Does anyone get the reference in this recent xkcd strip?
It seems like it be a literary reference.
It is indeed. C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
“Indeed yes, I will tell it to you for years and years.”
Nevermind, I see it is a literary reference.
I should really read that book…
I think it’s about how dreams are so vivid when you first wake up, but by the time you get up and going, you’ve forgotten just about everything.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Lucy reads a forbidden book on the magician’s island, and as she reads the words fade from the book and from her mind. At the end, she can’t remember exactly what the book was about.
Edited: That’s what I get for actually going to look up the quote… 
The alt-text is a Narnia reference, as previously mentioned. The key to the comic itself is the title: “Every Damn Morning”. The character had a really amazing dream but by the time he tries to tell somebody about it, the memory has faded.
I think this is it. I don’t see any Voyage of the Dawn Treader reference in this aside from the fact that Lucy forgets something. The image has blimps and a nuclear bomb going off and stick figures making out, reading a laptop and having a sword fight. All this is probably supposed to represent the idea of outlandish dreams and nothing in specific. That’s it. The C.S. Lewis stuff seems like bit of projection unless I’m badly forgetting the book.
Opps. I thought the OP was asking about the quote in the mouse-over text.
The reference to the blimps and nuclear bombs and stick figures making out is, of course, from The Magician’s Nephew.
Love that strip. It happens to me all the time.
Yeah, I laughed out loud when I saw it. And the alt-text reference was so apropos - I think it might be one of my favorite xkcd strips.
Thanks, everyone. I haven’t read either of those, so it was geek to me.
It’s a bad whoosh by Terrifel. The images in the strip have nothing to do with Narnia. It’s just a non-specific audacious scene one might dream. The alt-text is only relevant in that it’s a well known quote that describes an instance of someone trying to describe something they are forgetting.
Hey! It wasn’t a whoosh! At most it was half a whoosh. The other half was 100% purely accurate non-whoosh.
To summarize:
Image = series of disconnected, fanciful dream images including nuclear bombs and dirigible escapes. Not really intended to represent any known works of C.S. Lewis. (Possibly an adaptation of a Don Pendleton novel.)
Alt-text = quote from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.
The Magician’s Nephew = 6th book in series *The Chronicles of Narnia * by C.S. Lewis. (Sometimes claimed by perverts and the insane to be 1st book in series.) No nuclear bombs or dirigible escapes.
I apologize for any confusion.
Just think of the disappointment had the OP bought the Narnia books expecting blimps, nukes and sex?
It wouldn’t make me want to faun all over Terrifel. Don Pendleton didn’t do much sex, or any blimps that I recall. But I can’t say I’ve read the entire executioner series. That’s the Don Pendelton you mean, right. Mack Bolan?
Well, yeah. I figured that with all the Mack Bolan novels that have been written, there had to be at least one that featured a blimp in it somewhere. You called my bluff; well played. It was a calculated risk, but I’m not sorry I made it. I’d do it again. I live on the edge; it’s just the kind of dangerous guy I am.
Omniscient is right that there isn’t much sex in the Narnia books, either. Nothing overt, anyway. It’s not spelled out explicitly, but you can read between the lines if you’re so inclined. Be advised, though, that the one main character of legal age is a lion. Who is also Jesus. Did you know that the male lion’s erect member is covered with sharp spines? It’s true. It’s kind of a shame that Don Pendleton and C.S. Lewis never co-wrote any novels. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader could stand a few chapters by Clive Cussler if you ask me. Hey, C.S. Lewis’ first name was also Clive! It’s a perfect match. I can see it now. Raise the Splendour Hyaline!
“They say DIRK PITT! is on the move.”