Just Dreams?

Posted on Thu Oct 24th, 2019 @ 3:51am by Lieutenant Commander William Gunnison

Will arrived at his office after breakfast to check in on a few things before he was due on the bridge. He didn't want to sound like a Doubting Thomas towards Cole and Lt. Levine, but he wasn't really sure that there was anything to this. There was no reports of anything unusual that would indicate intruders had somehow managed to get on board, and he didn't believe that ghosts were haunting the ship (though of course, if ghosts did exist, there was certainly a reason for them being on the ship, with two recent deaths on board, and at least one of those violent).

How two people could report similar dreams independently of each other was chance, probably as a result of having experienced the same thing at some point and time without realizing it, and that had probably produced the similarly-seeming dreams. (Though Will had read a little bit of psychology, and had heard that a human psychologist named Carl Jung had developed, among other things, a concept known as "collective subconscious" - which, to Will, made humans sound a bit like the Borg - which at one point was used as a way to explain such things as similarly sounding reports of ghosts and alien abductions on Earth back in the 20th and early 21st centuries.)

Will found that he had a bit of rearranging of the daily department schedule to do, as a couple of those in Operations were reporting feeling a bit under the weather and had checked into sickback, though Will thought that they'd probably just partied a bit too hard on Meria and were now paying the price for their enthusiastic embrace of the local alcoholic beverages and other similar questionable substances.

After he rearranged the schedule, Will headed out to report to the bridge. On the way to the turbolift, he encountered an ensign in sciences blue poked his head into the office. "Lt. Gunnison?" the crewman said

"Yes. May I help you, Ensign?"

"I'm a nurse in sickbay. In case you haven't heard, there seems to be some bug going around. We're not quite sure what it is yet, but we're working on it."

"Yes, I think a couple of people in Ops might be coming down with it."

The nurse nodded. "Yes, they just checked in a little while ago. We're passing on word to everyone to keep an eye out for flu-like symptoms without the fever - aches, particularly around the base of the skull, fatigue, insomnia, irritability. Also a weird paralysis of the vocal cords."

"Right," Will said. "I'll make sure to pass along the word to the rest of the department." Will paused a moment, then asked, "Out of curiosity, those who have gotten it so far wouldn't have reported having strange dreams lately, would they?"

"Not that I'm aware of," the nurse said, "though I could always check. What kind of 'strange dreams' in particular?"

"Reports of claiming to wake up and seeing blurry, almost transparent figures near them, seeming to be doing some sort of medical examination on them before suddenly disappearing as the individual fully regains consciousness."

"Interesting," the nurse said.

"Granted," Will said, "it may very well be nothing, but you never know. I've heard about this dream from two different people already today. Originally, I just dismissed it as a weird coincidence, but a part of me is beginning to wonder if there's some sort of visual hallucination that may be a symptom."

"I'll be sure to let Dr. Morgan know about it," the nurse said. "Not sure if there's any connection to this bug, but I agree that it couldn't hurt to ask. During my time as a cadet at the Academy, I do remember hearing about some pretty strange symptoms that some unusual illnesses have been known to have."

"Thanks," Will said, before continuing on his way.