Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 138: Conscience & Confidence

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

“To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. And to trust that there is enough, that you are enough.” ― Edith Eva Eger

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes today we have something i almost never do we got the same guest two weeks in a row uh this is our friend uh lewis from nowheresville u.ssa coming back to us with a with another dream a nightmare this time apparently and uh we're gonna we're gonna get into that uh in two seconds would you kindly like share subscribe to tell your friends always need more volunteer dreamers viewers for the game streams uh currently 16 works of historical dream literature available book 16 dreams and their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson. All this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com, including every Wednesday, MP3 versions of the downloadable MP3 versions of the podcast. Jesus Christ. I've been down the heat, and I'm just, I'm dying. I got cats all over me. Benjamin thedreamwizard.loakles.com is where I'd like you to go to join the community there,

and that's enough of the shilling. We'll get that out of the way. Lewis, welcome back. Greetings, our things. Indeed. Um, okay. So my first question is any chance this stream is specifically related to the ones we did, uh, last week. Oh, absolutely not.

You think definitely not. I was kind of hoping it was in terms of like, uh, processing. What we had discussed. And actually that's where I kind of wanted to start because this is an unusual thing for me. I don't usually have someone back so soon. Um, have you had any time to think about what we talked about and any new insights develop? No. I actually, honestly, kind of forgot about it right after because I got busy.

Fair enough. Yeah. You seem like someone, okay, so this is not meant to be an insult that might come across that way, but you seem like someone who is very in the moment. You don't do a lot of metacognitive processing, which I think maybe one reason a lot of this stuff comes out in your dreams. You do in that processing in your dreams more than in your waking experience. I mean, does that feel right or sound right in my way off base?

No, I don't. I don't think I'm a very in the moment type of person, really. Are you often in your head and explaining things to yourself, like formulating narratives and explaining answers? Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Well, I was developing a theory. You kind of shot it down there, which is, okay, it's a, you didn't exactly shoot it down.

But one of my theories of why I don't dream as much or remember my dreams is that I do almost all my processing. while I'm awake. I process too many things. My brain is always busy with all kinds of stuff. So I get the air conditioner on here. I'm just sweating like a big. Jesus Christ. Okay. And now I'm getting cat hair in my sweat and in my eyes. You got to go. You got to go. Well, so my theory is a work in progress there as far as that goes. So, but if your experience is, you know, and I just take it your word, if your experiences that you do have a lot of wheel spinning and, um, uh, you are doing more in-depth processing in your conscious mind, then, uh, that may also be reflected in why your dreams are so vivid and intense. It says vivid and intense maybe as your waking life processing. Um, and what I mean by, um,

what am I trying to say, um, you know, in the moment, people, there's a lot of people who, there's a phenomenon of being lost in the moment where you're not observing yourself experiencing, nor attending to your own stream of consciousness as it occurs. But you're saying that seems to be something that you are aware of doing and it's pretty frequent and regular. Yeah.

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Well, I'll have to work that into my theory then. That's fine. That's why these things are theories. Works in progress. Well, all of that said, I was just curious. Wanted to kind of throw it out there and at least get it out of the way.

When we launch into this current dream and we'll see what we can make of it. Okay. All right. The monkey brain begins turning. There you go. So let me again read. Let me start from the top where I wrote it out.

So I'm in a portable, a portable classroom. And I'm having a meeting with some schoolmates. But in the dream, these schoolmates have never. existed in real life at all. They're just completely made up of my imagination, I guess. And we're sitting at a plastic table. You know, those white little, coarse-feeling tables with the fold-out legs,

that type of table. And this one girl, I can't remember what she looks like. at all, but... And myself, go off to another table to do a project. I can't remember what project it is at all, but

I probably should have wrote that out of the time, but... Oh, well. I'm in... And then continuing, I'm interrupted by people who actually work in the office. Let me close a window. So I'm...

Yeah, so I'm interrupted by people who actually work in the office that were I mean the portable I guess the portable turned into an office basically out of nowhere and they're bringing me out of the room through a tiny little hallway

and across and through another door into their office and their offices are set up in one has a table I mean where I sit down in a chair the woman has an L-shaped wood desk. Behind her

is another woman sitting over there who has an also L-shaped desk but her back is to us basically. If that paints a decent picture, probably not. And I just kind of sit there for a moment while they're

typing on the computer about something about me I'm thinking and suddenly behind me an ex friend appears

and for context he used to he used to hit me and chuck shit at me and all this other stuff and laugh about it right like it was all a joke

but um anyways he came over behind me pulled me down onto the floor with a headlock you know so he wrapped his wrapped his arm around my my neck and my head and pulled me down on the floor and started flipped me onto my side and he started to pour water from a bottle

into my pocket into the pockets of my pants to make it look like I I pissed all over myself and after that I mean I was trying to stop him during that obviously and then after that he finished pouring water into my pockets

he poured it all over my head and I tried to fight back after the fact but usually in a dream you are weak you know you're just a limp noodle basically and so he was laughing at me for being unable

to fight him and uh this office portable scene disappeared suddenly and we're in sort of a type of wood uh

wood barn looking place I mean it's not exactly a barn but what do you call those things and out an overhang is it an overhang is it an overhang I don't know but

if that makes sense but um it looked like a with the style of wood. So, but um, he

begins to get in his car. His car is like, it looks like a, uh, looks like a Kia sole and it's red. And the windows are all tinted, completely black. And I started to kick it,

kick, uh, the rear bumper. And it was just sort of lightly denting. And, um, And this nurse, who apparently was his nurse, you know, to help his disabled self,

she appears behind me from nowhere and realized what was going on. And so she gets pissed off, basically, and she starts... you know, hitting the car as well. And breaking, and she ends up breaking the rear windshield. I look to my left, and there's a road that wasn't there before. And it's going, you know, it's a two-lane road. And a cop car is pulling up there on the road. But it can't really see us unless we actually, you know, yell and shout or something to get the driver's attention.

and for some reason even though we didn't do anything it takes notice and as it's coming I'm worried I'm going to go to jail for you know hitting the ex-friend's car damaging it and all this whatnot so I immediately decide to turn around and right as I turn around the whole scene

changes again to the back patio of our house or I mean not our house what was grandma's house and I decide to immediately flee inside you know I go up the patio steps right inside

through the sliding door and everything looks exactly exactly as it is you know in real life and I have this sense that the cops are after me

so I grab my ID and everything else and important and I try to hide all the guns I have that are just sitting underneath a chair and, you know, to maybe lessen my chances of going to jail. But my sister is there also

following me around inside being a nuisance as always, you know, like teasing me sort of like that, you know, I'm going to jail right or something like that. And the scene, was daylight but also a sort of sunset so it was

you know how this you know sunlight has that orange tinge to it towards the end of the day and suddenly just as the sheriff comes in and starts to tackle me

the dream suddenly changes completely it's early morning like really early morning like really early morning, say like 3.30 in the morning. And I get up, I wake up in the

living room, and I think, shit, I got to go to work. And let me tell you, this felt real, because I'm doing everything I usually do when I wake up in the morning to go to work. But this, in the dream, I didn't take a shower first. And I was already dressed in my uniform, which is pretty weird thinking about it. So I opened the front door and

I sit down to put on my boots before I go to work and as I'm sitting there tying the laces I see this grayish black massive um

Great Dane you know come down the street from the east. It's going east to west on the street. And so basically that means from my right to my left. And but it comes onto our lawn

and it's sort of sniffing around, I guess. And I mean, it's maybe 50, 60, It's about 60 meters from the street to the door, I guess. And, I mean, yeah, from the lawn, from the edge of the lawn where it was. And suddenly, I mean, I'm quiet, so it doesn't notice me. But it suddenly takes notice of me and immediately charges, you know, it goes, you know, not charges of it.

a full sprint towards me. And I'm freaking out because this is actually my worst fear, you know, in real life. To have an animal coming after me when I'm getting ready in the morning. To, but again, it's coming for me and right as it gets up in my face. Like right there, I'm just, it's just, I'm thinking it's going to bite me right then and there. But it doesn't. It immediately just, I think it was, uh, I think it, it didn't lick me, but it just sort of got right up in my face, you know?

And out of nowhere, the owner appears, and the owner also has a smaller Great Dane, but on a leash. And he's standing over by the lamp post. And he's not really caring at all. that this dog, you know, his dog basically ran up to me and was basically about to attack me, right? And

the guy, the owner, he had this very specific look to him, like he was wearing a baseball cap, a snapback, basically with a flat broom, a black t-shirt,

short-sleeve t-shirt and black shorts. basketball shorts for reference and tennis shoes obviously but that's irrelevant and I could say this look

he looked oddly familiar like I've known this person before but I guess I didn't so after I wasn't exactly yelling at him but I was scolding him for

you know, letting his dog what's the word, come after me, I guess. And he calls his dog back to him. And as he does that, first a pack of dogs, random dogs

just come down the street from east to west. And they run by. Then a second pack of dogs. and these dogs take notice of us and they stop in the middle of the street right in front of the house and they're about to come to us

and as they do that, right as they start to run towards us, basically right before they're on top, I wake up. It's like, fuck, dude. 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 DREAMs episodes appear every week on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey,

and other video hosting platforms, as well as free audiobooks, highlighting the psychological principles which inform our dream experience and much, much more. To join the Wizard as a guest, reach out across more than a dozen social media platforms, and through the contact page at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, where you will also find the Wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature, available on Amazon, featuring the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on your own. YouTube and at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com.

