A rational explanation for the knowledge

Some people may say that dreaming about the combination for the lock is extremely unrealistic. If I was William Shatner, my response would be, "It's just a game. It isn't real. Get a life." I am sure that some of the people reading this are not Star Trek fans and probably never ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit that I am referencing. Still, when I look at my wallet, it is very obvious that I am not William Shatner and when you consider a lot of the things that happen in this game, the dream is not really that far fetched.

Dream science is not exactly a well defined field. There are a lot of theories about why we dream and what the purpose of dreams are. Some people believe that dreams are the results of the brain trying to interpret random brain signals that occur while you are asleep. I personally believe that dreams are the method that the brain uses to learn by adjusting neural pathways based on what information is being temporarily stored in our mid-term memory. Scientific studies have found that entering the REM state that is associated with dreaming is somehow related to how well we learn.

From personal experience, I know for a fact that outside stimulus can have an effect on my dreams. In cases when I am sleeping and people are having a conversation near me, parts of their conversation can get incorporated into my dream. Physical stimulus can also cause similar results. For instance, I once was laying on something when I was asleep and dreamt about a giant bee stinging me in the location where the object I was laying on was.

Taking the above dream knowledge into account, one can easily see how one would be able to have a dream about the combination. One just needs to consider what was happening while the dream sequence was taking place.

First of all, the bad guys had to move the player into the basement. This would probably take enough time for the player to actually enter REM sleep. At this point, Jack has the player hung upside down. Being hung upside down is sort of like free-fall. This clearly explains the free-falling portion of the dream sequence.

Now, the crooks are not the brightest of people. For that reason, when they are opening the lock they are going to lock the chains with they are likely going to need to be told the combination. Depending on which crook was opening the lock. possibly they would need the combination told to them a number of times. This number would then be overheard by the sleeping player and incorporated into the dream.

There you go. The dream is possible.