The Second Corollary
by
Martin Thompson
Smashwords Edition, April 2013
Copyright (C) 2002, Martin Thompson
http://www.alphatucana.co.uk
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the reader. It is a work of fiction.
The Second Corollary
by
Martin Thompson
Blaise and Isadora were psychology post-graduate
students at London University, and had, after
much casting about, decided upon a research
project. In the course of their undergraduate
years, they had read much of the behaviourists
and even the logical positivists (on the side).
Although these schools were considered old
hat by most these days, at least they were
good for those trying to pretend that psychology
could be a science like physics, with hard
observable facts to figure with, even if as
far as both Blaise and Isadora were concerned,
in the case of psychology the only really
good facts were subjective rather than objective.
Of course, when so-called 'objective' facts
are observed by subjective creatures like
humans, what does 'objective' mean really?
Consensus reality, perhaps? Well, that was
as close as they could get to it, anyway.
Much more interesting than the behaviourists,
though, had been Freud, and lately, Lacan,
despite the latter's almost impenetrable complexity.
In particular, they had been drawn to the
great psychologists' work on the mysterious
phenomenon of 'negative hallucination'.
Freud hypnotised subjects and told them (for
example) that the room contained no furniture.
Then he would ask them to (say) fetch something
from across the room. The subjects would walk
across the room, but not in a straight line.
Instead, they would follow a course that allowed
them to avoid the (supposedly non-existent)
furniture which was in their way.
When asked why they hadn't walked straight
across to fetch the object, the subjects would
lie. They would say things like, "I wanted
to look at that picture on the wall," or "I
thought I saw someone through the window."
Indeed, they would come up with any and every
excuse possible other than the one of avoiding
the furniture. Clearly, on some level, they
knew that the furniture was there, but they
were obviously unconscious of it, and appeared
to be making up excuses to hide the fact of
the furniture's presence from themselves.
Other observers had noted this behaviour,
but Freud's big contribution was to draw the
corollary that lying, to one's self and to
others, was a basic characteristic of the
ego, not just under hypnosis, but at all times.
Furthermore, this could happen without the
person being aware that what they were saying
wasn't true.
Lacan extended this analysis even further,
by suggesting that what it meant was that
the ego's function is to maintain a sense
of coherence and completeness in a person's
world, whether that sense was true or not.
The defensive nature of the ego, well-known
in everyday life to even the most casual observer,
is actually far, far more pervasive than any
sane person might have dreamed, and it can
clearly make people believe just about anything,
if it, the ego, 'thinks' it is good for them
(or it).
Now Lacan went on to consider the implications
of this for the fragmented self-image of those
suffering from paranoia, but Blaise and Isadora
had noticed another interesting angle. Never
mind the insane, what about the sane? What
might the ego be hiding from you and I? What
aspects of reality are we not allowed to see?
This was to be their research project.
They had already done some preliminary experiments,
taking it in turns to hypnotise each other
to see what results they could get. They would
instruct the subject to narrate what they
were seeing and doing to the hypnotist, so
that the experimenter had some idea of just
what the subject thought was going on. This
basic procedure worked nicely. In the classic
'empty room' experiment and similar tests,
both Blaise and Isadora lied like troopers
to each other, as expected.
Today, it was Isadora's turn to hypnotise
Blaise. She had decided that it was time to
move the experiments on a bit. The basic procedures
had now been worked out, and they had shown
that Freud's results could be replicated easily
enough. Now, she felt, it was time to practise
with something a bit more interesting. She
wanted to know how much of everyday life was
a 'negative hallucination' and how much was
'real'.
As usual, they were conducting the experiment
in their 'lab', which was simply a study-room
in their college. It was part of the psychology
department's allocation of rooms, and students
could book the use of them as and when required.
As hardly any students did any work, there
wasn't usually much problem getting at least
one of the rooms when needed, especially in
the morning, which it was now.
This particular room was upstairs, on the
first floor of one of the old college buildings.
It was furnished with a couple of tables,
including a much-used coffee table and some
academic-looking leather armchairs. Blaise
sat himself down in one, and Isadora sat across
from him in another. After a bit of settling
in and some chit-chat, they got down to the
experiment proper.
Blaise sat there while Isadora hypnotised
him. As usual, he felt nothing unusual as
the process occurred, and once hypnotised
would have denied that he was in a trance,
had anyone asked. This time, however, was
different.
