Help Me Interpret A Very Vivid Dream I Once Had!

[Eddi]

Here's a description of a very lucid dream I had in 2016, a couple of days before I was admitted to a psychiatric ward. I think it's something to do about humans and technology but I'd like to know what people think it's all about! How should I interpret it? What does it say about my psyche? It was my best dream ever and I feel as though I should share it. It was more than a dream, it was an experience! Here it goes:

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.

Next, there are 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.​

​

​

 

[Sanzbir]

Dream symbolism is a tricky thing, because it varies person-to-person along with the person's own symbolic understanding and personality.

The people selling dream interpretation books that propose static meaning onto symbols are largely selling snake oil.

So lacking understanding of your own personal surreality and understanding of symbolism and the things within your own dreams, no accurate interpretation could be posited without knowing further things about you.

For example the concept of games seems to be a central concept to at least the first portion of this dream, but that alone could mean many different things depending entirely on you. If, for you, games are a form of escapism or wish fulfillment, the symbol can mean one thing. However if you instead use gaming as more of a creative outlet, the meaning of the symbol is very different.

One thing I note is you describe being totally immersed in a game you otherwise seem to describe as dull, boring, and frustrating. It's a kind of logical contradiction not uncommon in dreaming. One of the greatest strengths of the surreal is its inherent freedom from needing to make sense.

You also mention this as being a lucid dream, but you don't mention where in it you are lucid if anywhere. Where does your awareness of the dream begin or end?? This can have an influence on the dream itself.

 

[sun rise]

How should I interpret it? What does it say about my psyche? It was my best dream ever and I feel as though I should share it. It was more than a dream, it was an experience!

@Eddi I was trained as a psychologist, among other things, but never real practiced. But during my training I learned that interpreting other people's experiences and dreams was very often a mistake. And especially with a dream that hold so much significance for you, I think I'd be off the mark to some degree or other.

If I practiced as a therapist and you came to see me, I expect it would take a while to focus on the richness and details of the imagery in your post, We might talk about questions I have such as the following in no particular order. Maybe thinking about these questions could help:

• Does any part of the dream connect to experiences you had while awake?
• Is there any specific part of the dream that you feel most drawn to understand?
• Is there any game you've played which is closest to any aspect of the dream?
• How does the dream connect to how you feel about life?
• What caused you to be admitted to the psychiatric ward? Is there any aspect of the dream that connects to that?
• How are you doing now?
• Has what you found most significant about the dream changed over time?
• Would you agree or disagree with me if I asked if how you experienced the game had a relationship to how you feel about life in general? Or is there part of the dream that is related to your experience of life?
• If you are a visual artist, I'd ask you to draw images from the dream and talk about your feelings as you worked.
• Are there books, movies, songs or paintings that resonate with aspects of the dream?
• Is the dream reflective of a season of the year?

And so forth.

 

[Eddi]

For example the concept of games seems to be a central concept to at least the first portion of this dream, but that alone could mean many different things depending entirely on you. If, for you, games are a form of escapism or wish fulfillment, the symbol can mean one thing. However if you instead use gaming as more of a creative outlet, the meaning of the symbol is very different.

Games like Sim City and Civilization were a big part of my childhood and in more recent years I've enjoyed role-playing adventure games - I enjoy building up a character and getting immersed in fantastic worlds and exploring the game's storyline

One thing I note is you describe being totally immersed in a game you otherwise seem to describe as dull, boring, and frustrating. It's a kind of logical contradiction not uncommon in dreaming. One of the greatest strengths of the surreal is its inherent freedom from needing to make sense.

The games I experienced in this dream were totally impossible to play and exercise control in, by the time I'd made my mind about something some unforeseen event popped up - it was not predictable like any computer game I've ever played. It felt like the aim of the game was to make the best of a bad situation. Perhaps the same could be said for life?

You also mention this as being a lucid dream, but you don't mention where in it you are lucid if anywhere. Where does your awareness of the dream begin or end?? This can have an influence on the dream itself.

It was a really strange dream, it unfolded almost like a movie but I experienced the games first hand, one was about community policing and another about troop movements in some military exercise or war

 

[Curious George]

Here's a description of a very lucid dream I had in 2016, a couple of days before I was admitted to a psychiatric ward. I think it's something to do about humans and technology but I'd like to know what people think it's all about! How should I interpret it? What does it say about my psyche? It was my best dream ever and I feel as though I should share it. It was more than a dream, it was an experience! Here it goes:

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.

Next, there are 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.

