Level 7

MAY 2

The dream has had a bad effect on me. I am upset again and my spirits are as low as ever. I told P-867 so today and described the dream to her. She is a psychologist, after all.

She said I was showing quasi-hysterical symptoms. She thought that those mythological stories of R-747’s and mine were upsetting my emotional stability. There was a connection, she suggested, between the mushroom in my story and my nightmare. I had to admit she might be right. “But the roots lie deeper,” she added. “There’s some more fundamental anxiety in you somewhere. It may be due, partly at least, to the fact that you don’t lead a normal life for a healthy man of your age.”

Does she want to scare me into marriage? If I could be sure that marriage would help me over my ups and downs, or rather my downs and downs, I would marry right away. I would even marry P-867, if a psychologist mate is the best sort to have.

I wish somebody could advise me about that. P-867 could, if she were not personally involved.

I really do not know what to do, but I am sure I cannot take many more downs. There must be a limit to mental suffering, just as there is a limit to the distance humans can dig into the earth. Seven levels down is the physical limit. How many can the spirit endure?