All right. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, no one may accuse you of being anything less than a prolific and vivid dreamer. Huge multi-part dramas and lots of vivid detail. I got three pages just out of the description. I am short on time today. And what I mean by that is this could take, you know, again, multiple days to go through

in my typical detailed method but I want to make an episode I want to give you a good experience out of it so I want to try to challenge myself to maybe pet the kitty come on come on just you gotta stop oh I'm gonna get you

you cannot lay on my notes you could it stop it look at it look at a bit so cute get my fingers anyway I want to challenge myself to condense the process a little bit speed it up get to the point

maybe I should be doing that anyway. I don't know. Here I'm metacognitively processing my process as I process my process, as I do the process. Anyway, what am I trying to say? The idea is what I do has been intuitive and it's always just been, okay, let's go back and look through it and then I give myself the time for it to percolate and I try to bounce as many ideas off as possible and we fill in a lot of gaps and extra details. We've given me so much detail.

I don't know that I need to pull. lot out of you. Some people's description, your, your description was like a good 15 minutes long. And that's fine. I'm not complaining at all. Um, but what I normally have to do is get to that level of detail when I talk to people, but you've got it already. You've got so much detail that I don't know that it's going to really benefit us to just go over all those points again. Because I think when we did it last time, there wasn't a lot of filling in the gaps. Does that, does that sound familiar? Like mostly it was what it was. I asked questions and there was just really there was nothing more. You had it all.

You're giving me everything you have. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. So, like, well, what can I do? How do I, how do I change this up and make it a better experience for you? And shortcut my normal process, which seems like it's not actually going to yield the benefit I would, I would hope or expect or the benefit I think is necessary.

Anywho. So first we're going to get the cat to move. Go. Go. You got to go. Okay. I love you, baby girl. Stay off my notes. I'm going to wipe the sweat off my brow here.

Oh, it's just, why is it so hot? Why am I so hot in here? You know, I got the air conditioning on. I got a fan on, and I'm just, I'm just dripping. I'm just dripping for no reason with my internal body temperature is way too high. So a few things struck me as we were going, I might even not, I might even not make additional notes. I'm just going to go back through this. A few things struck means we've got multiple sequences.

And what I've said before about the, and she's back. you got you gotta go you got to go i love you you gotta go get out of here get out of here star of the show um or at least she thinks so you've got multiple transition points where things suddenly cut and change and what i've theorized about that in the recent past is that it it represents kind of the conclusion of one contained idea or exploration of an idea and where that idea connects to another one these sudden jumps of like intuitive not intuitive is the word but um connected associations it's like when if i say you know banana you say what what comes to mind shit banana i don't know anything doesn't matter well tomato tomato sure okay so what happened

in that gap between banana and tomato nobody knows and this is just i'm not even going to analyze it doesn't matter. But that idea that there is some connection there, there is the conclusion of one idea, banana, the concept. There is the beginning of a new idea, an entirely new related concept for whatever reason. In the dream context, we're going to try and get down to why those connections happen because that's, I think it's relevant. It's not relevant to this example, but it's that magic of the gap in a way that that that's a scene change. It's the new idea. That's the concept I'm trying to do. I'm making any sense. I don't even know. You have to explain anything poorly today.

No thoughts. Am I making sense? You can say no. You got drowned out by the airplanes. Okay, good deal. No, no. But the concept I'm trying to explain, the associative connection that seems mysterious,

that's a scene change, banana to tomato. Right. That makes sense to you? Yeah. Okay. So I'm not explaining it very well, but I'm trying to do a comparison analogy type of thing. It's jumping. It's the associate,

associate free association. Just jump into it. So we've got at least four of those. We got one, two, three, three of them. No, we got another kind of three, three segment deal here. So we've got first, um, the discrete idea of the portable classroom. You're there with schoolmates that are not real. There's, uh, you're at a, um, kind of a plastic folding table. Um, okay.

So that's kind of the beginning, beginning area. What I'm getting from that, and you can tell me, if this resonates with you, we've got the idea of school, classrooms, a lot of these things just broadly indicate learning or new understanding. When you think of school, do you think of a place that you gather understanding or new information comes to you or do you have a different association with school in general? well i thought in school was was hell for me but okay well that may be completely different so most people might think school as associated with learning you're like i am in a very uncomfortable situation i'm in a place i didn't choose to be i'm required to be like by law and this is not somewhere i would ever yeah would ever choose to be i'm not enjoying this i don't want to be here so maybe that's what we're going with is this is the concept of i'm going to

place I don't want to be. I'm forced to do something I don't want to do. Yeah, I can make a connection with that. Okay. I don't want to be here or do this. You're with schoolmates that are not real life people you knew, but you know their schoolmates. So there are other people in the same situation as you? Yeah. What is the relation there? Other people in the same situation. Um, did you, did you get a sense that they were also unhappy to be there? No, they seem content. Okay. So you're in a situation you don't want to be in,

but with others who are actually content, or you've seen others in similar situations that doesn't bother them the same way it bothers you. Okay, you've got something there. You're at a plastic table. What is your association with plastic tables in terms of, I mean, I could throw out some things. They're a temporary object.

There may be a low-quality object. It's not like the wooden desks in the office later on. those are much, much better quality. When you think of those plastic desks, what comes to mind? I mean, I like the plastic desk. I had them in junior year of high school. Okay. I quite in that for English class.

But, but, but, I mean, to me, it's just because the classroom is affordable and the room itself doesn't seem very stationary. Like maybe things move around a lot. I'd probably guess that was why. Okay, interesting. So if we phrase it this way, you're in a temporary environment that is made of temporary things. Yeah. And that might play into how why the scenes change repeatedly and suddenly. Maybe so, maybe so. I'm looking at this as a broader. So if we look at this as I'm in a situation I don't like. I would rather not be here. I don't want to be doing this. It bothers me more than it bothers other people. They seem fine with it. You're showing yourself that. But it is a temporary situation. I'm in a portable. It's not a brick school building. I'm at a plastic desk. It folds up and you can put it away. So you're looking at if we just take that just that section of that imagery, you're looking at I'm in a bad situation, but it's temporary. Yeah. And I mean, there was no in the dream. I'd say there was no sense of I'm going to be here for a week or months or years. It was just, you know, it felt like it was only a

daytime thing. Yeah. And not only that, you're there to do a specific task. So that's not the right way to put it. The action that is being performed there is a girl comes to you, another fellow student, takes you to the other table to do the project, or you simply go with her or join her at the table. How does that play out?

I just deleted my dream itself so I could read back. I'm stupid. How did you delete it? What happened? I don't know. I just did a impulse move something, whatever, but you can go with my prompts and you don't have to worry about reading back. I mean, it is what it is. Either you remember something or you don't, like, just like always.

Oh, yeah, we were so we were. we were at the table and she took me to the desks of the older ladies in the other room. Okay. So she took you away. It said, what you had originally said was, um, uh, this girl and myself go off to another table to do a project, but you're interrupted by people who work in the portable, which becomes an office. Oh, yeah.

Okay. And that means, yes, we were all, we were all at the plastic desk. Or wait, were we? fucking oh wait how the hell was i think if yeah probably we were in in the portable in the room and then we went to that table we sat down at the table and then she took me to the older ladies do you remember anything about that girl um anything stand out about the way you felt towards her or physical features you observed not no i can't remember i can't remember at all how she looked.

Okay. So, I mean, very well could have been, um, random person. You, you need, you needed to show yourself a mechanism of, of movement. So what it is is you, you get informed by someone else that a change is occurring, that the nature of the task is now changing or that, uh, what is expected of you is changing. Um, we could look at it in broadly speaking, um, um, we could look at it in broadly speaking, uh, you know, masculine feminine terms. There's some kind of a feminine energy that leads you in a specific direction where you're

now have to interact with these other people and that that was, that was the, um, the destination chosen by that, by that energy. I don't know. Any of that standing out to you or speaking to you? I just think she was a, a guide to show me in an unfamiliar environment. Mm-hmm. Because she completely disappears once I, once I entered the, uh, the other room.

Yeah. Yeah. And I can't say it's, it's, I don't want to assume that the fact that it is a female means something. It, it very well, it probably does.

