Tag: olfactory hallucination

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TIME MATTERS – CHAPTER 12: Scent of the Phantasm

Image of something resembling a phantasm in the background

It took me forever to fall asleep after the professor’s call. The prospect of suffering from schizophrenia was serious shit. First I thought that the fact I could smell the pipe scent was my way out of that scenario but then I found out that smells could be part of a schizophrenic episode. I actually learned that an olfactory hallucination is called phantosmia and I couldn’t help thinking the term was funny. I had been smelling a phantasm!

Don’t remember falling asleep but it didn’t take long for the stress caused by the professor’s news to wake me up again. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was useless trying to go back to sleep. I took my laptop to the balcony but just sat there sipping my coffee. My tongue still hurt, and that was pissing me off, but somehow, without even realizing it, I started a process similar to Einstein’s thought experiments.

While gazing at the still dark cityscape I asked myself how would a world without time look like. To answer that I first had to come up with a working hypothesis of what time was. That’s when I strayed from the pure mind experiment protocol and started writing. Maybe Einstein could do all this stuff in his head but I was no Einstein… obviously.  So, I wrote this down:

Time is the fourth dimension in our space-time continuum. But if time is a dimension, what does it add to the other three? With one dimension we have a line. With two dimensions we have a flat plane. And when we add depth to that plane we have three-dimensional space. What happens to that three-dimensional space when we add the fourth dimension we call time? What are we adding?

I stopped writing and sat back on my chair while the first sunrays of Thursday began to shine behind the buildings across the street. In my mind I started to answer one question after another. If there’s no time there’s no speed because speed is distance over time. If there’s no speed then movement is impossible.

The idea that what time added to the other three dimensions was movement didn’t satisfy me so I kept grilling my mind. What happens when we make movement possible in the universe? Stop, stop, stop, I thought, let’s visualize first the universe without time. A universe without movement…

The images that kept creeping into my mind were caricatures of galaxies, stars and planets just frozen in time, like still pictures. I couldn’t move past that, so I decided to go for a second cup of coffee. On my way to the kitchen I found ‘Einstein’s handwritten note on the floor. I must have dropped it the night before and that’s why I couldn’t find it when talking to the professor. I picked it up and read it again.

“Doofus! Don’t you know the meaning of a figure of speech? Don’t ever walk into a field of energy like that. Look up the Akashic records and my thought experiments. And go into E=mc2.”

The last sentence hit me like a ton of bricks. E=mc2.  Energy.  Energy has frequency.  Frequency is oscillations over time… It was time to take time out of Einstein’s famous equation. I remember seeing the face of the Timekeeper in my mind laughing.

I lost track of time while immersed in the task at hand. My trance-like concentration was interrupted by a call from the office. It was Joann, my senior copywriter, asking at what time I was going to stop by the office. The team wanted to show me the latest Chronologix materials. I told her to email them because I was going to be working from home all day. She suggested a video conference but I didn’t want to interrupt what I as doing so I came up with a lame excuse that I knew wouldn’t win me any brownie points with the team. About an hour and a half later they sent me the materials. I looked at them very quickly, didn’t catch any disasters and sent them an email saying everything looked good.

I worked non-stop until 7:00 PM that Thursday. Even forgot to eat lunch. I remember thinking that it was impossible for all that was happening to be the result of schizophrenia because people with that condition usually have a hard time organizing their thoughts, and, at the time I felt like I was intellectually “in the zone”.

Feeling suddenly famished I went to the fridge, grabbed some leftover Chinese food from like a week before, ate it cold and went to bed without showering.

I collapsed exhausted and slumbered… until the pipe smell woke me up.

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TIME MATTERS – CHAPTER 21: Gina Smells Something Funny

Abstract representation of Gina smelling the pipe tobacco smoke

The knocking seemed to be taking place on a very distant door. Slowly, and I mean very “despacito”, it pulled me back to the world of the living. I got up, shuffled my feet all the way to the door to open it and find Gina standing there with a worried look on her face.

“How did the presentation go?” I mumbled.

“What’re you taking about? It’s Sunday. Ray are you OK? You look worse than yesterday. And what’s that smell?”

