Saturday, January 13, 2018

What is a summary of "Hallucination" by Isaac Asimov?

"Hallucination" by Isaac Asimov is a science fiction short story published in 1985 and divided into three parts, exploring the nature of thought, as well as human closed-mindedness and ecological domination.
The story centers upon Sam Chase, a young student who is reluctantly assigned to Energy Planet to perform his specialized education. Energy Planet orbits a neutron star in the Milky Way, making it an ideal place to develop a new form of energy for Earth. Energy Planet has no inhabitants except for plants and insects and is Earth-like in many respects. Sam learns that some of the humans working there have experienced strange hallucinations, though not everyone likes to talk about it. Sam, on the other hand, who actually specializes in neurophysiology, becomes increasingly curious about them.
When Sam ventures outside the space dome, he himself begins to experience hallucinations which are made of smoke. Sam recognizes a neural connection to the hallucinations and is convinced that, rather than hallucinating, he is experiencing telepathy with an alien being. The being communicates to him that his home is being invaded and exploited by humans. Sam realizes that the other humans have been too closed-minded to realize this for themselves.
Sam reveals to Doctor Gentry that he had contact with one of the planet's inhabitants; the doctor reveals in turn that they were monitoring him the entire time. The Doctor considers him ill but grants Sam a meeting with the Commander. But Sam eventually convinces the Commander that neither of them have been hallucinating, that they were in fact communicating with a collective form of intelligence belonging to the insects on the planet.

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