Synopsis: Ensign Nog uses a holoprogram to recover from the loss of his leg.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how of the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, when acknowledged and integrated into the Logos-driven rational conscious ego, can be a source of healing.
“It’s Only a Paper Moon” begins with Ensign Nog returning to Deep Space Nine after having been in the hospital, where he was fitted with a prosthetic leg. He returns using a cane, although medical professionals have advised him that there is no physical need for it. Nog does not want to have a welcome home party, his sessions with the station’s counselor, Lt. Ezri Dax, go nowhere, and all he wants to do is lie in bed and listen to a recording of Vic Fontaine singing “I’ll Be Seeing You,” which he does for three days straight. Finally, his roommate, Jake Sisko, tells him if he wants to hear the song he needs to go to Fontaine’s holoprogram. Nog stays in the program running it for days, if not weeks, until Fontaine finally tells him it’s time to shut it down.
In this episode the holoprogram can be analogized to the unconscious, or the dream world, which processes information much differently than the conscious ego, which here can be seen as represented by Deep Space Nine and its inhabitants. Sometimes a psychic wound is so deep that rational cures are not enough, something instinctive and imaginal is required to start the healing process. But the key, as it is here, is that the unconscious alone is not enough either. Eventually, at least in our rational Logos-driven conscious ego driven world, we must leave the unconscious imaginary sphere in order to survive in reality.
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