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.
I was really intrigued by your story. I was not sure where the story was going until the end. The use of the different colored pills was an excellent segway to the next dream/ schizophrenia episode. The picture you included works really well with your topic. The image of the pill having an affect on the patience brain fits seamlessly with your story. The only thing I thought was odd...why would the doctors take a patient of medication that had been working for a month? You don't really elude to why they would do that. There is one sentence where you have an extra word. "The patient did not want to anything better and realized he was happy with his life." The word "to" is extra I believe. I really enjoyed your story and look forward to reading more of your writing throughout the semester.
ReplyDeleteI want to say...why would the doctors take the patient off medication that was working?
ReplyDeleteI really like this twist on the original story; I think it offers a unique perspective on dreams and desires, being content, and even mental illnesses. It can take much trial and error to find the right drug combination for patients with mental illnesses, and I think this story illustrates that, whether intentional or not. I do have one question about the beginning of the story, though. You state that this blue pill is a new one that the patient had never tried before, but that it didn't faze him, but then you also state that giving the patient a new pill each night is normal. I couldn't quite tell if this was a new experiment they were trying with the patient, or something they had been doing for quite some time? That was the only part I was a little confused about. Overall I thought the story was interesting and very well done! Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteYou wrote a great story! I was honestly surprised by just how trippy it was, but you made it work pretty awesomely. The only thing I really had trouble reading with having to pause and reread at all is the last paragraph. I understand the need for a summary of the events in the story, but I honestly feel that if you just wanted to leave it at the fact that he was happier with the initial "life" than any of the ensuing experiences, then it would be much more concise and fluid.
ReplyDeleteI love that background! Your site has a strong personality to it and it goes, so far, with the story you have written. The swirls of water colors have this illusive dreamlike effect and that definitely goes with the idea of drug induced dreams. I think you could add more of an edge or human factor to the story’s index. I think it would help the reader tackle your story if you split it up more… Even just separating the paragraphs with an extra space would be better! Maybe you could change the story into the first person. Either the nurse’s perspective or the patient’s. I think it would add a more relatable edge to it instead of this crazy person taking what seems to be hallucinogens. That was very creative to change the story like that. I enjoyed reading it! I wonder how he was cured by these pills. Was he content with his waking life? Maybe you could change the image so there is more of a human element to it? I can’t tell if the pill is taking from the brain or the other way around. Overall, really good job! I can’t wait to read more.
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ReplyDeleteHi Geena!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great story. You added a lot of detail and I really enjoyed reading it. You stayed true to the original yet put a very interesting and fun twist on it that I really enjoyed. I didn't read the Japanese Fairy Tales, but I feel like I got to know something about it through your story. Good job!
I really liked your adaptation of the original story. The idea of making the story into a series of dreams / hallucinations would never occur to me, but you make it work really well! As for the background, I was wondering the whole time what kind of condition / problem the patient was going through. By the end of it, it didn't seem very important at all. I'm not sure if that was your intention, but I kind of wonder what the effect of putting the patient's condition at the beginning of the story would do.
ReplyDeleteKind of a side note, but how could the doctors know whether or not the patient "rejected" each pill? It makes sense when you look at it from the perspective of the patient, but it wasn't clear to me how the doctors would know to put him back on the initial medication that failed.
Anyway, you've got a lot of good things at work here in this story, but with some tuning, I'm sure you could make it really great!
I’m so glad you wrote something over the “Stonecutter” story. I read the Japanese Fairy-Tales to and it was one of my favorites. As you already know your story is similar to the original, but I really enjoyed the different spin you put on it. I always find it so entertaining that authors can make something so relatable and modern. I have tried to do that myself and I’m just not as good at. The dreamed induced state, via pills, is a really great idea and I would have never thought to do that with the story. I like the “evolutionary” process the patient through, but I also wander how did the doctors know that the man rejected the medication? It’s really a missing element that could make the story even more interesting! I always say more dialogue, more dialogue, more dialogue! Not in this case, I think with your story it would overcrowd the story and take away the focus of the dreams. Wonderful job!
