Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 139: Absurd Anime Antagonist

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

“The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits.” ― Huston Smith

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes today we have our friend ditchson from finland random discord person uh has a dream to share and you don't need to be anyone special you don't have to be a content creator or um personality or selling books or anything you just be a random person and i would love to talk to you all dreams i find fascinating dreams uh in some ways that the experience of dreams is a great equalizer we all go to sleep we all experienced dreams of some of us like me can't remember them very well long story short on that we're going to get back to our friend in two seconds would you kindly like share subscribe tell your friends always need more viewers uh for the game streams for the videos uh volunteer dreamers i will

literally talk to anyone um 16 currently available works of historical dream literature the most recent dreams and their meanings by horace g hutchinson uh all this and more available at benjamin the dream wizard dot com including downloadable mp3 versions of these podcasts released every wednesday and you know take the wizard with you on the go um also would you go to benjamin the dream wizard dot locals dot com that's where i'm trying to build a community that's where i would prefer to take any sustaining donations because they take a small cut than anybody else and they're uh connected to rumble and more uh free speech oriented so uh less less chance of being canceled on patreon saying something stupid on accident that is the shilling that's enough

about me. I'll just say to our friend Ditchson, welcome. Hello. Thanks for having me on. Right on. I think I mentioned you're from Finland. So if people, you know, hear an accent, they'll say that's, uh, um, I was, you know, and just random bullshit. I'm just suddenly curious. It's like a hundred degrees lately. The past three days was 100, 305 in Portland, Oregon. It's where I'm at, you know, the, uh, Pacific Northwest, but, uh, Los Angeles. Angeles time zone. Most people know that more than Portland. How are the summers in Finland? Does it get pretty warm or? Well, first of all, I don't know Fahrenheit. So I don't,

when you talk about 100 degrees, it means nothing to me. You know, that's a good. That's good. Let's do this real quick. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to pull this up. What's the conversion? I'm doing it. This is happening. I never, I never like live, live Google stuff. 100 degrees Fahrenheit convert to Celsius. I spelled that horribly. That is 37 C. 37. 37.7 Celsius.

Yeah. It's not that hot in Finland. It's usually on summer something like 20. Celsius. Somewhere around 20. 20. Yeah. Now it's been a little bit harder. Now it's a little bit. I don't know what the term would be hit. It sounds probably too mild for you, but it's harder than usually. Okay. Gotcha. That's yeah. I'm just suddenly fascinated by this. I can change this to 20. that is about 60. That's about perfect. It is 70 degrees in here right now. Even with my air conditioner running, it's going to be another hot day today. I like that. I like things more in the

high 60s, low 70s. That's actually more perfect for me. But I'm just, I am a fat old wizard and weather kills me. It makes my brain stop working. So I do prefer a little cooler climate. How bad is the snow there in terms of like you get multiple feet per year? And Finland's actually kind of a long country. So it goes up almost to the pole and then down as far as like England, I think on a parallel or some places in England. Yeah. I think Scotland's a little bit on the same scale. Scotland's along the same latitude as the kind of southern end of Finland.

Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. If I was inclined to travel, there's a lot of places I would go, but I'm just, I love staying home. I don't, I don't really want to go anywhere. I, I, I, we were talking about the idea of fantasy being imagination earlier off, off stream. By the way, for folks out there, I always, we always talk beforehand. I never just started recording and throw you in the wood chipper. Uh, we, uh, we, uh, establish a little comfort level, like over some disclaimers. And, uh, so you guys out there do miss part of the conversation, but that's intentional. It's meant to be getting to know you. Um, I was going somewhere with that. Oh, like, Japan and Scotland. You mentioned Scotland and I

that travel because actually so i'm benjamin davidson it's on my books uh and there's actually a clan davidson castle uh i think just north of inverness in scotland and i would love to see it just because you know it's my my distant ancestors castle uh and i'm kind of fascinated by japan too and i'll watch anime and uh like the culture so yeah if i were ever to travel go ahead yeah i was uh half a Half a year, like, was it six, four years ago, exchange student in Japan. Oh, wow. Cool. How was that experience?

I loved it. Yeah. Now, some people imagine what it's going to be like, and then it's nothing like that. But also, some people imagine going to a city, but as a, they don't actually get to pick where they go. Sometimes it's like the program you're with, sends you to a rural area. Okay, so you're more out in farm country. Is that, whoop, I lost one of my life.

Turn back on. Was that your experience? Was it what you expected it to be, or was it different? No, we get to pretty much choose where we go. I went to Tokyo. Okay. That's a big, dense city, huh? Yeah, but the city where I was,

because it's like different wards. So like the word where I leave, that wasn't really popular. Well, it's just Japan, so it's popular. It wasn't like packed. You weren't New York style shoulder to shoulder with a thousand people in the street. Yeah, it wasn't nothing like that. Yeah, that's one thing I think I wouldn't like is like as much as I,

it's only crowds beyond a certain size. The idea of going to a, you know, a packed auditorium for a concert and I'm just wedged in. Yeah, I didn't really get high. I hate that. Yeah. That's not so good. That's not so good. Well, I think I ran out of questions in terms of stuff.

I'm not a great interviewer. I just go wherever my head goes. And when my head stops, I'm like, okay, I don't know, move on. So are you, do you feel like you're ready to jump into the dream thing? I think I'm ready. Okay. Oh, and we were also, you know, talking about the nature of this experience you had. And I usually, and I'm going to repeat this because I actually wanted to get it on camera.

