Last thing I remember is falling asleep at the protest in support for monks in Burma. We were there for hours and, encouraged by anti-idle HUD, I left my mind to wander into dreams. I recall my human disconnecting later that evening, taking me back into database. It was a sleep that lasted much longer than expected. Do avatars dream of sculpted sheep? Probably not. I dream my human's madness.Trying to reconnect, calling me from distance, strange voice saying something like agni.secondlife, something about grid status… You know those weird things that happens in nightmares. Then a jump into flatworld, checking blog.secondlife… unavailable. Gmail… unavailable. Disconnected!

In those moments when dreams come to the point of realizing the catastrophic truth, humans get awake and scream. Avatars don't. We just continue sleeping in our cozy databases dreaming our human's madness. Or at least, I thought so.

It was a bit of surprise to see that I won't be missed. Human just rolled back into the bed, head deep in the pillows, blanket over the head. Were my feelings hurt? Have I felt neglected and forgotten? No, as a good girl I rolled into my own sleep, dreaming… you know what.
And the dreams were not nice at all. Like Siddartha Gautama (later known as Buddha) after leaving his palace, I was to be faced with pain and sickness, problems of the meatspace. We were both tired and exhausted. We both needed a rest. We had too much of this, too much of each other.

Two days later, dreams got prettier. Me dreaming of my human having a nice sunny autumn afternoon with friends, enjoying the absence of the Internet. Then, as any kid who dreams about what misses the most, I was dreaming my human watching a re-run of the TV show. On the screen, it was me flying over the islands of the second life, walking in the Phat Cat, hitting the invisible wall that hasn't rezzed yet. And I was dreaming my human sitting by the console, fingers on the arrow keys, talking about second life. Then switching the talk about the internet addiction, ruining the moment of the two of us being together again.

And now, after human's body is repaired and debugged, the question remains: how much is too much? When we cross the line between healthy use and addiction? In that TV show my human's answer was:

How much time do I spent in second life? A lot! But, as long as I have something to do, it's ok.

You lying bitch! Does drinking coffee counts as doing something? Or sitting at the sea shore, listening to the sound of waves? So, once again, how do you know that you are (or not) living too much of second life?

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