Today I spent a couple of hours with my head encased in a superconducting magnet! The experience was unpleasant. I had left everything removable that wouldn't like a magnetic field, in a drawer at the far end of the adjoining room. I squished earplugs into my ears and over the top wore industrial ear defenders. The mirror-holder looked like a science fiction mask! The sliding plastic bed felt like a coffin with my arms cramped. I had to click a keypad in response to psychological experiments displayed on a distant computer monitor that was too small to comfortably see! There were all sorts of calibrations, scans and tests--repeated seemingly forever. Everything vibrated and made the most peculiar science-fiction noises. Then afterwards I had to fill out a questionnaire about how bad I had felt inside the thing!

G'day Bhakta_glenn:

"What is MRI?"
The main component of the gigantic machine was a donut shaped electromagnet into which the upper part of my body was slid.
«Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI), is primarily a medical imaging technique most commonly used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structure and limited function of the body. MRI provides much greater contrast between the different soft tissues of the body than computed tomography (CT) does, making it especially useful in neurological (brain), musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and oncological (cancer) imaging.»
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRI

"crude and somewhat inhumane"
A woman subject was in the scanner during alternate hours around mine. She was having difficulty seeing the computer monitor. So the psychologist was running backwards and forwards to the control room trying different plastic lenses on her. Meanwhile the technician was trying to console the frantic lady!
:-(

"gothic"
The scanner room was rather bare and dark. The door was huge, with the bare wires of the Faraday cage visible. Between the technician's console and the scanner room was a big darkened-glass window. His desk was covered in computer monitors.
«Although Raygun Gothic is most similar to the Googie or Populuxe style and sometimes synonymous with it, the name is primarily applied to images of science fiction — it describes the typical mad scientist laboratory as seen in films like Bride of Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's Metropolis, as well as the architecture of The Jetsons and, more recently, Futurama and Dexter's Laboratory. The style is also still a popular choice for retro sci-fi in film and video games, such as the designs for the films Mars Attacks! or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the video game series Fallout. Raygun Gothic's primary influences include the set designs of Kenneth Strickfaden and Fritz Lang.»
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raygun_Gothic

"no way that I would allow anyone to give me this treatment."
I was told that I was the 59th subject of this survey to go into that machine. Whereas my subject ID was over a thousand! So almost all the people who had attempted the psychological tests on the researcher's laptop computer--didn't get to the brain scanner! {Sigh} I corresponded with an OCD sufferer in Adelaide. He had visited Sydney for a car show. But the scanner was then booked out, so he only did the computer psych tests.
«Technophobia is the fear or dislike of advanced technology or complex devices, especially computers.»
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia

"Frankenstein Therapy"
This procedure would not suit someone technophobic!
«A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if they even have a coherent scheme. Alternatively, they fail to see the evil that is implied will ensue from the hubris of “playing God”.»
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_scientist

Hi Bhakta_glenn:

"folk that control the machines"
The manufacturer's Web site was bullshit! A video of a kid playing soccer on a beach, was the exact opposite of my experience of being encased in a sci-fi coffin!

"benign or malevolent"
I explained to the psychologist my difficulty seeing the tiny, distant computer monitor image as reflected in the mirror. And the woman subject in the machine during intervening hours, also had a problem with vision. For that, the psychologist scuttled back to the control room, trying plastic correcting spectacles.

I recall a dentist's surgery that had pretty posters on the ceiling for patients to admire. But there was no such reassuring imagery in this #$% scanner!

"machines; I simly refuse to take refuge in them"
The operator's monitor showed decent brain images that he regarded as being like shoddy thumbnails! There are technocrats who devote their lives to the belief that scientific studies pose the answers to everything.

"Holistic Therapies based upon ancient wisdom"
You need a lot of reassurance. By contrast, that $% machine was anything but!

"the clinical procedure that you so graphically described is crude"
The technician thought that my uncle Marcus' lobotomy was cruder still!
:-(

"music can effect the brain"
The sound (and vibration) of that @$%%^ machine was the exact opposite!

"relaxing"
In contrast, that ^$%&* scanner was making me tense up. Then when {sigh] I moved my tongue, the technician did an extra calibrating procedure since my head had moved! {Sigh}

"music would make me want to dance"
At least it had some aesthetic quality, and rhythm. Even the technician had difficulty explaining to me what his magnetic machine was doing to make such a horrible noise! {Sigh}

"Silence is best. whilst relaxing"
I slept long when I got back home after a long drive!

"ancing, too old and fat"
At least I saw on the technician's monitor, that I had a lot of fat under the chin! So today I swam a kilometre at my local pool.