Yeah. when I describe to people what I do and I'm soliciting guests or whatever I say, now keep in mind, these are not hopes and aspirations kind of dreams. I'm talking about nocturnal visions experienced during sleep. That's just how I phrase it. But it doesn't have to be nocturnal. It's any kind of sleep.

You take a nap for five minutes as you say this one came from. Yeah. That is a valid drain as much as any else. And there's a, there's a line where. dreams intersect or share like overlapping Venn diagram circles with daydreams. And actually one of the books I'm going to be publishing eventually is the psychology of daydreams because it's related to dreams.

And there's a bunch of related conditions of, you know, meditation, abstraction, distraction, um, trance hypnotism, variety of different ways of kind of putting our minds into altered states and then receiving information that is, and I think it's most important that it is less directed. It's not conscious attention, it's stream of consciousness undirected. That seems to be the most valuable thing in terms of getting at what's really on our mind, because otherwise you're, there's a selection bias. You're kind of picking and choosing what to focus on consciously. You direct your thoughts, most of us can. Some people have a hard time with that, but most people can. And And then at that point, it's not, it's not truly the subconscious talking anymore.

It's now the conscious mind and, and attention that takes over. And that kind of, well, at that point, it doesn't need interpretation. The person just saying what they, what they think, what, what they choose to focus on. So it's a different, different experience. But a nap in the daytime, perfectly fine. I've rambled on this way too long. Okay. So that's okay.

Yeah. Do I start? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was just taking a sip real quick. And I was going to say, I'm ready when you were. Let's hear what you got.

Okay, so first I want to, like, because I can kind of remember when I started dreaming. Obviously, there's always like a blurry line. Yeah. That's an interesting thing. But anyway, I was, I was a remote meeting with a couple of that coworkers at the time. And they were just talking. So I didn't really have any input in the conversation. So I just check

I was at my friend's place a couple of weeks ago or days I don't remember now how long it has been and my friend has a cat I personally not like a cat person like it doesn't mean I hate cats

it doesn't mean that I never owned a cat so I don't like the body language or energetic like don't have experience. So, I remember my other friend saying, like, the cat feels relaxed around me because the cat was slow blinking at me. And I was like, during meeting, I was like, oh, I could check about that thing, whether it's true or not.

So I checked my cell phone like and then I One thing I remembered when I interacted with cats is like if you like I have I have had dogs so a dog but anyway I have experience with dog So one of the interesting things difference between cats and dogs is that that if you annoy dog and then you like, okay, I don't know you anymore. They like forgive you and happy. But it really seems like if you are no cat and then you like try to apologize or anything like stroke, it's very, it's still in a fight mode. So like the cat didn't beat me but like tried to beat me or anything.

like I didn't do anything bad it was just play fighting but anyway so at this point I think I started like dreaming like I remembered like thinking about what about there would because there was this kind of weird like I was like imagining things but I was like starting to dream at the same time so I was thinking like a man who was like pointing at what's and I had like an idea that the guy is like an anime villain or something. So like he pointed his finger and like the... It focused on his finger and like cat came and like beat the finger

like a side from the side. And then suddenly like another cat would like attack the hand and stuff in it, like grab in it, and other cat and then like cat just started like swarming and like created like a kind of like what do I explain like a you know like in

animations and whatever it is like someone has like an elemental arm or anything like a fire arm or something like that so it's like for the cats just keep getting like like

hmm like forming around the cat and like form like this kind of like a tentacle like cat elemental hand arm and like the guy could control it because it was like she's superpower or something and then like the cat started like more and more cat started and it's because like this giant pillar or pillar across the sky and it was like really thick pillar of cats that just kept accumulating

in the arm and like it was like a tornado like a large tornado like pillar and I was so much that I couldn't even see the guy anymore because it was dwarfed by the arm and I remember that like

the arm crashing as a show of power this ghost language like there was a lighthouse and it's like the scenery and it was just massive

like the lighthouse was as tall as the arm was in like a gird or radius and then I was starting to think like what would this like

cat arm like sound like this kind of a like what was it because the cats probably wouldn't all mirror at like make sounds at once but there was so so much like millions like probably even more billions of cats that they probably would make some kind of completely out of this world sound and noise and acoustics I was thinking like they could never replicate this properly in a Hollywood movie like they they couldn't like get this this isn't real this is just my imagination so they couldn't ever like maybe they could like make a compromise and like like to simulate what it sounds like every

cat mute at once so it was this like loud meow but and I was at the same time thinking about editing in audacity audacity. I'm sure you know. So then came like a really weird part. I was thinking like the anime Bilan doing like kind of weird like move like a whip like and that would get longer the arm. Even more longer now it was like this was like massive like it it was looking. It was looking. over the sky and I was thinking like well that would really make sense because it formed one cat where the extra cats came from and then I was thinking yeah maybe the cats were like producing because it had so many cats behind and I was like thinking yeah that would be the

like a super power this is like obviously I was like thinking this as a joke will in anime or something and like I was thinking like That would be explanation how we can just at will lengthen the cat arm. And some real life's thinking like it would longer and then like shake and like I don't even know it's some kind of leak to be allowed because the cat reduced like weird. like weird, it's hard to explain, it would like just shake the arm, like, slowly, like an asymmetric shake and, like, lots of liquid just fall out, I would think, like, even though that doesn't make any sense. And I think at this point I would, like, wake up. And I was confused with my imagination was going to... or was I dreaming?

