The tank itself was unusual
in that it was vertical...
...and looked like an old boiler.
Inside the tank,
the subject wore a heavy glass bubble.
You would have thought the whole
contraption uncomfortable to say the least.
It was, however, effective.
Of the 23 students tested,
only two found the experience unpleasant.
Some even called it exhilarating.
A number of students hallucinated.
Dr. Jessup found the encephalographic
evidence especially interesting.
And one Saturday afternoon,
in April 1967...
...he decided to try
the experience for himself.
Arthur. Hey, Arthur.
Are you there?
Can you hear me, Arthur?
Arthur, answer me.
Is that it? You want me
to come in and get you out?
Yeah.
I want to get a look at those EEG tracings.
All right. How do you feel?
Not bad.
I hallucinated like a son of a bitch.
A variety of dream states,
mystical states.
A lot of religious allegory,
mostly out of Revelation.
You were in there close to five hours.
- Lt felt like an hour.
- 'd like to try that myself sometime.
You should. You'll like it.
Did we have any communication?
Oh, sure. L kept checking you out
like you told me to.
How'd l respond?
Very orderly.
At one point you were crying.
You mean actually crying?
You were sobbing.
There were tears on your face.
When I asked you what was going on...
...you said you were re-experiencing
your father's death.
- Did you make notes?
- Lt's all there.
I'd like to try this again next week.
Do you think you could make it again
next week?
What are we looking for?
I don't know, yet.
There's really very little literature
on this kind of research.
There's some good people in the field,
Tart, Ornstein and Deikman...
...but most of it is radical-hip stuff,
drug-culture apologias.
Obviously, the first thing to do
is set up some sensible methodology.
Study these experiences
under controlled conditions.
It won't interfere with the work
we're doing with Hobart.
What are we getting into? A new
sensory deprivation? solation studies?
Where will we be going
with the tank stuff?
We're not writing up a grant.
Strictly bootlegging, for kicks.
As long as we've got
the use of this tank...
...let's play around with it.
Let's find out where it takes us.
It's fascinating stuff, Arthur.
I think we ought to get into it.
I didn't even know they had one of those
isolation tanks at New York Hospital.
Must be some guy
in the psychology department...
...doing sensory deprivation studies.
What's Jessup doing with it?
You've got me. He's been taking students
out of his classes and testing them.
He's been doing this
for three, four months.
- Did you know...
Arthur.
...Jessup was into this stuff?
- Not until you told me.
Arthur?
- What do you want, honey?
How long are you going to let it ring?
It's okay, I'll get it.
He's the last guy
to be screwing around...
...with anything as flaky
as altered states of consciousness.
Well, let's face it.
Jessup is pretty flaky himself.
That's him.
Arthur says you're very shy.
He wants me to draw you out.
Draw me out?
That doesn't sound like Arthur.
Well, what he actually said was
you were a high-handed, arrogant prick.
A little nuts, but brilliant...
...and that if l ever got you talking,
I would find you fascinating.
That sounds more like Arthur.
He says you're doing some work
at Payne Whitney.
- Yes.
- What sort of work?
Toxic metabolite stuff, replicating
Heath's and Friedhoff's strategies...
...to find maverick substances
specific to schizophrenia.
We're chasing our tails. What do you do?
I'm a physical anthropologist,
sweating out my dissertation.
- Where?
- Columbia.
Holloway and that bunch.
You're kind of young for a Ph.D.,
aren't you?
- 'm 24.
- That's still pretty good.
I didn't get my Ph.D. until
I was 25 and I'm supposed to be a whiz kid.
I'm a whiz kid, too.
Anthropology seems to attract
good-looking women.
So you don't think schizophrenia can be
reduced to a single etiological agent?
I'm not even sure it's a disease.
You think madness is simply
another state of consciousness?
There's a body of evidence
to support that.
You don't like to talk
about your work, do you?
As a rule, no.
I've always been interested
in interior experiences.
Especially religious experience.
The reason I'm working
with schizophrenics...
...is that religious experience
is so significant in schizophrenia.
There's only so much
you can do with animals.
Monkeys can't tell you what's going on
in their consciousness.
You need human beings for that.
You're not allowed to ablate humans,
you can't stick electrodes in their skulls.
I have to use some kind
of trance-inducing technique.
The isolation tank
seemed the least risky. Listen...
... I'd like to go home with you tonight.
Would that be all right with you?
I've got a roommate.
We'll be confined to the living-room couch.
What's wrong
with the living-room couch?
You tend to slip off a lot.
I'm sure we'll manage.
Yeah, I'm sure we will.
So whenever you want to go there,
you let me know.
- How about right now?
- Heh.
What are you thinking about?
God.
Jesus, crucifixions.
As a rule, do you usually think about...
...Christ and crucifixions
under sexual stress?
When I was 9 years old,
I used to see visions.
Visions of saints and angels,
even Christ himself.
Of course, I don't do that anymore.
