or, Seeking Out that Dry-Mouth, Heart-in-Your-Throat, I’m-Going-to-Suffocate-in-the-Dark Feeling

I suspect that claustrophobia is the most common fear, one faced by rational beings whenever nightclubs are jammed body to body, buses are packed like sardine cans, airplane seats are the size of TV dinners, and the only way to the exit is over the backs of everyone else. How long have we known that they couldn’t really evacuate the cities in eight hours?

My claustrophobia, even if rational, hindered me. If fear faced is fear mastered, then I had to get wrestling with mine.

The old Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts was a hands-on science museum that topped everyone’s list of Where to Go in San Francisco. Inside the museum, past the giant pin-pressions screen, the spin-it-yourself models of gas giants and tornadoes, the cow’s eye dissection booth, and the xylophone room, rose the Tactile Dome. Advertised as “a pitch-black crawl-through tactile experience,” it was open only by appointment.

For me, the Tactile Dome provided a chance to confront my claustrophobia. When friends of my friend Ron scheduled an hour inside, Ron invited me and Mason along.

Ken, our Explainer, told us to empty our pockets and remove shoes, socks, belts, earrings, dangling necklaces, rings that came off, and watches. We complied like children, rustling and giggling.

No light sources were allowed inside the maze, Ken said. Liz had considered buying a glow stick in the Exploratorium store. I’d left my flashlight, unintentionally, in the car. Just as well:  no temptation.

Glasses had to be left on the desk before you went into the maze. If you wore contacts, Ken recommended keeping your eyes closed. He said that wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway.

He had a two-way radio and would check on us several times as we went along. He mentioned that he could hear everything we said, so “Be careful.”

“What’s the worst thing you’ve heard?” Liz asked.

“Well… This woman was saying,” he grinned and made his voice squeaky soft, “‘How do you like the feel of this?’ and ‘Do you like it when I touch that?’” In his normal tone, he spoke over our laughter: “The funny part was that when she came out, she wasn’t with her husband. She was really embarrassed. This guy worked with her husband, but she didn’t know him that well.”

Back to business, Ken said he’d let us through in groups of three, but we could go in couples or alone. We each could go through three or four times, depending on how much time we took. Who wanted to go first?

I told myself to relax. If I panicked, Ken would rescue me. It couldn’t be too bad or they’d have some sort of disclaimer. I resolved to do this. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t go through a second time.

I felt better after Ken checked in with the first group. No one had freaked out yet, but I felt ready to get it over with. For me, the dread is always the worst part. Mason and I went as the third group. As if we entered a haunted house on Halloween, I asked Mason to go first to ward off the bogeymen.

Padded cylinders, swaying like punching bags, filled the first room. Light trickled in from the lobby, enough that I saw tiny flowers on the corduroy of the closest bag. You had to shove the bags out of your way, then dodge before they swung back. I fought my way to the back wall and discovered rubbery fabric covered it. When I couldn’t find the entrance to the next room, panic swarmed up from beneath my heart. I gritted my teeth, determined not to give up before I experienced real darkness.

“Found it,” Mason said. “Let me have your hand.”

Gripping his fingers steadied me. The opening rose high enough that you could walk upright on your knees, flailing with your hands. I didn’t test the ceiling height for fear of aggravating my claustrophobia.  Instead I crawled all the way through on my hands and knees.

A sharp right turn led to a ramp. Something scratchy and nubby, like fake grass, carpeted the ramp. I banged my knee on a wooden slat and wished for kneepads as I crawled up.

Ron knew a group of people on ecstasy who had been allowed through the dome naked. That sounded exciting when he told me: bodies writhing, skin against unfamiliar skin in the dark. In reality, I found too many rough, unpleasant things to brush against: AstroTurf, burlap, sandpaper. Ron got a friction burn on one hand from going down a slide too fast. I felt glad to have my jeans. I wished for a helmet.

At the top of the ramp hung a long fringe of raveled plastic. Past that, the room had things attached to the walls: a muffin tin and a whiskbroom, familiar yet strange in the darkness. I touched a small bag with a round squishy dome inside. Ron identified it later as a silicone breast implant.

Funny how I had assumed that black draped all the rooms because I saw no colors. I had my eyes open throughout all three trips. Somehow, keeping them open, whether I could see or not, kept the claustrophobia at bay.

A white web of knotted ropes crossed a shallow chasm. Green light shone beneath them. The light gave a respite from the darkness, but then I had to contend with the fear of crawling out over the abyss. Still, the distance to the next black doorway looked minimal. I wrenched my thumb in my rush to climb. On a subsequent trip, I ripped the edge of the other thumbnail. Good thing they lit the web. Otherwise you might seriously hurt yourself.