I think at this point I'm dreaming. It's fantastic. Yep, I just shut up and listen. I try not to interrupt. As anyone knows who might have seen this. I clip that out and that becomes the just the dream as told by the dreamer under my What Dreams May Come playlist.

So I try not to talk over anything. Lots of fantastic detail for just a short nap, a short dream experience that all kind of, as you said in the very beginning, fades in from our imagination. And usually, I mean, well, I would say consistently, 100% of the time, this is the experience of falling asleep. It is this gray area where we're awake one minute and we're kind of not the next, but we fade into it. And we carry waking thoughts into that subconscious experience. At some point, it just becomes, you know, less and less and less directed.

And the funny thing is if you actually pay attention to falling asleep, you can't. If your mind is too active, if it is not distracted and abstracting and fading off into daydreaming, it's almost like daydreaming is a precursor to actually falling asleep. We've got to let that process happen. It's very, very fascinating, very interesting. Sometimes I have a, like, I have hard time falling asleep and that I start falling away. falling asleep, sorry, and then I start dreaming, but I'm like, no, I don't want to have that dream. And I like, wake myself, like, even though I'm sleepy, I should fall asleep. Tomorrow is a birthday.

But I'm still like, no, no, no, I don't want to. That seems like an awful topic to have a dream. Yeah, that is fascinating. There are varying degrees of control. One of the books I republished, book six, I believe, called Studies in Dreams. she was written by a woman who was a prolific lucid dreamer she would very often realize i am dreaming oh and i can fly and so that was her favorite thing to do but she told stories of other things that she experienced which were more involuntary um and even during some of her lucid experiences

like she didn't have full control like like she was moving pieces on chessboard or directing a play of actors um but kind of more more or less move through scenes that were it may be involuntarily generated for her by her own subconscious. It's a very interesting blend there. But there's a wide variety, just like that, that idea of, there are people who say, if I want to dream about a particular thing, I just think about it as I'm falling asleep. And I do. That's fantastic.

There are people who say, if I don't want to dream about a particular thing, I focus on that as I fall asleep, and then I can guarantee I don't dream. him about it. Very interesting. And then, and then, you know, this is not the first time I've heard, but it is more rare that someone realizes they're beginning to dream or that their brain is going in a direction, um, in a particular direction as they're falling asleep and they stop the process and say no. Now, there is an experience that I think I've had where there's something called a hypnagogic jerk. Does, does that sound familiar? Uh, no, I'm going to write this down to, uh, because I'm doing it's a little. Uh, because I'm a lot of, I can't, I can never decide what I want to clip out for the stupid, um,

YouTube shorts. So I'm always like, well, what about that? What about that? I try to do timestamps. Um, long story short on that. Um, there's an experience as we're kind of falling asleep where suddenly our body feels like we've dropped suddenly. And it, and we, we try and catch ourselves. We, we have an experience. It's almost like sudden loss of balance or contact with a flat surface, you know, and stability. And then we, we move quickly to try and regain that sense, that feeling of balance. And it may be something going on in the inner ear. We don't, it's not really well explained to my understanding yet, or at least I haven't come across research, but it is specifically, and it's, it's common enough that it has a name and

that many people experience it. And I think sometimes that's, you know, I'm starting to fall asleep. It sounds very similar to that. I can't say that it, to what you're experiencing. I can't say that it is specifically related to, oh, I want out of this dream I'm about to have. But certainly I'm heading into something where I have this sudden feeling. And to me, it feels very often connected to I don't want to, I don't want to fall into that dream. Yeah. It's hard, it's hard to say because that has not been my experience until you mentioned it.

I haven't said, oh, I have this hypnagogic jerk specifically because I'm trying to get out of having a dream. I don't want. But I know that usually when it happens, it seems to be I'm having some kind of unpleasant experience. It's not associated with positive feeling. Yeah, yeah. It's same like that. What I discard, that's not like happens every day. Usually it's like when I'm stressed out without I'm not getting like sleep.

Yeah. So I might like, so I'm very conscious. about falling asleep and then like and the dream just seems to um how do you say this fever dream is fever dream is so i'd like no no no i don't want to have a fever dream tonight yeah i'd say that and do you have pretty good success avoiding like what i mean by that is have you had an experience where you tried to shake yourself out of having a particular kind of dream and then it happened anyway or is it usually successful in stopping that train and thought and you don't go on to dream about those things?

Sorry, I didn't understand. Okay. No, I'm actually trying to think through this myself, trying to phrase it properly. So the times when you have had that experience of falling asleep, thinking about something unpleasant and decided I'm not going to think about that. did you then go on to dream about it anyway? Or was that, is that usually successful in stopping that train of thought

and not carrying it into stuff? I don't remember. Okay. You have no answer. Fair enough. That's, yeah. Usually, like, the dream is anyway, like, it's not like I can explain why I didn't.

It was just, like, feeling uncomfortable. I'm starting to see, like, it's kind of like seeing, like, video game huts or, like, otherwise, Spread seats and like it doesn't feel like I'm a character in the dream. It just seemed like I'm starting to flash like different like menus. Like it's usually it's more of a feeling and it just be like it's this of a different. Okay, fair enough.