Not since I was 16.
Were your parents religious?
Anything but.
My father was an aeronautical engineer.
My mother, a clinical psychologist.
What happened?
I mean, how did a little kid who saw
visions of Christ turn into a physiologist...
...teaching at the Cornell Medical College?
- L stopped believing.
It was very dramatic.
My father died a protracted
and painful death of cancer.
I was 16 years old
and very fond of my father.
I used to race to the hospital
every day after school...
...and sit in his room doing my homework.
He was very heavily sedated.
The last few weeks he was in coma.
One day l thought
I heard him say something.
I got up and leaned over him...
...my ear an inch away from his lips.
"Did you say something, Pop?"
Then l heard the word he was desperately
trying to say, a soft hiss of a word.
He was saying:
"Terrible."
"Terrible."
So the end was terrible,
even for the good people like my father.
So the purpose of all our suffering
was just more suffering.
By dinnertime, l had dispensed with God
altogether. I never saw another vision.
I haven't told anybody
about this in 10 years.
I'm telling you now
because l want you to know...
...what sort of a nut
you might be getting mixed up with.
Arthur was right.
You are a fascinating bastard.
Dad! Dad! Dad!
- Hi.
- Hi.
Well, it's settled.
Metcalfe spoke to Spencer this morning
and it's definite. The job's mine.
I'll be in Nairobi doing
my post-doc work July and August.
And in September,
I'll be teaching at Harvard.
Terrific.
So looks like we'll both be teaching
at Harvard in September.
Looks that way.
Well, you can't get any tidier
than that, can you?
We're gonna be together in Boston,
and l think we should get married.
You know, of course,
I'm supposed to be a little bit nuts.
A little bit?
You're an unmitigated madman.
You don't have to tell me how weird
you are. I know how weird you are.
I'm the girl in your bed
the past two months.
Even sex is a mystical experience
for you. You carry on like a flagellant...
...which can be very nice, but l sometimes
wonder if it's me that's being made love to.
I feel like I'm being harpooned by some
raging monk in the act of receiving God.
And you are a Faust-freak, Eddie.
You'd sell your soul
to find the great truth.
Well, human life
doesn't have great truths.
We're born in doubt. We spend our lives
persuading ourselves we're alive.
And one way we do that is
we love each other, like I love you.
I can't imagine living without you.
So let's get married, and if it turns out
to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.
We'll shake hands and say good-bye.
He's giving her dimethyltryptamine.
It takes effect in about a minute
and she'll trip out for about half an hour.
Do you feel different now?
Yes.
Less anxious?
Much less.
Do you have any special feelings?
I feel...
...like my heart
is being touched by Christ.
There's a lot of religious delusion
among acute schizophrenics.
Some say schizophrenics
are physically different from the rest of us.
It's almost as if they were trying
to change their physical selves...
...to adapt to their schizophrenic image
of themselves.
All right, we'll get married,
since it's that important to you.
I'm not comfortable with women...
...and I'm not likely to find anyone
half as remarkable as you again.
I think I can make
a reasonably good husband.
I don't want to lose you, you see.
I suppose that's the closest thing
to a declaration of love...
...that l will ever get out of you.
Am l really that weird in bed?
Sometimes.
Shall l try to change?
No, I kind of like it.
Daddy, I'm tired.
We'll give the lady a ride.
- Whoa! Oh!
Hey, Mason, be careful.
How you doing, Eddie?
- Hi, Mason. How about a beer?
- Lf I didn't see this, l wouldn't believe it.
- You weren't supposed to be here.
Hi, what's your name?
My name's Mason Parrish. This is Margaret.
Mason, Arthur Rosenberg
I'm always telling you about.
- How are you?
- Mason Parrish, nice to meet you.
Look at the family man.
Oh, why, Eddie, you look so wonderful.
I don't believe it.
Not again. When did this happen?
- Lt's a long story.
- You look wonderful.
Have you found a place yet?
We got a nice little place
near Huntington Field.
It's been seven years
since we moved to San Francisco.
Arthur's gonna to teach at Boston U.
Eddie's been telling me.
I hear you just got associate professor.
You guys must be loaded.
Two professors in one family.
We've got a place in Maine
you can use for the summer.
I'm going to Africa again.
Eddie'll be in Mexico.
You know a guy named Eccheverria,
University of Mexico?
- He worked with you in California.
- Sure. Bright young guy.
He's here at the museum.
We'll all have to get together.
I'm going back to Mexico
with him in June.
What's in Mexico?
Eccheverria's got this witch doctor
down there, the Hinchi Indians.
They're an isolated tribe in Central Mexico
who practice ancient Toltec rituals.
Sacred mushroom ceremonies,
that kind of thing.
Apparently they use some kind
of hallucinatory drug...
...that is supposed to evoke
a common experience in all users.
Maggie's fallen asleep on the couch.
Will you take care of her?
Sure.
Did you ever get into an isolation tank
since New York?
