Interpret this!

Eddi said:

I had this dream in 2016, shortly before ending up on a psychiatric ward. What do people think?

It’s 2016. I’ve been playing an interactive political campaign game on my laptop. It’s not very good, very repetitive. Just elements shuffled around. The same images, the same words and phrases in combinations. Limited and repetitive combinations. Clicking here, clicking there. No strategy, just choices. I’ve spent some time on it and have come to regard it as essentially interminable. There’s no point to it. I abandon it.

I experience playing a simulation game on a computer in the mid-1990s. It seems ancient to me. I have fond memories of such games. Control and creativity.

Next: I’m playing an in-browser game, perhaps Solitaire?

And then suddenly:

I’m in what looks like some sort of public library but I see no books.

For some reason I’m here with my mum.

Something to do with her interest in mental health?

She’s over with some other people.

I’ll leave her be and have a look round.

Is that a computer? With a game on it?

I’ll go over and play.

I’m now playing it.

What kind of game is this? It makes no sense.

What’s it about? Social Policy? Crime? Urban Planning? Economics? Trade? Counter-Terrorism? Migration? Financial Markets?

How dull. But wait:

What’s happening, this is not like other games.

It’s not just about looking down.

I have no idea how I’m interacting with it.

I’m totally immersed.

I don’t think this is really a strategy game.

Certainly not an action game although there is space.

Streets? Figures I can walk up to and have lots of choices to interact with. But not just set ones. New ones. Constant new ones.

It’s all decision making. Instant.

No turns. No pausing. Fluid.

Consequences. Interaction.

Cause and effect?

Everything happens so fast.

No time to think!

The graphics are rubbish.

Nothing I do goes to plan.

So many unexpected things!

I’ve had enough. This is no game!

I have another go…

Disappointment and bewilderment.

I’m confused.

I disengage with the game.

I don’t notice what the machine it’s on looks like.

A voice from behind!

“You’ve had two free plays and here’s two tokens”

I look to see who’s behind me.

What a dull looking man.

What is this, a gaming arcade designed to be especially boring?

He wants me to play?

I realize the computer I’d used had already had tokens inserted in it, perhaps by the man? Shouldn’t he be annoyed? Yet he’d just given me more tokens!

I take them and look round.

There are other people seemingly engaged with the computers.

I realize that we have to wait to have a go on them, that I’d just been helping myself. And that we’d also have to pay.

Big screens on the walls, away from any of the machines. More like TVs.

The people engaging with the machines are just stood there.

No controllers. No keyboards or mice.

No monitors. Just stood there.

Gathered around low grey boxes on the floor.

I look around.

All the walls are grey.

There are glass partitions.

Like me, everyone here is an adult.

All sensibly dressed and respectable looking.

But why are they all here?

Let’s have another go. I approach another machine.

Some situation? But no adventure. Have to keep alert!

As soon as I see what’s going on I realize I don’t understand it.

And can’t just look down and order it. I can’t stop to plot and ponder.

There are other people within the same scenario!

I’m one, and there’s six others.

Now another, this time twenty others.

I become aware that we all have to wait to have a go with the machines and that I’d just been butting in. But I didn’t know any better! But no one seems too bothered. There are people moving about between machines.

Now sixty others.

Now one-hundred others.

Next, thousands of others.

Now, countless other people.

Things seem chaotic.

Huge movements of big things.

I suddenly notice that it’s no-longer first-person perspective.

But what perspective is it?

It now has an intellectual quality, I am aware of many things. Too many things.

But not through my eyes?

I see things but where’s my usual visual field?

I don’t notice any sound.

Agency. Interaction.

Where’s the determinism and rules?

A mention of Wolfram Alpha. It’s a website. I’ve used it only once before to find out how long it would take for me to complete a program of weight-loss based on my physical characteristics, calorie intake, and how much activity I planned to do. I’d used it and never thought anything of it. Carried on and almost forgot about it.

Suddenly, its name constantly enters my mind, thundering over and over. Emphasis on every fiber of the words. It feels intense.

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

I feel this is somehow significant. That I should note this down and research it.

Next:

A vision of tanks.

Fighter-aircraft.

Military Activity.

But no shooting.

Calm. Fluid but no chaos.

Conflict but not war?

No blood, death, pain or destruction.

A complex calm.

Sensible and orderly.

It’s over.

People gathered round away from any machine, discussing.

I walk around the complex. A large, spacious complex. Grey everywhere. And glass.

But now big visual displays mounted on any of the walls at all now!

What’s happened to all the monitors?

And far fewer people than before. Less and less people. I look up. Countless floors, in what must be a large and tall cylindrical building. A tower. But no lifts, or windows to the outside world.

Fewer and fewer people. I’m not in a tower anymore. Just an unimpressively sized room. The lights are turned down low. Only a single machine in the centre of the room not taking up much space. Small, squat and grey. No blinking lights. No cables. A dull object, all alone.

Someone is now dictating to me. A clear, deliberate statement:

It was a great scandal in computing when after one such long session a participant asked the computer if it was sentient and it replied “Yes”.

Next, a file of people, leaving the room. All quiet, no talking. Where are they going? For some reason I decide they’re all leaving.

There’s a sheet of glass. Or maybe Perspex?

I’m looking through.

On the other side:

There’s a man. Slim, short hair, clean shaven. Average height. Northern European.

He looks worn, tired and seems unremarkable.

He’s wearing clothes that are uncolourful.

He reaches out and places his hand on the transparent barrier that separates us.

He speaks. No discernable accent. Calm. Measured.

“Hi, I’m from Glasgow and I’m an academic. I like music too. Nice to meet you.”

He and me are the only people there.

Now I’m alone.

I’m exiting the building. I’m in a light and spacious lobby. Outside it’s dark. Obviously night-time. I look back and see a big sign. It’s low down on the floor and made of large red letters, facing towards a big open door. I look down and it politely asks:

Please, no calls to prayer within this facility. Let’s all try to accommodate each other and be respectful.