A long womblike tunnel eased downward. I extended my legs full-length, holding myself in place by my arms. Emptiness yawned below my bare feet. The tunnel had a comfortable diameter, upholstered in some smooth, slippery fabric.

Finally I decided to trust and let go, let myself slide down the gently twisting course. Without warning, a drop opened beneath my feet. I couldn’t sit up, couldn’t be sure I’d land on my feet. I scrabbled around, afraid to fall, and found no handholds.

I burst out of the end, flopping onto my butt. The floor sank gradually beneath me, like a waterbed. I bounced a few times, to confirm that this was fun.

Somewhere in the darkness, Mason sent waves back. We crawled together. Our bodies, familiar with each other in the dark, melded into the usual positions. His lips comforted mine. I clutched him close.

Out of nowhere, Ken asked, “How are you doing?”

“Just fine,” I said. Mason and I chuckled guiltily.

I discovered I could stand. This room reminded me of playing in a Space Bubble at the county fair -- only those had clear plastic walls, lit by sunlight. I didn’t jump around in here, unwilling to bash my head against an unseen ceiling or stub my toes in the soft floor of uncertain depth.

I ran my hands over the walls until I found a long thin tunnel at hip level. I shimmied inside and struggled upward. Climbing was really difficult; I found no “steps” to rest my knees on as in the earlier ramp. I had slithered part way up the tunnel when a curve seemed familiar. Yikes! I realized I had started backward into the maze, which Ken had ordered us absolutely not to do. He had stressed how dangerous it could be to climb back up the slides -- you couldn’t get out of the way of someone coming down. I immediately slid back down at speed, anxious to get out of the way.

“I went the wrong direction,” I said to the darkness.

Mason’s voice steadied me. “I wondered. You disappeared.”

I staggered across the air mattress to hug him.

“I found the exit.” He grabbed my hand. I felt him kneel down. “Is there a body across it?” he asked.

He crawled forward. I followed. Bill had been hanging upside down in front of the entrance. No explanation for that behavior. Once he moved, we emerged into a comparatively enormous room lit by a red bulb behind safety glass. Like the perfect 1960s living room, this had a circular conversation pit beneath a low, draped ceiling. Five of us fit very comfortably. I sprawled full-length on some cushions. The room was an unmitigated relief.

“Now’s when we need that joint,” I teased. Such a fire hazard -- trapped in a darkened maze -- would’ve panicked me if anyone had actually pulled one out. Suggesting it myself dispelled the fear.

Bill decided to move along. He crawled out the doorway on the left. The rectangular holes seemed scarcely bigger than animal doors, but two hundred-pound Bill wriggled through.

Mason and I waited awhile to let him get ahead of us. Crowding into one of those invisible rooms was another scary proposition. I understood now why Ken insisted on small groups.

From that point on, the rooms cease to have well-ordered individual identities in my memory.

*

The final slide seemed to go on and on, down and down, around and around. I didn’t worry that the tunnel would narrow:  only a sadist would create such a thing. I had a different fear. Without visual clues, I didn’t know if Mason had gotten out of the slide ahead of me. The farther I went, the more I feared I’d kick him in the head. “Look out below!” I called.

I spurted out into a sea of navy beans. I staggered to my feet, floundering through the knee-deep morass, but I wanted to be away from the slide before the next person came down.

A short ramp led back into the lobby. Blinking like some nocturnal animal, I drew several deep breaths, the first in a long while. Subsequent trips proved that the air in the dome warmed as bodies passed through it. A fan drew air into the resting room, so it stayed a little fresher.

Liz sat in the lobby. She said she’d known she was claustrophobic, but she hadn’t gotten past the punching bag room. She realized she just did not want to get away from the exit, so she came out the way she’d come in.

I told her about my own claustrophobia, how I like to sit near an exit in a theater, how the dome wasn’t as bad as riding in the back seat of a small car, how Ken would rescue her if necessary. My words comforted only me. Liz wouldn’t be jollied into going in again. I didn’t want to make her seem cowardly, so I stopped congratulating myself.

Ron’s friend Leora arrived and was surprised that Liz had gotten out before her, when she’d gone in after. Liz had to rehash the whole explanation. Leora was much more understanding than I had been, despite my best efforts. It was fun, Leora said, and she was glad she’d done it, but she wouldn’t go through again. She hadn’t realized, before this experience, that she was claustrophobic.

This talk of fear stirred mine up again. The first trip hadn’t been fun so much as an ordeal: uncertainty to surmount, challenges to overcome. Rather than continue to listen to their fears, I jumped at the chance to go through a second time, dragging Mason forward before he had a chance to rest.

“Are you sure you want to go first?” he asked.

“Yes.”

***

This was originally published in a different version in TRAVELER’S TALES: SAN FRANCISCO in May 1996.