I’m going out of my mind trying to get into yours

“You’re not shutting out the thoughts you’re receiving,” the instructor said, “You’re letting the duck's thoughts and feelings influence you. You need to block them with your mind, observe them, but resist them.” 

“How can you tell?” I said. “Can you see into my mind?” 

“No, but you’ve spent the last half hour quacking.” 

“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I would remember if I’d spent 30 minutes quacking.” 

He held up his phone and showed me a video. A video of me, quacking. Quacking constantly. It was 31 minutes long. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said. “Learning to mindmeld is a high risk business. You’re exposing your actual mind, it can do all sorts of damage.” 

“I really want to do this,” I said. “Sometimes I just don’t understand my girlfriend at all. I want to learn to mind-meld so I can see into her mind – it's the only way I’ll ever understand her.” 

The instructor looked at me, seriously. 

“Have you tried talking to her?” 

“Of course,” I said. “But she uses words in a way that makes no sense, as she has her own personal meaning for some of the words she uses.” 

“Okay, well mindmelding with ducks is clearly too much at this stage, we need to aim lower.” 

“What’s lower than a duck?” I said. 

“A tortoise,” he said. “I have one in the shed, he’s just come out of hibernation.” 

“Shouldn’t I try with humans?” I said.  

“No, without learning to protect yourself, mindmelding with a human would just fry your brain.” 

“There just seems a lot more scope for things going wrong if I’m absorbing the mind of animals.” 

“You shouldn’t be absorbing anything," he said. “That’s why you need to practice with base animals.” 

He took a cardboard box out of his shed, laid it on the ground, and took out a tortoise. It raised its head slowly to look at me. 

“Lay your middle three fingers of your right hand on the back of the toroise’s head.” 

I did as he said. 

“Now I want you to open your mind, feel around for an alternative.” 

I closed my mind, as he had shown me with the duck, and put out thought feelers, intangible probes for brain activity. 

The tortoise turned its head away, unconcerned.  I focussed my feelers and felt for its thoughts. I waited a long time, but nothing happened.  Clearly the tortoise’s mind wasn’t as strong as the duck’s, I felt nothing.  

“Well,” I said. “This isn't working. When am I going to become like a tortoise?” I asked. 

“You already have,” he said. “Look around you.” 

“Er, what am I looking for?” 

“The sky.” 

“The sky? It’s up there.” 

“I mean, it’s getting dark. It was midday when I passed you the tortoise.” 

“Oh god, what have I been doing?” 

He held up his phone again. I watched myself running up and down the garden. Running up and down, up and down and up and down. The video was over three hours long.  

“So tortoises think about running around and around?” 

“It's not surprising – can you imagine how a tortoise would be if it was suddenly freed from carrying a bloody great shell on their back.” 

“Obviously a tortoise’s mind is too powerful for mine, what’s below a tortoise? A bee?” 

“If we tried a bee you’d just end up wriggling your arse and making honey.  It’s not working, your mind is clearly too weak to mind-meld, even with an animal with a tiny mind.” 

“So what then?” 

“I’ll mind-meld with you, try to strengthen your receptive circuits.  Hopefully, you’ll be able to better understand what your girlfriend is thinking and saying.” 

He placed three fingers on my forehead. I could feel his mental feelers groping through my mind. 

“Bloody hell,” he said. “There’s nothing here.” 

“Nothing here?” 

“Your mind’s completely empty. You must have left it in the duck.”