Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 128: A Modest Proposal

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

“It's not technology that does the harm, it's the person wielding it.” ― Abhijit Naskar https://manujaggarwal.com/

Greetings friends, welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Manuj Agarwal from Vancouver, Canada. We're going to get right back to him in two seconds. He is an elite technology consultant and business mentor. You can find him at Manusagrawal.com. Links in the description, of course. For my part, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends. Always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for all kinds of great content on this channel.

Oh, I don't have my book. I have a book for sale. The most recent of Book 16. the ABC series, Dreams and Their Meaning by Horace G. Hutchinson, resurrecting the, uh, as many books of historical dream literature as I can and, and making them available in, in the current and greatly enhanced editions, if I may say so myself. All this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. Uh, complete listing of all 16 books, audio MP3 versions of podcast, uh, growing encyclopedia of terminology and historical figures, all that good stuff.

That's enough about me. Manu, thank you for being here. Appreciate your time. Absolutely. Thank you. for having me. I'm excited about this. Thank you very much. I always love to hear that. The people who are coming to talk to me have, have at least somewhat of an equivalent fascination with dreams. You know, find that they do have some kind of a meaning to them, you know, that there's something we can learn from it,

that it isn't just, you know, delusional fluff, random stuff in the middle of the night. So, yeah, but I've been doing this long enough, and I've believed that for a long time that we can, you know, get something meaningful out of it. But let's start with you, you know, elite technical consultant and business mentor. I don't know if you want to say a little bit about your history

and your practice of your unique form of wizardry. Yeah. So my background is technology. I've been building software for about 30 years. Worked with hundreds of startups. I've worked with Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Pearson Education, produced a value of about $500 million with the technology that I built, impacted about 10 million lives in healthcare, education and all that.

And today I'm considered one of the leading experts in the field of artificial intelligence. I have four patents in AI. That's who I am today, but my journey started back in India. I used to work in a factory for $2 a day, working six days a week. So, you know, going from where I was, you know, I got some inspiration. Maybe it was a dream that sort of I worked on and found my passion for technology. And here I am today.

Oh, that is very cool. That is quite a rise to success. I mean, I would say, you know, you're in Canada there, but basically in the West like that. That's why a lot of people come over this way from wherever they're at is the ability to kind of turn what you got into something meaningful and build it up, you know, in a way that maybe in some other cultures or economic circumstances, it's not. not as easy to do so. Exactly. That's very cool. Well, you touched on AI.

I have concerns about whether, uh, what that's going to do. Um, I've been having some, uh, online discussions, we would say with, with, with, with folks where I'm, so the, the people who, what am I trying to say? The people who disagree with me, perhaps they would look at me and say, oh, you're just a Luddite. You probably thought the Gutenberg printing press would, uh, change. society for the for the worst that it would be a disaster and i'm like i get i get that there's there's people out there that are just ludites that are like no new technology it's all bad like

i'm trying to sort out the good from the bad and it looks like a i is going to be my my concern is always that it's going to be um there's this kind of a three part three parts to my concern for a lot of things but whenever you're is the um quality of the change the quantity of the change and the rate of the change. And I think sometimes we, the change is too big. It is of a type that is radically different. It is too much discreet change all at once.

And then it is a pace of change that outpaces our ability to adapt. So I don't know if you have some comments on that in regards to AI. Yeah. So these are great concerns. These are valid concerns. But what I will say, let's address a few things, right? AI has been around for decades.

It's not a new thing that just creeped up on us. It has been around for decades. I've been working with AI for 15 years. I have built solutions in, as I said, healthcare and education with AI and many other industries. And if you see that our world has already been sort of, you know, influence, if not controlled by AI for the last 15 years, ever since platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

and Google news came out. At the end of the day, these platforms are nothing but AI algorithms. Right. So you can see, you know, from recent political sort of moves, even today, like even going back to 2014, 2012, 2012, 2008, elections and public offices are won and lost using AI, using data, right? So the idea is that now, so earlier before 2022, before Chad GPT was released, AI and the power of data was used by a handful of people who understood how to use it, what to do with it. And those people became very, very powerful, very wealthy.

But now it has been passed on to the public now. So the balance of power is now sort of democratized. way it is actually good to have everyone get access to this technology, not just have it concentrate in a few hands, right? Oh, yeah. Okay, so now the next thing is the rate of change and the degree of change. I completely agree that this is a huge change and this has, this is a bigger change that humanity has ever, ever experienced, right?

I feel it. Yeah. Yeah, before this, as a person who, you know, who understands human psychology and same here, we have always valued the intellect of a human being. Now, intellect is commodity because, you know, there is, as you said, we cannot compete with the machine anymore. So the good part of that is that if we are not going to value intellect, what are we left with? We are left with our humanity, we are left with our empathy, with, we are.

left with our ability to connect with each other, that a machine will never be able to replace. So if we look at it from that point of view, we are actually going into a better society where people will value expression, people will value connection. You know, if you look at history, the Renaissance period and some other periods where art and art, literature and those type of things were valued more than anything else, we will be moving into, you know, that type of society, in my opinion. And now the final thing is rate of change, absolutely, this is going to catch a lot of people by surprise.

And a lot of people will need to be upskilled. Some people will be left behind. But this is the sort of the technological sort of a breakthrough that we have always anticipated. We knew it was coming. You know, even if you go back to what, 1950s, there have been science, size, sci-fi movies imagining this this this juncture and here we are so it's not to say that we were not given a heads up but but but you know now is the time for people who can bring about

positive change with this technology you know that's why i'm i'm on this uh podcast and this show with you share uh what are the positives about artificial intelligence so that people can actually start to embrace it and not get left behind, right? So the idea is to move away from misinformation, move away from fear, because frankly speaking, the fear itself is created by AI. I mean, these news cycles are generated by AI. And so they are going to bubble up the news which are more sensational. Right. But I'll give you a quick example of that. A lot of people I talk to, they say, oh, Elon Musk is saying stop AI, ban AI. So I'm like, oh, okay, do you know how he became

came so rich because he started a bunch of AI companies. Yeah. You know, his cars are, it's all AI. I mean, self-driving cars, what is it? It's AI. And those self-driving cars, they actually killed people, literally killed people. Because when the technology is nascent, it's in infancy, you have to, you know, test it. And the other thing is, he was actually on the board of Open AI, which developed Chad GPT.