"All right, Blaise," said Isadora, once she
was sure he was 'under'. "Today, as I'm sure
you are aware, I want to investigate the phenomenon
of the negative hallucination. But this time,
I want to know how much of what you see around
you is a fiction maintained by your ego, and
how much is real. As usual, I want you to
describe to me what is going on, whether you
are aware of my being here or not. Now, I
am instructing you, that when I snap my fingers,
you will see only that which actually comes
to your awareness from your senses, without
any intervention from your ego to re-describe
it in safer terms. If you are concerned about
any possible danger to your personal integrity
from this, just say 'enough' and that will
end your trance immediately. Do you understand?"
Blaise shrugged, "Yes." He smiled. He always
felt a bit silly at this stage, before the
fact of the trance became obvious. He also
knew that if this experiment worked, it would
be very interesting indeed.
Isadora snapped her fingers.
Blaise gasped and stood up: he was no longer
in the college room! He swore. He was in a
desert, in the blazing sunshine. He looked
around quickly. Flat sand everywhere. Deep
reddish sand rather than the paler, yellowish
kind: Jurassic or Devonian sand, he thought,
trying to place it. As a child, geology and
palaeontology had both been hobbies of his,
along with archaeology, so he had some rough
basis for making the judgement. Could it be
New Mexico? he thought. Jurassic, then. Well,
probably. Wherever it is, it's a long way
from London. And it's hot in this sunlight.
This is not the English Sun. Indeed, the Sun
seemed larger and whiter than he was used
to. Maybe that's what it was like in equatorial
regions, he thought, trying to remember his
time in Ibiza; but that was mostly a drunken
haze of skirts and vomit.
He looked around him some more. There were
no obvious landmarks anywhere, other than
a few scrubby bushes here and there. This
desert was just flat. He walked over to one
of the little bushes and knelt down to look
at it more closely. It was of no species he
recognised, but then, botany wasn't one of
his strong points.
He decided he had better explore a bit. But
which way to go? The whole place seemed featureless.
He looked around again for some landmarks.
Nothing, except the Sun itself. Hmm... the
Sun, he thought. He remembered his Jungian
symbolism: the Sun symbolises the ego, he
thought. Or it can symbolise it, anyway. Right.
Seems relevant to this experiment. Better
go that way, then, if that's what intuition
dictates.
He began walking in the direction of the Sun.
It was about halfway up towards the zenith,
suggesting to Blaise that either it was mid-morning
or mid-afternoon, or he was a long way from
the equator. Southern Australia? He doubted
it, somehow. Anyway, it should be night in
Aus right now, given that it was morning in
London. Come to that, it should be night in
New Mexico too, in that case. Well, where
was he, then? The Sahara? It seemed like the
wrong type of sand, though. But then, he didn't
know that much about sand, after all. Maybe
he could figure it out later.
After a few minutes of walking, the heat was
starting to get to him. He knew he'd be needing
a drink before long - or he could cry "enough"
of course. Well, he supposed he could, anyway.
This change of scene was rather drastic. Could
his entire world be just an ego creation?
Or was this world the fake, made by his subconscious
to satisfy Isadora's request? They were going
to have to think long and hard about this,
he could tell.
He caught a flash of light to his right, at
the horizon. He stopped, and looked towards
it. Yes, there was definitely something there.
He turned and began walking towards it. After
a time, he could see that it was moving towards
him too. As it got close enough for him to
see it more clearly, though, its appearance
seemed to get rather more mysterious: it appeared
to be some sort of person, but glowing all
over. It wore no clothes, and had a rather
indistinct outline. And the glow was very
bright: it shone brilliantly, indeed. He could
make out a head part, a body, two legs and
two arms, but the shapes were like a series
of joined ovals rather than human-shaped proper.
He realised that the thing was running towards
him. It was about 100 metres from him, and
closing quickly. He stopped walking, worried.
Was it hostile?
