All too soon we’re back to reality (is that a cue for a song?). My surgery date comes through for the 4th of February. The days pass quickly, and before I know it TQ is driving me down to the hospital. I’ve stocked up on Graphic novels, and my AV500 is full to bursting with my favourite movies. At least I’m going to be entertained during my stay.
The day of my surgery is surreal. I try my hand at some virtual temporal shifting. Its worked well for me in dentists’ surgeries before, it should work in an operating theatre. VTS is a phenomenon that I seem to have perfected. I first honed this skill in a sleepy Italian coastal village when I had to undergo excruciating root canal work. At this point, dear reader, you would be forgiven for thinking that all the treatment and surgery I’ve been through has left me quite ‘wibble’. Oh sorry, best explain what ‘wibble’ is. This is the word used by Rowan Atkinson in ‘blackadder goes forth’ to denote a state of insanity. Picture the scene, the hapless Blackadder, faced with certain death, inserts pencils up his nose and repeats, "wibble wibble", in order to get sent home from the trenches.
George: "What is your name?"
Blackadder: "Wibble."
George: "What is 2 plus 2?"
Blackadder: "Wibble, Wibble."
Moving swiftly on. VTS is a mind-set. Hey, come on I studied psychology for nine years (including two wasted on a doomed M.Phil./Ph.D., my career in the police was the ‘other woman’, so I tore up my thesis, deleted it from my hard drive, and never looked back). By focusing on a likely pain free future point you can say to yourself, ‘I might as well be there now, because this unpleasantness will soon be over and I’ll be looking back on it as just another memory’. Say this enough times and the unpleasant present swiftly passes and you’re in that pain free future. Wibble? Well it works for me!
I also like to become the stand-up comedian in the face of adversity. So when they wheeled me into the prep room I exclaimed to the waiting theatre staff that there’d been a terrible mistake as I thought I had booked myself into the Premier Travel Lodge on Kew Bridge Road last night, and not some scary hospital where they slice heads open. They start to panic, especially when they realise my D.O.B. is wrong on my hospital ID bracelet. It’s easy to get surgeons flustered. I shouldn’t be screwing with these guys, especially when they’re going to be ‘skull-fecking’ me in under an hour. A bloke with a beard steps forward and introduces himself as some prof. from some uni. somewhere. He tells me that with my permission he’d like to video the procedure so he could show his students. What did Andy Warhol say about being famous? Ah yes, “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”. Youtube here I come. I agree, and the cannula slips into my hand.
It was the establishment of Christianity as a major religious force, overwhelmingly supported by Plato’s philosophies that furthered the concept of the brain as the temporary residence of an immortal soul. This supposition was bolstered as many Western thinkers applied their own theories. For example, the physician Thomas Willis (1621-1675), founder of the term neorologie, believed that the human brain had a rational soul placed there by God. Whereas, the philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) stated that the seat of the soul was in the brain’s pineal gland. Whilst, Albrecht Von Haller (1708-1777), the Swiss anatomist, physiologist and poet, believed the soul’s location was in the medulla oblongata.
I could go on, but the point I’m trying to make is that brain surgery, whilst awake, is probably the most intrusive thing you could possibly do to a human body. The surgeon is feeling around, cutting through the very fabric of our existence, our memories, our thoughts, our feelings, what makes us unique, what makes us ‘us’.
I don’t want to court controversy and draw similarities to rape, but if you subscribe to Willis’s, Descartes’s, Von Haller’s and others views, the surgeons tools are intruding, burning through the very core of your soul, and you’re lying there helpless for hours listening to the noises coming from your skull, sniffing the smells, sensing the vibrations through your body, watching them move about their work. Aware that you could die at any minute as the anaesthetist will ask you to wiggle your toes and fingers for the twentieth time.
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11 comments:
Willis, Descartes and Von Haller all had some very suspect opinions and where to be honest, "primitives". And only the small amount of their massive output was correct guesswork, that helped stimulate other minds to think on the subject some more and so on and so forth, "On the shoulders of giants" and all that.
If there is such a thing as a soul as taught in the bible, then surely it would have the ability to restructure or re-route itself to avoid the delicate ministrations of the saw, scalpel and laser.
So that bit of you remains intact, it's just the bits of grey matter that govern motor skills, speech and memory that are given a pummelling.
The divine dances in a state of grace away from the necessary damage while the plodding mortal parts require time and assistance to regain a semblance of their former selves.
That's almost what I believe, but without the religious overtone.
PS.
"Where do you live?",
"London",
"Eh?",
"yes London, a small village on Mars, not far from the capital, Wibble."
You've obviously had a good long thunk about that one. Thanks for the input mate.