And then he resigned saying, Tesla is developed. developing more powerful AI, so it will be a conflict of interest, which is true. Like all his companies, you know, SpaceX and all that, they have very, very powerful AI algorithms. So to say that, you know, Elon Musk is saying stop AI, you have to look under the covers and see, okay, you know, maybe there are, maybe he meant something else. Maybe he meant this AI is useful, but society is not ready to handle it or whatever it is, right? Or maybe he has ulterior motive. Like he doesn't want, he wants to have competitive advantage. Who knows?

Yeah. The point is that the, the way his point of view is nobody understands, but we read the news and we sort of apply our own ears, our own judgments based on that. Make sense? Yeah, for sure. Oh, there's so much great things in there. What I've been processing is, you know, I wrote down a few notes. I'll get to those too. But the bigger theme seemed to be that there are perhaps a variety of levels or layers.

or layers to what AI actually is. And, you know, this is everything from diagnostic AI that you programmed to say, look at these few things like with a car and tell me if the smog is right or if this is that. And then a machine does the work of analyzing these things and outputs of results. It's its own kind of very extremely limited,

you know, insectoid kind of AI. Way on the other side is the self-aware sky net terminator future where the machine becomes, I'd say that's my probably biggest concern. We're maybe way off of that. Maybe it can never happen. I mean, it's something technology cannot do is become self-aware. But the idea of a machine that starts thinking for itself and has the freedom to decide humanity is a good thing or not.

It might have access to power to act on. Now, this, you mentioned the sci-fi stuff. And this has been our concern for not even just the past 100 years. It goes back to, say, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It goes back further than that to 2,000-year-old myth. and legends about, you know, human creators trying to play God and make a golem or, or a, you know, a robotic-like creature built it out of clay or what have imbued with the breath of life and it turns on its master. I mean, we're, my biggest concern would be in that

idea is that because we are flawed, because humans are flawed, our creations will necessarily be flawed in ways maybe that imitate us, have our same foibles, or with the best of intentions, we're programming stuff that we don't actually know what it's going to do because we can't see the mistakes we're putting into it. Humans always got to decide what the machine does, and then the machine will do that for good or ill. So those are some of my first thoughts. Well, let me address that.

So see, the way that I look at the world is that there's only one species on this planet which evages organize war against their own, which is humans. And the reason why we do that, as you know, is not because of the, other person is bad because of some emotional drama or baggage we are carrying and we want to project it on other people, right? So if we extrapolate that to other species, you know, yes, they may kill each other for hunger or, you know, for other purposes, like, but they never like organize a war against their own or even other species.

And so to say that, you know, machines will have ambition. they will have jealousy. They will have, you know, cunning to harm other people. That's, in my opinion, it's unfounded fear because there is the only way to put something like that in a machine is if a person actually figures out how to create that trauma, that childhood trauma that pushes us, do bad things as an adult, and program it into the machine. And in my, like, I, I understand human psychology.

I understand human mind. And I understand AI. I don't think, you know, there is, there is going to be a time when I can just say, okay, let me write an algorithm which imitates a traumatic childhood. Right. And plant it into, yeah. You hope nobody does, right? Even as an experiment, just to see what would happen.

That's a, yeah, probably that idea. That would be like intentionally creating a creature. new species of creature to suffer unnecessarily. Yeah. Which is a big, so the reason I was trying to tease out, you know, insectoid AI versus fully self-aware, humanoid AI is maybe that's what Elon Musk meant is like don't, he didn't mean never use algorithms, never use search functions that like we got the chat GPT thing where you can type in, tell me all the news, tell me the top news today. And it will write a little paragraph or two highlighting just looking out there.

What are people talking about? And it'll give you that data. So based on your prompt, you'll get, and that's AI. It's using its own intelligence based on your parameters to execute a search function and return results. Google's been doing it for, what, 20 years. So there isn't, that isn't necessarily bad. I'm trying to ride that line in between let's not be Luddites that don't allow any change, because change is going to happen sometimes.

And very often it's for the better. Something new comes along. Let's see how weak this can make our lives better, new tools. The other side is, let's not go too far. and recklessly plunge ahead towards a cliff. We don't know what's at the bottom of. Maybe there's a swimming pool down there. Maybe it's rocks.

So I'm very much the cautious guy like, you know, before I, you know, I'm going to walk up to the edge and have a look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Caution is always, yeah. I mean, I think there's going to be regulations. There's going to be some rules implemented. This is sort of the Wild Wild West right now. And this happens every time when there's a new technology.

Like, you know, when internet came along, you know, there was a lot of confusion. What the hell is an internet? Why do we need internet? Right? Like, what is the website? Yeah. And now we cannot live without that.

You know, then smartphones came and they're like, what is a smartphone? You know, why can't I get a regular phone? What is an app? Why do I need an app? We cannot live without apps these days, right? So that's just the cycle of technology that happens. The only thing is this is much bigger cycle now with AI.

And it's much more powerful. And it's going to be transformative for a, for centuries to come. So we are just at the beginning of that. So I think over time, these things will sort of, you know, smoothen out and we'll have a much more pleasant experience with it.

Yeah, I hope so. And you mentioned some other things. I'll get back to the idea of sentient, you know, or self-aware, the flaws that humans could program into it if we're not careful.

So I'm always recommending caution. But also that decentralized, democratized power of it. You know, so again, the sometimes I take a stronger view in when arguing against a strong view to bring the balance to it so some of the folks I've been you know just in discord on other servers arguing with folks but I'm trying to be very centrist about it in a way or find the golden mean of let's not stop the development of new tools a the invention of fire the wheel great things radically changed how humans interact with the environment but not necessarily bad and then people put wheels on on on and shoot each other. Okay.

So any technology can be used for, for real. But the idea, so I've been, so I'm not a, let's reject AI at all. So I've been playing with it myself in terms of what is, what can this thing do? And some other,

you know, podcasters I've been listening to. They do weekly shows have done some entertainment pieces where they're like, okay, give me a character from a video game in character and have them address my questions from the perspective of that video game character. Yeah. It makes some interesting conversations.

And then you can kind of say where, you know, it's, it misses the point sometimes because it doesn't get that nuance or it's inconsistent because it says something, you know, it fills in the gaps. And then it says something later based on the gap it filled in. And actually that's not something the video game character would say because we understand personality and how it's a little more stable than that. And we don't say contradictory things or sometimes we do say contradictory things. And being too rigidly logical is not actually what humans do.

do, whether it can for good or bad. So I like all those good points. And I would side with Elon in terms of, as I said, the self-aware AI. I don't know if there's a way to, in a minute, that's something I can ask you is, can we ride up to that line and just not flip that switch? Is it going to happen or not? What do you think? It is a funny thing.