He received the answer to that question a
few seconds later. It ran up to him, and punched
him in the face, hard. He staggered backwards,
reeling both from the blow, and the sheer
surprise of it. The thing, perhaps 15cm shorter
than Blaise, followed him, and tried to kick
him in the leg. He managed to soften that
blow by partially dodging it, but he was still
busy collecting his wits together after the
first attack. The creature, if that is the
right term for it, punched at him a couple
more times, but Blaise's reflexes were by
now alert enough for him to block those blows
with his arms. He half noticed that there
was something vaguely electrical about the
feel of the creature. The next time the creature
approached him, he was ready and punched it
back. The creature stepped back from him,
hesitated for a moment, as if maybe it still
wanted to attack him but couldn't see how
to go about it and then without warning it
turned and ran off.
Baffled, Blaise watched it run back the way
it had come. Then he thought that it might
go and bring back some friends, so he turned
back in the direction of the Sun and began
walking again, this time briskly. He didn't
want to hang around here for too long.
After a few minutes of brisk walking in the
heat, he was getting quite tired. It also
occurred to him that the creature could follow
his footsteps in the sand if it wanted to.
He looked around behind himself, and saw his
tracks disappearing off into the distance:
no sign of the creature yet, anyway. He turned
back towards the Sun and continued walking,
this time not so briskly. What the heck, he
thought, too tired to be bothered.
After a while, on the horizon ahead and a
little to the left of him, he caught sight
of what looked like some kind of structure:
a building of some sort.
As he got closer to it, he could see that
it was a large rectangular-shaped building,
much like a giant brick, laying on one of
its largest faces.
Eventually, as he approached it, he could
see that it was the colour of the local sand,
although its surface appeared to be rendered
with some sort of sand-coloured plaster. The
building was about four storeys high, and
perhaps 200 metres long by 50 metres deep,
with rectangular window-holes at what appeared
to be the higher levels within the building.
He could see some pictographic writing in
the plaster, all over the outside of the building,
but was at this point still too far away to
make it out clearly.
Not being one to shrink from a curiosity,
he walked right up to what he arbitrarily
considered the 'front' of the building and
looked at the writing. The symbols were all
about 30cm high, and reminiscent of Egyptian
hieroglyphics, but by no means the same. His
childhood interests in things ancient were
no help to him here: he had not seen this
type of writing before. It seemed in good
condition. He thought to himself that either
it was well-maintained, or they didn't get
many sandstorms around here.
Well, perhaps he could get inside and speak
to whoever ran the place and perhaps find
out just where he was.
About halfway along the front of the building
was a vertical opening at ground level: a
doorway. Blaise walked to it and found that
there was no actual door: just an opening.
He looked in, and saw that it was fairly dark
in there. Squinting, he could see that it
looked a bit like some kind of museum: he
could see various objects on display on pedestals
of various heights. Nobody seemed to be about.
Glancing around behind him, and seeing no
glowing creatures about, he walked in. As
his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness,
he could see that he was in a largish room,
with exits in the centre of each of the three
other walls. Beyond the exits, he could see
more rooms similarly arranged: it looked like
many museums and galleries he had been in,
in fact.
He looked at some of the nearest artefacts
on display: pots. He had never understood
why people would want to look at old pots
in museums. Yes, they told us about how people
lived, but that was the interesting bit: the
pots themselves were just pots. It was the
analysis that counted. He looked at the written
description: more hieroglyphs. Interesting.
Perhaps this was somewhere in the Sahara,
after all.
He exited that gallery and entered the gallery
to the right. More pots, this time glazed
with unfamiliar designs in blue and green.
How fascinating. He walked on to the next
gallery. Pots and dishes in glass. He turned
left this time. Hmm... stone tools. Much more
interesting. He turned right. Spears and fishing
implements. Good. He continued straight on.
More stone tools, but more sophisticated-looking,
but not really like those he was familiar
with from his childhood interest in such things.
Straight on. Metal weapons: clubs, maces,
swords - all unlike any he had seen before,
though. Something was very wrong here. Straight
on: armour, again, unusual-looking: it was
mostly a sort of a padded chain-mail, but
made more of wood than of metal - it looked
more Western rather than, say, Japanese in
design, though, but still wrong.
He stopped and scratched his head. What exactly
was wrong with all this stuff? He pondered.
He groped with his feelings for an answer.
It came: this stuff does not look like it
was designed by humans, he thought. He had
looked at enough artefacts from different
cultures to be able to get a good feel for
what people designed, and all of these items
just didn't fit. The psychology was all wrong.