No. Did you?
No, but they've got one here
at the medical school.
I didn't think anybody was doing
those studies anymore.
We did interesting stuff
in that tank in New York...
...for the months we played with it.
Maybe when l get back from Mexico
we'll get into it again.
Why not.
A terrific housekeeper she's not.
- They're getting a divorce, you know.
- Who?
- L don't know if they're actually-
- What are you talking about?
She and the kids are moving to Cambridge.
That's why this place is such a mess.
They're moving her stuff
into storage tomorrow.
Then she's going off to Africa
for a year with the kids...
...and he's going to Mexico.
When she comes back, she's gonna live
in Cambridge and he's staying here.
It's him wants the divorce, not her.
I'm surprised
they stayed together this long.
When did all this happen?
She just told me five minutes ago.
What about all those letters she kept
writing us about how happy they were?
Don't ask me. She's still crazy about him.
He's still crazy.
- Listen, Sylvia just-
- Shh.
Sylvia just told me
you're getting a divorce.
Well, we're getting separated.
We won't get to the divorce
until next year.
Well, look, I mean, I know
it's none of my business, but why?
You are married to a great woman
who adores you.
My God, if anybody has it made,
you have.
You are a respected
and an admired figure.
A full professor on the faculty
of the Harvard Medical School.
For God's sake, is that how you imagine
me? A respected and admired figure?
A devoted father? A loving husband?
I've also published nearly two papers
a year for the last seven years...
...and not a fundamental piece of work
in the lot.
I sit around the living rooms
of other young married faculty members...
...talking infantile masturbation:
"Who's sucking up...
...to the head of the department?"
"Whose tenure is hanging by a thread?"
Emily is content to go on with this life.
She insists she's in love with me,
whatever that is.
What she means is
she prefers the senseless pain...
...we inflict on each other to the pain
we would otherwise inflict on ourselves.
But I'm not afraid of that solitary pain.
If l don't strip myself of all this clatter
and clutter and ridiculous ritual...
... l shall go out of my fucking mind.
- Does that answer your question, Arthur?
- What question was that?
- You asked me why I was getting divorced.
- Oh, listen, it's your life.
I'm sorry I even asked.
Listen...
...why don't l call Eccheverria
and we'll all go out and have some dinner?
As a matter of fact, Eduardo,
my year in India was disappointing.
Yoga is still a state-specific technology...
...operating in the service
of an a priori belief system.
We scientists have a moral obligation to
the public as well as to our own research.
It just never occurred to baboons
that they could shorten that time...
...to five minutes if they used a stick.
Originally, man was just another
savanna-living primate like the baboon.
What dignifies the yogic practices...
...is that the belief system itself
is not truly religious.
There is no Buddhist God, per se.
It is the self, the individual mind, that
contains immortality and ultimate truth.
What is not religious about that?
You've simply replaced God
with the original self.
But we've localized it. We know
where the self is, in our minds.
It's a form of human energy.
Our atoms are six billion years old.
We've got six billion years
of memory in our minds.
- Hydrogen atoms are older-
- Memory is energy.
It doesn't disappear. It's still in there.
There's a physiological pathway
to our earlier consciousnesses.
There has to be. I'm telling you,
it's in the limbic system.
Jessup, you are a wacko.
What's wacko about it?
I'm a man in search of his true self.
- How archetypically American can you get?
- Ha, ha, ha.
Everybody's looking for their true selves.
We're all trying to fulfill ourselves...
...understand ourselves,
get in touch with ourselves...
...face the reality of ourselves,
explore ourselves, expand ourselves.
Ever since we dispensed with God...
...we've got nothing but ourselves
to explain this meaningless horror of life.
You're a wacko.
Well, l think that that true self...
...that original self, that first self,
is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing...
...tangible and incarnate...
...and I'm going to find the fucker.
What are their chemical properties?
Are they safe?
The mushrooms
are almost certainly Amanita muscaria...
...a very powerful psychedelic,
and a little dangerous.
It contains belladonna-like alkaloids...
...atropine, scopolamine.
The sinicuichi plant is highly regarded...
...among a number of Indian tribes.
I've seen it as far north as Chihuahua.
The Indians say it evokes old memories.
Even ancient ones.
And the Hinchis call it the first flower.
- The first in the sense of primordial?
- Yes.
In the sense of the most ancient.
I'd like to try it.
Do you think they'd let me
join their ritual?
Well, they seem like agreeable people.
It's all right for you
to participate in the ceremony.
Good. Ask him what kind of an experience
I can expect.
Are they gathering mushrooms
for the ritual?
No, they're being
harvested for next year.
Brujo!
Your soul will return to the first soul.
Ask him what this first soul will look like.
He is unborn stuff.
Then you will propel into the void.
You will see a spot.
Uh, the spot will become a crack.
This is the crack between the nothing...
...and out of this nothing
will come your unborn soul.
He wants you to hold the root.
Put out your hand with the palm up.
