Notes & Queries response - Are we making any progress in understanding why we dream?
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He asked me whether he had struck the right tone. In hindsight, I believe that his true intention in showing me the letter, was less concerned with ensuring a diplomatic exit, and was more about letting me know that our personal relationship was likely to change in the future. He was correct in that regard – our relationship has changed - but not in the way that he thought.
I replied to his email a few hours after I received it. I told him that it was fine and that the team would be sorry to see him go. I wished him and his family all the best, and suggested that we might meet in person when things were a little more settled. I then deleted what he had sent me. Consequently I will be paraphrasing the contents of the letter, as opposed to reproducing it verbatim:
Dear Angus
As you are aware, since 2009, I have been bolstering what limited brain power I have with a Germany Pin neural implant. This has been embedded in the part of my brain that lights up the brightest whenever an engineering problem is laid before me. It has undoubtedly played a role in driving my understanding into previously inaccessible frontiers.
As of July of this year, I will be re-siting the pin to an area of my brain that is associated with social relationships, with the aim of improving my relationship with my wife and children. Since this change will result in me being unable to perform at my present level, I am respectfully bowing out on top and tendering my resignation.
I may have taken some licence with Rattan's words, but I think what I have written conveys the general sentiment of the letter. The Germany Pin that he mentions is a platinum rod, 3mm long and 0.5mm wide. It is delicately inserted into the desired part of brain where it acts as a conductor for dreams, concentrating neural activity in that area during periods of sleep. Platinum had been found to be the best metal for this purpose. For those six years that followed the implantation, Rattan dreamed about bike engines. He was awakened by the sound of his own voice, brimming over with novel solutions and innovations.
“I didn't like to probe too deeply, but why didn't he keep the original pin and have a second one implanted,” I said. “Unless the cost of such a thing is prohibitive.”
I was talking to Angus Dean, who was in charge of Chipling at the time (he retired in 2018).
“That was my first question,” he said. “Apparently having two pins generates a conflict in the sleeping brain. I don't know how they worked that one out. Somebody must have tried it, I expect. It causes more problems than it solves. But also...”
He leaned on his elbow, across the beer garden table towards me.
“... I think Graham just got burned out. He crammed decades of progress into six years. That's enough for anyone.”
As promised, Rattan had his implant re-sited. He spent more time with his family. By his own admission it saved his marriage. On the 21st November, 2017, he was knocked off his bike by a reversing tractor. He was placed in a medical coma and has remained in that state ever since.
“When they were planning to put Gray under, to give his brain a chance to recover, they wanted to know, did he have the five lights when he was born?” recalled his wife, Marge. “I didn't know. Because he'd been a home birth, they had to dig down into his doctors records to find out. Nothing before 2006 had been digitised, so that delayed things. It turns he'd had them. He was right on the button. The midwives started doing it in August 1961. He was born in September.”
The five lights are a recovery program for coma patients. It was developed in Swansea, in the 1950s, by the neurologist, Dr Mark Winkworth. The aim of the Winkworth method is to very gradually guide coma patients back to a state of wakefulness, in a manner that allows the brain to heal itself. A configuration of five lights of different strengths and durations are projected onto the eyelids. These gently stimulate different regions of the brain, thereby preserving neurological structures and allowing the patient to awaken into a state of functionality, and already a good way into their rehabilitation. For the procedure to work, the light pattern has to be imprinted in the brain no more than an hour after birth. This is done using a hand-held device. Recently, you may have seen on TV, adverts for legal claims solicitors, who are acting on behalf of people who did not receive the five lights at birth, either as a result of negligence or failing equipment, and who are now gravely disadvantaged as a result.
The five lights does not bring about an immediate recovery. It is a process that must be repeated over the course of several days, weeks, months, or even years. Throughout this period, brain activity is monitored for any sign of improvement. The imprinting process has undergone significant evolutions through the decades, meaning that coma patients who were born in this century have a greatly improved chance of awakening than those who were imprinted during the previous century.
In the UK, the current imprinting program was introduced in 2008, as a partnership venture between the NHS and Stronger Suns.
