HONOLULU—A seminar entitled “Brushing Up On Your Dream Interpretation” turned into a screaming match during the annual American Psychological Association meeting when psychoanalysts failed to agree on the meaning of dream images influenced by the film Matrix.

At previous seminars, lecturers prompted participants to “touch base” with a number of dream images through the use of fun and thought-provoking games, such as “Simon Says—However, What Does He Mean?” and “Pin The Tail on The Christ Complex.”

“I think the ‘butter days’ of dream interpretation are over,” said lecturer Patty Simpson, who has presented this particular lecture and the Honolulu conference for nearly a decade. “Over the years, it was ‘what does a snake mean?’ or ‘what do I make of a train going into a tunnel?’ But now it’s architects, colored pills, and oracles.”

The lecture turned into a debacle during a particularly enjoyable game of “Simon Says—However, What Exactly Does He Mean?” Guest moderator Charles Swanson II, president of the New England Psychological Association (NEPA), was leading the group, prompting the members with basic clues, such as “Simon says ‘lily’” and “Simon says ‘klobasa,’” when he stated, “Simon says ‘blue pill.’”

“The ‘Simon Says’ exercise we perform is a little more advanced than the elementary school model,” Swanson said. “When I say, ‘Simon says ‘submarine,’’ the participants must enact the accorded psychoanalytical interpretation. In the case of submarine, they must all mimic the image of a penis. Of course, if I just blurt out ‘submarine’ without saying ‘Simon’ and someone mimics a penis, he’s out of the game.”

The influence Matrix had not only on the dream consciousness of patients around the world, but also on the way psychoanalysts were interpreting these dreams became apparent when Swanson referred to the colored pill. “It was quite apparent something was going wrong,” Simpson said. “Sure, once in a while someone feigns defecation when they should be feigning giving birth, or ejaculates instead of blooms, but this was an all-out carnival.”

According to witnesses, hardly a single participant out of the 60 people attending the lecture mimicked the same answer. “It looked like the whole roomful of psychologists suddenly suffered a paralytic fit. There was Ted [Masterson] pretending to be a rocket ship, Mary [Sokolov] acting like a puffin or maybe a dodo, and some other guy I didn’t recognize had stripped to his underwear and was pledging allegiance to the flag. It was chaos.”

As the participating psychologists noticed the discrepancy between their enactments and the enactments of their fellows, the group stopped the charade and looked toward Swanson. Swanson told the group they were mistaken, and asserted that “obviously, a blue pill represented sterile semen.” Members of the group, who then asked Swanson what he felt a red pill represented, were outraged.

Swanson, however, was not familiar with Matrix and was inquiring about the blue pill because several male patients had mentioned it over the past year. Initially, he told his patients they were suffering from an infertility complex and recommended exercises that reinforced their masculinity, such as attending Outward Bound type seminars, in which men regain contact with their inner male by howling like wolves and crafting jewelry from hide and flint. He said the red pill question posed by the group confused him.

“How can you interpret the blue pill without considering the red pill,” asked seminar participant Julie Chevas. “Obviously the Wachowski brothers [the directors of Matrix] meant them to be a cohesive pair. And their color, shape, and the fact they might float could only represent ships, which set out from England--the Speedwell and the Mayflower--to carry the pilgrims to North America.” Chevas mentioned the Speedwell never made the journey, and, therefore, was the red pill, and that Keanu Reeves represented pilgrim William Bradford, and Laurence Fishburne represented Mayflower captain Christopher Jones.

Within minutes, the group began arguing about other Matrix-influenced imagery, such as long, black leather jackets, stylized sunglasses, and the architect, who many thought was Freud himself. Although one member debated the architect might also be Colonel Sanders from KFC fame, another argued he represented comedian George Carlin.

After being informed of Matrix, Swanson and Simpson closed the day’s lecture with a promise to host an all-Matrix seminar next year to hopefully “give analysts a uniform system of Matrix-influenced interpretations.” Regardless of the confusion, however, all who were present agreed that in the end, no matter what may or may not be the proper interpretation at the moment, all dream imagery continues to represent incest in its final analysis.