The Fifth Rule of Ten

by Gay Hendricks

  “Please.”

  He opened the bathroom door. A ceramic water dispenser sat just inside, on a stand. He filled two glasses and set them on the coffee table. He claimed the chair across from mine.

  My throat was gritty. I took a sip of water.

  “Relax, Ten,” Eric said. “I promise I don’t bite.”

  I inhaled deeply. On the slow exhale my shoulders lowered.

  “That’s good,” Eric said. “Most of my clients forget to breathe.”

  I studied the twisted yarns of the rug, trying to decipher a recognizable pattern.

  “Ten?’

  “Yes,” I said to the floor.

  “When you look at me, what do you see?”

  I raised my eyes. The air swirled thick with something resembling dust motes, but the particles were transparent, as if made up of bits of air.

  “I . . . I can’t really see you,” I said. My heartbeat started to race. “I can barely see you at all.” I gulped down half the water in my glass.

  “That’s fine,” Eric said. “And understandable. You don’t trust me right now. I don’t blame you. Why should you?”

  I pulled the list from my pocket. My hands were damp, my fingers clumsy as they unfolded the lined yellow paper with its bumpy chronicle of deterioration.

  I latched onto the dream first. Therapists loved dreams, right?

  “I have this recurring dream,” I said. “About a tower. When it first started, maybe five or six years ago, I felt like it was there to help me. And it did at first. I asked it for guidance, and it led me to solutions for a couple of cases I took on.”

  “You interacted with it. So, a lucid dream?”

  “I suppose so, yes.”

  “About a tower.”

  “A tower. And my father’s usually in it, or lately my mother. And there’s this voice that talks to me, it’s really, really close, like someone’s mouth is pressed to my ear. Sometimes the voice even wakes me up. I used to have the tower dream maybe once every six months. Now it’s every few days.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry, can you open the window? It’s kind of stuffy in here.”

  Eric moved to the wall and cranked a handle on one of the sills. The framed window swung outward, leaving a screen in place. The smell of jasmine invaded the room, sickly sweet. I felt ill.

  “Also,” I said, “I’ve been having these, these attacks. Where I feel completely trapped, and I can’t seem to breathe. I wrote down a list of triggers. I mean, it’s pretty random, but . . .”

  I cleared my throat and went to read my list, but the words looked like gibberish.

  The space behind my eyes pulsed, and I was hit with a fist of dizziness.

  “Ten.” Eric’s voice came from far away. “It might help you to look at me.”

  His face floated behind the visual barrier of swirling matter. His features were in pieces, like a Picasso painting.

  “Look into my eyes,” he said.

  “Can’t breathe,” I gasped.

  “Yes,” he said. “You can.”

  I focused on his eyes. His pupils were steady pinpoints of safety.

  Slowly, my breath returned to normal.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me but it has to stop. I’m becoming incapacitated. This is affecting my work. Julie and me. Everything.” I stood up.

  “Can you think back to when it all started?”

  I started to pace. “The panic attacks? Maybe eight months ago, maybe a little longer. At first, they barely affected me. Just a little dizziness now and then. I chalked it up to hypoglycemia.”

  “Anything else change in your life around then?”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Only everything,” I said.

  “Ahh.” Eric said.

  I sat back down in the chair.

  “Julie?” Eric’s voice was so kind.

  “Julie. Among other things.”

  “I’m going to take notes. Do you mind?”

  I shook my head. Eric flipped a wirebound notebook to the first page and plucked a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket.

  “Old school,” he said. “I think better when I write things down.”

  “I’m the same.” I was feeling better, suddenly.

  He jotted notes as I described the sequence of events over the past year—the harrowing trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina triggered by the shocking discovery that Bill had an illegitimate son. How affected I was by the fallout, the near-demise of Bill and Martha’s marriage. And yes, the arrival of Julie during that same time, reengaging with her, merging households, asking her to marry me.

  The dread I woke up with now, almost every morning.