And it, very well might in terms of significance, but what significance? Sometimes, um, our characters are, well, we might say nothing's random,

but, but sometimes the purpose they serve is just to be that kind of transitional guy. I'm not sure. But there's something standing out to me or the feel, I feel a tickle with the idea that it is this specifically feminine energy of a kind, a female, you know, the Carl Jung anima animus dichotomy, yin, type of thing. Like I might be guided by my feminine side in terms of, you know, a softer, more compassionate approach to something. Fair enough, that might be represented in my dream as, as a woman who demonstrates some process to me. So we could think of this as, maybe in broadly speaking, we can put a, the hell do you call it, pencil it in. The idea that there is a, and I keep coming back to feminine energy, but viewing something through a feminine or female perspective, a traditionally yin-yang style feminine side, seeing through that perspective or being guided by that perspective is what leads you to the

consideration of the next important element, which is having. having some kind of assessment being performed by these by these office workers. And it is interesting you go from an educational experience to an office setting. So if you're conceiving school as hell is a very, very much place you don't want to be, how do you conceive of an office space? I can't really think of just, just anything for you associate what comes to mind when you think office, you know, in my mind, professional. Stuffy uptight.

Yeah. Too many rules. Air conditioning. Yeah. No, fair enough. Fair enough. Interesting. Interesting.

What do we make of that? Office air conditioning. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Anything else? Just anything floats through your head. Colors. Anything.

Oh, you are on my keyboard. What are you doing? Get off of there. She's going to stop this recording. You're a little shit. Oh, my God. baby girl i love you you gotta go she wants to eat my paperwork and stop my recording are you there what yeah are you still thinking about other associations with office spaces offices office workers

office environments office buildings grumpy looking people grumpy or frumpy with an F. Yeah. Okay. Air conditioning. Interesting. What we think of it is, you know, it is conditioning the air. It is a, it is a modification of the environment. It is control of, it is environmental control in a way.

And frumpy, frumpy. People that are not, they're not the beautiful people. As in their appearance would be considered lesser compared to super models and who is. I'm no supermodel, but that isn't the purpose of what they do. You know, their appearance actually is completely divorced from the task. So the task is more substance than appearance. Yeah. I'd say so, yeah.

Substance over, you know, okay, but so I jumped ahead a little bit because my notes were out of order. Sometimes I write something down and then I go back and I write the thing that I forgot to write down that you just. just said before and I'd forget to draw a little error going, okay, reverse these. You were led down a very tiny hallways, what you said. They bring you out of that one room down a tiny hallway. And I think we talked last time about generally hallways being transitional spaces. And they can be huge. It can be the hallway between the front door and the King's Chamber, you know, the audience

chamber where the throne room. But that's a hall. That can be a very large, grandiose hall. but the purpose of the hall is is is a transitory space you're meant to walk through the hall to the other place um in this sense it's a very narrow hall tiny it's small it's it's it's either focused or constrained in a way i don't know which were if you if you were to think of you know positive and negative broadly like focusing as in you know get your attention on this or constrained as in your limited options uh how would you conceptualize that hallway

I mean, portables are pretty small. Then the only reason I think it's smaller because there's not much space to fit a lot of rooms. So it's just. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Could be a very logical connection there of like, you know, because we do, we do make a logical sense of our, of our dream imagery in that way. You know, we show ourselves logical things sometimes that are.

And that's, that's part of the art to the, to this science, as it were. is teasing out, okay, does the hallway really mean anything? Maybe the fact that it's tiny is just, and that's, of course, the association that came to your mind. I was just in a portable and there, their hallways are small. Fair enough. Fair enough. I was going somewhere with that as in, you know, the, possibly, alternatively, the, say, broadly speaking, feminine perspective you're supposed to, that makes you aware of something is a, it's a very narrow slice of that where it's guiding you is a narrow path.

it's not overly broad. It's not a, it's not a wide array. It's more of like one specific thing rather than a bunch of different things or loosely, broadly, a bunch of things all jumbled up. That's just an alternative that we don't have to dwell on too much, but that's where my brain was going with it. So you were brought to sit in a chair in front of a kind of a L-shaped wooden desk at which a woman is sitting. And when you thought of offices, you thought Frumpy and she was nothing to look at or do you remember her appearance? She was she was older, like 40. But other than that, I tell you.

You couldn't say she was an attractive 40 or she was a boy, rough shape, 40, you know, 10 years of meth, 40. I was just your average American standard American office woman. Fair enough. Fair enough. So you've been brought from a school and I know where people learn into an office environment where there is. That's where people go after school in a way. That's where people go once they've learned things and now they're going to put them into practice. Now you've got to deliver.

You got to perform. Um, and you, your experience of sitting there at the desk was that you were being assessed or discussed. Right. Did you have any idea of what they were saying about you? What, what elements they thought were worthy of discussion or? That I can't remember. Did you have a sense of discomfort of feeling judged of like, oh, boy, they're going to be, they're here, they're evaluating me. And I'm being, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to make a decision based on whether they think I'm,

good enough that that kind of thing they did kind of do that but they didn't really give any uh any conclusion or feedback i guess or is sure sure they didn't tell you what their yeah conclusion was well that was that was interrupted as you're being judged and that that might be why this particular friend then shows up this this ex friend which i don't know it's hard to even call someone a friend when they got they treat you so poorly Um, this person shows up to then abuse you basically, um, to repeat or renew a pattern of abuse. Um, this is where I'm going to kind of try and shortcut a few things in this section, to move it along. Um, the nature of it, it seems like it would have been a lot of the, and she's back again.

There she is right on the notes. Um, things you've actually experienced in the past, you know, put a headlock and have water poured on you and you said this person hit you and threw things at you. Yeah. So all different types of, um, so power, uh, the, you give yourself an experience that you, you live out in a way in your dream, the experience of being helpless to prevent being humiliated, which seems to follow directly from I'm being evaluated and judged. And what is it like if I'm judged lesser, feel humiliated and I'm powerless to stop it. So we've got this very physical representation of it.

Right. That's making sense so far. Yeah. And you do mention, you know, being physically weak as well, which is a lot of the times we, when we're having these, say, chased by a boogeyman type of dreams and we can't run or legs don't work. Or we're showing ourselves, you know, a threat, the representation of a threat that is coming, that is coming upon us, that is going to catch us and we cannot escape. There are life circumstances.

We got a deadline. and that deadline's going to pass. Let's say it's Christmas and you have to decide on a gift. That is a threat. That is a problem that has a deadline and you can't escape it. There's no running away from the passage of time. So this is all metaphorical or, you know, comparative to kind of illustrate the process or concept. So it's very similar to this.

You know, you've got this. Uh-oh, I'm being judged. What if I'm judged? poorly. I never get the result, but what I imagine in my mind where my mind goes is, damn it, I'm about to be humiliated just like I was when this person was being cruel to me. And they're going to do all kinds of things like me in a headlock and drag me on the ground and kneel on top of me and dangle a luggy and poor water. I'm going to make it look like the most embarrassing thing.

Oh, I've lost bowel control. And they're just doing everything they can to really, you're thinking of all the ways you would not want to be represented. You wouldn't want anyone to see you any of those things happen to you, right? right um the last thing you said before the scene change was you felt two weak to fight back and he was laughing at you and so there's this this insult to injury type of thing where this um not only you know we can imagine say someone is reluctant or regretful i'm sorry i have to do this it's the right thing to do but it's going to hurt you so you know i'm sorry it doesn't make me happy no no this is malicious evil this is someone not only,

not only are they willing to do it, they're happy to do it. So there's some sense of yeah, yeah, being subject to a malicious evil. Okay, what do we get from there?

And then that realization that this tormentor is enjoying it, suddenly you're scene changed. Now we've, so we've encapsulated. So what is this thought if we try to encapsulated is you're you're in a place you don't want to be and it's it's a place that others don't find as as unsettling or unpleasant as you do however you do recognize it is more of a

temporary place um the experience you're going to have there is oh my god come on i'm reading my notes can you just roll over uh the experience you're having there is one of judgment and you imagine that you're the outcome is going to be humiliation um So good so far from from all that we've seen that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Making notes to myself here too. I don't think I've ever tried to sum up segments like this before.

That, I mean, if someone just brought me that as the entire dream that they were here to analyze, we might have taken a lot longer with it to get to the same result. I think I don't trust myself sometimes to be this direct and directive and, um, Trusting my gut to say, here's what I think it looks like. Let's go. Let's go. Let's do it. I'm a little more him and hon and what if and leave a more room to kind of pull things out

and allow for more suggestions to resonate or have the dreamer give me more of their thoughts. We've been doing that as much as we can, but I'm also trying to, I want to get this done. I want to be done in the next hour. So I want to give you everything I possibly can as quickly as possible. So we're just doing it. Um, all right. That would be like part one. And right there.

Uh, three, four, page four, page five. Paul Harvey. And now the rest of the story. Remember that guy? Do you ever hear that guy? No, I don't know that reference. You should look up Paul Harvey videos. Uh, there's a bunch of them out there.