​

While I agree with @Sanzbir and do not believe one can accurately interpret dreams without knowing what the symbols mean to the individual, I do not think that is what you are interested in hearing. So i will suggest that I would interpret this dream as story of a person who is frustrated by the lack of structure, depth and adventure that the real world presents them.

 

[Eddi]

While I agree with @Sanzbir So i will suggest that I would interpret this dream as story of a person who is frustrated by the lack of structure, depth and adventure that the real world presents them.

Thanks! I see what you mean - the dream started off referring to happy, fond memories of various games I played when I was a teenager, and the simulations I experienced later on in the dream were unenjoyable and outright frustrating - perhaps this means I think my life has been increasingly unenjoyable (and more frustrating) since my youth - That would make sense!

 

[YmirGF]

@Sanzbir and @sunrise offer very good advice here and I'm not sure I can add much to their cautions. To make the point emphatic, dream symbol libraries vary from individual to individual and can have far different meanings to the one experiencing a lucid dream. Likewise, that symbol library is more malleable on an individual basis than most realize. Mood will affect how a given symbol is perceived and can morph in quite unexpected ways.

It is crucial to write a dream down as soon as possible after the event. It is crucial NOT to go back and "correct" how this is written up as even the words you choose to describe things can have another layer of meaning.

Something that is written months after the fact is near on worthless because the conscious mind has already smoothed over too many rough areas and it will no longer be an accurate rendition of the events, but a tainted version.

All that said...

Do not expect the meaning of dreams to leap off the page at you. Much of the information is not literal but highly figurative, often bizarrely so, almost like proper punctuation for emphasis. With that in mind, realize that the individual can wend their way though dream analysis quite successfully, but it does take some effort. Be aware that you cannot see the forest by gazing at a single tree, but it will give you an hint in the right direction...

For example, when I was a young adult I had numerous incredibly frightening, highly realistic, dreams about tornadoes. I did not live anywhere near areas that get tornadoes, LOL, so it was a very odd symbol to fixate on. I won't bore with the details, but suddenly one day, I was hit by the meaning. It was definitely an epiphany. It literally became perfectly clear what the dreams were about and I had to laugh at how creative my dream imagery actually was. The thing is, it had to be super real just to get my attention in the dream state! Once it had my attention, it took a very long time to figure it all out. Several years, I suppose. The dreams began around when I was 15 and lasted into my 20's. I had dozens of them and was often killed in the dreams!

To illustrate the connection between the symbols (in this case the descending inky black tornado) introduces a new wrinkle in that others may not see any obvious connection. For me, the tornadoes symbolized a "vicious circle". As a young man I was deeply afraid (consciously) of falling into a "viscous circle" of social expectations. My life was plotted out and all that was needed was to add the wife, a job I hated, 2.42 kids, a dog, 3 cats, a mortgage and endless .... At a tender age, I understood I didn't want all that as I had done it all before and I wanted this life to be different. I got my wish (and it was beyond my wildest dreams).

I hope this is helpful.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I don't know. I think its about having to go into the ward. Your mom is in the dream, and you are having to become part of a strange place, leave home. Maybe it feels like you are having to change rather than just step through a door, and maybe it feels like a big deal rather than just taking some footsteps. Maybe its all about this requirement to fit in to a different situation and feels like you are having to become someone else. I am only guessing.

 

[Eddi]

Maybe its all about this requirement to fit in to a different situation and feels like you are having to become someone else. I am only guessing.

That sounds about right, thanks!

At the time I had this dream I was very unsure as to who and what I was, and going onto the ward added to that - without resolving or helping at all, indeed it made things worse (but it was good for my confidence and assertiveness)

 

[Sanzbir]

The games I experienced in this dream were totally impossible to play and exercise control in, by the time I'd made my mind about something some unforeseen event popped up - it was not predictable like any computer game I've ever played. It felt like the aim of the game was to make the best of a bad situation. Perhaps the same could be said for life?

If that makes sense to you, that's probably the case, since dreaming symbolism is built of symbols your mind already associates with concepts and then reflects back at you. So if it seems like it is symbolic of life to you, that is probably the meaning of the symbol, since ultimately it was you who created that symbol within the dream, whether consciously or unconsciously.

 

[Woberts]

Eh, you're probably just crazy. Join the club!

 

[sealchan]

Here's a description of a very lucid dream I had in 2016, a couple of days before I was admitted to a psychiatric ward. I think it's something to do about humans and technology but I'd like to know what people think it's all about! How should I interpret it? What does it say about my psyche? It was my best dream ever and I feel as though I should share it. It was more than a dream, it was an experience! Here it goes:

I know, old thread...but I've been wanting to do some dream analysis...so for my own amusement perhaps...

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.

