Xanthippa's Chamberpot

This is not as philosophical as it might seem from the title.

Or, perhaps it is…

Whatever this is, it is the result of an actual, real-life (if I may be so bold) dream.

Yes, a dream.

Not one of them ‘pie-in-the-sky’ musings, but, actually, fully asleep, things being projected into my sleepy-consciousness type dream.

Now, there are dreams, and there are dreams.

Many different types, many different textures – if you excuse the term – to the dreams.

Some premises of dreams are nebulous, shifting realities where your mind sort of does not mind that the baseline references are so not-fixed that they shift during the dream and that is perfectly OK to the dreaming you.

One recurring dream I have had every few years had been one where I can glide over – sort of fly, I guess – glide over the ground, just millimeters above, if I just hit my stride the right way…but I can never actually show it to anyone because having an observer completely destroys my ability to ‘glide’. Yes, I understand this reveals more about me than I used to be comfortable sharing, but, well, we are talking about dreams here…

This dream, however, was unlike any other I have ever had – especially in its texture, if you know what I mean. It felt like an alternate reality, but a reality and there was no nebulous and changing quality to it.

It started innocently enough. I was there.

‘There’ was a whole ‘thing’ in and of itself.

It was not ‘here’.

Rather, it was more like a huge colony – a huge, multi-story building, spanning more area than any building I have ever experienced: you could walk for days without reaching its limits. Yet, it was an artificial environment with many, many floors – something I ‘knew’ in my dream.

OK, on the top floor, there was some eco-forming going on – making the area habitable. And, for that, there were these tiny robots, which looked a bit like a cross between bacteria and ants, that would manipulate molecules to create a human-friendly habitat. I was not really supposed to see that, as that kind of ‘gave things away’ that we were all living in an artificial habitat that was, in one way or another, a bio-lab to study us.

OK – throughout all of my life, I have been a bit of a ‘work-around-the-rules’ person.

Not necessarily because I was brave or anything, but because I often did not get that there were rules, so I broke them without understanding the implications. Same in this dream – I kept breaking the ‘unwritten’ rules.

I broke through various (think video games, but not exactly) barriers to get to lower levels of the habitat and it took me time, but I had eventually figured out that each and every one of us had a ‘governor chip’ in our brain and that each ‘floor/level’ of the habitat radiated a different ‘control’ type thingie that got picked up by the ‘governor chip’ and limited that person’s ability to reason beyond what the ‘governor’ allowed. Just did not happen – those thoughts were simply not permitted to register in the brain.

And, yes – there was a strict prohibition for people to move between the habitat levels. If people were caught, the penalty was death. But, that was also my life experience: I was born on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and being caught trying to escape meant death. So, I get where this bit of the dream came from.

Of course, it did not stop me from trying to escape.

To escape the control over my mind.

I am not a neurotypical in real life, so, that carried over to my dream. Because I was not neuro-typical, the ‘governor-chip’ failed at controlling my mental processing – ok, bit by bit, because I sought to escape – of course – but every level lower I got to, the waves controlling the chip were different and made me ‘reason’ in completely different ways, ways that are alien to what I think reasoning is but what seemed absolutely perfect at each level of the habitat I had entered into until I had managed to regain my self.

Finally, I got to the ground level – the base of this whole habitat. I still did not know who had created it or how it was run – I just threw off the shackles of the various levels and was just discovering what this ‘ground level’ was all about. It seemed that the only people who had made it to this level had been the ones who circumvented or resisted successfully their ‘governor chip’.

Backing up a bit: to get from the high (most controlled) levels to the lower ones, there was always a door. Yes, I get it, a door. Heavily guarded at the top most levels, less guarded as you made your way to the lower levels. This should have rang an alarm bell, but, in my dream, it seemed perfect.

So, I work my way to the lowest level – and there is a door.

Yes, a door.

And it says that if I walk through that door, I will become GOD.

Oh, the temptation!

But, my sleeping, dreaming self did not choose to just go through that door and become GOD.

Why?

Well, did it mean I would gain control over this colony/habitat?

Would I now be in charge of controlling the ‘governors’ that control the thoughts of people in the different levels of the habitat?

Would I want that?

Or, would ‘becoming GOD’ mean I would have not just over the habitat/colony, but also over the ones who had created it?

In my dream, I was flummoxed: what exactly would ‘becoming GOD’ mean? And through it various permutations, would I want that? I walked away to ponder the implications…

Luckily, my alarm went off and I never had to answer that question in my dream.

Yet, it has haunted me since: what would it, really, mean to be GOD.