a) What is 'Locked-in syndrome'? Why would one consider Bauby's condition a prison? What is the significance of The Butterfly?
b) What was Bauby's "frightening truth'?
c) In your opinion, how do you think Bauby should measure progress? Why do you think Bauby ends the chapter "Prayer" with the phrase, "I set out for the kingdom of slumber with this wonderful talisman, which shields me from all harm."

A) "Locked-in syndrome" is when, "paralyzed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move."(4) Bauby's condition could be considered a prison because he is imprisoned in his body, or his hospital room, or wherever others decide to place him. He has no control over what he does or how he moves, and all his natural freedoms have been stripped from him; he cannot speak, walk around, etc. The butterfly he mentions when describing how his mind takes off signifies the only freedom and joy he can have. Paralyzed, his mind is the only thing that can move around and go places on its own, and his takes off like a butterfly to amuse himself. His thoughts roam to different places and adventures, to books that he is thinking up.. it flies away.
B) While Bauby's "frightening truth" in his book was very unclear to me (he claims it hit him, but then I didn't catch the part where he really explains what the truth IS), I believe he meant the fact that he would be stuck in a wheelchair... for at least a very long time. After going through the big ordeal of dressing him, pushing him around in the wheelchair, undressing him and laying him back down, after everyone leaves and the wheelchair sits ominously by itself in the corner, Bauby comes to the realization that that is his fate, being wheeled around in an uncomfortable chair like the invalid he is. He isn't going to magically be able to walk again or be able to actually go the places his mind wanders to, assuming his clumsy wheelchair is not capable of flying...
C) I think Bauby should measure progress, since it's obviously not going to take place quickly, by how much he can move in the small things, or make some sort of noise, moving towards speech. If he tries to measure himself on too large a scale, like wanting to walk or talk completely, he will get discouraged when he cannot achieve those things quickly.
In his ending chapter of "Prayer" Bauby means that he went to sleep with the protection of God invoked by the prayers of his daughter, Celeste. I think he is probably so grateful for her thoughts and the comfort it brings him to know that she and her God are thinking of him and trying to help him. He needs that hope to cling onto, the belief that he is safe and taken care of, "shielded from all harm", so that he can survive and keep going.