Astounding British Edition, Vol. 6, No. 8 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DREAMS ARE SACRED , By PETER PHILLIPS A new English author presents a suggestion for curing the schizo who retires from reality into his own world of dreams. Louse up his dreams! a” WHEN I was seven, I read a ghost story and babbled of the consequent nightmare to my father. “They were coming for me, Pop,” I sobbed. “I couldn’t run, and I couldn't stop ‘em, great big things with teeth and claws like the pictures in the book, and I couldn't wake myself up, Pop, I couldn’t come awake.” Pop had a few quiet cuss words for folks who left such things around for a kid to pick up and read; then he took my hand gently in his own great paw and led me into the six-acre pasture. He was wise, with the canny insight into human motives that the soil gives to a man. He was close to nature and the hearts ‘and minds of men, for all men ultimately ~ depend on the good earth for sustenance and life. He sat down on a stump and showed me a big gun. I know now it was a heavy Service Colt .45. To my child eyes, it was enormous. I had seen shotguns and sporting rifles before, but this was to be held in one hand and fired. Gosh, it was heavy. It dragged my thin arm down with its sheer, pm weight when Pop showed me how to old it. Pop said: “It’s a killer, Pete. There’s nothing in the whole wide world or out of it that a slug from Billy here won't stop. It’s killed lions. and tigers and men. Why, if you aim right, it'll stop a charging elephant. Believe me, son, there’s nothing you can meet in dreams that Billy here won't stop. And he’ll come into your dreams with you from now on, so there’s no call to be scared of anything.” He drove that deep into my receptive subconscious. At the end of half an hour, - my wrist ached abominably from the kick of that Colt. But I’d seen heavy slugs tear through two-inch teakwood and mild steel plating. I'd looked along that barrel, pulled the trigger, felt the recoil rip up my arm and seen the fist-size hole blasted through a sack of wheat. And that night, I slept with Billy under mv pillow. Before I slipped into dreamland, I'd felt again the eool, reassuring butt. When the Dark Things came again, I was almost glad. I was ready for them. Billy was there, lighter than in my waking hours —or maybe my dream-hand was bigger— but just as powerful. Two of the Dark Things crumpled and fell as Billy roared and kicked, then the others turned and fled. Then I was chasing them, laughing, and firing from the hip. Pop was no psychiatrist, but he’d found the perfect antidote to fear—the projection, - into the subconscious mind of a common- sense concept based on experience. © Twenty years later, the same principle was put into operation scientifically to save the sanity—and perhaps the life—of Marsham Craswell. “Surely you've heard of him?” said Stephen Blakiston, a college friend of mine who'd majored in psychiatry. “Vaguely,” I said. “Science-fiction, fan- tasy . . . I’ve read a little. Screwy.”. “Not so. Some good stuff.” Steve waved a hand round the bookshelves of his private office in the new Pentagon Mental Therapy Hospital, New York State. I saw miulti- colored magazine backs, row on row of them. “I’m a fan,” he said simply. ““Would you call me screwy?” I backed out of that one. I’m just a sports columnist, but I knew Blakiston was tops in two fields—the psycho stuff and electronic therapy. Steve said: “Some of it’s the old ’peroo, of course, but the level of writing is gener- ally high and the ideas thought-provoking. For ten years, Marsham has been one of the most prolific and best-loved writers in the game. “Two years ago, he had a serious illness, didn’t give himself time to convalesce pro- perly before he waded into writing again. He tried to reach his previous output, tend- ing more and more towards pure fantasy. Beautiful in parts, sheer rubbish sometimes. _ “He forced his imagination to work, set himself a wordage routine. The tension became too great. Something snapped. Now he’s here.” Seve got up, ushered me out of his office. Conic aooks EO fl)