One of the, one of his favorite, um, most famous is like, what would I do if I were the devil? How would I, what would I do to the world to mess it up? And it's a great story. This guy was genius. Gene storyteller. And his son sounds a lot like him. He's not Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey was the thing.

That was a thing that happened in time and now it's over. So anyway, speaking of trying to try to go quickly and I get diverted on to tangents. So getting to that point of understanding, bam, new free association in a way, you've moved now from a office space. to a rural space, a barn specifically. Any idea of the size of the barn? I mean, like large, small, super, super huge. You know, because there's a different size. There's little hayloft barns, which are tiny,

and there's no bigger than the average garage. And there's some that are quite big. What do you think? It was longer than it was wide. Okay, rectangular. Yeah, I mean, most aren't. All barns are, but. Yeah, yeah, when some of them are wider than they are long, like the front door, and then there's massive room off to the side, but the back of the barn isn't very far in front of you.

So, yeah, interesting. This is a very different kind of environment. What is your associations with, with barns, with, you know, rural or farm life or that kind of thing? Comfy. Comfy. Very, it's very cottage core vibes. Gotcha. Interesting.

Yeah, and I'm not much of a concrete jungle kind of guy. I like the countryside. I like barns and fields and trees and lots of room between me and my neighbors. When you think of what a barn is for, what is that type of building there to do or what is it used for? This wasn't a typical barn as it is a barn. It was doubling as a house space. Okay. So it wasn't just a rural comfy cottage core space. It was actually also a living place. This is a place where people inhabit. Interesting. And, okay, let's go, let's go over this this way. Now you're imagining a different environment, a more pleasant environment to you. And there is now a car.

that belongs to this friend. And what you do is you do start initiating some kind of retaliation. You're like, I'm not taking this line down. I'm not going to, the story doesn't end with me being humiliated. I'm going to take revenge in a way. But it isn't revenge as much as I'm going to take my power back. I'm not completely helpless. You know, maybe I can be overpowered physically, but there's other ways of balancing the scales.

there's there's things maybe that person cares about that I could damage that would balance the scales in that way the way like taking power back let me stop there and just say some things about that concept like what I think yeah yeah I just I just threw a bunch of stuff at you how does that feel what do you think about it say it again I need to mull over it some more. Sure, sure. And maybe we can move on with it too, and we'll describe a little more of the scenario. You're in a barn.

There's a car. It is specifically a Kia sole thread. You start kicking at the bumper. You're doing only light damage. So you're struggling maybe to take your power back to enact some balancing of the scale, some retaliation for this person that has hurt you. And you're not being very effective at it, maybe. but then this nurse shows up and the nurse is specifically someone tasked with caring for

this aggressor who's the car belongs to was this person disabled in real life and or or they yeah oh they were okay and they had a nurse or their disability was such that they needed needed care no he he didn't have a nurse at all it was it's just this was part of the dream i guess sure fair enough so you've got this representation of a caretaker that didn't actually exist, but connected to him. Like her original purpose was to, she would, you would assume be on his side. She's there to care for him, not you, but she joins you. She, uh, so there's something along the lines of a, someone who would otherwise be an ally to this person that they're actually kind of responsible for, but they're agreeing with you. They're,

they're a more, um, allied to the, to the fact that what happened to you was not fair was not good or just or right. And they're endorsing your retaliation by by enhancing it saying, not only that, you go ahead and kick the bumper. I'm a bumper. I'm going to go full on smashed windshield, which is huge. I mean, it's a big deal. If anyone's ever, you know, on a car or whatnot. That's like you can't drive or in the weather. It ruins a car to have a, you know, you can't, it's a situation that can't be shined on like a bump, like a dent in the fender. Dent in the under it's still drivable shit that sucks it's ugly but it's not it doesn't seriously disturb the function of the vehicle so it's a very much more effective retaliation that so in a way she's kind of

um so we've got this uh say feminine compassion figure who even that person would agree with you would be on your side um even if you imagine they were a uh a compassionate person whose specific job was to care for the other person. Even they would recognize that what happened to you was, was unacceptable and wrong. How do you feel about all that so far? Yeah, I see. It's making some more notes here.

And then this is almost not quite a scene change, but there's a connected link here of you're imagining an effective retaliation and suddenly the thought of consequences, punishment in a way comes to mind. Right. Right? Yeah. because you know most because the law is there to protect both you and the offender because if it were just vigilante justice then people would die.

Gotcha. Yeah. To make sure the, what we say, justice is properly balanced. It's not too little or too much. It should be, oh. Right. Come on, baby girl. She's coughing.

Like a hairball. Come on, baby girl. Come on. Come on. I don't know if this does any good. I'm trying to pat her on the back and help her loosen up some phlegm. Whatever it is. I don't know if this is doing any good whatsoever.

Come on. But you can't just be coughing up a hairball in my notes. She might actually cough up a hairball on my notes. Okay. Anyway, so, and that all makes sense. the idea of, oh, wait a minute, have I gone too far? So, right, there, if we just stop, oh, don't know, wait, but then there's the element of, you know, they can't see us unless we draw too much attention.

Ah, but they do. And you're thinking, maybe this will escape notice. Maybe I won't be punished for this because it will not rise to a level that draws punishment to me, that, you know, it'll fly under the radar, so to speak. but no there was there was a brief hope uh and you're saying no this is uh you at least you consider for the moment what if i could get away with it and then you tell yourself no that's not going to happen right now i now i've got like a sympathetic response i got it feels like i got flam i need to cough up um okay and that is its own it's a little transitional thing right there

and then bam now you're now you're in the in the uh in the in the uh in the act of running away. But if we try to just go back on that a little bit and encapsulate it the way we did before, one, two, three, four, five. Okay, so I was on, I was on that one. So you've gone from an unpleasant situation that you realize is temporary, but in with an unpleasant temporary situation where judgment will be applied and that judgment you are concerned is likely to end in a humiliating circumstance. And you maybe you consider that that's an unfair judgment. And so you change this and you can, you have a connecting strain to, what if I tried to do something about the unfairness of the situation to make it right?

What if I assert myself? What if I stand up for myself and do something? This section seems to be suggesting you're concerned. You would go too far and you would end up making it worse for yourself, getting into more trouble. Not only did I go through a negative experience, I've brought more negative experience onto myself. Right.

So it seems like there's maybe a lack of self-confidence in the ability to be properly assertive versus too passive or too aggressive in like assertive self self-advocacy. Yeah, I can see that. Gotcha. And then where does that lead? You're like, oh, shit. Okay, I went too far. Now I got to run away.

Right. And the place of safety that comes to your mind is, I'm going to go home. I'm going to go back to my grandmother's house. And you said that's where you grew up, kind of. That's where you spent a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

and that's a very normal natural reaction is well okay where is my place you know i'm going to escape to a place of safety typically if your childhood was decent or at least if you felt safe in a particular place that place would come to mind um but the idea of running away home seems that's kind of universal to all of us um unless home was a very bad place which then people would say no i would run to you know a park that was my i felt safe in the park i was always always always away from the bad people. So you run in through the house and the cop is chasing you. And what you do is you grab your ID and hide your guns.

And this was under the idea of minimizing the damage and preparing to continue to escape, like taking with you things you would need to succeed. Well, I mean, in the sense that I did that, I was preparing to be arrested. And the only thing I'd won on me is my ID. so that they don't steal my phone or something. So you imagine, or so it seems, that even running away home, you're not going to escape the trouble,

but if you're going to get caught and punished, perhaps, you know, if the consequences were going to find you and hit home in a sense, you prepare for that arrest by having your ID handy to facilitate the process. You're like, you're not going to make it more,

worse on yourself by failing to do what you can to mitigate the damage now that the damage is coming. And also on that idea of mitigating the damage is hiding the guns. I think that might stand out also. And I think it goes right back to the previous section of being afraid to enact, you know, being lacking confidence in the ability to properly enact self-advocacy. And what you show yourself in this next dream when the consequences, hit is that symbols of aggression guns, things that are designed weapons that are designed to do harm that are, you know, broadly associated with that aggressive impulse, whether, you know,

and this is aside from the political thing of like our guns just meant to kill people. And if they are, isn't that our second, what the second amendment's for in a sense to hurt bad people, but setting all that aside, it's kind of an icon of aggression. What would you say? I mean, is, is that your conception? Am I on to something? Am I on to something? or you can see it completely differently? I see it differently. Well, how do you say it? Tell me. Let's just say the gun I was hiding wasn't, say the server admins aren't particularly happy about that.

And if the Metro Combine Police saw it, then I would be in jail for it. a lot longer. Okay. Okay. No, no, I got you. Okay. So it's not just a generic symbol of aggression. It is specifically the concern that if other consequences hit, it will then be exacerbated because worse things might be revealed. Right. Gotcha. I think that's a very realistic thing because you know, let's say complete not a complete

tangent, but not a one to one analogy, but using part of what you were said. So let's say some jerk did something to me and I decide I'm going to go take a baseball bat and smash his headlights. Well, let's say I get caught for that. Let's say I'm completely justified. He's a jerk. He deserves it. Fuck that guy.

