Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 131: Night of the Red Sky

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

“Consciously experiencing one's own victimization instead of trying to ward it off provides protection against sadism; i.e., the compulsion to torment and humiliate others.” ― Alice Miller https://growthfromdarkness.com/

Greetings friends. Welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Amanda Blackwood from Denver, Colorado. She is an author, artist, speaker, and survivor of human trafficking. She's written several books. Her first one, Custom Justice, about her autobiography of her experience, and most recently a cookbook surviving in the kitchen. We're going to get right back to her in two seconds, if you would. Kindly, like, share, subscribe, tell your friends.

Always need more volunteer dreamers and viewers for the game streams, that kind of stuff. 16. Currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent dreams and their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson. All this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. That's enough shilling for me. We'll get back to Amanda. Thank you for being here. Of course. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have our conversation today. Yeah. And we had lots of fun sorting through technical difficulties off air. I always schedule lots of time because you never know. It took us a half an hour to get things sorted out. I had new problems I'd never had before. And he's got to roll with it. So I never,

I never try to jam people in or keep them in a box. I've gone as long as four and a half hours. And this, it's all, because you have to. You got to flow with that experience. And it is what it is. You can't make such natural experiences conform to a human plan.

It's not going to happen. No. Right. Exactly. Life is what happens when something else is planned. Right. Exactly. That's also the other joke of like,

you want to make God laugh, tell them your plans. that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, what about, tell us about your most recent book surviving in the kitchen. You say you've never written a cookbook before? I had not written a cookbook before. Yeah.

And this is handy because I actually just got this in the mail two days ago, finally. Perfect timing. So even the author has to wait a while sometimes to get their book in. So the book is kind of a compilation of all the different recipes that I started. experimenting with and trying to discover. I tell people all the time that I learned how to cook out of self-defense because my mother was a terrible cook. But I think more than being a terrible cook, she didn't have a passion for it.

I recognized early on that I had developing taste buds and I wanted more complex flavors than the tuna noodle casserole and biscuits. Things were getting stale and old and I needed to branch out. So over the years, I started learning a lot more about food and a lot more about the chemistry that goes into the making of food. And I found it to be a really incredible creative outlet for getting through stressful situations and for helping myself to move beyond the trauma of my past. You mentioned that I'm a survivor of human trafficking. That's part of why it's called surviving in the kitchen. It's got a bunch of levels to why the word surviving belong.

longs there and it really does. Yeah. You can teach yourself to survive immeasurable circumstances by learning how to cook. Yeah, there's a lot of layers to it. I mean, first, it related to, you know, I call myself the wizard and whatnot. But the cooking was the original alchemy way back when it was chemistry before we had even conceived of that idea before we started looking for gold in the brick of lead or, or, you know, making petrochemicals in the space age.

Right. They're like, you know, if I cook this meat, it makes it safer to eat. And it's better living through technology and science, the application of fire. And it changes the flavor profile. And then I can add other things that, you know, roots and vegetables that are inedible, chewy. You cook them. It breaks down. And now you can mush them and eat a potato, that kind of thing.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. And then it will be literally survival, learning to cook your own food. We all need to eat. but then also teaching yourself that you can accomplish things, that you can follow a recipe and make something edible that you enjoy and sustain yourself. So many layers to that of the idea of self-sufficiency and self-empowerment coming from that.

Yeah. So if you're, I would say, if you know, anyone out there, if you're in a similar position where you're like, you don't feel so good about yourself because you don't have any skills, start by learning to cook something. Simple recipe. You don't have to make the biggest fluffiest, you know, eight-layer whatever ever created. but something. I mean, and that's, is that part of, part of what you're talking about with the surviving

that's one layer of meaning to it? Yeah, absolutely. That covers so much of it. And one of the things about some of the recipes in my book is I do give little tips on how it can be modified to make it your own. You know, my favorite dish in the book is called chicken pier. I normally serve it with a rosemary garlic mashed potatoes and a prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Now, that doesn't mean that this is the dish in the way it has to be served every

time, of course. But within the chicken pier recipe, you can actually remove some ingredients that you don't necessarily like or want, and you can add in others to kind of mildly change the flavor profile to more fit your family's needs or wants or desires. And it kind of teaches you how to more take control when you're in the kitchen rather than just having to follow a recipe to the absolute letter. That's right. Yeah. And sometimes you might make a recipe. It's like I've tried this in the past before and I'm like and it comes out like I don't like it like did I screw it up no that's just the person that wrote it they like it that way and you can it's nice to know what you can change you can't change how long you got to cook chicken before it's safety but a little bit you know here and there you can make it darker

crisper I found one of the tricks is like um you know if you're trying to lose weight you want to go the chicken breast route but I love chicken thighs and it's almost impossible to burn those suckers and so I love to make when we do like terriaki chicken and rice I I fry up you know cubed the, you know, the turkey chicken thighs, and they're naturally oily and they coat themselves in the pan and whatnot. And then if you put the sauce in, you can also reduce it and get a more caramelized sauce. So the wife and I have been experimenting with that kind of stuff, too. And then you toss it. My wife's impressed with my ability to do the pan flip. So I actually have a recipe for chicken thighs in that book that is, excuse me, it's a broiler recipe. So,

You toss it in a mixture of spices and one of them being a smoked paprika. And then you broil it in the oven and then turn it over and brush it with a honey glaze. And broil it again for a few more minutes. Oh my gosh. It's so good. My husband hates chicken thighs. So one of the options on that recipe is to take out the chicken thighs and exchange it for thin sliced chicken breast. Sure.

Or even... You really can modify anything. Or even like turkey, like a lot of people. don't get, we don't, a lot of people don't buy them and it's, maybe I don't see it at the store very often either is like turkey breast, turkey thighs that are not part of the whole birds. Like we do it once a year or we get it in sandwich, sliced lunch meat. Speaking like the Terry, my wife and I love the sweet, sweet tangy type of stuff too. So we would get these kind of pre-packaged and it was interesting because it would be

pre-marinated as well. It would come in the sauce and it's been sitting in the sauce since it's shipped out of the factory. Fantastic. Just these turkey, I don't know whether there's turkey thighs, turkey breast or whatever. And then we would roast them. This is one of our favorite meals there too. So we would roast them and at the same time, maybe even sprinkle around the plate or cook it separately. I can't remember how we did her, the baking pan.

Brussels sprouts that we cut in half. Yeah. Well, no. So I didn't like those once in a time because my mom, she was learning to cook and whatnot back in the day. And my first exposure was boiled, boiled with a little bit of butter and salt. And they were mushy and they were awful. yeah you know no offense i hated them i hated them like ah i'm like now did my taste change as it does over life maybe it did but the way we do it cut them in half toss them lightly in oil put them out on a

pan then uh dust them in um garlic salt and parmesan cheese and and broil them you know face up until they get just lightly crispy and then you dip them in a little say a mixture of like uh ranch and a one and oh just amazing yeah yeah my husband hated brussels sprouts when we first met and I cook them low and slow. Yeah. So I'll cut them in half, kind of toss them in oil with salt and pepper and garlic and some other spices and then toss them out on a sheet pan and roast them at about 350 for 45 minutes. And they get really tender on the inside and crispy on the outside. And what he doesn't like about the broiled Brussels sprouts is he says they're still bitter in the middle. And he wants that bitterness gone. With a low and slow roast, that that bitterness

just evaporates. That is crazy. That's that alchemy right there too. Just a little lower heat for a longer period of time. And it changes that bitterness. That's magic to me. That's the greatest stuff. I love that. Especially tasty food.

It's magical to me. If you couldn't tell. Oh, yeah. I'm not a skinny wizard. I'm not as thin as I used to be myself. Right. But you know what you did? I was going to say you do have a great like 1940s pinup style going with the dress and the hair.

I love it. So if you see. you the mannequin back here behind me with the dress and the sash and everything. I was Miss Vintage U.S. of 2014 at the pinup ball at the White Christmas Ball in Colorado, California, like Denver area, Colorado, well before I ever moved to Colorado. I entered the competition. I had never done anything like that in my life and I walked out of there with the crown. So I was super proud of that. I've not missed one since then. And it's actually part of the reason that I moved to Colorado and my husband lived in Colorado and I never would have met him if I hadn't started

going to the 1940s ball because of my passion for the 40s. That is some crazy synchronistic. So we go back to you, you and I've been talking for a minute and it took a while to get back and forth and make this happen. Well, when does it finally happen? Two days after you get your book ready. Synchronicity right there. There's just magical things happen in their own time.

Why did you get a wild inspiration to join a beauty pageant that you've never done in your entire life that took you to Colorado of all places where you end up having a positive association with it, move there, meet your husband. What a series of dominoes that you couldn't have forced to happen. I'm going to enter a contest because it will happen in a city where I will meet my future spouse. Nobody can plan that. It just happens. And then it does. And you look back on it going, whoa, that's that that's a synchronicity stuff that's like the stars along. That's magic. Even the circumstances leading up to finding out about the 1940s follows like that.

So I grew up in a military environment. My dad was Air Force. One of my dearest friends in the fifth and sixth grade, his name was Brian. We had always been really close. He was my best friend. At one point, he ended up with a brain tumor and was shipped back from serving in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan. And after a couple of surgeries, he was starting to get better. His third reoccurrence finally took him out.

