No narration. Just speech.
"Have you ever noticed that flicker when a fluorescent light tube is almost dead?"
"I have."
"And you know how if you look at something while that's happening, it kind of flickers too as a result?"
"Obviously."
"Have you ever had that happen when there's only natural light around?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes, right after I wake up, when I go to the washroom and leave the light off, I get that same kind of strobing effect."
"But only after waking up?"
"Right."
"And only in the washroom?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"And it's not what I'm looking at, either - it's the stuff in my peripheral vision."
"That sounds to me like an eye thing."
"Maybe. But there's more."
"More than natural light creating a strobing effect in the bathroom in the morning?"
"Yes. You know how sometimes when it's really quiet, you end up hearing a hum that's not really there?"
"I don't know if I've ever experienced that."
"I have. Usually when I'm in the bathroom just before I go to bed."
"I see we're back in the bathroom for this."
"I can't help it, it's where it happens. I'll be sitting there minding my own business, and then that hum will show up, and it's deafening."
"A deafening hum when there's no actual sound around."
"That's right."
"I think you may be hallucinating. You should see someone about that."
"I have another theory."
"I see."
"Statistically speaking, we're probably in a simulation."
"Excuse me?"
"Theoretically there could be millions of life simulations happening, but there's only one reality, so the odds of us existing in reality are a million to one."
"I ...guess that makes sense?"
"And nobody knows why we dream, right? We know it's useful, but nobody's ever figured out what actually causes it."
"Based on what you've said, I suspect I'm in someone's nightmare right now."
"Stop that. What if this is a simulation, and that flickering and humming are the screen refreshing and a system fan?"
"Which are only detectable in the bathroom, on either end of sleep?"
"Sleeping would be the simulated me powering down for the night."
"Like an android."
"I'm serious. What if going into that powered down state confuses the simulation, and makes me more receptive to the stimuli of the system, and the bathroom is positioned just right to amplify it to the point of being detectable by the simulations?"
"H-uh."
"I'll go a step further: when we go to sleep, we're not generating any data, but as a simulated entity we still have to be doing something, so instead we help process the data being generated by other sims. Our dreams would then be the experiences of other, random sims in the simulated world around us."
"Except that lucid dreaming is a thing."
"Yeah, I haven't quite figured that one out yet. It could be that the data transfer is so complete that it seems like you're making decisions, but you're actually experiencing the other sim making their decisions, but since you're experiencing it from their point of view it feels like it's you controlling it in your dream."
"And when people fly in their dreams?"
"We could be experiencing the data flow of a different simulation running on the same machine, where the rules are different."
"Multiple complex simulations running on the same box?"
"It's a box built by a hyper-intelligent being that's able to create a simulation of an entire world - maybe an entire universe. Why wouldn't they be able to run two such simulations on the same machine? Haven't you ever had two video games running at once?"
"So you're saying the world as we know it isn't real, and your evidence is that you experience weird things in your bathroom when you're tired."
"Well when you put it that way it sounds stupid."
"I know."
"But yes."
"Okay, serious question, not judging: are you high right now?"
"I am. But what if I'm right?"
"If you're right then it doesn't matter that you're right, because you're just a simulation anyway."
"Nietzsche."
"I don't know if Nietzsche ever tackled simulated reality."
"He was very progressive."
"So supposing you're right... now what?"
"Now we eat all the food we want, because our bodies aren't real anyway."
"I think I like this new philosophy of yours."
2020-06-22 · Boss Music Intensifies
2020-06-15 · Accept the Unexpected
2020-06-08 · Failing The Test
2020-06-01 · Best Laid Plans
2020-05-25 · The End?
2020-05-18 · The Only Explanation
2020-05-11 · Personal Victory
2020-05-04 · Six Questions
2020-04-27 · It's A Team Effort
2020-04-20 · The More Things Change
2020-04-13 · It's All About Perspective
2020-04-06 · Fake It 'Til You Make It
2020-03-30 · Keeping It Clean
2020-03-23 · How To Save The World
2020-03-16 · Time For A Change
2020-03-09 · Music To My Ears
2020-03-02 · Unfamiliar Territory
2020-02-24 · Something From Nothing
2020-02-17 · The Times Are Changing
2020-02-10 · The Missing Piece
2020-02-03 · Wrong Place, Wrong Time
2020-01-27 · Overexposure
2020-01-20 · As Seen On TV
2020-01-13 · Written By A.I.
2020-01-06 · Promises Kept
2019-12-30 · Ringing It In
2019-12-23 · Happy Unspecified Seasonal Holiday!
2019-12-16 · The Lair
2019-12-09 · Time To Get Cracking
2019-12-02 · Not A Suicide
2019-11-25 · The One That Knows What Number It Is
2019-11-18 · Venting Frustrations
2019-11-11 · The Test Takers
2019-11-04 · Make Your Play
2019-10-28 · Horror With Smart People
2019-10-21 · The Interview
2019-10-14 · It Must Have Happened At Some Point
2019-10-07 · Work The Problem
2019-09-30 · Cogs in the Machine
2019-09-23 · First of One
2019-09-16 · Curse Your Inevitable Betrayal!
2019-09-09 · Be Brief
2019-09-02 · Changing Channels
2019-08-26 · It's A Process
2019-08-19 · Armed And Dangerous
2019-08-12 · Good Intentions
2019-08-05 · A Simple Procedure
2019-07-29 · Finale Feelings
2019-07-22 · Fun And Profit
2019-07-15 · It Builds Character
2019-07-08 · Aviator Safety
2019-06-24 · Something's Been Bugging Me
2019-06-17 · It's All About You
2019-05-27 · Rough Encounters
2019-05-20 · Wishes Three
2019-05-13 · A Gentle Nudge
2019-05-06 · A Simple Misunderstanding?
2019-04-29 · Don't Spoil It
2019-04-22 · Under Scrutiny
2019-04-15 · Prepare To Resist
2019-04-08 · Making Small Talk
2019-04-01 · The Crisis
2019-03-25 · Just Kidding
2019-03-18 · How About That Local Sports Team?
2019-03-11 · Public Engagement
2019-03-04 · The Hero We Need
2019-02-25 · The Negotiation
2019-02-18 · Executive Orders
2019-02-11 · The Talk
2019-02-04 · The Big Game
2019-01-28 · If It's A Girl...
2019-01-21 · The Nature Of Picasso
2019-01-14 · I'm Sorry, Ms. Jackson
2019-01-07 · Never Saw It Coming
2018-12-31 · Duelling ...Holidays?
2018-12-24 · Too Much Cheer
2018-12-17 · Taking Out The Trash
2018-12-10 · Let's Go To The Movies
2018-12-03 · Not For Donuts
2018-11-26 · Horizons Made Broad
2018-11-19 · It's The Journey That Matters
2018-11-12 · Anthing You Can Do...
2018-11-05 · Let's Call It "Laundry"
2018-10-29 · Unfriended
2018-10-22 · A Conversation About "Tacos"
2018-10-15 · Changes
2018-10-08 · An Adult-Sized Secret
2018-10-01 · Street War
2018-09-24 · Whither Whether Why
2018-09-17 · The Pitch
2018-09-10 · The One That's Meta
2018-09-03 · A Night At The Movies
2018-08-27 · We're Vampires
2018-08-20 · The Final Showdown
2018-08-13 · The End Of The World
2018-08-06 · A More Rational Kind Of Love
2018-07-30 · Death Troubles
2018-07-23 · True Love
2018-07-18 · At Least It's Not Des Moines