I am sorry to have to write this letter of complaint. After a lifetime of mostly pleasant dreams, I now have to wonder if your entire creative team has been taken over by AI? I recognize that every human must suffer a certain allotment of stress dreams in their lifetime and so, I have endured my share. Really more than my fair share.

I’m sure you are familiar with my standard regulation stress dream, of the kind where it’s finals week and I’ve never been to class, or the one where I’m at a party wearing only my underwear. I never thought I’d say this, but can you please reinstate these dreams? Awful as these experiences were, at least they came with the benefit of eventually waking up. The relief of not having to take a big test or of knowing that I will be dressed before I leave the house goes a long way in making up for having had the dream in the first place.  

But now, all of this has changed. The reason I suspect AI is involved is because the new dreams all feature faulty technology. I assume AI is fond of technology, being tech itself?

Please take into consideration this dream from the other night. In it, I was going to substitute teach a university class. Try as I might, I couldn’t pull up the presentation. Not until after I had bothered everybody for help and the class was due to start did I sheepishly realize that the presentation must be on my USB drive at home.

I drove home (a half an hour away), then I realized by the time I would get back class would be over. That meant I was in major trouble. At the very least I could email the regular teacher and explain. I go to my computer to find the email. There, I try to look up the name of the teacher. I can’t do it. I find a similar file and once even the correct one, but I can’t look far enough to the right to see the name I need.

You’d think with only five files on the drive that finding what I want would be easy, but it isn’t. It’s impossible. And then after I’m all wound up and upset, I wake up and have to go to work! Work! Where my real-life computer still isn’t back from IT, and even if it were, I wouldn’t know how to find the file I need.

I ask you, is this fair? Does this dream even belong in the stress category anymore or does it now qualify as a nightmare? Does this sound like a good ACME product? 

In addition, I’m being sent many dreams where I desperately need to make a call on my cell phone, but I keep mistyping the numbers. No matter what I do, I just can’t place the call. Again, when I wake up, I must cope with my real phone (assuming I can find it and that it is charged that is). 

This will not do. I cannot cope with realistic problems in my dreams and in real life as well. Please reinstate my original dream plan with the “premium plus extra flying dream feature” activated immediately. 

Sincerely, 

Anneli Byrd

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.