The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Serge Brussolo
and turns of his dream, which Marianne noted on the routine form. He spoke, his mind elsewhere. Through a part in Marianne’s white lab coat, he could make out a big, shapeless sweater and a threadbare gray skirt. He’d barely said a dozen words before she interrupted him with an exasperated click of her tongue.
“I’ve asked you before to refrain from using that vocabulary with me,” she said, stabbing the notebook with her pencil as if she wished to wound it. “Consistency pills, realism powder—they don’t exist. They’re inventions of your subconscious, symbolic warning signs. You know quite well you didn’t ingest any pills. Try to keep in mind that what happens ‘down below’ has no existence in reality. There is no down below. Don’t go lending these fantasies any substance, or you’ll wind up a schizophrenic. The police pursuing you were simply a manifestation of your guilt. This … Nadia, on the other hand, is symbolic of your negativeimpulses. She’s a bad example, urging you to commit crimes. She’s the secret leader of a gang you think you lead—which you like, since in feeling forced to obey her, you feel freed from ordinary moral obligations. In a way, she clears you in your own eyes. You can claim you’re only following orders.”
“But Nadia—” David tried to object.
“That’s enough!” Marianne hissed, stabbing the notebook again. “Keep this up and you’ll wind up confusing dreams and reality, which is what happens to old dreamers. I believe that among yourselves, you call it ‘the bends’—see, I’m familiar with your jargon. Be careful, David. I repeat:
there is no down below
. The whole break-in scenario is just a ritual, something that helps you do your work, a kind of magic formula that allows you to concentrate. Some dreamers imagine themselves on safari, hunting a mythical creature; others are climbing an unconquered peak in search of some undiscovered mineral. Still others explore space in a rocket, landing on unknown planets. I could go on; examples abound. All these patterns stem directly from a childhood stock of images. They must not be romanticized.”
David closed his eyes. Her incessant recommendations wearied him. He had to put up with them every time he surfaced, and every time Marianne reeled them off in the same reproving voice of a teacher tired of lecturing a backward student. These repetitive sermons never managed to weaken the reality of the world below in his mind. How could Marianne, who’d never taken the plunge herself, be so adamant about it? David could still taste Nadia’s lips on his own, and remembered precisely the pattern of freckles on her cheeks. How could he have invented all those details? Thebadly stitched rip that split her jacket by her left shoulder. Jorgo’s good old motorcycle—always the same one, its gas tank salvaged from an old Rolls … Mere dreams had no respect for such consistency of detail. In an ordinary dream, Nadia would’ve switched back and forth from being a blonde to a brunette. Her name and face would’ve changed over the course of a heist; she would’ve been multiple women at the same time. Marianne could go on spitefully stabbing her notebook as much as she wanted, but she’d never understand the difference in texture, the … the skin of the dream itself that made divers’ oneiric images so different from those of ordinary people. Marianne just dreamt, plain and simple, like everyone else, but David went elsewhere, slipped under the barbed wire of some mysterious border to enter a land known only to a privileged few.
“You’re not listening to me,” the psychologist observed. “David, you’re wasting my time. I’ve been camped out here five days already, waiting for you to come out of your trance. If you think that’s pleasant—”
“The job took a lot of prep,” David pleaded. “Nadia had to figure out the jeweler’s schedule so she could—”
“Christ! Are you doing this on
“I’ve asked you before to refrain from using that vocabulary with me,” she said, stabbing the notebook with her pencil as if she wished to wound it. “Consistency pills, realism powder—they don’t exist. They’re inventions of your subconscious, symbolic warning signs. You know quite well you didn’t ingest any pills. Try to keep in mind that what happens ‘down below’ has no existence in reality. There is no down below. Don’t go lending these fantasies any substance, or you’ll wind up a schizophrenic. The police pursuing you were simply a manifestation of your guilt. This … Nadia, on the other hand, is symbolic of your negativeimpulses. She’s a bad example, urging you to commit crimes. She’s the secret leader of a gang you think you lead—which you like, since in feeling forced to obey her, you feel freed from ordinary moral obligations. In a way, she clears you in your own eyes. You can claim you’re only following orders.”
“But Nadia—” David tried to object.
“That’s enough!” Marianne hissed, stabbing the notebook again. “Keep this up and you’ll wind up confusing dreams and reality, which is what happens to old dreamers. I believe that among yourselves, you call it ‘the bends’—see, I’m familiar with your jargon. Be careful, David. I repeat:
there is no down below
. The whole break-in scenario is just a ritual, something that helps you do your work, a kind of magic formula that allows you to concentrate. Some dreamers imagine themselves on safari, hunting a mythical creature; others are climbing an unconquered peak in search of some undiscovered mineral. Still others explore space in a rocket, landing on unknown planets. I could go on; examples abound. All these patterns stem directly from a childhood stock of images. They must not be romanticized.”
David closed his eyes. Her incessant recommendations wearied him. He had to put up with them every time he surfaced, and every time Marianne reeled them off in the same reproving voice of a teacher tired of lecturing a backward student. These repetitive sermons never managed to weaken the reality of the world below in his mind. How could Marianne, who’d never taken the plunge herself, be so adamant about it? David could still taste Nadia’s lips on his own, and remembered precisely the pattern of freckles on her cheeks. How could he have invented all those details? Thebadly stitched rip that split her jacket by her left shoulder. Jorgo’s good old motorcycle—always the same one, its gas tank salvaged from an old Rolls … Mere dreams had no respect for such consistency of detail. In an ordinary dream, Nadia would’ve switched back and forth from being a blonde to a brunette. Her name and face would’ve changed over the course of a heist; she would’ve been multiple women at the same time. Marianne could go on spitefully stabbing her notebook as much as she wanted, but she’d never understand the difference in texture, the … the skin of the dream itself that made divers’ oneiric images so different from those of ordinary people. Marianne just dreamt, plain and simple, like everyone else, but David went elsewhere, slipped under the barbed wire of some mysterious border to enter a land known only to a privileged few.
“You’re not listening to me,” the psychologist observed. “David, you’re wasting my time. I’ve been camped out here five days already, waiting for you to come out of your trance. If you think that’s pleasant—”
“The job took a lot of prep,” David pleaded. “Nadia had to figure out the jeweler’s schedule so she could—”
“Christ! Are you doing this on