Investigating the ramshackle and retro contents of a bizarre waiting area, I finally uncover an incredible secret: nothing is real
I am on the cusp of incredible discovery.
In personal terms, it feels a bit like decoding the Rosetta Stone or landing on the moon.
I am about to confirm whether I am lucid dreaming.
I’ve died in my dreams. I’ve fallen asleep in my dreams. On multiple occasions, I’ve even consciously tried to harvest material for this blog.
But I’ve never recognised and confirmed a dream’s artificiality while experiencing it. At least, not without causing the dream to immediately end.
In this case, my method of confirmation is pathetically geeky. It speaks to some of my long-held obsessions: magazines, films and film-release dates. But it does the job.
And I’ve earned it.
I’ve been on an epic adventure to find myself here, in some weird area of a giant mixed-use government facility, with my wife.
The waiting area
We’re in an irregularly sized, carpeted area, which is defined at its borders by several glass-partitioned sections. Each of these inaccessible sections has the size and feel of a chintzy display in a small museum.
Looking through the glass, I can see into what seems to be a gym facility for children. Everything is designed in a way that will appeal to kids, in bold and basic reds and blues. The colours and decor are highly reminiscent of the 1980s.
I can’t see a way to access these partitioned areas. There are a couple of kids on the other side of the glass with me, peering in at what appears to be a little boxing ring. This carpeted zone feels like a cluttered Paediatrics waiting room.
Like other elements of the dream, it feels like a fragment of the past. There are stacks of well-thumbed magazines and comics around. They seem to come from a different era of print – from my childhood, specifically.
They’re bright, cheap and cheerful. In many cases, the cover stock is barely distinguishable from the paper inside. There’s the Beano, and there are copies of magazines like Look-In, Havoc and Mean Machines Sega.
These titles hail from an era where kids received a larger portion of their entertainment diet from print.
Judgment Day
Further confirmation that I am in the past: it must be around the early nineties, because the inescapable promotional campaign for Terminator 2: Judgment Day appears to be in full swing, based on some of these magazine covers.
I notice that one sci-fi/movie magazine (something in the vein of Starlog) and see that it has a familiar image of Arnie on the front. Then I notice a headline across the bottom of the cover, announcing that Poltergeist is No.1 at the box office. I put the copy down and leaf through another magazine.
Some part of my brain becomes suspicious that the release of Poltergeist and Terminator 2 were not contemporaneous. It dawns on me that Poltergeist must have come out in the early 1980s
I start to feel suspicious that what I’m experiencing might be a dream. I return to the magazines, convinced that these are a good way to confirm the dream state.
Foreign affairs
One magazine is called The Romanian. I open it and discover that the entire contents are printed in Romanian. This development gives me pause.
A magazine in an unfamiliar foreign language seems like a convenient excuse for my brain to avoid rendering a huge amount of legible text
An anecdote comes to mind: if you turn on a light switch in a dream, it’s more likely to be a dimmer switch. Simulating the activation of a dimmer switch gives your brain a little more time to generate a new dream environment as it’s gradually revealed.
Similarly, a magazine printed in an unfamiliar foreign language seems like an awfully convenient excuse for my brain to avoid rendering a huge amount of legible text, in real time.
I discard The Romanian with a frown. I rifle through some of the other magazines. An epiphany is brewing somewhere in my consciousness.
This issue of text-rendering causes my mind to return to the magazine with Arnie on the cover.
I know when Terminator 2 was released, so I should check the date on the cover! If the magazine is kosher then it should have the correct release date on the cover.
Let’s check the date, I mutter, feeling a rising sense of anticipation.
Even better than the real thing
I return to the stack where the movie magazine is partially covered. Will it say the right date? Will it say the right date?
I slide the magazine out from the pile to reveal the publication date: August 1995.
So Terminator 2 (1991) and Poltergeist (1982) should not be on the cover as ‘new’ releases. I have confirmation that I am dreaming.
The dream does not collapse. I turn and explain to my wife that I’m experiencing a lucid dream.
I look around me. Armed with this fresh knowledge, I am stunned by how vivid everything is. The lighting, the physicality – it all feels completely real. The dream is indistinguishable from reality.
In fact, it’s just like being awake, except I’m able to test these details and notice that things aren’t quite the same – that this really is a dream.
And considering what I’ve been through to get here, that’s kind of incredible. I’ve watched a child avoid certain death, chased a man into a NORAD facility, watched preparations for World War 3, and spied on George Lucas filming a new Star Wars movie.
The quest was worth it, for this.
