A Digitized Dream

I don't usually remember dreams. This one I did.

In it, I found myself walking through Paul Simon's house in New York City. How I knew whose house I was in or even if Simon actually still has a house in NYC, I don't know. I remember it being white stucco with wood framing, like something you might see in the Italian or French countrysides, a villa. It was two-stories tall, large but not ostentacious.

Somehow, as I walked inside the house, the Simon-connection ended and instead, I found myself in the offices of ESPN, the sports TV and radio network now owned by Disney. I clambered up some winding, plain stairs that looked to be made from oak, beautiful but flat in tone, not coated with shellac.

I walked into a room and found four sports journalists at a table, each wearing headphones, none of whom I recognized. Three were men, one was a woman.

On seeing them, I realized that I was not walking through a house any longer. I was somehow in the archives of the ESPN web site. Everything around me was digitized information that looked like real life, a la Tron, except that nobody was trying to off me.

I was in fact, as irrelevant as anyone who logs onto a web site and reads an article or views a video. I was a consumer. It was like being present, but not part of, some historical events about which you read often; no matter how vividly you imagine it or "see" it, you aren't part of it and you can't change it. It's a done-deal, a dead moment.

The journalists were talking about what was likely to happen in sports in the Year 2002. They were presenting a preview of a year that's four years gone. Everything they said, I'd heard them say already.

I'd been seated, listening to the four journalists for a short time, when I realized that I could almost mouth every word they said as they said them, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. So, I stood up and said, "Excuse me." They turned to me, not saying a word. It was like clicking pause when you watch video streaming. "I've heard all of this before. So, I'm going to leave." When I did that, I woke up.

Most of the time, when I dream--at least in those dreams I remember--if I come to a spot that I don't like, I'll just think, "I don't like this dream. I'd better move on to something else." I just switch channels to something I want to dream or think about.

But I've never had a virtual world dream before. I seem to have moved from television-like dreams, complete with a remote control, to digital ones.

Has the Digital Age changed the way you dream?