As I was sitting on a chair in a hospital where I was working as a medical doctor, I slowly realized I had gradually become more and more oblivious of my surroundings, and had slipped into what could only be described as a coma or a trance. Although I was conscious, I was basically numb, unable to feel much of anything. None of my senses seemed to be functioning, although I still sensed that people were around me.

I did realize that my mouth was open, and not wanting to appear like an imbecile, with painless effort, I slowly willed my mouth to close. I also realized I had fallen into the trance while my elbow was resting on a table with my left hand standing straight up in the air. Thinking that this position also made me look awkward, I slowly willed my arm to move down until it was resting on the table. I now thought I would look normal to anyone who might see me.

However, another problem had arisen. Although it seemed that my eyes were closed, I could clearly see the room before me. A nurse in a white outfit had wheeled a patient lying on a thin bed on wheels into the room, and had left the patient and bed right in front of my feet. I had slowly begun slipping down in my chair, and in the process, I was pushing the patient off the bed. The main problem was that there was an open window right on the other side of the patient, and I was slowly pushing the patient out the window.

Unable to stop my own movement, I watched as the patient's body moved farther and farther out the window. All the while I hoped the nurse would become cognizant of what was happening and stop the patient from falling out the window. But the nurse didn't seem to notice anything that was happening.

Just at the last instant when the body was almost completely out the window, I jumped up and grabbed the patient's foot and pulled the heavy body back inside. I marveled at how I had waited until the exact moment when the body was about to fall, and then had stopped it.

Having secured the patient back on the bed, I turned my attention to the nurse, now standing in front of me and facing me. She was a tall, thin woman (perhaps sixty years old) with gray hair.

As I began criticizing her inattention to the patient, I realized I was still in my trance, and that I couldn't speak. However, although what I tried to say seemed to come out in only a muffled mumble, the nurse understood exactly what I was trying to communicate. She immediately responded that it didn't matter whether the body fell out of the window, because the patient was already dead.

The patient's being dead didn't matter to me, and I was aghast that the nurse thought that that made a difference. Seeing that the nurse didn't want to admit that she had made a mistake by not properly caring for the dead body, I continued trying to communicate to her the error of her ways.

Finally she cast her eyes to the ground and I saw that she understood that she had made a mistake. I put my arms around her, hugged her and said in a clear voice, "You're a fine woman."

When we separated, I hoped she hadn't thought there was anything sexual in the way I had hugged her. Yet at the same time, I thought to myself that I had sexual feelings for everyone, even this old woman.

I sat back down in my chair, and quickly relapsed into my trance. It wasn't a state I particularly relished, yet I was already there, oblivious and unfeeling, yet somehow aware.