Hello again.Enjoyed the last few entries and hope you are doing as well as you can. Please tell me it wasn't my brother who took a wrong turn in to a gay establishment on your wedding day. If it was, he kept that quiet. Wait till I see him! Congratulations on organising the wedding so quickly and without drama. Any tips on how to keep the future mother in law at bay at this time? I have my own ideas, just not sure they will go down too well, rather like who we pick to be bridesmaids/pageboys.My intended and I have 11 nieces and nephews between us. Aaahhhggg! By the way, it is supposed to be lucky if it rains on your wedding day. Keep writing x
Oh yes! good point Little Fox. Rain on a wedding day is definitely good luck!
I also agree with Ed with the fact the brain is the brain. I Believe the soul is like our spirit and therefore it's not physically only in one place. I think it can move (I'm aware this sounds weird). It's my way of thinking, anyway and of course, there are many different theories.
However, there's this feeling of "intrusiveness" when being opened and some people you don't know (they are all covered)do "things" with your insides and then saw you up. Obviously, the brain is not the same as the tummy, however, I have an idea of what you mean.
I like the VTS theory. I need something like this in my job
Take care
M
Ikkle Fox, yes it was very much your bro. And if you were him wouldn’t you keep it quiet too?! For some reason I think I’m going to fall out of his good books soon ; )
Tips on mother in laws? Keep them as far away as possible. Mine is around 2000 miles away in Italy. Other than that, invest in a cattle prod, tin of mace/CS or crucifix. Bridesmaid has to be your best mate. Pageboys etc., your closest cousins. If it’s going to be a tough choice find little jobs for them all so they feel valued. Most of all though… Keep it simple, and unless you’re some uber rich celeb, keep it cheap. You don’t have to give a Swiss bank manager a heart attack to make it the best day ever. Our wedding is evidence of that.
M, I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength here, and Ed does have some valid points. The essence of the human body, the soul, the spirit, is more likely to exude from every living cell in the body and not be isolated to any one organ. Nonetheless, we can’t escape from the pure fact that the brain is the centre of learning, thought, communication, feelings, memory, etc. Depending on what major organ is malfunctioning, a human, and other animal for that matter, can live for a definite period of time. For example, a person with renal failure can survive with dialysis. Whereas, an iron lung enables a person to breathe when normal muscle control has been lost or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability. And we’re all familiar with the role of the pacemaker. However, attempt to circumvent the brain and we cease to function. The brain has to work on it’s own. Once it goes ‘tits up’ and switches itself off there’s no magic trick of medical science that can get it working again. To coin a phrase, ‘Game over man, game f#*$ing over!”
Indeed, its well documented that lesions to various parts of the brain can bring about permanent changes to personality and behaviour. This makes the brain all that more symbolic as the seat of the soul. I could go on but I think you all got the general drift.
Hmm... this VTS sounds very interesting. Is it a bit like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in that a person is encouraged to change their way of thinking, or simply placing a repeated thought in to your head and having enough belief that it will eventually actually be what happens. I probably didn't explain that last bit very well. Is VTS like floating off in to a kind of meditative state that you control yourself? Does it work only on physical pain or could it be used for individuals crippled with pain due to mental illness? This is all very interesting, the brain is the most fascinating, yet mysterious part of the body. Well I think it is. Thanks for the MIL tips, I will consider all the options. Your friendship is safe, I won't mention, the wrong turn to bro. Or will I...Ha ha ha!
VTS is about like looking at those neat pattern pictures and then suddenly seeing a galleon or brontosaurus appear. I'm not really sure how it happens, but it still happens. Just focus really hard on one specific likely future event. For example, when I was having the root canal work I focused on the dive that I would be making later that day. I said to myself, ' Hey, before I know it I'll be 30 metres down and looking back on all this as just a glitch in the holiday'. Keep saying it over and over again, try to believe that your actually there, and before you know it you're descending to 30 metres and taking in the sights. Just remember to actively think about the unpleasant events in the dentist and how quickly you got to the seabed. That way you will reinforce the ability for next time. Its probably similar to Autosuggestion (or the related autogenic training). This is a process by which an individual trains the subconscious mind to believe something, or systematically schematizes the person's own mental associations, usually for a given purpose. This is accomplished through self-hypnosis methods or repetitive, constant self-affirmations, and may be seen as a form of self-induced brainwashing.
Damn, I'm good!
As for the 'wrong turn', this could be a manifestation of a deep seated 'Freudian' wish fullfillment.
Thank you for the explanation Professor Mc Nally. You do realise I'm only asking these questions to exercise your brain and keep it alive. Had we made contact sooner, I could have kept your brain alive in my laboratory with the rest of the specimens from other planets. Sadly, your brain is too large for any jars I have, (due to the amount of knowledge it contains) so you missed your chance at the lab. About the wrong turn... I will let you put the Freud suggestion to big bro, only because you are bigger than me (:
Thats exactly what Dr Alfred Necessiter said, but Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr didn't give up on me. Could have been worse though, my brain nearly ended up in the body of a gorilla...Or is that a film?
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