I can’t see the other audience members, only hear one or two scuffles more distant than they should be in this small room. To their credit, nobody has pulled out their phone to ruin the effect, but I’ve already lost my mental map of them. Then I realise we’re probably not even following the same commands. I glance at the red dot once more, but I’m not going that way – I’m going deeper inside. I’m going to walk towards the sound. Because now it’s clear where I should go – there’s a mechanical grinding sound coming from a little way away. Painstakingly, I whisper-walk my way towards it, feeling the air in front of me.

So far, all they’ve done is turned off the lights, just a childhood game, and I’m terrified, my heart is hammering, and when the voice comes into my head – ‘Good. You’re doing well.’ – she’s so warm and comforting, I anchor myself to her. In less than five minutes (I realise afterwards, after analysing the experience) Metamuse has effectively stripped my natural defences and made me an acolyte. I will do anything she says.

* * *

And that, I think, is the point here. You don’t think you are the sort of person who will follow arbitrary instructions from a faceless stranger, but you are. You do it every day. You follow commands to blend in. You do what’s expected of you to stay out of trouble.

I’m not going to tell you everything about what happened in there, because you should experience it yourself if Metamuse runs this show again. And discussing it with the others who came out, it seems that either the journey is completely new for each participant, or there are several different strands, so what I experienced will probably not be what you experience. And of course, even if the script was exactly the same for everyone, the way everyone plays it would be different.

At one stage, the voice told me I’d feel a hand on my back, and I felt the hand on my back, even though there was nobody in the room. I have to admit, I was a bit terrified, but also I wanted to know where else she could touch me idiopathically.

At one stage, I sat in a sightless room, hearing perfect strangers confess their deepest shame and desire. We want to confess. We want to be judged. It takes very little to strip us down and spreadeagle us before authority. In Idiopathy the authority was benign and seductive, but I realise I would have followed orders just as docilely if they were barked as threats. I told secrets to her and to them that I thought were walled up inside me forever.

Psychotherapy gets it wrong. It’s too conscious. Instead, lock your patients in a darkened room for fifty minutes and they will dissolve.

7 ‘I even showed him my pictures,’ Petra told Helena, sliding the pie onto side plates.