Posted 10:58 AM by Floyd

I live on the West Coast, which means that I get to consume content produced in the East Coast, Europe, and Australia while I sleep. It's a sweet deal; I suppose it would be even better if I lived in Hawaii. One year ago today I woke up and did what I always do in the morning, which is to turn on my computer and browse some news. I checked my email and found this message, sent to a mailing list I belong to:

Dear All,

Most of you receiving this know that I'm in New York City,
attending law school at NYU. I am sending this message to inform you
all that I was not injured this morning's collapse of both World Trade
Towers following the terrorist attack. I was in my dormitory in
Greenwich Village at the time, far away from the Towers. For those of
you working at businesses where I've worked, please inform your
coworkers, whose email addresses I don't have, that I'm all right.

...

Sincerely,
Brandon Zlotnick

I stared for a second and then recoiled. My first thought was that this was some kind of weird joke. How could terrorists destroy 110-story buildings? But I did believe it, because from what I knew of Brandon he didn't seem like the kind of person who would make a stupid joke like this. Also, my first reaction to the major American tragedies in my life -- the Challenger explosion and the Loma Prieta earthquake (which happened two days before I was to make my first trip to California on a job interview) -- were to assume that the people who told me about them were joking.

I said to myself, "If there really a terrorist attack, Drudge would be all over it. So I clicked over to Drudge."

...

Last Sunday night I had a dream. I was at San Francisco Airport, bound for Phoenix. The terminal contained these neat little people-transporters; they were the size of a tray, you would step on them and be moved both to and fro and left and right, as if they were on a grid. When we were about to leave, the stewardess working at the terminal made an announcement for everyone to move to another terminal for departure. I got on a tray, gave the order (by speaking aloud) to move -- and was alone.

I panicked, and then saw a friend of mine in a blue United uniform. I asked him where I should go for the Phoenix flight. He told me, and then I woke up.

When I have a dream like this my first reaction is pride at the dream's technical aspects. I could have had an ordinary anxiety dream where I go to the designated gate and there is no one there. Instead my brain creates a wonderful futuristic people-mover. Send me my patent and my Oscar for best effects at your convenience.

After an intense dream I don't want to go back to sleep right away. So I lay awake and started to think. I have never liked dreams, and it was that night that I realized why: Dreams are coercive. There is no freedom in a dream; you see, hear, and feel what your neurons have cooked up for you. (For instance, if in real life you showed up at SFO and saw those mini-people-movers, wouldn't you play around with them all day? What could possibly be that interesting in Phoenix?) Also you are at the mercy of the dream, and cannot escape. When you are awake you can tell that you are not in a dream. But all things can be simulated in a dream -- including the awareness that you are not in a dream!

...

Drudge did not have the full lurid details at 8:30 a.m.; there was a picture of one of the towers with smoke billowing from it. There was no 72-point font, nor was there a little siren. (2001 was a slow news year up to that point; Drudge had used the blaring effect to highlight news that no rational person would care about, like boardroom policits at AOL/Time-Warner.)

I surfed around and found out what had happened. I turned on the TV, but the details were still sketchy. I wanted to be around people, both for companionship and to help me figure out what had happened. So I went to work.

The half hour drive into the office was probably the worst part of the whole day. I usually listen to news radio and of course they were talking only about the attack. I listened, dazed and helpless, just as if I were in a dream. The announcer reported that elementary schools were closed. In a normal state I would have sniggered at this; did people really think that the targets were the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Public School 93? But I had lost my rights and my freedom when I awakened into this nightmare, and just sat in my car driving with my mouth hanging open.

At work I used my fast internet connection to browse for more news. It was then that I saw a video of a plane slamming into the tower, and the resulting fireball. After that I got my news on the web, and stayed away from avi's.