Level 7

Then, without any visible transition (as frequently happens in dreams), a change came over the people. I suddenly noticed that their faces and hands were a yellowish colour. The yellow turned to brown, and now they were sinking down on the floor, their flesh changing into lifeless rubber. They lay all around me, still moving their limbs; but gradually their movements became slower and slower… were hardly perceptible… looked like the last movements of crushed worms. Then they stopped! Now I was surrounded by grotesque brown rubber dummies.

I raised my hands to cover my eyes, and my heart stood still as I saw that they were yellow. Slowly their colour darkened to brown….

I woke up at this point and was spared the rest.

Or was I? Was this nightmare just a dream? Had it not an element of real premonition in it? Was it not a prophecy?

I know it is absurd to explain dreams in such a way.

But this one seems so closely connected with our times and situation that it weighs heavily on my mind.

That empty hole where the huge buildings used to be, those bodies that looked like rubber, their last worm-like movements, my hands turning brown….

If only I had a God to cry to!

MAY 2

The dream has had a bad effect on me. I am upset again and my spirits are as low as ever. I told P-867 so today and described the dream to her. She is a psychologist, after all.

She said I was showing quasi-hysterical symptoms. She thought that those mythological stories of R-747’s and mine were upsetting my emotional stability. There was a connection, she suggested, between the mushroom in my story and my nightmare. I had to admit she might be right. “But the roots lie deeper,” she added. “There’s some more fundamental anxiety in you somewhere. It may be due, partly at least, to the fact that you don’t lead a normal life for a healthy man of your age.”

Does she want to scare me into marriage? If I could be sure that marriage would help me over my ups and downs, or rather my downs and downs, I would marry right away. I would even marry P-867, if a psychologist mate is the best sort to have.

I wish somebody could advise me about that. P-867 could, if she were not personally involved.

I really do not know what to do, but I am sure I cannot take many more downs. There must be a limit to mental suffering, just as there is a limit to the distance humans can dig into the earth. Seven levels down is the physical limit. How many can the spirit endure?

MAY 3

X-117 came back today. He looks emaciated and pale, but behaves quite normally. He is rather silent. Nobody asks him about the treatment.

I asked P-867 about it. She told me it was psychoanalysis, combined with some drugs which speed up the therapy a lot. She said X-117 is perfectly all right now and can fulfil his duties.

But I am sure there is something different about him. I mean that besides losing a bit of weight and colour he has changed in some way. I told P-867 I thought so, but she laughed at the idea and said it was just a layman’s imagination. She added, wistfully: “You haven’t been looking so well yourself lately.”

She is probably right. I wonder if I shall be the next patient of P-867 and her colleagues. I would prefer to be her husband, if that would spare me being her patient.

There will be no need to be either if only I can get rid of the gloomy thoughts which creep into my mind all the time.

MAY 4

Today I tried to lose myself again in the mental game of inventing new myths for the coming generation on Level 7. I thought about it a good deal and then discussed it with R-747 in the lounge.

While I am busy speculating and talking about such things I forget my own predicament. Maybe it is dangerous to escape from reality in this way—P-867 would certainly say it is—but the practice helps me, at least while I am indulging in it.

I suggested to R-747 a few general principles which she might keep in mind when she is creating new myths and stories. Here are some of them.

High is bad, low is good. Open space is harmful; enclosed space is beneficial. Vast distances are the product of a sick or perverse imagination; being content with the physical limits of one’s level is normal and admirable. The quest for variety in life is wicked; sticking to one’s job and being satisfied with little entertainment is good citizenship.

R-747 thought these principles would be quite helpful and said she would use them when she wrote some more stories.

P-867 interrupted us as usual. I cannot get rid of her during my discussions with R-747.

MAY 5

Last night I had another ‘atomic’ dream.