Title: Infusion of Waking Dreams
Author: Aynjel Kaye
Date of First Publication: 2015
Place of Publication: Daughters of Frankenstein: Lesbian Mad Scientists
Type: Short Story
Characters: No character
Themes: MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; QUEER FRANKENSTEIN; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: This short story, “Infusion of Waking Dreams” by Aynjel Kaye, follows a couple, Dawn and Alyssa, who have recently started living together. The story opens to Dawn revealing to Alyssa that she suffers from insomnia and hardly ever sleeps. This fact seems to intrigue Alyssa, and she goes on to question Dawn about solving this issue. Dawn gets uncomfortable with the conversation and drops the subject. It is soon revealed that Alyssa is the daughter of a scientist and likes to experiment using his old notes and potions in his lab. She secretly starts to experiment with ways to help Dawn with her insomnia. She tests her treatments on rats as well as herself and creates something that seems to work. Her creation is meant to trick the brain into thinking one has slept without actually sleeping. Alyssa then timidly approaches Dawn and asks her to try this treatment she’s secretly created. Dawn reluctantly agrees to try this new treatment. The women go down to the lab where Alyssa hands Dawn the concoction made up of various herbs in heavy alcohol. Dawn drinks the concoction and has a strange, terrifying reaction. She seems to be dreaming while awake and unable to comprehend what is happening around her. She appears to be somewhere other than the lab, though her physical body remains. Alyssa then hugs her and seems to understand what Dawn is going through. She sees this other world that Dawn is in as a strange limbo between dream and reality. Alyssa reveals that she herself has been there many times before and was always told that this place was only in her imagination. She struggles with pulling Dawn out of this state, but eventually brings her back to reality. Later, a meowing is heard in the lab and a cat appears. Alyssa calls the cat “Treacle” and seems to know it well. Dawn asks where the cat has come from and Alyssa doesn’t give her a straight answer. Then Dawn recognizes the cat as one she’s met before, in the place of her dreams. It is then revealed that the two women go to the same place in their dreams; a place they describe as beautiful, but with a lingering feeling of darkness. They then realize that the place they go to is more than a dream and is in fact a type of reality. They are perplexed about this discovery but decide to do what they can to stay away from this place. Then, Alyssa asks if Dawn would be willing to try something that prevented her from dreaming; to this, Dawn doesn’t give an answer.
This story connects to Frankenstein in the use of the mad scientist protagonist. Alyssa, like Dr. Frankenstein, conducts her experiments in secret and is willing to create before she understands the power her creations may hold. She is obsessive with her work and is willing to put it above most other aspects of her life. This is shown in her eagerness to experiment with other solutions after the terrifying first attempt. Like the mad scientist character created in Frankenstein, Alyssa’s obsession with science creates undesirable and horrible consequences in which another person must suffer for. Alyssa does differ, however, in the fact that this incident does not stop her from continuing her experiments.
Administrative Notes: Megan Ponce, CSUF; Alexandra Hollinshead (editing)