Ah! Ugh!
Eduardo!
- Jesus Christ.
- Are you all right?
- We only have their word l killed a lizard.
- Oh, no.
You didn't see it
and l have no recollection of it.
This whole business is just a joke
the Indians have played on me...
...to make the gringo look like a fool.
Look, you asked me what happened
and l told you.
You drank the mixture
and you went outside.
After a while there was a scream
and some dogs were barking.
I started after you.
The screaming stopped
and the brujo yelled to come back.
- Oh, bullshit.
- Then why did you ask the brujo...
...to give you the mixture
to take back to Boston?
I thought I'd like Arthur to analyze,
maybe synthesize it.
The noise is stupefying.
The sun became black...
...as sackcloth.
The full moon became like blood.
Then the great mountain,
burning with fire...
...was thrown into the sea.
And the beast ascends
from the bottomless pit.
The angel of the bottomless pit.
His name is Abaddon.
Abaddon.
He is off the wall.
Are you okay?
Get this stuff. It's new.
It's deafening. The noise is deafening.
Can you hear me above this noise?
Oh, my God.
The most unbelievable thing I've seen.
I'm watching the birth agony
of a mountain.
Oh, my God.
Are you okay?
I'm fine. Really, I'm fine.
Do you want me to bring you down now?
What happens now?
He's blacked-out.
His blackouts can get pretty freaky.
Sometimes they last
as long as four hours.
When he comes out, he's chipper
as a bird but doesn't remember a thing.
Just how dangerous is this stuff
he brought back from Mexico?
I didn't say dangerous, l said it
was weird. Hangs around too long.
And what's really screwy is
it heads straight for the brain.
Well, l don't believe this.
You guys are shooting up an untested
drug that stacks up in the brain...
...works in the nucleus of the cell,
and don't call that dangerous?
For the record,
we don't actually shoot up.
- Heh, heh, heh.
- Eddie drinks a 10-
It's gonna stop now.
You guys are supposed to be scientists,
not two kids in the dorm...
...freaking out on Mexican mushrooms.
Well, why do you think I called you for?
Let's see you stop him.
This ain't LSD, goddamn it.
This ain't no serotonin antagonist
you're drinking.
How many grams of that
you think you've already got in you?
Two? Three?
You could be working up
a case of cancer...
...with a truckload
of antimetabolites in you.
The Hinchi Indians have done it
for centuries with no cancer.
Fuck the Hinchi Indians.
You don't know anything
about those mushrooms.
Sounds like they have staying power.
We've shot up 30 rats with that stuff.
Some of them have
a whopping load in them.
None of them have been
noticeably affected.
Where are we going now?
I thought we were gonna eat.
Eddie wants to show me an isolation tank.
Isolation tank. You guys get flakier
every time l talk to you.
All that isolation-tank stuff
went out in the'60s...
...with Timothy Leary
and all them other gurus.
Will you shut up for a minute
and let somebody else say something?
What happens during these
blackouts...
...is you feel phenomenal acceleration...
...like you're being shot out over millions,
billions of years.
Time simply obliterates.
You sense the hallucination is going on,
but you get no images.
I want to break through that barrier.
I want to know what those images are
that I know are going on but l can't see.
We can't raise the dosage of the drug,
we're close to toxic level now.
The only way to intensify the experience
is to take the 200 milligrams...
...in conjunction with the tank.
There's more I'd like to do to that drug.
- A half-life determination.
That'd take a year.
I'd like to know
the transport system. Find some analogues.
All l know is this stuff
is an extraordinary substance.
Every instinct l have tells me
I'm onto something hot here.
And another 200 milligrams
isn't going to kill anybody.
There it is.
Oh, it's horizontal.
It's smaller than the one
we had in New York.
lf they do sleep studies,
it must be wired for sound.
Don't think anybody's used it in
years, but l checked it, it works.
Won't take a week
to get this functioning.
If it ever gets out you use
an untested drug on human subjects...
Don't worry. Nothing's gonna
happen to me. Let's get a hamburger.
- Told one kid in class l might see her.
- All right.
Do what you want to do.
I think you're both irresponsible as hell.
Don't call me and tell me you're worried
about Eddie putting all this shit into him.
I tell you now, don't you put
any more of that shit into him...
...until you know more about it.
I've offered you the use of my lab
and all the rats you can cut.
That's as much as l want to be implicated
in your experiments.
You get your own dumb hamburger.
I already got my own date
I'm an hour late for.
I already did these first three.
You do the rest.
Well, well, well.
Couldn't resist, right?
Well, somebody's gotta keep
on eye on you two sorcerers.
What have you got in there,
some salt solution?
Ten percent magnesium sulfate,
for buoyancy.
- Weird, man.
- Excuse me, Mason.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Okay, you're fine.
Wednesday, January 7, 4:28 p.m.
Hey, this is terrific.
I'm on a plateau.
Went into beta like a shot.
No spindling, nothing.
