Making Sense Of Her Dreams And Everything Else
Jonathan Margolis settles into the hospital and a young woman with Asperger's comes to speak to Dr Carmichael about dreams
It was twelve thirty when Dr. Carmichael got his first break from seeing patients and he was sitting quietly at his desk, drinking a cup of coffee, and looking at his calendar, when Vanessa entered his office. He was tempted to take his mother’s notebook from his drawer and look at it once more.
“I found that tape recorder online,” she told him. “Two hundred and fifty dollars, it should be here in three days.”
“Go ahead, order it,” Dr Carmichael acknowledged.
“I’m still curious what it’s for,” she commented.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
“We’ve also finished the arrangements to take Jonathan downstairs to the second floor. Do you want to escort him?” she asked.
“Of course. Just call me when he’s ready to go.”
“Admissions called. They want to know how much longer you plan on keeping him.”
“I don’t know. Maybe another week or more, we’ll see,” he responded.
“By the way, you got another strange phone call today, from a man who said he knew your father and wants to talk to you,” she told him.
“What did he want to talk to me about?” Dr Carmichael asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll give you his number in a little while.”
After Vanessa left him, he decided to go down the hall to visit me. When he walked into the room I was sleeping and Brigita was gathering up my things and had taken my pictures off the wall to prepare for my journey downstairs.
“How has he been?” he asked her.
“He’s been good. He ate his lunch quietly and then he laid down to take a nap. I’ve marked the drawings so that we can put the drawings back on the walls in the same order they were put up here. I know autistic children get used to certain patterns.”
“We all get used to certain patterns.” Dr. Carmichael observed. “We just don’t take notice of them. We have our clocks and our lunchtimes and our favourite television programs, everything in its proper place and time. We’re no different in the final analysis.”
“I know you’re right, doctor,” Vanessa responded.
“We’ve been living a seven-day week and a twelve-month year for how many thousands of years. Our whole society is structured in patterns set thousands of years ago. No, we don’t like to change any more than Jonathan.” He paused. “Will there be different nurses who will be taking care of him downstairs?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I’m going to miss him,” Vanessa responded.
“We all know he can’t stay here forever.” Dr Carmichael responded.
He said these words with a tinge of sadness in his voice, for he sensed his time with me was but a glimpse in the span of his life. About this he was clearly mistaken. We were just at the beginning of a very long friendship. He stood watching me for a few more moments and then he decided to return to his office. There was an awkward feeling in his gut as though he could sense another shift was coming in his life and he like I had grown comfortable in his routines and patterns. He understood how they gave order to his chaotic life. When he returned to his office, he was surprised to find a young woman of about twenty-five standing quietly and nervously waiting for him.
“I’m Lynn Ruggiero,” she greeted him. “Dr. Edlinger sent me from the ER to speak to you.”
“And what is it I can do for you, Ms. Ruggiero?”
“I suffer from Asperger’s syndrome, and I’ve been having nightmares,” she answered.
This was not the first time that Dr. Edlinger had sent a patient unannounced. But he couldn’t imagine why Dr. Edlinger would send a woman with Asperger’s and nightmares to his door.
“And what did Dr. Edlinger say I was to do for you?” Dr Carmichael asked.
“He said maybe that you could help me figure out what they mean.”
“I think Dr. Edlinger is playing a joke on me at your expense. I’m not in the business of interpreting dreams.”
“But you haven’t even heard about my dreams,” she answered.
Edlinger and he had a history of pranks early in their careers and his first impulse was to consider this a prank. But he reconsidered, and politely told her, “Alright, please sit down.”
He opened his drawer to remove a notepad and he could see his mother’s notebook. He removed a pen from his pocket and began to write on the notepad.
“Do you have to write this down?” she asked him.
“No, I don’t have to write it down. So, what are the dreams about?”
“I took this train to see my family in Pittsburgh for Christmas and when I returned on December 27, we went through this town called Phillipsburg where a freight train derailed. And my dreams are about a train wreck on the passenger train where everyone is burned alive,” she told him concisely.
“When do these dreams happen?” he asked her.
“About three in the morning. They wake me up,” she responded.
“I don’t know what to tell you. It didn’t happen. I can give you a drug that suppresses REM sleep. But it has side effects,” he explained.
“I don’t want a drug,” she responded. “I think it means something. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he responded.
“Haven’t you had dreams, Doctor, that you think might mean something?” she asked.
