Sometimes after a long sleep, I get a dream that's weirdly long and vivid.
It's just a dream, but I remember it in detail after waking up. And even though it makes no sense, when I look closer it's packed with my own values and whatever I've been thinking about lately.
This time the dream came as a double feature.
The first half: I was dating a woman I'd never met. The second half: I cast Meteor, it hit the Chiba Prefecture area and struck a hot spring, a water column as tall as Tokyo Skytree shot up, the water level rose all the way to Aichi Prefecture, and the world started to sink.
It makes no sense.
But look closely and it's surprisingly well put together.
This isn't about dream interpretation. I'm not claiming "dreams always mean this."
It's just that the movie in your head after a long sleep can be a jumble of memory sorting, emotional processing, recent thoughts, desires, caution, and creativity.
After sleep deprivation in particular, there can be a "REM rebound," where REM sleep increases, and vivid dreams are said to be more likely then. Research also suggests dreams may be involved in processing emotional memories and consolidating memory.
So this dream is a pure joke, and at the same time a pretty useful metaphor.
Here's the conclusion up front.
Don't fire Meteor at production.
Dream 1: A Stranger Who Passed the First Screening
In the first half of the dream, I was dating a woman I didn't know.
A little sturdy build. Cheerful. Quick-witted. Quick to respond. Easy and pleasant to talk to. Comfortable with physical affection.
In real life she's a stranger, yet in the dream the relationship just worked, very naturally.
I think this is an image of what I call the "first screening" in love.
Roughly, the first screening is this:
- It's fun being together
- Your conversational tempo matches
- Their quick thinking and reaction speed feel good
- They have a brightness about them
- Physical contact feels safe
- You naturally want to get closer
- They naturally come closer too
This matters a lot.
In love, you can line up conditions in your head all you like, but if your body doesn't feel safe, it won't last. On the other hand, someone whose conversation tempo fits, whose touch feels natural, who's cheerful and responds quickly, is a really strong match.
But there's a caveat.
Passing the first screening is not the same as passing the life-contract screening.
How good the romance feels and things like marriage, living together, family, money, relatives, freedom, and day-to-day life management are tested in separate exams.
Mixing them up is dangerous.
"I feel good with them." "Their touch calms me." "Talking with them is fast and easy." "They're bright and fun."
That's a strong score for romantic satisfaction.
But you shouldn't hand over admin rights on that alone.
First screening: passed. Life contract: a separate screening.
This is important.
I think the first half of the dream was a sample dataset of someone who passed that first screening.
Dream 2: In a Happy Place, Suddenly Wanting to Fire Meteor
The problem is the second half.
I was in a happy place, and for some reason I suddenly wanted to fire Meteor.
Meteor. The spell that drops a meteorite.
Powerful. Flashy. Fire it and something happens. It's fun, at least at first.
In the dream, I fired it 3 times.
Shot 1 flew off somewhere. Shot 2 also flew somewhere else. Shot 3 looked small against a faraway sky and came down in the direction of Chiba Prefecture.
And then, somehow, it struck a hot spring.
Up to there it's still just a gag.
But that hot spring was abnormal. The water column shot up as tall as Skytree. From Aichi Prefecture you could see a gigantic pillar of water standing over the Chiba area.
And I thought:
"Uh-oh, a tsunami's coming."
From there the water level rose fast. Even in Aichi, the water was closing in. Everyone ran. But we were too late. We kept sinking.
The world started to sink.
The cause: Meteor.
An Overpowered Skill Sinks the World If You Fire It Carelessly
The Meteor in this dream makes a really useful metaphor.
In the real world, too, there are Meteor-like abilities.
For example:
- AI
- Automation
- Coding
- Text generation
- Mass-producing articles
- Improving work processes
- Strong verbalization
- Structuring ability
- Building systems
- Sales funnels
- App development
- Improving landing pages (LPs)
- Web scraping
- Bulk find-and-replace
- API integrations
- GitHub Actions
- Giving huge instructions to tools like Codex or Claude Code
All of these are Meteor.
Used right, they're powerful. They reach places manual work never could. They can reshape the terrain in one go. They can finish in minutes what would take hours.
But the stronger the ability, the wider its blast radius.
Fire it carelessly and it lands somewhere you never intended. You thought you were hitting the test environment, and it lands on production. You meant a small fix, and the whole site breaks. You meant to improve 1 article, and the navigation across every language falls apart. You meant 1 automation, and it leads to a billing bug or an API cost explosion. You meant a bulk replace, and it destroys the context of the entire landing page.
Meteor is convenient.
But Meteor is not a "handy pebble."
Aim it wrong and the world sinks.
Don't Fire at Production
The most important point is this.
Don't fire Meteor at production.
When you ask AI to make a huge batch of edits. When you let Codex touch many files at once. When you roll out a landing page in many languages in one go. When you change ad tags or payment flows. When you swap out store descriptions for an app in every language. When you fiddle with deployment settings for GitHub Actions or Cloudflare Pages.
All of these are Meteor jobs.
So what you should do is simple:
- Fire it in a sandbox first
- Limit what can be changed
- Make it write out the scope of impact beforehand
- Take a backup
- Check the diff (the list of what changed)
- Come up with the test items first
- Sort bugs into P0/P1/P2 (critical, important, minor)
- Prepare a rollback procedure
- Build a confirmation gate before anything goes live
Firing Meteor is fine.
In some situations you're better off firing it if you can.
The problem is where you fire it.
At a mountain? At the sky? At the test environment? At production? At a relationship? At an email to your boss? At the person you're dating?