  “Dread? Can you be more precise?”

  “I feel as if I’m underwater. Every move is like dragging a heavy load of stones behind me.”

  “What’s happening to your breath right now, Ten?”

  I took a moment to check. “What breath?”

  “Exactly.”

  I reintroduced my lungs to the magic of oxygen.

  “Any idea when you might have felt dread like this before?”

  Dorje Yidam. It took all my strength not to jump up again. I gripped the arms of the chair.

  “Let’s leave that for now,” Eric said, his voice soothing.

  I took another sip of water.

  “I’m working you pretty hard. Do you want to take a break?”

  “No!” My vehemence surprised me. “No,” I repeated. “There’s more. I feel like I’m being watched. Followed, Eric. All the time. At the airport the other day. Driving to the temple yesterday, and afterward, inside Ganden Gyatso. I can’t shake the feeling that someone or something is after me.”

  “After you?”

  “Yes. Someone who wishes me harm. And I can’t completely discount the feeling, because in the past when I’ve had it, I’ve been right more times than I’ve been wrong.”

  Eric wrote down a few more things. He glanced at a round wall clock hanging above his desk. I did the same, and was shocked to see how much time had passed. My entire body clenched.

  “My next client canceled, right before you got here,” he said. “I don’t always recommend this, Ten, but I’m thinking we should consider having a double session.”

  My chest muscles released their clutch. “My breath seems to agree,” I said. “Which is weird. A few minutes ago every cell in my body wanted to get up and leave.”

  Eric clapped his hands. “What a pleasure this is!”

  I must have looked as confused as I felt.

  “To work with someone like you,” he said. “Someone who’s not only willing to change, but open to the idea that mind and body are equal partners when it comes to healing. Well done, Ten!”

  I basked in his approval and felt the first small stirrings of hope.

  “So you can help me with this stuff? The panic attacks? The paranoia?”

  “I will do my very best,” he said.

  I had to smile at that.

  Eric raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “I say that to my clients, too. To reassure them, when I can’t promise anything.”

  “Caught. But only because it’s not just up to me.” Eric leaned forward, his voice serious. “Therapy isn’t a quick fix, Ten. These issues of yours didn’t start eight months ago, or even eight years. The seeds were planted long ago, and the roots reach deep. They won’t be resolved in a day, or even a month.”

  “I know that.” I swallowed back a flutter of panic. “But what if I can’t . . . ?”

  Eric raised his hand. “That said, I think I can help you, at least with some of the overt symptoms you’ve been experiencing.”

  “Really?” A thought invaded. “I’m not interested in taking drugs.”

  Eric nodded. “Even if you were, I’m not that kind of doctor.”

  “But you still think you can help me?”

  “I believe so. I’m a generalist, remember? I like to mix and match modalities, depending on the client. So yes, I can address the symptoms short-t
erm. Long-term solutions will require a deeper commitment on both our parts. But we don’t have to make that decision right away.”

  I focused on the words short and term. I clarified. “You’re saying there’s something you can do quickly. To help with the panic, and the nightmares.”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, today?”

  “Yes. If you’re willing.”

  “How?”

  “It’s a form of hypnotherapy. I’ve had great success with it in the past. We’ll use your own subconscious to guide us there.”

  “Guide us where?”

  “Back into the tower.”

  CHAPTER 28

  We took a short break. Eric left the office to go into the house, and I stepped into the bathroom. I met my eyes in the mirror as I washed my hands.

  “You are getting sleeeepierrr . . .” I said, but the joke fell flat.

  I walked outside. Sunbaked paving stones warmed the soles of my feet through my thin cotton socks. The sprig of jasmine had turned brown and curled in the Buddha’s palm, but the scent was still heady. I powered up my phone and checked for messages—there was a text from Julie, asking me to call her when I was done, but that was it.

  I walked back inside and took a seat. Eric joined me almost immediately. He pushed the coffee table to one side and moved his armchair a foot or two closer to me. He sat, hands clasped in his lap. He seemed utterly at ease.