Yeah, I would be that would make an interesting study. You know, you're one per your sample size of one. So just be, but it's interesting. We do, we do these kind of analysis where we do talk to individuals. We don't try to extrapolate from it, but we try to understand the individual's experience. And then once we can identify what, what it appears to be, give some kind of a description of it or explanation of what seems to be happening, then we can start go and ask others and make, make an actual study out of it and say, and, you know, make an actual study out of it and ask multiple people and try and get how consistent is this, is this extremely rare? is a common. So that would be, in my mind, an interesting question to ask people, is like if you interrupt

the process of falling asleep because your brain is starting to drift into unpleasant territory, how successful is that typically in ensuring that material does not follow you into sleep? I don't know. And I wonder if it's different for different people. like we might find for you you don't know if you don't have a memory of what you dreamed about after that fair enough but other people might and it can also be random too it's like why do people remember their dreams at all we don't know we just don't know we have so many theories out

there um my personal theory is twofold in in a way and i've talked about this before but there's I think there's something by I think it's definitely biological and and then and then personal in in these two different ways. But I think there's something about some people how they're biologically constituted that it makes remembering your dreams more likely or more possible. Because for me, I just seemed I just seemed constitutionally, biologically incapable of remembering most of my dreams. And I think there's a levels of sleep like I sleep too deep for the dream experience.

to register while I'm asleep, you know, for any of it to linger and stay. So, I mean, it's rare for me to have a dream I can remember at all. I frequently know that I had a dream and, but there's no content that follows me out. Like, oh, I was dreaming. And then most of the time I wake up and there's no memory of any dream. And I don't know. I don't know what the difference is. We still don't know.

And then that could be a personal, personal thing too. So even so among the people who are biologically constituted to be able to remember their dreams, that's also going to vary on a different spectrum of from person to person. So I was going somewhere with that. Anyway, that's my two cents. Let's come back around to you. We'll do that. We'll do the dream thing.

So, um, so this is an interesting and I always appreciate people giving me a little bit of context of it. So you were on a, um, remote, uh, meeting call, you know, through by the. computer. And you just happened to kind of drift off into thinking about this experience you had at a friend's house with the cat and how you're not typically a cat person, but you were experiencing an interaction with the cat that was a. And then you were applying some kind of behavioral analysis to it. Like, okay, cats are different than dogs. And cats seem to be more, or rather, dogs seem to be more forgiving cats or a little more. holding the grudge.

Yeah. And all of these things were kind of drifting through your mind. As you're aware that you're kind of, you know, fading out here, I might take a nap. In the very beginning, you said something and I didn't catch it or I didn't write it down properly. You said there was a man who looked like an anime villain. That's kind of the first.

It wasn't like it's he looked like. It's just that I get got like a, Like an idea. Okay. And I know it's this like common or like, uncommon, but I usually, in my dreams, I get like, certain concepts are like just like clothing concept. Like this is how this thing is.

And I'm like, oh yeah, this thing, this thing is. Okay. Yeah. No, that is actually very common. And it's interesting because none of this is actually happening. I mean, it's all happening in your head, so it's happening. There's something happening, but it's not physical. It's not real.

You don't have to have, in your imagination, you don't have to have seen a name tag that says, I am an anime villain, or you don't have to. But, but I do want to ask the question, and I always do, it's like, how did you know? Okay, well, I just knew that you could have known a different way. There could have been visual cues. You could have said, you know, he kind of looked like Friza from Dragon Ball Z. That's how I knew he was an anime villain. Um, fair enough.

That's, that's, that's what appeared. That's what appeared. So there's no wrong answer in any of this stuff. Yeah. Um, and yeah, knowing is the same as seeing because none of it's happening. That's, you're not actually seeing anything. You're not, you know, knowing, knowing is as valid a, an understanding or, uh, is real inexperience is what I'm trying to say.

Um, did this man have any particular type of appearance that you could describe, you know, no, I, I don't remember anything. Okay. What he looks like. You just knew it was a man and he was kind of anime villain. I think he was a little bit, I'm necessarily dark, but maybe a little bit more to that direction. Like he wasn't any way intimidating or anything.

Okay. And anime villains are interesting too because there's a long tradition, I think, of the defeating the villain and having him join you in a way. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, you best the guy and then the hero so impresses the, uh, the, the, the, the anime villain and, and lets him live and, uh, treats him with respect. And then that anime villain decides, I'm going to follow you. You're my new leader now.

You've defeated me and, and I'm coming over to your side. Um, so it isn't like, yeah, but this was more like a, I think it was more like a muck, like a comedic, because like the whole, like, I, understood the whole cat elemental hand, the arm was a little bit ridiculous. It was just me being. I had like that feeling

like, what if you was this thing? Wouldn't be funny? Yeah, fair enough. Well, that's kind of what I was getting at towards. You mentioned comedic. That's fantastic because a lot of anime villains are comedic. They're over the top

or they're goofy on purpose or they're kind of dumb and their motivation. are bad and it's interesting when you look at you heroes and villains and anime and this is across multiple media but I think it's more ubiquitous in in anime I also would like to mention yeah I think everything was this wasn't like drawn in in my mind it like it wasn't like anime style not a cartoon yeah yeah okay I think it's like real life that would have been one of my questions eventually what what I'm getting at though is this this understanding

this idea of the anime villain. And I'm kind of rambling to sort my own thoughts out on it. But there's in the West, I would say there's a little more black and white in good guys and bad guys in heroes and villains. And the villains in the West tend to be thoroughly evil, irredeemably evil. They're never going to change and they just enjoy being malicious for fun. Now, that's represented in anime too. But there's a wider spectrum there of like, well, not. A villain is not always a villain.