But now the cops are at my house. And not only am I getting arrested for that, they find evidence of some other crime. So all I had to do was just not seek to balance that redress, not seek to take revenge. And the act of doing so actually made it worse on myself. I could have just had a lesser consequence, but instead I, my own choices put me into more trouble.

Is that kind of where we're going with this? Does that, does that feel right? Yeah. Yeah, because I would say perhaps the only thing worse than being humiliated, which already happened, is then on top of that, you try to fix it in some way. and that actually makes it worse. So now you've got that and a worse consequence on top of it. Your sister is present following you.

She's a nuisance. She's teasing you. Is she taunting you about the idea of these consequences coming home to Roost? Yeah. Do you remember anything about what she said or what element of the consequences she was highlighting? That I... wouldn't be able to to basically, I can't. Yeah.

That's okay. Fair enough. It might have been useful if it was there, but it's not. Maybe while I was waiting for you to answer, I kind of kept processing. Would you say there have been instances in the past where you brought trouble upon yourself by poor choices? And the reaction of your family in general was to say, It was kind of mockery in a sense of dumbass. Look what you did to yourself.

And they're not, they don't exactly, it's not a sad commiseration. It's more of a, I don't know. Am I onto something there? Do you have any thoughts on that? Or has your, I get where you're going. Go ahead. But I just don't have any deep thoughts on it, I'd say. Well, is that something you've experienced in the past?

I mean, we're not trying to throw anyone out of the bus specifically, but. not exactly but what I can see I mean your sister specifically maybe has she been someone who's like kind of critical and who would actually yeah an asshole right yeah yeah yeah yeah

not exactly on your side not exactly commiserating but more like maybe laughing laugh also laughing at you in a way right okay so again I mean that would that would explain that there it's like and what would be the consequence

or what would be the scenario under which this, what would happen as this played out is, uh, yeah, and the person who's mocked me in the past for being dumb would, of course, be there to mock me for making a poor choice. That kind of makes sense. Yeah.

And then, uh, yeah, and then in, I don't know if this is where it occurred to you originally or if you were giving context to the entire experience. And that, and that's, that would be my next question.

is the idea of the daylight being kind of an orange dusky heading towards nightfall. Was it that way the whole way across or was it only after your sister was following you and taunting you that you realized, oh, it's kind of... It was only like that once I entered the house. So outside the house wasn't normal, but it was during the entire scene. Yeah, outside the house. When we were outside of the scene, it was normal daylight. once we were inside the house, it was, it was that orangeish. So any associations with that time of day, specifically dusk?

Yeah, I mean, to me, that time was, I mean, when we were to go to grandmas, it was always, you know, afternoon evening. So that was a very, very common. you know if theme is the right word you know when we would sure be there it an experience you've literally had many many times yeah so okay right that could just be um well you know we i think we might have we discussed that in the past uh the idea of grandmother's house i can't remember um but why would it stand out this time maybe uh might stand out this time i don't know why the idea of the idea of normalcy comes to mind like a standard feature really stands out when you go there initially

it's typically around that heading towards dusk time yeah okay so it isn't like you're there in dusk it descends it's more like dusk represents the approach just the beginning of the visit in in a sense and yeah so something that's just beginning that's just beginning and then you get interrupted, tackled by the sheriff and removed. You're taken away from that experience so it doesn't get to happen. There might be something there about interrupting. Go ahead. Like, that was a constant theme.

You know, like when in childhood, the time when the sunsets in September, when school starts, middle of September, that's what it always was. September 12th. I think it was, well, that's when school used to always start. They've now since changed it to August, but, you know, when we were, Gotcha. Well, you just had that sudden association. The more I talked about it, it kind of came just suddenly came to you.

Like, whoa, well, it's got this really clear impression. We've got to roll with that kind of stuff. That's, that's what we're doing here. How do you see that working with, I'm here to run away. I'm being mocked by this person who's typically would pile on if I'm, you know, made a mistake and they could get away with teasing me about it and um i'm getting arrested and taken away i'm getting punished for something i did that might have been a foolish mistake right how do you relate all that to that kind of september school starting vibe i mean when i was

when i was little i was a troublemaker in school is that related personally I don't think so. That's the only, that's the only thing I can suggest, but. Yeah, I mean, it could be, could be. It could be. Sometimes there are ancillary, tangential, little brief blips that come, come to mind. So the idea, the idea of pending punishment for a foolish action brought to mind, well, I always was in trouble in school. This is not actually surprising, you know, I wasn't, you know. You, what do you do as you think? Not only, not exactly, I always was in trouble in school, but I always was a troublemaker. So this is maybe not surprising. Right. Something, something like that, some kind of just brief associative connection.

And not to be that profound, but it kind of goes with the theme of like, what else did I expect? This is actually a pattern I've had before. And should have seen this coming in a way, if that makes sense. Yeah. And then, so the, what is it, being caught, being tackled, being the, the punishment fully descending upon you, you are now in it. There is no going back. This is happening. Bam, scene change again.

So we've got, so we've got all this stuff here. Suddenly, I'm set free. In a way, I don't think so. I think now you're imagining, okay, what is that constant? consequence going to be. I think that's what that next segment is leading towards. That's, that's why I think it's like you're not really escaping it. Um, you're like, okay, now that I've been caught, what is, what is the, now that I'm in it, what, what's going to happen to me. Um, so yeah, if we, um, just recap that real quick also to kind of, kind of, kind of put a pin in it. Um,

you can, you consider the possibility of escape. If I could escape, it would be like going home. just in case the consequences are going to find me, I want to try to minimize it as much as possible. I want to have my ID ready. I want to put away evidence of other crimes, perhaps. I know I'm going to be mocked as I have been in the past by family or by someone close to me. who, this isn't like, oh, your sister stands in for your entire family, thinks you're a goof and nobody respects you. But more like an icon of someone who knows you very well. They've known you at least their entire life, if they're a younger sister, if they're older than your entire life.

And someone who knows you very well is going to be there to say, I've seen this before. And I don't have any, you know, I'm not expressing compassion for it. I'm laughing at you for what, again, you're doing this. again. And then you're like, yeah, I've done this before. I've been a troublemaker. So it's, I'm not surprised. I would suffer the consequences of overreacting or going too far or making a foolish choice. Is that all seeming like kind of legit? Yeah. Making some notes to myself here. Trying to sum up these things and little. And then I'm going to go back and where you kind of read them all together as I go Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, and we'll try and try and see what we got.

Now the next scene changed. And I'm going to go to a new piece of paper. where it is here three four five uh now now we are at it's early morning it's 3.30 a.m. you suddenly wake up and you're in the living room do you normally sleep in the living room yeah you do okay you just pass out on the couch or are you sofa surfing and that's where you live temporarily or yeah i'm usually on asleep on the floor because that that's where because the mattress hurts my back, so I'm on the floor. Okay. So this is all, now you're giving yourself a very, this is all very realistic then in this sense.

Like, I typically sit on the floor. I typically wake up at 3.30 a.m. because I got ahead to work early. Yeah. It's unusual. You're in your work clothes. Yeah. Unusual to be in work clothes. And you wake up kind of in a panic. Oh my God, I got to get to work is what I wrote down quotes with an exclamation.

point. Right. There's a mixed, bit of a mixed thing going on here where you're like, uh, you awaken in a panic due to a pending responsibility, but you're actually more prepared than you would normally be. You're actually dressed for work already and you're not late. You just have a sudden doubt that you're, that's an interesting thing. You're like you have a panic moment of I'm unprepared and then you look and you realize, oh, I am. I'm out. actually more prepared than I thought I would be. Right. Because I'd be able to leave right away instead of taking 30 minutes to get ready every morning.

Yeah. But still, you decided to skip a shower. Any thought go through your head at that time of like why you would have done so? Or is that only in retrospect? Well, I'm already realized. I mean, normally I would, you know, in actual life, I would, I would take a shower. I would actually get undressed and take a shower and put new clothes on. But when I got up in the dream, I was already dressed and nothing occurred to me about a shower.

Gotcha. And no sense that I really should shower, but I'm just not going to. It just like it just didn't even occur to you. Yeah. Because we're already dressed. Like, I must be ready. I must have completed that process maybe last night. But that specifically didn't occur to you, but it didn't seem odd that you skip

it until you look back on it like oh that was out of the ordinary right okay fair enough yeah if it wasn't an experience in the dream it's kind of a secondary elaboration in a way then i probably wouldn't put it in as significant um i don't know leave that one uh we'll pencil that in but um and as usual you go out the front so you're performing your typical daily routine you go out the front door to put on your boots and as you're tying the laces you see one um massive you said gray gray slash black massive great great dane come down the yeah this is why i thought specifically that the next portion is like okay well what's the consequence is going to be of being tackled by the sheriff and taking into custody what

what am i going to face now that i'm caught in in a way um now that i can't avoid the consequences go ahead no i'm just Stupid joke that Go ahead. After being caught, I faced the dog. Yeah. But I mean, between the scene changes in that, I had no sense that I was, you know, detained, arrested or anything like that.

