You never did the Kenosha Kid

[Paul Mackin]

I don't think I've posted MY position yet so here goes. The  KK sequence 
is a  report on Slothrop's memory of a dream. It is the dream he is 
dreaming at the time he is awakened by the prick of the needle.  It is 
the sensation of being injected intravenously (painless though that is) 
that is the cause of the dream, which ends with "Tap my head and mike my 
brain/Stick that needle in my vein,/Snap to, Slothrop. " The entire 
dream leads up to the injection of the sodium amytal.

S's  dream fits very nicely under the theory that dreams are the result 
of some excitatory stimulus that disturbs our sleep. Freud notes that, 
according to this theory, "we should not have had the dream unless the 
disturbance had happened during sleep and the dream was a reaction to 
that disturbance" (Interpretation  of Dreams,  p. 55).  He further notes 
that "many writers have commented upon 'the striking facility with 
which  dreams are able to weave a sudden impression of the world into 
their own structure so that it comes as catastrophe that has gradually 
been led up to '" (he's quoting Hildebrandt)  )(p., 59).  Freud provides 
quite a few examples from the literature of dreams that apparently 
resulted from various external stimuli. Some of these dreams he cites 
are  quite elaborate, though none perhaps as remarkable as Slothrop's 
two page riff on "you never did the Kenosha Kid."  Too bad F didn't have 
Pynchon as a source.

NB. Needless to say the external stimulus is only part of the etiology 
of the dream. The dreamer has a lifetime of experiences to call upon 
(and pulp magazines read) from which to create the story.  The external 
stimulus merely determines how the dream will end.