Why?

The question brought my mind's focus from a fantasy world of the future back to the prosaic present. Mentally I moved into this new day. Physically, or was it spiritually?-some deep core of my essential self reached forward into 2150 and stayed there.

The feeling of loss was strong in me as I sat up in-bed and strapped on my artificial limb. Karl had already left to teach his 8 a.m. Introductory Psychology class. I was glad that I had given up my teaching assistantship this semester to work full-time on our dissertation. This left my time relatively free of demands, so I could let this incredible dream drift about the edges of my mind as I pursued my day's activities.

Was it just a dream? Just. Maybe that was the wrong word. That booklet I had scanned-a light brown booklet-said something about dreams being much more important, a reality of their own. What was it? Maybe I could find it again. Just a little booklet, "Interpret Your Dreams from a... " something or other.

Finishing my breakfast, I cleaned up our small kitchen absorbed in conflict. Never had I experienced a dream so clear and vivid and with such an incredibly detailed story.

Yet if I took it seriously, I might just as well forget about becoming a respected social psychologist. Anyone in my field who spoke of time travel, astral bodies, parapsychology, or other forms of intelligent life contacting us here on Earth, would be ostracized by his colleagues.

Still, I decided to write down what I could remember, and as I slowly recorded this strange experience, I began to live it again:

As I puzzled over that last statement of C.I.-something about my belief system-the door opened.

"Man, am I hungry!" Karl shook the snow off his fuzzy black hair as he pulled off his fake fur overcoat and boots.