Passage

“Not with any degree of confidence,” Joanna said, “or consistency, and now I feel guilty I was so impatient with them.”

“As soon as you finish your account, I want to take a look at the superior auditory cortex,” he said.

“That is my account,” Joanna said. “I turned around to see where the sound came from and started back down the passage, and I was back in the lab. That’s why I asked you if I’d kicked out of the NDE.”

Richard had put down the recorder in his surprise. “How long were you in the tunnel?”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “However long it takes to turn around and take a couple of steps.”

“How long were you there the time before?”

“I don’t know, several minutes. Longer than the first time.”

Richard was already over at the console, calling up the scans. “Normal time?” he asked, and when she looked blank, he said, “Was there any sense of time dilation, of time being slowed down or speeded up?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Because you were in the NDE-state the first two times a little over two minutes,” he said, calling up arrays of numbers, “and this time nearly five.” He looked over at her. “Have you ever asked your patients how long their NDEs lasted?”

“No,” Joanna said. “It never occurred to me.” She had always assumed they were experiencing the NDE in what Richard called normal time. Some of them had talked about moving rapidly through the tunnel, and she had asked what they meant by “rapidly” to see if they were attempting to describe some sort of speeded-up sense of time, but she had never thought to ask how long they’d stared at the light or how long the life review had taken. She’d simply assumed that the duration of the NDEs matched the length of the activities they’d described. And it had never occurred to her to compare their subjective experience with the length of time they’d been clinically dead.

“What about at the end of your NDE?” Richard asked. “Was there time dilation as you were going back down the tunnel?”

“I didn’t go back down the tunnel,” she said. “I started to, and then all of a sudden I was back in the lab. It wasn’t like the other times I’ve returned. It was much more… abrupt,” she said, trying to think of a way to describe it, but Richard was back on the subject of time dilation.

“You didn’t experience time dilation the other times either?”

“No.” I need to ask Mrs. Woollam if the duration of her NDEs varies, she thought. And Maisie. Maisie’d said she’d only seen fog, and Joanna had assumed from that that her NDE had only lasted a few seconds. Now she wondered.

“Look at this,” Richard said, staring at the console screen. “The duration of Amelia Tanaka’s NDE-state varies as much as four minutes.”

Tish went over to stand next to him and look interestedly at the screens. “Maybe it’s like time in a dream. You can dream whole days between the time your alarm goes off and when you wake up a few seconds later,” she said. “I had a dream like that the other morning. I dreamed I went to Happy Hour at the Rio Grande and then up skiing at Breckenridge and it all happened in the two seconds between the guy on the radio saying, ‘It’s six o’clock,’ and, ‘More snow predicted for the Rocky Mountain area today,’ ” but Richard didn’t hear her. He went on typing, totally absorbed.

“Can I get dressed now?” Joanna asked, but he didn’t hear that either. “I’m getting dressed now,” she said, slid off the examining table, and went into the dressing room.

Richard was still at the console, staring intently at the images, when she came out. Tish was putting on her coat. “I’m leaving,” she said disgustedly. “Not that he’d notice. If you can get through to him, tell him if he wants me here before two tomorrow to give me a call.” She looked wistfully at him. “At least I know it’s not me. He doesn’t know you exist either.” Tish pulled on her coat. “There are more things in life—”

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio, Joanna thought.

“—than just work, you know,” Tish finished. She pulled on her gloves. “Happy Hour’s at Rimaldi’s tonight, if you want to ditch Doctor-All-Work-and-No-Play.”

“Thanks,” Joanna said, smiling, “but I’ve got to get my NDE recorded while it’s still fresh in my mind.”

Tish shrugged. “There’d better be more things in death than work,” she said, zipping up her coat, “or I’m not going. ’Bye, Dr. Wright,” she called gaily on her way out.

Richard didn’t even look up. “Mr. Sage’s NDEs vary by two minutes and fifteen seconds,” he said. “I’d been assuming there was a direct correlation between real time and the subjective time of the NDE, but if there’s not…”

If there’s not, then maybe brain death doesn’t occur in four to six minutes, Joanna thought. Maybe it’s shorter. Or longer.

“Can you check for references to time dilation in your interviews?” Richard asked.

“Yes,” she said, but there aren’t any, she thought. If time had seemed to slow down or speed up, they wouldn’t have said it wasn’t a dream, that it felt real.