sister-in-law staying over. Especially not now when the woman had finally called her sister instead of Janet or matriarch. There were lots of bedrooms here. More than she and Bobby would probably fill.
The silence was finally broken by Gina. “You know what has bothered me about the entire dream business?” she said into the air. “Oh, I knew there were going to be the twisted demented fuckers with rape, murder and worse for dreams. I knew there would be the even more twisted bastards who would pay to have such a dream. Repeatedly. California and the flower children really threw the species under the bus when they got corporal punishment thrown out of schools and now prosecute parents for it. More than thirty years of kids growing up without physical consequences for their action ensured the ever downward spiral of humans. All because a few bad teachers used to single out kids they enjoyed spanking and most school systems did a piss poor job referring troubled kids to appropriate counseling they damned the entire species. Marketing is always trying to come up with cool sounding labels like Generation X, Gen-Z and Millenial but they really ought to call it Generation-Psychopath. Millions of humans who grew up without any form of physical consequences for their actions totally happy to shoot up a school.”
“Well, at the risk of being prosecuted” interjected Janet, “our kids certainly won’t grow up that way.”
“Good to hear” replied Gina. “Perhaps some of our species will survive. What they classify as damage true scientists classify as learning. It’s an inconvenient truth for those pushing the agenda to ban corporal punishment universally.” After a pause to drink more she continued. “No, what has bothered me the most about this is the number of people on the Dark Web who pay good money for pleasant dreams. Given the tiny portion of people brave enough to venture into the Dark Web, it’s an alarming percentage.”
“Why does that bother you” Janet asked realizing her husband now existed entirely within his own mind. The sips of wine just an unconscious acknowledgment of thirst. He was lost. She should throw a blanket on him before turning in herself otherwise he might get sick.
“It shows the sorry state of the species” answered Gina. “I’ve seriously thought about creating a PleasantDreams.com site on the legitimate Internet and co-opting both that segment of the database along with a smaller cleaner version of the app. At a buck a dream we will probably make $10 million per night. It’s just coming up with a story about how the dreams were created which proves difficult.”
“Such a widely used app would make the other plans far more doable” offered Janet.
“It could also take a civic duty angle” mused Gina.
“How so?”
“Create transmitters which could be installed in a prison and pipe pleasant dreams to all of the inmates” continue Gina. “The ones with deep mental disorders it would not help but if it could crowd out the violent dreams making the inmates sleep more easily it might make them more manageable.”
“You would never get a pilot of that in America” stated Janet.
“Perhaps not, at least not with a government run prison” stated Gina.
“Aren’t they all?” queried Janet.
“No. In truth, very few. Over the years as part of their cost cutting measures many government entities privatized their prisons. They are now run by for-profit corporations who increase the bottom line by massive over crowding, fewer guards, less food and little to no medical care. The only treatment some mentally ill inmates receive is being locked in solitary.”
“That’s horrible” whispered Janet.
“It’s Devil’s Island without the island for most” answered Gina. “Corporations are there to make money, not rehabilitate people. If such equipment could be built and tested in one prison with a really violent population, then show reduced violence after some months it would be a massively lucrative legitimate business.”
“Once you put a president in the white house I’m sure you can get an executive order for an experiment which costs the tax payers nothing” smiled Janet.
“Quite sure” answered Gina. “Just have to come up with a plausible story about how the dreams are created. At least until some kind of scripting tool can be created.”
“Let me ponder on that for a while” Janet answered. “It might be as simple as paying college kids at some devout religious school to let you try recording their dreams.”
“Doesn’t work.”
“Isn’t that what you do now, without the payment that is?”
“Devout people don’t have a high percentage of pleasant dreams” stated Gina flatly. “That was my first impulse too, but I ran the numbers against the known pleasant dreams and known sources. Devout people have a very low percentage of pleasant dreams.”
“Seems counter intuitive” speculated Janet.
“It is until you dig deeper” answered Gina. “The world isn’t the Godly paradise they believe it must be so they live in fear of eternal damnation and get dream-distraught over violent news. The devout people who listen only to a Godly music station and only watch the nice Godly shows existing in a bubble away from the known universe have pleasant dream, well, damned few of them have idiot phones so no meaningful numbers can be accumulated.”
“Who is the target market or source then?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Stay at home moms with a husband who makes enough money they never have to worry. Those who give him permission to shag anything he wants as long as he never gets caught or tells her about it. Well, you and the Aunt Bea types from the Andy Griffin show. They raise some kids, they cook they clean and they never wanted more. If I have to put it in a single statement, the people who don’t want anything out of life are the happiest at least when it comes to dreams, possibly in life itself. The guy who graduated high school and went to the factory every day. Eventually coming home to a wife and kids. Never having a credit card or debt other than a mortgage.”
“That’s a dead species now” uttered Janet.
“Exactly! The fount of pleasant dreams got off-shored” answered Gina.
“Guess you could charge two bucks a dream for the ones you have and not run out of takers” Janet joked.
“If the population had the money it would gladly pay $50/night to have pleasant dreams” stated Gina flatly. “The part of the population which can ill-afford a buck is the part which needs them most.”
At some point during the conversation Bobby had gotten up, presumably to head to the room he used as a small office/lab. Neither woman paid attention or tried to stop. This was Bobby. Janet had known him long enough to know this about him. Once he got onto the trail of something the dog had to hunt it down. He probably wouldn’t even share their bed tonight. These things happen. You take them in stride. Besides, she might sleep better alone tonight. The baby had taken to night soccer games lately.
“Honestly sister” began Janet “I never took you for such an active humanitarian.”
“I solve problems” Gina stated. “The sleep thing was a family business. The dream thing the new family business. When you learn as much as you can about dreams you learn their value. Eventually you learn that most of the medical and psychological problems of our species are a direct result of sleep deprivation. Obesity, diabetes heart disease and a litany of mental disorders all result from repeated, prolonged sleep deprivation. People point to family history and environmental contributors, but it is really all due to sleep. The family history aspect is because families tend to have the same sleep habits. If every person in this country could click on our app, fall asleep within five minutes getting eight solid hours with a pleasant dream, every night from early childhood through their 50s, the pharmaceutical industry would go bust. I should probably start shorting all of them whenever I launch the site. It’s this I’ll sleep when I die culture always trying to achieve more that brought about all of these other problems. I have the solution but the legality of it is murky. The corporate assassins hired by Big Pharma and their lobbyists would do anything to crush and discredit my company. If that failed I would have a convenient accident or unfortunate murder. Until one of them owned this, it would never be allowed.”
“You have more cash than they do” stated Janet.
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