He passed away in 2013. So that was the year before the 1940s ball. I flew to Portland. At the time I was a flight attendant, and I flew to Portland to go to his funeral, and I hadn't seen any of his family since we were little kids, probably sixth grade. So for anybody that's not from the U.S.,

that's about 11, 12 years of age, I had not seen his family in that many years. I'd seen him several times. And when I went in, he had an uncle who told me afterwards, He's like, you know, you look like you just stepped out of the 1940s. We've got this thing in Colorado where I live that I think you would really enjoy. You'd probably get a big kick out of this. You'd have to think about looking it up sometime.

And it was a year and a half later that I was standing in line waiting to get into the 1940s ball, wearing this gorgeous 1940s dress, authentic vintage antiques. I mean, I have a massive collection now. My entire office, you can't see it, but this wall is covered in hands. handbags and gloves and jewelry and hats and just spectacular things, all museum quality antique. It's a fantastic aesthetic. Yeah, I've got a soft spot for that too.

Now, was this Portland, Oregon that you went to? That was Portland, Oregon. At the time, it was living in Los Angeles. That's where I am right now. I am in Portland, Oregon. Another connection. Wow. I thought when you said that, I'm like, no way.

She's saying Portland, Maine. This is, I can't be. That's amazing. That is amazing. Oh, very cool story. How these things happen. Yeah. You know, there's a balancing act we always have to do, which is you can't just,

sometimes you got to be the leaf on the wind. Forces behind your control will move you. And sometimes it's for the best. But you also need to move yourself. I mean, opportunities can present themselves. Someone can mention, hey, you should do this ball. And if you go, no, thanks. Like, I'm not going to act on this information I've got.

Then nothing will happen. So there's that combination. of like fate and effort in some ways. Taking advantage of opportunities as they come. It's very, very important. And I was scared to go. I didn't know anybody there. You know,

I was still a relatively new flight attendant. I didn't have any friends or family or anything like that, really, that I could rely on. I had nobody in the entire state of Colorado. What was I going to do at a 1940s ball filled with 5,000 people that I've never met before? That's a very sad. It's very scary. Yeah, and you got that.

Now, so you've got your history of survivor human trafficking. This has, this is coming well after that or, I mean, when did that kind of journey happen for you? Not as far as most people would think. So I was trafficked three different times in my life. Once when I was 18, once when I was 19. And the last time I was trafficked, I was actually 31 years old. I was trafficked by a police officer in Scotland. Wow.

Okay. So when I left there, it was 2011. When Brian passed away, it was 2013, only two years later. Okay. When I went to the 1940s ball, it was 2014, which was only three years after I had gotten out. Gotcha. Yeah. And I would assume that would be, I suppose, very scary.

That's something you probably struggle with your entire life when you've been so deeply, you know, betrayed by people maybe. Right. And that's usually, that's maybe something people don't understand about human trafficking is that you weren't, I would assume, kidnapped off the street, chained up, you know, by the neck in a brothel somewhere and forced to, you know, it's usually this, um, it's, it's an exploitation of the relationship. And then it goes sideways. It's more of a manipulation, a mind control type of thing.

I don't know if you're familiar with Jessica Jones, the Netflix series of the Marvel character. She's like a super strong female character, like, um, you know, invulnerable can punch through brick walls and her arch nemesis. the one thing she was vulnerable to was a guy who could get inside her head and and force her forced her to live with him and be his you know girlfriend or whatever and just reveled in the fact that she she was in there knowing what he was doing and couldn't couldn't stop herself from obeying his spoken commands that was his magic power um anyway i'm gonna stop there that's a lot but uh that's you probably got some things to say about that that's pretty accurate yeah

And I love that you already know this much about human trafficking. You know, the kidnapping cases make up like less than 15% of all human trafficking cases worldwide. Yeah. So, yeah, it usually is a manipulation of somebody who's already in your life, somebody who knows your weaknesses and knows you well enough to know what it is that you need in your life. And they give you these vast promises and then manipulate you. Yeah. You know, the police officer was a mayor. that I had known for seven years and was engaged to be married to.

Wow. Yeah. So it's a bizarre world. And a lot of people don't realize that that's what trafficking actually looks like. I didn't know that what I went through was called human trafficking until I went to an anti-trafficking conference in 2018. So in 2014, when I was at the 1940s ball, all I knew is that I had lived through something that was almost unspeakable.

It was some kind of nightmare that I had kind of. that I had come through. And I was still alive and I was willing to celebrate every single day of my life and to step outside of my comfort zone because I was grateful to be alive. And I think that's a huge contrast to where a lot of other people find themselves when they survive some kind of a traumatic event. They want to go into hiding. I had been in hiding for so long for most of my life that I was done with it.

Yeah. There's a lot of different responses to these things. Number one, before I lose the thread, I think a lot of people don't understand that. about human trafficking. And I didn't until a while back earlier, because what we think of is, you know, cartels bringing literally kidnapped women across the border and putting them, like I said,

chained by the neck in a brothel somewhere. But it is mostly this personal manipulation that happens. And there's this, I think when people don't understand that, they look at, say, a description of the story as you're saying, and they go, oh, so she was, so she made a bad choice. and boyfriend, it did some things she's ashamed of, as if you participated in it and weren't manipulated into it. And then that's got to be tough for survivors as well to go, you know,

at least through part of it, because you didn't throw up a hard boundary, say, screw this jerk, I'm out. You start, you blame yourself. Like, oh, look at all these opportunities. I had to make different decisions. Why didn't I? Why did I convince myself was okay with what was happening? And then there's a lot of that guilt and shame that goes with the two of the self-blame. And then, you know, maybe a lot of people don't come forward because they're like, I don't want anyone to know how foolish I was to let myself get into that situation. And then they don't tell their stories. And then people don't understand how this actually works.

Right, right. There's so much of that that I see. One of the things that I talk to people about is accepting your part in things, but also understanding that you are not in control of those situations when somebody is manipulating you and forcing you to do things against your will. The very definition, according to the Department of Hamland Security, is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain labor or sex acts from another person. So when we're thinking about these cartels that are transporting people across the borders, if you notice in that definition, the use of

fraud or coercion to obtain labor or sex acts, there's no mention of transporting a person anywhere. There's also no mention of money. So a lot of people believe that he, Human trafficking equals prostitution and prostitution equals human trafficking. Yeah. I was trafficked three different times in my life, but at no point was I ever to be considered a prostitute. Mm. 95% of prostitutes have experienced human trafficking in some way. But it isn't always there.

There's a massive overlap, but these are all three separate issues that all desperately need to be addressed. For sure. Yeah. And it's, it's so. I think it's so icky for some people. They don't want to think about it as well. It's like, because I just got that. I just got, I just paused for you. So like a mental hiccup there for a moment. I'm like, I don't even know where to go with this because it's so.

And then the word pop that in my head is icky. This is disgusting that what happens to people. And a lot of people go, I just don't want to expose myself. I don't want that in my head. You know, it's like the stuff that happens with the kids out there. It's like most people don't want to think about it. And fair enough. I mean, it's hard to think about.

But that's, that's a big hurdle. too for getting people to talk about it or, you know, and here we are laughing and joking and having a good time. And now it's serious. But, you know, but it's also good that you've come out the other side of it and that you're able to look back and now and understand it and be that advocate and say, you know, hey, if you're out there in a similar circumstance, not only can you get out like I did, but here's maybe some ways to avoid it. I don't know if you, in your autobiography, did you come through with some lessons of like, hey, here's what to watch out for it. But we all talk about red flags, that kind of thing of like an abusive relationship. Not to put you on the spot. Did that kind of advice come through?

Yeah. It did. It came through a lot with kind of the actual writing of the book, too. So when I first came up with the idea that I wanted to write this book, it was 2018. It was right around the time that I had realized what I'd been through had been called human trafficking. But I wasn't sure where to start. In 2019, I faced another. brutal attack from the man that had trafficked me.

And I go into details of that in the book. During that time, I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it. So I reached out to an anti-trafficking organization out here in Colorado. And they linked me with a pro bono legal service to help me fight, but also paired me up with a therapist. And I desperately needed that at the time. Going through that process, talking to the therapist, it got me over some of the roadblocks that I hadn't previously been able to, been able to get over on my own.

At the end of that, it was November of 2020. So it'd been about a year and a half. And the therapist said, I'm not sure what else I can do to help you. You've done so well, you've done so much. What's next for you? Because I know you're not going to stop with what it is that you're doing and in your journey. And I said, you know, I think I'm going to write my book. She said, great.

I'll check in with you in January. So in January, when she checked in with me, she said, how's it going with the book? I said, well, it's done. And I just held it up so you can see that it's not exactly a small or short book. It's not exactly large print. This is a 350 page book that I had written all in the month of December of 2020. Wow. Just came pouring out once you decided to sit down and get it on paper.

Right. Nice. So when she checked in with me, and she asked me how it was. going and I told her she got really excited. And she said, well, now what are you going to do? And I said, I don't know. She said, why don't you try painting? I had never painted before, other than, you know, during the required watercolors in elementary school that I was absolutely terrible at.

I'd never really painted outside of that. So she had somebody bring over paint brushes and canvases and paints to me. And this is from my first year of painting. This is only a print. The original is hanging in a home for human trafficking survivors in Chicago, Illinois with the essay that talks about how we all must carry our own baggage through life until we find a safe place to set it down. And my artwork has now sold internationally. I've been in several gallery exhibits. I've got another one coming up in August.

