Dreams

These dreams were selected from different periods of my life and written down shortly after waking. Names have been anonymised. I keep them here, however insignificant they may seem, so that I might notice patterns in them later, if there are any.

“But your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. […] Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.”

C. G. Jung, letter to Fanny Bowditch, 22 October 1916

The Unbothered Famous Artist

27 August 2026

I dreamed that ASAP Rocky had rented a hotel room in our house in Moscow. For some reason, the house had become a hotel, and his room was the only one still available.

When he arrived, he was playful and kept teasing me a little. All I wanted was to take a picture with him. I opened my work phone, but it was filled with so many apps that I couldn’t find the camera. I tried to get my other phone instead, but I had no idea where it was.

At some point, Rocky took my charger and wouldn’t give it back. He was also on the phone with his wife and kids while I was still trying to get the picture. None of it felt malicious. He seemed completely relaxed, almost amused by the situation, simply going about his life while I struggled to keep up with him.

Eventually he left the house. Outside, on a busy road, he finally threw the charger back toward me. I was hesitant to retrieve it because of the traffic, but a man nearby helped me and threw it safely into my hands.

After that, I chased after Rocky and eventually caught up with him. We started talking about music. I asked him how he had begun and how he had managed to make a life out of it.

He told me that, when he was starting out, everyone around him kept telling him to get a real job.

The Shadow Assasin

26 August 2026

I had the persistent feeling that I was being followed.

The timeline is unclear. I was somewhere between work and university, surrounded by people I knew but unable to trust any of them. Something felt wrong. I had the sense that someone was deliberately trying to sabotage me, although I had no idea who or why. At one point, even my manager was drugged.

Eventually I left in a taxi. On the way home I noticed a blue Prius following us. I became convinced it was tracking me. Instead of letting the taxi take me all the way home, I got out early, waited until I thought I had lost it, and ran the rest of the way.

For a moment, I felt safe.

Then a man appeared and tried to attack me. He carried a blade whose tip seemed to be coated in some kind of drug or poison. I recognized him, although I still couldn’t understand what he wanted from me.

We chased each other through the city. At some point we fought, and I managed to cut him with the poisoned edge of his own blade. He cut me too, but whatever entered my body seemed weaker.

The chase continued into a crowded street. People began shouting. In the crowd I saw my therapist and asked her for help. She called the police.

By the time everything was over, the man had died.

Only then did I learn why he had been pursuing me. He had come from America because I had once humiliated him while playing a video game, in front of someone whose opinion mattered deeply to him.

Afterward, I went back to a place where I used to play games.

The place was still there.

But there was no longer a spot for me.

The past felt better

I was in Vilnius and decided to walk past the house where we used to live. The family there had rebuilt it so completely that the spirit I remembered was unrecognisable. Yet the house was beautiful. A family of three or four lived inside, and they welcomed me warmly and showed me around. I was amazed by what the place had become. I remember thinking that this was why it was worth returning to old places.

After I went home, the man from the house called me. Apparently, I had taken his remote control or phone. I had not noticed it in my pocket and immediately worried that he thought I had stolen it. I promised to return it and called a taxi.

A child also lived there. I was surprised to see him playing with a toy castle instead of a screen, although I thought his parents were paying little attention to him.

My note: I have always been an observer of honest life, and deep down I want a “correct” life of my own. I have a hard time navigating towards such a goal.

Recovering the past

I was playing in a League tournament with friends. Afterwards, I went to a friend’s house with an unfamiliar history teacher because I needed to recover a missing game. I searched through books and old school textbooks while making small talk, but I never found it.

The teacher eventually left. I felt that I would not see him again for a long time, perhaps because summer was about to begin.

My note: Maybe I am searching for purpose in a digital world, under a superego that I once knew or needed. My summer is about to start.

Back to school

7 August 2025

I was back at school during a cold winter. I missed a class because I had not paid attention to the timetable. When I finally arrived, the teacher returned a test with a bad grade. One of my classmates had received the same mark. I told her that it should not matter because I had already completed school once before.

Later, a teacher rushed into another room. Her child and three soldiers were waiting inside, as though a son had returned from war, but I was not allowed to enter. Somewhere else, somebody had been waiting the entire time for me to walk her home.

Robots were also playing football with us. I became irritated because they kept making moves that did not make sense within the rules of the game.

The last chicken sandwiches

9 January 2024

I was with my grandmother in her house. It was warm and full of life. I kept asking what she wanted and what I should buy for her. She said the doctor had told her to eat cabbage, but for lunch she wanted chicken sandwiches.

She told me it would be the last time we ate them together. As always, I denied it and told her to stop talking nonsense.

The ritual

17 February 2022

I performed a ritual, although I did not understand what it was. It carried me three or four years into the past and placed me inside my younger body. Everything was exactly as it had been.

Once I arrived, I remembered that I had performed the ritual before and had simply forgotten. I could relive my life and repair every mistake. The second life felt as complete as the first.

The demon’s challenge

4 January 2021

A demon challenged me twice. During the first challenge I was alone. I passed through a distorted version of reality by solving puzzles and completing physical trials, including rowing through a dark tunnel.

During the second challenge, several friends were with me. We distracted one another and could not solve the tasks quickly enough. The atmosphere became tense. I never saw the creature’s face, but felt a mystical unease around it. At first, I hoped it might be a goddess. Eventually, I was no longer sure.

The cycles of day and night became absurd. During the final trial, the creature questioned our group and somebody blamed me. Yet it was unexpectedly kind to me. It told me to listen to the beauty I experienced in its presence. Beauty and irrational fear arrived together, and I woke up frightened.

Dream beach

13 December 2020

I was standing with my family on a pier overlooking an impossibly wide body of water. It seemed infinite and extraordinarily beautiful. The landscape was divided into sand and water, but the surface of the water was perfectly level with the sand. Despite that, it was deep everywhere.

The dream travellers

21 July 2020

Two friends and I met a group called the Dream Travellers. They asked everyone to write down one thing they wanted to do. I wrote that I wanted to travel backwards through time and change something in the past. They told me they could make it happen.

Five of the eight applicants were dismissed because their requests were considered invalid. My friends and I climbed into a truck with the remaining travellers. They claimed they could alter the smallest details in the past and then return us to the future. Sometimes, they could take people directly into the past.

We arrived at a library governed by an old woman. The travellers announced that they were ready to begin. As I spoke to them, déjà vu struck me with such force that I began shivering. I remembered the library. I realised this was not my first visit and perhaps not even the first time I had dreamed the same dream.

I told them I had already been there. They said that this was possible.

I do not remember what I asked them to change. I next found myself walking along a street at night. I entered a house where my two friends were discussing three children who had disappeared the previous night. The missing children were us. The journey had worked. I woke up and continued shivering for five minutes.

The cost of the work

6 February 2020

A famous musician was known for making deeply emotional work. His recordings were stolen from an online drive and leaked, so from then on he kept everything on physical hard drives.

Years later, he won a Grammy. While walking along the red carpet, somebody shot him. He survived because one of the hard drives was stored inside his jacket, over his chest.

The work saved his life, but the work itself was destroyed.