You know, we worry about that. But again, you have experience with human psychology. in my opinion, 99.9% people are not self-aware. Self-awareness is the least common quality that humans possess. You got a point there, yeah. So to think that we will have the resources, the insight to, I will say it will be a big step for humanity to become self-aware ourselves first and then worry about anything else, right?

Yeah. I really hadn't considered. like that is that I wonder if we might reach for it poorly. And I wonder if we might, you know, we're probably going to get to the point where we can fool humans into thinking. I mean, the touring test, you know, am I talking to a person or a machine? We're getting to that point where we can't tell the difference. Well, that's also one of my concerns, too, is what's going to happen if chatbots get let loose on the internet? I think there's already some speculation. I don't know that raw data that up to 60% of internet traffic is bots.

Now that might mean, you know, automatically posting ads based on keywords in your content on Twitter. That's a bot that regulates. So that is posting, that is a bot posting content. But when we get down to is this a real person making comments? And then, but also that democratizing the power thing. It's kind of like if only the wealthy elites have this power, then they can shape public opinion in a way. But then are we going to get into bot wars where it's like, okay, now everyone's got a bot. and they're trying to create the false impression of, you know, manufacture consent for

different things by showing, look how many people agree, which, speaking of self-awareness and logic, it's like if anyone's really dedicated to logic, they'll know it's a logical fallacy to say the bandwagon fallacy, look how many people agree, I must be right, like, look how many people thought the earth was flat. It used to be everybody once upon a time. So, but then again, humans aren't always logical in that regard. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, the thing is that what I'm trying to.

to say is that when only a few people have access to this technology, they can sway the public opinion in one way, right? But if everybody has access to the same technology, then the other side can also use the same technology and counterbalance it, counterbalance the force. And the aspect about, you know, most content will be created by AI and stuff like that, If we look at human history, the press, the propaganda, the marketing, everything is generally controlled by some algorithm, some power. I'll give you a quick example, like the monarchies in the world, they have a symbiotic relationship with the press, right?

If the press goes against a monarchy, they are out. right? And so who controls the press? It's basically the human capital and the real capital, money, controls the press. And now the same thing is going to be translated into digital world. And if you look at, so the end effect will be, yes, there will be some trust broken, but then slowly people will start to recognize what is fake and what is not fake. You know, we look at, you know, we look at branded clothing, branded, you know, like luxury goods. Oh, yeah. There is a fake market and there's a genuine market and there is a way to tell, right?

Like people who can tell, they can tell. And so that's how the world evolves. There's always going to be imitation. There's never, there's never been a time in history where there's not like imitation or falsehood or what have you. But then people are smart enough as we evolve, as our mind evolves, we are smart enough to figure out what is what. So I think, yeah, I mean, there's going to be, as I said, this is a time of transition. And in time of transition, there's confusion, there's fear, there's a lot of, you know, all of this stuff, all these emotions come out. But as things sort of settle down, we'll figure it out.

and then that's part of evolution, that's human evolution. Yeah, given that alternative, you said a great thing too, which is that we've actually been, humans have actually been executing our own algorithms for centuries, millennia, possibly. And it is, you know, like the, and connected to the press too, I want to get there as well, but we look at, it's a, you know, propositions, if then statements, and different things that we put into logical practice. And we do it at scale, especially. with say governments or monarchies in the past and how do I keep my head on my shoulders,

keep the people happy, do what I think is right and work with all these various different factions. And it's coalition building sometimes. And so we've actually, you know, all we've done is move it into technological sphere. We've outsourced some of our thinking to machines. Just like we used to outsource physical power to machine, a lever, simple lever, that kind of thing. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think, so talking to you is definitely, it's been good. explore this subject in this way for me because I don't think I've had the people have argued with haven't quite had the insight you've had in terms of addressing the concerns specifically. They tend to go some of the folks I talk to, uh, tend to go a little more towards

mocking me for having concerns, which I don't think is productive. I'm like, yeah, but that doesn't say anything about it. Am I right? You know, so it's good to get a, get a broader perspective from someone who's, uh, you know, who's kind of been there done that and kind of sees where it's going a little more clearly. Yeah, that's a good experience to have. I had no idea this conversation was going to go in this direction. I never know what I'm going to talk to people about, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good, though. And bringing the idea of human psychology into it, too, is that we've been hacking human psychology for years. And that's kind of where even back in Mackey Valey wrote, you know, wrote the prince. And he's like, here's how you hack human psychology in terms of

being a good ruler, an effective ruler. And for him, that was, you know, staying in power as well, she can't do anything if you don't have the power. So you're how you stay in power. And here's how you use it to keep yourself in power and keep things stable. And so it's been, but it's been growing ever since then. And putting the power of this is where I was going with that, too, the idea of putting that, the power of speech in more people's hands in terms of allowing people to print pamphlets. Yeah, you're going to get a lot of propaganda.

And, of course, but you were getting propaganda before. It was just in the hands of the few that were able to authorize it in their own way. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And then one more thing I will say is like you brought up, you know, brought up human psychology and self-awareness. See, I believe AI is actually extension of our human psychology. And the advantage will moving forward will be for the people who are higher, who have higher level of consciousness, who have more empathy and who are self-aware. because those are the people who will be able to really use this technology to impact bigger number of people, larger groups of people. So people who are just purely capitalist, they are not as empathetic. They are not as self-aware.

So I think they will have less advantage moving forward, actually, versus people who are more self-conscious, more self-aware, and more empathetic. I think it's a good point too, yeah, because even if you say endorse capitalism from the, from the perspective of, well, I have things to say about that too, but from the perspective of functionality, like this is, this is what seems to work best. Planned economies, top-down governmental stuff, it seems to go wrong more often than not. So this is the better way. But, you know, I look at, I look at, in my estimation, there is no such thing as quote-unquote capitalism. That's been a phrase term. I look at it as the freedom of association. and the right to voluntary trade, you know, by, by mutual consent of the people. So you can, you know, and these are the freedoms that we have, the self-ability to self-express that lets us say, well, I'm going to use my, you know, in the right of private property, I'm going to use my labor to make a thing. You want that thing.

Hey, let's trade voluntarily. And you can decide who, but all, all of that has got to be subsumed under the ethics of what is it right to do. I can't poison the earth. I can't do involuntary trades with people. I can't say buy my product or else. These are bad things. So, you know, there's a, if we're going to have capitalism,

and it seems like we do need to and have to and should. But it has to be ethical, ethical capitalism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm trying to say, right? Like, so the purest, a purest capitalist who is short-sighted will say, oh, you know, cut down all the jungles and I'll make a lot of money. but then somebody with foresight and the power of AI will be able to say, if I do that, it's actually harming me my long-term prospect.

