Lathe of Heaven, The Read Online Free Page A

straight from Papa Freud. . . . But we use it to sleep on, which he objected to. Now, what I want, just for a starter, is for you to sit down here on the foot of the couch. Yes, that's it. You'll be there a while, so make yourself comfortable. You said you'd tried autohypnosis, didn't you? All right, Just go ahead and use the techniques you used for that. How about deep breathing? Count ten while you inhale, hold for five; yes, right, excellent. Would you mind looking up at the ceiling, straight up over your head. O.K., right."
    As Orr obediently tipped his head back, Haber, close beside him, reached out quickly and quietly and put his left hand behind the man's head, pressing firmly with thumb and one finger behind and below each ear; at the same time with right thumb and finger he pressed hard on the bared throat, just below the soft, blond beard, where the vagus nerve and carotid artery run. He was aware of the fine, sallow skin under his fingers; he felt the first startled movement of protest, then saw the clear eyes closing. He felt a thrill of enjoyment of his own skill, his instant dominance over the patient, even as he was muttering softly and rapidly, "You're going to sleep now; close your eyes, sleep, relax, let your mind go blank; you're going to sleep, you're relaxed, you're going limp; relax, let go--"
    And Orr fell backward on the couch like a man shot dead, his right hand dropping lax from his side.
    Haber knelt by him at once, keeping his right hand lightly on the pressure spots and never stopping the quiet, quick flow of suggestion. "You're in trance now, not asleep but deeply in hypnotic trance, and you will not come out of it and awaken until I tell you to do so. You're in trance now, and going deeper all the time into trance, but you can still hear my voice and follow my instructions. After this, whenever I simply touch you on the throat as I'm doing now, you'll enter the hypnotic trance at once." He repeated the instructions, and went on. "Now when I tell you to open your eyes you'll do so, and see a crystal ball floating in front of you. I want you to fix your attention on it closely, and as you do so you will continue to go deeper into trance. Now open your eyes, yes, good, and tell me when you see the crystal ball."
    The light eyes, now with a curious inward gaze, looked past Haber at nothing. "Now,"
    the hypnotized man said very softly.
    "Good. Keep gazing at it, and breathing regularly; soon you'll be in very deep trance. . . ."
    Haber glanced up at the clock. The whole business had only taken a couple of minutes.
    Good; he didn't like to waste time on means, getting to the desired end was the thing.
    While Orr lay staring at his imaginary crystal ball, Haber got up and began fitting him with the modified trancap, constantly removing and replacing it to readjust the tiny electrodes and position them on the scalp under the thick, light-brown hair. He spoke often and softly, repeating suggestions and occasionally asking bland questions so that Orr would not drift off into sleep yet and would stay in rapport. As soon as the cap was in place he switched on the EEG, and for a while he watched it, to see what this brain looked like.
    Eight of the cap's electrodes went to the EEG; inside the machine, eight pens scored a permanent record of the brain's electrical activity. On the screen which Haber watched, the impulses were reproduced directly, jittering white scribbles on dark gray. He could isolate and enlarge one, or superimpose one on another, at will. It was a scene he never tired of, the All-Night Movie, the show on Channel One.
    There were none of the sigmoid jags he looked for, the concomitant of certain schizoid personality types. There was nothing unusual about the total pattern, except its diversity.
    A simple brain produces a relatively simple jig-jog set of patterns and is content to repeat them; this was not a simple brain. Its motions were subtle and complex, and the repetitions neither