The Island of Dreams Page 17

  “By the way, Connie, what’s that thing that I have to go to tomorrow at the hospital? Is it some kind of medical? You went last week, didn’t you?” Gary asked her.

  “Yeah,” said Connie. “It’s a bit more than just a medical though. It’s a complete brain profiling operation and it takes about an hour to undergo the scan in The Dream Machine as they call it. Apparently it’s an experimental device that can induce dreaming and measure subsequent activity in various regions of the brain. It then comes up with your very own personalised brain profile. I’ve never been through anything like it before. You need to be there for ten o’clock so I guess the Kammie will be round for you at about quarter to. You should be out by lunchtime, wondering what on earth you have just gone through, but there is nothing to fear. It’s not painful or anything, just peculiar, and quite interesting, I thought.”

  *

  The next day as Gary sat in the waiting room he pondered what this so-called profiling was going to entail. He was in there for about five minutes before The Island Doctor, and Chief Medical Officer for the Clifford Centre for Brain Research, called him through into the theatre where his assistant was waiting. She held a visor in her hand, whilst beside her and in front of him was The Dream Machine, a long white cylindrical unit to which various wires were attached and connected to an array of viewing apparatus.

  “Do sit down,” said the tall, slim and slightly balding man. “I am Dr Adrian Schultz. Welcome to The Clifford Centre for Brain Research, one of the most advanced brain scanning centres in the world. It takes its name, of course, from our Founder Clifford, The Scientist, whom you know about already and who was a keen pioneer in the field of human brain research, as well as being a highly talented engineer and aviator.

  The machine that you see in front of you is the world’s most advanced brain analysis unit, which combines the technology of several types of former brain scanning units into one compound unit. Technically it is an electroencephalogram or EEG, a functional magnetic resonance imaging unit, or MRI, a positron emission tomography unit, or PET, and a magnetoencephalography unit or MEG. It is also a very sophisticated inducer of complex mental states. By combining each of these technologies into one singular piece of equipment it is possible to exploit the advantages of each of them with good effect, with each technology serving to amplify the others enabling resolution to be detected right down to the single cellular level. It is an extremely accurate monitor of brain activity by anyone’s standards.

  With this machine we are able to broaden our sphere of brain research further than ever before and aim very soon to make brain damage a thing of the past. Thanks to advanced brain profiling, we are now able to pinpoint exactly the region or regions of the brain that correspond with an individual’s symptoms and correct them with microrobots which can enter and repair the affected tissue with minute implants which effectively plaster over the defect and remedy it. Stem cell research and projects such as the human genome have helped in this, as has the more modern science of microrobotic bioengineering.

  An eminent scientist and compatriot of Clifford Hebden, Dr Masaki Sawicki, who was recruited for The Island by the engineers Endo and Kai, was particularly expert in the field of microbotics and developed a number of solutions for detecting and repairing damaged tissue in the human brain. It was he who developed, with the help of Clifford Hebden, the first prototype of the machine that you now see and that you will soon be entering. It was also he who first postulated about the existence of a trio of specific cells in the human brain, notably the receptor or R cell, the suicide or S cell and the transmitter or T cell each of which is believed to have a very special role in the brain. So convinced was he of the existence of the S cell, that effectively has the power to shut down the brain completely when subject to a certain stimulus, that he devoted much of his later life searching for it. He never found what he was looking for, but such was his devotion to the pursuit of this discovery that the S cell, for which we are still searching, was later named after him.

  The term Sawicki has now been broadened to refer to any problem that involves a search for something which cannot be observed or otherwise pinpointed. In terms of brain research a Sawicki search is a search for an otherwise undiscovered cell or group of cells with a suspected or unidentified role. For example, we suspect that the R, S and T cells, when acting in unison, can have the effect potentially of shutting down the brain and thus killing it in the event of a fatality, such as a stroke or heart attack of a high magnitude. In particular the S cell, is believed to be responsible for a considerable number of unexplained deaths in infants by becoming activated in error at a time shortly after its formation. The R cell, on the other hand, is believed to have supernatural capabilities and is thought to be responsive to unidentifiable inputs, as for example in psychics. Likewise the T cell has the role of a master and is the only cell that has the power to activate the S cell. In a near fatal situation it is thought that the T cell can throw control back to other cells prompting the brain to go into recovery mode, which may or may not be completed fully.

  When it comes to mapping the brain, we know that we are still at the Christopher Columbus stage, but at least it is a beginning and something upon which we can build. Already we are being able to track, in each individual, the manner in which control is passed from one brain region to another in response to certain stimuli, and pinpoint which cell batches are responsible for example for changes of mood, and for certain behavioural traits such as aggression, generation of ideas, and determination to complete a particular task by controlling one’s own brain state, something which we will be asking you to do later with this magnificent box of tricks that you see here.

  Now, I expect you are wondering what we have in store for you?”

  “Yes,” Gary said, nodding.

