Passage

I know, I know what it is, she thought, and the feeling of dread returned, stronger than before.

17

“And in my dream an angel with white wings came to me, smiling.”

—From Paul Gauguin’s last notes, published after his death

“Interesting,” Richard said when Joanna told him about the episode of the heater. “Describe the feeling again.”

“It’s a…” she searched for the right word, “…a conviction that I know where the hallway in my NDE is.”

“You’re not talking about a flashback, are you? You don’t find yourself there again?”

“No. And, no, it’s not deja vu,” she said, anticipating his next question. “I know I’ve never been there before.”

“How about jamais vu? That’s the feeling that you’re in a strange place even though you’ve been there many times? It’s a temporal-lobe phenomenon, too.”

“No,” she said patiently. “It’s a place I know I’ve never been, but I recognize it. I know what it is, but I just can’t think of it. It’s like,” she pushed her glasses up on her nose, trying to think of a parallel, “okay, it’s like, one day I was at the movies with Vielle, and I saw this woman buying popcorn. I knew I’d seen her somewhere, but I couldn’t place her. I had the feeling it was something negative, so I didn’t want to go up to her and ask her, and I spent the whole movie trying to think whether she worked at the hospital or lived in my apartment building or had been a patient. It’s that feeling.” She looked expectantly at Richard.

“Who was she?”

“One of Mr. Mandrake’s cronies,” she said, and grinned. “Three-fourths of the way through the movie, Meg Ryan had her palm read, and I thought, ‘That’s where I know her from. She’s a friend of Mr. Mandrake’s,’ and Vielle and I sneaked out before the credits.”

Richard looked thoughtful. “And you think the heater going off was the same kind of trigger as the palm reading.”

“Yes, except it didn’t work. All three times I’ve felt like the answer was just out of reach—” She realized she was starting to make the clutching gesture again and stopped herself. “But I couldn’t get it.”

“When the feeling occurred, did you experience any nausea?”

“No.”

“Unusual taste or smell?”

“No.”

“Partial images?”

“Partial images?” she asked.

“Like when you’re trying to think of someone’s name, and you remember that it begins with a T.”

She knew what he meant. When Meg Ryan held her palm out to the fortune-teller, she had had a sudden memory of Mr. Mandrake calling to her from down the hall. “No.”

He nodded vigorously. “I didn’t think so. I think what you’re experiencing is a sense of incipient knowledge, a feeling of significance. It’s a visceral sensation of possessing knowledge coupled with an inability to state what the content of that knowledge is. It’s an effect of temporal-lobe stimulation, which turns on a significance signal in the limbic system, but without any content attached to it.”

“Like the sound,” Joanna said.

“Exactly. I’ll bet you both it and this feeling of recognizing the tunnel are temporal-lobe effects.”

“But I know—”

He nodded. “There’s an intense feeling of knowing. The person experiencing it will state definitely that he understands the nature of God or the cosmos, but when he’s asked to elaborate, he can’t. It’s a common symptom in temporal-lobe epileptics.”

“And NDEers,” Joanna said. “Over twenty percent of them believe they were given special knowledge or an insight into the nature of the cosmos.”

“But they can’t articulate it, right?”

“No,” she said, remembering an interview with a Mrs. Kelly. “The angel said, ‘Look at the light,’ ” Mrs. Kelly had said, “and as I did I understood the meaning of the universe.”

Joanna had waited, minirecorder running, pencil poised. “Which is?” she’d asked finally, and then, when Mrs. Kelly looked blank, “What is the meaning of the universe?”

“No one who hasn’t experienced it could possibly understand,” Mrs. Kelly had said haughtily. “It would be like trying to explain light to a blind man,” but Joanna could still remember the frantic, frightened look on her face. She hadn’t had a clue.

“But the knowledge NDEers feel they have is metaphysical,” Joanna said to Richard. “This feeling has nothing to do with religion or the nature of the cosmos.”

“I know, but in a subject with a scientific background, that sense of cosmic awareness might take another, secular form.”

“Like thinking I recognize the location of the tunnel.”

He nodded. “And attributing significance to random items, like the blanket and the heater, which is also a common phenomenon. What you’re interpreting as recognition is really just temporal-lobe overstimulation.”

“You’re wrong. I do know what it is. I just can’t…”

“Exactly,” Richard said. “You can’t tell me what it is because it’s an emotion, not actual knowledge. Feeling without content.”

Richard’s theory made sense. It explained why, in spite of repeated incidents, she was no closer to an answer, and why the stimuli seemed so unrelated—a blanket, a heater shutting off, Richard’s lab coat, a floor that looked wrong. And something to do with high school, she thought, don’t forget that.

“But it feels so real…”

“That’s because it’s the same neurotransmitters as are present when the brain experiences an actual insight,” Richard said. “If you have another incident, document everything you can about it. Circumstances, accompanying symptoms—”

“And if next time I actually figure out what it is?” she asked.

He grinned. “Then it wasn’t temporal-lobe stimulation. But I’m betting it is. It would account for the presence of such varied endorphins, and nearly all the core elements are also temporal-lobe symptoms—sounds, voices, light, feelings of ineffability and warmth…”

It wasn’t warm, Joanna thought stubbornly, it was cold. And I do know where it is. And the next time I have an incident, I’ll figure it out.

But there were no more incidents. It was as if being told their cause had cured her. And it was just as well. Joanna was too busy the next three days to even catch her breath, let alone remember anything. There was a sudden rash of patients coding and being revived. Mrs. Jacobson, whom she’d interviewed six weeks ago, was brought in in cardiac arrest, and there were two unrelated asthma attacks.

Joanna listened to them describe the tunnel (dark), the light (bright), and the sound they’d heard (they couldn’t). The only thing they were agreed on was that the NDE felt like it had really happened. “I was there,” Mr. Darby said almost violently. “It was real. I know it.”

In between interviews, she left messages for Mrs. Haighton to call her and searched the transcripts for instances of incipient knowledge or ineffability and for hypersignificance. A number of NDEers talked about having returned to earth to fulfill a mission, though none of them were able to articulate exactly what the mission was. “It’s a mission,” Mr. Edwards had said vehemently. “Topic upsets him,” Joanna had written in her notes.