  “So how does this work?”

  “Pretty simple, really,” Eric said. “I will guide you into a relaxed state of awareness, and from there you and I will explore the troubling aspects of your dream. Let’s see if we can restore some balance.”

  I shifted in my seat. “I should tell you, I’m not great at giving up control.”

  Eric shrugged. “If you’re not susceptible to hypnotic suggestion, you’re not. But the fact that you’ve expressed a willingness to try, coupled with your long-term practice of a concentration technique and your self-reported sensitivity to your environment makes me think you have nothing to worry about.”

  I was at least as worried the hypnosis would succeed as I was that it would fail, but some things were better left unsaid.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Eric leaned back in his chair. I did the same.

  “We all dream,” he began. His voice was soothing. “Every night, even if we don’t remember our dreams the next morning. Most dreams are composed of flotsam and jetsam, bits and pieces of our days carried over into our sleep. People, places, things: everything that has left an imprint. But sometimes the events and experiences that make up our life carry a little more weight—actions left undone, expectations unfulfilled. An emotional need that is aroused but left unsatisfied. Then, our dreams step in to complete the circuit.”

  Eric’s quiet voice seemed to invite my muscles to relax, one by one.

  “Maybe something is confusing to us. Puzzling, or perhaps even frightening. Or something threatens us, whether or not it is real. Then our unconscious mind longs to complete the pattern, and creates a ‘bad’ dream to do so. It thinks it’s helping, but the solution only adds another layer of problem. Do you follow me?”

  “Yes.” Eric’s voice was like balm, adding layers of delicious weight to my body. I sank deeper into the chair.

  “Good,” he said. “So the more we take conscious steps to ease our anxiety during the day, and the more we actively problem-solve any challenges, the less likely we are to have nightmares. Yes?”

  “Yes.” My eyelids drooped. I forced them open. The air grew dense, but this time the experience was pleasant. Like being blanketed in calm.

  “That’s it . . . And you can focus your attention inside and just, yes, just close those eyes right now . . .”

  I closed my eyes with a soft groan of relief.

  “That’s it . . . And sometimes a certain dream comes anyway, and then we can assume it may have an even deeper purpose. We don’t want to dismiss such a dream, do we? We want to bring it closer. It wants so much to help us, you see. Yes?”

  “Yes.” My breath was deep and slow.

  “Good . . . Now, as you prepare to become very relaxed . . .”

  If I get any more relaxed, I’m going to fall off the chair. A bubble of hilarity formed in my throat, and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing.

  “That’s it,” Eric’s voice said. “Feel the joy . . . the pleasure . . . And this dream of yours, it wants to support you. To help you. It is an expression of your imaginative mind, such a wonderful mind, the same mind you can now draw upon to notice a bright green square, vivid green, right in front of you, like a beautiful screen, yes?”

  A glowing square of neon green floated in front of my mind’s eye, wafer thin. Close enough to pluck from the air. I’ll bet it tastes like fresh lime. A tart flavor of citrus spread across my tongue.

  “That’s it . . . and just beginning to relax with this inward focus . . .”

  Eric’s voice swam in and out of my consciousness, like a glowing eel. The tang faded.

  “. . . and sometimes you will see the green square clearly and sometimes you’ll just know it’s there . . . that’s it . . . and what if that bright green screen could change and become a fiery red triangle?”

  The triangle was crisp and red, vibrant where it hung. And then it shifted into a circle, deep sapphire, shimmering, radiating healing blue light . . . and I was in the middle of somewhere but no, I was nowhere except the reality of knowing and inside the knowledge of my intuition and deeply relaxed but also deeply aware and far, far away in the distance, I saw the tower again—I loved that tower so much and I started to walk toward it and a great feeling of euphoria came over me the answer was in the tower and I was going to walk inside the tower and climb up the steps and finally reach the top and find it.

  “That’s it,” from miles away. “That’s it . . .”