Grasslands, savannas.
l feel...
...l am actually alive
and inside this landscape.
A density of woodlands
about a mile away.
Beyond that,
mountains that seem to be smoking.
Newly born mountains,
Cenozoic, latter Tertiary.
I'm in an edge area.
Utter tranquility, but alive.
Life in the trees. Life in the sedge.
Oh, my God...
...the birth of man. That's got to be it.
My God. There it is...
...a protohuman.
The first and original truly human form.
Tiny, perhaps four feet high,
completely furred...
...chimp-like, but erect.
No knuckle-walking. Shorter arms.
He's moving along so gracefully.
There's two, three of them.
Bipedal, tiny, little furred
humanoid creatures.
Got a chunk of lava
in their hands. They're...
...stalking or hunting something.
For chrissake.
Are you okay, Eddie?
I'm becoming one of them.
I'm no longer observing.
I'm one of them.
I'm killing- 'm killing a goat.
I'm killing...
I'm eating...
I'm eating the blood, hot flesh of a goat.
Are you okay?
Ho, ho, ho. Beautiful. Beautiful.
- Do you want to come down?
- No.
It sounded like he was having
a bad trip to me.
Some of these tank trips
can get pretty creepy.
What the hell was that?
You okay?
Beautiful.
- Do you want to stop this?
- No.
- Do you want me to leave you alone?
- Yeah.
I thought you said these things don't last
more than four hours.
- Lt's quarter to 9.
- He's coming out.
I don't like being out of contact
for these long periods of time.
I think he's in shock.
He must have had a seizure,
hit his head or something.
Now, hold on.
What do you want blood tests for?
- What's he say?
- "Buccal smear, blood for a karyotype...
...also pictures for
the Goodman and Sarich's lab.
Pictures of my neck, now, before l...
...reconstitute."
- Before he what?
Before he reconstitutes.
Then take his damn blood,
and maybe he'll let me have a look at him.
Do you mind if l examine your neck
for a minute?
- Any masses?
- No.
Oh, stop talking shit.
You trying to say
your hallucination externalized?
- What did he write?
- "Not common aphasia.
Time-space fallout
from the hallucination."
You are a fucking flake, Jessup.
Get dressed.
I'm gonna take you to Brigham...
...and do a complete workup on you.
You are a very sick dude,
you dumb son of a bitch.
I'll look down your throat,
do some films...
...get a CAT scan,
maybe an arteriogram...
...and I'd like an unbiased eye
to look at those EEG tracings.
What's he say?
"X-ray."
All right, finish up with him, Arthur,
and let's get him over to x-ray.
Be right back.
Is it possible it's mechanical?
Well, if it isn't neurological,
it's got to be mechanical.
I'd like some plain films of this guy's neck.
A PA, a lateral and oblique.
- Doctor, I'm backed up to my ass.
- Just take the damn pictures.
- This is an emergency.
- Okay.
Might be a TIA.
I guess we'd better not
tell Eddie he had...
...blood all over his face when he came
out of the tank. He'll claim it was...
...goat's blood from that goat
he was eating in his hallucination.
You know, you're really getting
as weird as he is.
Well, what do you think happened?
He's not the type
for hysterical conversion.
I'm thinking seizure.
He came out of that tank in a fugue state
and had blood all over his face.
He must have had a seizure
while in the tank...
...bit his lip while convulsing,
and is postictally aphasic.
I thought maybe he had a vascular insult,
a stroke, a flipped embolus...
...but neurologically he's intact,
so I'm thinking seizure now.
Hm.
Now you just take it easy.
None of us are so terrific
at reading x-rays.
What are you looking for?
Put these in an envelope.
Who's reading tonight in Radiology?
Dr. Wissenschaft.
I want someone reliable to look at them.
I'd rather not have everyone in on this.
It's bad enough we've got
this x-ray technician.
Are you all right?
I'm fine. I tried to indicate
this was just a transient thing.
A transient ischemic attack,
that's what it was.
- He's got his voice back.
- Lt wasn't an ischemic attack.
It wasn't a seizure.
You saw the x-rays, Mason.
There was something anterior to
the larynx, looked like a laryngeal sac.
That's strictly simian.
I obviously regressed...
...to some quasi-simian creature.
I'm gonna show these to someone.
You're reading them wrong. That's all.
No one is going to tell me...
...you de-differentiated
your goddamn genetic structure...
...for four goddamn hours
and then reconstituted.
I'm a professor of endocrinology
at Harvard Medical School.
I'm an attending physician
at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
I'm a contributing editor to the
American Journal of Endocrinology.
And I'm a fellow and vice president of the
Eastern Association of Endocrinologists...
...and president of the Journal Club!
I'm not going to listen to any more...
...of your cabalistic, quantum,
frigging, dumb, limbo mumbo jumbo.
I'm gonna show these to a radiologist.
- Do me a favor.
- Conclusion: bilateral aspiration pneumonia.