In the way that crop circles were obviously
Aztec/Art Deco-influenced and so must be made
by people (he had reasoned when the craze
began), these artefacts were obviously not
so influenced. There was no recognisable human
cultural input. He came to the uncomfortable
feeling that he wasn't on Earth at all. He
didn't like that idea, and, whilst not discarding
it, shelved it for the moment to spare his
frazzled nerves.
It's just some stupid hypnotic trance, he
told himself. In fact, as his heart was pounding
hard and fast at the barely recognised terror
of the all-pervading unfamiliarity here, he
realised that he had had quite enough of this
experiment for the moment.
"Enough!" he exclaimed, expecting to wake
up.
Nothing happened. Shit, he thought. "Enough!"
again. Again, nothing.
Now he was really scared. He couldn't wake
up! He took a few moments to gather his wits,
control his breathing, collect his chi. In
a firm voice, he said, "Enough!" but it was
no use. Nothing happened once more. He stood
there, feeling like a lemon, disconcerted
and disorientated.
As a child, he had been able to wake himself
from bad dreams by closing his eyes in the
dream for a few seconds. He tried it. It didn't
work. He already knew that pinching himself
also wouldn't work: that glowing creature
had whacked him quite hard enough already.
He spent a few more seconds reconciling himself
to these facts, then resolutely headed into
the next gallery along - but this time with
more caution. If this place wasn't built by
humans, then just maybe he didn't want to
meet the museum's curator after all.
This gallery contained more weapons, but much
more technologically advanced: cannons. Again,
the specifics of the design were unfamiliar,
and they were decorated with unfamiliar rectangular
motifs, but the nature of the objects themselves
was clear enough. Some of them were land cannons,
and some, going by the painted pictures of
wooden ships on plaques beside them, were
naval cannons. He looked at these pictures
with interest: they did not look like frigates
or galleons, but, again, they were similar.
Actually, they looked more like caravels:
single large triangular sails on multiple
masts, rather than multiple rectangular sails
on multiple masts. Blaise supposed that the
ships would be inferior to a decent frigate,
but he didn't know that, of course. Presumably
they could do the job they were designed for.
He noticed that they were all close to coastline;
none were shown on the open ocean. He didn't
know if that meant anything, but it struck
him as worthy of note: shipping is normally
shown in either type of location pretty indiscriminately,
at least, in human art.
Some of the pictures were more artistic than
merely representative: he spent some time
looking especially closely at these, in the
hope of seeing just what sort of creature
was piloting the ships. His curiosity was
soon rewarded, if it can be called a reward.
He saw glowing creatures on the decks and
in the rigging. He chewed his lower lip and
wondered what it meant. Where could he be?
And how would he get back home? Self-hypnosis?
He doubted it, but filed it away as something
to try as a last resort.
He heard a noise come from the gallery towards
the centre of the building. Quickly, he ducked
down behind the nearest cannon and looked
carefully past it through the open doorway
into that gallery. One of the glowing creatures
was fiddling with a display.
What to do? If he approached it, would it
attack him like the last one? Or was that
one just insane? He gathered his courage,
and stood up, and stepped forward into the
gallery behind this new glowing creature.
He cleared his throat, noisily, and stood
in what he hoped was a non-aggressive looking
pose.
The creature turned, and squealed, a high-pitched
buzzy noise, presumably in surprise. Blaise
smiled a little nervously, and said, "Hi."
The creature squealed again, then ran full-tilt
at him. Astonished, Blaise dodged what he
quickly judged was the inevitable blow. What
was wrong with these creatures? "I'm not hostile!"
he exclaimed, dodging and blocking blows,
hoping the creature would somehow realise
his peaceful intentions.
However, it was no use: the creature kept
raining blows on his rapidly bruising forearms.
Tired of this, Blaise kicked it on one of
its legs, hard.
The creature stepped back, hopping on its
other leg.
Blaise stood there, hoping the creature would
get the hint from the fact that he didn't
follow up his kick with further attacks. However,
it didn't. After a few seconds it came at
him again. He kicked it again, then followed
up with a punch to the head. This time, it
ran away, much as the first one had.
Blaise watched it in consternation. How do
you communicate with these creatures? he wondered.
