This exchange gets at several core aspects of the biologist and her dynamic with her husband. First, his needling suggests that their relationship made him feel unfulfilled, as he suggested that he failed to relate to her. In addition, the biologist’s implication that she wanted to dissolve into nowhere—perhaps into some natural place like Area X—suggests that she preferred solitude, and consequently that this quality was destroying their relationship. Their discussion of dreams also reinforces the idea that it’s hard to understand objective reality when one is immersed in an environment or in one’s own mind. The biologist
didn’t actually know if she might be living in a dream entirely of her own construct—she was too immersed in it to know.