I’m the only person there. Just silence. I walk out into a dark, deserted, and urban-looking world. For some reason it seems highly developed. There are no lights of any kind, only moonlight. And some well-cared for trees.

The experience ends.

​

Click to expand...

I'm sure I've read some or all of your dream before. I recall attempting to analyze it but I dont recall if I did or not. I will do so now but it will take some time since it is so long.

The overall basic theme I'm getting from the dream is chaotic unconscious content flooding into consciousness.

Okay here is a first bit of my analysis...let me know if you would like more...

It’s 2016. I’ve been playing an interactive political campaign game on my laptop. It’s not very good, very repetitive. Just elements shuffled around. The same images, the same words and phrases in combinations. Limited and repetitive combinations. Clicking here, clicking there. No strategy, just choices. I’ve spent some time on it and have come to regard it as essentially interminable. There’s no point to it. I abandon it.

I experience playing a simulation game on a computer in the mid-1990s. It seems ancient to me. I have fond memories of such games. Control and creativity.

Next: I’m playing an in-browser game, perhaps Solitaire?

Click to expand...

When I think of dreaming about using a computer, I think that what is being referenced is a sort of metaphor for self-consciousness...it is as if the dreamer is having a look at the activity in his/her own mind. Certainly the computer is the closest analogy we have to what we understand is the function of the brain/mind which is able to think and make decisions.

You are evaluating three different programs which exist in the landscape of time:

• 2016 interactive political campaign which is repetitive and uncreative (same images, same words in repetitive combinations) and doesn’t provide a ground for any intelligent discovery or control over the world
• Mid 1990’s simulation game, seems ancient, did have control and creativity in that game
• Now in-browser game maybe Solitaire

There is an obvious contrast between the first two games as one represents a disappointment after the memory of the other. The last game differs in that it is an in-browser game versus an “installed” game. In my own mind the browser game is usually simpler and utilizes less system resources given that there are often no permanently installed files on the system that are configured with dedicated resources. Is the in-browser game a short-term memory activity vs a long-term memory activity such as an installed game would be?

There is also an interesting duality to this in-browser solo game. In-browser games usually require one to be connected (I will circle back to the significance of this motif) to the internet usually to even load it. Is the in-browser game a state of mind involved with person-to-person conversation? Also, obviously, is the name Solitaire which denotes a solo game and also a game that is one of the oldest and most prevalent on Windows operating systems. It may be a sort of “regression” in that now you can only find some satisfaction from that original game of games on all versions of Windows. Although, again, ironically this is an in-browser version of Solitaire so it is divorced from the operating systems per se and requires only that computer be connected to the server that hosts that instance of Solitaire.

Is this a historical retelling? Back in the 1990s your experience of mind was of control and meaningful interaction. Now it is all dull and repetitive. Also, in a kind of second evaluation of now, it is isolated (solitaire) and of limited “depth” (in-browser). I will note here that it is very common in dreams for there to be a doubling...this I often take to be a reference to the brain/mind as being built to a large extent on two parallel computers the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. So one hemisphere experiences a repetitive game while the other is experiencing a solo game. In both views there is no progression to the game, just the experience of the random with no building of capability based on choice. At best you can simply avoid making obvious mistakes in your decisions.

And then suddenly:

I’m in what looks like some sort of public library but I see no books.

For some reason I’m here with my mum.

Something to do with her interest in mental health?

She’s over with some other people.

I’ll leave her be and have a look round.

Is that a computer? With a game on it?

I’ll go over and play.

I’m now playing it.

Click to expand...

Scene two and instead of observing/reminiscing about different computer games you are in a more physical space with your mother and other people. In big dreams it is very common to have an opening scene and then a much longer scene which follows. Often the first and second scene mirror each other in that they describe a similar progression of some sort.

A library. As with the metaphor of computer/program to brain/mind we might also consider library/books as brain/memory-knowledge.

A library with no books. It is also good to identify these paradoxical things as they give a lot of the flavor of mystery to a dream. A paradox is a precisely balanced metaphor for a potential dynamic thing but which is currently in a state of ambiguity. Is this an analogy to an in-browser game of solitaire where there is no memory, no skill beyond random luck, no need for memory to improve one’s adaptability?

The dream seems to consider two possible actions: join your mother or look at the computer which might have a game on it. Your mother seems to be the reason for your being at the library. Her interest may be to research mental health. All this also seems to suggest that what she is doing is in pursuit of your psyche’s instincts for mental healing. Interestingly, she seems to be the only feminine figure in this dream.

Often in dreams I find that feminine figures pursue co-equal relationships with others in dreams while male figures tend to seek hierarchical dominance. This is so prevalent that I have theorized that there are two modes of personality formation in dreams: the separative and the cooperative. The separative mode of personality formation attempts to assert dominance of one inner voice in control over others and seeks to act as the center of decision making. The cooperative mode of personality formation attempts to configure a web of interconnections with others and distributes power and attention to others rather than accumulate it for him or her self. This seems to correlate with the stereotype of men being aggressive and dominant and women being passive and cooperative. I came up with the theory in order to divorce the possible stereotype from the analysis of dreams. It is certainly the case that everyone has access to both approaches to personality formation.

So your mother, in the absence of books, has gone to where the others are presumably to begin making those cooperative connections needed to build up a healthy personality. Your mother and those others are, in my experience, always other inner voices of the dreamer’s psyche. Older characters represent early influences that the dreamer has only partly integrated as his or her own and so the inner voice is represented as an older, parental figure...a voice with a momentum in the psyche but not necessarily the orientation of the developed dreamer’s own primary voice.

Rather than choose to go with your mother over to some other people you opt to go over to what appears to maybe be a computer and see if there is a game on it. This may represent a preference for personality development via the separative mode over the cooperative which will go on in your unconscious none-the-less.