“Sorry, lost track of time. You wouldn’t believe what happened after I left last night.” And then it hit me. “Wait, what did you say? What smell?”

“The tobacco stench. Did you start smoking?”

My eyes opened wide and I grinned, “You can smell it?!”

“Jesus Ray, I’m sure your neighbors two floors down can smell it. But it isn’t the typical cigarette odor, it reeks more like pipe tobacco. Oh my God, don’t tell me you’ve picked up pipe smoking.”

“It is the smell of pipe tobacco. How did you know?”

“My grandfather used to smoke pipe and I learned the difference between the smell of cigarettes and the scent of pipe tobacco when I was little. Ray, what’s going on? The security guard downstairs told me they didn’t find anything on the surveillance tapes(1) and that he’s worried about you. When I asked him why he was telling me this he said you had recently added me to the list of people to call in case of emergency and that he thought I should know this. What were they looking for in those tapes? What aren’t you telling me? But please, before you say anything go brush your teeth; it’s past noon but your morning breath is killing me.”

“Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

I went over to the bathroom and from there I asked her where were the kids and to what did I owe the honor of her visit on a Sunday afternoon.

“My sister picked them up after breakfast this morning and something told me that it would be a good idea to check up on you. You didn’t look too well yesterday and as soon as I talked to your Scottish friend downstairs I realized my hunch was right on the money.”

After brushing my teeth I put on a fresh shirt and went back to Gina.

“I thought you didn’t babysit coworkers,” I said with a smirk.

“I was checking up on a friend not a coworker,” she said without missing a beat, as usual. “Now, is there anything you would like to share with me? Something about certain surveillance tapes, perhaps.”

“You better sit down,” I said. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about the dreams. Einstein was never part of them. He’s been visiting me… I know this sounds absolutely crazy. I thought it was all a figment of my imagination until a few minutes ago when you noticed the tobacco smell. He’s the one who’s been smoking pipe during his visits. Well, in his earlier ones, until I told him to stop smoking in here(2). Building security has been checking the surveillance tapes since the first day he showed up. The fact they haven’t found anything in them isn’t the strangest part of the story, the truly bizarre aspect of all this is that nobody but me seems to be able to see, hear or notice the guy. Well, until now that you smelled his pipe smoking.”

“Wow… I don’t know what to say Ray. This is worse than I thought.”

“What do you mean worse…?”

“Well, I thought you might be suffering from exhaustion, or maybe a virus, not that you were having hallucinations. Yesterday you told me that Professor Murdock thought you needed professional help. Was he referring to these Einstein visits? Does he know about it?”

I nodded in the affirmative and went over to my room to pick up Einstein’s handwritten note. When I came back to the living room I handed it to the Gina.

“He gave me this during one of his visits. The professor checked the handwriting and it matches the real Einstein’s. These are not hallucinations Gina. The fact that you can smell the pipe scent is proof of that.”

“Does the professor think that all this is real?” she asked.

“Not exactly…”

“Raymond Young, spit it out.”

“He thinks these encounters might be schizophrenic in nature, and has an explanation for everything that has happened(3). But he hasn’t been in this apartment and thus hasn’t been exposed to the pipe smell.”

“Ok, let’s invite him over and see if he can come up with one,” said Gina.

 

(1) For more details on the surveillance tapes check out Chapter 5: Der Depperte and Chapter 7: Desperately Seeking Subtitles

(2) Read how Ray tells ‘Einstein’ to stop smoking in his apartment  in Chapter 13: A Not So Silent Night

(3) Take a look at Professor Murdock’s explanation in Chapter 10: The Akashic Records and Chapter 11: The Professor Calling

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TIME MATTERS – CHAPTER 22: The Dear Ray Letter

Ray reads Einstein's farewell letter

I tried unsuccessfully to contact the Professor and after a few tries I finally left him a somewhat cryptic voice mail:

“Hi Professor, it’s Ray calling on Sunday at 2:20 in the afternoon, please give me a call as soon as you can. There’s been a new development that you should know about. Come to think of it, it would be better if instead of calling, you could stop by my apartment. I’ll send you the pin. I’m not going anywhere, so anytime will be fine. Thanks.”

“Well, that’s that,” I told Gina, who was getting ready to leave.

