I was in the living room of a house, with a large-screen TV and several people. There was a large guinea pig that someone had let out, and people were looking at it. It went to the center of the room and stayed relatively still.
Going over to the guinea pig I looked at it more closely. It let me pet it, and then lay on its side with its legs out. They were stretched too long to be a guinea pig, but I didn't really notice.
A small young girl was looking at the guinea pig, and imitiating it. She lay on the floor parallel to it. The conversation seemed to focus on how she and the guinea pig got along well, that he was very tame, and that they had some kind of close relationship. The girl demonstrated by getting on her hands and knees, and the guinea pig got up, and they ran around the room. The girl was managing movements that were eerily doglike; I got the perception she had essentially become a dog in the process.
me: (leerily) "That's... that's pretty convincing. You could get on America's Got Talent with that."
On the TV there was some kind of computer software running, and a keyboard. It had to do with being able to answer questions people were asking of the guinea pig. There were picture frames around the room containing some answers to the questions, and someone was asking "What's the name of your boyfriend?"
Looking at previous answers in the frame, I could see an answer had been given--and it was some name like "Josh". The young girl who had scurried away as a dog had been answering, and I was in a position of giving an answer. I looked at her, and then at the keyboard, and typed: "I don't have a boyfriend, I'm too young."
The message got on and the screen glitched a bit.
me: "What kind of computer is this?"
A middle-eastern looking man stepped over and handed me a flat square object that seemed like very thin porcelain. It had some holes in it near the edges, and three lights colored lights in a triangle formation...red, yellow, and green.
me: "What do the lights mean?"
Someone I perceived to be my mother was sitting in a chair next to me, and answered.
mother: "They are activity lights, for the various functions. It is good that now more and more things are being built that reveal their inner functions on the outside in some way that you know what's going on."
me: "Yes, that's nice, but sensing in general isn't something you should build in as lights."
mother: (seemingly disoriented) "How can you not say that is good, it is clearly good to have the lights..."
She rambled a bit before I could mention what I meant.
me: "I'm not saying that the lights are bad. I'm just saying that if all you have is a light, then if you want to know something about the historical trends what are you supposed to do? Set up an optical sensor, and then feed that into some kind of log? If I can have a light and a connecting feed of some kind then great. But if you give me a feed, I can add a light driven by the feed...and a graph...and an alerting system that watches for patterns across more than one light. If you only give me a light, I don't have as many options."
mother: (more lucid) "Oh, I see what you mean now. Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me."
The group of people dispersed and I got up as well. I had a towel wrapped around me, and hadn't considered it before but now wondered about having had this conversation the whole time in a towel. I began looking around for clothes and became distracted, but the nonsensicalness of my search made me realize that it was a dream circumstance.
Though I addressed my mother, I still continued at the attempt to pull up clothing from the sofa...though monitoring how it reacted.
me: "The search for clothing, in a situation which I had not previously thought I was naked...and then having undue difficulty in finding it is a pretty good clue. This deep programming that you have to be wearing clothes all the time is dangerous. It's a recent thing in the universe, isn't it?"
The person I had perceived to be my mother tinkered in the kitchen with something and responded, now looking like a different woman...and lucid.
woman: "You can stop worrying about it whenever you're ready"
I eyed her and the rest of the room suspiciously with the towel, wondering about the differences between nudity standards in this environment vs. my familiar environment.
me: "Just because I'm not in 'the usual' circumstances, what's the impact of dropping the towel and forgetting about it? I can't do that when I'm awake. With things that look like children around, how do I know what consequences are for what actions?"
The young girl from earlier came back into the room, no longer looking like a dog.
me: (to girl) "I pretty much should have known it was a dream when you did that impression of the dog. I'd say, rather, that you can shapeshifted into a dog. Even better for America's got talent."
young girl: "It's one of my many talents."
I re-addressed the person who had been my mother previously.
me: "Why wouldn't you just lay groundwork earlier, if you can communicate clearly? We had a conversation in which you were practically incoherent, talking about sensors on computer chips, while I was making good sense."
The young girl seemingly had changed into an attractive 20s-ish Asian girl, and came to my side.
asian girl: (interrupting) "These perceptions and experiences... it isn't you, it isn't me..."
She paused, and the woman also walked from the kitchen to be nearer to us and address me.
woman: (pointedly) "...it isn't... FEE."
Note
I heard this as a nonsense word, like "fee fi fo fum".
me: "What?"
woman: "Just because one can do more to intervene in a situation to teach and put someone on track, doesn't mean one always takes the time. Everything you do has a cost, and if there is a cost there has to be a price."
I gave her a bit of a glare for the mercenary attitude. The Asian girl interrupted with a tone of contrast, looking me in the eye.
asian girl: "Well... MY 'price' is me being interested."