I was in a room with many TV screens speaking to an older Asian man in a brown/khaki military uniform.

asian man: "We want to restore you to your prior self, but we are afraid you might be dangerous. You might still be carrying forward the mission, not realizing it is over. You could kill us all."

me: "Uh... what sort of danger would I be?"

asian man: "You have wrought great destruction. Not because you are evil, but because it had to be done."

He began to show footage of something that looked like an Anime. It was about someone named Peter who was using some kind of mech to destroy a planet.

me: "Okay, first of all that guy doesn't look like me at all. Secondly, that is a Japanese animation--a cartoon--and I hardly accept it as evidence of the great threat that I (or anyone else) pose."

The military people in the room started to confer with each other, and scramble around. Some screens showing the credits to the animation appeared.

asian man: "Our enemies have substituted the names into an animation to fool us. This was going to cause a tremendous war, you have saved many lives."

me: "Uh, sure. Now that I've done something for you, I need your help. I need to know how I got here, help me find out how this relates to me."

asian man: "Sorry, I have to go."

Chasing after him, he disappeared in a crowd. I was holding some kind of long golden braided thing which swung like a whip and seemed to hit a girl who was standing there looking at me.

me: "Sorry about that. I don't even know how I got this thing."

girl: "It's very beautiful."

me: "Take it... it'll be gone for me when I wake up."

girl: (taking the rope) "My name is Daniela. Will you remember that?"

me: "I can try..."

Leaving the scene I tried to follow where the man had gone and wound up getting tangled in some kind of elevator device that you strap yourself into which seemed to malfunction terribly. I escaped from it but appeared to destroy it completely. Walking away I shook my fist at it.

me: (angrily) "You call this high technology?"

An older Asian woman in the distance responded.

asian woman: "What is this idea that technology is a hierarchy? It can be parallel, alternate, built on different physics. Not necessarily higher or lower."

Walking toward her, I could see she seemed to have some tables set up with items on it--like a street vendor. She was also painting something on an easel.

me: "This has sucked, nothing works and no one is helping."

asian woman: "If you use a camera with no lens, you will record only pride."

me: "So if your camera has no lens, you'll... overexpose the film, depending on the shutter..."

asian woman: "It's a dual analogy, don't worry about the overexposed film. The point is that you are always bumping about and shouting and trying to make a big discovery. Practice focus."

Sitting down, I looked at the items on the table, which appeared to be small candles in glass containers that were shrinkwrapped. I nudged them around a little.

me: "There are two reasons I might go and knock over all these candles. One could be simple lack of the perceptual ability to realize I am doing so. Another might be because I'm mad at all this weird treatment. I think either is justified--it seems there are people who could straighten it out but choose not to."

asian woman: "That is correct."

me: "So what was with that anime thing, and averting a war, and they can't even be bothered to help me in the least?"

asian woman: "Those people are buffoons. They do only what serves them, and no more--when you reveal their mistakes they immediately do everything to cover up their error. The person who would help you is Leftist. As he has not intervened in the past few weeks I'd say odds are he isn't going to in the immediate future."

me: "Why not?"

asian woman: "Because the goal is not to get from A to B as quickly as you possibly can. This is where you keep missing the point."

There was a transition and I seemed to be talking to a man and a woman--both black and speaking in somewhat stereotypical voodoo-style.

black woman: "You need to go to the Karlska across the street tomorrow for lunch."

me: "Costco? That's far away, it's not really a restaurant."

black woman: "No, C-A-R-L-S-J-R."

me: (puzzled) "Carl's Jr? The fast food chain?"

black woman: "Is that how it's pronounced... I've been saying it wrong all this time! Anyway you should go there for lunch tomorrow and order two different items."

black man: "Have we budgeted for this?"

black woman: "Yes it should be fine. Do they have a potato salad?"

black man: "Or anything with any dried banana?"

When he said "dried banana" he made a sexually suggestive motion with his finger.

me: "I don't get this. Are you trying to say there's some kind of voodoo effect from this particular food? Or that the purchases will trigger some kind of consequence? I've had weird suggestions in dreams before and it's been a policy of mine to not act on them without specific and reasonable justification."

(Update as of lunchtime: For the heck of it, I ate at Carl's Jr today, ordering two items. There were no banana or potato-related items on the menu, besides fries obviously--so I went with that. Here's what the receipt says:

1 Fish Sandwich 3.79

1 Lg Fries 2.19

I used my ATM card and withdrew $20 at the same time. So put that in your Matrix and compute it.)

Currently I am experimenting with using Disqus for comments, however it is configured that you don't have to log in or tie it to an account. Simply check the "I'd rather post as a guest" button after clicking in the spot to type in a name.

The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the
words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction
—in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to
be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be
crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less
disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?