Thoughts Gone Wrong

By Isabelle Soucy Chartier

In this captivating novel, an inventor, Dr. Turman, presents to the world the result of eleven years of vigorous planning and experiments: a device that allows people to record their thoughts. This new device is rapidly touted by the media as the invention of the decade, and it reaches a level of popularity that matches the most successful technological innovations of all time. It is welcomed onto the market with open arms, and quickly becomes the device for anyone and everyone. Yet the fame does not last as rumors of potential damage caused by this device surface. Before long, reports of thought-theft and use-related memory-loss tarnish the reputation of the device. Puzzled by these claims, Dr. Turman and the Thought Recorder team dig into the core of the matter and unravel the shocking truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453515693

Isabelle Soucy Chartier

Isabelle Soucy Chartier could summarize her passions to psychology, traveling, literature, and various forms of physical activity. She links these four spheres together in her daily activities. She would be just as likely to be found attending an overseas psychology conference, creating novel plots while running, or conducting research on the psychological impacts of exercise. Her background led her to a comprehensive view of how external sources such as the environment and divers situations affect individuals, which emerge in her writing in the form of implicit social commentaries. She now lives in Qubec, Canada, with her patient and supportive husband.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

"Tonight is an evening that will be engraved in the contemporary history of technology, as a scientific breakthrough was made public: a breakthrough that will without a doubt trigger the explosion of a new scientific era. Dr. Turman, after eleven years of testing and empirical research, has finally completed the desired invention: one that will allow for thought-recording. Indeed, the day has arrived when the previously unconsidered idea of recording our own conscious thoughts is made possible. This is an unimaginable step in this day and age’s technology, a miraculous diving board of possibilities in the fields of science, psychology, biology, and mental health, to name a few. Dr. Turman believes that this new discov—"

T he hum of silence pierces through the air as the television screen snaps blank. Ian, now with a face as blank as the monitor a few feet beyond his raised legs, sends a frozen aura of perplexity, wonder, astonishment. At that very moment, he gets sucked into the black hole of his mind, drowning amidst the invading reflections suffocating him. At that moment, he becomes truly aware of his thoughts.

CHAPTER 2

D r. Turman slips the electronic card into the lock and opens the door to the hotel room. The alarm clock glimmers a neon green 1:36 am , the only operating gadget between the tight-fit walls. As the hotel light is switched on, the shadows that had been generated by the alarm clock’s glimmer erase out of sight. It had been quite a long evening, quite a long week, in fact. Yet a grin appears at the thought of the ensuing fatigue, aware of the minimal price it was to pay for what had come out of it.

This evening, Dr. Turman’s invention has been announced to the world. Finally, after years and years of time, effort, devotion, and money, the relentless inventor has had the pleasure of publicly declaring that what was previously impossible is now achievable. Indeed, tonight, to everyone’s amazed and attentive stares, Dr. Turman voiced these words: Every one of our thoughts can now be recorded.

A massive press release campaign had targeted every news reporting media—television, newspaper, radio, or otherwise—and had definitely been fruitful. By the looks of the overflowing conference room, it could easily be deduced that every newspaper, magazine, radio station, and television network had sent at least one reporter, if not more, to record and document the event. Every inch of the room was occupied by reporters, camera crews, microphones, and lights. As Dr. Turman proudly walked up to the podium, the room fell silent—if you make abstraction of the repeated clicking of photographs being taken, that is.

Dr. Turman’s first words did cause a stir. People were obviously intrigued, interested, and brimming with questions. Every one of our thoughts can now be recorded. This statement stuck in every reporter and journalist’s mind. This statement was filmed by many and broadcast to the public as soon as the news stations received the footage. This statement was to be the title of many articles that would be printed the next day.

The press conference turned out to be much longer than had been anticipated; in fact, it was the questioning period that overflowed into the night. Never would anyone have predicted the amount of questions that the audience had for their host, and their host greeted and answered them all.

All in all, it had been a good night—no, it had been a fantastic night. The media was interested in the invention, and therefore, so too would be the public. The invention would have the spotlight it was waiting for, the spotlight it definitely deserved.

After debating whether or not Dr. Turman felt the inclination to relax and watch TV prior to going to bed, the hotel light is turned off. The overcast night prevents any brilliance of the moon from shining through the hotel window, and the alarm clock’s light regains its triumph over the room. Both satisfied and exhausted, Dr. Turman collapses onto the bed and surrenders to the call of the night.

CHAPTER 3

A stounding.

In the same, slouched position, Ian allows himself to be swept away into that enigmatic region of his mind, exploring through it as a child might run around wildflowers, all the while not daring to hurt nature’s spectre by cracking a flower’s neck simply to make a bouquet.