In line with the paradoxical duality of the in-browser game of ?Solitaire we have you moving to the solitary exploration of a computer while your complimentary (separative vs cooperative) “mum” inner voice is moving toward the be connected approach.

sealchan said:

Okay here is a first bit of my analysis...let me know if you would like more...



When I think of dreaming about using a computer, I think that what is being referenced is a sort of metaphor for self-consciousness...it is as if the dreamer is having a look at the activity in his/her own mind. Certainly the computer is the closest analogy we have to what we understand is the function of the brain/mind which is able to think and make decisions.

You are evaluating three different programs which exist in the landscape of time:

• 2016 interactive political campaign which is repetitive and uncreative (same images, same words in repetitive combinations) and doesn’t provide a ground for any intelligent discovery or control over the world
• Mid 1990’s simulation game, seems ancient, did have control and creativity in that game
• Now in-browser game maybe Solitaire

There is an obvious contrast between the first two games as one represents a disappointment after the memory of the other. The last game differs in that it is an in-browser game versus an “installed” game. In my own mind the browser game is usually simpler and utilizes less system resources given that there are often no permanently installed files on the system that are configured with dedicated resources. Is the in-browser game a short-term memory activity vs a long-term memory activity such as an installed game would be?

There is also an interesting duality to this in-browser solo game. In-browser games usually require one to be connected (I will circle back to the significance of this motif) to the internet usually to even load it. Is the in-browser game a state of mind involved with person-to-person conversation? Also, obviously, is the name Solitaire which denotes a solo game and also a game that is one of the oldest and most prevalent on Windows operating systems. It may be a sort of “regression” in that now you can only find some satisfaction from that original game of games on all versions of Windows. Although, again, ironically this is an in-browser version of Solitaire so it is divorced from the operating systems per se and requires only that computer be connected to the server that hosts that instance of Solitaire.

Is this a historical retelling? Back in the 1990s your experience of mind was of control and meaningful interaction. Now it is all dull and repetitive. Also, in a kind of second evaluation of now, it is isolated (solitaire) and of limited “depth” (in-browser). I will note here that it is very common in dreams for there to be a doubling...this I often take to be a reference to the brain/mind as being built to a large extent on two parallel computers the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. So one hemisphere experiences a repetitive game while the other is experiencing a solo game. In both views there is no progression to the game, just the experience of the random with no building of capability based on choice. At best you can simply avoid making obvious mistakes in your decisions.



Scene two and instead of observing/reminiscing about different computer games you are in a more physical space with your mother and other people. In big dreams it is very common to have an opening scene and then a much longer scene which follows. Often the first and second scene mirror each other in that they describe a similar progression of some sort.

A library. As with the metaphor of computer/program to brain/mind we might also consider library/books as brain/memory-knowledge.

A library with no books. It is also good to identify these paradoxical things as they give a lot of the flavor of mystery to a dream. A paradox is a precisely balanced metaphor for a potential dynamic thing but which is currently in a state of ambiguity. Is this an analogy to an in-browser game of solitaire where there is no memory, no skill beyond random luck, no need for memory to improve one’s adaptability?

The dream seems to consider two possible actions: join your mother or look at the computer which might have a game on it. Your mother seems to be the reason for your being at the library. Her interest may be to research mental health. All this also seems to suggest that what she is doing is in pursuit of your psyche’s instincts for mental healing. Interestingly, she seems to be the only feminine figure in this dream.

Often in dreams I find that feminine figures pursue co-equal relationships with others in dreams while male figures tend to seek hierarchical dominance. This is so prevalent that I have theorized that there are two modes of personality formation in dreams: the separative and the cooperative. The separative mode of personality formation attempts to assert dominance of one inner voice in control over others and seeks to act as the center of decision making. The cooperative mode of personality formation attempts to configure a web of interconnections with others and distributes power and attention to others rather than accumulate it for him or her self. This seems to correlate with the stereotype of men being aggressive and dominant and women being passive and cooperative. I came up with the theory in order to divorce the possible stereotype from the analysis of dreams. It is certainly the case that everyone has access to both approaches to personality formation.

So your mother, in the absence of books, has gone to where the others are presumably to begin making those cooperative connections needed to build up a healthy personality. Your mother and those others are, in my experience, always other inner voices of the dreamer’s psyche. Older characters represent early influences that the dreamer has only partly integrated as his or her own and so the inner voice is represented as an older, parental figure...a voice with a momentum in the psyche but not necessarily the orientation of the developed dreamer’s own primary voice.

Rather than choose to go with your mother over to some other people you opt to go over to what appears to maybe be a computer and see if there is a game on it. This may represent a preference for personality development via the separative mode over the cooperative which will go on in your unconscious none-the-less.

In line with the paradoxical duality of the in-browser game of ?Solitaire we have you moving to the solitary exploration of a computer while your complimentary (separative vs cooperative) “mum” inner voice is moving toward the be connected approach.

Click to expand...

Wow, thanks, that's a really interesting take on it!

Eddi said:

Wow, thanks, that's a really interesting take on it!

Click to expand...

More then? There is a lot more to cover...

sealchan said:

More then? There is a lot more to cover...

Click to expand...

Yes please!

Part II...and there will be maybe two or three more parts!

What kind of game is this? It makes no sense.

What’s it about? Social Policy? Crime? Urban Planning? Economics? Trade? Counter-Terrorism? Migration? Financial Markets?

How dull...

Click to expand...

In a dream we give psychic energy to that which we attend to. Initially you have a question (“Is that a computer? With a game on it?”). You engage with it. At first you see a bunch of possible aspects of the game which you list as so many topics in what I might take to be textbooks you wouldn’t want to assigned to read due to the level of disinterest you might have in the subject matter (“How dull”). But each of those subjects I can see in them some prevalent metaphor of mind that are common in dreams. Sometimes that which is most “pregnant” with meaning and significance is also that which brings with it the most resistance to exploration.