- Do me a favor and take a look at these.
- What's the story of this case?
A 35-year-old white male, acute onset
of aphasia, no history of trauma.
What are you looking for?
It looks to me like the architecture
is somewhat abnormal.
Somewhat?
This guy is a fucking gorilla.
Are you okay, Dr. Jessup?
Yes.
Ah!
Are you all right, Dr. Jessup?
I'm fine.
I just want to make a few notes.
Argh!
Mr. Daniel Craig,
Mr. Daniel Craig, please come...
Emily.
...to information, American Airlines.
My God, you look so marvelous.
How have you been, Eddie?
- Just fine. You?
- Fine.
Look, there's your dad.
Are you going to drive us
to our new house?
You bet your life.
Depending how nice you are...
...may even take you
to a Chinese restaurant.
Anyway, don't let anybody tell you
baboons aren't occasionally carnivorous.
I observed instances of predation...
...which involved the unmistakable
behavior of hunters.
A pair of baboons killed
a Thomson's gazelle and ate it.
There was even
a rudimentary communication...
...between the two baboons.
So I've become fascinated
with the work...
...being done on nonverbal communication
with apes.
I've been corresponding
with the University of Nevada.
I may just go out and spend
a couple of weeks there this summer.
I've got nothing else to do
except write my report.
I don't suppose you recorded
any of those baboon sounds?
Yes, of course I did. Why?
I'd like very much to hear them.
Of course.
Mrs. Tally said she'll be here
tomorrow morning at 10:30...
...to help you put everything away.
She wanted to know if you wanted her
to come back to work steady.
I got a letter from Mason
about a week ago, just before we left Nairobi.
He says that you've been working
with a very complex drug...
...which you brought back from Mexico.
It hasn't been thoroughly tested yet
and is dangerous as hell.
What else did Mason write you?
That over the past year you've taken
about two grams of that drug yourself...
...and that you had a very unusual instance
of genetic regression...
...about three months ago.
You may have leukemia or lymphoma.
He's been trying to get you in for a
complete workup but you've refused to go.
He's worried stiff that you're cracking up.
He thinks you're behaving
very strangely...
...and he begged me to talk to you
about this when I got back.
Mason is pathologically incapable
of keeping his mouth shut.
- He's worried.
- He's a stupid, doctrinaire idiot.
- Mason is a first-rate doctor.
- Lt's not leukemia.
Or any other kind of cancer.
I've let him do a liver-spleen scan
on me and a CAT scan.
I have been probed,
scoped and palpated.
Mason's had a mirror down my throat
or up my ass for three months.
And there is no evidence,
no suggestion whatsoever of cancer.
What else did Mason write you?
Which of these has
the baboon vocalizations?
- 'd like to hear them.
- Why?
Did Mason write that during the regression
I had an aphasic experience for four hours?
The only sounds I could get out were
clicks and grunts.
I've got a hunch they're like
the baboon vocalizations.
You took blood tests
and the lab report showed...
...some characteristics
of simian blood groups.
- Also antigens specific to man.
- 'd like to see that data.
The thing to do is for me to get back
to that isolation tank and try it again.
Let's see if it happens again.
None of us believed it happened.
After three months, I'm beginning
to wonder if it happened myself.
They won't go back to the tank.
Mason's taken over the whole project.
He's got Arthur up in his lab
fractionating rats' brains.
What the hell am l supposed to do
while they're fractionating rats' brains?
Mommy.
Everybody thinks your father's
going nuts.
Mommy, when are we going to eat?
Run along, play with Grace.
I am convinced that the regression
was triggered by an act of consciousness.
When I was in the tank,
I entered another consciousness.
I became another self,
a more primitive self...
...and the drug in some way...
...triggered the externalization
of that other, more primitive self.
At least look at my data.
Maybe tomorrow afternoon...
Don't patronize me.
It's just possible I'm not mad, you know.
I'm asking you to make a small quantum
jump to accept one deviant concept.
That our other states of consciousness
are as real as our waking state.
- And that reality can be externalized.
- You're screaming.
I've been getting this patronizing shit from
Mason for three months. I'm sick of it.
We've got millions of years stored away
in that computer bank we call our minds.
We have got trillions of dormant genes
in us, our whole evolutionary past.
Perhaps I've tapped into that.
I want to get back into
that tank and repeat the experiment.
The most elementary laboratory behavior.
Repeat the experiment. Confirm it.
I'd like other responsible scientists
with me when l do it.
I would like
a little consensual validation on this.
We may have demonstrated
a whole new force in nature.
For God's sake, don't you agree
it merits further investigation?
I've got tapes, notes,
everything at my place.
What time would you like to come
look at the stuff?
Two, 2:30.
Oh.
I just want to get the girls.
I'll be right back.
l'll get it, I'll get it.
No, no, I will.
It's 8:30, so get washed
and changed right now.
I don't want any trouble
from either of you tonight.
Hello?
