Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 117: Measured Approach

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

“It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work.” – May Sarton Katie Wenger https://higherfulfillment.com/

Greetings friends, welcome to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Katie Wenger from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is an individual and couples therapist, author, and has a focus on psychoeducational material, which, as I was saying earlier, I'd like to think that's what I do as well. You can find her at higherfulfillment.com. Also on Instagram at the relationship consultant. We're going to get right back to her in two seconds. Would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more

volunteer dreamers for these shows. Video game streams, lots of cool stuff. Audio books, free audio books of my channel, me reading badly, my own historical dream literature. Speaking of which, book 16, dreams and their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson, lovingly reproduced by yours,

truly your friendly neighborhood dream wizard now available on Amazon. You can find all this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com as well as links to downloadable MP3 versions of this podcast. haven't been encyclopedia I'm still working on anyway that's enough shilling from me Katie thank you for being here it's good to talk to you yes thank you for having me good do so what the

first thing I didn't know and I never know anyone until I start talking to him um you are a practicing clinical psychotherapist yes that's right yes I work with adults mostly um I have some teenage clients but individuals and couples and my focus really is on how the individual takes care of themselves, maintains, sees patterns, and the relationships in their life and how that impacts everything. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, that's probably combining the most, two most important things regarding being human is taking care of yourself, making sure you're living your life in the most functional way you can, whatever your goals are, and how to also be in functional relationship with other people.

That's, we just can't, there's two things we can't ignore. And that if they go bad, really destroy people. You know, I'm sure you've had some, you can't tell too many tales. I'm certainly not with names, but you've probably seen some folks that are really in a bad way and just needed, it needed someone to talk to. You know, just needed a friendly ear to listen and say, I care, number one. I'm a big fan of the humanist psychologist who was like Carl Rogers, I think was his name. The idea that said, you know, just be genuine.

and function with unconditional positive regard, and you've got most of the bases covered. Anyway, I'm rambling. I meant to have a question in there. Well, yeah, I think that a good amount of what I see is clients who prioritize everyone else and everything else of themselves and feel guilty taking time to do the things that they enjoy,

whether it, you know, instead of spending time with family or friends or being productive, to just be and do the things that you like to do and nourish your own individuality and identity and recharge, really. I mean, if you can't do that, you can't be the best for everyone else either, give the best of yourself. And you're missing, you know, an important part of life, you know, spending time, alone, getting to know yourself, self-love, self-acceptance, everything. Yeah, I think there's two very powerful ideas.

One comes from Alice in Wonderland, and the other one comes from martial arts. This is where my brain goes like, okay, how are those things connected? What? But the question that the caterpillar asked, Alice, who are you? And he wanted to know, in my estimation, who's asking me this question? Who am I interacting with in terms of, is that a lot of times that guides are answers. Like, why are you asking, what do you want out of this?

I need to know that in some ways. But the broader idea of, you know, knowing who you are, it allows you to have that focus. Well, here's what I want. This is who or what I am and now I know what to do about other situations. That was one tangent. The other one is, you know, the body mechanics. I love analogies.

and, you know, the idea of someone is on the ground. They are down and you want to help them get up. You can't reach out a hand and provide the leverage necessary if you are out of balance. They will just pull you over with them. So I like that physical analogy. You have to have a nice strong stance. And then from a position of strength, you can offer benefit to other people. It's just not possible when you are out of balance yourself,

emotionally, psychologically. So those are my two two kind of go-toes I like to think about sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, those are good visualizations of it. And it just doesn't feel,

it doesn't feel right either. But I think because of how people are taught growing up or family dynamics, family values that are passed down, you put yourself last, you take care of everyone else. Yeah. Someone did you to do something.

You do it. That's what kind people do. But you quite easily get over-extended and can't have healthy relationships then. Definitely. That reminds me of, I'm a bit obsessed with the Yin-yang symbol. I love that. I consider, you know, in my estimation, one of the oldest names for God. I think before we had words, we had symbols that expressed concepts beyond our understanding then and still today, I think.

but that the idea of a healthy balance, the idea that balance is necessary to be healthy, you can't be entirely selfish care for no one. This is not good for you, not good for anyone around you. You can't be so self-sacrificing that there is no you left. What's the purpose of living at that point? You know, you see there's a weird conundrum there with the concept of altruism and selfishness. I've been playing with this idea in my head, well, for years and years, but are, debates in other forums. This is not a forum for debates, but just the idea that if every

individual person is expected to self-sacrifice and is not deserving of their own benefit, who is then deserving of being given benefit? Because aren't all those other people the same level of unworthy to, you know, there's some concept in there. It's like, we got to, you got to have that balance. I'm going to take some me time. And yes, I'm going to help you too because I love you and you're a great person. And I want you to be healthy. But I've talked to a lot of people lately.

And it seems to be a very common theme in today's world, I guess, where people are struggling with boundaries. They don't know where to set them. They don't know what is an appropriate boundary. And they don't feel comfortable telling people who need something. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm sorry. This is for me.

I need to say no. It sounds like you've had. some significant experience with that as a recurring theme maybe lately or broadly? Yes, for sure. And what I see a lot in relationships is that you get the two opposites, right? You get someone who takes a lot more and someone who gives a lot more. And they don't understand why their relationship isn't working or they're unhappy. They're unfulfilled.

and, you know, so whether it's like to the narcissistic level or it's, you know, just some difficulty and emotional connection or intelligence, or some people are just more self-focused, I guess. And then you get usually who they're drawn to in relationships is like a real giver. So, but that doesn't sustain. That isn't necessarily a good. thing. We have so many, again, my brain goes so many, I think Socrates, the unexamined life. And that wasn't just him being high and mighty. Like if you're not a philosopher like me, you're not

worth anything. Now I'm saying, if you're not really looking at yourself and questioning your your own motivations and tendencies and habits and choices, you're probably missing something, you know, that would be useful to you and make you stronger, healthy, or more virtuous, more beneficial to others, you know, however you define that. What am I looking for? You know, your version of how to be a good and moral person in the world. You got it, you really got to look at yourself. I was somewhere else I was going to go with that too. The idea of, oh, the idea of, there's an interesting parallel between pop understanding of psychology and pop understanding of dreams in terms of, and it's a mis- I might have said misunderstanding, but it is a

misunderstanding. So a lot of people think, first the dream books, that there is any such thing. No offense to anyone out there. My opinion is you cannot look up one symbol and it is the same in every dream for every person. It's going to vary on the individual, their history, their time in, current time in life, how, what they associate with that symbol personally and then nested in the broader human, you know, collective unconscious type of thing of like, well, we as human, as interact with the physical world in specific ways that are unique to humans, so they'll be common themes there. But then again, you know, a lake, a tsunami, a chair. They're not all going to mean the same thing to the same people. Where am I going with this? I ramble. So there's a very,

there's a, there's a misunderstanding about the necessity of a very personal understanding of dreams. And it's the same with psychology. A lot of people think, oh, it's pop psych. You got this, that, or the other. When people misunderstand the idea of, well, you're just projecting or you're in denial. It's like you kind of got a little bit of it, but you're not really using it correctly. And it doesn't actually fit for this person in this circumstance for this reason. And that's all the very personal nature of being a private counselor. You get to know that person and look at their circumstances. You don't have a necessarily static end point you're trying to reach with every single person.