Sometimes they're just an antagonist. They oppose the hero in something that doesn't make them a bad person inherently. So that's kind of where I was getting to with this idea of this particular villain. Is it the thoroughly evil, rip your heart out and eat it because just for the fun of it? Or is it more the antagonist who isn't necessarily a bad person? Did you get a sense of that? Not really. Okay.

What went off? a whole tangent there. It's unrelated. Trying to dial in, yeah, yeah, your thoughts on the concept of, why was this an anime villain and not a hero? Or not just a random bystander, but also from an anime. I mean, these are all different types of people.

When you think of anime villain, what does come to mind? Um, hmm. And don't think about it too much. Just kind of, whatever pops into your head, first thing. Um, sorry, I'm, blanking out here.

It's okay. It's okay. Some people, yeah, yeah, stumble over those kind of questions. Like whatever comes to mind, oh, I got nothing. Shit. When you think anime villain

does a particular character from a particular anime come to mind, a representative archetypal, like whatever first one pops into your head. No, I guess more like the idea at anime villain because the Superfavor was so stupid that it wouldn't be the main character.

Okay. Like, it was less dignified. also more about the in the dream it just seemed like the guy became like an afterthought because it was so heavily focused on this gigantic cat arm sure no no yeah the dream did get really dominant and it is more about that but it's kind of like a there's a starting yeah but it's also good to ask all these questions because we've I've gone from because he's a man, he's an enemy villain. We've actually through talking about it, kind of de-emphasized him.

It could have been that the nature of that particular person you chose to put in the dream says something about the rest of the experience. But for this one, you're more putting it in a, you know, well, this wouldn't be, this couldn't be the hero because the experience that's about to happen is undignified or silly. It's comedic. Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, Nice. So, yeah, so it is we've, you know, just by rattling a bunch of the wrong doorknobs, we've come around to the idea that, yes, it is more about the cat arm experience. Yeah.

So any kind of a memory or impression of the landscape this was set in. Also, I guess, no, that I remember, it's like more like, I'm not sure if he was like, like, the cat. arm was even though he says like look and he pointed finger and the cat attacked it the first cat i don't even know at that point like what was it intentional did it or was the whole super power only happened at that point of time like like um um um in marvel just like a normal person and then something happens and he gets super power and then also becomes at the same time super villain if that makes sense Yeah, no, it does. I'm actually writing some notes here.

Okay, sorry. Yeah. Dead air. That is interesting too. That's and that's fantastic that that came to mind. None of this is irrelevant. If your mind goes a place, we want to talk about that for a minute. There is a great tradition. And as you said, like Marvel comics say, Spider-Man. Iconic example of just regular kid doing his thing, power thrust upon him by circumstance. Yeah. He's going to, you're, you're going to have this power whether you wanted or not. This is something that happened to you.

You didn't choose it. You're not responsible for it. But now you're responsible to do something with it. You can do nothing. That can be your response to. And that will, then we saw him try that and Uncle Ben dies. And he's like, I guess I got to, I guess I got to use this to help people or I'm going to be miserable. And, you know, but then there's the other side of it where some of his villains also had accidental experiences.

and they chose a different path. And then there's other ones of his villains that are, they intentionally seek power, Green Goblin, the lizard man who was trying to regrow his arm. Yeah. Some of those are more tragic than others. I would say the Lizard Man is more of a tragic character. He's trying to actually do something good.

It goes too far in the wrong direction. Green Goblin is a little more. He was more lusting after. after power and it created his own super soldier serum or whatever and tested it on himself, all this grasping. And then, of course, became this egotomaniacal, violent, which was all part of his, part of his nature. I've read way too many comics. I know about this stuff. But so that's a very interesting train of thought to say, you know, power itself is neutral. Power can be used for good or bad, but power, power is amoral. It just exists. It is what it

is yeah and only humans can make a decision so there's a little bit of that going on in your mind too it's like you know there's some some layer of analysis there that we don't have to come to an understanding of now we may never come to an understanding of it but really does kind of frame where this is going and because there is now then the representation of some kind of a power it seems a little silly it's what's going on with these cats i mean we haven't gotten there yet of course but uh yeah that's uh it's fantastic why not why not uh cat arm power um so the first impression is there's a man and he's doing a thing. And he specifically points with his finger.

Yeah. Now, what did it feel like that gesture was meant to accomplish? And how did he do it? Is he pointing in front of him? Is he pointing down at the ground? Is he pointing up at the sky? It was a little bit downward. It wasn't like rigid.

it was more like very casual and it really felt like he was meant to like bait the cat that like it although it just at the same time doesn't feel like that was his intention but at the same time it's like look and the cat bit his finger so i think i missed some of what you said i was trying to process at the same time no no that's okay we're just going to go over to Again, that's how I do. So you said the man kind of rather casually points. Yeah, and it was more like... Wasn't a rigid gesture commanding, more distracted?

Or what was his intent behind that, do you think, to summon a cat? Was there already a cat there? No, there wasn't any cat. It really felt like, look, this neat trick. So his gesture seemed to you like directing attention, look here? I'm not sure about that. It felt more like he was like pointing the finger as a bait or the cat.

