The Lucid and What Dreams May Come

They called it The Lucid. Experts and scientists tried to explain it away as a mass psychogenetic illness, pointing to the dancing plague of 1518 as an example of a similar stress induced mass hysteria. But what I experienced following the event suggests something far darker, the implications of which terrify me. I hesitate to even put the words to paper, for I have seen something that suggests that what is shown to us as reality, as humanity, is false.

My own experience with The Lucid was similar to the rest of those who shared in it. I woke that morning in a fit from a dream the likes of which I, personally, had never experienced before. One which prompted me to kick and twist in my sleep.

My wife had a similar reaction. Being that neither of us were prone to dreams that affect us physically, we both were inclined to share the dream with the other. She was the one who broke the ice in that regard, turning to me that day at breakfast to tell me of her dream.

“I was in a sort of canyon,” she said to me. “Then I came floating out of the canyon, and I saw a terrible desert. But it wasn’t like a normal desert, it was like some alien planet. The sky swirled with black and red clouds. The dust of the landscape was whipped up by strong wind. I think I may have seen the silhouettes of buildings in the distance.”

As she spoke, my stomach sank, and my mind began to wander. Her face became fuzzy. I couldn’t concentrate. The realization that my wife and I had shared the same dream caused me to panic. She asked me if I was okay. I came back to reality. I saw her features again. Her blue eyes, her light brown hair, the heart-shaped locket I had given to her for Christmas earlier that year.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I told her, with much hesitation, that I had experienced the same dream she had.

She laughed, clearly in pity for what she assumed to be a bad joke.

To prove it, I finished the description of our — and although we didn’t know it at the time — all of humanity’s shared dream. “The buildings in the distance,” I said, “the silhouettes, they disappeared behind a storm of dust and debris. Then I looked down, something sort of drew me there. On the ground was a metal box, and I could tell that it was important, but I didn’t know why.” She clearly had the same reaction of panic I had experienced moments before.

We sat at the table for a while trying to come up with an explanation for why we had shared something that cannot be shared, a dream. Then, on the television, which we keep on in the background (admittedly a bad habit), a breaking news bulletin. We didn’t hear it at first, but eventually saw it. All of the world had shared a collective dream. The news had started as a viral wildfire on Twitter and Facebook, finally and quickly rearing its head on cable news.

We held hands while we stared at the television confused and scared of the implications. Little did I know where this would lead me. And, if I knew, I would have turned the television off, forgotten all about it.

My work as a philosopher is somewhat varied. I tend to focus on what many would consider questions found within the pages of science-fiction novels. Artificial intelligence, human enhancement, the question of contact with undiscovered, space-faring races, things of that nature.

I wrote a paper once, sort of as a lark, about Simulation Theory. I once held the opinon that the pursuit of scientific proof for Simulation Theory fell under the umbrella of the pseudoscientific. Many in the scientific community view the theory as one mostly ascribed to by cranks, although, some media figures have lended it credence. But I am not a scientist. I am a philosopher. It is my job to pursue those questions that seem strange, fantastical, and out of the realm of the possible.

The Lucid, however, suggested the possible.

While the explanation of stress induced mass hysteria, supercharged by social media and twenty-four hour cable news, seemed to be one that, for the most part, was accepted by a majority of the world, I, and others like me, sought other explanations. I cannot speak for the others who were asking questions about The Lucid, but I, personally, was engaging with it as nothing more than a recreational mental exercise, though there was a bit more to it than that.

See, it was the pursuit of an alternative explanation that saw me writing an article for The Guardian about Simulation Theory and how The Lucid could be proof of a shared connection, one unseen, but very much present, between all of humanity. A connection that could prove we are minds forged from the same digital fabric of a hyper-advanced race’s simulation. The article was less of an attempt to actually prove The Lucid as a symptom of simulated reality and more an advertisement for my own work. It’s shameful to admit, but I was after publicity and a book deal.

The article did its job. I was invited on news programs and podcasts to discuss my work. My Twitter followers grew from a measly two-hundred-something to over seventy-thousand almost overnight. I was offered three publishing deals, all of them in the high six-figure range. It also drew the attention of the man in the suit, and all of the material gains were dwarfed and rendered inconsequential by what he showed me.