All of these different creative outlets, the cooking, the writing, the painting, the therapy, all of this stuff was hugely much. monumental for moving beyond and moving through all of that crap and getting out and getting to the other side of it. Very cool. Yeah. And it also feels to be like there's some innate part of your personality that's very, you know, determined is maybe the wrong word. But, you know, it's expressive.

That fits the redhead personality. Yeah, but it might be. It might be. I wasn't going to ask if that was natural. But yeah. Well, the lighting in here is interesting. So it's not naturally quite this vibrant red, but it is a natural red. Very cool.

Very cool. Yeah, so there is part of that of like someone who's maybe naturally extroverted is one broad way people can understand it or kind of like. But also, again, is this opportunity and effort combination of like, you know, you had you had the opportunity for therapy and you took it and you did it. You put in the effort. You had the opportunity to sit down and write your story and you did it. You had the opportunity to expand your talent pool and you did it.

So there's definitely probably something about you that you lean into that kind of thing of like, I'm going to take opportunities. I'm going to keep moving forward. It's not always that easy for other people, but they can also do the same. You can also, let's say you have a hesitation to do something like that. I'm no good at art. Who cares? Do it. Give it a try.

I'm no good in the kitchen. Well, you're never going to know until you get in there and follow a recipe. And you know what? you're probably going to suck the first time you do it. That's something I was something I had a hard time learning throughout my entire life of like, there were a lot of things that came naturally and I leaned into those and focused on them. And every time I would come across something new that was challenged, I'd be like, like hurt, like emotionally.

Like this should come easily. Why doesn't this come as easily as other things do? And so I'd get past that. That's my little struggle there. Well, you notice when I talked about this painting, I said this was from my first year of painting. I did not say this was my first painting. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I've been writing since I was a little kid. Most of my writing will never be seen. So, I mean, when it comes to having a creative outlet, it doesn't matter if anybody else on the planet ever sees it at all. I was for a little while a volunteer art teacher for first and third grades and then an eighth grade special needs class. And at first grade, you feel like there's nothing you can't do. You're willing to take on the world. And the third grade, by then, you're starting to have other kids. voices chirping your ears telling you, you're no good at that.

By the eighth grade, especially special needs, you think that there's a whole lot in the world that you'll never be able to tackle. But the truth behind creativity is that there's something for everyone. If you enjoy music, you can write music, you can dance to music, you can choreograph to music, you can write the lyrics. You can figure out the mathematical equations that go into a song. There are so many different forms of creativity. And it's so important to find something that works well for each individual person to use that as an outlet to kind of cope with whatever the stresses are that you're going through. Yeah, I think it's one element of self-expression. Like, we all need to express ourselves in some way. And there's a lot of different

categories. But that is one of that artistic, the creative, expression. Right. It's healthy. Yeah, for sure. And I think we all need that. And it doesn't have to be, like, it doesn't have to be art. That is the only way to be creative. Some people like to, you know, work in their shop with wood. Some people really just enjoy making the lawn in the front of their house look beautiful. You edge it, you trim it. You do all the stuff. You make, you know, trim the topiary, that kind of thing.

If that's your way of creative, you grow a rose bush. I mean, there's so gardening. There's so many ways that people can do it. And I think people, yeah. get locked into these frameworks, rubrics, memetic ways of looking at the world. Well, creativity means art. It means painting. It means music. If I can't do those things, I'm not creative. I don't think so. Organizing your sock door can be extremely creative. Like, I have too many socks. They don't all fit unless I do this little Tetris here. I get a little satisfaction out of that kind of stuff. That's one of my ways I like to be creative. We have any stupid games on my phone where it's like, pop the bubbles. Can I solve this puzzle? That's one of the reasons I love

dreams it's it's that puzzle solving mystery element here challenge myself to can i think can i figure this out can i offer something of value so far so good maybe a couple of times came close and a couple of times yeah not so much um but it's so many avenues for for creative expression that if people just look at it a little bit differently you know i don't that kind of idea occurred to you along your journey as well kind of had to discover oh i can be creative in this way or right right you know it's like I said I didn't even know until my therapist told me to start painting that I could paint at all I didn't know that that existed in me that's true giving yourself just the the license to try like see what happens see what happens probably gonna suck whatever

I had put it off for so long too because painting is typically it can be seen as a very expensive hobby yeah I mean when you keep hearing people telling you it's an expensive hobby it's an expensive hobby, you tend to put it off and not even really research it. Yeah, that stuff can be a little expensive. But there's other ways around that, too. There are vegetable dyes that people can make themselves to be able to create their own paints. What do you think they used to do before you could go and buy them in the store?

Learn how to do that. Even just making your own paint can be seen as a creative outlet. You can make a yellow paint out of onion skins. Who would have known? I had no idea. No, I didn't know. I know that we get that too. there's um what was it like the history oh speaking of chemistry going way back cooking i mean they

used to make uh dyes out of crushed beetles that's where they got like purple purple or a red i can't remember blue i can't remember what it was but blue berries all they stain your fingers wait a minute what if i dry them out and crush them up and put them in some water now i got a water color uh right very cool this was very common in egypt yes that's what i was thinking of yeah and that's where a lot the paintings on the hieroglyphs and whatnot came from. Right. Right. And the blue was reserved typically for royalty because the Lappas lazuli that they used was

kind of rare and they had to grind up this precious stone to be able to create the blue paint. But a lot of the other colors, the paints and stuff, the greens, purples, reds, yellows, brilliant, bright colors were just found in everyday objects. Yeah. That's an interesting thing too. So I like looking at, well, this is my conception of a wizard. are like you got to know things. I saw a great poster the other day.

It's like I read stuff. I know things and I avoid people. It's what I do. Yeah, that's me. Now, of course, it's a very popular meme. So a lot of people are introverts are resonating with that. But if you look at these things, so this goes into the dream symbology as well. So why is royal blue and considered royal blue?

Why is it associated with royalty? It's purples and different things because these were based on. rare resources and now we've got this anthropological view of how these things came to be symbolic and why they carried forward that way long after we have cheap cheap dyes and anyone can buy a blue shirt if they want one just like it's blue what do you mean no big deal and we've lost it so if you don't know that connection of where these things came from the the meme doesn't make sense in in some ways um so that's that's kind of my approach to the to the dream thing as well as is having this kind of broader understanding. Part of my theory on that is borrowing also from Carl Jung,

famous guy, contemporary Freud and whatnot, most people know his name. He talked about the collective unconscious, and originally that phrase meant what we might call genetic memory today. It's like the history of the human race passed down through our very essence. And that, and in a way, he meant okay and I've been thinking about this too great we get on to this uh do you remember the movie dune or the book do you ever read that or see the movie yeah so both yeah yeah so um well great book I love I probably the one book I've read five times I've never read any book that that many times I'll watch the movie

once in a while and the new the new movie's pretty good I'm really digging that so far I wasn't sure but they did a really good job yeah I'm looking for I keep putting that off There's nothing beats the originals for me. Yeah, the, uh, the, the 1980s movie, so good, so good. Yeah. And then the books, I mean, if you're really, really a fan of the books, it's not exactly identical. And the books are so much better.

They always say, but this is a good modern adaptation. I like movies and they're, they're, I like them to be respectful of the source material. Like, I think the Harry Potter movies were, you know, according to my wife, I didn't read them. I'm like, I'm not going to ruin the movies. I just watch the movies. And she's like, it's pretty close. It was pretty good. She felt like they did a good, good job bringing that.

to life in a way that honored the original structure didn't change a bunch of things for no reason. Unlike, so it came to the Thrones, unfortunately. Long story show, but this is now a pop culture analysis show. We can talk about anything. I was going somewhere. Okay, dude, I'm going to work my way backwards to the understanding. One of the best ways to understand the original conception, and this was a, this was a,

kind of a ubiquitous idea in the late 1800s. we thought racial memory was actually a thing, or at least that was a popular philosophical idea about how we got where we are. So the way, and I think Frank Herbert borrowed from this tradition for the idea when the Benegeserite, Jessica specifically drinks the water of life in Seach Tabor, and has this, she has to process it using, you know, to transmute the poison. And what it gives her access to, and the other Benad Jesuit is ancestral memory. They can now have conversations with their past, with their grandfather, with their great, great, great, 17 times removed grandmother.

And that's one reason that, and it also affected Alia in the womb. She, before she had a stable personality, it was an adult and could be trained. All these ancestral memories were awakened. And because her grandfather was the baron, Harconin, That's where we get her becoming a villain later in the in the series. She has these, it's like a demon possession. She gets, she turns her body over to this ancestral memory of the Baron Harkonan, and he manipulates people around her using her body and, uh, pantas.

So this, this is that, that idea of awakened ancestral memory is actually what the original conception of, of collective unconscious was back in the, now it also meant, and has more come to mean in, in, in, times, I'm talking a lot, sorry, but this fascinating concepts to me, it's come to, I think to me, more embody the idea of common human experience, ubiquitous human experience. We all, most of us, 99.999% of us have two legs and we walk. So we understand walking. We understand travel. We have eyes. So we understand metaphors of sight. And, you know, if a tree falls in the forest, well, it depends, is anyone around to hear it, what is sound? All of these questions come up from that.

but that idea of common understandings of symbols because we have common experience as the same type of entity, you know, constituted as we are physically. So I think that's a better understanding of the collective unconscious, even though there are some people today who still say, we do carry, say, trauma forward genetically. It changes us and then we can actually pass that down, say, in a susceptibility to anxiety. It's not quite proven, or we know how it works exactly, but that idea kind of persists. And we do have experienced a lot of changes over time in terms of, well, just genetic evolution, that kind of a thing.

