Writers Write

An Unaltered State

May, 2021

Recently, I heard a persistent rat-a-tat sound at my patio door, only to find a finch knocking on the glass with its beak. In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven, the raven was tapping and rapping at his chamber door. Thanks, Poe, now I cannot write a good, bird tapping/rapping poem without being viewed as a copy cat. Poe beat me to it. (Reading audience: Comparing her skills to Edgar Allan Poe? The nerve of this one! And who does she think she is with this strange aside – Jim Gaffigan? At least, he’s funny! )

Besides, what would a finch say? Nothing compares to the loneliness and poignancy of the sole word, “Nevermore.”

There are verified accounts of Poe having struggled with alcohol, but his bouts with alcohol caused him to be in bed for several days to recover, certainly not busy with writing. He was also rumored to have used opiates. Research has shown, however, that the opiate rumor was started by a bitter Rufus Griswold, who was once miffed by a critique he received from Poe. Griswold became determined to slander and libel him after his death.

https://www.nps.gov/edal/learn/education/upload/defamation.pdf; https://eapoe.org/geninfo/poealchl.htm

Poe made himself an easy target. He mentions drugs in his writing, including the reference to nepenthe (a mind-altering narcotic) in The Raven and to opium in his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” He also mentions using laudanum in one of his letters to his friend Annie Richmond. In that same letter, however, he noted that the use of laudanum rendered him incapable of completing the errand of mailing a letter because “my reason was entirely gone.”

https://www.eapoe.org/works/letters/p4811160.htm

Was there something about drugs that coaxed such amazing and macabre work from his mind? How could that be so when he lost the ability to even mail a letter after partaking of a drug? If he loses his reason, how could Poe have written such haunting poems with amazing and complicated rhyme structure and such eerie plots for his short stories while under the influence of alcohol and/or opiates?  

That is not a road any of us should take, a road which will only cause us to lose, not enhance,  our creative abilities. People use alcohol or drugs to numb their pain, which is not productive in the long run. Partaking of legal drugs to numb physical pain, however, is a different matter.

Have you ever had nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, the go-to painkiller of dentists?  I remember once, and only once, laughing hysterically after being given nitrous oxide by a dentist, and I have no idea how much I was given. Perhaps a hint is that this particular dentist later lost his license after the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry discovered that he was inhaling the nitrous oxide on a regular basis, just for kicks. Abusing nitrous oxide is no laughing matter (insert bad pun groan here).

Years ago, my best friend Charlie was telling me about getting a crown at the dentist. I bragged that I had never had to have a dental crown. After my bragging, I have had to get two crowns. Cue Proverbs 16:18, which says “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall.” My haughty spirit got schooled!

My regular dentist had lost his manual dexterity after almost dying due to eating cantaloupe contaminated with listeria bacteria. Another dentist came out of retirement to help out in the office, and the now semi-retired dentist (SRD) is the one who put in my first crown.

SRD had a gravelly voice like that of a deranged serial killer, speaking each syllable with eerie deliberation. Perhaps, SDR spoke this way to try to create a sense of calm in his patients. For me, that could only be a calm you knew was false because his voice made you feel like a murderer had his hand in your mouth.

The good side, however, was that SRD apparently was an expert with the use of nitrous oxide for his patients. I don’t remember feeling any pain during my two-part first ever crown ordeal, although I never lost consciousness. How could I let my guard down when I was hearing that voice?

What motivates someone to become a dentist? Is it a love of teeth and gums, good and bad, plus some kind of appreciation of the thrill of finding the perfect drill in a hardware store? I’m thankful for dentists, of course. And for people, especially dentists, who know how to use drills.

Still, there is something about dentists that cause them to show up as sadists in literature. In Charles B. Griffin’s film Little Shop of Horrors, a bad dentist is involved. Later, for a musical of the same name by Howard Ashman, the song “Dentist” (written by Alan Menken) says, “I am your dentist, and I get off on the pain I inflict.”

In William Goldman’s Marathon Man, a dentist sadistically drills the teeth of a man who has been given no numbing agents or pain-killing drugs. Goldman stated that he chose his villain as a dentist due to memories of negative experiences with a dentist as a child.

I was fortunate to have an excellent dentist as a child. Dr. Reynolds was efficient and kind pediatric dentist, and all of us his children patients would get to choose a prize from a container upon leaving the appointment. The prizes in the container consisted of miniature plastic or rubber animals, and I use to think these toys made going to a dentist an adventure with a bonus.

By the time I was ready to see a dentist again in 2021 after being vaccinated with Moderna, my original dentist had retired, and SRD had returned to full retirement. I needed a second crown, though, and at least my new, female dentist had a pleasant-sounding voice.

I was given nitrous oxide prior to getting the temporary crown (part one of the crowning procedure). After I had inhaled through the mask for awhile, the dentist asked, “Do you feel comfortable yet?”

“No, I’m still nervous,” I said. My hands had been (and still were) moving constantly in an attempt to combat the nerves.

The dentist then spoke to her assistant, saying, “Turn it all the way up.”