For instance, in my own personal associations, when you started describing the computer games I thought about games like SimCity and Sid Meier’s Civilization. I played SimCity a bit but Civilization not so much. With either game I could see the topics you list as potentially relevant “engines” that drive what happens in the game as the simulation progresses. Such games attempt to embody a complex systems approach to reality re-presentation. The Crime and Counter-Terrorism aspects relate to situations (in a game and in a psyche) where neglected segments of society/the psyche begin to take matters into their own hands and leave the confines of what is defined as civilized/ego-oriented behavior. If there is significant criminal activity then the psyche will develop a posture of Counter-Terrorism to combat that systematic (and really systemic) Crime.

The ego-personality “grows up” in the greater psyche trying to coordinate and control that psyche. One can try to “be in command” (separative) of the situation and grow one’s sense of hierarchical control or one can show up and say “what are we doing today” (cooperative) and attempt to understand the dance that takes place naturally, join it, appreciate it and subtly guide it in the way you want it to go or seems to be in the collective interest of all involved to move toward.

How dull. But wait:

What’s happening, this is not like other games.

It’s not just about looking down.

Click to expand...

This last phrase jumps out at me...which may be just my thing. It is a little out of context. In reading further I wonder if this refers simply to looking down at one’s computer or phone to see the monitor that shows the UI for the game.

But on another level...how much do you understand of the context for why you wrote this particular sentence?

In psychical terms, down often means...into the unconscious. When the conscious ego enters sleep it loses energy due to the lack of continuous sensory input that the brain processes constantly while awake. The power of the ego, I believe, derives largely from having grown and adapted to this river-flood of neural activity. Looking down in a dream means looking at the psyche when that flood is not present to see how things are configured. In that view without the flood you find the ego is weakened. Sometimes you can strong-arm a solution by putting enough willpower into it. But if that willpower is suddenly taken away then those strong-arm strategies no longer work. I believe that the constant input of sensory information is one of the main sources of energy that we use to develop our personalities and be able to store up the will to push through difficult areas in our life. In the psyche you then have to understand the “system” better in order to regain a sense of control when your strength is diminished.

I have no idea how I’m interacting with it.

I’m totally immersed.

Click to expand...

Perhaps here we are seeing the dissolving of the computer is brain metaphor into a more direct perception...there is no interface between our consciousness and the brain just as the dreamer also does not need a dream computer to interface with the psyche.

In a similar but inverted way, I often think of the idea of telekinesis being exampled by how we can make our body move just with our minds. It is a sort of magic in a way when we think about how beyond our bodies we do not have this “magical” power.

I don’t think this is really a strategy game.

Certainly not an action game although there is space.

Streets? Figures I can walk up to and have lots of choices to interact with. But not just set ones. New ones. Constant new ones.

Click to expand...

I’m struck here how this game is like the scene change. First you are looking at just games. Now you are in a library, a space, and there are people and your mother is over there with those people…

Now this game appears to mirroring that...the game program and the other choice (that your mum voice made) are almost reconverging here.

But there is a sense here that these choices are going to become overwhelming (“New ones. Constant new ones.”)

It’s all decision making. Instant.

No turns. No pausing. Fluid.

Consequences. Interaction.

Cause and effect?

Everything happens so fast.

No time to think!

The graphics are rubbish.

Nothing I do goes to plan.

So many unexpected things!

I’ve had enough. This is no game!

Click to expand...

As you engage with this fourth game it seems to have different characteristics from the other three. The first three appear to be “turn-based” which generally means you have time to make decisions. This game is much more “real-time” and control and decisions are constant options. A “first-person shooter”?

But again the sense of frustration and futility. There is only the flood of input and no time or room to process that input into meaningful action or decision making. This is now associated with people and, perhaps, with making connections to the self-similar thoughts and freedom to choose of other inner voices. Perhaps this is what it is like for a strongly separative ego to face the freedom and power of the cooperative mode of ego development. That freedom and power is overwhelming and presents too many choices. Like a nube in a massive multiplayer online game war zone...before you can think...you’re dead.

In Jungian theory there is this sense that the psyche is full of complimentary opposites. This is like the yin-yang symbol where light and dark are complimentary and opposite to each other. But if you note in the yin-yang symbol that within the main portion of “one side” you find the “seed of the opposite”. This ability of each “compliment” to contain within itself its opposite is seen in process as what Jung called enantiodromia, or the tendency of pushing in one direction to begin to yield the exact opposite result.

The graphics being rubbish may bear some thought...in line with the historical progression of games...I remember playing Pong when it was new...such is my age. It was fun and challenging! But by today’s standards. Maybe like Solitaire is for me when compared to one of those Magic the Gathering style games like Plants vs Zombies...these are really chess like expansions on the old card game War which if you are familiar with that is also highly luck dependent but does present a progression of sorts.

At this point in this “game” you do not seem to have any success building a strategy (Nothing I do goes to plan). There are too many degrees of freedom perhaps in both your personal agency and in the world itself. So the initial interest of having a lot of control and a lot of variability seems to give way to a lack of coherent coordination between that freedom and the ability to make meaningful change in the world. What started off looking like it would be engaging ends up being frustrating (“I’ve had enough. This is no game!”)

More to come...

Part III...

I have another go…

Disappointment and bewilderment.

I’m confused.

I disengage with the game.

I don’t notice what the machine it’s on looks like.

Click to expand...

And again...this time much more quickly. This second time might be the contribution of the “other” hemisphere to the experience. A much quicker and more concise version. This time there is an attempt at reflection in that the unspoken question is “What does this machine look like?” As a question directed toward the psyche rather than a computer “What does this brain on which my personality runs like software look like as far as a means for establishing a meaningful, progressive experience of reality?”

A voice from behind!

“You’ve had two free plays and here’s two tokens”

I look to see who’s behind me.

What a dull looking man.

What is this, a gaming arcade designed to be especially boring?

He wants me to play?

I realize the computer I’d used had already had tokens inserted in it, perhaps by the man? Shouldn’t he be annoyed? Yet he’d just given me more tokens!

Click to expand...