So I may as well take it slow and find more sustainable solution or something like that. So that's where I'm going. Like, with AI, we will be able to like steer the world in a more positive direction and find better solutions for our biggest problems that we are facing. Yeah, I think like any tool, it's going to have to be put to good use. You can use a gun to defend yourself against a wild animal. You can use it to kill people in war. It's just the tool.

Yeah, we got it. We got to be smart about it. I hope we will be. You know, that's the biggest thing. I think even, even if things go a bit wrong and they almost can't help it, but I don't think it'll be an absolute catastrophe. Just depends on how wrong it goes. That's my concern. I'm like, usually, usually what I'm encouraging is like, let's just slow down a little.

But I, you know, this is. is also part of how I approach things is I take a long time to think about things. And I make sure I've thought about it, not once, not twice, but dozens of times. And I try to pick apart my own. So by the time I'm done thinking about something, it could be 10 years later. And a lot of things move faster than that. There's still some things I'm trying to figure out, I've been pondering for 30 years. And, you know, that goes back.

You've got a Buddha statue there. I mean, it goes back to people still constantly rediscover and reevaluate ancient wisdom from 2,000 years and more. Um, you know, I'm working on a, uh, one of my first original publications is going to be, uh, you know, a wizard's guide to Asop's fables. Uh, and that's two thousand years old. And it's a lot of, it's a lot of human psychology in there. Things we've known for a long time that again, just for a new generation. Hey, this exists. This has existed for a long time. You need to understand this. And here's how you can put it into practice. Here's what these. Basically, you know, wizard's guide is it's like the psychological principles behind and within the, the, the stories that we tell each other. I think that's one of the most powerful ways to get a bit. And it's, you know, message across. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, we've had a great chat for a good while, but it seems like we might want to get into the dream stuff before we run out of time. You feel ready to transition? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All right. I'll just make a little note here of the time. 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,

available on Amazon, featuring the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube, and at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. Okay, so as per my usual process, I just shut up and listen. Our friend, Manuja, is going to tell me his dream,

beginning to the end, whatever you remembers. Dreamers out there, you can't do this wrong. You know, the pressure is all on me. So then we'll go back through it again and help me see it more clearly. And we'll try and get you an understanding that makes sense to both of us. So I'm ready when you're right. Okay, well, so this was an interesting dream I had maybe two or three days ago.

Back home in India, when you get married, you generally get, you have an arranged marriage. In an arranged marriage, your parents pick your spouse and you know, you go meet the whole family. It's not like a dating thing. You're in a group scenario where in this dream, I was a young boy about 20, 22, and my family had arranged to see a girl. And we were invited over to visit them in their home. and so basically what ended up happening, we had, we had tea, you know, we had refreshments, whatever. And then I started talking to her younger brother about AI and technology, which didn't even

exist back then. Right. I didn't know anything about that. And then she was like, you know, just in the corner sort of looking at me, like, you know, why are you talking to my brother? Why are you not talking to me? And so that was a very interesting dream. That's sort of the summary of it.

Okay. I write as fast as I can, but always takes me a minute. And we got... Okay. Great. Great. And that's all we need. I've said this so many times lately, but I talked to one gal and her entire dream

was just the sensation, the experience of falling through a void slowly. And we talked, we talked about that for like an hour. So we can, we can do all these things. Let me go on to a second page here. All right. That's it. So we get the, just the vague description, whatever you got. And then we go back through it and try and help me see it a little more clearly.

So this is definitely based on there are different classes of dreams. I'm trying to break them down in my mind. But I start trying to tease, okay, where are we at on this landscape? What would these symbols mean in terms of how to navigate the environment? you are in a very realistic scenario versus a very fantastical scenario. So this is more practical versus speculative maybe. So you've got this, in it you are young again. And so you're thinking in terms of the past or your past self, that kind of a thing,

or relating something you're going through now to what it was like then under those circumstances. I'm going to guess you did or did not have an actual, arranged marriage yourself? Yeah, no, I didn't. I did not. Did not. Okay. So this is, so then, then we're looking at that too. So this is a very realistic, practical, possible situation, not fantastical at all, but very down to earth. But it is also an experience you never had. So that's an interesting type of type of thing. All these things start going through my head. I'm like, okay, what are we looking at here?

What is this thing? Right. So, um, all the characters in this story were your, real family and well my parents were and yeah the other like the the girls side i have no idea yeah and that's fine and and very well it could have been different it could have said you know this now that i think about it this was a girl from my childhood and at one point i had entertained the thought of what if we had been arranged to marry but he didn't he didn't look familiar to me Yeah, and that's its own kind of thing. So this is an unknown quantity versus, say, a familiar, if it was a familiar girl, we might be looking back to what was your relationship with her, like what was going on

in your life at that time that made that stand out to you as a possibility. What made her, you know, an attractive partner beyond her appearance, that kind of thing. Trying to catch up some of my notes here. Okay. So what is the first, say, visual image you had in the dream? Was it being at the home of this person? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

There was like a living room with a coffee table and, you know, like tea on the coffee table, that type of stuff. And if you were to describe, okay, I'm trying to tease this out. Sometimes there is a sequence of events that happens. I start here. I move there. I do this. the whole dream itself could have been also like almost the way you described it like a lot of the backstory is summary presented to you but really the the first image is you're in the corner

you know you're talking to the brother about AI and all the rest of it is set up that didn't actually have a visual story to it is that kind of how it went or was there I think no so the the dream started we arrived at their place okay I mean so this is a usual scene in in many movies, you know, Bollywood movies and everything. So it's the usual scene, you know, so we entered there, you know, we had some, uh, small talk.

We had tea. Then sort of, you know, people sort of disperse after half an hour, you know, they go on. And then I, there are a couple of people left in that sort of living room, a few people left, right. So it's not like I am alone with her. So there is his brother. And I'm shy.

She's shy. So I'm like, okay, you know, what like, what am I supposed? what we're doing here. Yeah. But then I just move over from this side of the living room to the other sofa. And then I just sort of start chatting up with her brother. Okay. Was there, um, the arrival to the home.

So you've got a little bit of a memory of that. Um, was there a, um, what am I trying to say? Um, what, what type of home was it in terms of, um, class? You know, was this? Um, I mean, yeah, middle class. Not very flashy, like, you know, just, yeah, I mean, yeah, just, I will say, lower middle class, lower middle class. And that was also your same class in India when you were younger? Okay.

