Way Beyond the West

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time sense, and slip seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would I suppose start out by fulfilling all your wishes. You could design for yourself what would be the most ecstatic life: love affairs, banquets, dancing girls, wonderful journeys, gardens, and music beyond belief. And then after a couple of months of this sort of thing at seventy-five years a night, you’d be getting a little taste for something different, and you’d move over to an adventurous dimension, where there were certain dangers involved, and the thrill of dealing with dangers. And you could rescue princesses from dragons, and go on dangerous journeys, and eventually get into contests with enemies. And after you had done that for awhile, you’d think up a new wrinkle, to forget that you were dreaming, and think that is was all for real.