Winkworth described the five lights as a chain of beacons that were painted into the mind at birth. How they present themselves in the dreaming minds of coma patients varies. Visions of lighthouses and guiding angels are commonplace.
“For me, it was a flaring light in the darkness that slowly faded,” said the poet, Frank Whited. We had met at a buffet lunch on the Regents Canal.
“As I walked towards it, I became aware of another light to my left, so I headed in that direction. Then there was another light that blossomed a few degrees to my right. The most difficult one for me, when I almost gave up, was a light that was almost shining from behind me. I remember thinking: 'I'm being led around in circles here'. But I pushed on. I wouldn't be here talking to you if I hadn't. The strange thing was, they did this to me hundreds of times but I only remember dreaming about the lights once.”
I am told that Whited's perceived singular experience of the lights is fairly standard. One further peculiarity is that no matter how the lights are interpreted by the brain, they always present themselves in the same spatial configuration, with the fourth light seemingly appearing behind the patient and causing the most problems.
“A lot of people do give up,” said Ruth Hunter, who is a senior research nurse on a coma ward. “You can see it in their brain activity. A lot of thought has gone into how the lights might be moved around in the consciousness, to make them easier to follow. At the moment no-one understands why they appear the way they do.”
So far, Rattan has proven responsive to the treatment, but there are no signs that might herald his imminent reawakening. When I last spoke to Marge, she told me that his doctors were thinking of moving his Germany Pin again, back to its original site, in the hope that he might be more responsive.
“Maybe he needs to dream of engines again,” she remarked, sadly. “Maybe that's what will call him back to the world. Or it could be he needs to think of his mind like an engine and then he'll be able to repair the damage... and come back to us.”
She reminded me of a conversation I shared with my friend William Wiggins, a few days before his sudden and unexpected death, apparently from heart failure. It was windy day in March. Rain was blowing down from the heavens. We were sitting at a small square table, outside a cafe, next to the Serpentine in Hyde Park. All of the indoor seating had been occupied by what appeared to be a large school party.
Without thinking I made an open-mouthed yawn. It was barely out before I was then apologising for my rudeness.
“It's how heavens are made,” said Wiggins.
There were a few moments of silence.
“Go on then,” I said. “Have at it.”
As promised, Rattan had his implant re-sited. He spent more time with his family. By his own admission it saved his marriage. On the 21st November, 2017, he was knocked off his bike by a reversing tractor. He was placed in a medical coma and has remained in that state ever since.
“When they were planning to put Gray under, to give his brain a chance to recover, they wanted to know, did he have the five lights when he was born?” recalled his wife, Marge. “I didn't know. Because he'd been a home birth, they had to dig down into his doctors records to find out. Nothing before 2006 had been digitised, so that delayed things. It turns he'd had them. He was right on the button. The midwives started doing it in August 1961. He was born in September.”
The five lights are a recovery program for coma patients. It was developed in Swansea, in the 1950s, by the neurologist, Dr Mark Winkworth. The aim of the Winkworth method is to very gradually guide coma patients back to a state of wakefulness, in a manner that allows the brain to heal itself. A configuration of five lights of different strengths and durations are projected onto the eyelids. These gently stimulate different regions of the brain, thereby preserving neurological structures and allowing the patient to awaken into a state of functionality, and already a good way into their rehabilitation. For the procedure to work, the light pattern has to be imprinted in the brain no more than an hour after birth. This is done using a hand-held device. Recently, you may have seen on TV, adverts for legal claims solicitors, who are acting on behalf of people who did not receive the five lights at birth, either as a result of negligence or failing equipment, and who are now gravely disadvantaged as a result.
The five lights does not bring about an immediate recovery. It is a process that must be repeated over the course of several days, weeks, months, or even years. Throughout this period, brain activity is monitored for any sign of improvement. The imprinting process has undergone significant evolutions through the decades, meaning that coma patients who were born in this century have a greatly improved chance of awakening than those who were imprinted during the previous century.
In the UK, the current imprinting program was introduced in 2008, as a partnership venture between the NHS and Stronger Suns.
