Insight

by

Keith Burton

Last night I dreamt!

The soft buzz of hummingbirds’ wings, the scent of blossoms, and the first glimpse of

the morning sun, as it gently pulled itself over the sill of the distant mountains…a glittering

sheet of water…a boat crossing to the other side where the mountains began in emerald

green…

I tried to recall the remainder of the dream, but I couldn’t; it had been so long since I

had the comfort of a proper dream.

This was the night after my discharge from hospital. My recovery was unexpectedly

quick. I must go down to the kitchen to tell Ahmok the good news. I pause on the landing

outside Richard’s door, wondering whether he will be awake in time for school. I can smell

the delicious aroma of Ahmok’s freshly brewed Brazilian Daterra coffee which he treasures

so much. Ahmok will understand the significance of my dreaming again.

‘By the way…don’t get me wrong…I am tremendously relieved,’ I murmur, taking

hold of his hand affectionately, ‘but a part of me will miss the power I had once used so

unthinkingly.’

‘But that power would have destroyed you eventually.’

‘Yes. But all’s well now, since tampering with my internal functions, especially those

under autonomic control, has been strictly forbidden.’

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 At last I understood the sequence of events since my first pregnancy some sixteen years

ago.

My father had been ravaged by radiation-induced cancer. After his death, I sleep-walked

in pure grief, to South America where I was to supervise a minor archaeological dig. Several

months later, now fully awake and ecstatically happy, I arrived back in England with a

husband, lovingly clinging onto my arm.

Ahmok, my husband, proudly of Mayan descent, grappled with his new culture. He had

hardly begun the momentous task of understanding the English psyche when he was called on

to deal with the more fundamental, though not less frightening, world of fatherhood. I was

pregnant. Our happiness carried us on a cloud away from the mundane details of planning our

future.

My life started to follow a very strange path: I was beset by an avalanche of awesome

dreams, so vivid that they were more real than life itself, ending in one when I saw a dry,

wizened foetus within me, fighting for life. I was so frightened that I started to scream. When

Ahmok shook me, with deep concern, I realised that I was already awake.

I plucked up the courage to discuss my strange waking dreams with my GP. Firstly, I

told him that I am pregnant. Secondly, that I thought there was something wrong with the

baby; I could see it struggling. He examined me and arranged for an ultra-sound. Later, he

informed me that I was mistaken; there was no heartbeat and hence no pregnancy. He was a

kindly soul. My story was so bizarre that I was not offended when I could see that he had not

believed a word of what I told him. As I left his surgery I realised that it was a ‘pat you on the

head and give you a sweetie’ job. I was just a ‘looney’ woman after all.

Two days later I lay awake thinking. I closed my eyes momentarily. I was moving

through a tunnel, soft pulsating walls, the light intense, dazzling. I was slowly being sucked

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along this glistening tunnel. All around, an intense colour - red. Through membranous arches

my senses took me. I could discern a quivering, beating and curvaceous thing; my heart?

This was no dream; I was awake and aware of other sounds around me.

‘Keep calm,’ I admonished myself, ‘take a closer look.’

The structure seemed to stop its violent quivering, settling into a slow, rhythmic double-

pulse. Panic was replaced by a slow realisation. I was in familiar territory, due to my brief

flirtations with anatomy; the dissection of animals in the classroom: pink spongy material of

the lungs; the chest cavity. It was no longer strange or frightening, but became, in these few

blinding moments, as normal as contemplating and observing the external form of hands and

feet. My perception had adapted rapidly to this extraordinary dimensional increase in ‘seeing’

within my own body. So calmly I looked, explored; like looking at and following the lines in

the palm of the hands. Some things were difficult to recognise, to make sense of at first, but

soon that changed. Instinctively, I ‘knew’ everything; like knowing the pores in your skin, the

hairs in your armpits; eyes, nose, lips.

Then to my horror I realised I had miscarried

Rationally, part of me could cope with this. But a part of me was scared of the reaction of

other people. Who would believe me? The GP certainly didn’t, though I did not tell the whole

story. Would I be certified as mad? Would I be locked away in a mental asylum, pumped full

of anti-psychotic drugs, shackled and put away forever? In former times, I might be burnt at

the stake – ‘A witch among us’! My condition, I thought, was unheard of, probably never

recorded by medical history. And what was to become of me if they did pretend to believe

my bizarre story? Would I be experimented on; cut open, examined, stitched up, and then cut

open again and examined, as many times as they wished?

