203: Hallucinations

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Hallucinations
And the possibility of lucid dreaming just makes it that much more fascinating.
Title text: And the possibility of lucid dreaming just makes it that much more fascinating.

Explanation

The character on the right is talking about dreaming but using words and phrases to make dreaming sound much worse than it is. Randall is using the comic to make a point about how we think dreaming is so normal, but if we actually realize what's happening, dreaming is very strange:

  • go comatose for a few hours = sleep for a few hours
  • hallucinate vividly = dream
  • suffer amnesia about the whole experience = forget the dream

The character on the left takes this as though the experience is normal. Both characters look like Cueball.

Lucid dreaming is where the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming.

Transcript

Sometimes it seems bizarre to me that we take dreaming in stride.
[Two people standing.]
Cueball: Are you coming to dinner?
Friend: Yeah, but first I'm gonna go comatose for a few hours, hallucinate vividly, and then maybe suffer amnesia about the whole experience.
Cueball: Okay, cool.


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Discussion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine is a brain chemical that apparently allows people to have vivid hallucinations. Pallas (talk) 05:49, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Should the paragraph on lucid dreaming note that those dreams are more frequently remembered? 108.162.216.209 00:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a community portal discussion of what to call Cueball and what to do in case with more than one Cueball. I have added this comic to the new Category:Multiple Cueballs. Since there is clearly one Cueball that is the protagonist and do the "talking" he should probably be listed as Cueball. Just made a note that the other guy also looks like Cueball --Kynde (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2015 (UTC)