No, no, no, certainly not. Yeah, because you're, there are two distinct concepts. And I shouldn't say certainly not. I mean, it makes sense to me that the concept of, of wrapping up the concept of, am I likely to be caught? Am I likely? And caught is the wrong word in a way. It's like, is, am I likely to face consequences is a different concept from what might those consequences be?

Now, they're connected. And I think they're connected by, okay, I think it is likely. Therefore, what, what would they be? But you were considering one discreetly. And then the next phase of the dream is, you know, so the, the, it's like, uh, trial to determine guilt and then separate is the sentencing. Okay, well, what? Does that make sense? Right. So we're kind of in the sentencing phase of like what you think is likely to be the consequence versus distinct from the question of am I likely to get caught at all or

to have those consequences catch up with me. You say that being attacked by a large dogs specifically or just any kind of large animal. Is that kind of a terrifying idea? I mean, any animal, and I mean, I've actually woken up to skunks. I mean, skunks are fine. I mean, they just mind their own business. It's, it's things like coyotes and raccoons and anything that can be rabid per se. Gotcha. And you're specifically concerned about the, like the physical damage?

Like, they're just going to tear you up and it's going to hurt like hell. Yeah, I mean, I've, I mean, I can. basis off that I was actually attacked by a dog before. So I'd say it's a constant fear to happen again. Sure. Absolutely. Very traumatic experience. Would you say probably one of the worst,

most painful experiences of your life? Like, Oh, it wasn't. It wasn't. I mean, I'll be honest with you. It wasn't that painful.

Okay. I mean, it could have been worse, but if you're, let me put the scenario that actually happened in perspective. If you're pulling, if the dog is pulling one way and you're pulling against that, yeah, it's going to hurt.

But if you're going with the dog, it's actually not too bad. You just feel a crushing sensation. Yeah, yeah, the biting. And it's, I mean, most, you know, inside, you know, beyond, you know, your general, nerves there is no you know pain receptors i if that's the word and you don't really feel

the teeth inside you that much fair enough fair enough so that's where i'm trying to uh kind of categorize this is so yeah let's do let's do it that way let's let's put it put a number to it uh scale one to 10 um best day of your life to work let's see what am i try to not best day of your life, but most pleasant experience you've ever had, maybe to worst experience you've ever had. Now, that's not right. On a scale of bad experiences, like mildly unpleasant to horrifyingly excruciating, literally, the classic one to ten pain scale, where would you put it at a number physically?

Like, maybe five or six. Okay. I mean, I was after the after the fact, you know, I was fine, but like to me, it's like, hey, I get off work early now because I got my dog. So I was, I was actually kind of okay with it. So this actually happened as a part of your work work day. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Um, so I asked you pain physically five or six pretty bad, not the worst ever. Emotionally, traumatically, like like the, the amount of fear and terror as it. Um, so I asked you pain physically. As a. Okay. Like, like, the, the amount of fear and terror as. was happening? How intense was that? One to ten? Not, not at all. I mean, my, when I am under a lot of stress, I get quiet

and I, you know, I, your brain is going, or at least me, I'm thinking every scenario, what to do, what, you know, what's next. And I wasn't freaking out or anything. I was, I was thinking, okay, I have to go with the dog

or it's going to cause more damage. Sure, sure. I mean, it was, it was after, I'd say only after I was, you know, and a day or so later, I was, that's when the constant fear of being bit against started to set in. Gotcha. Okay. So during the experience, and that's, that's not uncommon. There, a lot of us have a shock reaction. I mean, we don't actually know how traumatic the thing is, but then, and that's, that's a funny thing, too.

It's like, I've thought this before in my life relative to physical pain. It's like it isn't actually say the initial event. The initial event itself is almost, you're in such shock that it doesn't even actually hurt that much, maybe. Now, a lot of things are extremely painful and they're painful immediately. But for me, what I don't fear that intense immediate pain. what I fear in general is the lingering pain, the duration of ongoing injury that is healing. And it could take a long time.

So there's the intense pain in the moment and the fact that maybe that intense pain lasts for a period of time, but that it just lasts forever, it feels like. And it could take weeks, you know, to come back from a busted leg or broken bone or whatnot. But very often we're in shock in the moment. And it isn't that bad. So it may be emotionally, sometimes we process things and we come out of it the other side going, wow, now I have like a full. legit phobia like like I can't stop thinking about it I don't want this to happen again okay long story short on that one um this is this is interesting as it relates to this this was an event that happened at work and did it involve did it involve you putting yourself in a situation by

your own decision in terms of did you make a mistake and expose yourself to this dog on accident or completely random, nothing you could have done to change it. My employer blamed me for it, but I mean, I can see the mistake I did looking back on it. I don't want to be, you know, like revealing details too much, but just in general, that idea. So your honest self-assessment is, yeah, you did actually kind of maybe contribute to the likelihood that this would happen versus had you done something differently. So yeah, there's a bit of that theme running through this, running through this whole thing.

It's like here's in some ways, here's another, when you think of screwing up in a way that has personal consequences that catch up with you, putting yourself in a place to get bit by that dog and developing that fear, you kind of blame yourself, whether that's true or not. That's just kind of how you see it. Yeah.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Any significance. to the idea of the pattern that these animals are moving from east to west sun rises in the east that's in the west uh do you do you have i mean that's generally from because from east to west it's if you're coming from the east you're coming from a small smaller street and if you go west through our street you're going to a main thoroughfare so it's just the general i i'd say uh the path most people and cars and anything takes.

Gotcha. That is, I think that's fantastic that that's what comes to mind is, you know, I ask you about why East to West and ban like, oh, that's where people would go from smaller side streets where they would be at home or

the point of origin in a way and moving towards more traffic, congestion, activity, the main thoroughfare that takes you to other places to do things. very interesting. So these dogs, all of them, the dog, the dog, the guy walking the dog with his other dog, and the packs of dogs are all heading in that general direction towards increased activity,

towards increased motion or congestion. Yeah. I don't have to make it that yet. So the dog appears and stops at the lawn and sniffs around, but it's like 60 meters away, half of football field and you are kind of frozen a bit you're quiet trying again trying to avoid notice you keep uh keep giving yourself the hope that it won't be as bad as it could be that seems to be recurring theme as well um but he sees you sprints at you and you're like oh my god i'm about to get attacked it's up in your face there's this terrifying imminent

of I'm about to get bitten and it turns out he's does nothing friendly harmless is you said you don't know if he licks your face or anything but he certainly does not attack right okay there's something there's something there's something there of the idea of the fear of the fear of the consequence being worse than the actual consequence in some ways I don't know if that resonates with you yeah I see like yeah I mean I get what you you mean by that. Okay.

Then over by the lamp post, you see the owner of the dog. And it's interesting that you know this guy is specifically the owner of the dog, and he's got another dog that's younger. So he's, in a way, the controlling influence, the source. Does that making sense? Yeah. The source of the, what am I trying to say? There are many types of consequences we could endure.

And each one of them is distinct in its category type. And this is the source of the bit by the dog fear in a way. Consequence. Something like that. Like you very well could have been, what's another possibility? Could have been a man carrying a beehive and you're terrified of bees. And suddenly he shows up and you're like, oh, God, it's the, it's the, It's the source of the bees.

Come to, come to punish me. You know, that's the specific type of punishment you would suffer. Oh, not the bees. Say again? You know,

you ever seen Wicker Man? Oh, yeah, I'm not here what you said. Not the bees. That would be me. I would have gotten the hell out of there long since. That place was freaky,

man. I don't even know that I'd watch that whole movie. I think I saw clips. Like, I can't put myself through that kind of shit. Jesus Christ. Um, And what it was is that he was very dressed down.

It's a baseball cap, black t-shirt, basketball shorts, tennis shoes. But you felt he looked familiar, but you couldn't place him. Yeah, it looked familiar. I still don't. I still know. But I mean, I can guess the clothing choice.

Sure. That's generally, you know, like a, the clothing is pretty standard for the neighborhood we live in. So, you know, like a high sacvato. okay so what am i trying to say he wasn't out of place in the neighborhood first of all yeah imagine other people there being dressed similarly does that particular style of dress say

anything about the to your mind any associations with the nature of that person or the quality of their character or uh just anything comes to mind about what that clothing says about that source of potential punishment. Why would it come from that source? It's hard to say because they could either be the nicest person or standoffish. It's like you don't know until you actually interact.