Look but don’t touch—

—at least not until familiar with the entity, tamed by it, part of it.

The mind;

Vague, blurry walls . . .

. . . An endless labyrinth with no definite exit; an unpredictable game of snakes and ladders. The spectacle is extraordinary. It is like standing in the core of an arena stage, though with the audience rendering the performance: an exotically eccentric performance, ordered chaos. Magical, thinks Ian. Imagine the power, the energy crammed in such an undersized cavity. If each thought were a chemically active molecule, we’d explode at birth . . .

Darling—

Screeching interruption.

Ian’s pupils dilate to adapt to the living room’s dimming light. This split-second reaction is paired with the neck’s immediate reflex to face the vibrations that had tickled his eardrum.

His mind follows shortly after. It is his wife, Sweet Amora, as he always calls her. From his stomach arose the bitter feeling of shameful treachery, a feeling unexplained—just there, and irritatingly sour. It might have been triggered by the presence of Amora’s small frame towering over his half body.

Everything fine, sweetie? You’ve been sitting here staring through the wall for the past half an hour. Are you still in your body? She smiles but is visibly concerned.

His odd guilt dissipates, and he smiles back at her. Half an hour? Rather feels like I’ve been off on a weeklong cruise. His hands reach his head for a gentle massage, perhaps in an attempt to help his mind focus on the immediate reality.

Amora winks at him. Next time you do, make sure you take me along. She gives her husband a gentle kiss on the forehead before her feet carry her towards the doorway in a decisively light cadence.

Did you hear anything about the Turman invention? he asks, impeding her heel-toe pace.

Amora angles her chin over her shoulder and pauses as she pulls back a strand of hair that had softly fallen over her eye. The thought-machine? Yes, rumours have been going around at work today. Is it official?

Ian points to the blank television set. So it seems. What do you think of it?

Her colourful irises rise towards her forehead, revealing an enhanced portion of her ivory-white sclera. Quite the space-age invention . . . sounds kind of futuristic to me. Hardly seems possible.

Ian nods. His lips part slightly, about to speak, but then seal up again. He glances through the black television set for a few seconds, and finally his lips part once more. "Do you ever think about thinking?" Aware of the oddness of the question, Ian dares to ask it anyhow.

I think about lots of things. Her forehead crunches slightly.

Ian shifts in his seat to better look at his wife’s face and eyes. Ever about that?

"Thinking?"

Yes. Is he pushing it? Naw . . . seven years of marriage would need more than an odd question to make him a complete wacko in her eyes.

Maybe I have, but I can’t recall exactly when . . . I can think about it if you want.

Man she’s sweet, he thinks.

Oh, don’t trouble yourself. I was just wondering.

She remains frozen in the doorway for quite some time. She eventually thaws and crosses over to the other room. Ian leans back in the reclining chair and on snaps the TV.

CHAPTER 4

T here seems to be an oddly short, though endless, period between the time when people are dreaming and the moment they get sucked back into reality. For some reason, before people are truly awake, reality will play around with their dreams, shape and deform them, until they realize that there’s more to it than the dream.

For Dr. Turman this morning, it is the sound of the unfamiliar hotel alarm clock that makes its way through the cracks of deep sleep: all of a sudden, the paperboy from the dream grows a beak and charcoal feathers and releases a blaring croak. Kaaa-Kaaaa! Such a scenario obviously makes no sense in the real world. That’s probably when the mind says, "Wait a minute," decides to wake up a little to better analyze the nonsensical intrusion, and affirms that indeed, reality is tugging and knocking for the brain and body to get back into the alert mode. So "wake up, body; sleep time is up." Once this is done, as what happens to Dr. Turman, you might look around confused for a second or two, wondering where you are, and sometimes even who you are. Thankfully, that is temporary. People get back to their senses soon enough and remember why the alarm was set in the first place.

Answers about the reality of the situation rapidly seep back into the mind. Where? This isn’t Dr. Turman’s home, it is a typical hotel room with wide, cozy pillows; beige, plain walls; and thick curtains that have been left open all night. Who? Today, like yesterday and tomorrow, the person that is waking up with particular difficulty is Dr. Turman, who, to facilitate the orientation in time, gets a flashback of the events of the night before. Why is the alarm clock screaming at the teeth-grinding hour of 4:30?

For Dr. Turman, a broadcast interview is waiting.

CHAPTER 5

I an, like the majority of early birds in his town, gets up every morning and turns on the television for the 6:00 a.m. live show called What to Talk About Today. It is often a bunch of irrelevant gossip about which star did this, that, or the other thing; about who’s hooked up with whom; and about who are about to break up. Whether people are eating their lunches at the cafeteria, doing groceries, or doing their business in the public washrooms, a too-large chunk of the conversations they’ll overhear will be exactly what was said on that TV show. We should wonder what people did some fifty years ago when there was no TV, or worse, back when there was no radio even. What purpose did tongues serve back then? What was there to talk about?

