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From the Desk of Dr. Iris Tenenbaum:
Patient #2091 is becoming incapable of discerning dreams from reality. In order to facilitate his recovery, we are requesting the use of an experimental drug to temporarily remove his REM sleep cycle. Hopefully, if he responds well to that, it will facilitate his acceptance that this is reality.
The journal we have asked him to keep speaks of an extraordinary dream world vivid with colors and music. His case defies several conventions such as the common dogma “You cannot feel pain in a dream.” On top of that, this case does not seem to be an incident of “lucid dreaming” since it is clear that Patient #2091 has no ability to control the actions of his dream characters or alter the “mindscape” in any matter.
I send to you this excerpt from this journal we asked him to keep daily. Please review his case and expedite the usage of the experimental medication.
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September 7th
When is dream...a reality?
When is reality a dream?
I find myself asking that question lately. Everything seems oddly surreal in this “reality/dream”. The white room, the doctors, the patient.
I cannot say this is a dream…nor can I say it is a reality. Everything in this place is so…gray even though I’ve learned it to be the truth of this world. The world cannot be colorful all the time since we are all doomed to a life of monotony…mediocrity. The only ones who can truly rise out are the unique ones, the brilliant ones, the ones that burn brightly. She taught me that.
However, the world that the doctors claim is “dream” can’t be not real. Everything is too complicated, too vast for me and my punitive mind to create: reactions of people, the colors I’ve never fathomed, tunes I’ve never heard…Not real? Impossible.
But if I say the “dream” is real, then the “truth” I knew along is false. Even if I am biased to the world I used to know as true, I still can’t discard my experiences, my family, my friends…
I fear that I cannot draw the line between the two and I’m starting to doubt that I may not have to make that distinction… to the horror of my new caretakers.
I’m growing more and more tired. I need to sleep. Doctors want to perform more scans on me tomorrow.
-Tetsuia Yuuhi
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As you can tell, Patient #2091 does not suffer from the reduced mental faculties like those of similar cases. He also lacks the instability or the signs and symptoms of people with mental disorders..
The patient’s unique disorder though has led me to contemplate about some things. We are trying to “show” to Yuuhi-san that we are real. It would be detrimental to our efforts if those in his dream world are doing the same exact thing.
I wish for Yuuhi-san to be on the experimental medication as soon as possible because of that. There are safer alternatives, but he is already at the breaking point. Hypnosis has side effects that’ll make his condition worse such as “waking dreams” and drugs that stop REM sleep through conventional methods do not work on him. By giving this test medication to him, we may be able to prevent his downward spiral into madness. Cliché, yes, but there’s no other way to describe it.
Dr. Iris Tenenbaum
Head of Psychology
TuLane Facility for the Mentally Impaired
Head of Psychology
TuLane Facility for the Mentally Impaired