Different different things work better. And then random mutations happen that are, hey, even better than that. And we go down that road. I said a lot there. I hope I actually made my point. I don't know. It's the word of my brain. Yeah, you did.

You brought up something, though, that was that I've been studying myself recently. It's important to recognize the difference between. historical trauma and generational trauma too. Yes. No for sure. You can have a family that doesn't necessarily genetically pass down the trauma, but rather verbally passes down the trauma. I went through a little bit of this when I was a kid growing up with my mom saying,

oh, you think this is bad. You should see how I had it. And I constantly had this traumatic reaffirmation that no matter what I went through, it could never compare to what somebody else went through. can't actually be considered trauma. Yeah. Well, that's the flip side of the coin. We'd have the trope of the special child whose mother coddled him too much and told him,

you're the best child in the world. You can do anything. And then they grow up and they're a little narcissistic and entitled. The flip side of that is the person who's a little too down on themselves because they're thinking, because they've been told, it's been reinforced. You know, nothing you ever experience will be as good or as bad as what someone else had. It's like, is that, there's a great line I go back to a lot, because I think about magic and wizardry and this whole conceptual, do I think I'm actually magical? Well, it depends what you mean by magic.

I don't cast fireballs of people. It's not the kind of wizard I am, but there's a magic in the world. And so there's magic in music and in storytelling, speaking of which, the play into the woods, I think it's Rogers and Hammerstein. Fantastic, brilliant. If you have a chance to watch it, the recent movie was good. the original stage play recorded in the 90s, about three hours long, even better, even better. Bernadette Peters and a bunch of other faces

you'll recognize from that time. Long story short. One of the lines is, careful the tale you tell. That is the spell. The narratives, the framing of things. That's why there's so much, well, without getting too far off in the weeds,

but the idea of mass media and impressions and understandings. It's not just misinformation. It's like omitted information that looks one shape. When you had the other picture, oh, it's completely different because of what was left out sometimes. Or what you tell people is necessarily the truth about the world. They're in a position not to know any better and they take it to heart and they internalize it and believe in and live their life according to that. And it turns out it was just not true.

Even if the person was well-meaning, accidentalize, that kind of thing. So we definitely get that. what they say like the cycle of abuse is parents abuse the kid, kid abuse their kid that down through the generation. Someone's got to break it by realizing, whoa, this doesn't have to happen. There is another way. Yeah, beautifully said, yeah. We can't use our own past as an excuse to hurt other people to.

For sure. And with the work that I do especially, I hear people say all the time two very famous phrases. One of them is hurt people, hurt people. I disagree with that. unheeled people hurt people yeah the other one is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger again i disagree the man who said that frederick nietz died in an insane asylum in the 1800s i think we can stop listening to what he said now fair enough yeah we always have the strength within us to survive

the things that other people put us through is not what makes us strong it might be what forces us to dig deep and find that strength within ourselves, but it was already there to begin with. We can't create what isn't there. Yeah. For sure. I was always more of a fan of, well, it's strange to say I'm a fan of the Joker, but I like his phrase, what doesn't kill you makes you stranger. And yes, I like that one.

That one is actually better. Now, for him, he's leaning into the, let's get weird type of thing. But weird, strange. I mean, again, I read a lot of old books. That's what I'm doing right now. The way language has evolved over time, something strange was something different. And we still have that conception,

but there's more of a connotation of a pejorative in, oh, you're being strange. You're being weird. We think of it judgmentally. The weird is just the unusual. The strange is just that which is a stranger. You've never met them before. It's something unknown to you.

Very neutral terms, the way they used to be used. So I think that's the best conception or understanding of the whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger, it changes you. It makes you, we say estranged from families. Separated. Separates you from what you were before. And that doesn't mean it's necessarily for the better, but doesn't mean it's necessarily for the worse.

Right. Sometimes, you know, it's, that's interesting things too. Like we get into the idea of, well, if people, if survivors are stronger than they've ever been today and they say, owe it to what they've been. been through surviving and coming through tougher out the other side, there's a line of thought that says, well, maybe we should subject people to terrible things so that they get stronger. It's like, maybe not intentionally. I mean, that's one way people look at it.

In some ways, like, toughen them up. Some things are, you're lucky if you get out without tremendous scars that really never heal, but that you have to learn how to live with. And then how successfully you learn to live with them makes all the difference. And it will spread the word and letting people know. Number one, they're not alone. This path has been walked before, and here's how I did it, and here's how you hopefully can do it, too, in your own way with these basic concepts

and ideas. That's why I love sharing on this show, too, is I hope people can analyze their own dreams. They don't need me. Please keep watching. But, you know, learn from what I do. And you can do this with your friends. Sometimes you need a second person. That's one thing I'm coming around.

I don't even understand my own process. But I think having a mirror in a way, someone to reflect. back on you or make suggestions, connections you can't make yourself during the description is a good way to do it. But definitely, I want people to, hopefully I'm too big someday and people can't, I can't talk to everybody that wants to. That would be nice. But, right? Oh, no, success. But at that point, that's when I need to be writing a book of like how to, how to interpret a dream. Here's what I do. And here's how you can do it yourself. Get a friend. I think I'm coming around of that. When I understand what I do myself, then that's what I write a book.

Right. Sometimes you just have to go with gut instinct. That's all I got right now. This completely intuitive process. You know, I haven't planned any of this. I just do what I've been doing is watching my own process and go, oh, that's what I do. Well, let me put a label on that. Let me try and describe it in a way. That's definitely what I'm doing. I'm working backwards from that. I'm not developing anything. I'm watching what I do and going, what the hell is this? What is this? that's awesome right but speaking of doing the thing um do you want to get into it we'll we'll talk about your dream and then we can we can do my process i'll do it when i when i put these on the on the youtube i put uh put it under education like that's i hope that's what i'm doing it's not just

entertainment it's it's edutainment but i also put you know it's like what is it real life example that's all this is it's just here see see see it for what it is and uh hopefully you can do it too um but speaking of my process i've been able to die Now let it in a little bit. Oh, let me do actually, um, 43, 43 minutes. I'd like to write down one more starting. 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 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. The dream thing. Process is, number one, shut up and listen. Some of the best advice in life. You know, step two, go into a little bit of a deep dive. You're going to tell me the story. Then we're going to go back through it again and try and help me see it a little more clearly through your eyes. And then, you know, part three is kind of getting the answer or whatever it is.

getting a story arc together that makes sense to you, personal to your life. And the part two and three kind of blend, blend together. And we put something together collaboratively. Always tell folks, none of these answers are in me. This is all your story. And I'm just kind of hopefully standing behind your shoulder

with a flashlight in the dark going, you see, what is that over there? Do you see what I see? And then we try and figure it out. So following my own advice, I'm going to shut up and listen. I'm ready when you are. All right.

So I had a reoccurring nightmare that began when I was about four, and it followed me for years. I won't go into details, but there was a lot of trauma going on already in my life at this point. I remember waking up in the dream. I was actually still asleep in dreaming, but I woke up sitting up in bed, and I looked at the window. And outside was a brilliant, bright red sky. We were living in Maryland at the time, and it was a block of military housing. And I remember looking out that window and getting up and walking over to the window to look outside and seeing the red color reflecting off of the green grass and kind of turning it,

kind of a deep, dark purple color for the grass. It was kind of everywhere. And it was terrifying to me. Everything was just absolutely horrifying. And as I watched, the ground began. to move. Things were climbing out of the ground. At first, it was just little pieces here and there that you could see the ground moving and eventually the ground burst open and it was tons and tons of what I can only describe now as being zombies. At four years old, I had no idea what zombie were.

I had no clue. But they were obviously dead, stumbling. Some of them were nothing but skeletons. some of them still had flesh attached. And they started walking towards all of these homes in these connected buildings. As they were coming to the doors, the doors were just automatically opening as though welcoming them in. And they came straight from my door as well. At the time, I had this habit of running into my brother's bedroom and grabbing my pillow and sleeping under his bed. for a long time in this reoccurring nightmare instead of doing that I would think that I was running down the hall to my parents' bedroom and I would try to wake them up my mother was not in bed she was in the bathroom

and my father would be there and I would tell him daddy we got to go they're coming to get us they're going to kill us we have to go I would automatically have no idea what I was talking about and say you know just wait for your mother get out of the bathroom and the bathroom door would open and there would be my mother as one of those things. She was a zombie too, which did not happen the way that the typical sense would happen where somebody is bitten or scratched by a zombie and then the transition occurs. She just already was. And she came out of the bathroom and started walking towards us. So my father would grab me up and run with me back down to the hall towards my brother's room where he would try to get to my brother, but those things were already in my brother's

room and leaning over his bed. So then we would run into my bedroom because there were still more of them coming up the stairs and we would hide both of us. I don't know how he fit. We fit underneath the bed together and we would watch them. We saw the zombie feet kind of shuffling around the bedroom and looking in all the different places without getting down on their hands and knees. I don't think they'd have been able to get back up if they had. I remember seeing my mother's feet in her bathrobe, and she wandered on. And then there was one last set of feet that just stuck around until all the others left. And that one got down low, and it was my brother.