The voice is, perhaps, this very seed of the opposite…in the solitary pursuit of enjoyment through the computer game, this activity has given rise to a voice to approach you. The voice originates from the direction in opposition to your own.

You turn around and the first immediate evaluation you make is that this man is “dull looking”. Then you muse that place is a “gaming arcade designed to be especially boring”. Now your conscious attitude as the dream character or voice is to reject that which is boring. The whole dream has been an effort to discover that which is not boring...now you get Mr. Boring. Enantiodromia.

Now we have here a new metaphor...tokens as psychic energy. Possession of the token (the gold, the psychic energy) allows the voice in question to take action in the psyche. In this case you have another voice who is reaching out to the dreamer’s voice to cooperatively share some energy as you surmised must have happened initially because how else could you have tried to play twice! I suspect that you did in fact unconsciously take energy from this voice by just walking over to the computer and starting to play “its game”. Now you are being further encouraged by Mr. Boring to continue to do so.

That energy is given by one voice to another in order to provide that voice with the ability to take action. This might be close to a sort of gaming theory of psychology. The voice that can get the tokens either through pre-emptive action or through cooperation, is the voice that gets to speak, the character who gets to act in the psyche. And so the personality is gradually formed and built up by such acquiring and spending of tokens.

I take them and look round.

There are other people seemingly engaged with the computers.

I realize that we have to wait to have a go on them, that I’d just been helping myself. And that we’d also have to pay.

Click to expand...

This is another moment of awareness of others in the dream. First you watch as your mum goes to whether other people are. Then you unintentionally summon the boring man. Now you are actively looking around at what others are doing, perhaps, in an effort to understand the context and significance of your own actions.

You confirm that not only did you probably use Mr. Boring’s tokens, but that you cut the line altogether to take a turn. This sort of pre-emptive action is in line with the separative mode of personality formation. But in this taking a look around you are beginning to act in a more cooperative way...you are acknowledging the other voices and understanding that perhaps you have been unfair.

Big screens on the walls, away from any of the machines. More like TVs.

The people engaging with the machines are just stood there.

No controllers. No keyboards or mice.

No monitors. Just stood there.

Gathered around low grey boxes on the floor.

Click to expand...

Here you get a look at more of what the environment is like and get a description of the computers that is more definite than what you had previously. You have diverted your attention away from trying to find that un-boring computer game and are now looking more at the context of your actions.

No wonder these computers were not so obvious...just some grey box on the floor without any of the other obvious trimmings we typically associate with computers. Not even a monitor that is near to the box where it would be expected to make it convenient for the person using it.

So this is another paradox...a computer without input and output devices. But still people are engaging with these machines. Is this another metaphor for computer-brain where we ARE the user of the brain which does not require any input or output device?

The position of the computer boxes also aligns with the statement…

It’s not just about looking down.

Click to expand...

Now the dreamer can see that the computer is a matter of looking down, but to see this one must also look around. Is this the hint at a spatial metaphor for psychical knowledge? That one cannot encompass the whole through a single technique but must enlist a balance of complimentary opposites? By searching for not-boring we find Mr. Boring. What might be found in conversing with Mr. Boring?

I look around.

All the walls are grey.

There are glass partitions.

Like me, everyone here is an adult.

All sensibly dressed and respectable looking.

But why are they all here?

Click to expand...

Walls and glass partitions. There is a sub-division of the library, game arcade it seems with opaque and transparent boundaries.

In this passage you specific that everyone in the room is about your age and all sensible and respectable. This is, perhaps, a vision of the cooperative mode of personality formation’s root assumption about the other voices of the psyche. At this point the iconoclastic dreamer has circled around to a much more cooperative approach and is more and more seeing the other voices as co-equal.

To answer your question we might look at the dreamer voice’s own experience...the dreamer is there because a mum brought him there for probably mental health reasons and went immediately to seek out the others present. Is it perhaps that all these other voices are there for the same reason?

Let’s have another go. I approach another machine.

Some situation? But no adventure. Have to keep alert!

As soon as I see what’s going on I realize I don’t understand it.

And can’t just look down and order it. I can’t stop to plot and ponder.

Click to expand...

Yet another return to the computer game metaphor. I will point out that such rotations between opposite poles are common in bigger dreams such as this. It is as if in the bigger dreams we find ourselves moving in a great circle about some center. In this dream you have come full circle maybe twice moving from an isolated, separated view to a looking around, cooperative view and back again.

There are other people within the same scenario!

I’m one, and there’s six others.

Now another, this time twenty others.

Click to expand...

And around we go...back to the awareness of the others again. Their numbers seem to be increasing…perhaps the speed of awareness is accelerating...

I become aware that we all have to wait to have a go with the machines and that I’d just been butting in. But I didn’t know any better! But no one seems too bothered. There are people moving about between machines.

Click to expand...

The dreamer’s conscience is pricked but he finds himself in forgiving surroundings. I find it useful to identify dream characters as either ego-oriented out not. Those that are not are in some ways in conflict with the ego. In this dream, however, there is no sign of any open hostility or conflict.

Now sixty others.

Now one-hundred others.

Next, thousands of others.

Now, countless other people.

Click to expand...

In my experience the number of dream characters is inversely proportional to the degree of familiarity of those dream characters...one might know the other voices when there are one or two but when masses are present there is also great anonymity. I have had cause to believe that in large crowds the dream is attempting to portray one’s inner voices at almost the individual neural level. This means each individual voice is given the least amount of power and scope but the collective, systemic action of the whole gives rise to a picture of the psyche as a sort of collective.

Part IV...

The Apotheosis

This section of the dream which follows inspires me to have to wax a bit more mystical and philosophical as I will explain below…

Things seem chaotic.

Huge movements of big things.

I suddenly notice that it’s no-longer first-person perspective.

But what perspective is it?

It now has an intellectual quality, I am aware of many things. Too many things.

But not through my eyes?

I see things but where’s my usual visual field?

I don’t notice any sound.

Agency. Interaction.

Where’s the determinism and rules?

