As 7:00 o’clock came around, the nurse went to give
her patient his medicine for the night. This patient had been in the hospital
for quite some time and knew the drill. She came by with a little four-ounce
water cup and a shiny blue pill. This pill was new; the patient had not taken
it before. However, that did not seem to faze him since he swallowed the pill
without looking at the color. He threw the pill back and swallowed it away.
About two hours later, the patient was asleep.
The medicine he takes always puts him a deep sleep
and before long he was in a new world that he was dreaming. Each night the
patient takes a new medicine and has a new dream. In tonight’s dream the
patient is a stonecutter who lives a very simple life. He does not have a lot
of money but he has a job and can provide the necessities. In this dream, he
travels a lot. He carries his stones all around the world and delivers them to
rich customers who bought them. Before tonight, he is always pleased with his
life and wants nothing more. He delivers a stone to a prince. The prince’s
house is huge, something he has never seen before and he is envious of it. He
wants the huge mansion, all the gold and the status of being wealthy. He cried
out, “Oh please, can I just be a prince? I will no longer have a life with so
much hard manual labor and can be the wealthiest guy in the kingdom.” The
patient awoke immediately after he declared his wish to be prince.
The patient’s
day was very routine. He woke up, ate breakfast, showered, went to therapy,
lunch, recreational time, dinner and then back to his room for the night. 7
o’clock rolled around again, and the nurse came back. This time the nurse had a
purple pill. She gave it to her patient. The patient being compliant swallowed the
pill and slowly drifted off into sleep. In this dream, the patient was the
prince he had dreamt of yesterday. He lived in the big mansion surrounded by
gold never having to work again. He was elated, but quickly became tired of
being the prince. He was constantly having to deal with issues regarding the
city and citizens. People were constantly stopping by his mansion asking for
help, money, and food. He did not know there was so much pressure on the
prince. He began to hate being the prince. He wanted to be something better
than the prince. He cried out, “Oh I wish I could be the sun. There is nothing
more powerful than the sun. I will never be bothered and still be the most
powerful thing in the world.” The patient immediately woke and continued on
with his day, just like he did every day.
Later that day, the nurse came around and gave her
patient a green pill. He swallowed it back and fell asleep. Tonight, his wish
had come true. He was now the sun, and was sitting happily in the sky. He
thought, “How cool is this? I am what gives light to the entire world. I am
never leaving.” Well, it came time for the moon to come up and for him, the
sun, to go down. He refused to go down and overruled the moon. The sun stayed
out for an entire day. Little did he know that too much sun was not good. He started
burning things and before he knew it, his entire village was on fire. “HELP! I
no longer want to be the sun!!!” he cried out. The patient was never content; he
always wanted to be someone else or something better.
He woke up the next day and continued with his day until the nurse came back
and brought him a blue pill. The patient had taken the blue pill before but did
not realize it was blue since he swallowed it without looking. He drifted to
sleep and quickly realized he had dreamt this dream before. He was in his
little simple house about to go to work for the day. As he was cutting stones,
he realized how happy he is. For once he was content with the life he had and
never wanted to be anything else. He did not have to cry out any wishes during this
dream and the patient woke up peacefully.
When
he woke this time, his nurse was standing there in the room. “I think we have
found the one, Doctor," she said. Finally, the patient’s body had accepted a
medication for his mental illness, schizophrenia. The doctor and nurse were putting the patient through a series of tests. Each pill was a new medication
and how the patient reacted in his dreams resulted in if his body accepted the
drug or rejected it. The patient fought the first pill, the blue one. He wanted
to see what was better out there and if he life would be more enjoyable. The
next pill, purple, did not work as well. The patient was still unsatisfied and
went on to the next pill, green. That pill did not work either. The patient continued to want something
better. The final pill, blue, again was the one. The patient did not want anything
better and realized he was happy with his life by not wanting to be anything
better or change his life. The decision for what medication he should be on had
been decided. The patient was regularly on the blue pill for a month. He was excelling
in multiple ways and was able to be released from the mental hospital where he
could start living his normal life.
 |
| mechanism for the brain |
Author’s Note:
I read the story
"Stonecutter" from Japanese Fairy Tales.
In this story, the main character
starts out as a stonecutter. He is constantly wanting to be the most powerful.
In this story there is a magical spirit that will grant your every wish. The
character starts wishing. He wishes to be a prince. Once he is a prince he is
still unsatisfied and wishes to be the sun. When he is the sun, he wishes to be
a cloud. After no longer wanting to be a cloud, he wished to be a rock.
Finally, he wished to be a stonecutter again. The process to me was always
wanting something better to only realize how great your life is. He went
through trial and tribulation only to realize his old life was perfect. He
eventually ended up back as the stonecutter and continued to live his normal
basic life.
My take on the story used the
same plot but just added a different aspect. I chose to keep each section of
the story where he goes through his occupations and use that as a patient's
dreams. In my story, the nurse was the spirit. I also wanted to give the story
more of a background and tie it back to something realistic. There are people
in mental hospitals every day being put on new medications and seeing what
works best for them. I thought if the reader was able to picture something
realistic it would help the reader to understand the story.
Bibliography:
Japanese Fairy Tales: The Stonecutter by Andrew Lang.