If such a question grabs your philosophical interest, you may be tempted to probe into evolutionary theories or create your own. You could go with the premise that animals don’t talk and still have tongues, so perhaps human tongues were only a cleaning tool (of course it allows for tasting too . . . but is pleasure a sound enough explanation for the existence of such a powerful muscle?). With the emergence of modern civilization, tongues became a stamp-licking tool, and when radio and TV came around, we decided that maybe it would be fun to talk just like they do on the radio and television set . . .

Or, humour aside, we can think of it as the other way around. Before, in the good old days—as we sometimes hear older folks saying—people had an unlimited array of things to say. Today, with TV and radio shows, why go through the trouble of selecting topics from the boundless possibilities in our minds if we can simply obey television and talk about what they tell us to talk about?

It is a lot easier when you think about it. It’s safer too; it is practically certain that nobody will frown on what anyone just said if it comes from a television show because saying that someone is wrong would be like saying that the show host is wrong. And no one would dare say that in front of anybody. But surely, we would think, not everyone conforms to this mass phenomenon of restricting one’s conversation to topics discussed on TV shows (and it is not only those who watch What to Talk About Today that are like this because at the end of the day, people can quote everything that was said on the show, whether they watched it or not). Yet a surprising amount of people do. The tricky part is that it seems to be unconscious. Ask anyone if they are part of that mass, and they’ll deny it. But someone has to be! The word does get around . . .

But Ian watches it rather as a pastime until the rest of the world wakes up. He isn’t very fond of the Hollywood realm; to him it isn’t even part of this world. He prefers the evening news; there’s better stuff to talk about. Obviously, however, there is no evening news in the morning.

Enveloped in his fluffy bathrobe, he shuffles his way to the coffee machine, measures five generous spoonfuls of ground coffee (he knows his wife appreciates having some left over for her when she gets up), pours them in the new filter, and turns it on. He has this petty routine (you tend to develop this after living for years in the same house, or with the same people—or really with yourself) of setting his favourite worn-out coffee cup on the counter before the coffee is even close to being ready, and he stands there for a minute, relishing the usual roasted smell and typical percolator sounds. It would be too long to wait there for it to be fully ready to be served, so he returns to the TV room and watches the beginning of the show.

The room’s silence is replaced by the soap opera-ish melody of the opening of the show, and the cameras swivel to present two grinning hosts.

Host 1 (a man named Joe, wearing a radiantly red tie): "Good morning, faithful viewers, thank you for joining us for another episode of What to Talk About Today."

Host 2 (a woman named Gina, with this season’s in-style hairdo): "But today’s episode of What to Talk About Today will be somewhat what I call ‘special.’ We will give a break to our movie stars and give the spotlight to a very special guest, someone that everyone will talk about today."

The female host offers a wide, teeth-showing smile to the cameras, along with a well-rehearsed twist of the head.

Host 1: "That’s right, Gina, today’s guest is an ordinary person who has accomplished the extraordinary. I am sure you have already heard about the technological breakthrough that will soon allow us to record our thoughts—"

Host 2: I certainly have, Joe! And we have the pleasure of speaking face-to-face with its inventor!

Host 1: Without further ado, please give it up for our avid researcher and inventor, Dr. Turman!

Coloured neon lights flash and illuminate an entrance in the backdrop of the set, and a squinting, long-legged woman steps through. Both hosts eagerly stand and wave her towards the vacant divan, while synthetic applause and recorded music follow her to her seat. Despite the layers of stage makeup, her forehead is glaring, and her continuous squinting hints at the light technician that he’d better dim it down a notch. The applause fades into silence as the hosts shake hands and exchange polite pecks on the cheeks of the day’s guest.

Host 1: Dr. Nerissa Turman, what a privilege it is to have you out of bed and on our show. After last evening’s official announcement of your invention, you surely did not have the most restful of sleeps!

Dr. Turman: It was short indeed!

Gina slyly shuffles through some notes to ensure that she verbalizes the accurate information.

Host 2: So the big news right now is that you have come up with a new technology that will allow humans to record thoughts. In a nutshell, could you reiterate how this is possible?

Dr. Turman: "I must begin by specifying that technically, it isn’t actual thoughts that are being recorded. The brain is a very complex organ and is not merely a network of pathways for thoughts to travel through. We have a tendency to think of thoughts as voices in our heads, but the processes of thoughts are not verbal at all. To complicate the recording task a little more, the mind processes tens of thousands of thoughts a day, a lot of which overlap at the same time."

Host 2: What, then, does your invention record?