That might be its own kind of distinction if it was different. So there's a mismatch. Oh, hey, I'm marrying up or I'm marrying down, but maybe for reasons. This was, no, imagine she's about the same. This is a lateral move. this is a good match maybe in terms of being at the same level. So there's things about that. It would be a much different story if you're looking at this,

like in all the things that stood out were reasons this is never going to work. And you were terrified that you were going to be forced into a marriage that you didn't want and then knew was going to fail, that kind of thing. One detail came up. I'll share with you, but let's see how it goes. So I got married and then I got divorced with a girl. And there is a thing where, you know, my ex had some acne on her face. And since then, since the divorce, like, I have not like, I mean, you know, not.

I'm just saying like I've I've developed a sort of a resistance to acne. And then in the dream, this girl had acne. Okay. So, you know, maybe that's some link there. And that's why we talk about it. It's like, why would you think to bring that up in the description of the dream? And you may not have even considered it until you started looking at her. And I was going to get to that.

What were her physical qualities, you know, any feelings you had regarding that? So there was maybe a little hint of a negative element. And it doesn't matter. You know, nothing wrong with people. The acne happens. And it could have been the love of your life was, you know, had acne. It's like, so you consider it cute. It's like freckles, you know, whatever.

And so there's no judgment on that. And for either way, you like it or you don't. You know, it's a, someone's got a preference for short redheads. So be it. Good luck to you. Right. So what I was trying to get to, and we're going to come back around. That's just good.

Anytime. cut me off and throw in details. If you think of something, fantastic. That's actually the entire reason we go through it again to look at it is really help me see it

and help you pull out a little more details if possible. Was there in order to the approach to the house in terms of where people were walking? Was it like your parents in front, you're behind them, there was like a line,

were you kind of pushed to the front leading the way into the house? I don't recall, no. I don't recall that. Basically the scenes sort of started when we were in the living room. Whatever, from what I recall, we were in the living room.

That's where it started. Gotcha. And that's, yeah, so that's what I try to tease out, too, is like a little bit our brain fills in and says, okay, here's the backstory. Of course, this is how we got here. You don't mention driving in a car. You probably did. I mean, it just wasn't really, that really wasn't the point of the dream.

So sometimes the absent things tell us, tell us a lot, too. You know, you've arrived. So if there was any kind of a procession. in a way, a leading into the house. Who was in front might make a difference in terms of being guided by someone. I was put up front to be put on display in a way or to be, maybe you were the one who was like really pushing for this range marriage. So you were eager to get to the front door.

There's a lot of different ways to look at that. So that's why I asked those questions. Narrow out some of the possibilities. Was there any particular seating arrangement in the living room while you guys are all having tea? Yeah. So as I said, like, you know, I think. from what I call, I was on, let's say, the left-hand side. There was a coffee table in the middle.

The girl was sitting on the right-hand side corner, and the brother was on the right-hand side sort of in the middle. So I moved from the left-hand side to the right-hand side later. Okay. Yeah. Was there any particular discussion during the tea time? Was it kind of vague pleasantries? Or was, yeah, small talk, you know, how's the weather and like not much.

Nothing, nothing of substance that stands out in terms of topics introduced or. Yeah. Okay. Definitely just a just a regular kind of social, social visit. Do you remember anything that happened right before? Well, you said the, that portion of it, you kind of go through the niceties and everyone talks about the weather and all that good stuff. And then eventually it kind of breaks up into smaller group discussions or getting to know people one to one.

And that's also typical. That wasn't unusual for this type of setting. Is there anything that immediately preceded that any kind of a marker or event or phrase or anything stands to mind of like here's here's the person who introduced the transition point. Okay, we're done. Move on with doing the other stuff. No, no, no. Nothing stands out. Okay.

sometimes there are transitional elements that like when this happened then immediately after that this happened and sometimes that that gives us a connecting link to but this seems like it's all so everything's normal it's all realistic and this is pretty much how it would go

but for some reason you deviate from I'm gonna go talk to the girl because I'm supposed to marry or maybe I need to maybe I should speak to her let's let's start let's start this now but you did mention you're both you're both kind of shy um did you have

have in the dream the impression that she actually was, that it would be an imposition to go and talk to her? So you went to talk to her brother instead? Like, you were just putting it off for a minute or, um, yeah, I guess. I mean, so, so, so, because I remember at that, in, in that age, I was never too sure what to do. Like, you know, as, as, as, uh, as a young adult, generally in these new situations, you have no idea what, what to do. Oh, yeah. So, um, that, um, I'm, um, that, I was a, yeah, that was a familiar feeling for sure. That was a, because I remember in many similar situations, especially with the opposite sex, I had no idea what to say, what to do.

I was just like, you know, try to figure out what else I can do with there. Yeah, that's good. Another very realistic element of like, you know, if I was in this situation, I wouldn't just go straight up and talk to the girl because that's not, that's not something I would ever would have done. I don't know what to say. Much easier to talk to her brother, but you're still kind of moving in that direction. Maybe it's like, you know, you talk to her brother and then you work your way around.

What I'm getting to as well on that is, what let me not jump the gun on that. Did you start the conversation? Hey, let me tell you about AI or did it evolve into that based on something he said and you're like, oh, that makes me think of this. How did that topic introduce? I think, no, I think I think just I just sort of moved over there. and maybe I, if I recall, maybe I had some small talk about sports or something like that. And then sort of it started transitioning into what do you do and what are you passionate about, these type of things.

I think that's how it went. Okay. Also, all very, very practical, realistic, exactly probably would happen. Do you remember, so initially it was a bit awkward shyness. you go and talk to the brother. Did your emotional state change as you were talking to him? Did you become more confident and less anxious, that kind of thing? Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, as we were during our conversation about AI,

like I get very passionate about it. Yeah. So it was similar, I think, from what I recall, it was similar reaction. Like, sort of, you know, he was excited about learning about it. and I was, like, excited about talking about it. Okay. So you've shown yourself, and again, I like to look at opposites. You very well could have gone to him, and he was just a jerk,

and he didn't want to hear anything you had to say. He treated you coldly, turned to, you know, welcome. Have some tea. I'm going over here, you know, but he doesn't really mean it, you know. It also could have been, you introduced this topic to him, and he's indifferent to the topic. Like, he just has no interest. He's polite about it, but you can tell he does.

doesn't care. So you're imagining you're speaking to someone who's genuinely interested who values, say, your, your insider understanding because it's something that they haven't heard or don't understand. So you're very much putting yourself in that. You know, and sometimes people say, oh, dreams are wishful thinking. And it very well just could be, but why in this way, you know? But definitely we're also looking at thought experiments. And with thought experiments, we don't even look at how likely is this? We look at what if this, what? was true, how would it play out? What would my reaction to it be? What might it look like if that scenario plays out in that way? Do you remember any of the things you were specifically telling him or questions he asked you on that topic? Since there was more of an engagement. I don't recall exactly, but I think as I do, like I encourage people to, you know, understand technology or go into that. Like when I talk to young people, I'm always encouraging them to like,

you know, find a career in technology. So I think I was sort of advocating that type of stuff. Like, you know, look into going into technology or don't, you know, learn a little bit about it. It's fun and whatnot. Okay. That's where your description kind of ended. Is that where the dream ended?