It's very, so where's all this going and how does it relate? I'm coming back around. It's my tangential brain. Um, we, we get to these situations where sometimes if you got a 60, 40 and someone's a 60% giver and, and, and, and the, uh, a person in the relationship is a 60% taker. They kind of fit and then maybe that works for them and they actually have no distress. Then you have some people where it gets too far out of balance and they're like, okay, for us in this situation under these conditions, this isn't working.

I'm not happy. We fight too much. I feel underappreciated. It feels like they're demanding. Um, you. you know, and vice versa, we get into these, you know, I'm rambling too. Like, I'm about to stop and kill you every two cents. We get in these situations where sometimes the person who's the taker feels like the other

person is trying to control them. And it's got this weird reversal where they're, what am I trying to say? They feel like boundaries set up are oppressing them based on how much they're not allowed to take anymore. It's weird, weird the way people conceptualize things. So I'm going to stop. continue please yeah it's nice to talk to someone you know with a similar background that understands some of those concepts and yeah the difference between pop psychology and i'm sure pop understanding

of dreams too that you see all the time is very different than you know what we learn educationally and what we see in practice. For sure. And there's a bit of a paucity of my understanding concerning the most recent development. So I'm really, I have a smattering of the most recent understanding and theories and research into dreams in the last, say, 50, 60, 70 years. And that's going to be its own challenge when I approach that. I've been focusing on the last 2,000 years because that's where it all started.

And I'm kind of working my way forward in that sense. I kind of hit the broadly the late 18, early 1900s where everything kind of shifted. It's the other thing, too, is that, man, it bothers me a bit sometimes that Freud gets so much grief from people. Like, they don't realize how much of his work was so fundamental we take it for granted. And then his other stuff that wasn't quite as accurate or might have been a reflection of who he was at the time he had his theories. Yeah, that's more subject to critique. The idea of just sitting down with someone and asking him,

so tell me about your mother. How was that relationship? I mean, that that has power to it. People never realized that until he really made it a thing. Yeah, getting the idea of, you know, the beginning of your history as a person and how you experienced other people through your parents initially.

Yeah, those primary, primary relationships. And it isn't always, you know, you don't start there necessarily, but it's one of those things where it's like it kind of comes around eventually. And it's fabulous fodder for jokes in terms of like, you know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes it's a penis. You know, one of those things. But I'm also, I bring the, so I bring a very eclectic approach to him, a very, you know, I look at Freud and value his contributions to that. I mean, I love that he said, you know, like the royal road to the subconscious is his dreams. and Young's approach and the archetypal things, the idea that we crystallize ideas into certain forms,

in some ways we create our own archetypes. It's kind of what some of our dream images are, and they're unique to us in the way we compose them. We get to write our own characters in a way. It's going somewhere with all that young, and just the broader range of dream theory in general. It's always been fascinating to me. So I don't know if you've done,

is that a part of your work at all, getting into the dream thing, or is it more, it's kind of talking out couples in the same room, don't really get into that kind of stuff too much. I think I go there if it comes up or if I feel like it would be important, like if there's sleep disturbance

or something trying to figure out, I am studying hypnosis right now. So that could be a little similar in some ways, I think it is, yeah. Looking for a way to really be able to tap into that unconscious and how that plays out in us every day and in our lives is really helpful. So the dream conversation comes up in therapy sessions, but it's not something I do with everyone. Definitely. Not like my whole show is built around it.

Yeah. for sure. Yeah. I would be interpreting them, knowing the person and knowing what they're trying to figure out, I can ask them more questions that seem like connections to me and see. For sure. What's on that? Yeah. That's why I think I've gotten more adept, more accurate. Just developed my skill a little bit in nurture the talent, so to speak,

by talking to people a little bit more before we jump into the dream thing. It used to be like, okay, hi, I got. to guess let's do the dream and then we just do it uh that's good too and then it kind of i have these wonderful synchronicities where i started getting most of my guests from this from the podmatch site where it's okay they're they're authors creators podcasters well what you know artists uh and we talk about them and then i get to say okay this is where they're coming from this is kind of how i start getting um a subconscious impression of who you are and then that sits there unanalyzed completely just you know the version of you living in my head

that hopefully is going to lean over my shoulder and tell me where to aim the flashlight in the darkness of dreams. It's a little more, little something in there. I love speaking in metaphors and whatnot. But I was going to say something about, oh, yeah. Okay. So hypnotism.

This is fascinating stuff. So a lot of the books I've been reading, there's been better and worse ways of conceptualizing that in my estimation from these various authors. But there's always been a consistent theme. of looking at, you know, dreams as some conscious experience and we are disconnected from the outside world. And then there's this somnambulistic stuff where we're lost in our head, but our body's moving around. Then, out of the flip side of that, but not the flip side necessarily,

but we're conscious. And then we have states of trance and hypnosis. And that was, you know, animal magnetism. They called it back in the day. And they, it used to be a magic show, parloric type of thing. And then they started looking at, well, we can use this medically. They actually performed some surgical procedures under hypnosis. And the woman was talking and conscious and they've got like an open whatever here. And they ask her, do you feel any pain? She says, no, I'm fine. And they go on chatting.

Doesn't work for everyone, not recommended. I'm not a doctor. This is not medical advice. But they, you know, assuming those stories are true, this is the documented history. And, okay, to bring him back to Freud, he's sometimes if a patient, so he was very heavy into dreams. Like, we're going to talk about your mother. We're going to talk about your dreams.

That's what I do. Freud said, paraphrased. And if patients didn't have a dream, he would have them fantasize. Okay, make up a dream. Tell me a story. Let yourself daydream. And there's actually a book I'm going to be working on too, which is the psychology of daydreams, which gets into some of that material.

So what does this relate to? I've got a theory. And you can, you know, and this is fun to have another, like I said, you know, fellow professional, you know, a kindred spirit. critique my ideas in a way. I'm developing a theory of dreams. I believe it seems obvious to me, and whether it's true, it's my working theory at the moment. The heart beats, the lungs breathe, the brain thinks.

And it just kind of, there's always something going on up. The wheels are always spinning. And what we experience as dreams in sleep is that continuation of the background thought processes that we have when we're awake. We think when we're awake. We keep thinking when we're asleep. And so we get dreams. I have this experience near the liminal zone of being aware enough to remember it.

Like me, I sleep like the dead. I sleep deep. So I woke up this morning and there was a, I was at a place with some people. I think it might have been a public park, but not a public park. Well, like a campground maybe. But there was a building and that's it. I don't know. I can't.

