He dreamt that the phone was ringing. This happened quite often to him. Usually he woke up and the telephone really rang. This time it was different. When he opened his ears there was absolute silence. A second later he was back to sleep. And dreamt of the phone again. He remembered that he had dreamt of it before, that he had woken up, that there was no phone ringing at all and that he had dozed off again. So this time he convinced himself that it wouldn't be worth it to get up. And he let the phone in his dream continue ringing until it stopped. When he woke up there was a message on his answering machine...