Like a pretty much huge... Yeah, yeah. I think as, I mean, as far as I remember, because it's kind of difficult to remember all that. It is. It is. Yeah. But you kind of woke up during the middle of the conversation

or the conversation wrapped up naturally and, you know, handshake things. Yeah. Okay. So I think what happened was because I knew I was going to come to this. And then I was like, okay, you know, I need to remember the dream. and I think what happened because maybe this is a next dream or maybe it was a continuation

I can remember okay what happened was I I was coming out of like after that sort of scene ended I was coming out of a of a big theater of wearing some really flashy

you know like like almost like you know, Elvis Prisley kind of a dress like outfit and looking like a rock star or something. And there were two other guys with me wearing, it's almost like a Beatles coming

out of a, you know, of a movie theater. And we were like, oh man, like, you know, we crushed it or whatever. So it was weird. Yeah. So this scene of meeting the girl with the families introducing each other under the arranged marriage context, then talking to the brother. And when that kind of wrapped up or whatever, it may be hard transition or fade into now you're leaving a theater. Did you have the sense that you were the performance that you were the? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gotcha. And how did you feel about that as you're walking out? like, oh, we nailed it. Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I was, like, taken back at the outfit. I will never wear something like that, right? And, but then, I was like, oh, I mean, that, like, it felt, obviously it felt like, you know, we were, like, on top of the world, and we, like, you know, we were, like, rock stars,

basically. Did you recognize any of the other guys that were with you, friends from your life or any features about them stand out? You know, they were also... We were wearing identical outfits. Okay. So it was like a rock band almost. Yeah, yeah, you did mention that like the Beatles style.

So that's interesting too. You did not put yourself as a solo. You're not like the king has left the building. No, the group has left. You're a part of a group that put on a successful performance and you felt good about it. And it was a little... You were surprised at the...

outfit because, you know, you don't conceive of yourself as someone who is flashy, who's like, look at me to this, to this extent of wearing something attention grabbing. Yeah, yeah. Very interesting too. And you didn't, yeah, you didn't put yourself solo. So it's more of a maybe, I didn't do this alone type of type of focus. Whatever I, whatever I succeeded at, I did it in the context of with, with a group. Well, I think I, I felt like I was sort of the lead lead at some, at some, like.

Like, I was the lead at, like, yeah, I mean, that's the sense I got. Yeah, well, because of course you were. But, no, you very well could have, could have not been. You could have been actually a backup singer and had that impression. No, but you actually had the idea. But then also it's like, well, you might have been the leader, but you didn't do it alone. You know, I think there's also that kind of an element in there, too. You were not a solo act in that regard.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Did you do anything? Just get into a limo? Did it transition to another scene? Yeah. I think there was like a big flashy cars. Like we got into, or it could have been like one of those, you know,

um, those, uh, like flashy bus, like, you know, the luxury bus, luxury tour bus.

Yeah, yeah. The rock cars have, you know, I was like pretty stoked about, you know, that vehicle for sure. Yeah.

And did you have the impression you were on your way to somewhere else next or? Yeah, I don't know. We just like maybe, yeah. After that, I think that, was the end of it because I woke up after that.

I was like, wow, that was like and it was very vivid. I mean, I've never had such vivid dreams before. Nice. And you said this was about two or three days ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I may be maybe it was the anticipation of coming to

this conversation. I was going to say, yeah, I think it very much is. I think, and that's not surprising at all. Now, you might have been the first person who, like, had a dream literally about coming to talk to me. This is this is a new one here. I'm a little uncomfortable with that, too,

in terms like, I'm not, I'm not a solo act rock star either. I'm trying to be very humble. I'm like, oh, you know, but then this is also, it makes a lot of sense, too, because before I go there, there are a lot of people who have a dream.

They think they want to talk to me about, but our appointment's scheduled a week out. And then the night before they talk to me, they have another dream. And that one feels fresh and intense and important. I'm used to the idea that people know they're going to be talking to me. and they believe something valuable will come from it.

So they are seriously considering the night before, what should I talk to him about to get the most out of this experience? So it's very common someone has a fresh, brand new dream because they're going to come and talk to me. I don't think I've had anyone who had a dream like literally about talking to me and what it might be like. No, no, no. No, no.

Okay, okay. Metaphorically, metaphorically. No, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. I don't think you have to backpedal down. that at all. I think that's exactly what it's about this experience, if that makes sense. Now, you can add your own two cents. Well, I mean, I, I, I, I just, I just, like, you know, before, three, four days ago, like, I was like, okay, you know, what, what is this, what is going to

happen in this? Because I was, like, intrigued and I, I didn't know what was going to happen. I was like, okay, you're going to interpret a dream. And I, because you, I think you sent an email as well, like, you know, bring a dream. Please make sure, yes. Yeah, which dream. And I was thinking about another dream that I had long time ago, which I couldn't, can never forget. So I was like, okay, maybe that's too abstract, but maybe I'll just talk about it. And then I just forgot about it. And then that night I had such a vivid dream about this. I was like, oh, man, like, this was a complete movie in itself.

Like, I've never had this dream. And so maybe I'll just mention this one, you know? Yeah. Ever since that idea kind of popped into my head. It happened a few minutes ago, and I'm like, let's just let this get as much detail. as we can before I say anything about it. So there is, there is an element of arranged marriage to scheduling a meeting to speak with someone.

There's, there's you and me as the meeting arrangers. And then there is you and me in the meeting. And that's kind of a different experience where, so those people in the past that were our separate past selves, obligated our future now self to be here doing this. And what is it going? going to be. It's like, I think an arranged marriage is a fantastic metaphor. And that's probably

what, if it makes sense to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And so, so you, you, that might be one of the reasons why the girl wasn't that important. And maybe even gave her a little bit of a flaw from your perspective in terms of a negative association with the prior, um, prior partner is that, and then the reason you're, uh, say, now that I'm in this social, kind of a bit of a, Whoops, lose my pencil. A bit of a forced social situation. You're going to talk to the brother about AI, you know. And I'm very happy to have been someone who was genuinely interested and engaged, enthusiastic,

and wanting to, you know, hear your perspective on things. So actually the way you imagined it going, you kind of cast, in a sense, me as another person. But you anticipated this is going to go well. This person is actually going to want to hear what I have to say and engage with the material. Um, and following that, you, you had an additional level of confidence to say, I'm going to walk away from this looking like a rock star. Now, maybe I didn't do it on my own. Maybe that's a little too self-agre. I'm part of a team.