Like, that's the kind of dream images I get. Long story short on that. Oh, boy. You're doing a lot of listening. I'm sorry. This isn't a great interview. I was trying to explain my theory. Go ahead.

You had something to say. I can say that something interesting for your research on that or your formulation when you're, you know, writing that book or exploring that is that, well, I'd like to try any treatment or theories before I use them in practice. So doing, you know, going to a hypnotist or a hypnotherapist and doing hypnosis. And since I started doing that, I haven't had any dreams. So does that in place the need to dream? I wonder. But I have you sleeping pretty hard also. So maybe that's why.

It's tough to say it's so unique to the individual and to the circumstances. And I think there do seem to be broader patterns, though. Like someone who was a lucid dreamer from an early age, stays a lucid dreamer. Very few people become a lucid dreamer later in their life. There's something there. people that have sleepwalking or sleep talking, they do it throughout their life. It doesn't seem to change. So it seems like there's some stable, either personality or biological component to it. Definitely, I mean, if we believe hypnotism does anything, it could have the effect of decreasing

dreams for a time. You could be more tired and sleeping deeper. I think the ability to remember dreams does fluctuate per individual. But like if there's really prolific dreamers, like they dream all the time every night long memorable sequences that tends to be consistent over time um so i was building up to something with the idea of um thinking in our sleep i my inkling my current kind of what i'm leaning towards is that what we experience as dreams might actually be closer to what our waking thought process actually is if that makes sense because we don't really think in words and paragraphs and and nice, discrete ideas. It's a lot of images and associations and sensations and emotional connections.

And then we translate those into words. And even to ourselves, we tell ourselves a story about what's happening. But I don't think many people think, like, actually think like we think, if that makes sense. So there's something going on there. It's like our waking thoughts are our subconscious thoughts as filtered through waking attention, something like that. And this is not well formed, and I'm not, I'm not going to defend that to the death, but

there's something in there. So in a way, it's, it's like our subconscious expression in dreams is more, more like what it's like to experience thought as a self-observer without having the meat suit pulled over that to distract us in a million ways and put it in tension to our thoughts. I don't have that makes sense at all. Yeah, it does make sense. And, you know, the feeling of what I experience when I'm doing the hypnosis is that, like, I can feel the moment when I can access my subconscious. You know, it's like a, you can feel that like melding, like both sides kind of integrating and that you're accessing something deeper. And it's similar to what you feel or what I feel anyway. I can only say for myself when I'm falling asleep. But with. You never, you know, well, I guess you could fall asleep, but I haven't. And so it's like that crossover, you know, to.

Definitely. Yeah. And there's that whole, that whole field of you used to call it. There was observations of trance, sometimes drug-induced, the classic Oracle of Delphi style, breathing vapors from a vent in the ground, leaking natural gas. I can't believe they did that, you know, the kind of thing. They're like, let's go, let's go off vapors and get weird visions. Fair enough. But then there's also yet deeply meditative states. I mean, there's a lot of people who, they're looking for that as well, they're looking for that moment of detachment when they're like, they feel, in a way, kind of feel like they float free of their own self, their mind, their body in a way, without, you know, astral travel or anything. Although some people, I think have conceptualized it that way. Deep, deep meditative states is going somewhere. with that hypnosis.

I think I'm a poor candidate for hypnosis. I'm a little too much on the disagreeable side. Personality-wise. So I don't surrender control very well, not over my own mind or to anyone else. You know, I'm very personable. And, you know, I'm on this weird combination of highly disagreeable and extremely open.

I'm like, so that's why I will argue with anyone, you know, kind of thing. I don't think that's unusual or doesn't make you a good candidate. I think it's a function of how you process through the day and how you are. And like you said, you're always thinking your thoughts early. When you do something like that, you are giving yourself permission and to take a break from all of that. And you're giving it over to someone else, which feels pretty great for me to take a break from that. I don't know if you would call it control or like go. go, go, go and just be and then see what you discover.

That's a good open question for me personally. Like, would should, should I try it? Would I benefit from it? Is that actually something that would be good for me of like, you know, you can put this stuff down for a while and it's okay. It's not going to hurt anybody. If you, Ben, you're not that important. You don't have to think about everything all the time.

Then again, it's also my favorite hobby too. So I'm like, I don't know, 10 minutes of thinking about trying to think about nothing. I could do so many things with that time. But then I'll get obsessed with stuff and I'll think about stuff that doesn't really have any result. I'm just thinking. So, would it be better spent letting go of thought? So no, it's a good question. And I shouldn't be, you know, resistant in any way to exploring that.

I think that, you know, well, and then I should probably, as I progress through the, through the whole dream thing, get better at understanding, you know, what are those states of mind that give people better access to these memories, better focus. Whatever my process is that we're going to get around to in a minute, it seems to work for, you know, someone will tell me a two-minute story. We'll go through it again and we'll get 20 minutes of material filling in so many gaps. Because once you get back in, you're looking out your eyes at the dream, things come back to you're like, whoa, now that you mentioned it, there was another person there.

And this is what they were doing. And that wasn't in the story of the dream. 100% happens every time. So I never worry about that. I tell people they can't do it wrong because it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Whatever you remember, there will be more than you thought was there. I was going somewhere with that too.

I got up early this where I didn't sleep long. I'm in ramble mode today. I just love talking about theories and my obsessive, you know, fascination with dreams in general. Yeah, I've learned a lot in our short time talking. I think, you know, in terms of also the neuropsychology that you were just talking about, is very understanding all of it, you know, the different levels, really, and components and how everything works. Yeah, that's part of where I was getting to it.

You know, I've got all the historical theoretical perspective before we started doing more scientific trials. Probably the most recent dream researcher I'm familiar with is a William G. William Donald. I think it was the University of Santa Cruz and he built and it's still functional there. You can add to it. It's called the dream bank. It gets dream bank.net. And his approach was to start quantifying dream imagery. Like here's the type of setting. Here's the number of trees you saw. Here's the number of people.

Here's a number of interactions with animals. It's kind of breaking it down to those discrete elements and trying to find patterns in that kind of data. I don't know that he's come to many conclusions. I need to read more of his stuff. But I've been, that's going to be the fun part, is reading a lot of recent scientific papers. It's not as interesting as some of the older dream books. I want to get those all published first to get the foundational knowledge. And then now, okay, now based on where we've been, what do we know or what do we think we know now?

So. Yeah. So this is really good work. That's cool. Yeah. I do plan it. You know, I spent the first, you know, 20 some odd years doing, you know, inpatient psych to really understand psychology. and then I wanted to get around to doing something else,

doing something else. But putting another 20 years into this, I hope, someday I hope to become a real wizard and be maybe perhaps some kind of an expert that people could actually come to and say, well, this guy actually knows what he's talking about, and here's why.

We'll see. I don't actually want to be famous. I just want to be good, if that makes sense. Yeah. Good at what I do, yeah. That kind of thing. We're not talking a lot about you. I should ask more questions.

