In Haruki Murakami's "TV People," there are many small parts to the story. The part I had the most trouble with was the last half of the story. The...

Interesting question! The dream sequence appears to be another metaphor for the author's detached reality. The ambiguous story-line allows us to interpret this surreal phenomenon on a few levels.

First, the room in the author's dream is populated by dead people who have been turned to stone. In the dream, the windows are broken, and the author feels the chill of the air. He stands to give a statement to his lifeless colleagues but doesn't know what he's talking about, merely that he must keep talking in order to live. There is animated fear and anxiety in his tone; we question whether he is delirious or in the throes of schizophrenic hysteria.

The stone figures are significant in that they appear to be a metaphor for the author's alienation from society; he experiences neither emotional connection to his colleagues or his own wife. Earlier in the story, the author relates how he and his wife often go days without speaking to each other when work obligations require their dedicated attention. Later, he relates how his colleague ignores him when he mentions the TV People. 

At home, the author's wife is consumed by her penchant for neatness; her magazines must be arranged in a certain order and be placed in a designated area. The author suggests that his wife becomes unreasonably angry when her magazines are disturbed in any way. In light of the narrative, it appears as if the wife's obsessive compulsive behavior mirrors that of the author's: he's just as obsessive about the TV People and his own need for professional relevance as she is about the arrangement of her magazines. However, just as his stone colleagues and wife can't "hear" what he's saying to them, neither can the TV People. The author is disconnected from his colleagues, his wife, and even the seemingly imaginary characters that assault his consciousness.

The stone people in the dream sequence is a metaphor for the author's lonely and detached existence. It may also be a metaphor for his (and his wife's) inability to face the emotional devastation of living such a life. Both bury themselves in meaningless conversation and repetitive tasks on a daily basis. Their lives are as devoid of warmth as the cold winds that blow in through the broken windows in the dream sequence. On another level, the stone people and TV People are similar in that they represent the enigma of different realities.

The TV People exist on a different plane, perhaps reinforcing the idea that technology and media can distort one's reality. At the same time, the stone people are totally incapable of relating to the author's words; he might as well be speaking gibberish to them, on account of the fact that they are dead. So, the stone people are symbols (much like the TV People), reinforcing the theme of detached reality in a world powered by technology and circumscribed by a corporate dystopia.