THE DREAM MAKERS

[Music] back [Music] [Music] daddy you got one stuck in the machine down [Applause] it must be made very clear that our basic program is not one of suspended animation we're talking about suspended death in the basic program of suspended death it is simply proposed that after one dies a natural death his body be Frozen and preserved at a very low temperature which will prevent further deterioration for an indefinite period the body will be damaged by the disease or old age which is the cause of death and will be further damaged by our current freezing methods but it will not Decay or suffer any more changes whatever condition the body is in when it reaches the storage temperature that is the condition in which it will remain for as long as it is necessary to keep it the best informed opinion indicates that a body cooled by liquid nitrogen can be stored without significant changes or deterioration for a period measured at at least in years and probably in centuries the body can be thought of as dead but not abil dead it cannot be revived by present methods but the condition of most of the cells may not differ too greatly from that in life we need only arrange to have our bodies after we die stored in suitable freezers against a time when science may be able to help us no matter what kills us whether old age or disease and even if breathing techniques are still cruded when we die sooner or later the technicians of the future should be equal to the task of Reviving and curing Us by preserving our bodies in as good a biological condition as possible it is clear that you and I right now have a chance to avoid permanent deaths many Layman and even many phys Ians have the impression that the body must be frozen then a few minutes after clinical death to have a chance of Revival the important point is that a man dies little by little usually in imperceptible gradations and the period of grace before all the body cells die is measured at least in hours and perhaps in days the question of reversibility at any stage depends upon the state of the medical order the phrase irreversible damage only means damage incapable of being reversed by methods so far employed when we quick freeze a freshly dead corpse we have someone who is Thoroughly dead by current criteria but who has potential life in almost the same way as a drowning victim who may be helped by a respirator according to the British medical dictionary death is that condition from which you cannot be revived by currently known means the key phrase there is currently R know means implicit is the fact that if further deterioration is prevented by freezing sooner or later currently known means will be adequate and the body will no longer be regarded as dead so the very definition of death depends upon the current state of the Medical Art at any given point in the future the state of the Medical Art hopefully will be greatly improved therefore our present definition of debt will be hopelessly outdated the key consideration is that burial is final whereas freezing commits you to nothing except a second chance many people want information these people run our permanent mailing list the complete list of every one who has ever written to us for information for whatever reason scientist Alex Comfort is one Jerome K Sherman is another cob biologist his edit the science fiction magazines like Campbell of analog I was say to to list to approaches 10,000 names if anybody in a clearing house for all the information on all Camp who compiles it and get most important parts of it in newslet he answers practically all of the mail thousands of letters for most important job as singlehanded editorship of the CICS report he does his all on his own time and pretty much at his own expense there are three major cic Societies in the United States and 13 chronics coordinators there's three foreign chronic societies the Society of France the Chic Society of Austria and the Chic Society of Spain each of these get our literature A package of our newsletters each month they've done some experiments on animals on individual tissues sperm has been frozen and then reanimated they' done it with different tissue banks with individual tissues they know that this can be done it can be frozen in liquid nitrogen it can be revived of course they've never done it they've never revived a whole anything let alone a human being yet [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this doesn't look for all the world like a man wrestling an alligator it is like wrestling an alligator when you can't stroke the tank on the belly and it won't go [Applause] SL many circumstances of death in the near future will oppose a painful and nearly intractable problem for the next of kin substantial funds may be lacking medical cooperation and Hospital facilities may be lacking death may come unexpectedly and the body may not be found [Applause] immediately in the immediate future it will take an unusually strong and resourceful person to undertake freezing single-handedly clearly the freezer or capsule is more attractive than the grave even if one has doubts about the future capabilities of science with bad luck the Frozen people or kryonaut will simply remain dead as they would have in the grave but with good luck who [Music] knows lionist Pauling speaking in a general sense not so long ago said the great discoveries of the future those that will make the world different from the present world are the discoveries that no one has yet thought about I know that discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe and I am awaiting them full of curiosity and [Music] enthusiasm my first day at helping get out the newsletter who was it said never volunteer the of the York newletter which is basically sa Kent's creation goes to all of the states of the United States practically all the Fallen countries it even goes to Russia to Dr nagowski Who is the world's leading Authority on hesitation but the last packi came back on open okay with strange cryptic stamps and rushing all over it and that doesn't look too good this list runs from scientist to celebrities I remember putting Steve Allen's copy on the California stack in this way that we get our message across constantly keep the idea and the program before the Public's eye a lot of people like to talk about cryonics usually in polite little groups over coffee and cake but one man is physically doing the work to get people frozen and that's Curtis Henderson to freeze someone on death might seem unconventional well I did what was natural for me when people see cemeteries they think of the pretty green grass and the pretty flowers and the trees and it gives them a feeling of peace and Perpetual care which means mowing the lawn whenever I pass the cemetery sparbers I can remember I never saw the green grass the