You were going to be working on a book soon, or you have one in the works, or you've already published one. I don't remember what I asked you. It's being released in April, April 23rd, and it's called Obstacles Under the Surface, same name as my podcast, and really looking at what is beneath our surface and how that affects how we behave, how we conceptualize things, how we interact with others, and looks at some of those themes. there to give people an idea of where to start with looking at different areas of what might be there. And then you can, once you have awareness, then you can have change. So if there's something that is causing you difficulty in your life or is haunting you, so to speak, you know, then you can process it professionally or on your own and move forward, you know, create the mindset you want.

Definitely. That's a so many people need to be more aware that that the first step is is is awareness of that there's a problem. Something's not right here. What are the what are the signs maybe? How do I know? But getting to some level of there's something to look at that needs to be addressed. And that's I mean, obstacles under the surface is is a fantastic metaphor for that. The idea of being on in the water, you know, and you can see some of the rocks up above the water, but there's some down below that are. going to scrape that hole, you know, because what you are is deeper and it's going to have obstacles to your progress and that too. I love that metaphor. That's great. Yeah, like an iceberg. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Titanic. So you don't want to be the Titanic, like personally. I think a lot of people do that too. Yeah, they had full steam ahead towards, you know, executing plans that are poorly thought out or in, you know, good old common. human cubris. I'm

I think I'm better than I really am and bam right into an iceberg. Yeah. Kind of reckless headlong plunging towards some goals without enough caution, enough proper caution in a way. Right.

A lot of people just stuff it down or compartmentalize. You know, they feel something is off, but they don't look into it and they don't realize they could be much happier and probably more successful. if they addressed it, but nobody wants discomfort either.

Our brain sears us away from discomfort. Yeah. That's a tough one too. Telling people you should be, you should be temporarily less happy to become more happy later. And they're like, but I could just be a little less happy all the time and not have to do that hard part. And I think most of us do.

I think most of us kind of pick and choose are comfort level with discomfort in a way. And no one yet, no one ever changes until, they decide this isn't working anymore. And that's, I was talking about that with someone, too, there's like, how do I conceptualize magic? Because I think it's real, but in a metaphorical way, you know, this I call myself a wizard. I'm speaking magic words, I hope. And, you know, understanding cause and effect to the extent that I can help people predict the future, their own future, this is going to go well or poorly because here's the chain of events. So trying to use that wisely and to good effect.

I was going somewhere with that. Magic Wars magic, the idea of magic, changing our mind. There's what we believe before, and then there's a new understanding that is different than what it was before. And they don't actually touch in a way. There's something in that gap between what we used to believe and what we now believe, or how we saw something and how we see it now. That's where I think there's some kind of a magic, magic happens, the eureka moment that, that, that suddenly we see the world in a different way.

And something we've, I mean, psychology's been trying to figure out, how do we make that happen more consistently? We've got some pretty good methods. But then at some point we have to admit it's a roll of the dice or synchronicity or right time, right place. There's some esoteric or metaphysical concept in there. I think that is what I describe as magic. There's some magic to changing your mind that I certainly don't understand.

I don't know if that speaks to anything you've experienced. Well, I definitely think that there are signs that come up in our life, whether it's something that you physically see or it's something that jumps out in your mind all of a sudden that wasn't there before. And, you know, where does that come from? Everyone, I guess, has their own beliefs. Yeah. Yeah, there's also kind of a magic to associations in the mind. Like, why does one thing make you feel something or remind you? another. We can kind of understand it. It makes sense to us, but then it's like, what made that

truly happen? I love the ancient Greek conceptions of what an idea is and what a, what a daemon is, which is, you know, that became demons and we mistrust that. But it's a inner voice of intuition and the sudden, it feels like an insertion of something that was not there before. Why do I suddenly have this understanding, this idea of a thing or a new idea or the idea of a new form of a thing. But so was it Socrates, he consulted his diamond about whether he should flee or allow himself to be put to death. And he always, he said that he trusted that inner intuition.

And that inner intuition said, don't run. This is, this is how you lived your life. you need to end it this way. Very interesting. Now, you know, there's, I'm not going to get on anyone's case if they'd prefer not to drink hemlock. You listen to your diamond, you know, whatever, whatever that is. But I think that's, I think a lot of people are suspicious of their own intuition. And sometimes for good reason, because we jump to the wrong conclusion. We have, you know, inclinations to be self-protective that might shoot ourselves in the foot. But, but also, we can't ignore it. That's, doesn't help either. You got to be able to trust that voice in a way of saying, you know,

if that voice says something's not right, it's not, it absolutely is not. Now, what it is, it's going to take some figuring, maybe, but those senses are very rarely wrong, you know, very rarely any more wrong than me going, you know, having a sense of touch. This is a pen. It doesn't tell me what to do with it. I could throw it across the room and the cattle chase it, or I can write something with it, but there's a tactile sense there that gives us as much feedback is that intuitive sense. Right. Yeah, I think too many people ignore that intuition. And I describe it to people as as a physical feeling as well as the awareness of it. And you think, you know, either of self-doubt

or you think, you know, I'm just overreacting here or, you know, being judgmental, if it's something that you sense about another person. And I fully believe in, you know, taking a pause and thinking about things and processing things before you act on them or make a decision. But there is something to that feeling that I don't think you should ever ignore or push away and say that's that's not right. You know, it's their reason to tell you something to warn you, whatever it might be. Yeah.

I'd say especially if you don't understand it. Don't suppress it. You know, don't jump to conclusions. Maybe don't act on it yet. but don't push it away, certainly. Sit with it and kind of, and then there's just that problem of, well, that's an uncomfortable feeling. That intuition feels achy.

Yeah, because it's a real threat. I was thinking about this. It made me remember, you know, you said something about like a pause and pause and think about it, you know, give a moment for consideration. I used to, many years ago, understand the idea of, well, sleep on it. It is kind of like, okay, don't rush to a, to say. decision yet. Metaphorically sleep on it. Lately, I think, no, no, no, literally sleep on it. I have had so many things I went to bed, not being able to figure out, I wake up the next day,

and then the idea comes to me in a way that I don't think it would have had I stayed up all night trying to solve a problem I was never going to get because I needed to just turn the active, focused attention off and let my thoughts be what they are and see what pieces fell into place. it's become such a consistent solution to a lot of things that I can't recommend it strongly enough, literally. Sleep on your problems. Go to bed and let them sort. I definitely think there's neurological processing that can't happen while you're awake, you know, especially with tough problem or decision.

Your brain figures out for you while you sleep to some extent. I think that's a great way to put it. It's like a neurological thing that cannot happen when conscious attention is. is in the way. That's actually in some of these other books. Rediscovering, I'm finding confirmation of currently accepted theory. I am rediscovering that it has been thought a long time ago. And they talk about the idea of, there's been a lot of conceptions of how to understand

sleep, dreams, daydreams, trance, hypnotism. So along those lines, they talk about the idea of abstracting your thoughts. And what they meant at that time was, you know, not thinking abstract thoughts, but the idea of abstraction, the moment of distraction in attention that suddenly yields a new way of looking at something. You let yourself get distracted away from your, step away from the problem, think about something else. What I call it is let it percolate, like brewing coffee. It's not done until it's done. It's going to take as long as it takes for that water to flow through the grounds. and then you'll have an actual pot of coffee.

