Page Content (OCR)
126 * SET, SETTING, AND DMT This room was square, about fifteen feet to a side, and relatively quiet, being the last one on the north side of the hall. At the end of the hall was the door to a hospital stairwell, and across it, but nearer the stairway, was the lead-lined room. Directly across from Room 531 was the entrance to the bone marrow transplant room, but from our doorway, it was hard to see what was in it. We met with the hospital's clinical engineering department and made several modifications to the room. Carpenters built a cover over the tubes and hoses emerging from the panel behind the bed and a little closet below the sink to hide its pipes. Extra insulation on the top and bottom of the door more efficiently sealed the room from hallway sounds. And, after one particularly unnerving session in which the public address system blared repeatedly from the speaker in the ceiling, the electrician designed a switch, controlled at the nurses' station, that turned off the room's speaker. We could do little about the bed, because it needed to be a regulation unit, and specially built hospital beds are outrageously expensive. A wooden headboard and footboard added a somewhat more pleasant touch. However, nicer furniture made a big difference: a rocking chair and foot- rest for me, a comfortable oversized chair for Laura or other research nurses, and two visitors' chairs. My former wife, a tapestry artist, and I pored over dozens of swatches of material for the chairs before finding one that met all our needs. The design needed to be relatively soothing, but not so dull as to dampen or depress the volunteers' mood and perceptions upon opening their eyes. Another requirement was that it be consistent with the particular type of visual effects wrought by DMT, but not so stimulating that volunteers would be startled or disoriented looking at the furniture in their highly altered state. The best fit was a pleasing blue, subtly multicolored, with speckles, flecks, and patterns embedded within it. A solid light blue carpet and soothing pale blue paint covering the formerly bright white walls were the final pieces of the refurbishing effort. These changes to Room 531 nevertheless left several minor, but in- surmountable, problems. Because the room now had become almost soundproofed from the outside hall, the ceiling fan seemed louder than