Recently, I had an amusingly absurd dream - a common enough occurrence for me. I remembered just a snippet, and asked ChatGPT to re-write it in a way that would be engaging and somewhat coherent.
My input:
Experiment: I'm going to do my best to describe what I remember from a dream and then you retell it in a way that is engaging and at least somewhat coherent.
I found myself crawling in a very narrow and claustrophobic space, with my wife behind me. I understood that we were in a performance of an opera at the Met in New York, though there was no singing involved. I was convinced that everything would go well if we could just play our parts well.
Suddenly it occurred to me that something was wrong. I wasn't sure what it was, but I realized that I couldn't or didn't know how to move in the confining space.
My wife asked me what was wrong and I said something like, "This is a bad opera. I wrote it."
She didn't think this was strange, but I found myself verging on panic and said something like "look for the alarm button and press it. There should be one. Then the Met will send someone to pull us out."
I wasn't concerned about the audience, only that there was a possibility there would not be an alarm button. That mild sense of panic woke me up and I was relieved to be free of my confinement.
ChatGPT's output:
In the dim, labyrinthine corridors beneath the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, you find yourself crawling through a space so narrow it feels like the walls are closing in on you. Your wife trails closely behind, her presence a comforting yet anxious echo in this surreal setting. You're both performers in an opera, but not just any opera—this is a silent opera, a paradoxical blend of grandiosity and confinement. The air is thick with tension, as if the very walls are holding their breath, waiting for you to play your parts to perfection.
As you inch forward, a sudden realization washes over you like a cold wave: something is terribly wrong. You can't pinpoint what it is, but the feeling is as palpable as the walls pressing against your shoulders. You freeze, your body refusing to cooperate, as if you've forgotten the choreography of movement itself.
Your wife senses your hesitation and asks, "What's wrong?"
You reply, your voice tinged with a mix of dread and absurdity, "This is a bad opera. I wrote it."
She doesn't find this revelation strange, perhaps because the dream logic has its own set of rules. But for you, the walls seem to close in even more, and a sense of panic starts to bubble up from the depths of your subconscious.
"Look for the alarm button and press it," you instruct her, your voice tinged with urgency. "There should be one. Then the Met will send someone to pull us out."
Your concern isn't for the audience who might be watching this bizarre, silent opera unfold. No, your worry is far more existential: What if there is no alarm button? What if this confined space becomes your eternal stage?
Just as the mild panic begins to crescendo, you wake up. The walls of your bedroom are a welcome sight, and the weight of the dream lifts off your shoulders like a heavy costume. You're relieved, free from the claustrophobic stage of your own making, yet the dream lingers, leaving you to ponder the complexities of freedom and confinement, performance and reality.
In this dream, you grappled with themes that are both universal and deeply personal: the fear of failure, the weight of creative responsibility, and the existential dread of confinement. Yet, even in the face of these overwhelming emotions, there was a glimmer of hope—the possibility of an escape, a way out, symbolized by the elusive alarm button. It's a dream that captures the human condition in all its complexity, set against the backdrop of a silent opera, a stage where the drama unfolds not in the notes of a musical score, but in the silent interplay of fear, hope, and the search for a way out.
Not bad. It did what I asked by making my scattered input much more engaging and coherent. I hadn't asked for an interpretation, but it provided one which at first glance seemed pretty reasonable. The more I thought about it though, I realized there was another interpretation, so I continued the conversation.
My prompt:
I like your interpretation, but I have a different one, a bit darker. I see the protagonist's crisis as an allegory for climate change. In that sense we all, in a sense, had a hand in "writing the opera," and it is indeed a bad opera.
A good opera can be tragic, but it imparts a lesson for those who witness it. In our case, we are involved in a society in which our actions lead to greater and greater restraints on our freedom, and for those who follow us. We have become aware that we've written a bad opera and feel the need to be rescued from it. Let's end the show and get out of here!
So we look for the magic button that will allow the authorities to know our plight and come to rescue us. We assume there must be one. Maybe it's a technology that's just around the corner that will drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Maybe it's some way of shading the sun from space. Maybe it's an amazing energy source we can switch to quickly that will stop adding greenhouse gases to the air. As an optimist, I have often been prone to believe there must be a magic button. Surely they wouldn't have forgotten to put one in?
The alternative is too drastic to contemplate. That we could be left to die in a prison of our own making, and the whole glorious opera of human existence will come to a close, forever.
ChatGPT's response:
Your interpretation adds a compelling layer of complexity to the dream, transforming it into a powerful allegory for the climate crisis we're facing. The "bad opera" becomes a metaphor for the unsustainable systems and behaviors that humanity has collectively "written" into existence. Just like the protagonist in the dream, we find ourselves in a tightening space—both metaphorically and literally—as the planet's resources are depleted and ecosystems are disrupted.
The idea of the "magic button" is particularly poignant. It encapsulates the hope—or perhaps the naive optimism—that technology or some form of external intervention will come to our rescue. This is a seductive notion, especially for those of us who lean towards optimism. It's the idea that there's a quick fix, a deus ex machina that will swoop in during the final act to resolve the plot. But as you've pointed out, this is a dangerous assumption. It can lead to complacency, to the belief that we don't need to take drastic action because a solution will inevitably present itself.
The darker undertone of your interpretation is a necessary counterbalance to optimism. It serves as a wake-up call, a reminder that we can't simply rely on a "magic button" to solve the complex, systemic issues that have led us to this point. The stakes are incredibly high; the "opera of human existence" hangs in the balance, and the alternative is indeed too drastic to contemplate—a world where we, and future generations, are confined to a dying planet.
Your allegory also raises questions about responsibility and agency. If we've all had a hand in "writing this opera," then we all have a role to play in rewriting it. The dream's sense of urgency—the need to "end the show and get out of here"—is a call to action. It's a recognition that we can't simply wait to be rescued; we must be the agents of our own rescue. This involves not just technological innovation but also systemic change, a reevaluation of the values and behaviors that have led us into this confined space to begin with.
In this light, the dream serves as both a cautionary tale and a call to action. It captures the existential dread of our current predicament but also leaves room for agency and change. After all, the opera isn't over until the final curtain falls, and we still have time to rewrite the ending. But to do so, we must confront the uncomfortable truths that your dream—and your interpretation of it—bring to light. We must move beyond the search for a "magic button" and take collective, meaningful action to change the course of the opera we're all a part of.
ChatGPT didn't add a lot to my interpretation, besides maybe phrasing it a little better and expanding it out a little. What I found fascinating is that my original take on the dream wasn't anything like this at all. By having a "conversation" about it, I was led to a much more thoughtful interpretation.
When I attempt to relate a dream I've had to another human, it usually fails to engage them. At best they might chuckle a moment at the absurdity, but they're unlikely to provide you with a full re-write and interpretation. In this sense, ChatGPT can already exceed the capabilities of most humans, at least in its willingness to engage and tolerate just about any topic of conversation.
I've also frequently found that the most engaging and interesting responses from ChatGPT come from telling it that I disagree with what it gave me. A human tends to shut down when this happens, or escalate the disagreement into a full on argument. I sometimes wish ChatGPT would push back more, but I guess that's my job.