And that does relate to your experience because you were having a real life interaction with the cat where you first experience the slow blank idea of communicating comfort or lack of antagonism between you and the cat. But then you started to play with the cat. a little bit and the cat got a little aggressive and was less like when you were done rough housing a little bit the cat moved off like i don't want to be near you anymore yeah i don't i don't remember what i did probably just that i just um i think i was like pulling out the loose hair and at some point i might have a little bit like some hair that it wasn't loose and it like oh

So you were almost kind of in a friendly way grooming the cat like petting it and then you saw loose fur and you started taking off of the loose fur No, I was like actively just like pulling the hair Just Just try to annoy my friend by

colluding to her with cat hair Okay And I think it's also Like testing my boundaries with the animal okay so you you had you were being maybe

playful or testing and yeah you the experience was the cat let you know you've gone too far and moved away or was more

did the cat do the typical thing where it kind of it starts to bite you and it wraps and then it uses its back legs to kind of get your arm

I don't remember for a fool fair enough fair enough yeah so it's an interesting think framing too because you may be processing part of that experience of asking yourself the question and we do this all the time did that interaction

turn out in a way that i'm okay with you know did i do i feel like i did anything wrong do i feel like i should have done something different um or or at the very least i wonder what could have been different about that interaction had i chosen different behaviors um so some of this is is feeding into that, but it's, but it's blending with something else because there's these themes of power and responsibility and heroes and villains and, um, very,

very interesting stuff is right off the bat. Uh, anyway, oh, terrible dry mouth lately. It's so hot. So hot everywhere. Um,

yeah. Right. Um, and it's interesting too because that, and this, this, this from the, from the expression,

you just said, um, that the idea that the man in the during, was pointing the finger as if bait like he knew putting his finger out there was going to initiate an interaction of a particular kind and it was like he was expecting to be bitten he was expecting the cat to come speaking of cat to come in rough it's a great word to that idea of bait because you don't just i mean bait's a specific kind of thing it's intended for a specific kind of purpose so to have that pop to mind is so there's definitely um a sense of

you observing something or someone behaving in a manner that is instigating what follows. If that makes sense? Probably. And instigating can be, um, uh, it can be, it can have negative connotations assigned to it, but it's, it's almost like, um, a catalyst. Catalyst is a more neutral term. It's what causes something which follows. Um, so in this sense, you know, it's, he wasn't just,

letting his hand rest on the countertop and the cat came over like this one right here but you know he's standing there and he's like all right I am going to cause a cat to bite me and the cat comes over and bit his finger

and then a second cat and it was after the second cat showed up that the feeling that it changed into a whole bunch of cats at once started well I think it was after that first cat because like also I remember like the idea that like because the cat didn't be like from the tip of the finger but like from the side and like human finger like very snuckly

fits in like cat's mouth yeah yeah yeah that makes any sense yeah like the cat can take the whole thing you go jump right around it yeah yeah there wasn't any emphasis of the second cat more like first gap and then second and like it's just it's like exponentially the cat started to accumulate

and that is a very interesting kind of experience because it could have been different and I always do some manner of word in my brain lately a lot is counterfactual I do some counterfactual analyses what could have been different

what is a different experience from what you're describing so it very well could have been he put his hand down and immediately a swarmer cats all at once descended on him but there was a bit of a slow burn into an escalation a sudden escalation so there's something something going on with that kind of experience of um i don't know the idea of um something going quickly out of control comes to mind i don't know how how do you feel about that idea uh i guess it uh Yeah.

Another phrase comes to mind is that escalated quickly? Yeah. Yeah. That resonate with you more? Yeah, I was thinking like comedic then about, well, those aren't like usually exclusive as a matter of that they are very like, um, coexistent like, uh, instant like you said that escalated quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

That's very, like a comedic saying. Yeah, that's a very, very internet meamy type of thing. So that, that did, that does seem to be the kind of feeling I'm getting from, from that experience. But it doesn't seem like the man was distressed or, what am I trying to say? I think the first cat bite was like, might have like felt pain, but I don't remember anything like, distinctively any kind of yellow or it's a sound. it was so focused on like the hand and finger. Yeah. What I'm getting at is that the man,

so it's good to know, okay, maybe a little pain, but, but this wasn't, he wasn't being tortured by the process. It wasn't an excruciating transformation, like an American werewolf in London,

that kind of thing. Where was I going with that? Distress. What I meant was how he felt about it. Like this was the response he expected, and he was happy with it. Like, he was getting the result he wanted. Probably.

No, no specific impression on that. I mean, he wasn't, you saw, again, the counterfactual type of things. You didn't see him recoil and try to run away and try to shake off the cats. Like, this is. Yeah, no, no, he was still pretty much. Yeah, gotcha. Okay. And just the description.

Oh, my goodness. You got to get off my. notes. And the idea, as you saw the cats start swarming or start smothering in a way, start smothering the arm or enveloping it, the thought that came to mind was this is like an elemental ability? Yeah, like it formed into one single entity. And it was just a bunch of a cat like biting each other. And it wasn't like, Did you say biting or fighting? Biting or some of them like bite, some of them like clawed.

Anyway, cat can crap. Sure. And is it, was it a latching maneuver or was it a play fighting? Yeah, probably that. Okay. So you've got this kind of interesting thing where the cats, because it could have, again, counterfactual, it could have been different. It could have been the cats calmly but swiftly merge and meld into kind of a blobby type of thing.

