240: Dream Girl

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Dream Girl

Title text: No matter how elaborately you fool yourself.

Explanation

This comic is a commentary on people who dream, daydream, and wish for things to happen, commonly in a romantic context. Cueball dreams of a girl who gives him a time and a place, and the last panel implies that he went to that place at the given time, but did not find the girl. The strip builds up hope and anticipation that this supernaturally romantic reunion will occur, but grounds the reader with the last line of the comic and the title text.

The coordinates of the note lead to Reverend Thomas J. Williams Park in Cambridge, MA, USA. The time on the note, September 23, 2007, was about six months after the publishing of this comic. One hundred eighty-one days, to be exact.

Notably, several hundred xkcd fans met up at that very time and place. Randall also visited the meetup, and was recorded as saying "Maybe wanting something does make it real."

The idea that the frame of the comic grabs the people inside was already used in comic 82: Frame.

See also

• Geohashing

Transcript

[Cueball and a friend are talking.]

Cueball: I had a dream that I met a girl in a dying world.

[In the next frame, Cueball's words fill the entire frame.]

Cueball: It was all coming apart. Hairline cracks in reality widened to yawning chasms. Everything was going dark and light all at once, and there was a sound like breaking waves rising into a piercing scream at the edge of hearing. I knew we didn't have long together.

Cueball: She grabbed me and spoke a stream of numbers into my ear. Then it all went away.

[A girl grabs him as cracks in the edges of the panel become tendrils and grab Cueball and the girl.]

Cueball: I woke up. The memory of the apocalypse faded to mere fancy, but the numbers burned bright in my mind. I wrote them down right away.

[A note reads: 42.39561 -71.13051 2007 09 23 14 38 00.]

Cueball: They were coordinates. A place and a time, neither one too far away.

Cueball: What else could I do? When the day came, I went to the spot and waited.

Friend: ...and?

Cueball: It turns out wanting something doesn't make it real.

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Discussion

Someone who was there? Want to share what happened? Also, I know it's a bad thing to do, but I just gotta say, Premiere!121.222.232.156 13:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

"The comic was changed after the date mentioned within it; the last speech bubble was different.."

I'm looking at it in the Wayback Machine, and it looks the same to me 199.27.128.66 09:44, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The web version is different indeed from the book (Friend : "And there was nobody there?" / Cueball : "There never is.") 162.158.126.218 20:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does the upper right panel look a lot like what happens in comic 82? 108.162.215.96 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It does -- Z1mp0st0rz (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The instigating dream, in addition to the romantic subplot, also had an apocalypse going on. If, indeed, the dream was a premonition to the actual event, presumably, the apocalypse will have to occur as well. The joke, as I see it, has the dreamer so wishing that the girl-meeting event will transpire, that he neglects to also consider the very major downside of the end of the world... Mountain Hikes (talk) 03:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

It could also just be the collapse of the dream instead of a premonition of their meeting. They were waking up, so she had to find a way to meet in real life. -- Flewk (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It says a dying world though. Which suggests that the world was ending even within the context of the dream. 172.70.34.245 03:35, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The movie knowing(2009) with nicolas cage has exactly the same idea. There are numbers telling the date and location and number of deaths for every disaster before the final apocalypse. Is this a coincidence? --Gfrodo (talk) 14:49, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

One small problem; this comic came out in 2007. So no. R3TRI8UTI0N (talk) 03:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Were you there /? -- Z1mp0st0rz (talk) 15:18, 24 April 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)