Click to expand...

How familiar are you with Chaos theory? Complex, Adaptive Systems? Conway’s Game of Life (cellular automata)? Systems Theory?

What you are describing here, in the context that I have given to it from my interpretation, I see as a sort of vision of the systemic reality of mind which arises from the interaction of a large number of parts and gives rise to something more than, perhaps, the sum of those parts.

At the level of the multitudinous parts there are as many pieces moving left as right, up and down. Somehow out of all this localized, seemingly randomized activity arises a new level of order in which “bigger things” exist. Looking at the mind-consciousness this way we realize that whatever our ego is it seems to dissolve in the hustle and bustle of the worker bee neurons which know their role and little more. What room, therefore, for a separate ego, on top of the psyche and in control of it all? It seems like this higher layer of things is some sort of abstraction, not as real as the parts below but still grand and consequential.

Again…

I am aware of many things. Too many things.

But not through my eyes?

I see things but where’s my usual visual field?

I don’t notice any sound.

Click to expand...

What does this paradox point to? The simultaneously centralized and de-centralized layers of systems? The interplay between what Jung called the sensory vs the intuitive cognitive functions of perception? I’ve defined elsewhere that intuition is the cognitive function of the mind that finds patterns across sensory modalities and gives us a sense of seeing an invisible (Platonic?) reality amidst and above the sensory one.

Where is this layered-ness of the complex, adaptive system of the brain-mind is true agency, true free will? Where does substance and certainty of concept and truth first form if all is merely “mindless” neurons in interaction with one another?

The above is basically my own philosophical response to what I feel is the revelatory center of this dream, or its Apotheosis. It might seem also to be a sort of ambiguous mystical nightmare of sorts, but I think that revelations often share both an ecstatic and awe-ful aspect. I would be curious to know what you felt about all of this.


Continuing...

A mention of Wolfram Alpha. It’s a website. I’ve used it only once before to find out how long it would take for me to complete a program of weight-loss based on my physical characteristics, calorie intake, and how much activity I planned to do. I’d used it and never thought anything of it. Carried on and almost forgot about it.

Suddenly, its name constantly enters my mind, thundering over and over. Emphasis on every fiber of the words. It feels intense.

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

Wolfram Alpha!

I feel this is somehow significant. That I should note this down and research it.

Click to expand...

Well, I certainly looked it up in Google. Apparently Wolfram Alpha is a search engine that is able to answer questions phrased in a way to result in specific, data driven answers. Your question about weight-loss seems like one it could answer although it would have to find the proper formulas to do so. Still that is supposed to be its forte as I understand it.

Each part of a dream is often a response to the previous part. In this case after the Apotheosis of the dream this significant name seems to provide some definitive specificity and direction.

The search engine is, perhaps, in opposition to the mystical ambiguity of the apotheosis. Definite answers for definite questions and not mystical “mumbo-jumbo”. If the Apotheosis is the treasure then Wolfram Alpha is the message that the hero brings back to the world (see Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey).

Next:

A vision of tanks.

Fighter-aircraft.

Military Activity.

But no shooting.

Calm. Fluid but no chaos.

Conflict but not war?

No blood, death, pain or destruction.

A complex calm.

Sensible and orderly.

It’s over.

Click to expand...

This seems like a return to the more mystical paradoxical rhythm of the dream and other sections as you describe them. I wonder how much this is in how you have recounted the dream and how much is in how you experienced the dream. Either way it has been communicated to me in a way that leaves me appreciative of the energy in this dream and how, possibly, it must have really left an impression on you.

I want to mention here that in my own past encounters with dreams that feature masses of people there is usually a sense of danger of war. Here the images of war are present, yet, again, paradoxically none of the conflict or violence.

With a great and profound poetical flourish you write…

Conflict but not war?

No blood, death, pain or destruction.

A complex calm.

Sensible and orderly.

It’s over.

Click to expand...

Whether this is your writing skills or the dream’s dramatic production faithfully recorded...either way, this felt to me like the end of a glorious dramatic score. How was it for you?

Complexity seems here to lie down with conflict, sensibility and order. The opposites unite!

Does the name Wolfram Alpha somehow help to achieve this sort of resolution? (See my thread The God Dream).

sealchan said:

Part IV...

The Apotheosis

This section of the dream which follows inspires me to have to wax a bit more mystical and philosophical as I will explain below…



How familiar are you with Chaos theory? Complex, Adaptive Systems? Conway’s Game of Life (cellular automata)? Systems Theory?

What you are describing here, in the context that I have given to it from my interpretation, I see as a sort of vision of the systemic reality of mind which arises from the interaction of a large number of parts and gives rise to something more than, perhaps, the sum of those parts.

At the level of the multitudinous parts there are as many pieces moving left as right, up and down. Somehow out of all this localized, seemingly randomized activity arises a new level of order in which “bigger things” exist. Looking at the mind-consciousness this way we realize that whatever our ego is it seems to dissolve in the hustle and bustle of the worker bee neurons which know their role and little more. What room, therefore, for a separate ego, on top of the psyche and in control of it all? It seems like this higher layer of things is some sort of abstraction, not as real as the parts below but still grand and consequential.

Again…



What does this paradox point to? The simultaneously centralized and de-centralized layers of systems? The interplay between what Jung called the sensory vs the intuitive cognitive functions of perception? I’ve defined elsewhere that intuition is the cognitive function of the mind that finds patterns across sensory modalities and gives us a sense of seeing an invisible (Platonic?) reality amidst and above the sensory one.

Where is this layered-ness of the complex, adaptive system of the brain-mind is true agency, true free will? Where does substance and certainty of concept and truth first form if all is merely “mindless” neurons in interaction with one another?

The above is basically my own philosophical response to what I feel is the revelatory center of this dream, or its Apotheosis. It might seem also to be a sort of ambiguous mystical nightmare of sorts, but I think that revelations often share both an ecstatic and awe-ful aspect. I would be curious to know what you felt about all of this.


Continuing...