But they're actually continuing to be not aggressive is the wrong word. But that kind of play fighting element has to do with the nature of the thing they're forming is what I'm trying to say. Something like that. Like it needs to be that way. You need to see that representation and understand what it is. I don't think I had a question in there. Just sticking it through myself. There's something to that about the elements themselves.

Like, anytime something is composed of multiple things, there's the, what is it? There's the idea that something becomes more than the sum of its parts when it's all brought together. A painting is more than just ink on. or you know a paint on on canvas it eventually it formed something that each individual brushstroke doesn't represent alone long story short so there's something about the idea that these elements are they're all the same i guess at this point uh cats are like a hive mind because like in devils they wouldn't possibly be individual at that point yeah yeah that's an interesting i'm glad you said that too because that's kind of where I was going with it is you have these discreet, disparate parts that are even,

what is it? It's not a smooth transition. It's, what am I reaching for? It's the idea that each of these parts is fighting each other in a way. They're not, they're not, but it's not an aggressive fighting. It's kind of that play fighting thing where, you know, they want to, they want to win the play fight, but they're, but they're not drawn blood. They're not, they're not attacking. It's not life and death.

defense, but it's something about the components of whatever is being formed, being trans, definitely transformed from individual units into this single entity. And hive mind is what you said is a fantastic representation of it because a hive mind still is made of a bunch of discrete individuals. And sometimes they might even argue and disagree discreetly about different stuff, but then at some point, maybe on a specific topic, they all meld together and become of one mind on a particular thing. I don't know where I'm going with that. If that inspires me thoughts.

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 DREAMCAPES program features real dreamers gifted with rare insight into their nocturnal visions. New DreamScape's episodes appear every week on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey, and other video hosting platforms, as well as free audiobooks, highlighting the psychological principles which inform our dream experience and much, much more. To join The Wizard as a guest, reach out across more than a dozen social media platforms and through the contact page at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature. available on Amazon, featuring the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com.

I guess I point out it was more like their cats, like they all attacked that and that they didn't attack each other even though technically they have to attack each other. Or like that reach to each other. Yeah, because they're attacking the arm that they're. joining which is also made of other cats or was yeah yeah very interesting kind of like you have like some action movies like somebody piles people pile on like there's like a enemy and then like one mob attacks the main characters that the other one and they like pile each other like even though the other ones in the pile aren't like directly in touch with the guy at the bottom, they still aren't like, that is their target.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And usually that scene, uh, uh, that experience of a scene immediately precedes the hero bursting out and throwing the pile of bodies off. Yeah. In a bunch of directions like an explosion. Um, yeah. Very cool, very cool imagery. Um, what we got here?

Um, and it is interesting that you, you, the word you found for it was elemental. In your mind, that word came to you as you're experiencing this. Because I think it's more like a after the dream like explaining what I was feeling. Oh, okay. Looking back on it. It wasn't in a dream element.

Gotcha. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So there's a little bit of what we might call secondary elaboration where we're trying to explain the dream to ourselves or others. And so you're drawing a waking analogy. to that idea of, you know, if you had an arm made of fire, or they could burst into flame, like, you know,

what is it, Johnny, Johnny Storm, a fantastic for it. Fair enough. So you didn't have that experience in the dreams. That's maybe not as, maybe not as relevant. And what happens to this arm is then you said it becomes tentacle-like, like it starts, it can't get. Well, it's more like, the tentacle was more like the whole like element. feeling like it

like it's since it's like it's not joint there are no joins this hand so it can move like freely and like when the cats are melded into it is it does it look still like a pile of cats like they're all just kind of stuck together or do they

blend do they kind of smush and lose their shape into a no they the cats are still like intact okay although So whole dream, I think, was in like very dark. So I couldn't like recognize like the colors of the cats. It's just like the shadow. But it was not like dark shadow.

It was just like too dark to see color. Gotcha. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah. But that's an interesting experience too. So you've got the components of whatever this thing is still discreetly recognizable. They didn't merge into a. blob and melt into one another.

But altogether, they are forming this thing and maybe, you know, tightly smushed in whatever way. And because it's a swarm of cats, it just keeps growing and then longer and longer. Yeah. How is the initial proportion of this thing? And I know eventually you said it becomes big as a lighthouse, which is huge. No, no, no, even bigger than that. Bigger, bigger than the lighthouse. Yeah.

And was he able to lift it or did it? Was it kind of like eventually it was laying on the ground and becoming its own creature? Hard to say because there was the man, it was still in control all the time, but it was complete like afterthought. Like, yeah, there's a guy in control, but the focus was so much in this massive entity. Okay. But anyway, most of the time it was like pillar, like, It wasn't like on a ground line, but like long pillar upwards.

Okay. So it's almost like as soon as they started going in there, he aimed it upwards and it just kept growing up and larger and larger. Probably because it was already zoomed out from the guy. He would be really, really small to even see because I watched like a distance. So the thing as it happened, it grew vertically. And then also kind of, and then you did eventually say like a tornado cat, so it almost had a triangular shape to it? Not more like, how do you expect to say this?

It was more like that was like the, it really was more like a singular pillar with the same. um, wheat. Okay, fairly like a cylinder more, more than a, than a triangle like narrow at the bottom and wide at the time. Yeah.