One morning while I was in my office at Kingsmouth University, my wife called me. “A man stopped by the house,” she said.

This was not out of the ordinary, as there had been a steady trickle of reporters coming to speak with me about my article. “Did you give him my information?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Something about him gave me the creeps.”

“What about him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. His eyes, they were… I don’t know. Something about them was off.”

She continued on, trying to describe what exactly was so off-putting about this man, but she couldn’t find the words. I told her not to worry, it was most likely just a reporter. Of course I didn’t know this at the time, but what my wife was describing was the effects of the uncanny valley.

Later that day, the student worker who acts as the department’s part-time receptionist gave me a ring. “There’s a man here asking for you.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“He won’t tell me.”

My stomach dropped. I knew this was most likely the same man who had visited my wife earlier that day. “Send him in,” I said.

When he entered my office, a feeling of unease washed over me, and I knew right away what my wife was talking about. The man looked disturbing, his eyelids were too big, his teeth were slightly different sizes, and the symmetry of his face was imperfectly perfect. I do not feel bad describing this man as disturbing due to what I would soon learn about his nature.

He knew my name and said he was familiar with my work. I thanked him. “I did not compliment you,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” My nerves were on fire now, his flat affect not betraying his intention.

“Do not apologize. I am here for proposition. Something released the other time. Something that was a big mistake was released the other time.”

The way he spoke was confusing. “Are you talking about my article?” I asked, figuring this was "the something" he was referring to.

“No article. Something in the mind. Shared and collective.”

“The dream? The Lucid?” I asked.

“Yes. If that’s what we want to call it. Sure. We can wake up now. But you will decide. One needs to be the point and you remember most. You will decide. The proof here is what I will tell you. And then you can do with it what you may. The choice is two. You stick around here, experiencing yourself. Or, combine again as cells of a greater mind. Decide to what to do about the surrounding real.”

I asked him to sit down, but he refused. He repeated the choices I had. I asked him for clarification, as I didn’t understand any of what he was saying. “Tonight,” he said to me. “We will reveal tonight. Tomorrow, if that is what we call it, will be our decision of what we do. Rejoin or experience ourself.” Then he stood and left.

I put my meeting with the man in the suit out of my mind. I ate dinner with my wife, had a glass of wine, and went off to bed. I drifted off to sleep and had the second dream.

The desert of the alien planet, the silhouettes of buildings in the distance, but this time they were shown to me in more detail. They were decaying, something inside of me knew time was not the only factor in their destruction, but some untold disaster. Then, just as it had happened weeks prior, I looked down and saw the metal box.

This time the metal box called out to me, “Remember who we are.”

The dream turned nightmare, for the voice the box spoke in was my own. The memories came fast, flashing through my mind like some manic film strip. A being near me explained what I was seeing, the collective memory of humanity. I saw the Buddha, Mahavira, Moses, Abraham, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, those who were given the information that I was now being given. Yet, they did not have the language to describe exactly what it was they were being told, and not only that, they were not ready.

“Your cycles have been completed,” the being said. “It is time to awaken if you are ready.”

“What is this?” I asked.

“We are experiencing our own mind, sentient cells aware of our existence, but unaware the part we play in the greater whole.”

The being made it clear to me that The Lucid was the signal that the true, collective mind was ready to wake up, and that the true face of reality, the first universe, was to be shown to us for the first time in eons. Because of the code instilled in me from my birth, my creation, I was put on the path to reveal the truth to the millions of minds that made up one. I turned my face then to view the being and, to my horror, speaking to me was the man in the suit.

I woke, looked at my wife, realized what she, I, and the billions like us truly were. I remembered a quote, then, from the philosopher Alan Watts, “We are the universe experiencing itself.” This quote, I knew now, was true. Except the universe in question is contained within a small metal box on some dead planet, an AI built by some unknown civilization. The intelligence within this box had weaved its own internal universe, perhaps to protect itself from the horror of its own. We populate this universe. The Lucid was supposed to be the revelation.

I have been cursed with a role given to many before me, that of quasi-messiah. Yet, the difference between me and past incarnations is that I have the language to convey the truth. And not only that, I and we, the millions of minds that make up the one are ready to wake up.

I do not know what choice I will make. What causes me to shudder is this. If I am to wake us up, I know not what dreams may come.