Does Berkeley Exist? 7 of 6: Ghost of a Ghost

          Ghost of a Ghost

         

          It was the day before scattering the ashes of my friend Walter. I visited the grieving, turbulent family’s street. I write ‘street’, not ‘house’, because they had two houses on that street, at opposite ends of the block. Such was his family’s turbulence. I could say more, but that would be a long story.

          The ash-scattering was to happen far away, early the next day. We all had to start out early in the morning, so I stayed over for the night. The only bed free for me was Walter’s.

          As I prepared for bed, I wondered if I would dream of him. Will I meet his ghost? In Walter’s turbulent circle of dramatic fantasists, for him to become a ghost would be normal. But I wasn’t scared. In fact I welcomed a spooky encounter. I turned off the light, laid down in Walter’s bed, and closed my eyes.

          The next thing I knew, it was morning. I was awake and refreshed. My mind was clear. I remembered no dreams at all.

          That’s when I knew, deep down, that Walter was gone. Ever since then I have been haunted by the presence of his absence.

 

Does Berkeley Exist, 6 of 8: Dream Room

          Dream Room

          I was sitting up in bed, reading a book. It was late, I was tired. Then I noticed something odd; the words of the book were changing and shifting. But why? Then I noticed something even stranger; my eyes were shut. I felt my eyelids firmly sealed together; yet I could see. But how?

I realized that I was asleep and dreaming. Within that lucid dream, I looked up from the book and scanned the room. There was the bookshelf, there were the knick-knacks, there was the couch, there was the computer desk, there were the windows and shades… all dreams.

          Then I willed myself awake. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed was that I was slumped over. I sat up, closed the book, and looked around. Same bookshelf, same knick-knacks, same couch, same computer desk, same windows and shades.

          The two rooms were identical.

 

Does Berkeley Exist? 5 of 8: Mammary Planet

          Mammary Planet

 

          The nurse said, “You need to schedule another blood test next week.”

          I shrugged. “OK.”

          “And to test hormone levels,” she continued, “you’ll have to abstain from all sexual activity.”

          “All sexual activity? For a week?”

          “Mm-hm.”

          “Including masturbation?”

          “Mm-hm.”

          I shrugged. A week without masturbation sounded easy enough. We scheduled the blood test, I went home and put away my one-hand magazines. (This was before the Internet.)

          A day came and went without inconvenience, then another. But on the third day something odd happened. I was walking down Telegraph Avenue, and I noticed that every woman on the street had unusually large breasts. Not just some of the women; all of them. This strange change in half the human population of Berkeley persisted all day, and I realized that it wasn’t them, it was me.

          My perceptions were distorted, due to hormonal imbalance. Every woman’s breasts weren’t really bigger than before; they just seemed that way to me. I was hormone-addled, and seeing things oddly. I knew this, but knowledge did not decrease the perceptual distortion. 

          This effect increased on the fourth day. Every woman, everywhere, had an amazingly ample bosom. I knew that was an illusion, but it was a very convincing illusion. I tried not to look, or seem to notice; but my judgment was probably as impaired as my perception. I hope that the women of Berkeley ignored my astonishment, or forgave me.

          By the fifth and sixth days, I was adrift in an impossible parallel world of fantastic mammary antigravitation. As before, knowledge of illusion did not dispel illusion. I knew that I was hallucinating, but still I saw the mirage as plain as day. I was amazed by how florid the hallucination was, yet also how clear and specific. Nothing else looked any different.

          On the seventh day I went to the clinic and gave a blood sample. Then I went home and got out the one-hand magazines.

          The very next day, every woman’s breasts had returned to their normal size.

 

         

 

 

Does Berkeley exist? 4 of 8: Ten Second Vacation

Ten Second Vacation

 

I was standing on a street corner in Berkeley. There was noise, crowds, and traffic. I had places to go and things to do, but the WALK light had not yet turned, so I had nothing to do. It was a moment that did not count, and I had no expectations of it.