“Now that’s a complicated question. Neurologists as a general rule don’t care about dreams. Seizures we care about. Things we can’t explain and don’t understand we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. That’s why I don’t know how much help I can be on that.”
“Why would I be having dreams about a train wreck that never happened?” she asked.
“There’s a neurophysiological phenomenon that many amputees experience. They feel their legs after they’ve been cut off, sometimes for years afterwards. There was another little girl I saw a couple of days ago, the same train and the same dreams. I wonder if everyone on that train is having these dreams and if someone isn’t, why not? I don’t have any answers for you, just many questions.” He paused. “My father who lost the ability to speak, told me once that he could still hear his voice, though nothing came out of his mouth anymore. There is an explanation, and it may sound like science fiction and it’s unprovable with the technology we currently possess. Maybe in some alternate universe, the train wreck happened, and you’ve been given a glimpse of this experience.”
He wasn’t sure he believed this speculation. This didn’t appear to be the answer she wanted to hear.
“That sounds a little crazy to me,” she hesitated.
“It sounds a little crazy to me. But since this past week, I’m a lot more open to crazy,” he responded.
He stopped for a moment.
“Have you ever had dreams like this before?” he asked her.
“I’ve had many dreams in my life,” she answered. “Some crazy ones.”
“I can give you a sleeping pill. Everyone dreams in ninety-minute cycles. Maybe you can sleep through them. I can’t tell you what they mean.”
He took out his prescription pad and prescribed a sleeping pill.
“I’m going to need you to fill out this paperwork,” he told her.
He handed her a form.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just a short questionnaire. Take the form to Vanessa outside and I’ll give you the prescription, when you come back.”
His phone began to ring, and he answered it.
“Doctor, Jonathan is ready to go downstairs,” Brigita told him.
“Alright, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He turned to Ms. Riggiero. “I’m sorry I must go downstairs for a while. Take as much time as you need on the questionnaire. I’ll leave the prescription with Vanessa.”
He took the prescription from the pad and carried it outside. When he found Vanessa, she was on the phone with someone.
“There’s a woman in my office, filling out a questionnaire for you,” he told her. “When she gives it to you, fill out the necessary paperwork and give her this prescription.”
He quickly prescribed a tranquillizer and handed it to Vanessa. Vanessa nodded.
“I’m taking Jonathan downstairs,” he announced.
When he arrived, at my room, I was sitting quietly in a chair and Dr. Carmichael bent down on his knees for a moment to look at me.
“We’re going downstairs to another room,” Dr. Carmichael told me.
I could not respond or acknowledge the doctor’s remarks.
Brigita handed Dr. Carmichael a box with my belongings, with my clothing, my backpack, the puzzles and drawing materials. She had stacked my twenty new drawings on top of everything else. A short time later two orderlies entered the room with a wheelchair. One tried to touch me and put me in the chair and immediately I started to become agitated. I couldn’t bear anyone grabbing me.
“I’ll take him,” Dr. Carmichael intervened.
He gently touched me on my left shoulder, and I stood up and then began to follow him out of the room.
“We’re going to the second floor to a better room,” Dr Carmichael told me.
I then handed him a folded drawing of the room downstairs, which I removed from the pocket of my trousers. It had been the first drawing I had made on my first night at the hospital.
“Is there anything that you cannot see?” he asked me. “OK, let’s all go.”
Then the four of us, I, Dr. Carmichael and the two orderlies left the room and walked down the corridor toward the elevators. One of the orderlies was pushing the wheelchair behind us.
“You know, it’s not necessary to escort us. It’s just downstairs.” Dr Carmichael told the orderlies.
“We don’t want him to run away,” one of the orderlies answered.
“He wants to be here for some reason. I don’t think he’s running away.”
I reached into my other pocket and removed another folded drawing, which I turned around, unfolded it, handed it to the orderly, who immediately became disturbed, and tears started to stream down each of his cheeks. Dr. Carmichael wondered what would make this tough looking man break down immediately. But the man folded the drawing and put it in his pocket before Dr. Carmichael even got a chance to look at it. Then I began to nod my head as though to say “no”, to Dr. Carmichael.
“Is everything OK?” Dr. Carmichael asked the orderly.
“Everything’s fine,” he answered sternly. “Nothing to talk about.”
“What did the boy draw?” Dr Carmichael asked.
“It’s personal,” he answered.