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 Would Ahmok believe me? Still slightly superstitious, might he not jump to the

conclusion that I was, simply, possessed by evil spirits?

These terrifying questions threatened, after horrifying bouts of panic, to plunge me into

deep depression. Sleepless nights stretched endlessly before me. I dearly wished that I would

go to sleep and dream again; just for the comfort of it. I didn’t suffer any deleterious effects

from my on-going lack of REM sleep, since, in my mutated state, the unconscious caretaking

of background functions, had compensated for normal dreaming.

These experiences continued. With this special ability, I soon realised that, not only was I

able to ‘see’ my internal organs, but also able to modify certain of their functions. But at this

stage I was reluctant to confide these facts to anyone.

Then I became pregnant again. This time, no longer under the false impression that my

new and wonderful ability was all a dream, I was at leisure to look more carefully, to

understand more thoroughly. I saw that this foetus was also struggling as before. I saw that it

was a boy and I didn’t want to lose my son.

So far, I hadn’t had the courage to tell Ahmok. I needed specialist help. I needed to know

if there was any way of proving my story so that I would not be seen as purely insane. I was

desperate, but fortuitously, I remembered going with my father to a housewarming party of

one of his close friends. This friend was now a consultant psychiatrist in the large teaching

hospital a few miles out of town.

I told him everything. Whether he believed my bizarre story or not, it was hard to tell.

‘Your story is unusual,’ he offered kindly, ‘but my colleagues in Neurology should be

able to help’.

A senior Neurologist did listen to me.

‘What you have related so convincingly suggests that you appear to have conscious

control of some of your autonomic functions’, he began.

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 I nodded meekly.

‘Further,’ he continued, ‘not only that, but you can visualize them.’

He was taking me seriously, I thought.

‘Since you think your baby may be having difficulties, we should waste no time in having

you checked.’

Controlled jubilation; I was glad he showed concern for my distressed baby.

‘Our electron laser-enhanced molecular analyser (ELMA) would seem to me to be the

perfect tool for this job’, he concluded.

He thoughtfully tapped out an internal number on the phone on his desk and spoke a few

quiet words.

This was how I got to meet ELMA and get to know her so intimately in the coming

months and years.

I am placed into ELMA and to my delight I saw exactly the things I had already

experienced.

‘I can see it’, I shout, ‘I can see it’.

Afterwards, in the office, there was a consultation with the medical team. Despite their

knowledge of my strange ability, they still proposed traditional surgical intervention.

No stitches, I said. And they said that I needed one at eight weeks and that it would be

more reliable than…and I wanted to shout that you still don’t really believe me. But I said

calmly that I wanted my baby boy very much and could save him without stitches. And I

wanted to add that I was not as incompetent as my cervix, but I kept quiet while they were

making up their minds. They said that my cervix has shortened and will begin to funnel at the

base of the uterus under the weight of the growing baby. I said I knew. They ignored that for

the moment. They continued. They said that this will cause the membranes to bulge and

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rupture, like a balloon under pressure. I said I was prepared for that and would prevent it.

They said that I would have to be scanned every two weeks. I agreed. They conceded.

Nevertheless, in spite of all this self-confidence, the first attempt at ‘control’ was

disastrous, though no irreparable damage was done. I pushed too forcefully with my mind;

slight nervousness, I suppose, with all these amazed eyes…watching. The cervix all but

collapsed upon itself; blood vessels squashed, nerve endings screaming in protest!

I soon learnt to be gentler; it required barely a wisp of a thought, like taking a step or

moving a finger.

The voice in my earpiece was excited, but low and kind’

‘Now, you have gone too far, let it expand again’.

I obeyed. I got the cervix to its former shape. After this demonstration in ELMA, they

were beginning to have more confidence in my insight. It was all on view on the large screen,

recorded on video. However, I was starting to get used to being so intimately exposed to the

entire team of doctors and scientists.

Subsequently, I became the proverbial Mother Hen. I spoilt my son thoroughly before

he was born, even before he was fully developed. I didn’t mind if he sucked his thumb; I

didn’t mind if he bobbed gently when music was being played; I stroked him and kept him

company, every waking hour.

