Sorry late-
I don't think Harvey knew- think it was a dream. HOwever, it is Janet who starts to notice aspects fall into the real world time.
Having computer issues
I think it was more Janet's nightmare than Harvey's dream
This is the first time I read this. How did I miss reading this?
Anyway, very good analogy Spidey.
I didn't think Alzheimer's at all. The disease here is just growing old. Stephen sets this up where we are voyeurs and eavesdroppers. And we listen in on the internal monologue of a wife observing a husband who she takes inventory on. Just the circumstances of a lonely couple with predictable patterns at first. Jax looking at life through a glass half empty. At one time, a younger family would pick up the water pitcher to refill the glass. Climb the mountains, overcome the obstacles and move on. But in this case, we can't get past the broken down bits, and the pitcher is shattered on the floor. All of Stephen's descriptors were so brutally honest and real.
Getting to a certain point in your life and seeing dread and decay and loss and a whole lot of "how did I get here, to this moment, this life, with this person" and anticipating doom and depression with every word. Knowing the penny is going to drop, sooner or later. I felt lonely.
And then Harvey shares his dream. The scary part was the phone call he said. Harvey precognizant maybe? and Jax making the connections to actual things in real time. We all know people that want to ignore things. If you don't talk about them, they aren't true or won't happen. Jax becomes increasingly anxious as the dream isn't a dream. She is able to connect A to B to C and then the bottom drops out and the alphabet plunges into the abyss. She wants him to stop talking. Shut up!
And finally, the phone ringing....you know the wheels have come off the track and the brakes aren't going to work. JMO.
Stephen took the human condition -- the desolation of time marching onto our backs and kicking our ribs, the slow-down mentally, physically, the part that you didn't sign up for; aging, sickness, death (even though that marriage speech says all that, we aren't paying a damn bit of attention to that stuff! Not us! Not ever!) -- and then he added his twist. And it is totally believable and acceptable because he was so honest and real setting up the scene. A morning. A couple. A semblance of life. A portrait of two older people (although she is quick to point out she isn't as old), where he drops in a moment of surreal doubt and horror about the couple's children and then laid the clues out like a trail that didn't take a Sherlock to follow.
I related to this story down to the last period.