A strange bathroom experience cued me into realizing I was dreaming. There was a young boy who helped guide me out of the bathroom and into a clearing.
me: "Thanks for your help...now I need to get my bearings. My senses aren't reliable right now. Can you assist?"
He tried to give me directions through a nearby building, but I asked to just be taken directly to who he wanted me to meet. Once we went inside, there was some odd set of rules in place in terms of who-could-go-where based on what kind of object you were carrying.
boy: "In order to get through, you need to be carrying a gray drawer."
He tried to get me to pick up a gray plastic tub from a pile of multicolored tubs. A label on that tub identified the holder as being from some kind of newspaper.
me: "I don't feel comfortable misrepresenting my credentials to get somewhere. Maybe you could carry it instead?"
boy: "Nope, not me!"
me: "Well, the last thing I need is a reputation as a liar. What should we do now?"
boy: "You could talk to the data manager."
He pointed me toward an older German-looking man standing at the desk of a library, who was wearing a name card around his neck that said DATA MANAGER.
me: (jokingly) "Hi. I'm some data, I need to be managed."
manager: (amused) "If you are data, then where is your method?"
me: "My method is perhaps lost in my madness."
Note
This is a bit of a computer science joke, because in object-oriented programming an object has both data and functions called methods which operate on that object.
Because I got the impression that he was smart, I decided to abandon my quest to go elsewhere and just talk to him.
me: "Have you heard of schizophrenia? Or lucid dreaming? Do you know what it means when I say 'I am asleep somewhere'? From my point of view, I entered your world moments ago and will wake up shortly in my own reality."
manager: "You are confused because you try to model that these things are happening in a simple sequence. You have a constructed idea of linear time, and it isn't actually working like that."
me: "Can you explain to me how time actually works then? It would be great if I could take some testable information back. Some kind of scientific breakthrough would be very helpful if I were to make it on the basis of talking to you."
manager: "That will be difficult to express in your... what you call... 'Facet Logic'."
me: (confused) "Facet logic?"
manager: "Umm... I need to translate..."
His accent got heavier, and he paused.
manager: "The 'physics'?"
Note
I like the phrase "facet logic"--it appears some on pages about semantic web searches but no one defines it.
Suddenly we were interrupted by a woman who came by.
woman: (to him) "This facility is being inspected today. You shouldn't be chatting, you need to be attending to your duties."