flowers the trees I always had the visions of decomposing bodies worms rot and this is the thing that I had to avoid from my father the dry ice box it looks like a hope chest it's a very pretty looking thing it doesn't look at all like a coffin or anything and knowing that I did avoid the distasteful fullness of the Grave tell that my father is perfectly preserved I mean you can call the caption the ideal tomb because it can do what the most expensive most ornate mosam can't do in this capsule you do have Perpetual preservation of the body even if nothing more ever comes of it than that you do have perfect preservation now I will admit I approach the dry ice box with fear and trepidation I didn't know what I would find the last time I saw my father he was alive and when I did see him in the dry eyes box perfectly preserved just looking for all the world like he's asleep I had the the first sense of genuine peace just ah a sigh of relief the first peaceful moment I had since he died my father was 42 years old was never sick a day in his life had just had his annual checkup was given a clean bill of health from the doctor 2 days later he was dead it happened at home in the evening at night and they said it must have been a heart attack but they don't know he never had a history of heart trouble my father was a very vibrantly alive man one of the most vibrantly alive men you'd ever want to see he so so inconceivable just think of him not being alive anymore my natural reaction was rage I just wanted to strike out in a way I did I when my uncle and my father's brother he came up to me and he said Julian this is your uncle you know I've known this man all my life and that was it I just tore out the door the front door and I slammed the thing with such force that I heard the glass shattering when I was halfway up the block and I just walked and when I finally stopped I found that I'd gone 3 miles and then I took off for our Summer Place and I stayed there just doing logical things like smashing things smashable punching holes in walls and in fact our next door neighbor called my mother and said come do something your daughter's going to burn the building down I wasn't really going to burn the building down I hadn't even given any indication I was going to burn the building down but that gives you an idea of my reaction the strange thing was that I didn't really think about freezing about konics for a day and a half my mind went BL as far as logical action i' seen Professor Robert tinger who wrote the prospect of immortality which started this whole chronics movement on various TV programs and I've known about the process it was an alternative to burial or cremation natural thing when my mind finally cleared I called Professor Ettinger in Michigan and he gave me the number of Curtis Henderson president of the cionic Society of New York and of of cryos ban Corporation who actually does the freezing actually The Krauss band Corporation is the operating arm of the cryonic Society of New York I called Mr Henderson and he took it from there and uh my father was frozen I made this film to show people what this looks like there's nothing at all frightening about it it seems my reaction would would be the best Criterion of that ideally in the initial stages of freezing should be started immediately upon death which can be done if if you're dying of some slow debilitating disease if you're in a hospital and my father was perfectly healthy had no intention of dying and just died so by the time the first steps of freezing were taken in his case he had been dead for 3 Days his hand immediately put him in a dry ice box for the initial cool down first a substance of glycerol is profused through the body to protect the tissues from freezing damage then there is the transfer taking the person Professor lik to say the patient actually taking the body out of the dry ice box and placing him in the capsule and putting the liquid nitrogen into the capsule once you put in the capsule with Liquid Nitro that is your permanent storage State as Curtis Henderson likes to say whenever it comes time for a freezing there has to be one relative who just says that's it over all the objections there's always objections from from somebody this one person with strong enough personality who is feeling a rhinoceros going to go through to make it happen I knew this was the thing that had to be done but that's a completely selfish thing for myself I could not go on with my own normal existence thinking of my father decomposing in the ground it was as simple as that and I knew that for my own peace of mind this had to be done and it was done the capsule is made to hold two people like they're standing back to back on slides it's the most practical way to freeze people the contract that I sign called for $88,500 as an initial payment and approximately $1,000 a year for maintenance the capsule is made by the leading manufacturer of cryogenic equipment cryogenic equipment for all purposes made by Minnesota Valley Engineering it's called the MBE capsule what they are in effect are self-contained therus bottles about 9 ft tall and and they're dependent on nothing the liquid nitrogen has a a specific boil off rate so all you have to do is replace liquid nitrogen at specific intervals to maintain the temperature in a sense when you freeze someone you do in a way avoid the absolute cutting off that death would normally mean because you're not really cut off completely from the person because the lids come off you can see person anytime you want to skin tone is Perfectly Natural eyebrows eyelashes there he is you can go back and visit whenever you want to say hi which to me makes a lot more sense than anyone going to to visit a grave smiling benignly and placing flowers on the rot underneath going to visit the capsule to visit my father at least I see him and when I pay for Perpetual care I know it's to maintain his body in perfect preservation not to maintain any trees or grass Professor 's main premise is that the bodies would be Frozen now and stored and then in the future scientists might be able to restore these people to life now that is for the future 10 years ago did you really think you'd see live TV pictures of a man walking on the moon what I'm saying is anything is possible if it happens fine that's when my father will get his benefit if he's brought back to life again but for the present I have my benefit I get my money's worth I got what I paid for I got peace of mind I got satisfaction the council is more attractive than the grave even if one has doubts about the future capabilities of science it's bad luck the Frozen people or kryonaut will simply remain dead as they would have in the grave but with good luck who knows my father the kryonaut a euphemism but I like it but with good luck who knows for for