  “So I will now explain. Shortly I will ask you to lie on the trolley and put on the visor, which my good assistant will strap around your head, along with the headphones that will supply oral inputs to match the visual. A painless injection will also be given both to stimulate relaxation and to supply the mild radioactive properties that are needed for the PET instrumentation to be activated. When all of this has been done, and you are comfortably in place, we will start the machine and the trolley will enter the capsule.

  Once inside the capsule you will descend through the four stages of sleep into the fifth, which is referred to as rapid eye movement or REM sleep. It is in this fifth stage that what we commonly understand as dreaming takes place. In this stage the brain is capable of making decisions as if in the conscious world, and, until a few years ago, it was believed that this stage was the limit of our sleeping capabilities. Then, at the turn of the century, here at the Clifford Centre, I, with the aid of some Russian experts, managed to prove that there was indeed a sixth level of sleep, which had been suspected, but never proved, to exist. This sixth stage, which our machine has now been adapted to induce, is referred to as the superconducting state, so named because in this state there is not only a capacity for dreaming, but also a heightened sensitivity to external inputs, which is far less marked in the ordinary REM. This is believed to occur as, just as with supercooled materials, ions begin to flow far more freely as a result of the totally relaxed condition into which neurons or brain receptors are immersed. As with REM it is a transitory state. It is difficult to hold for more than a few minutes at a time, but the results have been startling. We now have evidence, stronger than ever before, that the R, S and T combination of cells does exist, and although we have so far been unable to pinpoint just exactly where they are, we are narrowing down the permutations month by month. Soon we will find Sawicki, and with it just maybe find a long-awaited cure for those mysterious infant deaths that cause so much heartbreak and pain when they occur, as well as explaining why death in other cases occurs the way that it does as far as the brain is concerned.

  I will now ask you to lie down please, place the visor around your head, and present your lef
t arm for injection.”

  Gary followed the instructions and became instantly tranquillised. After one minute the machine was turned on and he disappeared into it. The Doctor then stepped toward the input device.

  “Input synchronised,” said his lady assistant.

  “Go,” said The Doctor.

  “Output synchronised”.

  “Go.”

  Gary was now in a dream world, except that, unlike in a normal dream, this dream could be influenced by the program that had been inserted into the machine.

  A flash of light and a crack of thunder greeted Gary as he entered the world of Sawicki. A blurred image slowly became clearer, and there was rain that looked and felt as if for all the world that it were real. The image that was depicted was that of the crucifixion, with the recognisable image of Christ as the central figure on the cross betwixt two other unrecognisable figures.

  “Oh Lord, why hast thou forsaken me,” came the voice from the central cross.

  This was followed by a direct oral input from The Doctor, which was as if delivered hypnotically from the direct input line.

  “I want you to imagine that you are at one with the figure on the crucifix,” he said. “Think of Christ’s work and what he did for the world, the sacrifice, the question that is being asked, and the desire to be at one with God. Feel yourself entering the presence of the scene. Let the thoughts flood out.”

  “Believe in me and you shall not perish, but shall pass through me into everlasting life, for I am the Truth, the Way and the Life”.

  With this the program played on the subject’s Christian convictions, and it was inevitable that Gary’s subconscious response would be naturally Christian in its composition. The assistant stood by the output screens as they began to deliver their wave and point results plotted against time. The wave output showed the electrical EEG display whilst the point output showed the location display of relative cell activity on a three-dimensional map of the brain.

  “Note here the standard alpha rhythm, backed up by the weaker theta rhythm,” said The Doctor to his assistant – who was one of several being trained by him – pointing to the pattern on the EEG screen. “And just appearing we see the shadow delta rhythm. At the moment the subject is not conscious of them. We will see how well he can control them later. Then you will be able to calculate the power factor of the brain, that is to say, how well this particular brain can control its own modes of relaxation. Joanie needs to know this for her report to Kamchatskiy.”

  Dr Schultz then returned to the input side of the machine.

  “Why has the Lord forsaken Christ?” he continued. “To send him to a better world perhaps? A world of kinder, more receptive souls perhaps?”

  The image receded.

  “Note the change of rhythm,” The Doctor explained to his assistant. “There’s a distinct change of mood here and the point sensors should show a transfer of cell activity to match. See if you can place the efficiency of this transfer on that chart I showed you last week. Different brains exhibit different transfer coefficients or ‘schalters’ as we call them. These show how well a brain can switch control from one cell region to another under different conditions, which is related to the T cell that we are seeking to find.”

  Back in Gary’s world an image of starlight appeared. Before him was nothing but outer space. Then, a tiny speck appeared which grew steadily brighter. Gradually it came closer, dwarfing the stars around it. Soon he was able to make out the image of a winged angel descending toward him. Slowly, it reached out to touch him. Its touch felt strange, almost magic, invoking inner feelings of comfort and desire, yet two more emotions that The Doctor was eager to monitor the physiological profiles of.