I was going somewhere with that. But step it away from problems. This was all in relation to your book, too. Yeah, yeah. So I'm really looking forward to that. And I thought the podcast would be a good way to delve into further topics that, you know, I can add to the book, maybe what in the future. And also have guests on and give their perceptions of different parts of that.

their expertise. So that's been a really neat experience too. Yeah, how many episodes are you in now? Oh, I'm pretty new. I think I'm on eights. Okay. So I started like with the new year. Good deal. Yeah, well, I was in the same position about two years ago. Now this will be what is it, episode 117? That's crazy to me. I've been doing this, you know, at least one week. I'm trying to put them out there. It'll only take the next 20 years to get a thousand episodes. That's okay. I'll do it. I'll get there eventually. Any, you don't want to ask the, who is your favorite guest? That's not what I'm asking for, but does anything stand out in terms of some conversations

you've had recently that were, you know, you probably wouldn't have without inviting someone to talk in that kind of forum? Well, I always like to talk, especially to people who have knowledge in areas that I don't. So one guest recently is an expert and is an addictions council. and, you know, as an expert in that area and not, I've never done that part of counseling. It comes into our sessions, obviously, for people that have dealt with it in the past, it's not the presenting concern. But it is quite interesting, and he was really into neuropsychology too.

And so he was talking about that, about what parts of your brain impacts that, what processes you have to go through to get to recovery and sustain. And I learned a lot from him. So it's things like that, you know, and it's things like talking to you today and this being such a different area that I, that you focus on and that you learn about and have an extensive knowledge of that I don't that I really enjoy. I like learning. And, you know, I think that can only benefit my clients and my own concepts that I developed to put out there to hopefully help people get to a better point.

place and solve problems. Yeah, for sure. Well, you're such a good list here. That's probably why I've been talking so much. But then I just ramble anyway. I'm trying to try to, it's a weird, it's a weird thing. It's like I can't just not care whether I'm carrying the conversation, my half of the conversation in some ways. And then I also just have a bunch of ideas that are always trying to, let's down. Hey, that just made me think of a thing. Let me tell you. So. Yeah, it's hard to sit with silence. You know, it's. It really is. And then, well, there's also, so there's that.

And if we were just chatting, I'd probably relax a little bit, you know, but with the recording thing, like this also needs to be interesting. I need to have something interesting to say, there's a lot of pressure on that. I mean, are you finding that as a host of like, well, I mean, it would almost be, I should just stop talking and ask you. What is your experience been as a new host trying to make a show? I can definitely pressure to keep the conversation going

and to put out interesting conversation and material for the people that are listening. I sometimes find myself that I've talked a lot or even in session sometimes. And that's when I remind myself to stop and ask a question to deepen my understanding and deepen the conversation. So that's usually where I go with it.

But yeah, when you're doing something like a podcast, podcast or recording, you are, you definitely feel that pressure to, to talk. And mine isn't video either. So you take out of being able to see people and being entertained by that, you know, facial expressions, interactions, whatever. And it's just the audio. So it's, it's a little different in that way. For sure. Yeah. Well, you've probably seen me doing that same thing in terms of like, wait a minute, I'm talking too much. I have a guest. There's actually another person here. Let me stop and throw it back to you or, you know, return the focus back to

and people hear me say these things all the time. I've repeated some of this stuff several times. But the interesting part, the new part is you and I want to make sure, you know, whoever the guest is, they don't feel put on the spot, but they also feel heard. They feel like they have their chance to talk, something unique to contribute. So if they go to, you know, speaking of your folks, go to hirefulfillment.com. They got links to the podcast and stuff like that. Yes. That'd be kind of the one-stop shop.

Yep. Everything is there. And everything is on Instagram too, I think. And the link tree there. So I connect everything. That's one thing I haven't done yet is a link tree. I probably should. I've got like literally 16 different social media.

I just spam my new episodes too, that kind of thing. So, but I want to go where people. art. Like if you're on Twitter and you're not on minds or whatever, okay, I'm on both places. You can find me wherever you want. Right. Kind of what I'm trying to do on that, a little behind the scenes, like the shop talk type of stuff. Yeah. And that takes some time, too, to just put it all out there on all the different forums.

Takes a long time to kind of get the concept of what you're doing. Like, what is this thing? That's like when I started looking at the dream thing, I'm like, I want to do dream interpretation so I can just be Ben the dream guy. And I'm like, or, you know, I considered a bunch of different branding things. And I'm like, you know, there's a history and tradition of magi being dream interpreters. So ancient wizards in Egypt and whatnot. And the modern concept, you know, probably the most popular or well-known wizard outside of Harry Potter is Gandalf. I'm like, there's, but then I also consider Socrates a wizard. Oh, there's a lot of wisdom. Nikola Tesla was a wizard.

in my estimation. There's a lot of wizards. And there's evil wizards in my estimation. Those are the necromancers and enchanters that manipulate people like puppets. You know, magic, so to speak. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just saying good and evil in the world for sure. You realize that I think, you know, the more life experience that you have. And, you know, maybe some not great experiences, but also the really wonderful ones. There's a dichotomy there. And, you know, you know, we were talking about magic earlier and presence of good and evil is something that I think we can see pretty often. For sure.

But I was going to also what, so what does that term mean to you or what do you, I don't understand that term completely. Fair enough. It's probably been a while since I've explained it. Well, I thank you for asking about me. It's my favorite subject, right? I do actually have for anyone out there, let's see if you go to the, you know, Benjamin the Dream Wizard on, on YouTube, you'll find episode two of my Encanus phylecterium.

I love clever titles. It's just like Latin for word container, a place I keep my words, any random thoughts I have. So I did an episode, what the hell is a dream wizard or a wizard in general? Answering the question, does this guy really think he's a wizard? Yeah, actually, I do. But not in the, I can't conjure a fireball and move things with my mind. this is, you know, psychic powers. Maybe they're real.

I don't know. I don't have them. Okay. So we go, I go to the root of the word, and it's W-Y-S-E-Y-Y's, the idea of the old, you know, wisdom. And basically the archetype of the wizard is, you kind of see it's an old, old man, long gray beard because he's old and he's been around and he's seen a lot. And he walks with a staff because, well, he's old, you know. But he's, um, he's. And as I mentioned before, it is a person who can speak magic words, things that are true, things that are useful, things that are of benefit to others, words that cause a change in the world, you know, for good or real in one way or the other.