He thought about the psychology of it for
a moment. He knew that he knew very little
about these creatures, except that their technological
development appeared to be very similar to
that of humans, and that they attack strange
aliens on sight. Well, let's assume that they
are as similar to people as their technology
implies, he thought. They would, like people,
probably be afraid of the unfamiliar. Would
they just attack it on sight, though? It seemed
like a poor strategy: what if the thing you
attack is stronger than you (as indeed he,
Blaise, seemed to be)? Humans would observe
it for a while, then gang up on the alien,
not just rush it on sight.
On the other hand, humans had very diverse
cultures too: what if he, Blaise, looked like
some sort of demon to them, and their religion
dictated that the way to deal with demons
was to clobber them and trust in God?
He concluded that he didn't know enough about
them to draw any conclusions; except that
he would be better off avoiding them for now.
He glanced around the gallery he was in: displays
of bits of broken wood. He didn't feel that
he had time to stop and figure out what they
meant: he should get away from here before
the creature came back with reinforcements
- if that was its intention. He turned and
left via the right-hand exit, continuing in
the direction he had been exploring previously.
He didn't spend any time looking at the displays,
though, except to notice that they contained
a mixture of industrial-technological artefacts.
He just walked briskly on and on, from gallery
to gallery, until he came to the end wall.
He turned left, and walked into the next row
of galleries. Here, against the end wall,
was an iron spiral staircase, going up. He
shrugged, and quietly climbed it, thankful
that he was wearing trainers. He would have
hated to be clattering about in this place.
As he climbed, he noted the motifs on the
staircase itself: not the stylised plants
typical of British Empire ironworks. The staircase
was built to look as if it was made from rocks,
or miniature mesas, or stacks like the Old
Man of Hoy: piles of flat stones or slates
piled semi-irregularly on top of each other.
Perhaps it was appropriate, given the desert
environment outside, he thought. It fitted
in with the motifs he had observed on the
cannons but had been unable to identify, he
thought. He smiled to himself. He was starting
to get some purchase on these people at last,
he felt.
He climbed right up to the top of the spiral
staircase, where there were still more galleries;
the first contained stone sarcophagi. There
were no images of the beings on them, though:
but then, an image of a glowing oval wouldn't
mean much, he supposed. He wondered how they'd
got them up here: some of them were far too
large to get up the spiral staircase. There
must be another way up, he thought.
He walked along through gallery after gallery,
looking at the exhibits and, thankfully, meeting
nobody, until he came to the other end of
the building. Here, there was another spiral
staircase, going down. He sighed, and walked
down it.
He went down to the ground-level floor, but
the spiral staircase went on down below ground
level, unlike the one at the other end of
the building. He hesitated, then followed
it down.
It ended in a room about 10m square. The room
had two doors - not doorways, but actual doors,
with simple latches on them. He was going
to try one, when he noticed in one corner
of the room a trapdoor in the floor. That
was much more interesting to him: it had a
handle on one side near the wall.
He pulled it up and looked down. He could
see a well-lit room, with an empty chair.
He was puzzled as to where the light was coming
from, but couldn't really see. He listened
for a moment but heard nothing. He lowered
himself through the trapdoor and dropped into
the room, right beside the chair. He plonked
himself into it and relaxed for a moment...
...then he realised he was back in the college.
He started. Isadora was sitting opposite him.
"So you've woken up at last!" she exclaimed.
He was astonished. He looked up at the ceiling:
no trapdoor. He looked around the room, re-orienting
himself. "H... Have I been asleep?" he asked,
leaning forwards and gripping the arms of
the chair.
"Not really, but your trance went on a bit,"
she answered. "It was a bit deep. I couldn't
get you out of it."
He sat back. "Did I narrate what I was seeing?"
"Yes indeed: the desert, the museum, the glowing
creatures, even you trying to wake yourself
up," she said. "Interesting stuff!"
"Yes," he replied, doubtfully," but surely
that isn't what's real? I was supposed to
be seeing whatever is here when my ego isn't
faking it. That was a whole other world!"
"Well, it was probably just made up by your
ego," Isadora said. "Resistance is to be expected.
We can try again, but I want to make sure
you don't go under quite so deeply in future.
You wouldn't wake up no matter what. I was
getting quite worried."
He thought to himself, was it real, or not?
If he had brought back any evidence, his faking
ego would presumably hide it to preserve his
sense of the reality of the current world.
Or would it, now that he had transcended that
reality and not lost his mind? He looked down
at his trainers: there was sand on them. Deep
reddish sand...
The End
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