I'm part of a team. I'm going to be humble. But, you know, and very satisfying through performance. So that a very, very, uh, speaks to it. I'd say, you know, personality wise of self-confidence. I know what I'm doing. Uh, this guy seems genuinely interested. I think this is going to go well.

Um, and, you know, if we were to look at it, uh, from one, um, um, angle, in a sense, it ended up being a prophetic dream, which I couldn't, couldn't have told you ahead of time. But, you know, only now, from the, from the sense that if you're, like, if you're enacting true, true wizardly powers in the practical sense, you can see the future a little bit because you understand cause and effect. You can read people a bit. You can, you can predict relatively accurately how things are going to go. Yeah. So, and sometimes these things, the way I said about dreams being wishfulfilments. Sometimes we tell ourselves harsh truths.

We say, no, this is not going to go well. You need to realize why. And here's a bad outcome. And that's a nightmare. Fair enough. The other side of it is we can also be very realistic and say, I believe I have good reason to believe this is going to go well. And here's what it's going to look like.

And here's how I'm going to feel. And that reinforces our confidence. It's like a little self-pep talk in our sleep. I think that's great. And then the idea that, I think it also speaks to your humility to that, the idea that you would put yourself in the flashy outfit, because that's what performers do. They draw attention to themselves. They are there to be looked at. But number one, you're not comfortable with the flashy outfit.

It's like, I'm not, this isn't, that wasn't the point. The point is not, look at me. The point is something else. The point is the performance. But you also did it as a part of a group of like, well, I didn't do it alone either. You know, and maybe other people have helped you along the way. or you do your best work in team settings. You can bounce ideas off of people.

This is where, I'm just going to stop for a moment. You tell me what you think about all. Yeah, this makes sense, man. This is, yeah, like, wow. Yeah, I'm speechless now. Very cool. Well, that's, yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, very interesting way to look at it.

And I wonder, I wonder how many other things I can. interpret in my life based on those dreams. Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes dreams are very specific to a single issue. It can be explaining to yourself why you believe something, exploring something you're not sure what to believe. It could be self-peptalks like in this, in this circumstance, like I predict success. It can be a lot of different things.

And, you know, because we actually did kind of get to a pretty good understanding of that, that just feels, right? That's how people, you're going to feel. it. It's got Zing, Eureka moments. Like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. We got time to look at another one.

You said you've had another one that's really puzzled you for a long time. Very interestingly enough, you mentioned the, you know, this girl had a dream of falling. And, you know, and that dream was like a long time ago. I'm a big fan of space.

Watch a lot of space documentaries. And this dream was, me like getting pulled into like a black hole kind of black hole and and as I was getting pulled into the black hole I realized that is what divinity is like that is what God whatever whatever people say you know I want to reach that right like I'm not like I'm an agnostic person I'm not religious myself and and when I had this dream I I I almost felt like I was getting pulled into a godlike energy. Like I was like, you know, like I was meeting God.

And that was like, you know, that has left me confused. Like, as I told you, this dream I had like a decade or more ago. I can still remember it so clearly. Like it was like a hurricane kind of in the space, a huge hurricane. And at the end of the hurricane was like this black hole. And I was like getting really pulled into it. And it was not like a swift pull. It was like a, you know, gentle, like slow motion kind of thing.

I was sort of floating towards it. And there was a big, you know, this black, around that black hole. There was a big halo, big light. And yeah, I was like, that was like a really powerful dream. Yeah. And so that was pretty much the entire experience of it. You start for the. away, but within the kind of hurricane tunnel, slowly drifting towards and the dream ends before

you reach the event horizon. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think, no, exactly, I managed to touch it. It's like almost like, you know, I reached out my arm and managed to touch the black hole and then that, that was it. Any result from touching it, or was it the dream ended immediately so that there was no time for an experience to happen regarding touching?

No, I think, no, that's it. That's where it ended, yeah. Okay. Because that would be its own interesting. And when I touched it, this happened. And then that impression stuck with you. It was like, actually, you didn't know, you couldn't tell yourself. You couldn't speculate further what that experience would be like.

But you know, you reached it. You touched it. You were able to come in contact with this thing. That's interesting, too. So at least you, you know. And I remember, like, I don't remember, was it, was it hard? off asleep because I immediately sort of gained a little bit conscious and I was like, did I just experience God or like, because I don't believe in God?

It's like, what's what's going on here? Is this, is this where everything originates from? Is this like the center of the universe? No. Because I've, as I told you, like I always watch these documentaries. Yeah. And some of the crazy ones like ancient aliens and whatnot. So, you know, yeah.

So it's like, oh, um, Maybe this is what the ultimate truth is. You know, this is where everything comes from. Like, you know. Yeah. Well, throw in my own bias out there because I got to work through that when I'm listening to. It doesn't matter what I believe, but sometimes my conceptions. First thing that I thought of was like, I am also very much kind of an agnostic atheist type of person.

So a little bit more about that. It depends on how you characterize these things. There are some people who say, you can't be. an agnostic and an atheist. You have to pick one or the other. Well, I think it's both. I look at it as that window of, you know, um, anyway, like a four, four, four, four square. It's a jojari window type of thing. Um, and I think both are, so for agnostic, without knowing, I'm not certain. So I'm just going to be humble about that and say, I don't know. What is it? I can't tell you for sure. Atheist to me means literally without religion. I don't have a specific religious system that I follow. Now, that says, I don't.

I'm humble about the, I'm not so sure. Don't ask me. I don't have the answers. But on the atheist side, I don't subscribe to one system, but I appreciate them all. There's a lot of ancient wisdom that is just still true today because it is eternal true. And so I have a great appreciation of those things. But then I've also kind of come around to kind of a deist perspective in a way of like logically in my own mind, I and no human. ever made this entire universe something else did okay whatever that something else is you you can call it god sure now it is it the uh bearded man in a robe sitting on a golden throne in the clowns christian god i don't know is it you know is it um what's the um what's the um indian um chief christna Vishnu christna or Vishnu yeah yeah there you go that's i couldn't remember the name thank you yes maybe are we talking about the same same creator entity. I think so.

