Here is this morning’s dream. It is has no commonality with what is going on for life on the compound nor my current thought streams.

The dream starts pulling up by car at an out of town high technology science park, there is a large brick built sign holder made of light sandy coloured bricks. On it there is a darkened bronze name plate announcing the name of the science park in a raised lettering which I cannot read. The country is unspecified and generic. There is sun shining on the grass next to the “welcome” sign. There are loads of high technology companies and start-ups.

The scene changes and I am in a very white ultra-high technology laboratory with instrumentation on benches. It is a biotechnology start-up. I am with two young Ph.D.  / Postdoc aged women. One is brown Asian in colouration and she has a brightly coloured Muslim headscarf on. Which contrasts her bright low fibre loss white lab coat. She is with a European woman of slight stature who has a clipboard. The Muslim is the boss. They are showing me around their facility.

My eye catches a ring dye laser encapsulated in a Perspex box. The dye being used is one of the orange Rhodamine dyes. There are multiple fine jets intercepted by pump laser beams. I know that this is an ultra-narrow-linewidth laser. It is part of a very sophisticated laser desorption laser ionisation time of flight (TOF) mass spectrometer. It has a mass resolution of better than 1 part in 10,000. I know that this is brought about by intracavity absorption of the ring dye laser ionisation beam.

The women are unsure as to how to explain things to me. I explain that I used to do mass resolved resonant multiphoton ionisation of mixed isotope deuterium hydrogen water clusters. I am familiar with isotopic ratios and high mass resolution. Relieved they explain that this is very important to them. They need the resolution to probe the nature of human tissue lab grown in other parts of the facility. They are using isotopic labelling to monitor the tissue growth parameters. The intracavity absorption has enabled an ultra-light gentle ionisation regime, no sledgehammer.

In walks two men in around their forties. One of them is a suit the other a scientist. Before we go to the next stage we must all don ultra-low fibre loss lab boiler suits with  pale blue elasticated cuffs at wrists and ankles. It is fibre loss from the clothes which is bad. Skin and hair do not matter.

Suitably attired the scientist man flicks a switch and I can hear air filling. He raises  a clear plastic dome to reveal a humanoid baby about the size of a two-year old. It is a male and completely naked. It has a large umbilicus containing many wires and tubes. The man holds the baby in blue lab gloved hands and turns it towards me. I understand it to be an artificial baby, an android. It is clothed in very human like flesh which has been grown in the facility. They currently have a license to do this. The flesh is very life like and convincing. The baby is moving slightly and I can see an artificial heart pumping inside. There are veins and arteries.

The suit distracts my attention and talks about their programme. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the smaller woman take an arterial blood sample. They put the baby back into its dome and seal it. I can hear gases being evacuated from the dome. We all disrobe out of the lab coats which we hang on hooks by the door.

The suit gestures to the women to take me to one side. A short while later the scientist returns and says to the suit that the dissolved carbon dioxide in the blood was too high. I can hear him say 3. It is not clear what units he is using. I go over to the suit-CEO and the scientist and ask them what this 3 means. They say that it is nothing to worry about though a little high. They are bullshitting. I know that I am a part of a venture capital (VC) inspection team sent into the facility. There have been concerns from the investors and the next funding round is due. I can tell that the men are worried. I press them about the programme and they say that some of the earlier prototypes showed similar and higher carbon dioxide levels. This needs to be reduced before the humanoid can be autonomous. They don’t know that I have a large personal investment in the VC fund and that I am highly sceptical.

The dream ends and I think “that was fucking weird”.