Oh, Mason. Thank you for calling.
I assume you've spoken to Arthur.
No, no, I just got back
from dinner with the kids.
Well, l just don't know what to say.
I think you're absolutely right.
He's on the verge of a breakdown.
He was here all afternoon, carried on
like a madman and then disappeared.
Ordinarily l wouldn't be this panicky,
but I just am very worried.
- What's the trouble?
- There's an animal loose in the basement.
- What kind of animal?
- Monkey, l think.
Charlie. Charlie Thomas.
Where are you?
Listen, we got some kind of animal
loose here in B-building basement.
I'm heading into the north corridor,
to the boiler room.
You guys come down the other way.
Now, watch your step.
He's a pretty good-sized ape.
Call the animal rooms and find out
what the hell he's doing down here.
Must be in here somewhere.
I'm gonna take a look up here.
What the-?
Get out. Get on out of here!
Hey. Get on out of here!
What were you doing in the tank room?
I remember large fragments
of what happened, but not all of it.
You'll have to be patient with me.
I've had Mason looking all over Boston
for you all night.
It's okay. I'm all right.
I suppose getting a call at 2:30
in the morning from the police...
...to the effect your husband
has been found sleeping naked...
...in the city zoo
might have caused you some concern.
- Yes, I think you could say that.
- Mason telling you this whole time...
... I'm having a nervous breakdown...
...and you figured
I'd finally flipped out altogether.
I'm sorry, Emily. Forgive me. L know
what a harrowing day I've caused you.
I suppose you've been sitting here...
...trying to figure out
how to get me to a psychiatrist.
As a matter of fact, I have.
I don't know how you've put up with me
all these years.
I loved you.
My God, Emily, l don't know
how to tell you this. L really don't.
The implications are staggering.
Apparently I entered
a very primitive consciousness.
All I remember is what was
comprehensible to that consciousness.
I don't remember, not clearly,
how l got out of the tank room.
The first thing l remember are the dogs.
I followed a pack of wild dogs to the zoo.
That's how l got there.
In the zoo, l hunted down,
killed, and ate a small sheep.
I was utterly primal.
I consisted of nothing more...
...than the will to survive,
to live through the night...
...to eat...
...to drink...
...to sleep.
It was the most supremely
satisfying time of my life.
I may have killed a man tonight.
I remember...
...beating on a...
You don't know the trouble I had
getting these clothes.
I had to go down to the security office.
They want you to call
the security office right now.
There was some kind of ape loose
in your isolation tank room.
Do you know anything about that?
This ape almost killed a security guard.
You didn't bring some ape
down to that tank room, did you?
Your watch and stuff are
in your jacket pocket. You all right?
Is he all right?
Tell Mason what you've been telling me.
I want to hear Mason's views on all this.
I think Mason's views will be predictable.
My God. There it is...
...a protohuman. The first and original,
truly human form.
Tiny, perhaps four feet high,
completely furred...
...chimp-like, but erect.
No knuckle-walking. Shorter arms.
He's moving along so gracefully.
There's two, three of them.
Bipedal, tiny...
I'm killing- 'm killing a goat.
I'm killing...
I'm eating hot flesh.
I'm eating the blood of a goat.
Are you okay?
Beautiful. Beautiful.
It sounded like he was having
a bad trip to me.
Some of these tank trips
can get pretty creepy.
What the hell was that?
Did I wake you? t's Emily.
Eddie, I'm in a kind of wild panic.
I need to talk to you.
I don't know how to put this into words,
but I think that what happened to you...
...was not just
a hallucinatory experience.
I've got this gut feeling that something
phenomenological did actually happen.
That there was some kind
of genetic transformation.
I don't know why I think this,
in defiance of all rationality, but l do.
And now that l do, I'm terrified.
I mean really terrified. Petrified.
So am l.
I don't want you doing
this experiment again.
- L have to find out if it actually happened.
- Put the experiment off.
Until we understand more. Minimize risk.
There's no way you can understand
this before the event.
You may cause
irreversible genetic damage.
I don't think we're dealing with genetics.
We're beyond matter, beyond even energy.
What we're back to is the first thought.
I'm trying to tell you l love you.
I know that.
And I'm trying to tell you,
this is an all-bets-are-off sort of thing.
We may be opening a box that may
scrap our whole picture of space-time.
We might have a link to another universe.
For God's sake, Emily, you're a scientist.
You must know how I feel.
Yes, l know how you feel.
It's very late, Eddie.
Would you like to stay here tonight?
I could do with a little love
and a little reassurance right now.
You'll stay, won't you?
If l come out of that tank anthropoid,
I'll be in a primitive state...
...and impossible to relate to,
so sedate me while I'm still in the tank.
Otherwise you'll have to chase me around
and subdue me.
Okay.
I'll tell you one thing,
you come out looking like an ape...
...and I'm going over to Mass Mental
and commit myself.
If it happens,
we'll bring him down with Amytal.
