If I only had a brain...
I suppose it is not so much that no two brain MRIs are alike. It is more that technology advances.
The last brain MRI I had was around three years ago. I remember that it sounded rather like being trapped under a steel deck with 50 tons of scrap metal being dumped on it.
This one was different. They didn't even bother to suggest that I bring a CD: they knew perfectly well that it would be up against too much competition.
I wish I could write music, because I would be writing this one down, not blogging about it. If you take the different image experiences as movements, half of them would have been prize-winning club techno, needing only a stronger back beat. The other half were minimalist concert music, much like that written by a childhood friend, John Adams.
The music was nearly all-absorbing. I must explain for the uninitiated that in a brain MRI, you have two means of communicating with the outside world: one is a little bulb that you can squeeze if life in there gets to be too much. The other is a tiny mirror that does little more than reassure you that there is an outside world.
The view out of my mirror was dominated by the reflection of one end of the machine. I found myself watching a strange animated head that looked like something from South Park. Having nothing better to do (apart from lie perfectly still for an hour and a quarter), I named it MiRIon. Lame, yes, but not bad for someone trippin' on brain dye.
I don't know if I should be pleased or sorry, but I found out at the end that MiRIon was the offspring of a large logo incised into the visible end of the MRI machine. Corporate culture pursues us even into our hallucinations.
The last brain MRI I had was around three years ago. I remember that it sounded rather like being trapped under a steel deck with 50 tons of scrap metal being dumped on it.
This one was different. They didn't even bother to suggest that I bring a CD: they knew perfectly well that it would be up against too much competition.
I wish I could write music, because I would be writing this one down, not blogging about it. If you take the different image experiences as movements, half of them would have been prize-winning club techno, needing only a stronger back beat. The other half were minimalist concert music, much like that written by a childhood friend, John Adams.
The music was nearly all-absorbing. I must explain for the uninitiated that in a brain MRI, you have two means of communicating with the outside world: one is a little bulb that you can squeeze if life in there gets to be too much. The other is a tiny mirror that does little more than reassure you that there is an outside world.
The view out of my mirror was dominated by the reflection of one end of the machine. I found myself watching a strange animated head that looked like something from South Park. Having nothing better to do (apart from lie perfectly still for an hour and a quarter), I named it MiRIon. Lame, yes, but not bad for someone trippin' on brain dye.
I don't know if I should be pleased or sorry, but I found out at the end that MiRIon was the offspring of a large logo incised into the visible end of the MRI machine. Corporate culture pursues us even into our hallucinations.
Labels: brain MRIs, composer John Adams, minimalist music, techno, Wizard of Oz
posted by Uncle | 22:50
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