And the idea of the classic trope is also scrying in a crystal ball. They can see or know things that other people don't, esoteric knowledge, long, deep study. think of a wizard in his tower surrounded by books merlin merlin style from the disney movie and but also that seeing the future is understanding the laws of cause and effect and that's a lot of what we do i think in psychology which is the human laws of cause and effect if you go down this road bad things will happen if you do not want bad things to happen if that's your goal in therapy i can tell you or we can work out together how to get you off that path and choose a better path so i think of you know, to whatever degree you would agree or, or, or not, I think you might be a wizard in your

own right in some ways. There's a certain, a certain level of intensity of focus to it in, in a area of specialty, maybe, but I, I think we're, we're, there's more wizards in the world than people realize. And, and they're, you know, we, we have different ways of conceptualizing it today. I'm bringing, I'm bringing back the old term. I don't know if that makes sense or if there's some points of clarification you wanted to get into. Yeah. Just to give you a heads up, Benjamin, I have about a half hour. Oh, shit.

I'm so sorry. We just rambled. We haven't even gotten to the dream thing. That caught me. Caught me out of garden. I swallowed some water the wrong way. Let's, you know, let's do this because I didn't realize we only had a half an hour left. the dream thing can usually takes longer than that.

So why don't we do a different approach? You said you've got dreams of a certain theme. And we were talking anyway that this was going to be a tough approach because you may not have one complete specific instance of a dream in a given night beginning to end that you could run through. Yeah, they blur. They blur together. So why don't you tell me about the dreams in general? And we'll see if we can make some.

something of it, you know. Sure. Yeah. So, let me do a little timestamp here. 50, 30. Okay. Yeah, we should have

gotten to this like a half an hour ago. We just said too much fun talking. Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you pierce the veil of night and shine the light of understanding upon the mystery of dreams. Every episode of his dreamscapes program features real dreamers

gifted with rare insight into their nocturnal visions. New Dreamscape's episodes appear every week on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey, and other video hosting platforms, as well as free audiobooks, highlighting the psychological principles which inform our dream experience and much, much more. To join The Wizard as a guest, reach out across more than a dozen social media platforms, and through the contact page at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, where you will also find the Wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature, on Amazon featuring the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com.

What are these dreams about? So the being concept is this place that I go to, you know, that I've never, my knowledge, gone to in real life, but it looks slightly different. each time or is so it's a house and sometimes the structure of it

is a little bit different but the outside always looks the same the entryway is always the same you I don't here's maybe an interesting part I don't really go in

the first floor of it other than sometimes when I walk through to the left and go there's it's a it's all empty, at least on the first floor, from what I can see.

And sometimes I walk through to the left, this big, empty room with two, like, regular glass doors that people have on the back of their house that open out and go outside there too. And it's like a remote house that I don't know if it's on top of a mountain, but it kind of like gives the feeling like it's elevated. and walk around out there. But I think the more interesting part is that I always go in the front door first and go up the stairs. And the upstairs always looks different, but it's very big with a lot of rooms. And I get the feeling that they're empty too, like the first floor. But it's a familiar place to me. It's not like in the dream, I don't feel like I'm going somewhere.

like why am I here or why am I going in someone's house or going into this house kind of thing? It's I'm supposed to be there. It's familiar to me in the dream, but I don't know why. And so upstairs, like I said, there's lots of different rooms, but they're kind of differently placed and different sizes. And sometimes during the dreams, during one dream, they will shift. So I'll walk back to the one room and I think this is the one I go to the most. It's like a really large bedroom. And sometimes it's like a regular square room with lots of different beds or sometimes one bed.

Like it's almost like, you know, with a really big family, like maybe if you're few kids share that bedroom or sometimes it's just one and sometimes it's more narrow like a rectangle and there's a hallway and you go back into another room but what i'm doing during the dreams is really just walking around exploring and sometimes i'll think i'm there with certain people and then i walk into a room and realize that there's other people they're all people that i know there's other people there and those are the people that live there with me or that I visit often and I just keep walking around exploring sometimes I'm trying to figure out who goes where like who would this bedroom be best for should it be should there be people sharing this room

or should this be a singular bedroom? I don't ever do normal activities of living, like eat or sleep or in some ways it seems like I'm there a short period of time, but then it will feel like a lot of time has gone by and I didn't realize how fast the time was moving. Okay. That's the general idea.

Yeah. I think I wrote down. And going back there, when I have the dream, I say to myself, like, oh, I'm here again. You know, I recognize it. So when you say you recognize it, I'm here again, do you have a bit of a, do you have the experience of knowing it as a dream or just, oh, I'm back at this house and not really understanding the context. Like, I am sleeping. I don't think I've ever realized it's a dream until I wake up. Okay.

when I'm in it, it seems like current life. Gotcha. That is the typical experience of most people's dreams. No, no inkling. And there's even a controversy that is anyone really a lucid dreamer? Or do they just have the dream experience that they're dreaming and that they're controlling their dreams, whether they are or not? That's impossible to prove. So you might as well say, all right, if you feel like you have control of your dreams, it makes you happy.

So be it. That's probably what? it is. Kind of like, are we living in a simulation? Who knows? A few things. I realize they're a dream. Yeah, but not this one. Yeah. No, but it is a familiar place and a place you feel like you belong or belongs to you in a way or a place you're welcome. Yeah, I don't always, sometimes I feel like it belongs to me. Sometimes I don't, almost like your house hunting. But it's,

but it's not just, it's someone's house that I know. You know, it's not foreign to me. So it's not like house hunting in that way. Like I'm really looking at, you know, just going there to see it or see if I want to buy it.

It's, it's like a visit. For sure. Or it's like coming home. And you said, as, if we get this a timeframe, you said,

when, when did you have the, first stream of this kind, when's the last time you can remember having it? Roughly. So I've probably been having it for about 10 years. And I haven't had it in a while, which is strange, because I usually, I would say have it every couple months. But I probably haven't had it in like eight or nine months, at least. Not a full year, but it's been a while.

Okay. Okay. You said that typically or always it is the same exterior of the house, but sometimes it feels like yours and sometimes it doesn't. Right. Very interesting there. So you're entering, you're entering a space that, so if the house represents some consistent idea that doesn't change, what changes might be how that idea is being used. how it relates to something else? Where am I trying to go with that? What's an analogy for that kind of thing? Seeing the same thing in different contexts. Yeah.

Go ahead. That makes sense to me. I think that based on maybe what my mind is trying to figure out or accomplish, is why it shifts in some way of internal composition. There is an interesting relationship, speaking of the word relationship, between your professional work and the idea of a home being a place where people live, usually people who are related or in a relationship with each other, the distribution of people into rooms in the house, where do they fit, where do they belong, what is the shape of the room as it relates to the people, how many people can share this space or should? You know, there's a lot of exploration of, of the decision-making process in terms of, that seems like it relates directly to your professional work. Have you thought about it from that angle?