Winkworth described the five lights as a chain of beacons that were painted into the mind at birth. How they present themselves in the dreaming minds of coma patients varies. Visions of lighthouses and guiding angels are commonplace.
“For me, it was a flaring light in the darkness that slowly faded,” said the poet, Frank Whited. We had met at a buffet lunch on the Regents Canal.
“As I walked towards it, I became aware of another light to my left, so I headed in that direction. Then there was another light that blossomed a few degrees to my right. The most difficult one for me, when I almost gave up, was a light that was almost shining from behind me. I remember thinking: 'I'm being led around in circles here'. But I pushed on. I wouldn't be here talking to you if I hadn't. The strange thing was, they did this to me hundreds of times but I only remember dreaming about the lights once.”
I am told that Whited's perceived singular experience of the lights is fairly standard. One further peculiarity is that no matter how the lights are interpreted by the brain, they always present themselves in the same spatial configuration, with the fourth light seemingly appearing behind the patient and causing the most problems.
“A lot of people do give up,” said Ruth Hunter, who is a senior research nurse on a coma ward. “You can see it in their brain activity. A lot of thought has gone into how the lights might be moved around in the consciousness, to make them easier to follow. At the moment no-one understands why they appear the way they do.”
So far, Rattan has proven responsive to the treatment, but there are no signs that might herald his imminent reawakening. When I last spoke to Marge, she told me that his doctors were thinking of moving his Germany Pin again, back to its original site, in the hope that he might be more responsive.
“Maybe he needs to dream of engines again,” she remarked, sadly. “Maybe that's what will call him back to the world. Or it could be he needs to think of his mind like an engine and then he'll be able to repair the damage... and come back to us.”
She reminded me of a conversation I shared with my friend William Wiggins, a few days before his sudden and unexpected death, apparently from heart failure. It was windy day in March. Rain was blowing down from the heavens. We were sitting at a small square table, outside a cafe, next to the Serpentine in Hyde Park. All of the indoor seating had been occupied by what appeared to be a large school party.
Without thinking I made an open-mouthed yawn. It was barely out before I was then apologising for my rudeness.
“It's how heavens are made,” said Wiggins.
There were a few moments of silence.
“Go on then,” I said. “Have at it.”
“Well, Rothwell theorised that our dreams are the building blocks of the heaven or hell that we experience in the seconds before we die. We save them all up throughout our lives. He thought that when we awaken, and then immediately yawn, that is the body folding those dreams into the memory.”
“And that's all we get either way? A few seconds of Paradise or Inferno?”
“But who can say how those seconds are perceived by the dying. They may stretch on towards eternity. I used to do what I can only describe as an Anglican form of yoga. It was supposed to encourage good dreams. I would wake up the following morning, praying. I would go down to the seminary floor with those prayers on my lips where I would join the other praying men.”
“You don't do it anymore?”
“I stopped. You know how you suddenly you stop doing something for no reason?”
A gust of wind stripped the peeling pastry from our apple Danishes, scattering the flakes across the wet flagstones like autumn leaves. A beady-eyed pigeon that had been wandering around in aimless circles, strutted hurriedly towards one of the larger pieces.
I hope this is of help.
“And that's all we get either way? A few seconds of Paradise or Inferno?”
“But who can say how those seconds are perceived by the dying. They may stretch on towards eternity. I used to do what I can only describe as an Anglican form of yoga. It was supposed to encourage good dreams. I would wake up the following morning, praying. I would go down to the seminary floor with those prayers on my lips where I would join the other praying men.”
“You don't do it anymore?”
“I stopped. You know how you suddenly you stop doing something for no reason?”
A gust of wind stripped the peeling pastry from our apple Danishes, scattering the flakes across the wet flagstones like autumn leaves. A beady-eyed pigeon that had been wandering around in aimless circles, strutted hurriedly towards one of the larger pieces.
I hope this is of help.
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| image generated by Starryai |
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This is my response to
a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The
Guardian website on the 16th April, 2023.
The
Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their
site, so it is appearing here instead.
This blog is obviously
not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that
appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of
fair use.
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