I think that might be significant. It's like you don't actually know what you're getting. Like you can't bookbytes cover type of thing. That's very, you very well could have said, I've had nothing but negative experiences with people who dress like that. Fair enough. Or I know one guy in particular who dressed exactly.

like that and God, he was an asshole that was also malicious. But what we've got here is, is an uncertain, something that is, is book by its cover style, uncertain without actual interaction. Like you're not sure what you're going to get. You can't tell. And what actually ended up happening. He was unconcerned that the dog had run at you. And what am I trying to say?

He seemed unconcerned, indifferent. And in the grand sense, the natural consequences that fall on us are impersonal. They're like, you know, it's literally nothing personal. It's the laws of physics in a lot of ways. Stick your hand in a fire gets burned, not because the fire hates you. Fire doesn't care. Fire just does what fire does. So I think we've got something similar going on there of like, under the right circumstances,

this could be a harmless situation or it could be very, very bad. Um, and it turns out that you were, the consequence caught up with you, say, and came at you, but didn't actually hurt you. And the impersonal source then calls the dog back of like, that's, that was it. That was the experience. Um, but then, then you have the experience. And then he, he walks on as far as you know, like calls it a dog bash and, and walks on. Correct. Okay.

Gotcha. Uh, oh, I mean. Sorry. He calls the dog back. He's still standing by the light post. He stays there. Gotcha. Yeah.

Just looking at you with one dog near him and the other one on a leash? Or just present, but not paying attention. I'd say, yeah. He was present. He was aware of the other dogs, but no other, I'd say, interaction. No one. Okay. And then, and then two separate packs of dogs run by. The first one runs by. Doesn't stop. Head straight for the thoroughfare. Right. But then the second one. So there's a little bit of like, um, fearing a punishment that doesn't come. And then fearing another punishment's going to come. Oh, but it has also passes you by. And then finally, and even worse.

worst scenario, many, many, many, many dogs show up and they sniff you out and decide they're going to come charging at you. Right. And then you, uh, and then you wake up. Yep. Kind of letting it percolate in my head too. Yeah. So how do we, how do we summarize that the way we've done the other ones?

Um, you start by going through this, this idea of, showing yourself prepared, prepared for work specifically, more prepared than you thought you would be. So there's a sphere of competence perhaps around your work that is, you know, you know how to do it. You know how to show up on time and all that good stuff. And then the performance of the task at work. So where we came from some of the other ones is like, you know, second guessing yourself. your ability to properly self-advocate, that kind of thing. And then you're like, well, I can actually, I actually have the competence sufficient to

keep myself employed. Like, here, let me show myself what I'm capable of. I get up on time because I care to get up on time because I have that moment of panic, you know, because it's important to me. Well, panic means something we, we don't want is coming or something we do want is going, going away. There's the risk of that, the uncertainty. you show yourself

kind of a symbolic representation of of competence is where I keep going with that that idea but that doesn't actually stop then what could happen and

the dog thing specifically is like it may be that may have been triggered by showing yourself the competence of your work routine, a successful work routine, preparing to get there and how you, you've got things well-ordered for success. But then kind of creeps into your mind, well, I did have this one time where I was doing the work thing, and maybe it was my fault that I got bit by dog. And what if that's the nature of the consequence I'm going to expose myself to by going too far in

self-advocacy? Are we going somewhere with that? Is that feeling right? Yeah. Okay. Like, Can my competence save me? No, I've, I've been in a situation where I was otherwise competent and still kind of flubbed enough that was made actually a very serious consequence for me. Okay. So, so,

so let's do this. Let's do this. Any additional thoughts or comments? I don't mean to, you know, we're not trying to rush, but we are, it's sort of like,

I don't want, we're not rushing so much that I don't have time to hear, hear you out and let you add you two cents or additional insight or anything like that. I don't. I honestly don't have, like last time, not much additional insight. I mean, I, fair enough. Most, yeah, most of it was, uh, you answered it pretty, uh, I mean, what's the word?

I don't know. You, uh, framed it or described it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, how did you, and then you suddenly woke up. The dogs are coming for you. But there's, and this is not something you want to experience in your dreams, so you shock yourself out of it.

You're like, I'm not sticking around for this shit. How did you feel when you woke up? Panicked or sad or angry or numb? Anything? Any specific way when I woke up, honestly, it was, I woke up. Okay. I have to go to work right now. Did you?

You had to go to work right then? Were you awake in my alarm clock or your natural? Yeah. Actually, this time I was awakened by the alarm clock. That's why. Okay. He kind of got saved by the bell in some sense. Yeah.

Interesting. That might be its own. And it's hard to tell. So, dreams can be extremely dense and brief all at the same time. It can be a flicker of a... Dreams are as fast as thought, and thoughts can go very fast. Like, neuronal connections, zing all over. the place. It actually could have been the circumstance that you heard the first, you know,

let's say you've got an alarm that goes, eh, eh, you could have heard that first, and in the heartbeat between the second one, you had this entire experience of the dogs. It's possible. I'm not saying that actually happened, but that being the case, you know, because it feels like you did come to a conclusion. This is where a lot of these things naturally conclude. Like, if you're going to wake yourself out of an unpleasant dream, a lot of people wake up before they hit the ground, folly. You know what I'm saying? So the fact that the dogs didn't

actually get to you and give you that physical attack experience in the dream, that could have been the end of it anyway. Or there could have been more. Maybe something else was going to happen and it actually did get interrupted. Hard to tell. We can't almost, you know, certain, can't, say we can't yeah there's a this is the word counterfactual like we can't endorse a

counterfactual without evidence so um okay but long story sure this is what i wanted to do i wanted to go back through and go through all the synopsies that we kind of built from these sections string them all together and see if it says anything specific to you so um you've got a temporary unpleasant situation where you're going to be judged and you think it's likely or you're very concerned that it will end in humiliation. It'll be judged unsuccessfully. You be judged unfit or, you know, the judgment won't go well for you. You'll be judged poorly.

There's the idea of a lack of self-confidence in assertively advocating for yourself that actually you're concerned that might go, that might make things worse rather than just accepting the judgment. and letting it be what it is and saying, ah, me a cult, I'll try better next time. You're like, what if I stick up for myself?

No, actually I think that might make things worse. And if it is worse, what are the consequence, you know, am I likely to face consequences? And if I do, can I manage them?

Can I minimize the harm? Or is something unexpected going to happen? And it's going to be. really bad. And then you think, uh, you know, is the fact that my, you know, am I competence enough to mitigate these harms or is it going to be really bad? And you're like, no, I think this is, I think it's probably going to be, I'm probably going to be. F if this all, if this whole, you know, if it plays out the way I'm worried it would. Um, right. What do you think about that narrative? Yeah, I can.

agree with that does it speak to any chronic concerns in in the way of like is this a pattern you noticed yourself going through regularly and you're trying to maybe in your dreams sort it out like what is this i'm seeing what is this i'm experiencing why maybe why does this keep happening yeah why yeah why am i always dreaming about work every dream work yeah work yeah i mean I'm not stressed at work, but still, it's like work. Yeah. Well, I think in the, in the recent past, you'd been between jobs, and that was a source of stress?

Yeah, that was. That was a while ago, right? Yeah, that was from November to January. And since then, you've been stable in this current employment. Oh, yeah. Gotcha. Or was it? No, it was that.

It was actually November to March. That's how long I was on them. Not the longest I've ever been unemployed, but the second. Well, each, you know, in some ways, um, fear of the dog bite happening again could, could be analogous to fear of being unemployed again. Like,

that is not a thing you want to experience. You get no money. Maybe you got no place to live or you're depending on friends. You know, you have no sense of accomplishment. Um, no, certainly no stability. Um,

there's a lot of comparable things there. And I mean, it's a very natural thing to say, if you've been unemployed before, worry about it happening again. And worrying about your, whether your choices influence that. I mean, it's one thing to get laid off and to say, hey, you know, you're one of 100 people that you're all great people. We'd keep you if we could. But we got a downsize.

And, you know, you're not the top 10%. So you're going to go. Fair enough. I'm not the top 10% anything. I would be laid off too, you know, that kind of thing. But there's a different, a different, more personal conundrum that comes with, I got myself fired. I screwed up and it was my fault, that kind of thing.

You've really internalized that and you're just being honest with yourself and that is the fact. I would be worried about that happening again, you know? Absolutely. I think anybody would. That's very, very, very normal and natural. I'm not asking you to reveal that, but that's one way to conceive of this kind of thing. But it is interesting, as you've said, that a lot of your dreams revolve around work. There's something very, it means a lot to you.

Or it is an important source of a lens of analysis, if that makes sense. It's how you're processing a lot of different ideas in that context. Like someone who always dreams about the ocean. everything in their life they related to the ocean. It would be something, something like that. I don't know if you have any thoughts. Yeah, like the dream I had yesterday. Yeah.

That was about work. Yeah, that was about work and it involved my boss and me in the main office being a courtroom. But that's a whole different story. So, but still. Again, themes of authority figures and judgment. Again, the courtroom, your boss, judge. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. So what's the, what's the value of understanding these things? You know, what can I, what can I leave you with is that, um, I mean, first of all, I would probably recommend private counseling and therapy just to, just to have someone to talk about this stuff with more often. Like, I can't be there for you every day. So, um, yeah, and I'm not asking you to. No, no, no, you're not. But I, but, but, but, but I think you would benefit from someone who could be there. once a week to talk to you and sort through some of these things, especially with these themes

that seem to be, you know, what we, in psychology, what we'd want to do is say, you know, if you're chronically worried about something that it's just a little out of proportion to how you worry about it more often than is useful in a sense, we would want to decrease the amount of time you spend worrying about that thing because that's no way to live. You know what I'm saying? It's not that there's wrong with worry. Worry is good. Focuses our attention on problems.

But if it becomes, comes obsessive, chronic worry, then you're not enjoying your life. You're spending, it's miserable. You're spending every day locked in, in a kind of self-torture that may not be necessary. So I would want you to talk to someone who, and then they could also start kind of addressing some of these ideas of,

um, well, let's, let's take your concerns seriously. and say, okay, you've got a legitimate reason. It's legitimate to be worried about this kind of thing, but are you worried too much? Are the things we could do to increase your feeling of security at work,

your sense of self-confidence, your sense that you have the ability to advocate for yourself assertively without being too passive and getting walked all over and without being too aggressive that makes more problems than it's worth? So I think that's one of the benefits of this dream. kind of encapsulating these ideas and pointing you in the right direction for what might be beneficial areas to address. The reason I was asking about the counseling therapy thing, we're not just recommending it was,

I mean, now you're, you've got a job again. So they've got health insurance, and I imagine, um, no, I actually don't. No. I don't have health insurance. I mean, I could sign up for it, but if I do, they're going to take out for my pay. And it's like, that's going to cut me down $10 an hour. So screw that. Well, I mean, what do you do if you get sick and you need a doctor?

At least to me, it's like, hey, if I get sick, it is what it is. And oh, well, I'll treasure it. I think you're quite a bit younger than I am. So you're probably in better shape than I am in a lot of ways. you know, it would just be just youth in general. Your body's a little more resilient and, um, and whatnot. So I, I don't know. I think, and this is a personal decision, I think it could be worth it.

I think you can't really predict what you're, uh, what you're likely to face. And if you have the ability to do that, um, that it might be worth it. A little less cash in the pocket, a little more security for your physical. safety and your ability to live a better life in terms of, yeah, seeking the mental health stuff. Then again, you can also maybe pay out of pocket if you want to. And I mean, this is also California. So, I mean, if I actually have to be in the hospital, I can apply for, I can't remember the name, but there's some type of state health care thing that I can apply for in an emergency

and get approved. Does it have income limits? Yeah, it does. I mean, I'm well within that limit because, you know, it's like, Oh, well, can you just go ahead and apply for it since you're within that income limit? Like, I'm aware, I'm the working poor. Let me go ahead and sign it. I mean, I could, but I'm away.

Well, you're going to have to make a decision if it's more trouble than it's worth. Yeah. Whether this may be the first step on the road to assertive self-assertive self-assive. advocacy. I'm going to treat myself like a friend I'm trying to help. If my, if I had a friend who, who I thought would be better off with health insurance, I would, I would get it for him. So I'm going to, I'm going to do that for myself. This might be a good, uh, first step in that direction. Then again, like I was saying, the alternative is you can find private counselors, maybe that'll take cash. And he can be like,

look, I, I want to talk to you, uh, once a week for an hour. I can do 50, 60 bucks or a hundred, whatever whatever is well probably well under their rate of pay but it's like you won't have to deal with insurance companies i'm going to pay you in cash but i need to talk to someone so let's do this might be worth it might be worth it for no i mean i'll i'll be honest i've i once paid for a few sessions with a i don't know what is it called a therapist or psychiatrist whatever the hell you want to call it but uh paid for that to get for him to write a basically a report for me so i could get a mental cleared

paper to try and join the army again. But to me it was just too weird because he's like, oh, what's troubling you? Oh, you know, oh, you're worried about money?

And it's like, yeah, of course I am. Everybody is. It's like I'm not I'm not totally comfortable with laying out my whole life to a random stranger who just might tell another person or their own spouse different day like hey, this this fuckhead who came in my office was talking about this. Yeah. No, there's there's here's here's the problem. That is not impossible. It is unethical. It is punishable.

It is not likely. But it's not impossible. So you do you are placing a little bit of trust in. someone else of like, you know, someone comes to you or you go to them and you say, hey, is this confidential? Like, absolutely. Nobody will ever know anything. And there's two caveats.

You threaten to hurt yourself or other people. They have to tell someone mandatory reporting, but otherwise. And because it's like, I can't talk openly to a therapist and say curse words and slurs and anything else like that. I mean, they're just going to stare at me like, what is this guy talking about? I think, you know, and you speak to a very interesting, um, concern that I think a lot of people have, which is that, you know, a head shrinker is there to be judgmental. They're, they're looking down on you necessarily. They, they know more than you,

and you're the screwed up one, and they're judging you with every, you know, finger wagging. And I would say, number one, that's a huge misconception. Uh, psychiatrists, you know, and psychology has come a long way and, uh, we're actually some of the least judgmental people because we may not have seen it all. Now, some of us. have. I've probably seen it all. But we realize, and I'm putting myself in that category, too, because we realize just how broad and vast and deep the range of normal human experiences. And I think you, like I said, a lot of people do. I think you've got the mistaken assumption that the person you're going to go to is going to be judgmental and looking down on you or

mocking you in a way that they're just there's just not now that said there are different therapists you might work better with than others um i mean you seem to be pretty comfortable talking to me i can't do counseling and therapy but if you can find someone like me who's just like a chill dude and we're just gonna we're just gonna shoot the shit and down to earth a real one a real one like like like a wizard yeah i think you will find that the uh uh you know psychology profession has wizards in private counseling and you can find one that's just chill dude and you can even start start off like that say hey i'm i'm interviewing therapists i need to find the right one for me uh can i have you know can i drop by and talk to you for 10 minutes and

and then in that discussion i would go ahead and curse like a sailor say whatever the fuck you want and be real yourself and ask them how do you feel about talking to me uh is that something you want to do and they might go i don't think we're a good fit and maybe you're not and you move on to the next one. You know, that isn't, sometimes things are not a good fit and it's nobody's fault. You know, anyway, that's just, as my two cents. So I understand your reluctance and, I mean, there's, there's payment issues and there's insurance and there's, there's all kinds of stuff. But I think you'd, I think you'd get a benefit out. I think most people would, but it seems specifically because you're having a lot of recurrent issues in dreams, specifically about these issues

that if you could find a way to settle them, you could maybe move on and enjoy other kinds of dreams and have less stress in your waking life, um, you know, related to, you know, anxieties about a whole, a whole bunch of stuff. That's, that's the whole point of going to see somebody. It's not just a, you know, just bellyache, uh, to make yourself feel better. It's like to, how do I actually fix what is causing me to be miserable when I don't have to be? So that's my, that's my two cents. Yeah, I see. Yeah. Um, we are heading up on, uh, almost a quarter after four. I got to get ready for a game. stream here and uh i think we i think we at the end you do you have any additional questions on the

dream or you think we uh got a pretty good understanding i'd say so all right the viewer might say something else but i mean i hey it's my dream so you are the you are the ultimate authority and i don't think the viewers out there are uh judgmental at all i think they're like it's none of the dreams are dreams are bizarre anyway there's there's no dream that's like well this one's weird in the other way they're all weird i mean some of them are a little more fantastical like you know i was blowing you know bubbles made of uh made of turpin turpentine and uh floating through venus and she's like whatever it's oh well of course you were you were dreaming that shit happens um i got to move the cat again move the cat baby girl you are not the start you are the

so she is the star of the show look at that look at that punum look at that face I always try to put it in the screenshots what I can. Oh, look, cat. Okay, well, wrapping up the show, I'm going to say, thank you to our friend Lewis for being here. I appreciate your time. And for everybody out there, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers.

As you can see, sometimes I talk to people two weeks in a row because I haven't been contacted by anyone else. And that's okay. We made some content. I love it. 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 Dreamwizard.com where you can get every Wednesday downloadable

MP3 versions of this very, this very podcast, released before the Thursday premiere of the show. So definitely want to get over there. Also, Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com join the community and, you know, throw me a few shekels. That's where I would prefer to receive sustaining memberships. If anyone wants to a dollar a month, I'll take it. You get a thousand people sending me a dollar a month. I'm good. I'm golden.

I don't need much more than that. That would be fantastic. Anyway, long story short, Lewis, thanks again. Appreciate your time. Yes, goodbye, Earthling. Indeed. And everybody out there. Thanks for listening.