He was about seven at the time. My brother looked under the bed at us, looked very sad, and then got back up and left. for about nine years, this was a reoccurring nightmare for me. I would wake up after my brother would leave. I would wake up in bed absolutely sobbing. When I was four, this was four or five, sometimes six days a week. At the end of the nine years, it was happening maybe once or twice a month. This dream haunted me for so long.

I've never been able to get it out of my head. And to this day, I get really uneasy if I see red sky. Wow. Yeah, that's a strong impression. It's right now the time again. Great. That is fantastic. That's what I wrote as fast as I could. I didn't want to stop you. Didn't want anything. But I always miss a few details as part of why we have to go through it again. But I love that. And this is what, so when was the most recent time you'd say you had this dream? The last time you can remember having it.

It does still occasionally come up, but now it's usually a couple of years. in between. So I don't think I've had this one for the last two years now. Okay. So maybe not since 2021-ish. Gotcha. Probably right about right before I met my husband actually. Interesting. That is a great, this is how these things work. I ask, you know, I ask a question. And instantly in your head, you give a time from you go, oh, that was right before I met my husband. So there's probably maybe something about. I don't want to say too much.

I get ahead of myself like, oh, what if, what if? And then some people take it. Go ahead. There was something else that happened right about that same time. Yeah. I met my husband just about a month after I published my autobiography as a survivor on my 10-year anniversary of freedom from trafficking. Okay. Yeah.

Two big life. Now, that might even be more related because this is definitely, well, definitely, potentially. strongly inclined towards the direction of, I mean, it's a monster-style boogeyman type of thing. You've got these threats invade, literally invading your home coming into that space. You've got icons of family members that have already turned or maybe embodied the essence of that thing before the threat arrived. You very specifically say, you know, she wasn't bitten and turned. she already was. Whatever this thing is, it was already in her before it entered the house from the outside.

And then, you know, your dad being under threat and your brother being, you know, you couldn't save him. And then he shows up at the end and he's very sad. And but he doesn't attack you. He just leaves. And, of course, you're terrifying and distressing and sad, waking up in tears, of course. to have that urge in a way when you've moved changed things in your life you've gotten something out of you onto paper the book and you've got this symbol of a stable relationship i mean an actual stable relationship as well as the symbol of like i'm now married to a good man i'm no longer looking which makes me at risk of finding a bad man there's there's something about i have now found a good man and i'm stably secure care connected to that person. So both of those things at the same time, very likely made whatever this is unnecessary to reoccur in that way. Now, it might come back. There's no way to know

that it won't because some of these, whatever this threat is that you're imagining, it's got a particular form and pattern that will probably reoccur. But we haven't even gotten into it. This is all my preliminary stuff out there. I don't usually jump straight into saying stuff, but I wanted to throw some of those things out there to let them percolate for you as we go through because that will let us give a little bit of context to what's happening as we go. And this comes from a very early age.

So you said this initially happened when you were four years old. This is about the first time you can remember. That's, right. It's actually very unusual. What am I trying to say? Most people don't remember. dreams from that young. There's something about,

but it's not unusual that this one would make an impression. It's terrifying. It's before you even really knew what it was. And it's not surprising that you know, so before you knew the word zombie before you could kind of conceive of it in the classical movie, pop culture sense, what we think of as zombies, you probably had seen something similar. And maybe a snippet on television of the old

black and white Night of Living Dead as someone was flipping channels. And you see for three seconds this image of a shambling, rotted fleshed looking creature and a woman screams, change the channel. And like that stuck with you. And bam, now you've got that as a terrifying. Did you have a thought? And that's one of my favorite movies now. But what the skeletons reminded me of in my dreams, was I had seen the original Ray Harryhaus

and Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts where Jason is having this sword fight with the skeleton. I had seen that. That's what the skeletons reminded me. Gotcha. And those are considered like safe for kids type of, oh, it's just a classic adventure story.

And I would say maybe not three-year-olds. Who knows? It's hard to tell. My wife and I may have made a mistake. There was a show filmed in Portland, at Oregon called Grimm. I don't have you ever heard of that? I have.

Yeah, that was very good. And it's, you know, what if Grimm's fairy tales were real for folks out in the audience? And all of these mythological features do exist, but most people can't see them except Grims. And then that's where you get the brothers Grimm. Well, they were actually monster hunters back in the day

and turned it into a storybook. Long story short, we had our niece. And when she was pretty young, she might have been two or three, four, somewhere around there. And so we would watch this show. And we're like, this is just silly, fantasy and she it affected her more than we knew at the time but she would ask us to watch it

it's we were dumb back there it was like 10 years ago or more um we would say you know it's fake right it's not real and it's like she's four years old no she has no idea what the difference between fantasy in reality so we actually had to solve that and she would say i want to watch the fake she wouldn't even remember the name of the show she would say i want to watch the fake because she like it was kind of scary to her so we actually showed her a video of how the makeup was put on a guy. And, you know, it's like, here's the actor and here's the process of putting it on.

And she's like, fake. It's like, that was like a moment, I think it dawned on her that she was like, oh, it's a people with makeup. Yeah. Oh, I get it now. It isn't actually a monster guy on the television. What is television? By just watching a window to the world, like somewhere else,

are these things actually happening? They have no idea. Anyways. But so, long story short, some things, even those Ray Harryhaus and, you know, claymation stuff might be too much for a kid, or at least even if it didn't scare you at the time, maybe gave you a little thrill.

But then you're like, okay, these were the bad guys fighting, fighting to harm. So then you carry that iconic or imagistic, um, representation of it into the dreams. Okay, well, what if those,

what if that kind of thing was after me? But that actually represents something else. Like you put, you've identified a day. and said, okay, I'm going to give it this form because I can't conceptualize it any better. So it's a danger that, okay, it's in the body of a skeleton. Move on with story. Now I've got an image for it.

But we still don't know what necessarily that danger is. And sometimes it's an amorphous danger. And sometimes it has a specific thing. Like you said, you didn't want to get into too much of the specifics of some of the trauma history from a young age. But it may relate to that. is. I mean, there's obviously a reason why this dream started that young and you needed to see it that way. You needed to experience that to try to better understand what you were dealing with.

And the idea that it would come back is like, okay, I'm dealing with that again. Here it is again in my life where here's the threat of it returning. It's kind of how recurring dreams work. And it doesn't always have to be a threat. It can be a puzzle, a conundrum, I think we're worrying at in our mind to try, what is that thing? What is it? What am I looking at here? What is, what is that? And so we go back to the same formula in a way to try and consider.

Okay, let's see if I, let's see if I read this sentence again. Does it make more sense to me this time? It's kind of something like that, reading a, reading a book again. Okay, none of this is getting back. It's a more conceptual stuff. So you're asleep in the dream and then you awaken. I don't know that I have a great idea of, what that means.

But if it makes sense to you, sometimes I conceive that as coming to awareness of a problem. Like we think of that in real life. It's like we would maybe snap our fingers to someone who is wide awake and say, hey, wake up. There's a problem here. Like we use that as a metaphor for awareness, becoming aware of a problem. So sometimes you're awakening to the observation of something.

Okay, to confronting a fact. I don't know if that feels right or that's the theory. We could throw it out there. Yeah, that it makes sense. There was a problem. Sorry, I'm making notes to, notes to myself. So the, this was all a very realistic setting too. This was your experience at the time of you were living in military housing and

this was your, the typical layout of your house. As far as you could tell, it wasn't a fantastical setting. significantly different in a way that stood out. Right. At the time, everything seemed like exactly where I was living right then. The yards were the same outside. The only real differences were the color schemes for outside. And of course, the body's coming out of the ground. Like, I had never seen a bright red sky before. Oh. We were living in Maryland at the time. And the sky was typically quite dark blue at night. And it was quite light, bright blue in the day. Yeah. Think about that.

that it's usually, I don't know exactly what causes the red, red sky. It's now that I think about it. All I can think of is, you know, red sky at night, sailors delight. That's all I can think of. Right. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Yeah. Yeah, the approach of a storm or something.

And there's got to be something about what's got to be, of course, the atmosphere. And why blue versus red versus orange or, well, now there's orange. everywhere with this like force fires from Canada, that kind of thing. Right. Right. That's kind of weird. I don't think I've had an orange sky before. It was a first for me too.

It had to be like dark and gray with a lot of particular matter, but never, never quite orange. So I think it also means something that. So what you didn't do is you didn't set this on a spaceship. You didn't set it in a haunted house of a Victorian era. You didn't set it in in the woods. This is this so. how close the problem is to like realistic settings is is usually how practical or abstract something is in a sense like so this is something that is literally it's in your it's close to

home it's in your own home you've chosen to conceptualize that as the proper setting to lens through which to understand the problem um and it's a threat that is initially appears to be coming from outside and that's very interesting too that it starts with that that idea of a sky and that it is having an interaction with the green grass such that the grass itself looks purple versus yeah so there's something there's something in that too i don't know where to go with that um writing this down again just because uh so we've got we've got the green grass in its natural state and that natural state is being turned into a very unnaturally natural color. It's kind of how I'm conceiving this. And it has to do with this sky being the

wrong, wrong color, a threatening color, red in that sense. You know, it's not, and it, you know, red can also be associated with, say, you know, Valentine's Day heart. It can be, red can be a very pleasant color. And so, but this was very much a threatening color. And it's, so there's something about like the sky being, the sky is huge and it's everywhere. It's above. It's a us in that metaphorical sense as well of not just well the sky is up but also above us greater than us in that sense and it's affecting this grass and turning it a very unnatural color so probably when you're a kid you love running around on the lawn and the grass and and something something very fun and but this even the place where you would play or something

very healthy the natural green of plants is turned into this purple that is and when you looked at it, it's not okay. Kind of like, this is not right. It felt wrong initially. Right. It was really dark and forbidding. Gotcha. And even to the point of like, so there was that exterior appearance of something's not right here. And then the longer you looked at it or to maintain observation of it, you saw more signs. And now there's things coming out. Right. Imagine bony fingers reaching out between the blades of grass and wiggling as the wind just barely caresses. Okay.

