Page 105 of In Somnis

I narrow my eyes. “I’m seriously considering yeeting you like you did Nevan.”

“Rude.” He sits up. “Okay. Lucid Dreaming 101. A lot of people say there are five different dimensions. Strip away the woo-woo, and the basic idea is pretty simple. 2D is a flat representation you can’t inhabit. Our waking life is 3D. Dreams, no matter if lucid or regular, happen in 4D, and 5D is a space where more than one mind occupies the same experience, intentionally or not.”

“So, we’re in 5D right now?”

“No, we’re still in 4D.”

“But we’re sharing⁠—”

“A dream. Your dream. This is your 4D, Lennon. Not mine. I’m just… in it.”

I look around at the planet he apparently conjured out of thin air. “You built this.”

“Because you let me.” He says it carefully as if he’s still working out what that means himself. “Your dream, your space. I can influence it because you’re allowing it, consciously or not. But the foundation? That’s yours.”

“Okay.” I try to follow. “So what’s 5D then?”

“5D is what happens when awareness stops being private. People say it’s some higher state. Unity, enlightenment, all that shit.” He scoffs. “That’s not useful. What is useful is knowing it’s a place where identity doesn’t hold the same way. Good and bad don’t either. Intent doesn’t protect you.”

“So this isn’t that.”

“No.” He looks at me. “This is me somehow ending up inside your REM cycle, which shouldn’t be possible either, and yet…” he gestures vaguely at the flowers, the sky, the evidence, “… here we are.”

“Does that happen often?” I ask. “People just wandering into someone else’s 4D?”

“It doesn’t.”

“I… but then how?”

“It’s hard to explain without sounding insane. Think of it like this. When you sleep, you’re swimming in your unconscious. Lucid dreaming is realizing you’re in the water.”

“You’re aware that you’re aware.” At least that I understand now.

“And if you’re skilled enough, you can navigate the water. Build a boat. Choose where you go, what you build.” He pauses, turning our joint hands over. “Dream sharing is… when two people end up in the same water.”

“But how?”

“Connection helps. The stronger the thread between two people, the easier it is for one mind to find the other’s frequency. You have to concentrate on the essence of them when you fall asleep, not only their face, even though that helps. But it’s the feel of them, and if that person’s frequency is open, receptive, then sometimes…” He trails off. “You find a door.”

I think about that. “Their essence has to be open to it?”

“Willing, even unconsciously. You can’t force your way into someone’s 4D. The dreamer always holds the key, whether they know it or not. Or at least so I thought.”

“Okay.” I chew on that for a second. “But I didn’t know you. So I couldn’t have been thinking about you,” I continue, following the logic carefully. “Which means I wasn’t the one who found the frequency. Which means…”

I look at him.

He’s looking at the horizon while reaching out with his free hand. There’s a soft plop, and the lollipop reappears between his fingers. He rolls it once before bringing it to his mouth.

“Point is,” he says around it. “Even if Tessa can share your 4D, I don’t think she’s been living in her own anymore. Not consistently.” He pulls the lollipop out and taps it once against his knee. “I think she started slipping. Between hers, yours, and whatever’s in the space underneath both.”

The quiet that follows has weight to it.

Tessa disappeared because she found somewhere that felt better than being awake. But she wasn’t alone in it. She had someone to stay for.

“You say it as if she got lost, but she chose this, didn’t she?”

He puts the lollipop back in his mouth and looks at the sky. “If she fell in love with who I think she fell in love with, yeah.”