The Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything

...is "42" according to Deep Thought. But what was the question? Today, I used the 6-1-method (sleep six hours, spend one awake) to induce a lucid dream. That method - also known as WBTB (Wake, Back To Bed) - works great to facilitate experiences that can actually stretch over hours. In fact, I can look back on a number of extensive lucid dreams thereby, some of which lasting so long, that I deliberately dropped out, because I got either exhausted or bored. Another interesting characteristic of above method is, that I'm not really asleep. Fully immersed, yes, but also able to effortlessly switch between realities, sometimes mixing them up. But this article is not about lucid dreaming techniques, it's about a realization I came to during today's experience.

I went up the staircase of a multi-storey building and was greeted by a group of dream characters, inviting me into a mid-sized flat. Someone else was with me, but I didn't pay much attention to him (I think), until we entered what seemed to be the living room. There, he mentioned the waking world for some reason and I told him to shut up, because thinking about it could interrupt the dream state. Too late. Saying that made me think about waking even more. Yet nothing happened. I finished the thought, cleared it from my mind and remained where I was: Dreaming, in a flat with four strangers.   One of them spoke to me, told me, that I was about to get all the answers, I had sought for so long. Moments later, I stood next to an apparatus, one of the three characters got mounted into. It was a torturing device, a chair, designed to deal out electroshocks. The entity sitting in it remotely resembled a very old human being with grey, wrinkly skin, almost merging with the machinery. In front of the creature, some kind of touch pad was attached to the frame, serving to deploy the electric charge. The harder it was hit, the more severe punishment the captive received. "What are you doing?", I asked the others. "He wouldn't answer without.", one of the dream characters replied.

I tried it out, slapped the pad with a table tennis racket rather gently. It took several seconds until something happened, but the effect was stronger than I expected. The captive groaned and cramped. So it worked and there I stood, able to ask anything I liked, all I ever wanted to know about the dream world, supported by dream characters for a change. In the past - apart from some very helpful encounters, most dream characters avoided giving any information, whenever I pushed towards dreaming, the dream world and other related topics. This was my ultimate chance.
 
I pondered really hard to come up with a first question, but suddenly realized something I already knew - in a rational way, yet inconsequentially assumed to be different in other realities: It didn't matter what the entity might reply to my questions, because it would contain no truth to settle for. The frustrating and likewise wonderful nature of reality and its many aspects shows in it's unlimited plasticity. Look for the absolute and you will find Nothing.
 
I left the scene and lost myself in a series of other experiences.