The Runner Who Stayed Still

The electrodes itched.

Soren had fourteen of them glued to his scalp, and the research assistant had promised the glue would dissolve in the shower tomorrow, but right now every single one of them felt like a tiny cold finger pressing into his skull. Through the glass partition he could see Maya in the next room, similarly wired, already lying flat on her cot and staring at the ceiling.

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

"Yeah. The intercom's on."

"Good. I was worried I'd just be lying here alone thinking about spiders."

"Why spiders?"

"Because someone told me not to think about spiders. Now it's all spiders."

Soren smiled. He adjusted the little clip on his finger that measured his pulse. The lab was dim, and through the observation window he could see Dr. Vasquez at her desk, already absorbed in something on her monitor, a paper coffee cup in one hand. She'd explained the study quickly, almost impatiently, like she had somewhere more important to be. "We're looking at motor cortex activation patterns in adolescents during REM," she'd said. "You sleep. We watch your brain. Try not to overthink it."

Soren had written that down. Motor cortex activation during REM.

"Maya."

"Yeah."

"She said motor cortex. That's the part that controls movement."

"I know what it is."

"So why would your movement brain be active when you're asleep?"

Maya was quiet for a moment. "Maybe it isn't. Maybe that's what they're checking."

"She said activation patterns. Not absence of activation. Patterns."

Another pause. "Huh," Maya said.

Soren stared at the ceiling tiles and counted the little holes in them. He got to two hundred and twelve before his eyes started to feel heavy, and then he was running.

Not jogging. Sprinting. Down a hallway that kept curving left, the floor smooth under his bare feet, his arms pumping. He could feel his muscles working, feel the impact of each stride traveling up through his knees, feel his lungs expanding. He was fast. He was faster than he had ever been. The hallway opened into a field of tall grass and he kept going, cutting through it, the blades parting around his legs, and he could feel every single one of them.

Then something sharp and chemical in his nose, and light.

"Soren. Soren, can you open your eyes?"

Dr. Vasquez was leaning over him. She held a small penlight. "I need you to describe what you were just experiencing. Right now, before it fades."

"Running," he said. His voice was thick. "I was running really fast."

"Were you aware of your body?"

"Yes. I could feel everything. My legs, my arms, the ground."

She made a note on her tablet without looking at it. "Thank you. Go back to sleep."

She was already walking away.

"Dr. Vasquez."

She turned.

"Was I actually moving? When I was dreaming that?"

"Your motor cortex was sending full movement signals," she said. She paused, like she was deciding how much to say. "Go back to sleep, Soren."

She left. The intercom crackled.

"Soren," Maya whispered.

"Yeah."

"I heard that. Full movement signals. Your brain was telling your legs to run."

"But I wasn't running."

"No. You were completely still. I could see you through the glass. You didn't move at all. Not even a twitch."

Soren lay in the dark and let that settle. His brain had sent the commands. His legs had received nothing. Something between had caught the signals and held them.

"It's like," Maya started, then stopped.

"Like what?"

"Okay, don't laugh. It's like your body has a bouncer. Your brain is shouting go, run, move, and something at the door is saying no, you're staying right here."

"Where's the door?"

"I don't know. Somewhere between your brain and your muscles. Something is catching every single command and just, stopping it."

Soren reached for his notebook on the side table. Then he stopped. He looked at the EEG readout screen mounted on the wall, the one Dr. Vasquez had left turned on, probably by accident. The lines were jagged and fast and dense, nothing like the slow rolling waves he'd seen earlier in the evening.

"Maya. Can you see the EEG screen from your room?"

"Yeah. Yours or mine?"

"Mine."

"It looks like you're awake."

"I know. I am awake now. But look at the replay buffer. The last ten minutes."

Maya was quiet. Then: "Soren. That's the same. The sleeping part looks the same as the awake part."

"I know."

"Your brain was running at full speed. Like completely, totally awake. And your body was paralyzed."

"Not paralyzed. Blocked. There's a difference. Paralyzed means the muscles can't work. Blocked means something chose to stop them."

"Chose?"

"Not chose, like a person. Chose like, the brainstem has a system for this. It's supposed to happen. Every single night. Every time you dream."

Maya sat up in her cot. He could see her silhouette through the glass. "Every night, your brain runs at full awake speed, and it sends real commands to your real muscles, real run and jump and reach commands, and every night something grabs all those commands in the dark and holds them still."

"Every night."

"For everyone."

They were both quiet. Through the observation window, Dr. Vasquez had fallen asleep at her desk, her coffee cup tilted dangerously in her hand. Her EEG readout, the one she'd attached to herself as a demonstration earlier, was visible on the far monitor.

The lines on it were fast and jagged and dense.

"She's dreaming," Maya whispered.

"Yeah."

"Her brain is completely awake right now. And she has no idea."

"Her body has no idea. Her brain knows exactly what it's doing."

Dr. Vasquez's fingers twitched. Just barely. Just the ghost of a movement that never arrived. Then her hand went still again, and the coffee cup held, and the EEG lines kept racing, and somewhere behind the quiet of her sleeping body her brain was lit up like a city, sending commands into the dark that arrived nowhere.

Maya pressed her palm to the glass between their rooms and watched the lines spike and fall and spike again.