  The angel carried him upward, providing a sensation of flying, not too unlike that which he had experienced for real on the rink the previous day, except that here there was clearly a fictitious context that would inevitably be reflected in the brain wave patterns. Nevertheless the sensation provided a clear link between fantasy and reality as far as the brain was concerned. The Dream Machine was sufficiently sophisticated to induce a brain to play tricks on itself.

  The angel provided a subtle mechanism by which to manipulate the subject’s emotions. First it was wondrous, providing an exciting, magical touch sensation. Then there was the similarity with the previous day’s real experiences. Then, excitement shifted toward a sense of protection as he was carried through space through gas clouds and meteorite storms. Each shift represented a different facet of one’s mind, with a consequent change in brain activity that was detectable.

  Flying gave way to floating followed by a feeling of hurtling toward the Earth. Then sinking became the dominant sensation, with a mild fear element built in, along with apprehension as to what was now going to occur. This part of the program introduced uncertainty and The Doctor was keen to observe what effect this had on the human brains that he was studying. Again, some brains would exhibit a greater degree of robustness than others, a fact which could be used when seeking to train or employ an individual in a particular way.

  After about ten seconds the sinking stopped. Then there was nothing. All of a sudden the brain was faced with confusion. With a completely neutral input it had to think of something to do itself, but it couldn’t. It had adapted to a supplied input to the point that in this superconducting mode it needed another supplied input in order to avoid moving up a level to REM. The program, however, did not intend this, so The Doctor intervened.

  “You are entering a new world now, Gary,” came The Doctor’s voice. “Can you think of a name for it? It’s a new and wondrous place.”

  “Goldenworld,” Gary murmured, still hypnotised by the machine, as the colour gold was fed in and a small gold object rotated in the centre of his plane of vision.

  “Goldenworld. Yes, that’s a nice name,” continued the voice. “Think of Goldenworld. Fix it in your mind as a place that is everything that you want it to be.”

  The Doctor then turned to his assistant and pointed to the EEG output screen.

  “Now, I want you to keep a close eye on those alpha rhythms. By focusing on his imaginary Goldenworld our subject should be able to maintain his relaxed state. If he relaxes sufficiently he will be able to complete the exercise that our machine will create for him. If, however, he should become distracted and therefore fail to control his relaxation, then we will see a drift. I want you to watch for and record any drift that you observe and calculate its magnitude using the vector analyser. In the old days a subject merely controlled the motion of a model electric train by doing this, but that was a simple stop or start system. Now we are able not just to measure whether a brain is under control, but also the extent and efficiency of that control, as well as the susceptibility to various distracters.”

  Gary’s vision was now focused on a rotating three-dimensional gold hexagon that grew steadily larger over a period of about a minute.

  “There it is, Gary,” said the voice. “There is Goldenworld. You can steer yourself towards it. Just think spiritually and you will be home and dry. The temporal world is behind. The spiritual world awaits. Reach out for the spirits, Gary. Align your mind with them and they will be with you. As you relax you will become as one with the spirits.”

  Briefly he saw the angel again, and it spoke to him in a soft voice repeatedly calling “Goldenworld”. The angel was specifically tailored to offer a fantasy love to its subjects, helping to aid relaxation. The angel touched him, so forging a link between contrived relaxation and a mental steering toward the hollow centre of the hexagon as it floated in space.

  Once he was on course the machine introduced the first of its distracters in the form of high-pitched noises or bleeps, which the subject had to learn to ignore. At first these blew Gary completely off course to a point where the hexagon almost disappeared from his view. The program, however, was designed in every case to allow an opportunity for correction and restoration of the course. It would even help th
e subject to do so, as it provided an output reading showing the amount of restoring relaxation energy that was needed.

  “Think of the spirits. Ignore the distracters,” came the voice again.

  High-pitched whistles gave way to odours of various kinds, each one of which was designed to disrupt the thought pattern. This time, however, it was the sense of smell rather than sound that was under scrutiny. After that flashing lights were used to momentarily disturb the visual input of the hexagon, and finally, small electric impulses through the hands, which tested the resilience to touch inputs. After each distracter Gary had to restore the alpha rhythms, with assistance from the angel if necessary. Every time control had to be restored to that cellular combination that was responsible for maintaining the vision.

  Subconsciously, Gary was being taught how to control his alpha rhythms. In each case Gary learned how to control the drift as it occurred. He soon found that it was a technique that could be mastered.

  As Gary steered himself through the centre of the hexagon, the sensations that were delivered to him changed. The effects of different kinds of music were monitored in the latter stages of the steering operation. Some music was positive, enhancing the alpha rhythms, whilst other pieces gave a negative effect. The relative effects of the different pieces, however, varied between subjects and this was noted.

  Eventually Gary felt himself being absorbed by the hexagon, as if passing into a honeycomb. Then he was sliding through it, as if being squeezed through by its slippery walls. The sensation was one of warmth and tightness. To the brain it was a simulation of a kind of birth process, designed at least to an extent to activate and monitor the activity of parts of the brain that were formed very early on. The stimulation was such that these childhood and pre-birth cells could, although not necessarily would, spill out a series of electrical waves that were the very essence of a human time signature.