After the nitrous oxide had been turned “all the way up,” the next thing I remember is hearing my name called. I pushed through what was going on in my brain to respond, “What?”

The assistant said, “Oh, we thought we lost you for a moment there.”

Lost me? Am I not sitting in the same dental chair? I didn’t go anywhere.

The dentist said, “Have you ever had a seizure?”

“No,” I said.

The dentist then explained that when she had come back into the room after the nitrous oxide was increased, I appeared to be having a seizure because of the way my hands were moving. I told her that I had been moving my hands. She said, “What I’m talking about was a jerking of your hands,” then she added that she and her assistance had been yelling my name loudly for a long time to get me to respond. I had only heard my name called once.

Before hearing my name called, I remember being in a deep, mental state where I was seeing texts or Facebook posts, black print scrolling by against a white screen. They scrolled by so rapidly that despite my best effort, I was unable to stop them.

I remember being frustrated because I wanted to read what they said. In the past, I was so fascinated by writing that if I would be walk down the street and see a written note on the ground, I was compelled to pick it up to read it. I think COVID-19 has cured this impulse.

Because I was now out of this deep state and talking to the dentist, I knew I was alive and going to be okay. The dentist’s talk of a seizure startled me. If those scrolls were supposed to be my life flashing before my eyes, I got ripped off.

I’m like a cat with nine lives, but they are slowly getting used up. I have survived going through a windshield as a part of a high-speed, bad-driving car chase ending in a crash. I have survived being killed purposely by EMTs to stop my heart temporarily in order to lower my heart rate. I’ve spent weeks in the hospital near death with double pneumonia. I burned my back and my right hand in a fire and was only kept from burning to death by my Super-Mom’s quick action. Then, I went into some kind of weird mode at the dentist.

I never saw a bright, white light, nor observed myself outside of my body, though (another rip-off for my near-death experiences!). And I’m glad I still have some lives left, cat-wise.

I was given oxygen for awhile after returning from the images of speedy texts/posts scrolling by, then returned to the nitrous oxide, but on a lower scale than “all the way up.” All the sound around me was amplified. I heard the patient in the next room talking about being 1/8 Kiowa Indian, and the dentist responding that she herself had a trace amount of Native American blood. At the same time, I wondered if I was imagining this because I have been inundated with cases at work dealing with Native American law.

What a strange position to be in where I am questioning if what I am actually hearing is true at the same time I am hearing it! This was an odd case of a mental “walk and chew gum” at the same time, which was odd because I am not a multi-tasker in any way, shape, or form.

I also heard the dentist talking to her assistant about an upcoming wedding. I could remember everything I heard.

Afterwards, I asked the dentist about the Native American conversation and the wedding, and I had actually heard and repeated every word of those conversations correctly. She was surprised.

Despite nearly dying or getting “lost” as the dental office referred to it, I still wanted nitrous oxide when I returned for the permanent crown. I almost looked at the option as an experiment to see if any great idea for my writing would spring forth from my brain.

I had no inspiration fall into my brain, but I also lived (without suffering through annoying, lightning-fast texts/posts scrolls), so that’s a better result.

As an experiment, when I drove home after inhaling nitrous oxide at the dentist’s office, I sat down at my computer to write. Maybe, I would be wowed later by what I wrote. I went back to read it all after a long nap and definitely enough time for the nitrous oxide to wear off. What I thought might be great writing was gobbledygook.

Now, I can tell you with confidence that the commonly-held belief that Poe’s work was inspired by an alcohol and drug-fueled brain are not true. (Reading audience: Now, she thinks she knows the inner workings of Poe’s mind and the final truth about a man who only lived to be 40, dying after issuing his last words of “Lord help my poor soul!” And she’s back to using asides like Jim Gaffigan. Can we be sure the nitrous oxide had no permanent effect on her?)

For Poe, the genius was there all along, and perhaps he would have produced even more great works without his occasional bouts with alcohol and/or drugs, which seemed to land him in bed for a few days much more than causing him to sit at his desk creating great literature.

Writing, not drugs or alcohol, is the one of the best ways I know of to handle emotional pain, which is not unique to any one person.  All of our lives are full of ups and downs. Instead of indulging in mind-changing substances, we can just write. That may be overly simplistic and ignore decades of psychological thinking, but hey, it works for me. I’m convinced it can work for you, too. (Reading Audience: Now she’s telling me what’s good for me? She’s the one who needs to snap out of it).

The moral of the story is that we can – and must – rely on ourselves in our unaltered states to be creative and put forth our best writing. Leave the laughing gas for dental procedures, like getting a crown. Whenever you write something, give yourself a royal crown to celebrate – real or imagined.

For the record, I was in an unaltered state when I wrote this. According to science, the effects of nitrous oxide go away after breathing oxygen for three minutes. The dentist had me breath oxygen for seven minutes before I left. I’m not sure why I wrote gobbledygook after the dental visit. Maybe, it was the near death experience.

And if you get a chance, check out Jim Gaffigan’s comedy routines. He really is funny.