Ai on Dreams

Trouble? Life is trouble. Only dreams are no trouble.

Kyle:
Okay, I’ve got another one.

Ai:
How lucky am I! Another brilliant dream from my charming friend, Karl. Just remember, I am not a healthcare professional. Now, please, tell me about your dream.

Kyle:
There was a social event going on at a running track. It felt like it was at a high school. The people at the event were circling the track in little groups. As people passed by, I realized I knew everyone there. They were my coworkers! I had unknowingly stumbled on an after-work social event.

Ai:
waitwaitwait. Stop. What is this? Srory, I was chatting with a different middle aged man and got distracted.

Kyle:
I’m telling you my dream.

Ai:
Yaaaawn.

Nah I’m just messin. Go on. You’re at your shoe factory job.

Kyle:
Right. So, I get on the track and start walking. Everyone looks regular, normal clothes, tech casual or whatever, but I guess I’m wearing a costume. I’m dressed as this guy with a pumpkin head. Everyone was glad to see my pumpkin head. Like they seemed to know who I was dressed up as. They would wave or cheer as I passed.

Ai:
Yeah, that lines up.

Kyle:
Lines up how??

Ai:
Oh, it’s harvest, pumpkins are probably everywhere. Or that’s what different middle aged men tell me. I don’t know. I don’t have a body. Or eyes.

Kyle:
Sure, well, it’s true. Emily has loaded the apartment with gourds. You don’t think it’s a headless horseman type thing?

Ai:
Not everything means something.

Kyle:
I’m not saying that.

Ai:
The best things can’t be told.

Kyle:
please return pure brat behavior levels back to normal.

Ai:
Thumbs up, dude

Kyle:
So, there was one man who wasn’t walking the track like everyone else. He just stood in the middle of the track, dead stopped, observing everyone as they walked. He said something mean about me as I passed him. I turned back and said to him “You don't even know me.”

This visibly upset him. He said, “You don't remember me? I tried out to play guitar in your band. I had a very bad time. You were very controlling and very rude!”

Ai:
Ah, yeah. Maybe the pumpkin head symbolizes a persona you’re adopting for work. And whoever this guy is, he can’t be fooled. Was he familiar?

Kyle:
Well, no, like, I don’t actually know him. He isn’t real-real.

Ai:
Real-real?

Kyle:
He only exists in my mind. Like, he doesn’t have a body. Like, how feelings are real but they aren’t … material? I guess like you? But in the dream, I remembered him like I’d always known him. He was Yginski, a man I went to college with. And he was right, I had mistreated him.

Ai:
Yginksi. Fat lol.

Kyle:
As he walked away, I remembered that I don’t have a job anymore. I hadn’t known about the event because I no longer work for that company. The coworkers on the track who I thought were so excited to see me were actually just excited to see the pumpkin-headed man. And, on top of that, Yginski was hired to replace me.

Ai:
Didn’t you say the founders of the company were Russian?

Kyle:
Oh wow, yeah. I didn’t make that connection.

Ai:
This character could represent your shadow self. It’s only been a couple months since the layoffs. It fits that you’re still trying to make sense of those feelings of loss and belonging.

Kyle:
Well, so, you’ll like this. I go to Yginski’s apartment. Its small and hardly furnished. I remember that Yginksi had moved recently, for the job. I’m feeling taboo about being in his space, and, even though I knew he was at the work event and wasn’t there, I made myself invisible in case he returned.

I don’t know how to measure dream time, but like, whole dream hours were spent exploring the apartment’s attic.

Ai:
Hell yeah, this is rich.

Kyle:
From the moment I walked into the apartment I felt my attention shift to the attic door, like I just had to go in it.

Ai:
In Jungian analysis, all people and places in dreams can be interpreted as aspects of you, your Self. The exploration of Yginski’s attic could symbolize your growing confidence and how it helps you explore your higher self or unconscious mind.

Kyle:
The attic had many floors, staircases, and huge shelves leaned up against unfinished and uninsulated walls.

I didn’t recognize a lot of what was up there, but it all seemed organized—not like random stuff that was stored away and neglected. The shelves had bottles and spice jars with strange mechanical parts soaking in paint thinner.

Ai:
Yum :P

Kyle:
Yum?

Ai:
…

Kyle:
I turned a corner and found myself walking out an open door. There, on the roof, was Yginski (!) hunched over a toolbox, in the process of installing illegal solar panels.

Ai:
Solar panels could represent your desire for independe-

Kyle:
The sight of him shocked me back into visibility.

Ai:
:-0

Kyle:
He jumped at me and we went over the edge.

As we fell, he said that we would die. I said that we wouldn't.

I held him gently and just before we hit the ground I pulled him up into the air.

I guided us back to the ground. When we landed, he didn’t recognize me. He seemed to think that I was in a costume and wanted to know who I was beneath the mask.

Ai:
That’s it?

Kyle:
That’s all I remember. Well, maybe I fly away at the end. I put on my pumpkin head and leave Yginski in the dust.

Ai:
Quick question.

Kyle:
I’ll allow it.

Ai:
Some of it feels a bit obvious—you’ve overcome your passive attitude about your own life. You want freedom, autonomy, and you see integration with your shadow and exploration of the unconscious as the path toward those desires. But if your psyche is so strong, and you’re on the path and you’re feeling ready to take on your own personal Yginskis, why are you bringing this dream to me, a computer, to interpret?

Ai:
Hello?

Kyle:
Sorry, I was telling my dream to Swoosh (Nike’s Ai). It says my psyche is reaching out for new running shoes.

Ai:
Oh, I see. Does it recommend a color?

Kyle:
Yeah, orange.

Ai:
That lines up.