Pick the wrong target and you don't get a hot spring, you get a tsunami.
People With a "Copy-and-Paste High Ground" Are Strong
What was interesting in the dream came after the world began to sink.
Normally you'd have nothing to do but run.
But in the dream I had a copy-and-paste superpower.
I copied a patch of high ground and pasted it. I made an escape spot under my feet and my family's. When the water rose, I made higher ground. I just kept going up.
This is quite symbolic.
Facing a crisis, you don't just pray. You build an environment and escape. You generate terrain. You copy a refuge. You survive through a system.
It's the same in real life.
When an unreasonable request lands at work, write a script. If meetings scare you, let a document do the talking. If a task gets stuck on one person, move it into a step-by-step manual. When your emotions get rough, turn them into an article. If development feels uncertain, make a checklist. If AI looks like it's about to go off the rails, inspect it with P0/P1/P2. If a night-time "future meeting" (spiraling over what's ahead) is about to start, retreat into stay-at-home mode. If your nerves are fried, fall back to a walk through the rice paddies, a hot shower, and bed.
All of these are copy-and-paste high ground.
The ability to generate an escape route in your own life.
That's incredibly strong.
Meteor People Are Strong, but Dangerous
Some people in this world can fire Meteor.
They can see it. They can say it. They can build it. They can fix it. They can structure it. They can improve it. They can direct AI. They can put it into words. They can turn it into a system. They can automate it.
People like this are strong.
But the stronger the person, the more dangerous.
Because they can actually do what most people only think about.
Come up with an article, and it becomes an article. Decide to fix a landing page, and it gets fixed. Decide to build an app, and it gets built. Decide to sort out a work process, and it becomes a standard procedure document. Vent a complaint, and it becomes an SEO article. Have a dream, and it becomes a metaphor article.
That's strong.
But precisely because the output is fast, firing without checking is dangerous.
What a Meteor person needs isn't a weaker ability.
It's a launch pad.
In other words:
- Write down the purpose before you fire
- Write down the scope of impact before you fire
- Write down how to undo it if it fails before you fire
- Check after you fire
- Don't fire at dangerous places
- Don't instantly fire at people
- In love, don't open admin rights just because of warmth
- At work, don't go around plugging every hole you can see
- Don't just tell AI "do everything," also tell it "don't break anything," "check first," and "show me the diff"
You need these.
Don't Fire Meteor at Love Either
What makes this dream interesting is that the romance part and the Meteor part were in the same dream.
I don't think that's a coincidence.
Love has its Meteor too.
For example:
- Trusting someone completely because of early physical affection
- Opening your wallet because of warmth
- Moving ahead with a life contract because you feel safe
- Going to handle all of the other person's problems
- Taking on even the worries of their family
- Lowering your boundaries because "I love them"
- Deciding "it's fine, we could touch each other"
All of these are love Meteor.
The warmth and safety in love are important. In fact, without them it doesn't work.
But just because your body felt safe with physical affection, you shouldn't push through to a life contract.
The first screening in love and the second screening, the life contract, are separate.
The person in the first half of the dream, "cheerful, quick-witted, comfortable with physical affection," was a really good sample.
But after that you need a different checklist:
- Can they say no?
- Can they respect boundaries?
- Do they keep pressure from relatives out of the two of you?
- Can they talk about money?
- Do they respect your freedom?
- Do they avoid grading you after the fact?
- Do they avoid shifting their anxiety onto your life?
Fire Meteor without checking these and your love life sinks too.
What We Can Learn From the Dream
What this dream teaches is pretty simple.
Number 1. A dream after a long sleep is an interesting log of your brain tidying up.
Number 2. Your ideal partner can show up in the feel of a dream more than in a list of conditions.
Number 3. But the first screening in love and the life contract are separate.
Number 4. An overpowered ability sinks the world if you fire it at the wrong place.
Number 5. Meteor isn't evil. It just needs a launch pad and a test environment.
Number 6. When a crisis comes, build a copy-and-paste high ground.
The last one may be the most important.
People sometimes fire Meteor. The stronger your abilities, the more likely you can.
But when the water starts rising after you fire it, you don't have to just sink.
You can build high ground.
Scripts. Checklists. Backups. Rollbacks. Turning it into an article. Writing it down. Talking to someone. A walk. A shower. Bed. A boundary that keeps others out of your own garden.
All of these are high ground for your life.
Wrap-Up: Fire Meteor if You Want, Just Not at Production
Wanting to fire Meteor isn't bad in itself.
If you have a strong ability, you want to use it. AI, automation, improvement skills, writing, development: all of it is Meteor. Fire it and the world changes.
But that's exactly why you have to choose where to fire.
Don't fire at production. Don't instantly fire at relationships. Don't push through a life contract the moment love gives you warmth. Don't plug every hole you notice at work by yourself. If you're letting AI touch every file, make it write out the scope of impact and how to undo it first.
Meteor isn't evil.
What's bad is firing without a launch pad. Firing without a test environment. Not having high ground ready for when the water rises.
In the dream, the Meteor that landed in Chiba struck a hot spring, sent up a Skytree-sized water column, and raised the water all the way to Aichi.
That's quite a screw-up.
But I copied and pasted some high ground and escaped.
That's fine.
It's the same in real life.
You don't need to weaken a strong ability. Just build the launch pad before you fire. Build high ground after you fire. Don't fire at dangerous places.
Don't fire Meteor at production.
Just doing that makes the world a lot harder to sink.
