Dream Interpreter
By Jie Wang
“I was on an underground train. The announcement kept saying ‘Terminal. Terminal,’ in a slow way. Then the train stopped. The man in a grey jacket was on the platform. He was the only one there. He looked into the train. He looked around. I felt that he was looking for me. I felt that I knew him and I used to love him. But I was trying to hide from him. I don’t know why. He didn’t seem very eager to find me either. He seemed … lost. Then the train started. The announcement still saying ‘Terminal. Terminal.’ It was very dim. Occasionally, I saw colourful lights from the ads. They swam on my skin like koi fish … What does it mean?” she said.
“Does the man in grey resemble anyone you knew? An ex? Your father?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It was very dim. I couldn’t see his face.”
“Well, I think it’s about unresolved relationship issues, and suppressed memories. It could be a relationship that didn’t end well, or abusive, so your memories about this man were suppressed, and you couldn’t see his face. Does this make sense?”
“Yes, yes. I think you are right. I had this dream several times this month. It started to drive me crazy. Should I try to remember who this man was?”
“My suggestion is no. It’s probably something very unpleasant, and your mind was trying to protect you from seeing his face. In your dream neither of you was keen to make contact. Let’s leave it that way. Next time you dream about him, try to say goodbye in your mind. Then you can move on.”
“Move on? I don’t know where the train was going. I don’t know what ‘terminal’ was. Could it mean ‘death’?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it. Sometimes there are no deep meanings in dreams. Perhaps you used to take a train and get off at the terminal, or perhaps you just heard the word a lot on TV recently.”
“That’s possible. Oh, I’m feeling better now. Thank you very much.”
“You are very welcome.”
• • •
Okay, that was my last client today. She is a regular, often creeped out by her dreams. She probably had some traumatic experience, but that’s not really my expertise. My expertise is … well, I guess I’m really good at sensing what people want to hear. I’m no scientist. I’m no doctor. She knows that. She just wants somebody to comfort her, and that’s the service I’m providing.
I feel lucky that I still have a job. Readers of the past, in case you don’t know—AI, general or narrow—have taken away most jobs. AI give us universal income, so we can live comfortably. Everybody is pursuing their dreams. There’ve never been so many writers, painters, musicians in human history. Many of them think they are geniuses, like statistically there can be so many geniuses. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s as natural as mutations—a lot of mutations are generated, but only a few can survive. AI used to create art for us, and people used to love it, until they knew who the artists were. Then they said art is a human thing, it’s mysterious, no machines can understand it.
Well, I’m no human supremacist, and I’m really fed up with the word “mysterious.” My father is a Taoist priest. My mother is a lecturer in ancient Chinese poetry. I used to hear this word ten times a day when I was a child. I’m glad we don’t talk any more. They think I’m a disgrace, as a “dream interpreter.” I’m a con artist, I know, but my parents on their high unicorns quote Freud in their work all the time. Yeah, whatever. I’m not a bubble burster.
I had a blind date with this guy recently. He had long hair and this floral shirt. I said, “You must be an artist.” Everybody is some sort of artist these days. You can’t go wrong with that. No human scientists or bankers any more, but always human artists.
He smiled and asked what I did. I said I was a dream interpreter.
“Dream interpreter?” He raised one eyebrow. “Cute,” he said. “Do you want to hear one of my new poems?”
“Sure,” I said. Then he started to recite his poem quite loudly in the restaurant. It was all nonsense to me and I didn’t feel a thing. My mother used to say I lack artistic temperament and mysterious feminine charm. I guess she was right, because when I tried to say something nice about his poem, he got annoyed and said I was like Icarus who flew too close to the sun. Did he mean he was the sun and I couldn’t understand his depth? I’m not sure. I’m always dumb about these things. Anyway, I said I forgot to feed my dogs and I had to go home. I guess I will die a spinster.
I do find some of my clients’ dreams poetic though, like the one I just told you. I don’t really understand them but I tell plausible stories about them. I try to make my clients feel better. Occasionally, I even feel I’m helping people. It’s no easy job. There was this client, a bodybuilder and a believer in Bodism. There’ve never been so many ideologies. My mother called it the “Renaissance of Mythologies.” There are people worshiping bodies, sex, AI, animals, large eyes, small eyes. … Anyway, this guy, this bodybuilder, told me he had a dream that different muscle groups in his body all achieved consciousness, and they started talking to him.
“What did they say?” I asked.
“They said I served them well, and they would return the favour by giving me what I wanted—sex, love, fame. Their voices sounded so real.” He hesitated. “Could this mean something?”
I didn’t know what to say. It’s always risky to tell a client that some dreams have no meaning and can be pretty random. It’s like devaluing their dreams or even themselves. But on the other hand, you don’t want them to get too delusional in case they do something dangerous to themselves or others. So I said, “I don’t know where the voices came from, but I do know you have a great body. Maybe it can bring you sex, love, and fame.”
He fell silent. He looked a bit disappointed, but not offended. Sometimes that’s all you can hope for.
Occasionally a client does get offended. I had a new client this week. He’s a qigong master. He told me he dreamt that qi was flowing from the sky into the crown of his head, and out from the soles of his feet, but then the flow got disrupted and disappeared, and his body started withering away to a mummy. He was terrified and asked me how to avert this disaster.
Naturally, I told him it was just a dream and it was not real, but he was convinced it was a sign. He started mumbling to himself, “Maybe it’s because I live on the second floor and lost contact with qi from the earth. Maybe I should move. …”
Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask him, “What is qi exactly? Does it mean air?”
He looked at me as if I was some illiterate. Then he said, “Qi is everywhere. It’s in the air, in heaven and earth, in your body.”
I said, “So it’s the gases in the blood and the digestive system?”
He suddenly got angry and called me ignorant, and I apologised! Then he calmed down and said, “Qi is something very ethereal, very mysterious. You can feel it, understand it with your heart, but you can’t and shouldn’t put it into words. It’s just so vulgar.”
I looked at him blankly. He stood up and walked away. I thought, Shit, I lost a client, and I have five dogs to feed. But he didn’t leave. He just walked to the window, looking at the sky and sighing loudly. I felt the urge to say something, but I still didn’t know what qi is.
Eventually he turned around and said, “Nice talking to you. See you next week.”
Anyway, it was time to go home and I started missing my dogs. I got on the train. When it was at full speed, the people outside the window became blurry, like ghosts trapped in shards of a distorting mirror.
After I got home, I fell asleep on the couch while watching the newest remake of Interstellar. I dreamt of a train. It was passing through space. The announcement kept saying “Terminal. Terminal” in a slow way. My dogs were sleeping under the seats. My clients were there too—the woman, the bodybuilder, the qigong master. Even my parents were there. The lights from the stars were tattooing our skins. We were together, no longer haunted, no longer anxious, and we felt it was the best thing in the universe.
I am a flash fiction/short story writer. I was born in a northern city in China in the 1980s, and have been living in the UK since I was 23. I am interested in the interaction between literature and science. You can follow me on Twitter @JieWang65644813.
Photo by Roman Koester on Unsplash.