Today’s the day the 2016 Republican race became a hallucination.

As we fall asleep, there is a point when our bead on reality slips, and we drift—with a flutter of the stomach, as if airborne—into a new state of consciousness where the laws of the universe are bent. A sensation akin to that is what I experienced today as the latest developments in the presidential race unfolded. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when it happened. It might have been when Marco Rubio, grinning like the Cheshire cat, egged on by a gleeful crowd, made a joke about Donald Trump pissing himself. Or when Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, said he wanted to help Trump “make the country everything we want it to be for our children and grandchildren.” Or when Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, said it was time to “begin thinking about Trump as the future.” Or when Trump made fun of Mitt Romney for walking like a penguin. Or when Dennis Rodman leapt into the mix, telling Ted Cruz that Trump was “about to fire your ass too!” Perhaps this is the end result of a campaign half-conducted over social media, which thrusts everyone—Trump, Rodman, The New York Times, your colleague—in the same cramped arena to clamor for your attention. And suddenly this is what reality looks like: