Dreams and waking - Zhao Lihong / 赵丽宏

Zhao Lihong / 赵丽宏






Dreams and waking

—On Artificial Intelligence

Dreams are illusory reality
And waking the illusion of reality
Life is the interweaving as well as the converter of dreams and waking
Once into the dreamland, people would quickly enter
a world to their liking
After waking up, they found
Broken roads and high walls everywhere

Once living in one dream
But the sleepwalkers would have different dreams simultaneously
Time and time again, they woke up only to find themselves still dreaming
Absurd superposition, overlapping of nothingness
No room for maneuver, no end in sight
Mountains remain mountains and rivers remain rivers as ever

I can neither repeat the crossroads in my dream
Nor break free of the web of time and space surrounding me
The dream within the dream and the world outside the dream
Have almost no chance or possibility to meet
Is this your turn? With a weird smile on the face
You looked left and right by standing between dreams and waking

Somewhere between dreams and waking
There is another place of mystery
wherein you and I will meet by stealth
The ignorant soul opened its sleepy eyes
And found that the darkness had been broken by ten
thousand arrows of sky light
Are you the shadow of darkness, or the arrows of the sky light

You said you had copied all my dreams
My every sigh, every smile
Every whisper that only I myself can hear
Every look of doubt or horror
Were all gathered up in your infinite memory
And you could release them at any time, like letting fly a
flock of pigeons in captivity

My outpouring of emotions, my endless fantasies
Like the gorgeous glow of nature's alternating morning and evening
There is not a single day that always goes by with
monotonous repetition and similarity
Like the night sky galloping with lightning in a storm
Every moment is a wonder that cannot be duplicated
Can you foresee all my dreams

I once got lost, lost my way at the end of the road
And once struggled to look back and forth in times of panic
You said you wouldn't lose your way, even in the face of peaks and knolls
You said you could walk all the way, even though
encountering craggy cliffs
You said you could get all the secret chambers to open their locked doors
And could make the chaotic world distinct between black
and white from now on

Yes, you can recite all the existing formulas and texts
You can calculate the circumference law to countless decimal points
You can get the best chess players to bow down to you
You can allow unmanned cars to cross the wilderness
You can land a spacecraft on a distant planet
Nevertheless, who is it that gave you the initial inspiration and motivation

How can you make me believe your wild predictions
You cannot even predict my choice for the next minute to come
You cannot replicate the hills and streams I've traveled
My footprints have gone with the melting ice
You cannot hear the dance of my soul's desires
Your music cannot keep up with my free and unrestrained rhythm

How can you understand my silence
Even if you manipulate and spread the world's noise and clamor
It’s still impossible for you to interpret one or two percent of my silence
How can you understand my tears
Even if you gather the diverse expressions of the world
It's still difficult for you to express any of my sadness

You want to collect the forms of life in heaven and earth
And paint them the same color and fill them with similar sounds
You want to restore the porcelain that has been shattered
into countless pieces
And moreover, intend to wear away all the dense cracks on it
You say you can spit out lotus flowers, but I cannot smell them
You say you can pierce through all things, but you cannot
penetrate the soul of flesh and blood

We may have no each other
I am what I am. I am a unique human body
A unique system of emotions and thoughts
Who are you? You're a robot with a cold face
Even if you become a worm and burrow into my brain,
You cannot see the secret throbbing of my soul

A person is equivalent to an infinite complex universe
You are by no means a black hole that can devour all souls
I opened myself up to the whole world
So as to finally say: I am what I am after all
I hid myself from the crowd
So as to finally say: I am still the person I was

Ah, man, keep on staying in the dream of omnipotence
And sneaking from one dream to another deeper dream
While I, on the other hand, have awakened from my dream,
now ready to observe and listen
Between dreams and waking, your weird voice reverberates
You may be able to change the world, and change the future life
But still I’m going to tell you gently: you cannot change me
Early autumn 2023, in Shanghai

(Translated by Zhou Wenbiao)





梦和醒

——关于人工智能

（代序）

梦，是虚幻的现实
醒，是现实的虚幻
人生就是梦和醒的交织转换
入梦后，突然进入随心所欲的世界
梦醒了，却发现
到处是断裂的路，高耸的墙

曾经生活在一场梦中
梦游者同时又在做着各种各样的梦
一次一次醒来，发现仍然耽留在梦境
荒诞的叠加，虚无的重合
无望的回旋，看不见终点
山重水复后依然是山重水复

我无法复述梦中的岔道迷踪
无法挣脱那笼罩在周围的时空之网
梦中的梦和梦外的天地
几乎没有相逢的机遇和可能
这就是你的机会吗？你脸含诡异的微笑
站在梦和醒之间左右顾盼

