Taken from:
"I hope I shall arrive soon"
Philip K.Dick
<2>
"What I will do is feed your sensory stimulation", the computer continued.
If you are conscious for ten years without
sensory
data,
your
mind will detoriate. When we reach the LR4-system, you will be a vegetable."
"Here is policy in these situations: I will feed you your own buried memories,
emphasizing the pleasant ones. This situation is not unique.
It has never happened within my domain, but I am programmed to deal
with it. Trust me. I will see that you are provided with a world."
He relaxed,
but he was terribly frightened. He had to depend totally on the goodwill of
the ship. Suppose it elected to feed him monsters?
After takeoff the ship routinely monitored the condition
of the 60 people sleeping in its cryonic tanks. One malfunction showed, that
of person 9. His EEG revealed brain activity.
" You are in faulty cryonic suspension. I can't correct it. You will
be conscious for ten years", the computer thought.
<3>
Did interstellar ships enjoy such a situation? He knew little about ships.
His field was microbiology.
(...) The ship understood it. Something had gone
wrong. The waveforms showed agitation and pain. I must get him out of his
feed-circuit or I will kill him,
the ship decided. Where does the flaw lie? Worry dormant in the man; underlying
anxieties. What has happened is that massive subliminal insecurities have taken
possession of him; the fault is not mine, but lies, instead, in his psychological
makeup.
I will try an earlier period in his life, the ship decided. Before the neurotic
anxieties got laid down.