By then, I had told Ahmok the entire story, and together we nurtured him. As we sat

together on the bed at nights, I relayed the events that were invisible to him: the swirling

about in amniotic fluid, the kicking, and the angelic smile on his incompletely formed face.

Ahmok listened intently, though I could sometimes discern signs of envy in his wry smile.

Thus, with no further mishaps, Ah-Kin (he renamed himself Richard later) was born, an

eight-pound healthy baby-boy. Ah-Kin came across the pond of glittering water on the boat

of his parents’ love.

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 Life returned to that acceptable rhythm of routine, though I became the focus of intense

research interest for the medical and scientific teams of the hospital. I had also to get used to

and live with, the very strange condition of never having any proper dreams when I slept at

night.

Several years later came an emergency rush to hospital.

I woke in a haze, feeling flustered, utterly exhausted. Looking around, I wondered what

bit of me didn’t have a tube stuck into it; either pushing stuff in or taking stuff out. On the

screen ahead, which I could just see above the oxygen mask, was an important looking list:

BLOOD TRANSFUSION COMPLETE – BUT NO RESPONSE

BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT – IN PROGRESS

HCT – TO FOLLOW

What on earth was HCT?

I was soon to find out the significance of that H. There was a whirring sound as I was

ejected from the machine; I was in ELMA again. Once out of the machine, unseen hands

placed a moist mask over my eyes and wrapped me entirely in a material that felt and

sounded suspiciously like Baco-Foil. With a brief resumption of that whirring sound I was

slid back into the machine.

That H was for HOT. Very gradually, I was being prepared to be baked. After about

fifteen minutes, I was being roasted alive. Then oblivion…

It was dawn; but very early yet; I could hear the spasmodic twittering of the birth of the

dawn chorus. In the low light, the only indication that I was in a hospital room was the tell-

tale fire-extinguisher on the wall. I was alone and very comfortable. I luxuriated in

remembering. But soon, all calmness was lost.

With a jolt I remembered that last fight with Richard:

7
 ‘Can you give me a lift to my friend’s house?’ Richard asked.

‘No,’ I said, ‘you can catch a bus.’

‘That’s not fair; you give lifts to the neighbour’s daughter.’

‘Only when we are going in that direction and it is convenient. And besides, they are not

as well off as we are.’

‘Better off, my foot! Now that that loser of a father of mine has been made redundant, he

won’t even be able to fund me for university.’

At that last remark I got so angry that I felt like hitting him; but instead I resorted to

controlling my breathing drastically. That night, to get to sleep, I had to do the same. I can’t

remember a thing after that. I must have over-done it, lost autonomic nervous control of my

respiration. I stopped breathing as soon as I had fallen asleep.

Later that morning, the head of the medical team came to my bedside prior to sending me

home.

‘What went wrong?’ I asked. ‘Has my body turned against me?’

‘On the contrary Simone, it’s a classic case of Ondine’s Curse’ he replied, with a twinkle

in his eyes that said: I-know-something-that-you-don’t.

‘Your body has become subservient to you and is obeying your wishes implicitly’, he

continued.

‘Oh please explain,’ I said weakly.

‘In simple terms it’s like this. When you, Simone, control a vital function, like breathing

or heartbeat say, over a long period, your body bows to your wishes and gives you total

control of that function; autonomic control no longer exists.

‘So what exactly is Ondine’s Curse?’

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 ‘The basis for Ondine's Curse is the German folktale of a water nymph, Ondine, who

curses her unfaithful husband to cease breathing if he should ever fall asleep again. There

actually is a medical disorder called Ondine's Curse. The afflicted lose autonomic control

over breathing, placing them at greatest risk when they are asleep. It is a devastating illness

that, untreated, can cause rapid aging. Fortunately, it is very rare.’

I was discharged soon after. With utter relief I returned home with Ahmok.

If the medical experts are to be believed, the three dearest men in my life did me no

favours. My loving father sired me with radioactive sperm. My husband, with his exotic

genes, ‘switched on’ my mutation. My rebellious son Richard (Ah-Kin really) brought

Ondine’s Curse upon me: he had got me so angry that I over-controlled my breathing, leading

to potentially catastrophic consequences.

The big question for me now is, having been expressly forbidden to utilise my ‘ability’

ever again, will I resist the temptation and gladly give up such absolute power over my own

life and death?