It was 2 a.m. when I came back inside, after having been on the terrace for perhaps five minutes. I checked the clock and threw myself down on the couch. Immediately I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed that two men were talking to me. They wore ordinary clothing, suits of some innocuous nature. We were discussing the failure of behavioral psychology to uncover any but the most surface qualities of human personality. I disagreed with their indictment. At this point, a terrific noise awakened me. I sprang to a sitting position, fully alert—and I must admit, instantly alarmed.

To my astonishment, the two men still stood there. I recalled the dream clearly and recognized the two of them as my dream images. Blinking furiously, I rubbed my eyes.

“The wind knocked over the empty geranium pot on the patio. Don’t bother yourself,” the first man said.

I didn’t speak. Quite deliberately I looked around. Everything was as it should be. The room was solid and real, except that the men couldn’t possibly be in it. The sensory clues in that respect made no sense. There was one dim light lit, and I could see the men as clearly as I saw the couch, or desk, or anything else. I could have thought them intruders, burglars, if I hadn’t remembered them from my dream.

As reasonably as I could, I said, “Look. You’re dream images. I can’t possibly be talking to you because I’m wide awake. Unless I’m still asleep and don’t realize it.”

“You’ve been overworking. Is that it?” The first man smiled in a way I found curiously comforting; and like an idiot I nodded my head vigorously and said, “Yes, that must be it. I am still asleep and dreaming.”

But the second man laughed, and didn’t seem as well-disposed toward me as the first. “Interesting hypothesis,” he said. “Suppose I insist that you’re a dream image of mine instead?”

I scowled, but even then I noted my own reactions. This second man was somewhat younger than I, and I resented his manner of knowing, or pretending to know, more about the situation than I did. To make it worse, the other man then grinned indulgently and said, “On the other hand, you may both be images in a dream of mine.”

By now I knew that I was, indeed, fully awake. And I was frightened. For a moment I suspected that both of the men were lunatics who had somehow gained entry—intruders, in fact—and that I’d only confused them with earlier dream images. I pinched my arm. My reflexes were normal. My critical faculties were operating. Yet I could make no sense of the situation at all.

The younger man said, “Now that we’ve provided you with suitable stimuli to your curiosity, we’ll enjoy watching your further reactions.”