Level 7

MAY 17

P does not understand why I am so interested in the ‘Know Other Levels’ talks. She seems to find them rather boring. I get the impression that even psychology has lost some of its fascination for her. Her main interest now is myself—as her husband.

Perhaps I should not be surprised at this—it is the way women often behave. They can concentrate all their life around the life of somebody else, around one special person. As long as P has me, or thinks she has me, she does not mind anything else, is not interested in other levels, feels quite happy on Level 7.

I wonder how she would react if the loudspeaker suddenly announced that we were all to go back up to the surface. Would it make a great difference to her?

If P’s interest in psychological problems has waned, mine has grown. Maybe her influence has brought this about: perhaps she has transferred her professional interests to me and so somehow got them out of her own system. It may well be so, for we are together a great deal. Not only does she never miss—or allow me to miss—the daily meetings which we, as a married couple, are entitled to; but she also monopolises all my time in the lounge (not that I particularly want to talk to R-747 these days) and often finds ways of seeing me on other occasions.

If I am not busy and she happens to be free too, she takes me into her psychology department, where we can talk. There we are, all by ourselves in a little room containing a very narrow couch with a chair behind it, used for psycho-analytical sessions. P makes me lie down and takes the seat behind me. She can watch me, while I look at the wall opposite me (which I do not mind). Just as if I were a patient. Except that she does all the talking and I only listen.

Sometimes I do not even listen. I just muse. I have become so used to her chatter that it does not disturb my own train of thought.

Today P is cross with me because I turned down her suggestion that we should meet in the psychology room. I said I wanted to listen to the ‘Know Other Levels’ talk. I did not mean to annoy her, but for once I wanted to have my own way, because these talks interest me. They bring something new into my life each day.