Did you ever wake up feeling strange and wonder if, while you were sleeping, some malicious entity had surrepticiously transported you into some point in the future? If you’re worried that you may be the victim of involuntary time travel, here are some ways you can tell:

1. Rummage through the cupboards looking for drinking glasses. In the future, all glasses are square. This is a dead giveaway.

2. Go up to a cop in an alleyway and strain your voice to ask “What day is it? The date?!” When the cop tells you it’s the 12th of May, a Thursday, grab him and ask “What YEAR?!” (optionally: if you find a hobo in the alley on your way to the cop, you may steal his pants)

3. Look at what people are wearing – if their clothes are shiny and vaguely metallic, look like they’re devoid of seams, and are tight around the neck and throat, you’re either in the future or in the secret underground lair of a megalomaniac.

4. Ask somebody if you can borrow “five spacebucks”. In the future, all things on earth will have outer space counterparts because of humanity’s extensive extra-solar travels. Even if the items are exactly the same, they must be prepended with the word “space”. Spacebucks is just one example. You may instead want to ask somebody who serves the best spaceburgers – this serves the dual purpose of verifying that you’ve traveled through time and also pointing you in the right direction for a tasty meal. If they look at you like you’re crazy and tell you there are no more burgers and point you in the direction of Taco Bell, you are in the future for sure.

5. Go to any major city and see if 1/2 of all the people walking around are robots. If so, you are in the future. If the number of robots seems to be less than 50%, you may be in the future, but you may also be in the present day in Japan. They have the best robots there and they are everywhere, including robot dogs.

6. Find a complete stranger and ask if you can borrow his or her starship. In the future, everybody will have a starship, and they will let you borrow them even if they don’t know you because there will be no more money. Everybody will share everything and nobody will want for anything, even if it’s really expensive, like a starship. If you’re picky, remember that younger people will have cooler-looking starships that go really fast while older people will have bigger, slower, roomier starships that can accomodate a table for playing cards and be tall enough so that you can comfortably wear a hat while piloting.

7. Find a TV and see if there are game shows where the losers are killed on live television. In the future all humans will be barbaric, even though they have everything they want since there’s no more money. The only way to entertain such a society is to kill people for fun. Duh.

8. If you are not on Earth but you’re sure you’re not dead, you are in the future.

9. See if you can create fire from your fingertips or read peoples’ minds or shapeshift. If so, you are likely in the future when everybody has begun to mutate into the next phase of human evolution. If you can steal other peoples’ powers, you are much closer to the next phase of human evolution. but probably people will hate your guts. Being able to put a cherry stem in your mouth and tie it in a knot with your tongue does not count (at least not in reference to the next phase of human evolution).

10. Go to a bookstore. If there isn’t one, you’re in the future. If there is one, see if you can find an atlas. See if there is a city called New New York City. If so, you are in the future, because major cities have to be rebuilt from time to time and the word New is always put upfront, even if it was already there in the first place.

And remember, in the future, time travel will be commonplace, so if you happen to be in the future, chances are you can just go to the nearest time station and get home before dinner. Or breakfast even.