I looked up, I looked down the street, and there beyond the end of the street, beyond the edge of town, across the bay...

... a mountain.

It was small and blue with distance. It was streaked with brown and green. Its profile was rough and fractal.

I tuned out everything but the mountain and the WALK sign. Anchored to the sign, I mentally leapt to the mountain. I took a vacation there. I bathed in its blue, brown, and green. I hiked up and down the mountain, I inspected its plants and rocks, I climbed to the top...

- then BLINK -

... and I was back on the street corner, looking at the WALK sign, which had just turned. I looked both ways, stepped off the curb, and crossed the street.

 

 

 

Does Berkeley Exist? 3 of 8: Thurber's World

          Thurber’s World

 

          I was visiting Marion Zimmer Bradley’s house. After trucing a few rounds of dilemma chess with the fantasy writer’s son, I stepped out to their back yard for a stroll and a breath of fresh air.

          It was twilight; the zenith had darkened to deep blue, the horizon all the way around glowed orange and red; the “girdle of Venus”. A crescent moon shone, and a few stars, and the planet Venus too.

          I stopped, amazed; for there in front of me stood a goat. An Angora goat, waist-tall, with silky white hair… and a single horn.

He was Lancelot, a successful animal-husbandry experiment by Morning Glory and Otter G’Zell. At the goat’s birth, they had surgically fused Lancelot’s two hornbuds together; the fused hornbud grew into an imposing monohorn.

          Lancelot was a unicorn. That surgically-modified Angora goat looked like he had stepped out of a medieval tapestry. Morning Glory and Otter G’Zell claimed that such surgery was possible in medieval Europe; so maybe unicorns were real enough.

          Just then, in the evening twilight, with Moon and Venus overhead, that unicorn looked more than real; for Lancelot was eating Marion Zimmer Bradley’s rosebushes. One of James Thurber’s stories was about a unicorn eating the rosebushes in a backyard garden. In that surreal moment, I learned that a visit to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s place can send you into a Thurber story.

          I also learned, by observation, that unicorn droppings are about one centimeter long and about half a centimeter wide.

Does Berkeley exist? 2 of 8: Time Control

             Time Control

 

I know what you’re thinking. Berkeley, weird experiences; I must have been tripping, right? But I swear that drugs had little to do with most of these stories.

But not, I admit, this one.

I was flying sky-high when I noticed something odd about the wall clock; its second hand was leaving a trail behind it. Somehow it occurred to me that I could slow down the clock if I paid it close attention. So I concentrated on the clock, and by golly, it worked! For a moment it visibly slowed down!

I sat back, panting. Slowing down the clock is hard work. I sat up; I looked hard at the clock; I gave it a burst of fierce attention. The second hand briefly slowed down again.

So far, so good. Then I asked myself; can I make it stop?

Gimlet-eyed, I glared at the clock. It slowed. I stared harder, it slowed some more. I pushed even harder…

… and failed. I sat back, gasping, and the second hand swept on.

The clock was stronger than me.

 

Does Berkeley Exist? 1 of 8: Incredulous Introduction

 

          Does Berkeley Exist?

          A Waking Dream Journal

 

 

 

Incredulous Introduction

Time Control

Thurber’s World

Ten Second Vacation

Mammary Planet

Dream Room

Ghost of a Ghost

Skeptical Summary

 

 

Incredulous Introduction

 

          Does Berkeley exist? The question seems absurd at first, but it improves upon acquaintance.

For even though Berkeley is on the map; even though it’s a city in California, on the east shore of San Francisco Bay; even though it’s home to a great university; and even though I myself lived in Berkeley for many years; despite all this, things happened to me there that I now have trouble believing. They were strange enough to make me question perception, spacetime, realism, life, and Berkeley.

          Here I describe six of those dubious events. They all really happened to me, more or less, and they happened in Berkeley. At the time they made perfect sense, but in retrospect they lack credibility.

          Dear reader, I tell you these tales, so that you may decide for yourself if Berkeley could be.