Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked by Helbent IV on September 28, 2020
Plot Summary/Details
Another of my patented "longshot" questions, I fear. I remember very little of the story, other than the basic premise.
It’s set on Earth in the near-ish future. A small, reputable company makes dream recordings that people can buy and experience. The dreams are done by the people who run the shop. IIRC, there are 3 people, two men and a woman. The dreams are saved to some sort of storage medium. I think it may be a disc.
One of the men, whom I believe is the younger of the two, presents the other with a worrisome illegal disc he has somehow learned of being sold. The older man loads the dreaming machine and experiences a few minutes of it. I remember the scene being described as the man manifesting symptoms of stress and discomfort. After switching the dream playback machine off, he comments something along the lines of it being "raw", with I think an implicit understanding it was pornography of some sort.
The team decide to find out who is making the filthy dream discs, and that is all I can remember from the story.
Publication Details/Timeframe
I’d guess this is a very old story, judging from the moralistic tone. 1950’s or possibly earlier would be my guess. It’s possible that it is from a later era, but I doubt it.
I can’t quite remember if I read it in a magazine or a story collection. I’m thinking the former, because I want to say the story had more than one part to it, which might explain why I can’t remember the ending.
This is the short story "Dreaming is a Private Thing" by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1955.
The story follows a manager of the dream recording company as he goes about his day. He has to solve several problems.
One of his top dreamers tells him he wants to quit, that he doesn't want to create dreams anymore. He agrees.
He interviews a young boy who comes in with his parents, who aspires to becoming a dreamer. He asks him to create an example. It includes clouds that taste like lemon sherbet. The parents also have an offer from a competing company.
A government official shows him a sample of under-the-counter pornographic dreams. He dismissed them as crude and not made by a professional.
A co-worker shows him a worrying new development: shared dreams. It's sort of like a cinema for dreams, with simple dreams, much simpler than what his company offers, that can be shared.
He confides in either his co-worker or the government official that he knows his top dreamer will be back, since he can't help dreaming. He doesn't know if he won the boy's parents over, or that he will go to the competition. But he's pretty sure the "dream cinema" will not work, since "dreaming is a private thing".
You can check the publication history on the ISFDb to see where you read it in.
Correct answer by SQB on September 28, 2020
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