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"It's always a different dream, but always kind of the same. I stand in a hallway and knock on a door for a joke, but I can't turn and run when the doorknob starts turning. I stand up mockingly in class while the teacher's back is turned, but can't seem to sit back down as they turn back to look at me. I dive into the beautiful, clear ocean, but freeze in place just below the surface as something rises from below to meet me." "Do you feel any guilt about the work you do here, Jason?" "You know I'm not allowed to talk about any specifics." "Of course, but I haven't asked what you're doing, I asked how you feel about it." "I don't feel like we're doing anything wrong here. On the contrary, I think leaving the work undone would be a thing to feel guilty about. The untapped potential, the understanding we're building… it will change how we think of the world. That has to be a good thing, right?" "And yet, in your dreams you feel like a kid caught with their hands in the cookie jar." "I'd rather we drop this line of discussion, Doctor." "Naturally, Jason. Or would "Chief Investigator" make you feel more in control?"
"We are seen. It's not long until we will be touched." "Touched by what, exactly?" "Touched. Chewed. Tasted. Digested. Processed. Excreted." "Ramin, focus, please. What is doing all that? Or rather, what do you feel will be doing those things?" "It's big. Bigger than the Sun. Smaller than an atom." "And what does this large small thing want, beyond touching us?" "It just is. It needs no reason. It needs only to exist. It needs only to expand." "Do you want to talk about Immersion 132R?" "There's nothing to talk about. I wasn't there. It didn't touch me. I didn't look. It didn't look back. It didn't smile with a million rotten worlds in its mouth." "Have you been taking your medication?" "Like they would help. I tried, Doc, I really did. But the truth is, I like having these thoughts. They give me a certainty, and I am thankful for knowing how it will all end. That we all belong to something, and nothing can take us from it now."
I keep dreaming the same dream ever since Dr. Yin's final session. The same one she described with that vivid enthusiasm, like she could see it in the waking world as well. I didn't understand the beauty of it back then, so I just took my notes as usual when one of them vents about the horrible things we encourage them to feel good about -- it is what I'm getting paid for, after all. Looking at the transcript now, its dryness feels blasphemous: "connected branches of gray vines" he writes, unable to imagine the transcendence of the Whole stretching across infinity, connecting large and small, familiar and unknowable; "moldy fuzz in a positive connotation - rural childhood?" like an armchair psychotherapist grasping at straws, as if the eternal fractal was anything less than divine. I am grateful for her allowing me to dream the same dream on for her, I only wish it came to me before I hastily reported the session to the bloodhounds at Security. I remember being terrified of something, but the feeling melted in the radiance of my first night's sleep. I will need to seek out others of a similar mind, to connect with them, to show them what we can become with time, but I need to be more careful than she was.

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