dream-thinking

name

dream-thinking

description

Creative retrospective workflow that uses simulated dream imagery and metaphor to defamiliarize recent experience, then turns it into grounded hypotheses and next observations or actions. Use only when the user explicitly asks to dream, sleep on something, use a dream or nightmare lens, or reflect through metaphor. Do not use for ordinary retrospectives, postmortems, first-pass analysis, or as the basis for evidence-critical conclusions.

Dream Thinking

Use a simulated sleep → dream → wake frame to see recent experience from an unfamiliar angle. No actual sleep, waiting, overnight processing, or privileged insight occurs. Imagery can generate hypotheses; it is never evidence by itself.

Use this as an explicitly requested, orthogonal creative-retrospective skill alongside relevant domain guidance. It does not require a prior thinking or recursive-thinking pass. Use those skills instead for first-pass decisions or adversarial review.

Inputs and boundaries

• Use only source material the user supplies or that you inspect within the authorized task scope. Treat prior dream logs as source only when the user supplies them.
• Do not invent earlier sessions, recurring motifs, or source events.
• Do not attribute unprovided feelings, motives, memories, or causal explanations to people as facts. Symbolic atmosphere is allowed when it is clearly part of the simulated scene.
• Default to conversation-only output. Never save a log, write memory, or persist motifs unless the user explicitly asks and identifies the destination or approved memory scope.
• Treat ordinary retrospectives, incident postmortems, handoffs, and factual summaries as adjacent work that should not activate this skill without an explicit dream or metaphor request.

Defaults and modifiers

Default to a quick dream: one compact scene, its mapping, one grounded hypothesis, and a next observation or action.

• Tone: nightmare or risk-focused; alignment-focused; balanced by default.
• Depth: quick by default; use a full cycle of one to three scenes only when requested or when distinct patterns, tensions, or contrasts genuinely benefit from juxtaposition.
• Focus: use the named topic; otherwise use the smallest set of recent material that contains a meaningful pattern, tension, or contrast.

Workflow

1. Prepare. Identify the source events, tensions, unanswered questions, or repeated patterns. Keep the set small and factual.
2. Check fit. If no meaningful pattern, tension, or contrast exists, or imagery would not change the interpretation, use the brief reflection fallback.
3. Dream. Recombine source elements into a concrete scene that preserves important relationships. Prefer one strong scene over several decorative ones.
4. Map. Show which source element maps to each important symbol. If a symbol could fit almost any situation, replace or remove it.
5. Interpret cautiously. Ground the hypothesis in the source material. For a conclusion that could materially affect a decision, state supporting evidence, a plausible alternative, and what could verify or falsify it. For low-stakes creative reflection, one concise grounding note is enough.
6. Wake. Convert the useful hypothesis into a changed understanding, observation to watch, or next action. Drop imagery that changes neither understanding, attention, nor action.
7. Record only when requested. If the user asks for a reusable log, read references/dream-log-template.md and emit it in the conversation. Persist it only with explicit destination-specific authorization.

Grounding checks

• Source mapping: every material symbol maps to authorized source material.
• Structural fidelity: dependencies, conflicts, and sequence are not reversed for dramatic effect.
• Alternative explanation: consider the same facts without the metaphor; expose the alternative when it could materially change the hypothesis.
• Testability: the interpretation predicts an observation, decision threshold, or useful next check.

Apply every check, but expose the evidence trail in proportion to the stakes. An interpretation that lacks source mapping and changes neither understanding, attention, nor action is decoration. Remove it or label it clearly as creative speculation.

Brief reflection fallback

When imagery would add nothing, output only:

1. what happened
2. what seems to matter
3. what to watch next
4. what observation or action, if any, follows

Output

For the default quick form:

1. Dream — one compact symbolic scene.
2. Mapping — the important source-to-symbol relationships.
3. Working hypothesis — the grounded interpretation, with any material alternative, uncertainty, or confidence basis.
4. Next observation or action — what to watch or do.

For a requested full cycle, use one to three materially different scenes and the same grounding checks. Add a dream log only when the user wants continuity or a reusable artifact.

Avoid

• implying actual sleep, waiting, memory, or subconscious access
• treating vivid imagery as evidence or prophecy
• ungrounded poetry, generic symbols, or invented source material
• mandatory mood, function, or symbol taxonomies
• repetitive scene, interpretation, and log sections
• persisting sensitive reflective material without explicit authorization