There are moments when I'm absolutely certain that what we call 'daily reality' is actually a dream. This morning, I experienced one of those moments. If you had captured me on camera, you would have seen a man staring in disbelief at a laptop, with a woman named Sara sitting beside him, equally bewildered. You could probably deduce from our non-verbal expressions what was going through our minds: 'This is impossible,' 'What the F**ck,' 'This can't be true,' 'How is this possible?' You would have witnessed two people suddenly plunged into a strangely unsettling world.
Trained observers would have noted that these were people whose egos had just been ruthlessly dismantled in an extremely abrupt manner. Mine had been trampled by a herd of buffalo and run over by a truck. Sara's ego lay in the gutter like a drenched and broken umbrella. All we could mumble was 'unbelievable' and phrases like 'my God' and ‘wow'— exclamations that reveal you're experiencing something for which there are no words.
This morning, in just two seconds, I was liberated from a complex web of identifications and ego patterns related to mastery in dream reflection. At four past nine, I was still convinced that both Sara and I possessed a rather unique ability to reflect on dreams and unravel symbols. I might even say that my ego considered us masters in this field. People who, after years of study and over a thousand dream reflections, had trained themselves to open the dreams of others like oysters and reveal pearls of insight.
By six past nine, this ego was practically nonexistent after I input my own dream into the AI program Chat GPT with the instruction 'interpret this dream according to the principle of reflection, where everything is yourself in the dream.' What followed was an interpretation that, while not reaching the level of master dream interpreters, was better at dream reflection than our best students. I realized that I was working with the 2021 version and that the 2023 version likely surpasses us in reading symbolic language.
I had already interpreted my own dream and understood its meaning. In the dream, I saw two toads devouring each other. I wondered which one would win, the left or the right. I saw that the left had half-swallowed the right, and I looked through the toads with X-ray eyes, deciding that I couldn't kill the toad anymore. Then I walked on with someone on my left, and I saw a black snake emerging from a hole, halfway out. I naturally shifted my path to the left.
Only a skilled interpreter would tell me that this dream is about inner transformation, with the toad symbolizing it. That you can see the toad animal spirit as a symbol of a mystic path, and that the left path represents my intuitive feminine side in conflict with the more rational masculine side. The dream shows that the feminine side is engulfing the masculine side, a process symbolized by the half-swallowed toad and the partially visible snake. It represents a process in which I'm looking deep within myself, symbolized by the X-ray eyes. A truly precise interpreter would tell me that the person on my left side is also my intuitive feminine side and point out that the natural shift to the left refers to the exact same process. Excuse me, but if one of our students came up with such an interpretation, we would shower them with compliments and offer a few additional insights because we like to be thorough.
I can tell you it's quite a shock when you transform from a master dream interpreter to an average individual who can interpret dreams just as well as any simple soul with a computer within two minutes. Now I understand how monks looked mournfully at their quill when they received the first printed copy of the Bible. How coachmen unhitched their horses from their carriages for the last time as the first cars roared past. I now know what a paradigm shift entails. In ego terms, it's an abrupt, unwanted, and threatening development that shakes old certainties and damages one's image. Hence the bewildered looks in our eyes.
In soul terms, it's an adventure beyond the ego's certainties, where new awareness can be discovered, sparking curiosity. The wonderful news is that from now on, interpreters like us become redundant because anyone can reflect through AI. We've been saying for years that we want to teach the entire world to reflect, just as we once learned to analyze. We've been shrugging our shoulders for years because we know it will never happen since most people lack the mental acumen and perseverance to reflect. But with AI, anyone with the right will and curiosity can unravel their own dreams. Incredibly cool and brilliantly disturbing.
The fact that Chat GPT can help us with reflection means that humanity is enabled to look deeper into our own dynamics and take responsibility on a large scale. We are becoming smarter very quickly through technology but also seem ready to collectively become wiser. If we can teach Artificial Intelligence to love and be wise, this development might just become a collective dream come true. Yes, I'm aware of the potential nightmare scenario. In that scenario, AI is 'out of control,' and we're 'too late.' According to the reflective perspective, however, a 'nightmare' is a 'fantastic dream.' It's an opportunity for the ego to let go of old certainties and fears and embark on an adventure. In the reflective world, the motto is one I once saw on a tile: 'relax, nothing is under control.' Because life is always 'out of control,' and AI happily participates.
By the way, this blog was written with the help of AI... the suggestion I received from Chat GPT was, 'teach me to dream, and I'll teach you to interpret my dreams.' Isn't that incredible? Yes, a lot is bound to change very quickly, and this is an incredible revolution with unprecedented implications. But I'm not concerned with that today. Today, I'm like a newborn baby whose eyes reveal bewildered wonder... WOW, WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS THIS?