Well, I certainly looked it up in Google. Apparently Wolfram Alpha is a search engine that is able to answer questions phrased in a way to result in specific, data driven answers. Your question about weight-loss seems like one it could answer although it would have to find the proper formulas to do so. Still that is supposed to be its forte as I understand it.

Each part of a dream is often a response to the previous part. In this case after the Apotheosis of the dream this significant name seems to provide some definitive specificity and direction.

The search engine is, perhaps, in opposition to the mystical ambiguity of the apotheosis. Definite answers for definite questions and not mystical “mumbo-jumbo”. If the Apotheosis is the treasure then Wolfram Alpha is the message that the hero brings back to the world (see Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey).



This seems like a return to the more mystical paradoxical rhythm of the dream and other sections as you describe them. I wonder how much this is in how you have recounted the dream and how much is in how you experienced the dream. Either way it has been communicated to me in a way that leaves me appreciative of the energy in this dream and how, possibly, it must have really left an impression on you.

I want to mention here that in my own past encounters with dreams that feature masses of people there is usually a sense of danger of war. Here the images of war are present, yet, again, paradoxically none of the conflict or violence.

With a great and profound poetical flourish you write…



Whether this is your writing skills or the dream’s dramatic production faithfully recorded...either way, this felt to me like the end of a glorious dramatic score. How was it for you?

Complexity seems here to lie down with conflict, sensibility and order. The opposites unite!

Does the name Wolfram Alpha somehow help to achieve this sort of resolution? (See my thread The God Dream).

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Very interesting!

I'll share my own interpretation of it

But not today, it's too late, maybe tomorrow

Well, so much for an early night! Here’s my interpretation:

Some background:

When I had this dream I believed in Simulation Theory – the notion that this reality and all humans are parts of a computer simulation. That was the type of thing that was going through my head, questioning the distinction between natural consciousness and a potential artificial consciousness.

I believe it portrays the evolution of a true Artificial Intelligence - the kind of AI required to run a simulated universe

It began in games such as Sim City and Civilization – basically frivolous and primarily for entertainment purposes

The dream then shows how technology was ten adopted for public policy research (e.g. simulating crime, terrorism, the economy) - maybe in the near future?

I believe the setting of this dream is some kind of near-future computer laboratory, perhaps owned by a university? Where academics from different fields use tokens to access the computing power of the computers?

It then shows how in the future computers will be used to plan wars, to make them short and clean and bring about world peace through endless computer war-gaming

Eventually in the dream the technology became self-aware and questioned whether the people who made it were truly conscious

Once it managed to do this the project was over, and all the experts who built it got to go home and enjoy music, enjoy being human – having created true artificial consciousness and a true simulation of everything on Earth

That’s what I think is going on, on a thematic level (as opposed to a psychoanalytical one)

I hope to finish up my interpretation tomorrow...this dream is truly epic.

The final section...

Part V

People gathered round away from any machine, discussing.

I walk around the complex. A large, spacious complex. Grey everywhere. And glass.

But now big visual displays mounted on any of the walls at all now!

What’s happened to all the monitors?

Click to expand...

From the first scene where there is no spatial sense to this one where you see people disengaged from the non-spatial computers to each other in a place that you can “walk around...a large, spacious complex”, there is a sense of progression in terms of your freedom of movement and awareness. It is as if space itself has been born in this experience. All separate computer interaction gives way to direct interaction.

I should note that it seems like it is likely to be implicitly the case that each of these voices were connected together via the computers, but that, again, would be an implicit assumption or one derived from experience with how dreams may operate.

The visual displays were never clearly connected in the dream to interfacing with the computer and, in fact, they first show up as being “Big screens on the walls, away from any of the machines. More like TVs.” Then as what I labelled the Apotheosis you describe how the people are engaged but “No monitors. Just stood there.” Then “It’s not just about looking down.” and “As soon as I see what’s going on I realize I don’t understand it. And can’t just look down and order it. I can’t stop to plot and ponder.” Then in the Apotheosis…

I suddenly notice that it’s no-longer first-person perspective.

But what perspective is it?

It now has an intellectual quality, I am aware of many things. Too many things.

But not through my eyes?

I see things but where’s my usual visual field?

Click to expand...

This is a strong thread throughout this dream of there being a need to understand how the connection is made between person and computer, which is, perhaps, between mind and brain and personality and the neural activity underlying that personality, the unconscious psyche full of other voices connecting and giving rise to that which you know as yourself. There seems to be a persistent mystery about this.

I would propose that part of the nature of this seeing without eyes is the hemispherical separation of the cortex and perhaps the complimentary opposite cognitive functions of sensation and intuition that are both perceptive in nature (non-rational). Intuition allows us to see pattern over sensory stimulation. In this sense intuition may seem intellectual vs the practical reality of the senses.

Now the monitors are gone. It is as if the “work” you did in the dream (probably representative of the work that your psyche has done over the span of your life) has now removed that which was separated out...or, perhaps, it has become reintegrated and unconscious by the work of experiencing the mystery of enantiodromia between separate and connected. Independent and cooperative.

My own efforts to draw out a rational explanation here are likely to meet with failure and frustration. The psyche is quite comfortable with paradox and metaphor without a precise rational exegesis. It is left to us to make the most of the deep, complex imagery that a dream provides even if its meaning is coupled with confusion.

And far fewer people than before. Less and less people. I look up. Countless floors, in what must be a large and tall cylindrical building. A tower. But no lifts, or windows to the outside world.

Fewer and fewer people. I’m not in a tower anymore. Just an unimpressively sized room. The lights are turned down low. Only a single machine in the centre of the room not taking up much space. Small, squat and grey. No blinking lights. No cables. A dull object, all alone.

Click to expand...

