hudebnik | Dream journal

A fascinating dream in which I was assigned to time-travel to just before the pivotal year of 1422 (I have no idea why 1422 was considered pivotal) and place a bet on a particular city (Cairo, Egypt, except that it was on a map in which rivers were the borders rather than the centers of civilizations, and there didn't seem to be desert on either side, and the river went east-west, with Cairo on the north bank). As traditional in time-travel stories, it was of utmost importance that I not tell anyone which of five major cities was going to get through the crisis the best, as telling anyone would change the outcome. Actually placing this bet seemed to involve inserting a "back door" into the code, essentially "if the city name matches 'Cairo', do this special-case stuff".