I think so. And then so we get around to, and this makes a tremendous amount of sense to me, you have someone who is a very rational, scientific, agnostic, not following any particular religious system, but you feel the pull to understanding of spirituality and higher powers and you,

but how do you conceptualize it? Like, well, the most powerful force in the universe that we're aware of is a black hole. It eats light. It eats, it is. when we think of light as there's nothing faster than the speed of light

and a black hole catches it. Whoa. So I could see very much conception. And I've had a fascination with black holes too in terms of like what was it? There was a Disney movie. I think it was called Black Hole. And one of the villain gets sucked into a black hole and actually comes out the other side. And ever since then I've thought

that's a fascinating theory. What's at the bottom of that whirlpool? What if pops out into another reality? What if every black hole is creating a new, and this is what I've thought too, and this may actually be true with the multiverse theory, what if at the end of every black hole is a new big bang, whoops, as I throw my pen, because we're looking at what causes, what caused an infinitesimal smart, infinitely dense, the entire material of the universe to explode into planets and galaxies and suns.

Could it be the compressive power of a black hole that then pops? Exactly. So I don't know. So this, if I'm going to stop right there and just have you. thrown out that context a little bit, what do you think about this dream in terms of some of the things I've said? So, you know, when I started rationalizing it, like when I started logically thinking about it, because I've been thinking about this dream for such a long time, right? And frankly speaking, by at that time, I didn't even have that much knowledge about black holes. Like, you know, the theories that you mentioned, because I've been reading the same theories,

like, you know, the universe could actually be just the opposite end of another black hole, which sort of makes sense. So, but at the same time, you know, universe is so, like, confusing. I don't think we are supposed to make sense of it, you know. And so, yeah, it's, what, what you said was sort of the similar conclusion I arrived at. It's like, something is pulling me, you know, and I, around that time, I got into meditation and Buddhism and, you know, learning about the mind and all that. So maybe it has it like yeah it it resonates what you just said and I sort of arrived at similar conclusions. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. That's I mean, that's really what. And it's interesting too. So you pulled that pole. And we feel we use a lot of words like that. You know, I was driven to do this. I had an urge to do that. It was pulled towards.

I felt an attraction. All these words to describe a sensation of moving in. towards something or the desire to move towards something. There's also the opposite words. I was repelled by this force that moved me away from something. So, and we

experience them as involuntary. So you were this visual, you know, a fantastical representation of being in, like I think you mentioned it like it looked like a hurricane, but you're not being violently tossed around. You're not being slammed against something, against

your will. It's, but there is this slow, gentle pull and you weren't afraid. You didn't feel like you were in danger, but you're just recognizing what is this, what is, what is, what is this feeling look like? It's moving me in this direction slowly and you actually were able to touch it, but without answers. That's, I think that's a significant part of the dream too. It's like, uh, so in terms of what you were conceptualizing, it's like, if I allow this

feeling to move me, I will. will be brought up against this thing I'm curious about. I will be able to lay my hand on it physically in a way. I will be able to come into contact with it and begin some kind of understanding. There's a very powerful metaphors in touch, getting our hands on something, getting a grip on a problem. So coming into physical contact with things is, so you're like, you know, if I, I think you were looking at should I, you're asking yourself,

should I let this pull guide me to find, out if there's anything important at the end of this journey. If coming into contact with this thing and leaning into that experience is going to have value. And I think the dream said, you can if you want to. And if you do, it will yield some kind of result. Rather than conceptualizing it as a forced experience you wish wasn't happening or this is going to be pointless. I'll never reach the destination. I kind of thought you actually wouldn't when you were describing it.

I'm like, he never touched it. Oh, he did. Oh, that was its own layer. I don't know if that kind of additional layer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like you did. You kind of leaned into it and practiced meditation,

kind of got into a spiritual phase in your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, spiritual as in like, yeah, yeah. So I have experienced multiple experiences after that, like, which were very metaphysical and spiritual in nature. But I, you know, some of them were even more powerful. powerful, but then I've forgotten about them. But this dream has stayed in my consciousness for such a long time.

And maybe that was the beginning of a huge turn in my life, maybe. Yeah. I'd say that's, well, number one, I say, no, no. No, I'm barking. I tell people, you know, dreams self-select for importance. You remember it because there was something personally meaningful to you, some intense feeling that needs to be understood and you carry it with you into the waking life. She's like, now I can turn my attention to it and look at what this, what this thought means

or what was happening. So, but also, I think a lot of these powerful dreams come during times of personal transformation when we're going to be going through something when we're on the, on the edge of starting something that we really intuitively understand is meaningful. And we're like, this is big. This is something. happening here and we explore that in our sleep as well. So it's very, very common. This is all adding to my theory of dreams. I'm going to write a, write an original work someday, but I'm going to get through all the masters first. No, this is great. This is great. Awesome. Awesome stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we got through both of those a lot faster than I expected. I don't need to,

I don't need to keep you for the full two hours just to kibits. No, no. This is great. Thank you so much. It's, it's, uh, you, you spot a new interest in me. I'm going to start a, uh, looking into this more. Yeah, and if you're one, a person who's fortunate enough to remember the dreams, I don't, which is ironic. I'm the dream wizard that cannot remember as a dream. Barely even remember that I had a dream,

you know, let alone remember the contents. But pay attention to them as well and see if other solutions can be offered to you. I mean, there's very famous instances of people who are puzzling over intensely scientific problems. They're trying to invent something. It comes to them in a dream. And they wake up and they're like, I have the answer. It's like, that happens a lot.

I recommend people sleep on it if you don't know what to do. No, I get that so many times. Like, you know, I've had, like, I've created inventions from ideas that came to me in dreams. That literally happened to me. That's very cool. And yeah, I think if people have the ability, I wish them all the best in using it. And this dog wants me to throw toys and take them outside. It's a good time to wrap up.

So we'll do that. Yeah. I will say once again, a big thanks to our friend, Manus Agarwal, from Vancouver, Canada. He is an elite technology consultant and business mentor. You can find him at Manus Agarwal.com, also on LinkedIn. I forgot to mention that. And, you know, for my part, I'll just say, would you kindly, like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers.

16 works of historical dream literature currently available. The most recent book 16. Dreams in their meetings by Horace G. Hutchinson, all this and more. at Benjamin the DreamWizard.com. And I'm just going to say to our friend, Manoos, it's been great talking to you. Thank you for being here. Same here. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And everybody out there, thanks for listening. Thanks, bye.