No, I hadn't. Okay. I, that was kind of my first thing when you're like, oh, and sometimes there's, sometimes there's people there that you know or that live there with you. And that might even be the broader concept of your house, your own. personal relationships. And then sometimes there's other people and you're trying to help them find their place in their rooms and how many people can fit into a room. There's something there. I want to stop there for a moment and let you kind of just say anything comes to mind or, you know, give some

feedback on that kind of theme. You think we're heading in some right direction? It's tough when there's broad strokes and we haven't started with a discrete instance. So really challenging myself to bring some unique perspective to it without asserting this is necessarily true. One of the questions I always am left with when I wake up is why was there a different composition of people there? You know, that seems like something. That is a puzzling aspect of the dream experience itself. It's like, why different people this time?

Sometimes it's my family. And sometimes it's like family friends. that live there. Yes. Gotcha. Yeah. That doesn't surprise me with the idea of if you're examining the broader concept of, so the first, not the first, but along the lines here, one of the first things that came to my idea is this is, this house is actually your own mind. So in your, you've got this representation of going into your own mind and everything moves around in there. You got, but, but there's, but there are places and there are. And there are.

your concepts of people and your relationship with them and their relationship to each other. I don't know if I'm, it feels right like I'm on to something like, you know, of course this house is familiar to me. I live there. Well, but then I think I would always feel like I live there.

Like I think there's something in, in what you're saying and relating that to the fact that sometimes it's not my house or going to be my house. And I'm not thinking of, you know, in the dream, it's not like, well, last time I was here, I lived here. And now my family friends live here. Yeah. It's just.

We do need to account for that. My thought, and I did, I did kind of press it like, okay, well, how does that, how does it fit together? My thought was, sometimes what you're doing is you're going into your own head to look at someone else's situation, if that makes sense. So you do go into the same. It's something about the consistency of the exterior and the variability of the interior. is where I'm going with that. And sometimes the variability of the interior is an odd experiment, if that makes sense. You know, you've changed it to say these people are not the same because now I'm considering,

I've gone into my own mind to look at the broader concept of how relationships are composed and now the pieces in the rooms are different. And this isn't actually my house. I'm thinking about someone else's house. Does that make sense of that element of it? or yeah it either resonates or it doesn't if it doesn't i'm on the wrong track and that's fine um no i think it does resonate yeah i mean i think that's a good good interpretation of it and and a probable one that it's related to my work and it's related to figuring things out and trying

to help people figure out where they fit um i don't know if this is helpful yeah the one is that i don't really question anything when I'm there. But the one thing I do question is why parts of it are empty. Or sometimes I question why the layout of the rooms changes. Like sometimes the hallway to the left has like 10 bedrooms. Sometimes it has two. And that is an experience you have in the dream. Like you become confused by that at that moment.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not reflecting on the dream. Like, why was that different this time? It's like, so there's something about experiencing that confusion about the layout that is relevant to that experience. So these are usually better going through a single experience.

I'm not going to make any excuses. That is what it is. Just looking at some of the other things. So let's actually go back through the notes. There was, I did want to get to that idea of the first floor being, typically empty. And even the second floor, a lot of the rooms are empty, but the first floor really noticeably empty. Like there's nothing here. No, nothing. No furniture. No furniture. Nothing. Yeah. Someone's moving in or moving out. And no one who lives there. This is not like

living room furniture and a dining room table. And there's something about the first floor being unoccupied that is meaningful to you, that expresses something. If we go with the idea that it is you're going into your own mind to have a look at conceptualize this as let's let's intentionally run ourselves through some problem solving in a way what does it mean that the first floor is empty there's no obstacles but it's also not lived in this is this is not a space for people to occupy and live if that brings anything to mind yeah it's definitely feels a little cold to me because there isn't anything in it, but there is a warm sense to it too because everything is light colored, like there's lots of big windows, a lot of

at least on the first floor, a lot of light coming in, like light wood floors, light colored wall outside of the house is light. It's not, it's not what, I think it's like, um, it's like light colored siding on the outside. But there's also, once or twice, there was like a semi-wrapparound porch, and I was out by myself. I don't know what that means. I wasn't doing anything, just kind of taking in the landscape. If we go with the metaphor, getting out of your own head and just being, just chilling,

just enjoying something pretty. It could be it. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so there's, yeah, I think that's interesting to me that it sometimes feels cold because it's empty or it can feel cold and warm at the same time because of how it's interrupted, it feels warm, but because it's empty, it doesn't seem homey, it doesn't seem. Yeah, I wonder if something came into my mind about, like, professional distance, something about that space says like, so you've got to, um, a physical manifestation of you've got to physically enter to then progress to doing what else you're doing. But in order to get to the upstairs where the problem solving happens or the interaction,

the consideration of things and their relationships and the, there's something very, very, okay, two things there. One, first thing is you've got to pass through a layer of emptiness, almost a barrier. The idea comes to my professional boundaries in a way of like, okay, you're going to go through this place where you don't live here. Nobody lives here. This is a place devoid of things.

We're going to, but it's not devoid of things. It's more that it's, it's things that don't get in the way is what I'm going for. It's like there has to be that layer where you're not invested in it. And the people, you're populating the dream they don't live there either there's something else that occupies that space and it's not ugly but it's not warm and welcoming exactly like lived in holiday cheer type of

celebratory atmosphere it's a little more cold clinical sterile professional perhaps all of these things come to mind if that's really you're like yeah or not so much or you have a different take on it now that i've said a few things well i think that what that reminds me of is my need, whether it's my personality or whatever it is, that to have transitions between, you know, parts of my day is one example. So like if I go right from work to something else or right from work to home with, like I feel stressed or overwhelmed without transitions. Yeah. Or like just be quiet and think. So that's, that's what that brings to mind for me, that that would represent that transitional space that

maybe I crave in life and don't always get and really just disturbs me. Like, it's hard for me to shift without transition time. Oh, yeah. No, I feel that 110%. So that's a better, maybe a better way of it isn't really, yeah, it is more about the transitional space itself. And you've given yourself literally an empty space that has no purpose other than existing out of space in a way.

And it's neither a good thing or a bad thing, but it's not meant to actually be anything. There's no furniture there. And actually, that's very interesting too, because it's on the first floor. And that's what gives you access to those double doors that lead out onto the porch where you can just chill. Maybe your transition is,

I'm not going to deal with problems today. I'm going outside because that's what I need to do. And then we've got the idea of going up to help the people. And you, so that was the second. idea I was going to get around to, you know, every time we consider a new problem, it's going to have familiar elements. It's going to be a room of a new size. And my thought was, and maybe I'm reading this into it and I'm hearing you wrong or not, but you seem to be more confused or

puzzled by the fact that the rooms do change more than why a particular shape, or how would you parse that out? Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm not really puzzled by the shape. It feels, the shape feels normal other than the dreams where the room shifts. Like if I leave a room and come back and it looks different, then in the dream, I'm thinking what's going on here. Yeah. But something came to mind just now, the idea of we never enter the same river twice.

You heard that before? I mean, probably. Yeah. There's something there. Like we enter the same room, we never enter the same room twice. I mean, it's later in time, molecules have shifted. We can get very technical with it. But it's the idea that it's, you know, it's this continuity over time is a funny thing.