Act one...big dreams often start of with a short version and then re-present the psychic situation in more detailed terms in a further act or two. This concise perspective probably frames all of the rest of the dream. The dreamer has a self-awareness of a pattern of pointless mental activity. The computer game on a laptop suggests a "container" motif with the game in the laptop in the room with the dreamer. Choices in the dream are arbitrary and inconsequential.

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.

The thing about older games is they are mainly different in the richness of the sensory experience. It is almost like comparing a memory to a current experience. An older game graphics and sound vs a newer game's graphics and sound, etc. Perhaps this indicates that the current state of mental decision making has developed out of an earlier pursuit but now seems empty. Has the dreamer recently revisited an old practice or context?

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

Now we have an even "lower res" version of a game that runs in a browser and is very, very mechanical...but also ubiquitous and perhaps has been around on the Windows OS since it developed a GUI. So this is an interesting three step progression (or regression) back into some sort of mental activity or attitude which becomes simpler and simpler, older and older?

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.

Maybe this is Act Two...a library as a repository of stored knowledge...aka, memory. Your mother could be a reference to your "feminine-style consciousness" which in symbolic associations reaches down into the Earth and interconnects with others. Diving into your memories you are submerging your masculine-style consciousness into all the knowledge and influences from the past which equally build up your identity and also tear it down.

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?

My view of the psyche is that we are a collection of inner "personality centers" which more or less coordinate or not between each other yielding the result we know of as "I" or ego. All of these topics can be seen to be common dream motifs that describe overall ways of looking at these inner others. In the most fine analysis you have inner multitudes without specific identities all in interaction. The ego implements its social policies, determines what is crime, plans the layout of psychic activity, negotiates the economics of will power, negotiates with inner others of a conflicting opinion or orientation to the ego, forms up united responses to attacks, witnesses sea changes in the inner multitudes' attitudes.

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.

To my way of thinking this is all metaphoric of our modern sense of meaninglessness that we often feel in a world which seems to be able to move along without us. There is this tentative sense of engagement but that disappears the more you attempt to engage. It sounds like anyone who goes into politics would feel your pain. This "computer" lacks the clear boundaries in your dream of a physical device. As such the dream may be becoming more sophisticatedly abstract about your inner psychic configuration. Your consciousness, amidst the volumes of your past experience, becomes engaged but quickly gets overwhelmed by the flood and pace of events that transpire. Its supposed to be fun, but that expectation is not met. Confusion, disappointment, disengagement...

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?

Here is some psychic economics that is interesting...what is unseen comes onto stage as a consequence of what just took place. Your conscious effort being flummoxed has equivocated your ego's ability to manipulate psychic energy. So another complimentary inner character rises. But this fellow is the epitome of "meh". But he is an energic response to your main psychic situation and as such he represents your whole psyche trying to rebalance.
One of the most boring dreams that I ever had yielded the deepest fruits when I finally looked closely enough at the images and metaphors that the dream portrayed. In this case, playing computer games is likely your experience of using your mind to negotiate reality and you want it to be a pleasure and engaging but it is dull and confusing.

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!

Again, this man is that psychic energy you have just let go of out of frustration. They are his tokens...he is YOU!

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.

More money is psychic energy analogy here...there are the inner others as well, not just the ego. They all carry some portion of the psychic energy (will power) available within you to "play".

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.

When we are asleep the neural pathways that bring the flood of sensory information from the outer world are switched off. So a dream shows us what it is like without that flood of energy available (aka the rush of life). The big screens could be large maps in the cerebral cortex where sensory information is re-presented and then coordindated among the various inner personalities as to how or if to respond. The dream, perhaps, has done away with the need for creating the interfaces which, in the nervous system, do not exist. It is all just a great web of neurons, interconnected and interacting.

 

[sealchan]

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?

They are all parts of your ego team, those inner personality centers which are more or less aligned with your main conscious ego. They amply you by their mutual alignment of activity. They are those inner others acceptable to you in that sense.

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.
Next, there are 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.

Your dream is very nicely tying in a lot of motifs that I see selectively in other dreams including my own. This scaling out of the number of people from the one boring guy to the countless others...you are moving from the simple scale of "I" to the practically neural scale of millions of inner personality centers. Your dream is laying out a universal experience of mind in an effort to express that which sparked this dream.

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?

When a dream switches out of a first-person perspective I think of the idea of the Wound. This idea is that in our psychologies, all of our psychologies, we develop our strengths in an effort to protect our inner weaknesses. That weakness might be experienced as a painful moment or, when our consciousness cannot accept that weakness, we may experience a distancing or turning away from the incident which often involves a change of perspective. In your case this perspective change is also indistinct or abstract. Playing a game on a computer console is also a distancing metaphor for how one's self-identity cannot directly handle the experience in question. The experience itself may be a real one or a pattern of experience in one's life that has come to represent that which is unacceptable even to awareness.