Dr. Turman shifts to the edge of her seat, as though this new stance will favour the likelihood of getting her lecture understood.

Dr. Turman: "A thought is the result of multiple action potentials—or spurts of electricity—of varying frequency that are fired among neurons. What we therefore strive to observe is the sequence and the paths of these electrical signals that are fired. We also look at the intensity of the synapses where the neurons connect, as well as the patterns in activity of stimulated brain areas."

Host 1: In a sense, the brain is like a complex electrical circuit and you look at how and where the current goes . . .

Dr. Turman: Sort of, sure. A signal is indeed similar to an electrical current. In the same way—let us picture a light bulb—a light bulb is either on or off.

The male host, Joe, smiles playfully.

Host 1: Unless it has a dimmer.

A short moment of synthetic laughter interrupts Dr. Turman’s explanation, as she and the two host smile and nod. Joe gives Dr. Turman an apologetic glance and gesticulates for her to go on.

Dr. Turman: "Well, no dimmer in a neuron. (smiling) In a neuron—"

Host 2: A neuron is a brain cell. Just in case some of you spectators didn’t major in brain biology . . .

Gina pats her stylish hair, held up by a bottle or two of hairspray, proud to have shared this intellectual remark with her audience. She will not share, however, the fact that this clarification had been written down in her notes by one of the show’s editors who had researched such terms likely to appear in Dr. Turman’s speech. She’s the host. She deserves the credit, no?

Dr. Turman: Right. In a neuron, the same thing happens as in a regular light bulb with an on-off switch: the signal either occurs, or it does not. This is because an action potential—or electrical signal—requires the voltage of a neuron to depolarize to a predetermined minimum threshold for it to fire.

There is a momentary pause during which Gina looks at the camera with a confused squint that betrays her confident nod. Joe, not wanting time to be wasted by silence, takes over.

Host 1: It has to reach a certain level in volts. If it doesn’t reach that level, nothing happens?

Dr. Turman: Exactly. Unless it is reached, the cell won’t activate.

Host 2: Just like I won’t wake up unless the volume on my alarm clock is set at level three or more.

Dr. Turman: Good example. In the very same way, our many neurons won’t awake unless a minimum voltage is reached. This minimum voltage level is usually fifteen millivolts above its resting state. If the neuron reaches this voltage level, the electrical signal will be discharged. This happens in a fascinating series of activated gates and channels that allow ion flow into the cell’s membrane, and I could go on and on with those details, but for our purpose here today, what you need to remember is that because of all this, the neuron does one of two things: it either one, discharges the signal, or two, it keeps quiet.

Host 2: And this is what is recorded?

Dr. Turman: Exactly. Thanks to this simplistic dichotomy, we can populate a series of on-or-offs, ones-or-twos to then record the thought. Each signal is like a letter in a sentence, but a sentence in which there are only two letters to the alphabet.

Host 1: It’s like good old computer language.

Dr. Turman lifts a finger in the air and points it approvingly at the male host, glad that he understands and can draw such an accurate parallel.

Dr. Turman: In a sense it is. It’s the same type of coding: a binary code. Our machine actually uses the same decoding process that a computer does to convert binary language into our everyday language. Similarly, in order for us to read the code resulting from the recorded brain activity, our machine is equipped with a modem-like device that demodulates the codes into a written language that can be easily read and understood by any end user.

Host 2: I understand that your machine is relatively user-friendly?

Dr. Turman: Absolutely. It would defeat its purpose if only a select few programmers could understand the resulting codes!

Host 1: What will this machine look like? Is it going to be bulky? And how are we going to manage the output?

Dr. Turman: "The scanning portion of the apparatus is going to look somewhat like the current headphones used for music, except that they will be placed on the temples. (She points to her temples.) These will actually be electrodes that will each scan and encode brain activity for their respective half of the brain. It is very comparable to an encephalogram or an EEG as we know it, except that instead of having several electrodes all over the skull, only two work in a wide range to cover activity occurring in the entire hemispheres. The code is then transmitted in a wireless fashion to a handheld device with a screen that holds a compatible receptor chip. It is in this device that a miniature modem interprets the code and translates it into written text. Each thought is then stored and classified in descending order of prevalence."

Host 2: What do you mean?

Dr. Turman takes a sip of water prior to proceeding with her explanation. The fresh liquid rehydrates her throat as it slides down to her stomach.

Dr. Turman: "As I mentioned earlier, the number of thoughts we might have in one instant is beyond imaginable. Our device sorts thoughts that we are most conscious of, those we hear from our inner voice, on top of the list. Towards the end of the list, we find a series of fleeting thoughts, unconscious thoughts, as well as segments of incomplete flash thoughts."

Host 1: "What are