One being was on my right, another on my left. Within my field of vision a great deal of rushing about commenced again. The next thing I knew, was being shown a tiny gray box with a sliding lid. There was a curved lip at one end of this box, to make it easy to push it open. It was being held b a thin, graceful person whose appearance was not distinct. Was this the female again? I'm not sure. It almost seems, as I remember, that something had been done to my eyes to affect my ability to concentrate my vision. Glances around the room were quite detailed in recollection, but any attempts to steady my vision and view a particular being resulted in blurring. It would be interesting to know if this was an induced effect or something caused by my own fear of what I was seeing.

My memory of the one that came before me next is of a tiny, squat person, crouching as if huddled over something. He had been given the box and now slid it open, revealing an extremely shiny, hair-thin needle mounted on a black surface. This needle glittered when I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but was practically invisible straight on.

I became aware — I think I was told — that they proposed to insert this into my brain.

If I had been afraid before, I now became quite simply crazed with terror. I argued with them. "This place is filthy," I remember saying. Then, "You'll ruin a beautiful mind." I could imagine my family awakening in the morning and finding me a vegetable. A great sadness overtook me. I do not recall screaming, but evidently I was doing so, because I remember the next exchange quite clearly.

One of them, I think it was the one I had identified earlier as the woman, said, "What can we do to help you stop screaming?" This voice was remarkable. It was definitely aural, that is to say, I heard it rather than sensed it. It had a subtly electronic tone to it, the accents flat and startlingly Midwestern.

My reply was unexpected. I heard myself say, "You could let me smell you." I was embarrassed; that is not a normal request, and it bothered me. But it made a great deal of sense, as I have afterward realized.

The one to my right replied, "Oh, OK, I can do that," in a similar voice, speaking very rapidly, and held his hand against my face, cradling my head with his other hand. The odor was distinct, and gave me exactly what I needed, an anchor in reality. It remained the most convincing aspect of the whole memory, because that odor was completely indistinguishable from a real one. It did not seem in any way a dream experience or a hallucination. I remembered it as an actual smell.