I consider it an allegory, though unintentional, of life in computing: do we not work a magic loom with a screen that shows us the world? And what happens when we see the "real" world? Somehow Plato's Allegory of the Cave in the Republic seems mixed in with all of this...or Ada Lovelace...
Update, as of 2005: The whole idea of this rests on the idea of digital computing being a development of Jaquard's Loom, as utilized by Charles Babbage and Ada Byron King, Lady Lovelace, who devised the Difference Engine, and the fact that in classic wall hanging weaving, there is a mirror (of polished metal or mirrored glass) set into the loom to monitor the work, which also monitors whatever's behind the worker.
Ada Lovelace was in every sense, both her father's daughter, and yet, something else: standing between the masculine, free-and-easy Georgian era and the feminized, yet repressed, Victorian era, she managed at least one great correspondence, and a few great ideas before succumbing to cancer and a few vices...