Having realized I hadn't actually woken up but was using a computer, I decided to see what I could do with it on what appeared to be gmail.
I didn't know exactly what to do. So I thought about emailing a friend's address, and asking him to report back anything unusual about the email he might notice--because it was being sent from a parallel universe, or something.
So I tried typing that in, but the interface took away the slot where I could type. It replaced it with a test you had to pass in order to contact that recipient's domain. There were check boxes about deciding whether a certain situation meant that someone was pregnant--it was a sort of reading comprehension test that incorporated slang
I couldn't really deal with this, as I had what amounted to a throbbing headache. I clicked on the wrong thing or the page went away. So I tried to go back to "gmail", but it seemed to keep correcting it to "email". The browser which seemed to have some very kitschy old-looking "3-D" extruded toolbar buttons for the refresh and what-not.
When looking at some of the pages that were coming up as I was trying to get to gmail, I saw something about how Microsoft had changed their domain from email to gmail (or vice versa?) because the domain name was cheaper.
A woman walked up to me and interrupted me speaking in another language. I wanted to wave her away so she wouldn't bother me or attack me. I gestured at her with finger counting as if to say I'd be with her in 10 minutes.
woman: (in what I heard as English) "10:00? I'm not going to wait and stay here that late!"
me: (in what I believed to be English) "Maybe not that long, I just need some time here."
woman: "So I guess you're not going to have time to go to California and pick up that Intellivision."
This attracted my attention, as I'd had an Intellivision game system growing up. I was curious that if I was inhabiting some parallel universe person's body, why would they be going to get an Intellivision in California...was it related? I noticed a nearby instruction manual and some little Intellivision "overlays".
Note
An unusual aspect of the Intellivision is that the games came with colorful plastic inserts you slotted into the controls to customize them. This allowed for labeling a keypad with in-game functions, so you'd put the insert into the controller to match the game. Often this was kind of superfluous.
Offhand I don't really remember what I did with my Intellivision. I think it got sacrificed in a great closet purge, and given away or sold to some other Microsoft employee who wanted it.
I picked up the instruction booklet, which was a white booklet with some green/blue illustrations on it for a game with a fairly generic name like "Space Blasters".
me: (hiding my awareness) "Hmmm, I... I knew a guy who had an Intellivision. Hey, if I forget to remember this, tell me about it again later"
Note
I was wondering if I was in the body of someone who was challenging, and wondered if they might be in a trance such that they would not remember what I was saying otherwise.
woman: "I have to tell you about something, though. Hold on!"
She looked me in the eyes and it seemed like her facial features were morphing strangely, like she wouldn't have an eye at one moment or her nose would flatten into her face like some kind of scary disfigured person, but then a deformed eye would emerge from her. I tried to generally ignore it.
woman: (speaking odd and rapidly) "I went to a country, and the places had strange names. One of them was called 'fuckyouistan', another was 'goshityourself'. I don't think I should be going to countries like that again."
me: "Well, when you arrive in places that seem to demonstrate an awareness of something they can't know otherwise there might be a reason. It could be because there are mind-traveling beings that have showed up and know what they're doing...they're carrying information. Know your meme!"
A few younger people had joined with us, we seemed to be crowded around a refrigerator.
young girl: "Meme? What's a meme?"
me: "A meme is...a thing someone says or does, it spreads, and so you wind up knowing about it or not. Just a repeatable thing."
I shook the hands of the men in the group and kissed the hands of the women, partially to kind of grab onto them and stabilize and also as an expression of thanking them for not attacking me.
me: "What about jokes? How many jokes do you know? How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
young girl: (guessing) "Uh... one?"
me: "Yes, but why."
young girl: "I don't know."
me: "Because men can be feminists too!"
No one seemed to get it. A larger group gathered.
me: "All right, no time to explain that one. Here's another: what's brown and sticky?"
I couldn't hear anyone making a guess.
me: "a stick. Okay, how about this: why do girls like Jesus?"
This one they seemed to know, as the kids held up their hands spread--in the "because he's hung like this" gesture.
me: "Whoa, you guys know that one, huh? How does this all work, like with the email, gmail thing? When are these universes created? How? Who is splicing them, and where are they copied from?"
indian girl: "On this point...I took a class, not a technical one, but I think that from that class I learned..."
At that point kind of ominous music started playing.
young man: "Uh oh. I don't like the sound of that. This is our cue to get out of here."
I tried to keep up with them but by it seemed they just disappeared. I saw something looking like it was landing out in front of the building, and decided to just go out and confront it directly.
When I walked outside was odd...it was like two large fabric giraffes. They were bright yellow and super tall and gangly, made out of what looked like a thin nylon material--like you might make a wacky flailing arm tube man out of. It seemed they were skating along in a somewhat haphazard fashion.
Given their lack of an intimidating look, I thought I'd just walk up to them and touch them. The mere act of doing so seemed to wake me up in a numbing and breezy fashion--like all my senses just vanished as I awoke.