A little after seven the next morning, Sarah called Zack to say that she was meeting a nurse friend at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center just down the street from him and was wondering if they could grab a coffee before that.
He agreed, and they met at My Place, a small cafe on Gainsborough. They each ordered a coffee and muffin and sat at a corner table. Sarah had a beautiful smooth face with large golden brown eyes and a thin, sharp nose. She wore her hair short, exposing her long white neck. In the slant of the morning light, she looked like a saint in a medieval painting.
“I just want to apologize about last night. Sometimes these sessions can stir up emotions.”
“I guess I was caught off guard.”
“I understand.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Do you? I’m just wondering if you were baiting me.”
“Baiting you?”
“The only shots that were cropped and enlarged were those of me and my father.”
She looked surprised. “Weren’t they photos you’d sent Dr. Luria?”
“Yes, but they were altered to just focus on him, and they were repeated several times in the sequence.”
“I wasn’t aware.” She was silent for a moment as she nibbled her muffin. Then she asked, “So how was that baiting you?”
“The other day, with the helmet test, you found a soft spot.” He was too self-conscious to admit that he had actually uttered “Dad” as if he were that ten-year-old at the top of the stairs. “So was that the point—to lower my guard to confirm a sadness signature?”
“We were trying to get a broad profile.”
“Well, you went for the kill.”
“I’m sorry about that, really.”
They were quiet for a long moment as he sipped more coffee. “The thing is that experience in the booth was eerie, it was so real. I swear I felt my father’s presence.”
“That’s the effect of the helmet. The stimulation targets emotion centers of the right hemisphere, and to make sense of them the left parietal lobe creates those sensations.”
“So, you’re saying the electrical impulses created the illusion of his being there.”
“Yes. Something made you think of your father, and the electrical impulses simulated an illusion of his presence.”
“The ghost in the machine.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
They were quiet for a few moments. “That’s kind of disappointing.”
“I can understand that,” she said.
“Are you bothered by what you’re doing?”
“Bothered? I don’t follow.”
“I’m not spiritual, but I guess I still carry some fuzzy sense of God from childhood. I’m just wondering about religious people—those who claim to have spiritual experiences.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“You’re saying their claims of feeling God or seeing Jesus or whatever are no more than electrical discharges in the brain?”
She played vague again. “Neuroscientists are interested in understanding the neurological basis of human experience.”
“‘The Role of Serotonin … Receptors in Spirituality.’”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been checking.”
“That’s right.” He had found a complete copy of her article online. “I’m just wondering if your theory doesn’t make you feel a little guilty.”
“Guilty about what?”
“I’m not religious, but I know people who are. And I respect their faith. I also think that with some people, religion fills a human need. It gets them through crises.”
“Okay,” she said.
“My point is, were I doing what you and your colleagues are, I think I’d feel bad.”
“Why?”
“Because the object of your research seems to be the elimination of the divine from the universe, reducing it to brain chemistry.”
For a microsecond, he felt the shuddering awareness of being in Winston Song’s head, reading his cards.
“That’s quite a charge.”
“But isn’t that what you’re doing—reducing spiritual highs and religious ecstasy to an endorphin rush?”
Her face flushed, and he couldn’t tell if she was about to burst into tears or toss her coffee at him. She did neither but took a sip to collect her response.
“That really isn’t my objective. In fact, elsewhere we applied the same diagnostics on self-proclaimed mystics—people who’d reported intense religious experiences, including Carmelite nuns. They gladly signed on and left feeling that their heightened experiences only confirmed their faith. When nuns were shown religious images —medieval paintings of Jesus, Michelangelo’s
“So what’s your conclusion?”
“That just because mystical experiences can be associated with specific neurological activity doesn’t mean those experiences are illusions. Likewise, nobody can say that the neurological activity you’re experiencing eating that muffin caused the muffin to exist.”
He nodded. She had a point.
Then she checked her watch and downed the rest of her coffee. “Gotta go.” She got up and put her bag over her shoulder. “See you Thursday.”
He stood up and watched her hustle out the door, wondering just what this tryst was all about.
33
Zack could tell that something was different the moment he arrived at the lab that Thursday. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but a heightened sense of anticipation charged the air. Sarah regarded him with a little gleam in her eyes, and Dr. Luria’s birthmark was glowing. Stern’s and Cates’s faces were in a forced neutral mode, but he saw something in their manner as they met in Dr. Luria’s office.
“Zack, the fMRI data the other day has been analyzed, and we’re rather impressed.”
“Because I got emotional over a few old photos?”
“Yes, in fact. Last week you asked about the nature of these tests, and we said that part of our investigation was the neurobiology of dreams. Well, the truth of the matter is that you fulfilled the requirements to proceed to the next level. Our concern is not so much with dreams or sleep
Zack sensed the careful wording, but the last three words hovered in the air like plovers.
“We asked you back because the electrical activity in the temporal lobe is quite high, making you an ideal candidate for our investigation.”
“So all that was just a screening.”
“Yes, which most subjects don’t pass,” Luria said. “With your consent, we’d like to move to the next phase. We’d like to lower your metabolic activity so that your brain will be in a state of total repose, where the electrical activity is minimal.”