Yeah. No, that's a fantastic imagery, too, because it's like, here is something dead and unnatural. Mimicking the natural blow of grass in the gentle breeze. It's like, it's like a mockery of something that should be good and wholesome. Yeah, there's something there. Boney fingers waving like grass. That's purple grass and it's all wrong. Yeah.

Everything about it was wrong, but that movement was still so graceful. It's just, it's still bizarre to think about it. Sure. Well, that's also interesting too is that we very often have conflicted feelings, say, about things that are even that are bad. It's like if there's 1% of good and something that's 99% evil, sometimes we just want to paint it all evil and not recognize it because it feels wrong to say, that little part wasn't so bad. Actually like that. because the overall experience was so sometimes we look at these things and we go we see the good in the bed we can even see how something generally bad has a beauty to it like a particularly

well executed evil revenge scheme it's like okay that was clever still wrong but i appreciate the cleverness that kind of a feeling to it of like so yeah there was something that was almost um yeah i want to say attractive about it but but the idea of of the the wrongness having a beauty to it. And that can be, if we conceive of it with the human trafficking side of thing, is that, and this is well before that, of course, so it's not directly connected, but there's the emotional feeling you have towards someone. You're like, it still makes me feel good that I have this connection with them, even though

they're doing these bad. That's why people stay in bad relationships very a lot. They cling to those good things. Like, they see the beauty of someone and they want them to be better than they actually are. So there's a, I think we think of that as like, a seductive quality. It's almost like saying to yourself, okay, I see the appeal of this thing. It's still bad, but I, it's not ugly entirely.

Just that broad concept. I don't know. I've said a lot, probably too much about that, but that, trying to get my own brain around that, around that idea. So there's something, yeah, graceful. You said graceful. It's like a mockery, but also beautiful in its own way. Because sometimes we can be drawn to those things as well.

drawn to dangerous things in a way that we know isn't good for us, but the attraction is irresistible. And we have to actually choose not to have to say, no, no, no, I'm going to break my. Guys, guys get that too. I mean, there's the families cover your children's ears. You know, the classic line, don't stick your D and crazy. Why do we need that advice?

Because we want to, because it is so attractive. This is not good for me, but I can't stop myself. So there's that quality. That's kind of where I'm going with that idea. Okay, long story short on that. The, and immediately, well, not immediately, your overall impression of what was going on. And this is all you just woke up in bed, looking out the window, and you're seeing, and this scene is terrifying. Because now the things are starting to come out of the ground.

You're like, this, the threat is here. It's present. It's real. It's coming. Right. I remember my heart beating really fast. Like it became difficult to breathe right then. I was writing down SOB.

I need to put the period short of breath. The only thing that might be, you know, the brain loves puns too. Dreams love puns. So if you experience, that's entirely possible. It may not relate to you specific and I think it doesn't. But the idea of, I was thinking. thinking that guy was a real SOB and I had and I was having trouble breathing.

It's like, oh, short of breath. Yeah. That actually pops into your head because it connects to the story. You're telling yourself. It doesn't have to be a linchpin of the entire story, but the brain makes those connections and, and throws it in sometimes. And it's kind of a red herring in a way.

Sometimes not. We all have these, just to throw them out off the cuff thoughts. Like I do, but I digress. Get back to get back to the stuff. stuff. The first thing you notice is these things are going towards other houses. They haven't come for your house yet. They do almost immediately afterwards. But you're so there's a, there seems to be an arc or an expansion of consciousness of the problem. First, you see it, then you see how it works. Then you see how it's coming for you. There's like a bit of a process

going there. And that's interesting too, that the doors of these other houses, just open automatically. That's the impression you have of what's happening is that there's no, there's no effective barrier. There's no struggle to keep it out. You don't, you don't see these things beating down the doors. It's like the doors themselves open to let the creatures in.

So there's something about the, how easily they get in, how defenseless, it seems people are against this type of problem. There's something you're conceiving in that manner of like, it just, it can't be stopped. It's going to come for us and it's going to get in. We can't, doors, walls, barriers, boundaries.

Can very often, these are early conceptions we have and very strong icons of, you know, putting up effective barriers to keep out the bad or to draw limits on other people's behavior. It's the first thing came into my mind. I'm going to stop there for a minute and just let you say something about that. Is that what I've said so far? Any thoughts? Yeah, that definitely fits. I mean, it seems like this is exactly what I was thinking and feeling as that little kid.

There were no barriers. There was no way that anybody could protect themselves against what was coming. And it wasn't discriminating against who anybody was. It was every door, every house. Yeah. And that's a great way to conceive a lot of these problems, too, is when we look at something say that's common to the human condition, we're going to go, it does affect everyone. And it affects everyone so automatically that it's as if a monster can get in with no door. It just walks right in.

And it's going to, we're going to have to confront it one way or another. It's, it's a problem that's going to push itself on to us in that way. And it's going to the same. And that's great as kids, too. It's like, we're trying to wrap our head around this thing. Is this my experience or is this something everyone experiences. And it looks like you were saying to yourself, I've even noticed other people having this same type of problem in a way that, or at least you look at the problem and say, what's the flip side of that, saying, if it can affect me this way, it can get anybody. Nobody's safe. No matter where they live. Certainly, you also didn't conceive this as, oh yeah, and I saw on the television this is happening everywhere around the world. You very much

localized it to, okay, so my conception is my, my world where I live now. And so for you, for your limited understanding of how big the world was, that was the entire world, perhaps. So the idea is you didn't need to know that it was a global zombie pandemic happening. It was enough that it was everybody you knew and everywhere you lived. So there is that. What do we got here? Do you remember in the dream having the... So you explained as a part of the storytelling, I would, in real life, go and sleep under my brother's bed in his room sometimes.

But in the dream, did you think that? Did you consider that option and choose against it or it was not even considered? It was a consideration and I went past his room instead. Okay. I'm glad you picked up on that because I don't think I did explain that very well. But yeah, at the time, if there was something that was going on and I felt unsafe in real life, I would go and sleep under my brother's bed. And let me tell you, I cannot even begin to count the number of times I scared the crap out of him when he'd climb out of bed and step on a hand.

But yeah, in my dream, I thought I need to go to my brother's room and then I went past his room to my dad. I just had that thought of, Mom, there's something under my bed. sister. I can yell that so many times. That's funny. That is funny. So this is, so let's say if you had performed the typical pattern from real life, that would be less surprising.

Oh, as usual, I go to hide under my brother's bed. Here's why that didn't work. You actually bypassed his room completely. So you, you had a typical known place where you felt safe and comfortable. and in this dream you decided that's not going to work. I mean, did you have a thought as to why you were bypassing that room or, what am I trying to know what I'm trying to ask? Like, you knew in the dream I would normally do this.

And yet you chose not to for a reason or you found yourself doing it automatically and you don't know why. I think at the time it was a combination of both. Okay. Right about that time was the time that was when my brother himself had begun abusing me. Okay, fair enough. So you had maybe that impression of like this is not a safe place to be. Right. Like I'm not going to find safety there.

I need to go straight to my parents' room. Right. And at the time, he was really my go-to person. My parents were extremely strict and controlling, and I would never turn to them for anything. I always turned to my older brother because he was my big brother. Yeah. And I think I was starting to recognize my big brother isn't safe for me anymore. I can't go to him anymore.

I need to find someone else. Yeah, for sure. It also could have been, that's why I wanted to kind of tease that out a little bit. What was the motivation for skipping? What would have been a typical pattern? Well, there's a reason the pattern needed to change. Um, but also sometimes there's problems. They're like, this is too big for him to handle.

It's, this has got to be the adults in the room, you know, to take it to them directly. Um, but there was, that's a very interesting, um, change in, in worldview and perception of, of your environment as well, that these people that you normally would have avoided because they're too strict or controlling and you would have gone to your brother. Well, now he became actually more dangerous than them. And now you've got to actually, that's, that's your last resort. Like it or not, you got to go to the parents. they, at least they're not trying to kill you, you know, or directly hurt you, even if they're a little stricter. Sometimes to kids that comes across as mean or cruel, and sometimes it is, but sometimes it just feels that with, why are you making me do things they don't want to do? Because I care about you, brush your damn teeth, would you? You don't want to rot out of your head.

You know, it isn't always that innocuous, but, but still, sometimes it's just, well, they really do care and kids don't know what they're talking about. No idea of consequences long term. So you get in there and you, the way you explained it to me was my mom was in bathroom, so I talked to my dad. Did you know she was in there before he said it or did you actually get that from, like, we have to wait until your mom comes out of the bathroom or you knew she was already in there? I believe I knew she was in there. I think I saw a light under the door.

