The Man With Two Brains

Lucas: Something very unusual happened to Irish Grove resident Sam Gunderson in April. Something so unusual, says Dr. Michelle Weaver of the Massaraty Asylum, that while he was originally disagnosed with a strange dual-personality disorder, his case has since been discovered to be even more bizarre.

     Gunderson's transformation began the afternoon of April 3rd. A retired English teacher from Irish Grove High, he spent much of his time walking in the woods to the west of town. On this particular day, he was exploring the abandoned rock quarry just south of the woods. His journal reports:

     April 3, 1997. Went down to the quarry today. Even though this is a man-made gash in the Earth, I still find it beautiful and compelling. Like the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale, one can see history in the bands of rock; one can even find fossils in chunks of stone that litter the quarry floor and walkways. As always, though, I had to watch my step. Some ledges are frail, and rockslides aren't all that uncommon. And just last week I saw a snake near the pond.

     Ah, that's the big news today. The pond. At the lower end of the quarry is large pond, maybe as far across as half-acre. I'm not really sure how deep it is, and I don't know if I want to know after what happened to me this afternoon.

     I was walking along the north face of the pond when I found some beer cans floating in the water. Damn high-school skinny-dippers, no doubt. So I climbed down a little embankment to try to fish the cans out. That's when I slipped and fell in.

     Now I'm not normally a good swimmer by any means. But weighed down with heavy pants and anorak- I could barely stay afloat. At one point it felt like my lungs were being shredded. I couldn't drag my head up out of the water, and was tiring fast. Then I saw something that almost made me forget that I was drowning! From below me in the very depths of the pool was a cluster of lights, muted and soft in the water. There were five, I think, and they swirled around each other, forming weird star shapes and trailing ghostly after-images. They moved toward me. I don't know how big they were for sure, but I'm guessing about softball sized. Finally, I blacked out.

     I came to on the gentle southern bank of the pond. I coughed up more water (there was already a huge puddle under my face) and thanked my lucky stars I had survived. Even now I wonder if those will-o'-wisps I saw were nothing more than the product of an oxygen-starved brain. But somehow, deep inside, I don't think so.

     Several days later, Gunderson strange experiences began. According to his own testimony and that of the people of Irish Grove, Gunderson was developing superhuman powers. A week after the incident, he was playing darts with his friends at the Boar's Head, a local watering hole. That night, Gunderson could not lose a single game of cricket, much to the amazement of his buddies, who described him as normally having "the dexterity of a stump." Wanting to test Gunderson, long time friend Edward Feen suggested Gunderson try juggling the darts. It took much cajoling, but finally Gunderson agreed. By the time he was done, he was juggling fourteen darts at once, much to his own amazement.

     Over the next couple of weeks, Gunderson visited the Boar's Head less and less. But when he did, he amazed his friends with new tricks that boggled the imagination. Not only could he hit a bulls-eye on the dart board any time he wanted to, but he let his friends throw darts at him---and he would catch every one, without so much as a scratch. He could hold any object and determine its weight within two ounces. Perhaps most astoundingly, he could put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle in twenty minutes---blindfolded. In his journal, Gunderson noted the continuing dramatic increase in his agility and his senses. His sense of touch became exceptionally acute, and in his journal described the feel of sandpaper as "an overwhelming sensation. Such gaps between grains. So much space between matter." His kinesthetic sense also improved, and he could perform complex actions like cooking with his eyes closed and never spill or break anything. According to Gunderson, "I knew where my body was at all times. I could almost feel objects when I got close to them. Amazing."

     On the morning of the 17th, Gunderson awoke feeling exhausted, even though he had slept almost nine hours. He could not believe his eyes when he looked out the kitchen window. There in the back yard was a three-foot high circular plateau made of earth and wood. Upon investigating further, Gunderson saw that the top was completely smooth except for two copper wires that had been stuck into the center of the small plateau. The formation measured ten feet in diameter. More disturbing than the presence of this oddity in his back yard, wrote Gunderson, was the fact that the tools used to build it (shovels, trowels, hammers and the like) were still scattered about it. And they were his tools.

     Gunderson was somewhat worried. Was this a prank that someone was trying to pull on him? And if so, how did they get into his garage to get his tools? His house was still locked when he woke up. He supposed that such a thing could be done while sleepwalking, but this seemed rather excessive.

     The next morning the thing in his backyard was bigger and more elaborate. Now sheet metal strips were encircling the base of the small plateau, and the copper wires on top had been fused to a series of light bulbs held in a makeshift wood and glass pyramid. Certain boards poked out of the sides of the mound like fins. At this point, Gunderson considered tearing the structure down. Instead, he rented a video camera and set it to record that night's backyard events.

     The next morning Gunderson reviewed his video tape. Sure enough, he was there on video. He looked awake---his eyes were open and his body moved normally, not stiff or lumbering like most sleep walkers. He moved with exceptional grace and speed, wrapping chicken wire into a cone and placing it on top of the structure, so that the tip of the cone was over nine feet in the air. Buckshot was poured into a new hole in the ground at the base of the structure, then old radio parts were entwined with the chicken wire. Gunderson began to get scared, and wondered if his nocturnal activities had anything to do with his newly-developed powers. He decided that day to go see a doctor, but wished to destroy the monstrosity in his back yard first.

     He couldn't. In fact, he found that he couldn't get any closer than ten feet from the object before his body would simply fail to respond. No amount of willpower would allow him to take another step forward.

     That afternoon he checked into Massaraty Asylum. Dr. Michelle Weaver, clinical psychologist and neurobiologist reports that Gunderson's mental health was deteriorating rapidly. Weaver wants readers to know that breaking patient confidentiality is necessary, considering Sam Gunderson's amazing story.

     "When Mr. Gunderson first came to us," she says, "he was understandably agitated. He had difficulty describing his sleepwalking episodes and would lapse into a seizure of absence during which his eyes watered and blood pressure rose. Then it would abate and he'd go on with his story. I don't think he had any idea what was happening to him during these lapses."

     Later it was discovered that when Gunderson fell asleep, a remarkable change would take place. A few moments after monitoring devices indicated he was asleep, Gunderson would sit up and look around the room blankly. Still asleep, he would then get up and investigate his room to try to find some way out (naturally his room kept locked at this time for his own safety). He would also murmur unintelligibly, sometimes emitting high shriek that warbled slightly. Once he tried to break the door down with his shoulder so violently that he had to be restrained. Since then Gunderson has been strapped down at night.

     Near daybreak, Gunderson's manic incarnation would settle down and finally fall asleep. Then, a few seconds later, Gunderson would again wake up, this time lucid and having no memory of what happened the night before.

     Dr. Weaver is mystified. "What we have here, I think, is an individual who's body's neural network is performing brain functions by itself, without the brain and central nervous system. It may sound ludicrous, but I'm beginning to believe that man's arms, legs, even his stomach, are now wired for thought. His body is conscious."

     It seems at this point that while awake, signals from Gunderson's brain and his body-brain are at odds, although his brain usually wins out. That is, until he tries to talk about the object in his back yard or the lights he saw in the quarry pool. His speech ability becomes inexplicably impaired and he lapses into a short silence. But when Gunderson sleeps, the body-brain gains complete control.

     Not much progress has been made beyond this point by Dr. Weaver and Massaraty Asylum. On a positive note, Sam Gunderson's condition doesn't appear to be getting any worse, and his neural system has undergone no further changes. And still no more reports have come in about the mysterious lights in the depths of the pond in the old quarry. Further reports will be made if the situation changes.