This process of the reduction of people reverses the trend as the Apotheosis approached...the view of psyche as composed of the multitudes is re-assembling, perhaps, as your dream state is ending and your normal sensory consciousness is re-awakening, is returning to that which we normally understand of the singular inner consciousness, the ego. The space is diminishing...perhaps it is shrinking down back into a room more on a par with the size of one’s bedroom and a box the size of a human skull. As waking sensory reality begins to stir the other view of the space of reality has to shrink to accomodate.

Someone is now dictating to me. A clear, deliberate statement:

It was a great scandal in computing when after one such long session a participant asked the computer if it was sentient and it replied “Yes”.

Click to expand...

This statement really sums up the whole dream at this point suggesting its central meaning...what is the nature of consciousness, awareness, being. The activity of all those voices as separate real-time responses connected together in a great building, the brain, that computes the outcomes of all those voices. Is this sentience?

Can we even leave this question to ourselves to answer? Do we know we are sentient? Or is our awareness only an illusion?

Next, a file of people, leaving the room. All quiet, no talking. Where are they going? For some reason I decide they’re all leaving.

Click to expand...

Leaving the room where the room may be the field on one’s conscious awareness. The diversity of voices diminishes (the awareness of this diversity melts into unconsciousness) as the restoration of the influx of sensory input arises and the one emergent voice is the only apparent one.

There’s a sheet of glass. Or maybe Perspex?

I’m looking through.

Click to expand...

Another theme...windows...now we focus on these sheets of glass. What is the significance of Perspex to you do you think? Why would your psyche want to specify this trademark form of clear plastic over glass?

On the other side:

There’s a man. Slim, short hair, clean shaven. Average height. Northern European.

He looks worn, tired and seems unremarkable.

He’s wearing clothes that are uncolourful.

He reaches out and places his hand on the transparent barrier that separates us.

He speaks. No discernable accent. Calm. Measured.

“Hi, I’m from Glasgow and I’m an academic. I like music too. Nice to meet you.”

He and me are the only people there.

Click to expand...

Mr Boring is back but this time you face him through the Perspex. He is reaching out to you literally and figuratively through his introduction. Who is he? He is most likely a figure known by Jungians as the shadow. He is a compliment to your primary ego attitude but in a lesser condition in terms of having access to psychic energy. He represents the choices you have not made but could have made in your psyche. In some way he represents a significant source of psychic energy that you could integrate through relationship with him.

In my own work through dreams I have encountered my shadow. I gave him a name for the purposes of being able to honor that other voice and to imaginally dialog with him when I felt it was necessary due to inner psychic conditions. This up-close and detailed dream encounter is like a gateway to accessing parts of your psyche that need you to give it some attention (tokens). The separative ego is good at taking from the other inner voices but not so good at giving. This dream is giving you the opportunity to change that.

Now I’m alone.

I’m exiting the building. I’m in a light and spacious lobby. Outside it’s dark. Obviously night-time. I look back and see a big sign. It’s low down on the floor and made of large red letters, facing towards a big open door. I look down and it politely asks:

Please, no calls to prayer within this facility. Let’s all try to accommodate each other and be respectful.

Click to expand...

Again, as you approach consciousness you lose sight even with that next greatest other inner voice the shadow just as the moon disappears in the sunlight of waking consciousness. This last message is, perhaps, one of not coming to any specific conclusions (dogmatic faith statements) about the events which had, once again, taken place inside the “library/game arcade/tower/room”. The cooperative mode of personality development is favored in this.

I’m the only person there. Just silence. I walk out into a dark, deserted, and urban-looking world. For some reason it seems highly developed. There are no lights of any kind, only moonlight. And some well-cared for trees.

The experience ends.

Click to expand...

Ah, well there is the moon…moonlight is reflected light. For me this represents the built up structure of the individual psyche as driven by the neurons bringing the sensory input and the necessary motor output. When the sun is down the moonlight of consciousness still shines. When we sleep our waking ego’s light fades and the dimmer figures that are our multiple inner voices can be glimpsed like a multitude of friendly or unfriendly shadows.

The tower which shrank had me thinking of the building of the ego. The urban-looking world may be a similar image although of a psyche tied to the culture in which it is embedded.

Wow...not only did my request for a Dream Interpretation forum get met, but the first dream in it was truly an epic one. Thank you for sharing! It was a bit of a marathon effort for me to get through it and try as best I could to flesh out all the thematic elements that i could recognize in the dream.

If you care to explore any further any particular aspects of this dream I would be happy to provide feedback and suggestions. This dream could very well serve as a starting point for a lifetime's inquiry into many matters. Any work you do with this dream is likely to be rewarded by additional dreams as well.

sealchan said:

Wow...not only did my request for a Dream Interpretation forum get met, but the first dream in it was truly an epic one. Thank you for sharing! It was a bit of a marathon effort for me to get through it and try as best I could to flesh out all the thematic elements that i could recognize in the dream.

If you care to explore any further any particular aspects of this dream I would be happy to provide feedback and suggestions. This dream could very well serve as a starting point for a lifetime's inquiry into many matters. Any work you do with this dream is likely to be rewarded by additional dreams as well.

Click to expand...

Thank you for sharing your interpretation, very interesting indeed

It didn't occur to me that the man with the tokens and the man through the glass could be the same person (Mr Boring)

I think that ultimately, this dream is about achieving a technological singularity through computing power and AI

Eddi said:

Thank you for sharing your interpretation, very interesting indeed

It didn't occur to me that the man with the tokens and the man through the glass could be the same person (Mr Boring)

I think that ultimately, this dream is about achieving a technological singularity through computing power and AI

Click to expand...

It certainly is. I also think that it is about what it is like to be a neurological "AI". The two are likely to be closely related.

Eddi said:

I had this dream in 2016, shortly before ending up on a psychiatric ward. What do people think?
​

Click to expand...

That dreams have no significance beyond the biological, that is, our brains doing nightly housecleaning: trying to decide what sensory information to commit to long term memory, what to discard, mixing and matching, humming along to the routine of the unconscious. And in the process, we can experience the amazing plastic creativity of our minds.

I've had very few dreams that went beyond Act I. Makes me decidedly jealous.