Hal and Pemulis on the DMZ and quitting — "A Rusk-level dream, Inc. A standard…"
‘A Rusk-level dream, Inc. A standard nobody-understands-me dream. The DMZ and Mermanization were incidental.’ ‘There was a quality of loneliness to it, though. Unlike anything. To be screaming that I’m screaming for help instead of singing a show-tune and to have the wardens and doctors gathered around snapping their fingers and tapping their feet.’
Context
Dream-interpretation policy in action: Pemulis files the dream under Rusk-grade psychobabble — "a standard nobody-understands-me dream," the DMZ "incidental" — and Hal's rebuttal names the one quality the standard reading can't cover: the loneliness of screaming that you're screaming. Pairs with n002's gloss on Orin (in Texture) — the Incandenza boys' dreams keep getting interpreted, and keep exceeding the interpretation.