ReplyDeleteI really like the story that you chose, and you did an amazing job in retelling it in a realistic and relatable perspective. I like how you emphasize the theme that people tend to yearn for something else better and not find happiness in their current lives without being redundant. I also like how you relate the patient’s response to each dream as the response to the new medicine. I think this relationship is very clever. In addition, you gave a lot of little details in the story, making it very descriptive, which helps me as reader to imagine the scene. I think it would be nice that you add more images in the story like a stonecutter image for the first dream, the prince image for the second dream, and etc. Also, I suggest you read for this story again because I came across some punctuation and capitalization issues, but there is no major problem in the story line. Overall, I really enjoy your story!
ReplyDeleteGeena, this story was very creative and original. I could not tell where it was going from the beginning, which kept me in suspense for most of the story. You did a great job of breaking up each new pill and dream sequence so that the story would flow but not become confusing. After reaching the end of the story, it didn't make much sense to me that a patient with schizophrenia was so compliant in a mental hospital especially when it came time for him to take his meds. Maybe if you had to re-write it, you could have him somewhat fight it in the beginning but eventually conceded when he thinks that the pills are giving him what he wants. I did like the ending where he realized having everything, including power money etc, doesn't always ensure happiness. Sometimes, we as people forget that happiness can be found in the simplicity of life and it doesn't always need to be looking for something better but instead just being happy where you are.
ReplyDeleteI always love it when people take old myths from way back in the day and revitalize them like this, putting them in modern-day settings and situations. In this case, the wishes as side-effect dreams works really well, and I enjoyed reading to see where the story would go next.
ReplyDeleteAs far as constructive criticism goes, you’ll probably want to go back through and double-check your verbs throughout the piece, because the story tends to shift tenses at different places. But the structure of the story itself looks like it’s in good shape, and I liked how nicely each different pill leads into a different section of the story, neatly separating it into the various phases. It was also nice how the first two pills corresponded symbolically to the first dreams he had; when he was sad about his position in life at the end of the first dream, that coincided with the blue pill, and in the second dream he was royalty, which tied to the purple pill. It might be nice if you switch up the color of the third pill to correspond with the sun dream in some way, but that’s totally just a suggestion.
Hey Geena!
ReplyDeleteThis story was really cool. It's such a unique take on the original. I never would have thought of telling a story through a character's dreams, but I absolutely love the idea. I also like that the different pills correspond to different dreams. You did a nice job of breaking the dreams into distinctive sections as well. I have a few critiques, but they're really small things. FIrst, I think you should do one more proofreading session. There are a couple places where the wording sounds awkward and I found some tense errors. Also, maybe consider breaking up your paragraphs a little more? I have a script writing background so I'm all about succinct paragraphs and white space. I think that style is much easier to read than the longer, blocky paragraphs. Just something to consider! Anyway, this was great and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your portfolio stories.
Hi Geena! This was a fantastic retelling of the original story. I loved how you turned a story taking place in real life into a story taking place in dreams. The whole time I was reading, I kept trying to guess why the patient was in the hospital in the first place. At the end when you find out it was for Schizophrenia, it was a big wow moment. I liked how each dream started and ended the same way. This helped the flow of the story tremendously. I would probably recommend that you break up the paragraphs a little more. Shorter paragraphs that correspond to dreams and being awake would help the flow a little more. It can be a little difficult to read when there are no structural breaks. Instead the days and nights seem to run together a little more than they should. Other than that, it was a great story!
ReplyDeleteWow! This was a great story! It was very original how you found a way to incorporate the different elements of the story into different pills. You could take this topic and incorporate it into different patients and stories. It would make for an interesting portfolio if you went through different patients and treated their different symptoms with these pills! I really like how you told the story from the perspective of the patient I think it gave us an interesting take on the dreams and the reality of schizophrenia! Another thing that might help this story is breaking the story into section by the pill he is taking. If you use subheads that might help break up the length of the story and make it easier to understand. I really hope you continue on with other patients. I look forward to reading more!!
