The Winthorpe Institute For Dream Research
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Saturday, 15 April 2017
Having been delayed by events at the Radio Telescope, the Investigators continue onto their appointment. They arrive at the Winthorpe Institute, a splendid old building. There is a lake in front of the building and also an old tower with a more modern out building at the side, serviced by a traffic island.
They are greeted by Eileen Cody and a couple of other staff members. As they are being introduced, an older man Lawrence Winthorpe passes by and welcomes them. His family has owned this land for a number of years now.
They are taken inside and talked through the disclaimer forms, which they have to read and sign. They are given identity passes which will open doors for them.
Eileen is concerned about the obvious head injures of Gerald and Amy and calls over Dr Weemes, who briefly checks them over.
Introduction to the Institute
Eileen tells them they do not need to do anything during the day, but in the evening they have machines that will monitor their sleep in their rooms. Damien volunteers to be put into the Dream Web, the rest are shown how to use their machines.
Damien is disappointed there is no bar. They are allowed to leave the building and there is a Sainsbury’s in the local village, Minor Stanford, for such things. The Institute could not get an alcohol license.
It is about 11am and they are told that lunch will start from midday, so they may as well settle in for an hour, then come down to lunch.
They are shown to their rooms. Damien and Sebastian share a room, as do John and Gerald. Amy has her own room.
Lunch
They come down for lunch and see all the various Institute staff there. The Project Director, Torrence Dandridge, has an American accent, but they are not introduced.
They do meet Graham Mains, a computer technician and Mariana Ivanovna, the resident psychiatrist, originally from Russia. Dr Ivanovna schedules psychiatric assessments for each of them that afternoon.
They learn that the Institute has capacity for 20 volunteers, but only 15 places are filled at the moment (the 5 party members plus 10 others). The numbers vary, unpredictably sometimes, but during holiday times there are usually more.
There is one man who is very handsome and dresses garishly, with a suited minder of some kind. They assume he is some minor celebrity.
Psychiatric Assessment
Gerald has his psychiatric assessment with Dr Ivanovna and the session goes fairly well. Gerald determines that she knows her stuff.
Then Sebastian has his psychiatric assessment and that overruns the hour, as he has a fascinating background and Dr Ivanovna asks him a lot of questions.
Damien is next, but he clashes with Dr Ivanovna, her probing questions and slightly aloof manor rubbing him up the wrong way. He is evasive and less than fully co-operative.
The final session is with John, who takes an instant dislike to Dr Ivanovna and starts winding her up with small lies. When she probes these lies, he tells bigger lies to cover them and eventually the session descends into farce. She is aware he is not telling the truth and ends the session early, clearly irritated.
Dr Ivanovna apologies to Amy, her session will now have to wait until tomorrow.
Strange Auras
Damien has been studying the auras of his companions. He notices they are more vibrant than normal and they are strangely ‘vibrating’ still, possibly with a similar resonance that the signal from space had.
He also notices that Amy appears to have an auric shadow, like a second aura.
Amy herself is finding that her strange feeling of being watched, which had disappeared, appears to have now come back strongly and at one point, in her room, she is convinced someone else is in the room with her, even though it is empty.
John sets about trying to hack the Institute’s computer systems. It turns out not to be that easy as it is mostly a closed, private system that hosts its website in the Cloud, but he continues to try to get in.
Being Watched
That evening Damien is taken away to be plugged into the Dream Web. The staff are a little on edge, which Damien is able to discover is because they are trialling some new software for the first time that night.
The others fix up their dream monitors in their rooms and try to sleep. Gerald wakes up in the night with a strong feeling that someone has walked into the room. The door to the room is open but the room is empty.
However, he can hear breathing that is not John’s. Then something invisible appears to run its fingers down his face. He jumps and has the feeling the presence leaves the room.
He goes out into the hall and for a moment thinks he see the shadow of a person. When the motion detecting lights come on, however, the corridor is empty.
He steps outside for some fresh air to recover from the experience.
Meanwhile, Amy is also having a feeling she is not alone. She is not sleeping well, waking every hour. She awakes at one point, having dreamt that someone was in her room watching her, and it turned out to be someone completely different to the previous person who was there.
In the Dream Web
Meanwhile, Damien has a fairly normal night’s sleep, although he struggles a little to sleep due to the scrutiny. However, when he does sleep, he finds himself in an arena, roman-style and his past dreams are shown to the crowd for their pleasure before their host, a beautiful girl, takes them away. They crowd is not what it seems though and appears to be some entity.
Damien awakens and a nurse asks him if he is OK, his vitals were peaking a little. He has a drink and lies back down. While he is trying to get back to sleep, he realises that the wire configuration of the Dream Web makes no electrical sense – but is in some sort of pattern.