  I flew up the steps, light as a feather. And at the top there was a figure. I couldn’t see who it was yet. A hood was pulled low over its face. I wasn’t sure I liked this person. And I frowned.

  “And you can stop climbing whenever you want to, you can move that old dream of the tower as far away as you want, you can put it onto that screen over there . . .”

  The figure in the tower was reduced to an image on the thin screen, a distance away. It started to dance, a monkey dance, arms and legs lifting. Silly monkey! It doesn’t want to hurt me, it’s my friend! It wants to play! My laugh was light, like a child’s.

  “That’s it . . . How wonderful to feel the joy that waits for you in the tower.”

  I was back inside the room at the top. The figure reached up and removed the hood.

  Everything went black.

  “Ten? Tenzing?”

  I opened my eyes.

  Eric was smiling at me.

  “Not susceptible at all, are you?”

  “What happened?” I blinked a few times. “I feel a bit strange.”

  “You did it, my friend. You embraced your fear. Literally.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “First of all, how do you feel?”

  I felt into my body. “Light,” I said. “Spacious. But also grounded somehow. I feel okay.” I elaborated. “I feel like myself. Which is strange. I mean, who was I before?”

  Eric nodded. “I have this client. She loves to meditate more than anything. Her life isn’t that great, mind you, but her meditations are spectacular. The other day she couldn’t wait to tell me about an out-of-body experience she’d had that morning.” Eric smiled. “I told her my job was to bring her fully into her body. She wasn’t too happy with me, but it’s the truth. Everything I do is about returning you to you. To my mind, there’s nothing more spiritual than understanding and accepting your own in-the-body experiences.”

  “The Buddha would agree.”

  Eric cocked his head. “Can you recall what happened?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “How about
now?” Eric reached over and touched my shoulder.

  And I was back in the room, and the figure turned to face me.

  He reached up and removed the hood. His head was shaved. A blackish shadow marked the hairline on his scalp. He smiled. He was 19 and strikingly handsome. His eyes were dark and flecked with gold. Muscular, lean, a sleek greyhound of a young man. His smile celebrated me as if I were a treasure. “Brother,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

  Nawang?

  “Nawang,” I said out loud. “Oh.”

  “Yes.” Eric looked down at his notes. “That’s the name you used. Who is he?”

  My eyes filled. Part pain, part relief. “I’m . . . he’s . . . Nawang is my brother. Half brother, technically,” I said, “at least, he seemed to think so.”

  “I see,” Eric said. “How interesting. Am I right in remembering that when you moved here, you said you were an only child?”

  “I thought I was.” Vague images shuttled by: a flash of a three-sided dagger. Yeshe and Lobsang and I fleeing the prayer hall. The city of Dharamshala in flames. Nothing coherent, just a jumble of faint impressions.

  “I don’t believe this. I must have pushed Nawang completely out of my mind.” Another memory arose, this one clearer. “He left the monastery the same summer I was expelled. I was only twelve at the time. Something . . . something pretty bad happened, a kid died in the village. An Indian boy, from one of the local tribes and I think . . . I think they blamed me. There were riots. I had to leave Dorje Yidam right away. A few months later my mother died.” My voice became matter-of-fact. “So I came back.”

  “I’m sorry. That sounds like a very painful time.”

  I shrugged. “Not really. Like I said, I can barely remember what happened.”

  “The mind does what it must to help us survive.”

  “I’m still not sure Nawang even existed. No one at Dorje Yidam ever mentioned him again, or anything else about my expulsion. My father’s orders. And I sure wasn’t going to bring it up.” I tried for a lighter tone. “So what do you think, doc? Do I have a brother, or is he just a figment of my imagination?”

  “It’s not what I think that matters. It’s how you feel. As I’m sure you know, significant characters in our dreams, imagined or not, also represent aspects of our own psyche. That said, I’m guessing he’s real. And happily for both of us, there are others you can ask, some of them currently staying right downstairs.”