I had a dream a while ago…
I was standing motionless, and all around me there were crowds of people going about their business. The scenes shifted, but the situation remained the same.
None of them could see me. There was a sense of removal, not as if I were a ghost but as if they could have seen me if they'd wished to, but none of them so chose. So I felt not just ignored, but left out, rejected.
Suddenly, one of the men turned to me, looked me in the eye, and declared “There you are,” welcoming me back to the human race (and waking me up).
The odd emotions stayed with me, and catalyzed into an important bit of fiction, and I wanted to analyze how that worked.