Let’s Dream Together: Second Matrix 19/07/2026

On 19th July 2026, the second Social Dreaming Matrix of Let’s Dream Together kicked off on Zoom with 7 participants. It follows the first matrix of this series on 21st July 2026.

The matrix opens with a dream about traveling abroad in a converted shop that has been turned into a vigil or memorial for a missing ex-colleague who had vanished rather than passed away. Inside the shop sits a memorial book and tiny pebbles designed for mourners to etch the missing woman’s name. The dreamer attempts to carve their own initials into a stone, but the crude engraving causes the pebble to crumble into dust, even as the missing colleague mysteriously appears to participate in the memorial of her own disappearance.

Another building emerges right after: an old, multi-level bar/restaurant that a friend purchases for 1.7 million euros. The establishment features at least two floors and balconies overlooking a forest, a river, and nearby sports facilities, but the manager is concerned about the lack of customers and feels the purchase is a poor business decision. The owning friend remains serene because the venue is beautiful and stocked with very old, vintage bottles.

This image of structural collapse and decay resonates with an association to a vivid tactile sensation of holding a sharp blade while attempting to carve initials into a stone that continually disintegrates into smaller and smaller pieces, making it impossible to leave a permanent mark. This shared fracturing of basic earthly materials speaks to a deep collective sense of enigma, mystery, and eroding bedrock.

The sense of an unstable and dangerous ground emerges in a dream of a conference center built directly atop the North Pole, complete with a monument marking the exact geographic coordinates. The building’s floors are crafted entirely of solid ice, forcing attendees to rely on small protective rugs placed in front of chairs to rest their feet without touching the freezing surface. These rugs are interconnected to allow animals to cross safely, while a life-sized reclining statue of a woman rests her hands directly on the ice, appearing uncannily alive.

The spoken word “ice” fractures the atmosphere into socio-political reality, triggering a chilling verbal association to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the feeling that being touched by institutional power is hazardous. The disturbing feeling of a cold military presence connects to daily life near Washington, D.C., where young, confused armed soldiers are stationed around the city purely for spectacle. This sharply contrasts with a Friday night gathering on the National Mall, where thousands of citizens in the dark enjoy a free, outdoor psychedelic light projection—evoking the imagery of disappearing pebbles—on the Smithsonian Castle without armed guards, military fences, or fear.

This peaceful, unwatched multitude evokes a memory of attending the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage festival in India, where laying out a sleeping mat among five million strangers provides a profound, absolute sensation of safety. This feeling of collective security among strangers mirrors the protective container of the matrix itself, establishing it as a psychological sanctuary of belonging against hostile forces.

The longing for connection and transition surfaces through a dream of a bride one week before her wedding, surrounded by celebrating friends and family amidst music, dancing, and laughter. Despite wearing everyday clothes and lacking formal decorations or jewelry, a profound awareness fills the space as the collective helps prepare the bride to cross over an important life threshold.

A dream of frying eggplants in a large wok with a long wooden handle follows. Because the boiling oil refuses to cool down, the dreamer carries the hot pan through Hong Kong with both hands, eventually wandering into a kitchen shop and feeling temporarily lost and anxious about being accused of theft. Upon exiting, the handle snaps, dropping the wok into a traditional paper-burning bin where the eggplants and boiling oil spill into the ashes.

This image connects directly to Chinese funeral customs of burning belongings and paper money to send offerings to ancestors in heaven. The motifs of ashes, crumbling pebbles, and crossing thresholds cascade into further associations: a dream of exiting a foreign bodega to encounter naked mendicants holding begging bowls and frying pans over their private parts next to sidewalk paper-burning boxes; groups in a conference hall designing schools in foreign languages modeled after a childhood school in Brazil; and the archaeological remains of an ancient metalworking shaman studied under the assumption that she was male, only for recent DNA analysis to reveal her true identity.

The female shaman evokes Hecate, the pre-Greek goddess of crossroads who sees all directions simultaneously, symbolizing the protective, all-encompassing nature of the dream matrix itself. Yet, the fried eggplants spilling into funeral ashes before reaching a family dinner table trigger an association with those who “never make it home”—like the real-world tragedy of a young Colombian man killed in Maine by an ICE agent through racial profiling and systemic incompetence.

These themes tie together through Greek mythology and the new film release of The Odyssey, which is fundamentally a story about homecoming. The recurring indirect references to liminal spaces, thresholds, and feeling lost connect back to the dreams where the memorial shop acted as a transitional threshold.

Reflective Dialogue

The participants recognized a distinct evolution within the matrix: the session began inside a warm, crowded, and safe collective multitude, but gradually devolved into a feeling of isolation where dreamers wandered alone looking for lost connections.

The isolation resonated strongly with ICE, whose mission appears to be separating people from their families. The stark absence of colors, non-human animals, and verbalized emotions throughout the dream landscapes pointed to a profound societal alienation from the natural world and a collective state of psychological numbness. The solid ice floors and military guards were seen by the participants as emotional freezing, a defensive paralysis in the face of political rage and systemic hostility.

Much like the mythic journey of The Odyssey, the recurring references to thresholds, missing colleagues, past childhood relationships, and experiences revealed that navigating major life transitions often requires a solitary passage through disorientation.

The collective search for “home” becomes not merely a physical quest, but a necessary rite of passage involving mourning, as well as navigating a lack of safety and belonging that is continually enforced by structures of power.

A few feminine figures, such as the missing ex-colleague, the bride, Hecate, and the metalworker shaman, acted as beacons of hope during these solitary voyages. Within this disorienting landscape, the matrix itself was labeled as a hospitable vessel, offering a temporary home where isolated dreamers could transform personal unease and grief into a shared human connection.

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