So there might be something there for dealing with. So there's there's something very measurement oriented in the shape of a room changing. Or the fact of different rooms of different shapes at different times. you know, so you're, you're, you're having the experience of the representation that the configuration of the room, the physical space of a room, means something. And it's, I'm trying to tease that out. It's measurements. I don't know if that's making you think of anything. I'm running up against a lack of words. I don't really know what to make of that other than like maybe trying, trying to decide

if it's something to, like, is this something I have to figure out or something I don't have to figure out kind of thinking? There's also, there's a, I mean, it's not a scary dream, but there's, there is an element of fear in that sometimes I lose people in the house. And then I'll find them in a different room. Or if I come back and it's a different size and let's say there was four people in there before and there's just one now, then I kind of go and look for the other three. So it's, I don't know what the measurement of it, how that would, how to exactly connect that.

Yeah. I'm listening to you and let my own thoughts. There's something about knowing the measurements that gives us a sense of control in some ways. Like, if we know how far we have to drive, we can adequately fill our gas take. There's like a functional element of preparing for something based on an accurate understanding of what it is. And there's some kind of a metaphor of properly grasping a situation in knowing the shape of a room properly and that each situation is different in its shape. There's a lot of what I think our brain does in these in these dreams is used as the,

these associative symbolic representations of concepts as so the concept of getting an understanding of a situation might be what is the size of the room and how many people are in it you know what is the size and shape etc what are the dimensions uh when we speak of that to the the the layers of a problem or um multiple problems stacked up together um i want to look at the time frame too um speaking in time. I know we got like maybe five minutes or so, but I think we're close to giving you something to sleep on at the very least. Did you start your own private practice about 10 years ago? Is that where you might have entered or some new phase of it, open a new location, branched out, started accepting a different kind of clientele?

Yeah, I mean, that is around the time when I went out on my own, maybe a little bit before that, but I was already thinking about it. And so that. it could be related in that way. I mean, those timelines do match up somewhat. Probably about 10 years ago was when I seriously started thinking about how to do it, to put it into action. Gotcha. Yeah, so I think there is that, and there's usually almost always something like that,

some event, some shift, some new problem. And then if we think that's related, possibly less than a year ago or thereabouts, you might have finally come to some sense of some faith in your own competence in a way that made the dream unnecessary to recur. I think there's something in there. I mean, I'm getting themes of like the professional practice

of helping people understand the situation of their relationship dynamics and who fits in what rooms and how they all live together. And you return to that, like, am I doing it well? Are there new problems? And maybe I wanted to give you an explanation too for the idea of why are you puzzled that the rooms keep changing. Maybe, maybe there's something in there of the idea of like,

I thought I had this room problem sorted out and they keep changing. Why do they keep changing? Why do I keep being presented with new challenges to my experience and expertise that that still puzzle me? I'm like, wow, I thought I'd seen it all. I guess I haven't. Does something like that feel right? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. That is a challenging feeling when you feel like you are a good level of knowledge and something challenges that level of. knowledge or I feel like in my practice a lot I I tried to shift the way that I work and sometimes even concepts to fit the strategy or to fit the individual like I pride myself on having a very individualized creative out-of-the-box approach but that internally does feel like this is challenging you know yeah it's not. I've tried to lean into that pridelessness when I hit things where I'm like, I have no

idea what to do with this. I should probably just say that. That kind of genuineness of like, wow, I'm here with you and I'm supposed to be helping and I'm stuck. I don't know what else to do. And I'm just going to own that and we're going to keep trying. Sometimes coming to that place And I'm not perfect at it. I've still got my pride, you know, and get my backup on things. But sometimes getting to a place like that where you're more comfortable with the idea that I may never know everything. And that's okay.

And that's probably I should have known that all along. And you can let go of even the desire to know everything and go, okay, it'll be an interesting when I run across the next challenge that I'm never ready answer for it. I'm going to need to think about it. I'll get it eventually. I'll measure the room. I'll find out what people fit. but that idea of needing to have an immediate answer for everything, you know,

that might have faded for you as well. And I think that is also a comfort with competence as well where you got to prove yourself and you do. Well, you got to demonstrate you can do the job. But at a certain point, you're like, I'm only human and I will always face new challenges that make me need to grow a little bit and stop and think and do all the things I tell my customers that are healthy for them. I got to do it for myself, too.

We're back around at the beginning of a conversation with, like, you know, self-care in general. So I would be interesting to see, interested to see if this dream comes back. And there's, I would say, in my estimation, there's a good chance it might, but very much less frequently. You may not need it anymore, but it's one of those things where something will probably come up. And most likely it'll be not professional. It'll be personal. You'll have some challenge to a personal relationship where you need to go back into the house and take a look at the rooms again. And this time it'll be people closer to you.

And you're like, what do I deal with this? You know, where does everyone supposed to live? So, well, I hope we got at least some interesting things to think about. Some perspectives you might not have considered before. Yeah, definitely. I'm surprised I didn't think of the idea of the first floor being empty as like a transition. or like a, you know, a space that you move through. I forget exactly how you described it.

But when he said that, I made sense. And then I made me think, why didn't I? Yeah. A space is designed to be empty and is consistently empty. That's amazing. So, and I was, I was wrong. I was leading it. I rattle a lot of doorknobs.

And I'm happy to be wrong. If I say something wrong, you're like, not that, but think about, but I just thought of this. Brilliant. That's, that's what I'm here for. Sometimes I trip and stumble into the answer on accident and face first. Yeah, of course. It works.

I'm happy if it gets the job done. Yeah, yeah, definitely gave me some interesting things to think about. Very cool. Well, I know we're on, oh, go ahead, sorry. I just said, I am curious if it ever comes back. Like, I kind of have been wondering why it hasn't. Yeah, good chance you don't need it anymore until you do. And then a lot of times those, as I call it, crystallized.

iconic representations of a specific type of experience, eh, might come back. Just to say, well, this is familiar enough, a way of processing this concept. Why reinvent the wheel? So that might be some of the magic of recurring dreams. Right. Yeah. Well, I do want to respect your time. I'm going to try and get you out of here.

And I could have rambled less. We could have talked about the dream more. But we had a good chatty either way, huh? That was a great experience. Thank you. Yeah, nice. Well, it's been great to have you. And I'm going to tell the audience here, we've got, this has been our friend Katie Wenger from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is an individual and couples therapist, author, with a focus on psychoeducational materials. She's got a book and a podcast, obstacles under the surface.

You can find her at hirefulfillment.com. Link in the description. Also on Instagram at The Relationship Consultant. And for my part, I'll just say, please like, share, share. subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers. 16 currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent, Dreams and Their Meaning by Horace G. Hutchinson, available at Benjamin the dream wizard.com. I always pop up a little thing, bloop down here.

And also, MP3 downloads the complete list of all 16 books. And Katie, thank you for the conversation. I appreciate your time. Yeah. Thank you, Benjamin, for yours and for having me. Good deal. And everybody out there? Thanks for listening.