There were many small observations and encounters in that building that I don't remember. Eventually, it occurred me that I was just wandering around aimlessly, and should try to do some specific task. I hadn't looked at DV in a while, so the only TOTM I could remember was an old one, but it was one that I myself had contributed, and neglected to do at the time because I haven't been LDing as much. The task was to ask a DC: "Whose dream is this?" It was a question really intrigued me, so I decided to try it now, as there were plenty of DCs around.
I approached a random man and asked him, "Whose dream is this?" He paused for a moment and responded flatly, "Actually there is no answer." I moved on to another man and asked the same thing. "No answer," he said, then added something about the universe. I can't remember exactly what he said, but when I asked him to elaborate, he said, "I have to call Universal," as though he were talking about the film studio.
I figured I might as well ask as many DCs as I could, so I moved on to a group of three. I think they were all men too. After I asked the question, they all responded in turn, "Not I," "Not I," "Not I."
I walked down a hall and found some more people. I think there was a man and a woman standing and another man sitting, talking to each other. They were next to a glass wall that made the place now feel like an airport. (Preoccupied by my task, it did not occur to me to observe the view outside.) "Whose dream is this?" I asked them. The man sitting on the ground started complaining about various aches and pains and other problems in his life, implying that if his life was someone's dream, they were terrible to make him suffer so. As the dreamer I couldn't help but feel a bit guilty, even though I surely had not in any conscious way contributed to his suffering.
As the seated man continued to talk about his problems, it became apparent that he was a faculty member at some university, perhaps in his second year, but it was a temporary position and he was stressed about the difficulty and uncertainty of trying to make it a permanent one after his contract was up. (It didn't sound exactly like the usual tenure process, where the person in the position is automatically reviewed at periodic intervals, but something that would only happen on his own initiative if he chose to do so.) I thought of pointing out that at least he had a job for the next couple years (it sounded like he was on a five year contract) but he seemed anxious about the fact that he didn't know what would happen after that. At the same time, he was wondering if he should just throw in the towel altogether and leave academia.
Listening to the man complain and the other two commiserate, occasionally offering advice or suggestions, the situation seemed so utterly bland and plausible, so banal and mundane, that I found myself wondering if this really was a dream, or if I had somehow in the dream state managed to pick up on a WL conversation people were having somewhere. If this was a dream (my own dream at that!) I was terribly disappointed in it. Seriously, DCs, try to show a little more imagination!
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