I had a long, thoroughly arresting semi-lucid dream last night. Essentially, I was "shadowing" people who lived in a near-future American (?) society, watching everything they did, the people they met, the problems they encountered. I seemed to be holding an invisible camera, as if the participants were actors, and my role was limited to observing.

The overall milieu was a bit like that of a Bruce Sterling novel, or Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World." Exotic futuristic cars, one with what looked like liquid crystal graphics emblazoned on the exterior; grown-on-demand designer medications that resembled plump, brightly colored insect larvae; high-end apartments conjoined seamlessly with vast shopping malls.

At one point a woman took a panoramic picture with a holographic camera; the subjects had to tilt their heads awkwardly as laser-light played over their faces.

There was a pervasive psychiatric disorder among most of the children, a kind of undefined autism. With a few exceptions, the adults I "met" were detached, brooding, almost schizoid.

I ended the dream as I sat in the backseat of a car watching decrepit glass-paneled houses and schools scroll by outside. I sensed that I had traveled a few years farther into the future. The once-fastidious suburbs I had seen earlier had lost their luster; scabrous concrete littered abandoned lawns.

Glimpses of rusted steel mesh.

Hardly any traffic, as if the world had been abruptly depopulated.