“I don’t know.”
“Well, does it?”
“You mean it’s on?”
“It’s been on for ninety seconds.”
He opened his eyes then and looked around, as well as he could for the head clamps. He asked, “Where’s the screen?”
I explained that a subject never watches the screen live, because the objectification can be severely disturbing, and he said, “Like feedback from a microphone?” That is exactly the simile Dr. Aven used to use. F.S. is certainly an intelligent person. N.B.: Intelligent paranoids are dangerous!
He asked, “What do you see?” and I said, “Do be quiet, I don’t want to see what you’re saying, I want to see what you’re thinking,” and he said, “But that’s none of your business, you know,” quite gently, like a joke. Meanwhile the fear-white had gone into dark, intense, volitional convolutions, and then, a few seconds after he stopped speaking, a rose appeared on the whole Con dimension: a full-blown pink rose, beautifully sensed and visualised, clear and steady, whole.
He said presently, “What am I thinking about, Dr. Sobel?” and I said, “Bears in the Zoo.” I wonder now why I said that. Self-defense? Against what? He gave a laugh and the Uncon went crystal-dark, relief, and the rose darkened and wavered. I said, “I was joking. Can you bring the rose back?” That brought back the fear-white. I said, “Listen, it’s really very bad for us to talk like this during a first session, you have to learn a great deal before you can co-analyse, and I have a great deal to learn about you, so no more jokes, please? Just relax physically, and think about anything you please.”
There was flurry and subverbalisation on the Con dimension, and the Uncon faded into grey, suppression. The rose came back weakly a few times. He was trying to concentrate on it, but couldn’t. I saw several quick visuals: myself, my uniform, TRTU uniforms, a grey car, a kitchen, the violent ward (strong aural images—screaming), a desk, the papers on the desk. He stuck to those. They were the plans for a machine. He began going through them. It was a deliberate effort at suppression, and quite effective. Finally I said, “What kind of machine is that?” and he began to answer aloud but stopped and let me get the answer subvocally in the earphone: “Plans for a rotary engine assembly for traction,” or something like that, of course the exact words are on the tape. I repeated it aloud and said, “They aren’t classified plans, are they?” He said, “No,” aloud, and added, “I don’t know any secrets.” His reaction to a question is intense and complex, each sentence is like a shower of pebbles thrown into a pool, the interlocking rings spread out quick and wide over the Con and into the Uncon, responses rising on all levels. Within a few seconds all that was hidden by a big signboard that appeared in the high Con foreground, deliberately visualised like the rose and the plans, with auditory reinforcement as he read it over and over: keep out! keep out! keep out!
It began to blur and flicker, and somatic signals took over, and soon he said aloud, “I’m tired,” and I closed the session (12.5 min.).
After I took off the crown and clamps I brought him a cup of tea from the staff stand in the hall. When I offered it to him he looked startled and then tears came into his eyes. His hands were so cramped from gripping the armrests that he had trouble taking hold of the cup. I told him he must not be so tense and afraid, we were trying to help him not to hurt him.
He looked up at me. Eyes are like the scope screen and yet you can’t read them. I wished the crown was still on him, but it seems you never catch the moments you most want on the scope. He said, “Doctor, why am I in this hospital?”
I said, “For diagnosis and therapy.”
He said, “Diagnosis and therapy of what?”
I said he perhaps could not now recall the episode, but he had behaved strangely. He asked how and when, and I said that it would all come clear to him as therapy took effect. Even if I had known what his psychotic episode was, I would have said the same. It was correct procedure. But I felt in a false position. If the TRTU report was not classified, I would be speaking from knowledge and the facts. Then I could make a better response to what he said next:
“I was waked up at two in the morning, jailed, interrogated, beaten up,, and drugged. I suppose I did behave a little oddly during that. Wouldn’t you?”
“Sometimes a person under stress misinterprets other people’s actions,” I said. “Drink up your tea and I’ll take you back to the ward. You’re running a temperature.”
“The ward,” he said, with a kind of shrinking movement, and then he said almost desperately, “Can you really not know why I’m here?”
That was strange, as if he has included me in his delusional system, on “his side.” Check this possibility in Rheingeld. I should think it would involve some transference and there has not been time for that.
Spent pm analysing Jest and Sorde holos. I have never seen any psychoscopic realisation, not even a drug-induced hallucination, so fine and vivid as that rose. The shadows of one petal on another, the velvety damp texture of the petals, the pink color full of sunlight, the yellow central crown—I am sure the scent was there if the apparatus had olfactory pickup—it wasn’t like a mentifact but a real thing rooted in the earth, alive and growing, the strong thorny stem beneath it.
Very tired, must go to bed.
Just reread this entry. Am I keeping this diary right? All I have written is what happened and what was said. Is that spontaneous? But it was important to me.
5 SEPTEMBER
Discussed the problem of conscious resistance with Dr. Nades at lunch today. Explained that I have worked with unconscious blocks (the children, and depressives such as Ana J.) and have some skill at reading through, but have not before met a conscious block such as F.S.’s keep out sign, or the device he used today, which was effective for a full 20-minute session: a concentration on his breathing, bodily rhythms, pain in ribs, and visual input from the scope room. She suggested that I use a blindfold for the latter trick, and keep my attention on the Uncon dimension, as he cannot prevent material from appearing there. It is surprising, though, how large the interplay area of his Con and Uncon fields is, and how much one resonates into the other. I believe his concentration on his breathing rhythm allowed him to achieve something like “trance” condition. Though of course most so-called “trance” is mere occultist fakirism, a primitive trait without interest for behavioral science.
Ana thought through “a day in my life” for me today. All so grey and dull, poor soul! She never thought even of food with pleasure, though she lives on minimum ration. The single thing that came bright for a moment was a child’s face, clear dark eyes, a pink knitted cap, round cheeks. She told me in post-session discussion that she always walks by a school playground on the way to work because “she likes to see the little ones running and yelling.” Her husband appears on the screen as a big bulky suit of work clothes and a peevish, threatening mumble. I wonder if she knows that she hasn’t seen his face or heard a word he says for years? But no use telling her that. It may be just as well she doesn’t. The knitting she is doing, I noticed today, is a pink cap.