There was a comment toward the end of “Field Trip” (page 73 in my edition) where Trish talks about dreaming “in tandem with dozens of other moviegoers.”

The Night World seemed particularly dreamlike, even before they drank the concoctions designed to wake them up or put them to sleep.

Some of Russell’s language in general felt dreamlike, even in settings that weren’t overtly oriented toward dreams. (More on that in my question about language.)

The end of the book is about seeing yourself wake up and characterizes that as a viral nightmare.

How are we dreaming in tandem in the real world? What does she want us to wake up to? Is seeing yourself wake up a nightmare? When an individual wakes up, does it disrupt the communal dream, thus setting off a viral nightmare?

What is it about dreams in this book?

We learn at the end that Donor Y appears to be asymptomatic, a warning for us in our current pandemic?

Dori’s presence seems to be an infection. Trish begins to think about this in one of the “Donor Y” chapters (49 in my edition) as she thinks about her job to “spread awareness.” She also ends the book with the sense that Dori has now infected whomever might read the report of her whistleblowing.

Extraction – transfusion (information transfusion?) -- “’We will never overdraw your daughter…. I make this promise at a moment when people are plunging their straws into any available centimeter of shale and water, every crude oil and uranium and mineral well on Earth, with an indiscriminate and borderless appetite” (128). As I read this, I envisioned There Will Be Blood and every ecological apocalyptic nightmare-scape.

How do you see the infection / extraction motifs relating to one another?

I loved the lyrical nature of the language in Piranesi. The language here isn’t exactly lyrical, but it is worthy of note. I really noticed the descriptions in the Night World. In the chapter entitled “Night World” (101, 102 in my edition), before imbibing, she describes an orexin as having “eggy eyes, poached by his illness; skin like white wax.” When Trish takes her first drink there, she says, “Three sips in, my expectations go colorless.” I thought that was a noteworthy piece of perceptual language about a concept. And then, she says Mr. Harkonnen “smells like nothing unexpected: burned coffee grounds, Old Spice aftershave. These odors are flung like harpoons—they sail out of the Night World and back across the highway, wrenching whole continents of normalcy into this dark tent….” Maybe it _is _lyrical. It certainly gets dreamlike in places.

What do you think about the language she uses?

Are ethics deontological, meaning you should always do what is right simply because it is right? Or are ethics consequentialist, meaning you should always do what accomplishes good? (There are more than two choices in ethics, of course.)

Should Trish extract sleep just because it is the right thing to do or because it helps other people (or because it helps infect others with the ghost of Dori?)

Should Trish stop extracting sleep because it is wrong to extract something so personal and essential to one’s personhood or should Trish stop extracting sleep because it harms the person in some intangible way?

Should Trish report the Corps’ scandal because it is the right thing to do? Or should she keep quiet because it will hurt the overall program, which balances out to the good in this ethical ledger, despite one person profiting tremendously from it?

What are the ethics in the real world of extraction and infection? Should we stop doing things that are harmful to individuals immediately affected or should we measure the good and bad in order to do those things that weigh out for the good in the long run?

There are comments about “elective insomniacs” and questions about whether they have a choice.

There are several mentions of “human exchanges” – sex, a kiss, the contract(?) – “a rare transfer wherein both bodies get to be donor and recipient and recipient and donor.”

Near the end Trish envisions a future in which no one can dream freely; they will all be monitored, enforced by the government.

What are your thoughts on these, or other, aspects of “donation”?