The hardest part of the MRI is you have to remain still and quiet. Nothing to do but wait, nothing to look at but a white tube, nothing to distract you besides your own thoughts. So why not make them as positive as possible? The defining feature of the MRI is that it is very loud. The machine makes repetitive yet inconsistent noises at various pitches, but always high decibels. Keep yourself busy by imagining pleasant reasons for the sounds: Challenge your auditory imagination. If your thoughts start to wander someplace frightening, you’ve taken a wrong turn — backtrack and try again to visualize lighter, brighter, more relaxing contexts.
First, imagine that the tube is a submarine. The sounds are your sensors exploring the deep, searching for creatures. Bright lights shine on a clear blue watery environment. You’re not so deep that things are dark and ominous — just exploring like a scuba diver, with an opportunity to advance science. Maybe your machines are probing for treasure, or archaeological discovery. Maybe you’ll find Atlantis or encounter a new species of (friendly) fish.
The noises change. Now you are in a printer. A human inkjet, printing your body to a new dimension or location, one row at a time. Like waiting for your photo to print as it slowly materializes onto the paper in lines of color. A modified Star Trek transporter (the difference between prototype and reality, perhaps), allowing you to be “printed” instead of “beamed up” to travel across galaxies. So cool and futuristic!
When the pitch gets lower, you can hear the chugging of the railroad tracks. You are in a bullet train, tucked in for a cozy sleep in a capsule. Contorting your body into an uncomfortable chair is so 21st century - now you can relax in style as you lay flat and speed to your destination.
Now the machine is purring. More lion than housecat, it’s happy to be fulfilling its purpose, lovingly cherishing the human that it gently investigates.
You hear the smacking and thwacking of jump ropes. A major double-dutch competition. The contestants are dolled up in matching outfits with hair in tight buns, glittery makeup, wearing their game day jitters on their faces. Some will bask in the glory of trophies and ribbons, while others will leave disappointed. In the meantime, the rhythmic slapping of rope against pavement, over and over again.
The machine tries to activate the trigger of a paintball gun onto a blank canvas. The machine was taught via upload about all kinds of paint-splatter art, from Jackson Pollack to day camp tie-dye T-shirts. It’s trying its best, having selected a range of soft pastels and all of your favorite colors. But despite repeated attempts, it can’t escape the non-random boundaries of mathematics. Its creation is beautiful, but the machine can’t achieve spontaneity.
So it switches to massaging you. A gentle vibration under your shoulders, like an athletic trainer trying to smooth away the painful effects of a tough playoff game. Or even the massage of a spa. Maybe a spa on board a cruise ship, to explain the tight quarters.
Now you’re in a terrible club. You know the one. When you were 18 and wanted to be “grown up” so you went with your cousin to a show, drinking Sprite and standing way too close to the speakers as some middle-aged dudes screamed into the microphones. Your ears will ring for three days afterwards, and you’ll wear it as a badge of honor, but in the meantime you are stuck pretending to have fun. Do they really consider this music? What facial expression will convince them that I’m having as much fun as they are?
Now the machine has picked up a different gun, this time firing bubbles. It’s trying to bring whimsy to a crowd, in the form of a bubble-gun robot. Not bubble-gum — bubble-gun. The bubbles it creates are luminous and perfectly spherical; they don’t pop as easily as soap bubbles, but float away harmlessly. The crowd is more confused than delighted, so the robot is disappointed.
You hear a deep honking noise. It’s the friendly barges, asserting their presence in the harbor. The barges used to be quiet, but they have been working on their confidence, so now their shy quivering through the water has been replaced by brave horns daring to take up space. Good for you, barges! Honk away!
Continue following the sounds wherever they take you, trusting in the benevolence of a nearly-sentient machine that’s here to help. Consider that out of all the history of humanity, you are one of a miniscule number who have ever been privileged to get an MRI. Like flying in a plane, your experience in this machine is something that our ancestors could only have dreamed of. Think about the miracle of magnetism that makes these diagnostics possible. The Earth is snuggled up under a cozy magnetic field, and you represent one pinprick on it. What would happen if the magnetic field suddenly switched off one day? For today, it’s on, and your doctors have asked the machine to help take care of you. Maybe you’ll even drift off to sleep, like a child at a party who knows that despite the noise, there are caring people all around you, looking out for you, as you agree to give up your alertness in favor of slumber.
What’s on your list of auditory dreams?
"MRI machine with patient" by National Institutes of Health (NIH) is marked with CC PDM 1.0.