Okay, fair enough. That's interesting too. So she was already, they weren't in bed. together and she got up and left to go to the bathroom and he's like, well, we have to wait until she gets out and then we can handle this. She was already in there when you arrived. They were already separated. I'm trying to figure out why. What are we looking at there with this separation? I don't know if there's any particular associations you have with mom bathroom. The way their room was laid out.

you know, did she spend a lot of time in there doing her hair? I mean, was she, what is the association with she needs to be in there? Or was that just to give? She was, she was a bit of a minimalist when it came to doing hair and makeup or anything like that. I don't remember her spending a whole lot of time in the bathroom. But I do remember, she was, and I didn't really dive into this and discover a lot of this until later on in life. but she was extremely emotionally and traumatically just absolutely brutal to us as kids. She was manipulative and divisive.

She would cause arguments between other members in the household and then step back and watch the aftermath. It was like I was dealing with a narcissistic or sociopathic mother who was trying to stir all this stuff up in order to entertain. attain herself. I don't think to this day she realizes that she's done this. Yeah. A lot of times they don't. I mean, it's one of those truisms. Like, if evil people knew they were evil, well, they'd stop being evil. They don't see it as evil at all. Like, uh, what is it? Um, you remember that movie The Kingsman? I'm on a movie kick lately. Like, everything's related to it. Um, the Samuel L. Jackson character is like, well, we just need to save the earth. And so we're going to kill a bunch of people. It's what we do. What are you going to do? You know, and he's very, uh,

I can't do the guy. was a horrible impression. He had a very, in a very lithby way of talking in that film. These, classically, the bad guys that the hero's trying to stop,

Thanos in, in, you know, in the Marvel movies, I need to restore balance to the universe. There's too many people we can't live well. So half of you,

gone, well, it's half of the people we love. Nobody wants that. So villains think they're the hero of their own story. They often do. So there may not be a deeper meaning

to the idea of, separating her to the bathroom specifically. There may have been nowhere else to go. But again, she wasn't out of the house. She wasn't in the kitchen. She wasn't in the backyard. She wasn't in Paris. Who knows?

She was very close. So the only other place to keep her close, I guess, would be the attached bathroom to the, but actually, I'm getting visions of my own parents' bedroom that had a private bathroom attached to just their bedroom. And then, you know, probably our houses look nothing the same, but I'd imagine. But, but I know exactly what that looks like to like, say, go in and so I'm actually seeing my parents' room while you're telling me your story and like, oh, it would be as if my dad was on the bed and my mom was in the bathroom over here.

That's what I've been pointing over here the whole time. Like, because I'm trying to see it through your eyes, but all I can see is my own imagery, which actually does get in the way. I mean, maybe it'd be better if I asked you. you what that scene looked like and it might draw up some more impressions, but it may not be, may not be that critical. I think it makes the most sense to me that she needed to be close enough, that she needed to be close because this was also about her, but she needed to be briefly absent so there

could be a reveal of, of, yeah. So you've gone to your, and your dad, I'm going to imagine was, you know, he was on his own variety of perhaps tough, gruff, military guy, strict, et cetera, but you get the impression he's just physically abusive. Ah, that too. Okay. Did you get the impression he genuinely cared? I mean, he was someone who you could bring your problems to and he would at least give

a shit and try to help. Yeah. I did not for a long time, but looking back now, I'm starting to recognize that I didn't give him the credit he deserved. my mother was so manipulative even of him that I don't think he was allowed to be given the space to be there for us. Okay. Yeah. She threatened him more than once to leave him if she caught him spanking us without our clothes on again. So, I mean, there's definitely levels of abuse there.

Yeah. But there was also levels of manipulation on her part, both good and bad, trying to keep the family. in check. So in the broader sense, if you only had the two options, he was the less unsafe option. He was the more safe of the two right to your impression. Gotcha. And I mean, what do you do when you're in a bad

situation? You like, you take any help you can get. So brothers, not helping. Moms soon to be revealed as dangerous. You go to dad. And, you know, for all his flaws, he didn't want you to be eaten by zombies. He would actually, you believed he would actually do something about that to save you.

And you did. You acted that out in the dream. So you kind of remember saying to him, Dad, they're coming to get us. Yeah. Kind of those words. They're coming. They're going to get us. They're going to kill us.

There you go. Fair enough. And I don't know that the, maybe the wording is, you know, you're trying to conceive how to explain this to yourself. And a lot of times we can't explain things until we put it into words that make sense to us. We try and tell the story and then. that gives us an understanding it the pieces fall into place in a way so maybe the the the um three

part expression they're coming this is a this is a problem that's going to reach us or that we're going to have to deal with uh they're going they're going to get us it's we can't we can't avoid this problem and um it's problem that's deadly it's a deadly problem so you're trying to explain to him the seriousness of this this concern in a way explain it to yourself like how would i tell people what I'm dealing with is this is a problem it's a problem I can't escape and it's going to kill me so you're putting it in these words of explaining it to your dad and a way of explaining it to yourself what if I said it out loud like this would would I get the help I need and it turns out it looks like you did but the first thing he said was um we have to wait for your mother she's in the

bathroom now that's a natural thing to say um we're going to escape as a family therefore let's get your mother first. She's right here. Then we'll go get your brother. But also, I think there's like, he didn't know that she already had the problem in her before the zombies broke into the house.

It isn't like she got in that. You're very, you know, remember that very strongly. She didn't get bit. She was maybe even the original zombie. Like whatever this problem was, not necessarily originated in her, but it was already in her. And here he's like we have to

incorporate. her. And it sounds like, you know, as you were explaining, that's a fantastic context to say the manipulation side of things. He would have maybe naturally deferred to her in some cases of, and a lot of men do. Like when it comes to kids, like, I don't know. I'm just the guy. And mothers are thinking, like, what do I know?

I've never had kids before. A lot of times we'd go on our parents' mistakes. But there's something about that, like, you know. He didn't have, he didn't bring that to your attention. He didn't say, your mother's in the bathroom. The problem's already in her. She's already a zombie. We should just go.

So he was kind of blind to her issues as, as, you know, she, he didn't know how much she was manipulating him. But in this dream, you imagine what if he could be awakened to this problem? She comes out of the bathroom. He very clearly sees, she's not right and grabs you and runs. It's like, so in a sense, Freud would be very happy to say, this is childhood wishfulfillment, your father had been there to, to protect you properly from the mother and these other problems.

And he would be right in that sense. I think you would very, you know, very much. So you are in a sense, I think in this dream, showing that, showing yourself that wish fulfillment of like, if I reach out, I'll get the help I need in a sense. I believe that's possible. And you go and I don't know if. I've lost some notes between then or basically you said that you um you know he scooped you up

into his arm so he's uh he didn't just drag you along behind him he didn't take off running and you had to follow you didn't lead him he actually brought you close a very and as as young kids there's a very personal um special feeling of being cuddled being held uh it's very safe feeling this is what a you know we think of you know Superman scooping up lowest lane and flying her out of danger. There's a very heroic element to that type of thing. You went to your brother's room and there were already zombies in his room. They were been like leaning over the bed.

You know, like he's lost. And dad knew at the same time he's lost. And I can't even remember right. And then he ran to hide under a different bed somewhere. Yeah, we ran to run to hide underneath my bed. Back into your room. Okay. I didn't catch that part.

My bed. interesting. And we couldn't go back to his room because my mother was there. We couldn't go into my brother's room because my brother was surrounded by them. And our only way to get away from all of them was to run into my room and hide under the bed. And you knew they were coming in the front door, so there was no escaping a house. They were everywhere outside. So what you had to do was hide.

Very interesting. The problem, so you imagine that you and your dad could successfully evade, escape, by deception in a way, you know, to be hidden. There's something in that. And it's back in your room. I mean, you didn't go into another bathroom in the hallway. You know, hide behind the sofa in the living room. Very specifically, you brought him, in a sense, in your mind, back to your safe space.

In a sense, I don't know how safe your room actually felt to you if you had to leave it sometimes to go find. safety under your brother's bed. But now you're imagining the safe place is your space and now you've brought your dad into the safe space under the bed where you usually feel like that... I don't know if there's a way to describe that. You remember that feeling?

I mean, I can't remember too, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. What does it like to be under a bed hidden? Similar to hiding in the floor of my closet. It was sheltered. Sheltered. Yeah. There's something very... back to the wall so nothing's sneaking up on you type of feeling it's is yeah it's kind of what

i get get that impression of like some people would think oh my god that's claustrophobic why would you want to be under the bed or you know some people wouldn't feel that way but i get it it's almost a swaddling type of thing of like you're cocooned in in a safe place where nothing's going to get you and the idea that it's so small and close is actually the point that's a good it's a good thing. And you had the experience from that point that you had a bunch of feet shuffling around. So these other critters were, they were all over, but they were the amorphous blob. You'd actually succeeded in getting away from the problem to that point. You never remember seeing your mother's legs?

Was she one? Yes. She was one of them? she was one of them she wasn't at first but she did join them shuffling around the room before heading off okay good deal that's i totally didn't write that down so i was i was asking um that's interesting so the the the generic nature of the problem was on your doorstep in that sense at the foot of the bed and then even her as a direct representation of it in a more immediate form and even that means missed you. Couldn't find you.

