Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Visual Illusions
- Excuse me Doctor Caverley but I haven’t been feeling like my self lately, I feel cramped and claustrophobic inside, I am having strange headaches, a constant unsettled feeling you know, as if I’m somehow being watched all the time, I know it’s silly but, hallucinations I think as well, look, look, over there, tell me what you see.
- I see just a normal car, what do you see?
- I saw a flash just when I turned around by the settee, at this point here. Like that with my arm over the top like that. What do you make of it?
- Er, any other symptoms?
- Yes, sometimes, in the morning, I find a figure at the end of my bed, and then as soon as I look away it, he, disappears, sort of floats off into the air. I thought it was like an angel but it’s not..
- Do you experience these, these apparitions regularly, I mean every hour or only at certain times of the day?
- No it can happen at any time doctor. They seem so real that sometimes I feel that there is another element in space and time that I am tapping into, things that are really happening but we can only rarely experience them, like a switch flicking the brain onto a different stratum of reality. Our senses are so annihilated by society’s media bombardment and um, well, I don’t know it’s just that I can see these things. Perhaps I am gifted with some extra sensory perception, what do you think, in your professional opinion?
- Well, Hmmn… (tapping shoulders and knees, checking heartbeat) there are no physical signs that I can see. Stare straight into this please?
- Physical signs, what, do you mean it could be something that affects my body!?
- We have been given new guidelines as to how to deal with symptoms that are similar to yours, look here and here, good.
- Anything wrong? I know somebody who swears they can see lazar beams coming into their living room, and they say they need several layers of curtains to protect themselves from the floods of people distracting them in their living room. If people in the street can just walk in then that leaves you nowhere to hide. Perhaps I need one of those safe rooms where I can be me and have no distractions.
- How would you say these ‘experiences’ are effecting your daily routine Mr Biggs?
- Well, I think it could be affecting me at work. There's a figure that I see every now and again, a man dressed all in dark walking past my classroom window, and then he stops to drink a cup of tea out of a saucer and while he is drinking the tea from the saucer he slowly gets down to sit on the pavement slabs. He sits there all day, until I go to the car and then he walks over with me. When I’m inside he’s gone, I look around, he’s gone. When I get home I find him laying about reading in the lounge or sometimes painting on my cushions. It’s very unsettling.
- Yes well, would you now please put your arms out to full stretch please against the wall over there?
- What, what’s this all about?
- Just do it would you. It’s a normal procedure, back straight, head up, that’s it. (Takes measuring tape out of coat pocket).
- And anyway when I look into the mirror now I don’t see me, I see him.
- Doctor Caverley stops suddenly and steps back a pace, looking Harry in the eyes. “Him, what do you mean him, did you get a good description.
- You know, the guy I’ve been talking about all along, dark hair, thick set, um I think he has like quite deep set eyes, frowns a lot.
- Did he look like any of these (flips open a string of I.D. photos from his wallet)
- Umm… no, the one of the left look slightly like him but no, sorry. I mean I come home, turn the television on and he’s there, sitting next to the television, looking at me. I tell him, what the hell do you think you’re playing at. Get the hell out of my flat. He does go, but then he comes back again. I’m resting on the sofa and there he is again adjusting the settings on my drawing table.
- (Doctor gets out notepad and pen and starts writing) Alright, carry on.
- Sometimes, when I look out of the window I could swear I see him hiding in the red Renault over there, underneath that clump of clothes lying in the back, spying me, and then as quickly as the idea arises I dismiss it, I mean, some things are ridiculous, aren’t they.
- Well Mr Biggs I recommend that you take a break, you are obviously under some stress and I believe a term in say a rest home may be what is called for. I will arrange everything. Some people will visit in the morning and give you a lift to manor park rest home. It’s over the hill there. Pleasant and peaceful, it will give you time to wind down and then we’ll take it from there, all right, Mr Biggs.
- Do I need to wear anything special?
- No, you'll be fine as you are.
