I Have Seen Inside My Own Brain
I had an MRI scan today. This is because I have permanent tinnitus - a high-pitched whining that seems to come from deep inside my head.
(No, it isn't the constant protesting of my conscience. I'm good.)
Tinnitus is usually caused by hearing damage, yet I haven't done a lot of things that damage hearing. Sure I've used heavy machinery, sure I've gone to rock concerts. But I've never made a habit of it. The worry therefore is that there's something else in my brain causing this - perhaps a tumor. So it follows that the consultant wanted to put it in a big electromagnet and make the atoms dance.
Cool. Scary, I admit, but also cool.
So you disrobe yourself of anything metal (which for me takes about five minutes) and lie down on a conveyor belt. An attractive woman who looks about 25 but whom I need to presume is a trained professional puts ear defenders on me, puts a kind of cage around my head and then conveys me on in. Despite the natural aversion I feel about being on a conveyor belt into any kind of machine, it was nicer than I expected. I have heard about how noisy MRI scans are, but the tales were exaggerated. Certainly loud, but in no way painfully so. I was almost cringing at first in expectation of some sort of "BANG!" that would make me lurch reflexively, but there was nothing remotely as loud as that. I was surrounded and penetrated by a great deal of very strange noise, but it was never worrying.
Well, except in a sort of psychedelic way. Most of the sounds were very repetitive, and occasionally they sounded like voices saying the same word unendingly. I suppose it reflects my trepidation that they seemed to be saying things like "can'tcan'tcan'tcan'tcan't" and "nononononononono". Maybe it revealed low self esteem, though I think that would come as a surprise to my friends. Maybe scary voices just made more dramatic sense.
But after a little while (the whole thing took about 15 minutes) I actually got to like it. It was, as I said, kind of psychedelic. The knowledge that it was actually looking in my brain added to that of course. As did the slight fear that it might make my eyeballs explode. And the noises... Well, I have heard experimental music that was a lot less interesting. Whatever else you could say about them, these were raw and alien sounds.
And whether it was sheer chance or sheer genius on the part of my subconscious, the previous night I had felt driven to download Barbarella, and watch the "Excessive Machine" scene... a couple of times. This is one of the most erotic scenes in legal cinema - well, for boys at least - because it mainly consists of a young Jane Fonda feigning an extended and unrelenting orgasm. The scenario is that she's being pleasured to death by a literal sex organ - as in, with a keyboard - but of course she is so sexy that it's the machine who dies of pleasure first.
I'm not saying I was even remotely turned on by the MRI scan, but I think these positive images about being helpless within a machine probably helped me relax. I wasn't aware of them at the time, but looking back I think they subliminally set my mood. Some people think they have angels looking out for them. I occasionally suspect that a smarter subconscious mind is leading me around by the hand.
When she slid me out of the machine and asked me how it was, I said I had enjoyed it. "It was like hearing a new Pink Floyd album."
"I'd better not listen to him then!" she said.
That felt pretty generational. Someone qualified to photograph the inside of my head isn't old enough to remember Pink Floyd. Woah. But really, I think if she'd said "Yeah, it's cool isn't it?" I'd have had more grounds to worry.
To my surprise, they presented me with a CD of my head to take away. I guess I was just supposed to bring it to the consultant, but as soon as I got home I copied it over to my Tablet, and now I can see inside my own head any time I want. There's even a program to animate it...
OK it's fucking freaky to watch an animation of slices through your own brain. A flight through your head! Yet it becomes compelling. I've flown through my head over and over again. From front to back, from top to bottom. In monochrome and false color. I know I'm in there somewhere, yet I never wave. It looks exactly like I expect brains to look. From encyclopedias or medical texts. Only... It's me now. Not a pretend brain. My head is full of a sort of meat, not a bunch of little characters pulling levers.
But at least it seems pretty symmetrical. Of course I have to be looking for a sign that suggests there is a tumor in my head, some sort of gross asymmetry that would work in the movies. I can say now that my brain doesn't seem to have movie cancer. I await the judgment of the expert, but the inside of my head looks fine to me.
