Hideo Kojima dropped a new bit of lore over the weekend: the renowned designer has “always” suffered from nightmares. As he wrote on Twitter, Kojima stumbled upon old dream logs in his phone’s notes while preparing to deliver the first keynote address in five years at the upcoming GDC Festival of Gaming 2026.
Suggested to him as a remedy, jotting down his dreams proved to be ineffective in relieving Kojima of his nightmares. However, the notes grant us some insight into the subconscious of one of the most influential game designers of his time, in the form of two snapshots from almost exactly nine years ago. If you’ve ever tried to explain your own dreams, you can probably empathize with Kojima’s struggle to articulate the goings-on of his sleeping mindscape. Still, for memos that likely weren’t intended to be seen by others, they paint a surprisingly coherent picture.
2017/1/3 Memo
The dreams I have are always strange ones. I’ve never had what you’d call a “good dream.” Or maybe I just don’t remember them. Ok. My first dream of the year. It’s difficult to put a hazy dream into words, but I’ll try to turn it into text. Some foreign filmmakers… https://t.co/ryN1yleObC— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) January 10, 2026
The first log he shares is from January 3, 2017: In this dream, Kojima is invited to a film set where he is bitten in the arm by a flying, furry round creature. When he manages to pry the strange ball-like creature off his arm, it flies backward and morphs into an undisclosed new form. “A creature from outer space?” Kojima writes. “An object from the fourth dimension? Whatever ‘it’ is, it keeps changing form in midair and returning again and again.” The film directors then point their cameras at Kojima, wordlessly capturing the struggle, which concludes with the creature transforming into a plastic card that lands in Kojima’s palm. Fanart has already been made.
The second dream log comes from the following day, and takes place in a hot spring town. Kojima moves to a boarding house surrounded by narrow alleyways of packed dirt, and decides to clean the walkways. He hoses down the paths to keep the dust down, and on his journey encounters “voluptuous nude women who look as if they’ve stepped straight out of figure sketches or croquis drawings, [and] scar-covered elderly men who speak in foreign languages.” The water uncovers corpses decomposing in the soil, posed as if they were swimming. Kojima returns to his rooms to call the police, but the corpses follow him and make themselves at home in his new residence. At the sound of the doorbell, the corpses transform into young men in relay racing gear. Their coach is at the door, and he’s furious.
Any dream interpreters in the chat?