You were safe from that. And then eventually, the other one shuffled away and then your brother came in by himself? Or he was just one of many and then he was the last one to leave the room? I believe we joined and proud of them. Kind of like my mother. My mother was first to arrive, but then my brother joined. And then as the rest of them shuffled off, he remained. And he had this unique instance.

insight into you. He actually knew where to look for you. Even, even possessed by this, by this evil force, whatever it is, he knew where to, he remembered enough of himself and you to look for you, but not to get you. He looked, he looked sad and left you alone. I, I get, there's a, there's a certain dynamic that'll happen where, yeah, I, um, father will abuse. the older child and the older child will abuse the younger child in in these ways.

And sometimes there's the realization of, of the, say, the abused older child that what they're doing isn't right. They know it. And they're sad for what they're doing to some, but they're kind of going through the motions. They're compelled in a way to do something that they hate themselves for. There might have been a bit of that compassion in you at the time looking at him. Like, I know you got got, but.

you also either you knew he did have that feeling inside of him of like i know this isn't wrong and i'm right and i'm sorry and i wish i wasn't doing it either but they still do it or you're wish fulfillment in that style of like he's if he knew if he knew he'd be sad but he's not wishing he would be sad about what he did i don't know if you feel anything about that um any of the things i've described i don't know if that's hitting anywhere near anything It's surprisingly, very accurate to finding forgiveness after everything that I've been through. Yeah. I had to come to terms with the fact that at the time I was four, when he was abusing me, he was only seven.

Yeah. There's no way he would have known those things on his own. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And that's really, that's really difficult. with, yeah, especially with kids so young. It's like, where does that even come from?

Because kids don't, yeah, they don't invent those things on their own. They don't go, hey, I'm just going to do this. Now, there's some things like innate meanness. Some people just like to get angry and they lash out. And it's like, well, they know what they're doing. They know what they're, they know they're angry and they know they're hitting. And maybe they know that's wrong. But some other stuff where it's like, where did that even come from?

Not of that, that's not going to just naturally occur to anyone. So it's not as not as instinctive as. as hitting in anger. Two-year-olds can do that before pre-verbal, you know, that kind of thing. So, and then that's the final scene. And then that's when you wake up is after he leaves.

He chooses not to. So also at the very end of it, you're imagining you and your dad did not get caught. The final chance, chance of being contacted by the, this evil was like your your brother made a choice not to pass it on in a sense. And again, that could have been wishful fulfillment, but you didn't imagine yourself.

He's reaching out of the bed and then you wake up. He chooses to walk away. And then, of course, that was just a great feeling of sadness, waking up from that and the, in tears, I'd imagine. And I think you were, you were having a moment just back in this first. a second. Yeah. You still look fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Which is even pretty when she cries. That's classic, classic, right? So these are just my impressions. And I saw you nodding along with some of it. You helped me build a little bit of it too. Now that we've talked about it in that way,

do you have anything to say about the whole experience and whether it seems like we've understood it from a perspective? Are we still trying to tell a story about it? Or have we got something? What do you think? I think we've got something here. I mean, there were things that you were touching on that I had not mentioned and there's no way that you could have known them outside of the dream interpretation.

Unless you've written, you read my book, which I doubt. I did not. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were actually an author until we spoke. I do absolutely no research on anybody. Well, I want to get the. raw, unfiltered, let me just go with my gut type of stuff. I start doing research. I get in my own way. So I actually know nothing about my guests. I just, I'll talk to anybody. You got a dream. We can make an episode. Go, go ahead.

Yeah, I think you're good. I think you pretty much, you nailed a lot of stuff the whole way through. I'm a little shocked by some of this. Because I guess part of me was having a hard time, coming to terms of the fact that I did understand that forgiveness in my, my brother's eyes when I was that young. Yeah. I didn't really fully mentally grasp that until I was in my 30s. I didn't let go of that. I didn't remember that these certain incidences occurred until I was 26 years old.

So there was a lot of confusion for me for a long time trying to figure out why I grew up despising my brother. throughout my teen years especially. Oh, yeah. I hated his guts. It didn't really want anything to do with him. But when we were grounded, we were all we had. And we became best friends for the day that we were grounded. Yeah.

Definitely. And I'm recognizing that I was still trying to find ways to depend on him because I still saw him as one of the safest options. Yeah. And we all do that too. the best of a bad situation. And that's where we're talking about the human trafficking thing. Sometimes there's something worse that you are being protected from by someone who's not

treating you very well. And people go, well, why didn't you do something about it? I was like, I didn't, you know, any port in a storm is what I had to do, you know, for that time. You got to forgive yourself too for like, you know, not being stronger, not being smarter, not not having the tools you needed to solve the situation better at the time. And I think people get really judgmental about that, forgetting that, you know, they were, they've mishandled many, many situations in their life with much less significant consequences. So they were able to blow it off.

But we all said something stupid. I have, you know, or made the wrong choice. You know, it's like, oh, well, I'll buy this car because it looks good. And I was like, oh, it's got all these problems. I didn't know. You know, this model. I didn't do the research. So many examples of things that are not consequential that we even had.

the opportunity to do it better and we just didn't bother. That's, that's, and then I think that makes us a little more compassionate about people, too, in terms of looking at their life struggles and, and looking and going, you know, well, I don't blame me for not, not knowing any better. What are you going to do? Especially as a kid. That's like, that, that whole thing makes me so angry. It's like the, there's, there is something that is, that is sacred, metaphysically sacred about the innocence of children.

and that it is a violation to destroy that, you know. And it's one thing if it's accidental. That's its own kind of thing. But it's another thing if it's like intentional. Someone who just, they know what they're doing is wrong and they do it anyway. That's pretty unforgivable in my book. But, you know, forgiveness, as they say, is not always for the other person. It's mostly for you.

So you don't have to carry the anger, you know. Right. Yeah. All. Well, hopefully, well, we can also relate this to why the dream disappeared. I was saying very back in the very beginning, I had a feeling that this was related to something about that. So you got your story out into the book. And probably that process of getting it out of your head onto paper, telling the story,

confronting it yourself in words and knowing. I'm telling everybody. This is a book. This is broadcast to the world. That was very purgative. You know, that got it out of your system in that way and helped you kind of contextualize a lot of the things that happened to, to make the dream less necessary to come back. You know, you were trying to understand what happened to you and you wrote a book about it.

Now you understand what happened to you a lot better. And then I guess my, you know, my two cents was like, here's a few more details that may not have occurred to you. or maybe they did, but you haven't shared them yet in that way. So I would guess if any hint of this dream, first I would say it's probably not coming back because I think you've settled it sufficiently. I can't say that for sure. I'm not a profit. But if it did come back, I would imagine it comes back in a very different form.

Now you're more of an observer. there's less intensity of, of fear as if you're in the experience and under threat. I think you're, you're in a different place in your life where you have more self-knowledge, self-controls, self-epicacy in that way, that you'd be able to handle things differently. Now, then again, if you go through some crazy shit in the next few years and something else threatening, it's not going to be the same kind of threat though, I don't think, but you may return to this.

this new threat feels as dangerous as the old threat. Hey, I remember that formula. But I don't think it'll be the same because I think you're in a different part of your life now. Yeah. Much better, much better place. It's a beautiful life now. For sure. Amazing what I've been able to accomplish.

Yeah. And I'm very happy for you too that you seem happy, that you know, that you've got this, you know, and it's not just a facade of a bubbly personality. It's like you've always wanted to be a happy person. I'd imagine. And now you're like, it's happening. Holy shit. This is, I got it.

Yeah. It's good. Like it's good. I earned it. I sure did. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, well, if you think we got a pretty good understanding and, uh, and you are suitably impressed, uh, I appreciate that.

We can, uh, we can wrap it up. Yeah. Good deal. I may have to come back and talk to you sometime about my near death experience from when I was 20. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Well, we can make another, another, another, uh, another episode. That's I always love hearing back from people too. You know, I want to give it sufficient time so it's not back to back. Give it some time for things to happen. We can talk about. But get updates from folks. Like I had one guy, this is where I started developing my theory of recurring dreams. He actually got back in touch with me and said, after I talk to you, the dream changed.

And here's how it changed and here's why it changed, I think, based on our conversation. I'm like, whoa, that's a dream that was very disturbing. And because he talked to me, it got better. I love that. That's so much satisfaction for me. It's like I'm not just doing this for the money or to, well, I'm not making any money yet. That's not paying the mortgage. I'm doing it for the fascination, but also for the, for helping people, for really giving them something of value, I hope.

So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to do that. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you reaching out and asking me to be on this show. I think this is super cool what you're doing. Right on. Well, we could just compliment each other back and forth for. hours, I imagine, but we'll wrap it up. And I'll say to all you folks out there in podcast land,

this has been author, artist, speaker, and survivor of human trafficking, Amanda Blackwood from Denver, Colorado. I did not mention your website. It is Growth from Darkness.com. Link is in the description below. It's got a couple of great books. The first one, custom justice and the most recent surviving in the kitchen. And for my part, I'll just say, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers. gone as a way for me to reach out to you. I'm here. Call me any time.

Find me on Twitter, et cetera. 16. Currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent dreams in their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson. All this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com. And just finally, once again, Amanda, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you very much. And everybody out there, thanks for listening.