How far away are we from having a computer application that will make sense of our dreams?
How cool would this be? As soon as we wake up, we input everything we can recall about the dream - who was in it, who had clothes on, who was flying, etc. Presto! The application tells us exactly what the dream means. Apologies to psychiatrists and therapists who make major cash guessing at all this now but come on - every other modern profession has to compete with what computers can do, right?
Consider the possibilities when we're all aware what our unconscious is instructing us to do. Admittedly, there is a potential downside for the psychopaths among us, but the people who develop those algorithms for Pandora etc. are pretty clever. Their design of the app could include a little assessment everyone must complete before using it. If that upfront assessment picks up a Ted Bundy-like vibe, no matter what the unhinged individual reports from their dreams, the output would say something innocuous like "This dream is instructing you to clean your refrigerator and discard any mustard over ten years old". I would volunteer to write that part of the code, providing an endless supply of vapid statements that would randomize and respond to Ted and his cohort. Problem solved.
What am I missing? Who is ready to sign up for the prototype?
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