What do you mean "if it happens"?
Everybody keeps saying "if it happens."
Do you think something is gonna happen?
If you do, I'd like to know.
I'm sorry. I'm just nervous as hell.
Listen, so am l.
Anything happen?
I just checked him 10 minutes ago.
Did you order chicken or turkey?
I hope chicken is all right.
I've got nearly 11.
That's more than two hours now.
I think we should stop this.
I'll tell you frankly, I'm frightened.
We could be screwing around
with his genetic structure.
- How do we stop this?
- Can you bring him down?
- He's gonna be sore.
- We should never have let him do it.
Don't know how we let him talk us into this.
We were humoring him, but he's not crazy.
And we know, deep in our hearts...
...that he may be onto something
beyond our comprehension.
Now, because l believe him,
I want this thing stopped.
Oh, Jesus.
Eddie!
No!
Eddie! No, no!
No, no! Eddie!
Oh!
Ah!
Eddie!
His signs are all good.
He'll probably sleep a day or two,
come out stuporous.
He's got a load of drugs in him.
It's not uncommon for a psychedelic
experience to whack you out.
You'd hardly call this
just a psychedelic experience.
His heart is good. His pressure is good.
I'm more worried about you
than l am about him.
I'm all right.
Of all the men in this world,
why do l have to love this one?
I can't get him out of me.
Do you know how many men
I tried to fall in love with this year?
No matter who I'm in bed with,
I have to imagine it's him.
No matter who I'm eating with
or walking with...
...there's always this pain
because it isn't him.
I'm possessed by him.
Oh, it's crazy.
I think that's the way it's supposed to be.
- He doesn't give a damn about me.
- You're the only thing he cares about...
...outside of his work.
- No, Mason.
I was never real to him. Nothing in
the human condition was ever real to him.
He's a truth lover.
Reality to Eddie is only that
which is changeless, immutably constant.
What happened to Eddie tonight,
that was Eddie's idea of love.
That was consummation. Ha, ha.
He finally got it off with God.
He finally embraced the absolute,
was finally ravished by truth...
...and it goddamn near destroyed him.
He never loved me.
You knew him as well as l did.
We were all bits
of transitory matter to him.
All right, now, you're going into shock.
I'm going to get you something.
We reached a point tonight
where physical science just breaks down.
We're in blue skies.
Tonight was history,
and what are we gonna do about it?
I'm gonna do nothing about it.
Tonight scared the hell out of me.
That tank just blew up.
Whatever happened inside that tank
released a hell of a lot of energy.
For God's sake, let's drop this goddamn
thing. I don't want to talk about it.
I can't help it.
You may want to go to sleep right now...
...but the way I feel
I don't expect to go to sleep for a year.
I'm on fucking fire.
I am in there mopping up the goddamned
tank room and l would like to know why.
Do you believe in
supernatural agencies, Mason?
No, sir, l do not.
Then what we saw tonight
was a physical phenomenon.
An inexplicable physical phenomenon.
If it's phenomenological...
...then it's explicable. I've got to know why.
Let me talk, for chrissake.
I have been in there mopping up
that tank room for three hours.
I've had all I can take.
I can tell you
what I would like to do.
We have got to repeat this
with other subjects.
We need a selective sample.
We will put up a notice
in the student union for volunteers.
- Get five or six subjects.
- This is Arthur talking, right?
Step up the doses of the drug.
- Conscience of science?
Check them against Eddie's values.
- Petitions against genetic engineering.
We could even get a grant, for chrissake!
Big, moral science of the people...
- Bullshit!
...and here you are, willing to use an
untested drug on innocent human beings.
Please stop shouting.
How are you?
Would you like to go back to sleep?
Yes.
Would you mind if Mason
had a quick look at you first?
It's a good idea.
Maybe you ought to have
a quick look at him, Mason.
Oh, l hope it isn't the kids.
Hello?
Everything's fine, Arthur. He's fine.
- Lt's Arthur. Are you fine?
- Yes.
Arthur, I'll call you back
when I'm more awake. Everything's fine.
God, I wonder what time it is.
I should call the kids.
I can't tell you
how much you mean to me...
...how much l need you and the kids.
I just wanted you to know that.
You saved me. You redeemed me
from the pit. L was in it, Emily.
I was in that ultimate moment of terror
that is the beginning of life.
It is nothing.
Simple, hideous nothing.
The final truth of all things
is that there is no final truth.
Truth is what's transitory.
It's human life that is real.
I don't want to frighten you, but I'm trying
to tell you is at that moment of terror...
...is a real and living horror,
living and growing within me now.
And the only thing that keeps it
from devouring me is you.
Why don't you just come back to us?
Hmm. It's too late.
I don't think l can get out of it anymore.
I can't live with it. The pain is too great.
Defy it, Eddie.
You made it real. You can make it unreal.
If you love me, Eddie...
If you love me- Eddie, defy it!
Argh!
Ugh!
I love you, Emily.