"He thinks he's hallucinating"

[alice wellintown]

> I don't see any reason to completely rule it out.

The black marks on the page are arranged by the author in a
conventional way to tell us how to read the them. If we ignore them,
and we are free to ignore them, ignore entire chapters if we want to,
we can not attribute our misreading to the author. We can read the
text backward, but the author has provided numbers and a front page.
Shasta's dialogue is inside quotation marks. Doc hears her and replies
to what she says. His reply is likewise inside quotation marks. Down
the page, when Doc thinks but does not speak, the author does not use
quotation marks. Very conventional way to proceed.

Do people talk like Shasta? Do people, when engaged in a conversation
with only one other person, say, "Thinks he's hallucinating"? Oh,
sure they do.

Man (in shower singing Don't be Cruel)  "Oh, darling, hand me my phone."
Woman "Thinks he's Elvis." Here, dear."

Is the phone on? Is she wired? Is he?

We would need some evidence to substantiate the claim that the women
or Shasta is wired or addressing another individual or group audience.

Do we have that here in this opening of IV?