“I am quite sane,” Bruno said. “I think.”
“Sure you are, now. You’re getting over that explosion. You’d been building up an anxiety neurosis, and the therapy made it blow off. Just how, I don’t understand. The electronic patterns of the mind aren’t in my field. All I know is that the experiment with Gregson removed the safety blocks from your mind, and you lost control for a while. Thus the hallucinations, which simply followed the path of least resistance. Point One: You’re afraid of insecurity and unsureness, and you always have been. Thus your dream follows a familiarly symbolic pattern. At any time the sureness of waking may vanish. Point Two: As long as you think you’re dreaming, you’re dodging responsibility!”
“Good Lord, Ken!” Bruno said. “I just want to be sure I’m awake!”
“And there’s absolutely no way you can be sure of that,” Morrissey said. “The conviction must come from your own mind and be subjective. No objective proof is possible. Otherwise, if you fail to convince yourself, the anxiety neurosis will grow back into a psychosis, and—” He shrugged.
“It sounds logical,” Bruno said. “I’m beginning to see it pretty clearly. I think, perhaps, this clarification is what I needed.”
“Do you think you’re dreaming now?”
“Not at the moment—certainly.”
“Swell,” Morrissey said. “Because the conglobulation of the psych between the forever and upstriding kaleeno bystixing forinder saan—”
Bruno jumped up. “Ken!” he said, dry-throated. “Stop it!”
“Fylixar catween baleeza—”