The crocodilian creature and the hyper-futuristic world that surrounds him are suddenly zooming away at a million lightyears per moment. Lightyears isn't even an adequate unit of measurement; an adequate unit of measurement, once that measures the space between universes, or somethingverses (since the prefix "uni"—which often means "single" or "only one existing"—no longer makes sense), hasn't been invented yet.

Although it first felt like I was static and his world was the thing moving away from me, it now feels like I'm falling back to reality, breaking through each plane of existence I had to break through on the way up. Shrinking, going inward: nearing the center of the concentric worlds (at least, the center where I began).

Until I'm back in the room. The forest room.

I can make out the trees on the walls, but hallucinations still obscure my vision; colorful strands grow from the tree branches. Other perceptual hallucinations continue to confuse me: sounds, smells, feelings.

Still, I can tell where I am.

I had thought this room, in all its serene glory, would make the trip feel calm and forest-like. But nothing about that space-like journey was remotely foresty. This room could have been a sewage treatment facility, and it probably wouldn't have had any bearing on the hyper-futuristic destination I eventually reached.

My body feels uncomfortable, like I don't belong in it, like I've just been stuffed back inside of its small shell-like form even though I grew so much on the journey and no longer fit. It feels like a trap, something grounded, something chained to this physical space.

I realize I'm still on the floor, next to plushy pillows, though in a different place than I started. The discomfort causes me to rise and pace. The guide tries to sooth me by grasping my hand. "Are you okay, Izzy? Are you back?"

I can already feel the memory of my encounter slipping away from me, and an urgency to share everything that has just occurred overtakes me.

"I gave him my curiosity! It felt red. We were in place. Cold. Lemony. A space station."

"Oh, you visited a space station! That's a common theme amongst users."

A common theme? It had felt like so much more than a "theme."

"I saw reptiles with jewels. Like they were... royalty or something. But they were so intelligent...they could communicate with me without talking, they knew what I was, and they had all this really advanced technology. They took it. He took it. He took my curiosity!"

He nods flatly. "Reptiles. Another common theme."

My agitation grows as my body begins to quake slightly. "What do you mean by theme?"

"Research has shown us that our brain waves are manipulated when we take drugs like Vivecta. Each human brain shares a similar structure, and the drug manipulates each brain in the same way, which is why users experience similar episodes. Themed episodes, you could say."

Nakomi is suddenly next to me, and smiling. "I saw fairies, the most beautiful fairies! They brought me plates of sugarplums, and I blew on them to add my own flavor, and they danced around me and fed me without even needing to put anything in my mouth. They just seemed to say, 'Taste this,' and I tasted their delight! Oh, it was so magical!"

"Oh, fairies," Winston smiles. "One of my favorite themes."

She and Winston go on and on about her fairy journey, and each new word revealed by their conversation distracts me. I can feel the words tainting my memory of what I just experienced, and I know that soon the recall of my memory will be flimsy and falsified. Soon, I might just wonder if I'd seen fairies instead of lizards.

I go into one of the corners of the room and crouch down onto the floor, covering my ears and shutting my eyes, trying to deprive myself of all my senses so I can relish in these leftover feelings before they, too, are gone.

"I gave him my curiosity," I whisper to myself. "He took it. His scepter sucked it up."

Suddenly, a hand is touching my hair. "Izzy?" Nakomi's voice is soft and comforting. "Are you okay?"

"Arctic aluminum lemon."

"What?"

"Arctic aluminum lemon."

"Arctic aluminum lemon?" Nakomi looks amused and bemused simultaneously.

"I'm just trying to not forget," I say, taking my hands from my ears. "I'm fine." My body feels a little less uncomfortable than it did before.

"Here," the guide says, bringing over crackers and juice from who-knows-where. "Eat some of this."

Izzy and I both oblige him, eating our snacks on the ground, leaning on the pillows. The situation feels Kindergarten-esque, Nakomi and I both children in need of coaxing and instruction, but with each swallow, I feel more like myself.

Finally, after my last drink of strawberry-apple juice, I say the only word I can think to say: "Wow."

The single word seems to capture so much of everything I can't say, and all three of us burst out laughing.

Nakomi and Winston delve into a conversation about what her trip might mean. I'm only half-listening at first, but I begin to pay attention after a few sentences.