ReplyDeleteHi Geena!
ReplyDeleteI thought your choice of adaptation to The Stonecutter was very interesting. I was very intrigued to find out what was happening when he was taking these pills. I also couldn't help wondering why he was taking the pills and was surprised by the diagnosis at the end. I thought that this was a very good idea in keeping the reader intrigued; by not giving away too much in the beginning and then finally answering the questions at the end. I also did an adaptation of this story and I really like the path you chose to take with it. I would have never been able to think of something as unique as this. The only thing that I would suggest would be to proofread it again. There were a few places it seemed a word was missing or at the end of a few words it looked like you put the wrong letter, like "citizend." That is just me trying to give you some type of feedback because your story was very good overall. I really enjoyed it. Great job!
Hi Geena!!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your story based upon The Stonecutter. I found it very similar to another fable about a Brahman and rice pot. The Brahman always wanted to trade what he had for something better, only to realize that what he had was sufficient enough. I think its neat that the same moral of the story can come across in two different cultures. I think your story was very well written and provided a call to action to its reader to wake up and realize that they are who they are for a reason. Your story was very enjoyable to read, it almost reminded me a little bit of Alice in Wonderland when she eats and drinks all of the different potions and changes size. Overall, great job. Looking forward to reading more.
This is really really interesting, because I was going to make my comments about giving us some more information about said patient whose journey through dreams we're following, but you did that really nicely there at the end! It was a bit of a suspenseful revelation for the reader. I really enjoyed that. I wonder if maybe we could get a little more information about our patient?
ReplyDeleteYour story really is very creative and very well done. This is definitely not anything that I was thinking of when I read this same story, so to see it transformed like this was really enchanting. I think a good overall edit of some grammatical things and some variation in verbs and maybe some more descriptive details would just make this story beyond perfect! Again, I have to applaud you, as this is really reaaaallly well put together :) great job!! I hope to read more in the future!
Wow, this was such a cool story. I saw the description from the class list and immediately clicked on it! It is so cool how each pill gave him a different kind of dream every night. So creative! The ending was a cool twist too. I knew he was sick, but I just assumed he had broken a bone or something. I really like how it all comes together at the end and makes a full circle. He learns a life lesson during these dreams, which is really neat. I think your portfolio is going to turn out really nicely if all of the stories have a twist like this one! It almost reminds me of the movie Shutter Island. He thinks everyone else is crazy throughout the movie, but he is actually the crazy one. Your character just needed a push in the right direction to see what he was happy with!
ReplyDeleteThe way you modernized the story really helped me understand it better. Also, the way you changed the spirit in the original story was creative. The transition between dreams was well written. The idea of pills changing dreams was a wow moment for me. It is such an interesting idea. And in the end, when the message was given, everything was tied together.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if his dream ended right after the narrator cried, “HELP! I no longer want to be the sun,” or if he saw more destruction of his village. I guess what I am asking is if he had control over his dreams while on the pill. Aside from this, considering it was more modern, perhaps he should live in a city and not a village.
Hi Geena,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story, I loved how original it was. As I read, I did not really know what to expect from these colorful pills, it made me want to read more and I could not wait to reach the end. Now that I have finished reading, I am amazed how nice the story was actually. Even the end was nice because it reminds us how we humans are, we always want more and we are never satisfied with what we have… Unfortunately, it is the truth, because either we are rich or poor, we would always want much more. However, I have to admit that if I was him, I would have been happy with the second pill. Anyway, I am thankful not to have schizophrenia. Overall, I really enjoyed your story and I look forward to read your future posts.
This story has such a cool concept, and it definitely feels like your own. I like that you adapted your version of the story, but still kept elements from the original. At first I thought the patient was able to control his dreams, like he was lucid dreaming, but it ended up being the pills. I had wondered why he always took different colored pills, but it all came together in the end. I felt bad for the patient not being able to leave the hospital, but I was glad that he became better and was able to go home in the end! Great job!
ReplyDelete