Convert Text into Dictionary

Hello data conversion experts!

I am trying to convert some data that is being stored as a Text data type into a List of Dictionary data type. I've tried a few different things, such as converting to and from JSON (this gives me a List of Text output), and also tried casting the value. No luck. Has anyone managed to do this in an Appian expression rule?

Here's my current rule that seems to always return an empty Dictionary (note that ri!value is a Text Array):

cast(
194, /* magic number for type: 'List of Dictionary' */
ri!value
)

OriginalPostID-244347