I have what I consider to be a very interesting dream life, compared to my wife and daughter, at least. Neither my wife nor daughter has anything quite like my own in terms of dream frequency or variety. My wife tells me I should keep a dream journal. Occasionally, I share a dream with wifey, if it’s particularly interesting to me. Telling someone else, talking about it, helps me remember it. The following is one of those.
I was in a long, narrow room with my back nearly against the wall at one end. I knew this to be one of a series of tests I was undergoing. Apparently, for this test, a squad was assigned. There were six people arrayed in a semi-circle in front of me, wearing, as was I, all grey, which I took to be a uniform of some sort. No badges or insignia were visible. The squad was looking at me, awaiting instructions.
The room, otherwise empty, was dimly illuminated but there was no sign of lighting fixtures. At the far end on the left side there was a shadow as of an exit or doorway. In my hand there was a tablet type device with: “This is a timed test. To begin, press ‘Start'” shown on the screen.
[Note: Among my deficiencies, I cannot remember names and faces well. I also cannot discern shapes nearly as well as normal people. I’m always the last one to make out the monster in the dark, the animal in the bushes and so on when watching movies. Things flash on the screen and I have to pause it to ask wifey, “What did I just see?” It was due to this lack of quickly identifying visual stimulus that … ]
I gathered everyone around me and instructed all to watch the tablet along with me lest the display show something too briefly or a series of things too rapidly for me to discern. I pressed “Start” on the tablet. The image changed to a static overhead view of a maze. A red dot glowed at the dead end of a long, narrow passage. I said, “Wait here” and then moved toward the other end of the room. The red dot on the screen moved toward the exit end of the room in the depicted maze. I returned to the squad and said, ” The red dot appears to be us or, rather, the tablet. Thoughts?”
“We gotta get outta a maze,” said one man. Another grunted agreement.
“So, it would appear,” I said. “Anyone else have anything?” Silence.
I continued: “Children solve tougher mazes on waffle house placemats every day. There’s gotta be a catch to it — something more than just finding our way out. I expect there will be barriers, traps, possibly even opposition that will attack us once we pass a particular point.”
“Or the walls might move, like in that ‘Cube’ movie,” one of the men offered.
“Indeed. We don’t know what we might encounter. It is unlikely that we are simply walking out of a simple maze. For that reason, at each intersection, we will send two men to scout each direction that is not the Way Out, as indicated by the tablet. The purpose is twofold: first, to look for anything out of the ordinary. This place is flat and featureless so note anything at all that is not flat, featureless empty space. Secondly, we’ll map the parts we’ve scouted to keep track of what we know of the place.” digging into my kit, I handed a pad and pencil to one man and designated him the maze drawer. “We’ll also compare what we learn of the place to what the tablet shows, in case there are differences.”
Dividing them into two-man teams, I instructed, “Between yourselves, decide who takes point. The other stays back always within visual range of the point man. If anything happens to Point, you come back here and report. Point, you go only as far as the next intersection, approach it with caution and note the directions it goes. Once you have done that, come back here and tell him,” indicating the pad and pencil guy, “what you found. Only then will we proceed to the next intersection along the Way Out. Questions?” There were none. I assigned Pencil & Pad guy and his teammate to bring up the rear and watch our six. They were to stay always with me, lest we lose the pad with what we know of the maze. The other teams would scout.
“All right then, let’s go.” Moving to the far end of the room we were in, we found the shadow to be an empty doorway leading to a narrow, passage, just as the tablet maze noted, leading left and right. Right was the Way Out so squad A went left. Another squad watched the Way Out while the rest of us watched squad A disappear into the dimness of the distance. In less than a minute, they were back and the maze began to take shape on the pad.
The second and third intersections were likewise without anything of note but at the fourth intersection, one of the squads reported back and the maze intersection they described did not agree with the maze shown on the tablet. I sent another squad to verify. The intersection they described was the same as the first squad and at odds with the maze of the tablet.
“Well, that’s it then. We cannot trust the maze on the tablet to be accurate. I suspect that at some point the Way Out will be blocked and we’ll have to back-track to seek an exit not shown. For now, unless someone has a better idea, we’ll proceed along the Way Out until we exit or find our way blocked,” I said. Silence. “All tight then,” I said, indicating the Way Out, “let’s go.”
At that point, one of the men held up his hand and called out, “Time! Exercise concluded.” The test, he explained was not to get out but to see how long it took to recognize that the maze on the tablet is not accurate. Most teams just rush along the Way Out and get nearly to the end before they find out that the tablet is inaccurate. Although we’d barely progressed through the maze, the methodical mapping we used resulted in the fastest time ever for this exercise.
And then I awakened.