"I think it means that I need to be more creative in my life," Nakomi explains. "Give others more of my own flavor. And, I need to be more welcoming of others' delight. Others' happiness can be infectious, and I should welcome that."

Winston raises an eyebrow. "Maybe it means that you have a deep desire to make people happier by sharing more of yourself with them. Which, in turn, will make you happier."

"Oh, Winston, you are an absolute genius! That's exactly what it means!" Nakomi turns to me here. "Izzy, what do you think your mind was trying to tell you?"

I look down at the floor, pondering this question. The immediate answer that comes to my mind is: my mind is not trying to tell me anything. That crocodile creature was trying to tell me something. Trying to show me something. Trying to get something from me."

"Well," Winston interrupts my thoughts. "You said that you were visited by lizard creatures, right? And you gave one your curiosity?"

"I visited them, in a their own home," I correct him. "A space station. Sort of."

"The space station theme," Winston continues like that detail doesn't matter. "Perhaps your mind is trying to tell you that you need to share more of your curiosity with others."

"Oh, that's good," Nakomi says, clearly impressed. "Maybe like...through teaching? You can inspire others' curiosity by teaching them all the stuff that's in there." She touches my head here, gesturing to the brain it houses. "I've always thought you'd be a good teacher."

I smile, but the idea that the humanoid crocodile was a creation of my own imagination doesn't sit well with me, because it doesn't feel correct. Still, Nakomi and Winston are so enamored with this theory of my mind's intentions that they go on and on about it, and I pretend to go along with it.

The guide clears us to leave soon after our discussion ends. Since we're not allowed to drive for twelve hours, Nakomi uses her Voom! app to call a self-driving city car to come pick us up. One arrives quickly, a 2047 sleek purple IntelliGENT, and the two of us get inside before the doors shut behind us. The seats in this car face each other, so we sit across from one another.

"Well, that was wild, wasn't it?" Nakomi says excitedly, but my excitement has dimmed.

"Isn't the guide supposed to be, like, supportive?"

She looks at me in confusion. "He was supportive."

"He was so dismissive of everything I said about where I went, about who I met. He kept talking about how it was all a theme."

"Well, it was a theme, Izzy. Entity encounters are very well documented in research, and most researchers agree that the common themes are indicative of deeper psychological needs and motives. What: did you want him to tell you that it was real?"

When I don't answer, Nakomi's look of confusion turns to concern. Her voice grows slightly firmer as she says, "We went to a science-based drug clinic. This clinic pledges to not encourage any sort of mass psychosis by encouraging patrons that their entity contact experiences were real." She put her face right up to mine, her eyes worried. "It wasn't real. You know that, right, Izzy? You're a scientist. I can link you to countless peer-reviewed articles about it."

Again, I don't answer. Instead, I look out the window.

"Izzy," she repeats my name for the thousandth time, as though I've forgotten it. "It's just altered perception. There are explanations for everything that happened to you. Really. I can send you some journal articles about it all, okay?"

"It just...felt so real."

She adopts a maternal tone. "That's what's so thrilling about it. See? Aren't you glad you did it?"

"Yeah," I say vacantly, looking out the car window. "It really was out of this world." Unfortunately, I can't help believing my own words.

subchapter | perception

If we believe the view that "that which is real is that which can be perceived through our human senses," we must consider just how unreliable human perception truly is. Countless examples showcase just how varied human perception can be. Some of us are more sensitive to things than others (e.g., some find deep tissue back massages relaxing while others find them painful). Some of our perceptions are influenced by our genes (e.g., one gene is responsible for making cilantro smell like soap to those who possess it). Each of us are subject to so-called illusions: some of us may see black while others see white (e.g., see "The Dress" illusion, 2015); some of us may hear a sound going up in tone while the others hear it going down (e.g., see "The Shepard Tone" illusion, 1964); and some of us may smell roses while others smell mold (e.g., see "The Augmented Reality Theme Park Ride" illusion, 2044). Research has shown that perception is widely influenced by experience. The mind receives so much sensory information every minute, but it can only process a limited amount of that information, which causes it to take shortcuts. Often, those shortcuts are guided by memory, by experience. With our varied backgrounds, we each perceive so differently from one another that some suggest we are living in our own bubbles, our own realities, our own worlds.

How, then, can we ever truly agree on what's real?