“I have to stop by the office to make sure everything’s in place for tomorrow’s Chronologix presentation. Please keep me in the loop. I mean that Ray, whatever’s happening with you is really serious.”

I escorted her to the door and as soon as she was gone I heard his voice again.

“Zat young voman is special to you isn’t sche?”

“Yes she is,” I said smiling.

“I like her, sche’s ein Princetonian. From 1933 to 1955 I vorked at zee Institute for Advanced Schtudies in zee town of Princeton und lectured regularly at zee Univerzity, vich, by zee vay, has produced zirty-zeven Nobel laureates. Mostly phyzicists und mathematicians.”

“She knows you’ve been here. The pipe smell gave you away.”

“Hmm ja, zee lingering scent of pipe tobacco. I uzed to step outzide zee room vere I’d been smoking zo I could reenter it a few minutes later und enjoy zee aroma better. It feels different vile one’s smoking. It is ein rather pleazant smell ven compared to zee very much offenzive cigar und cigarette stench.”

“Forget about the pipe smell. Listen, all this time I’ve made my peace with the fact that you could very well be a figment of my imagination, but now…”

“Relax Ray, I’ve come to zay goodby.”

“What? Why? Where are you going?”

“There’s nothing elze for me to do here. It’s all your doing from now on.”

I was about to ask him what was it that I was supposed to do when he simply raised his hand signaling me to hold my tongue and listen to him.

“I’m not good at farevells zo I vrote you zomething in your compuder. It’s been ein real pleazure knoving you Ray Young. Now if you’ll excuze me I’ll find mein vay to zee door.”

And just like that my strange visitor, the one I had come to believe was truly Albert Einstein, turned around and walked away through the same door Gina had used a few minutes earlier. I stood motionless staring at it for a while, hoping that it was all a joke and that he would come back. I had grown fond of the old man. After a while I slowly turned around and went to my computer. His message was on the screen.

 

Dear Ray:

It will probably be hard for you to accept the true nature of what has transpired here this past week. I know my presence has defied all logic and made you question your own sanity. Everything will become clear in due time and regardless of what others might think in the days to come, rest assured that all will be well in Ray Young’s mind.

You are a creative director, a concept man. Viewing situations from a new or unexpected angle is what you do for a living. Imagination is what fuels your everyday life. As you may know, I believe that imagination is everything. Without it there would be no new inventions or new developments. The raising of new questions, new possibilities, requires creative imagination. Knowledge is what we already know, but imagination is a preview of life’s coming attractions. Unfortunately the establishment many times values knowledge more than it does creativity. It will always fight new ideas that promote change because it feels threatened. It perceives the acceptance of a change in paradigm as an acknowledgement of having being wrong instead of it being part of an evolution process.

During this process you have come up with a new hypothesis for the nature of time. But you’re not a physicist or an astrophysicist, so the establishment will not take your ideas seriously. In the beginning it will ignore you completely. If compelled to acknowledge your ideas then it will ridicule them and try to discredit you.

Remember that when you rattle a cage, the creature inside feels threatened. That’s why some members of the establishment will even call you crazy and disregard your ideas as those of someone who knows nothing about how the universe works. They will say that I must be turning in my grave, but we both know that’s a physical impossibility ;-). They will call you many names and discredit your ideas. But somewhere there’s going to be a young physicist who will come in contact with your concept and think that there might be something there. That physicist will follow the procedures accepted by the establishment, will do the math the way it should be done, discard what doesn’t work, keep what does work and someday that person will present a solid thesis inspired by your story.

It’s been a pleasure working with you Ray, and if anybody tries to make you feel like an unknowledgeable clod, tell them that the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Tell them Albert Einstein said so.

 

After reading his message I was convinced I lacked the knowledge of the language needed to express how I felt. I got up and walked zombie-like to the kitchen to get me a cup of much needed java. The canister where I kept the ground coffee was empty so I opened the cupboard where I stored the extra coffee. A small plastic bag was peeking out from behind a new can of a Puerto Rican gourmet brand. Pulled the can out of the cupboard and there it was: a pipe with a bag of tobacco.

I felt nauseous. I heard a knock on the door but the whole room started to spin and I lost consciousness.