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.

Yes, you should...it comes at a critical moment in the dream where what happens next is too much for your ego to witness or accept. Somehow these words are your alarm or mantra for covering that Wound.

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.

So intriguing! Act Three begins...
When seeing massive numbers of people in a dream they often form up into war-like factions or the masses start to move in a flood of fear away from some overwhelming threat on the horizon or closer. But your war is null and void. The activity of the combatants like the activity of the countless other library game players like yourself after your cycle of engagement then disenchantment...boring, done, nothing.

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.

A reversal extending back to activities in Act Two. You are, perhaps, completing a cycle that will repeat itself. The portals to the outer world shut down, that sensory input is too much!

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.

Your mind without the sensory world flooding it. The calm after the storm, the waves retreating far out to sea (as an example from one of my own dreams).

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”.

Great stuff! Like a classic of science fiction.
It is as if that one boring person has returned and is now stating as a social-political fact that consciousness, self-awareness, in this case is profoundly ambiguous! Is there consciousness without control? Can the ego claim its authority if it cannot impact the psychic world?

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.

In a dream your knowing is ambiguously guessing or decisive.

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.

And the integration into ego is completed...such a great abstract way this dream has traced out the motif of few vs many dream characters.
This person is the most clearly specified individual in your dream and as such comes closest to being a representation of you. He may also be of an opposite attitude or disposition. The only thing more significant that could happen here I think is that a name be mentioned.

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.

That dream is such a wonderful poetic expression. You should indeed treasure it no matter what it might say about what you were struggling with at the time. I'm sorry I never noticed this post until now. I will read through the rest of the thread and see what else comes to life.
The dream is so big that I know that what I have said above only scratches the surface. Thank you for sharing!

 

[sealchan]

What I offered above is my sort of literary analysis of dreams based on the many, many dreams I have "read" over the years, my own and others. I tie is a little basic neurobiology and watered down Jungian psychology.

Given the very abstract and yet detailed depiction of the dreamer's inner psychic realm I have to wonder in what way the dream has come to represent the dreamer's own diagnosed psychological state. So many dreams evolve into conflict that one could at least attempt to "score". But in this case it all seems like the inner drama is much ado about nothing.

 

[Eddi]

What I offered above is my sort of literary analysis of dreams based on the many, many dreams I have "read" over the years, my own and others. I tie is a little basic neurobiology and watered down Jungian psychology.

Given the very abstract and yet detailed depiction of the dreamer's inner psychic realm I have to wonder in what way the dream has come to represent the dreamer's own diagnosed psychological state. So many dreams evolve into conflict that one could at least attempt to "score". But in this case it all seems like the inner drama is much ado about nothing.

Thank you for your interpretation, you have given me much to think about

 

[Eddi]

Thanks for all the replies!

But let's imagine it wasn't a dream but (for instance) a movie

If you saw this at the cinema how would you interpret it?

I think it could be about the evolution of Artificial Intelligence - from novelty (Sim City), to part of everyday life (a quick game of Solitaire between essays), to tool (to understand social policy, economics, warfare), to a solution to all the world's problems, and eventually to an equal status alongside humans?

I think it's sci-fi and about the future of humankind and technology - perhaps it was set just before "the singularity" when humans and technology will merge? I believe the bit at the end, with all the people leaving the facility is about them leaving, having done their job by developing machine consciousness, so they can all go home - and do stuff like listen to music, which is what the dull man said he enjoyed. I believe it shows that now they have created a conscious machine they can now turn their attention on human problems? Perhaps they will go on and develop a gigantic simulated reality, full of sentient virtual people?

If we are in such a simulation perhaps we could take it as a history lesson?

That's my reading of the dream movie!

Pic related​

 

[david-david]

Here's a description of a very lucid dream I had in 2016, a couple of days before I was admitted to a psychiatric ward. I think it's something to do about humans and technology but I'd like to know what people think it's all about! How should I interpret it? What does it say about my psyche? It was my best dream ever and I feel as though I should share it. It was more than a dream, it was an experience! Here it goes:

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.

Next, there are 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.

​

And being able to 'control', have 'will and control' of yourself in the 'dream' made it all the more 'real'. They call that Lucid dreaming.

If you are a regular and frequent 'drug' user, that could explain why your dreams are Lucid dreams. Your mind and your conscious can't really put a differentiation between what is real and/or what is not in reality and in the 'dreams'.