And I've noticed I can export this as video... Anyone like a copy of "Sergei's Brain - The Movie"?
(No, it isn't the constant protesting of my conscience. I'm good.)
Tinnitus is usually caused by hearing damage, yet I haven't done a lot of things that damage hearing. Sure I've used heavy machinery, sure I've gone to rock concerts. But I've never made a habit of it. The worry therefore is that there's something else in my brain causing this - perhaps a tumor. So it follows that the consultant wanted to put it in a big electromagnet and make the atoms dance.
Cool. Scary, I admit, but also cool.
So you disrobe yourself of anything metal (which for me takes about five minutes) and lie down on a conveyor belt. An attractive woman who looks about 25 but whom I need to presume is a trained professional puts ear defenders on me, puts a kind of cage around my head and then conveys me on in. Despite the natural aversion I feel about being on a conveyor belt into any kind of machine, it was nicer than I expected. I have heard about how noisy MRI scans are, but the tales were exaggerated. Certainly loud, but in no way painfully so. I was almost cringing at first in expectation of some sort of "BANG!" that would make me lurch reflexively, but there was nothing remotely as loud as that. I was surrounded and penetrated by a great deal of very strange noise, but it was never worrying.
Well, except in a sort of psychedelic way. Most of the sounds were very repetitive, and occasionally they sounded like voices saying the same word unendingly. I suppose it reflects my trepidation that they seemed to be saying things like "can'tcan'tcan'tcan'tcan't" and "nononononononono". Maybe it revealed low self esteem, though I think that would come as a surprise to my friends. Maybe scary voices just made more dramatic sense.
But after a little while (the whole thing took about 15 minutes) I actually got to like it. It was, as I said, kind of psychedelic. The knowledge that it was actually looking in my brain added to that of course. As did the slight fear that it might make my eyeballs explode. And the noises... Well, I have heard experimental music that was a lot less interesting. Whatever else you could say about them, these were raw and alien sounds.
And whether it was sheer chance or sheer genius on the part of my subconscious, the previous night I had felt driven to download Barbarella, and watch the "Excessive Machine" scene... a couple of times. This is one of the most erotic scenes in legal cinema - well, for boys at least - because it mainly consists of a young Jane Fonda feigning an extended and unrelenting orgasm. The scenario is that she's being pleasured to death by a literal sex organ - as in, with a keyboard - but of course she is so sexy that it's the machine who dies of pleasure first.
I'm not saying I was even remotely turned on by the MRI scan, but I think these positive images about being helpless within a machine probably helped me relax. I wasn't aware of them at the time, but looking back I think they subliminally set my mood. Some people think they have angels looking out for them. I occasionally suspect that a smarter subconscious mind is leading me around by the hand.
When she slid me out of the machine and asked me how it was, I said I had enjoyed it. "It was like hearing a new Pink Floyd album."
"I'd better not listen to him then!" she said.
That felt pretty generational. Someone qualified to photograph the inside of my head isn't old enough to remember Pink Floyd. Woah. But really, I think if she'd said "Yeah, it's cool isn't it?" I'd have had more grounds to worry.
To my surprise, they presented me with a CD of my head to take away. I guess I was just supposed to bring it to the consultant, but as soon as I got home I copied it over to my Tablet, and now I can see inside my own head any time I want. There's even a program to animate it...
OK it's fucking freaky to watch an animation of slices through your own brain. A flight through your head! Yet it becomes compelling. I've flown through my head over and over again. From front to back, from top to bottom. In monochrome and false color. I know I'm in there somewhere, yet I never wave. It looks exactly like I expect brains to look. From encyclopedias or medical texts. Only... It's me now. Not a pretend brain. My head is full of a sort of meat, not a bunch of little characters pulling levers.
But at least it seems pretty symmetrical. Of course I have to be looking for a sign that suggests there is a tumor in my head, some sort of gross asymmetry that would work in the movies. I can say now that my brain doesn't seem to have movie cancer. I await the judgment of the expert, but the inside of my head looks fine to me.
And I've noticed I can export this as video... Anyone like a copy of "Sergei's Brain - The Movie"?