在梦和醒的分野之处
还有一个神秘的所在
我和你会在那里悄悄邂逅
蒙昧的灵魂睁开了惺忪之眼
发现幽暗已被万箭齐发的天光射破
你是幽暗的影子，还是天光的箭簇

你说，你已复制了我的所有梦境
我的每一声叹息，每一丝微笑
每一个只有自己能听见的耳语
每一个怀疑或惊恐的眼神
都已经收拢在你浩瀚无穷的记忆
你随时可以释放它们，如放飞囚禁的鸽群

我喷涌的情感，我无尽的幻想
如同大自然晨昏交替的绚烂之霞
没有一天出现千篇一律的重复和雷同
如同暴风雨中奔驰着闪电的夜空
每一个瞬间都是无法复制的奇景
你，难道能预见我所有的憧憬

我曾经迷路，曾在路的尽头失去方向
曾在心慌意乱时中举步维艰前后瞻望
你说你不会失去方向，哪怕面对层峦叠嶂
你说你能走通所有的路，哪怕遭遇绝壁断崖
你说你可以让所有的密室打开闭锁的大门
你可以让混沌迷乱的天地从此黑白分明

是的，你可以背诵所有已有的公式和文本
你可以把圆周率计算出无数个小数点
你可以让高明的棋手俯首称臣
你可以让无人的汽车穿越荒野
你可以让飞船在遥远的星球着陆
可是，是谁给了你最初的启迪和动因

你怎么能让我相信你狂妄的预言
你甚至无法预测我下一分钟的选择
你无法复制我走过的千山万水
我的脚印已经随融化的冰雪流逝
你听不见我灵魂深处欲望的舞曲
你的音乐，和不上我自由无羁的节拍

我的静默，你怎么会懂
你搬弄传播全世界的喧嚷和鼓噪
也无法解释我的静默之一二
我的泪水，你怎么会懂
你集合人世间的千姿百态的表情
也难以表达我的哀伤之半分

你想搜集天地间生命的形态
把他们涂上相同的颜色，灌注类似的声音
你想复原被摔成万千碎片的瓷器
连那些密集的裂缝也可以磨灭无踪
你说你口吐莲花，但我闻不到花的幽香
你说你洞穿万物，但你无法穿越血肉的灵魂

我们之间也许没有彼此
我是我，我是独一无二的肉身
我也是独一无二的情感和思想体系
你是谁呢，你是一个表情冰冷的机器人
你就是变成蠕虫钻进我脑髓
也看不见我灵魂隐秘的悸动

一个人，就是一个无穷繁复的宇宙
你决不是可以吞噬所有灵魂的黑洞
我向整个世界展开自己
为的是最后能说：我终归是我
我向茫茫人海隐蔽自己
为的是最后能说：我依然是我

人啊，继续沉迷在无所不能的梦境里吧
从一个梦境，潜入另一个更深的梦境
而我，已从梦中醒来，醒着谛察，醒着聆听
在梦和醒之间，回荡着你诡异的声音
你也许能改变世界，改变未来的生活
但还是要轻轻地告诉你：你无法改变我

2023 年初秋，写于上海






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Zhao Lihong is a Chinese poet, essayist and novelist. Born in Shanghai in 1952, he is currently the chairperson of the Shanghai International Poetry Festival. He has authored over a hundred books including poetry collections, essays and novels. His representative works include poetry collections such as The Boat in the Sky, Pains and Metamorphosis. His works have won awards such as the New Era Excellent Essay Collection Award, China Good Book Award and Wenjin Book Award. In 2013, he was awarded the Smederevo Golden Key International Poetry Award in Serbia. In 2014, he received the Shanghai Literature and Art Outstanding Contribution Award and was appointed as an honorary academician of the Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC). In 2019, he won the Mihai Eminescu International Poetry Award in Romania and was elected as an academician of the French Academy of Sciences, Arts and Humanities. In 2024, he received the International Bing Xin Literature Award Gold Prize. In 2025, he won the Montale Literature Award in Italy and the KS International Poetry Award in South Korea. His works have been translated into English, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Persian and many other languages and published overseas.


赵丽宏，中国诗人、散文家、小说家。1952年生于上海。现为上海国际诗歌节主席。著有诗集、散文集、小说等各种专著共一百余部。代表作有诗集《天上的船》《疼痛》《变形》等。作品曾获新时期优秀散文集奖、中国好书奖、文津图书奖。2013年荣获塞尔维亚斯梅德雷沃金钥匙国际诗歌奖。2014年获上海市文学艺术杰出贡献奖，同年被授予北京师范大学-香港浸会大学联合国际学院（UIC）荣誉院士。2019年获罗马尼亚“米哈伊·爱明内斯库国际诗歌大奖”，同年被选为法国科学、艺术人文学院院士。2024年获国际冰心文学奖金奖。2025年获意大利蒙塔莱文学奖、韩国KS国际诗歌奖。作品被翻译成英、法、俄、意、西班牙、保加利亚、乌克兰、塞尔维亚、罗马尼亚、波兰、匈牙利、日、韩、阿拉伯、波斯等多种文字在海外出版。