Joe lifted his head up and noticed he had dozed off again. Those psychology texts could do that. Boring. B-O-R-I-N-G. They lacked any style or plot or characters. Just a near-monotonous litany of arguments, proofs, comparative studies, linked sources, and footnotes. Tedious study at best.
But he was finding their parallels between the philosophic understandings of dreams, psychological studies, and also religious texts. So some progress was being made.
He reached out for his cup and found it empty. "Time for a refill", he thought. Moving around would do me some good.
As he walked to the built-in library cantina, he again marveled at how they built this place. "But if I didn't know better, I'd say this was more a residential care center than hospital. A psych ward, even - but that wouldn't be me." Joe paused, then shrugged. "Not like I've even given them a chance to tell me why I'm here. Make a mental note."
Having gotten his drink and returned to settle into that comfortable easy chair, he picked up the ancient religions text and opened to one of the dog-ears he'd left earlier.
'Dreams and their Analysis', it read. 'Life, in the oldest traditions has always been a dream, and is probably the basis for storytelling. It's thought by some that this is the how some awakened souls would compare their own dreams with those of others around them - seeing what they could learn in the comparison...'
The text went on to describe various terms for types of dreams, and how various saints and prophets had used their own dreams and those of others to explain the world around them - quite in addition to explaining past events or foretelling the future. Often a completely unknown person would reach prominence because of a series of dreams which he disclosed to others around him.
Intrigued, Joe picked up the book on aboriginal legends as he remembered something down this line. There it was: 'Shamans and witch-doctors were known to have entered the dreams of their adversaries and affect their actions remotely. Both peace and war were created in this way, and sometimes death for that adversary - at least they didn't wake up. But it was said that they just had gone onto a different dream. There have been no scientific explanation for how this was accomplished, but numerous reports on record of it having occurred in multiple continents and tribes which had never actually been in contact with each other...'
Outside of the run-on prose, Joe was beginning to get a picture here. Dreams meant all sorts of things, but could also be influenced by others. And that might explain how some of his dreams were wild, and others seemed to recur at different times.