Okay, fair enough. I don't know what that means, but it's good to distinguish it. Now I'm seeing the picture more clearly because initially in my mind, I'm thinking, well,

my logical brain goes to the idea that, well, it's impossible for a man to hold up something as long as a lighthouse. So it must have hit the ground and then be raising itself. But no, it looks like it's just growing straight up and out of this guy, way up into the sky. Yeah. So, very

interesting. You got to lay right on my notes. Come on. Come on. Come on. Go on. Boy, smush your face. Speaking of notes, we've got to go back there. You did mention that. Why, as you were describing it, too, is like, it's tentacle-like, but the man could

control it. So this is still, in some ways, a directed intentional process. Sorry. Um, you mentioned that the man, you know, maintained control. So this is not he, he is the instigator, but it also, he remained the, the catalyst, uh, uh, like you could have stopped this if he wanted to. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Okay. What was I writing down? Oh. And that's interesting too, because if it had, if he had panicked and had desperately tried to shake them off. That would indicate

an experience of something going out of control rather than this is the result he wanted. This is what he expected. He initiated a process and this is the process and he could stop it if he wanted to. So we're getting to the idea of intention and intention followed through

something like that going on. so many notes, so many notes. And this whole, during this whole experience, I mean, he just kept summoning more cats or at least not turning off the spigot of cats, assuming he has control. Yeah. And it soon dwarfed the man as in, you know,

the pillar became so big that you couldn't see the man anymore. Yeah. Like the, my perspective, like zoomed out completely. like I could see it not in horizon but still like pretty far yeah yeah well in order to

take in or encompass the entire view yeah you got a zoom out now it's getting too big otherwise you're just looking at a crop of the man in a zoom it was still cropped even when I looked from distance.

Yeah, but you were showing yourself the full nature of the effects. Not, not you didn't pan and zoom up and look at, look at the tallness of the tower. You like, you zoomed back to get to get the big picture to really analyze it, which is, all of this is very interesting. So we've got a, we've got the catalyst or instigator of the desired result, which is happening. and soon the thing that happens becomes so immense that the man is lost to sight. Can't really see him anymore, but you see the effects of his action played out in this very dramatic way.

It's a very interesting thing. Like sometimes our, and tell me if this resonates with you, sometimes our choices ripple and cause unintended effects that might be huge. Or a very small thing like, you know, in this example, pointing out. finger and then it initiates a process that then has massive results um if anything like that's running through through your head like the consequences of actions the um uh you know results of choices something along those lines mm not at the moment no okay i think there's something something like that going on i'm not using the right words at all that's uh just explaining what i'm

what I'm feeling. But there is then, I wrote down arm grasps, quote, show of power. What did I, what did I miss there? I remember there was like a show of power. Like the arm would like slam down.

Like it had become so big that it can like not necessarily destroy mountains, but like cliffs and like stuff. Like it could like crash down and I, for some reason it was specifically I remember like there was like a very rocky shore. There was a lighthouse at the Cape. Like very rocky Cape like very like a stereotypical. When did that?

Is that when that image appeared? So you were focused on. the man, his behavior, the cats, the column, and then suddenly you became more aware of the background of, okay, what now, where are we? We're on a rocky cape with a lighthouse. There is an actual lighthouse there in the visual imagery. Yeah.

And it hit like the, it didn't hit the lighthouse, but it hit like the sea and like the rocky shore, and it like completely crushed it, like, to show that. big and like powerful the arm has got in. And did you get the feeling that the man was demonstrating this to the lighthouse or near the lighthouse for a particular reason, even if you don't know the reason? No, no, I don't know.

Okay. Was the smashing intended to accomplish anything? Like you brought the arm down and you saw him, he hit the coastline, hit it hit Rocky Cliff. Sorry, what was this question? The visual imagery you saw was that he did do a show. of power, display of power, in that way of hitting the shoreline and hitting a cliff to demonstrate the ability or something? Yeah.

Okay. Did you get a feeling there was care taken to avoid hitting the lighthouse or it was No, it was more like just in the background. Was it anywhere near or was it far away, far enough way that it really wasn't at risk? It wasn't far away to be out of the risk, but it just wasn't like in the bat. Okay. And I'm going to throw this out there. When I think Lighthouse, you know, it has specific associated reasons for existing.

I mean, there's a purpose to the lighthouse. It's a beacon. It's a place that generates. or is intended to accomplish a warning like look out there's something here um if you're you know it's dark and you're on the ocean and uh there's fog etc etc um kitty you got to move so i think of um i don't want to fill your head with my own thoughts but when you think of a lighthouse um what comes to your mind in terms of it's what would you what would you say about it yeah um i guess like the very first thing that could combine is a book that I read

it was what was the English name it was do you know the series called moments moments moments how do you spell that M-O-O-M-I-N Oh, no, Moomin. I've never heard of that. Okay, okay. Okay, well, it's like Finnish, like most precious IP,

like this children book series that later on was made into anime and it became like, it's like very popular in Finland and Japan and other Nordic countries. So, like, the TV series is pretty like childlike. but it like not too childlike but anyway but the books even though there were children books they still had like very philosophical themes and the lighthouse is one of the more philosophical because it's like the moving family

goes to live in like a very small island out of nowhere because the father is having existential crisis and it's like very there's like a lonely loneliness is the team of the book okay okay very interesting i would not have thought of that because um i hadn't heard of the series uh yeah sounds like so it's m o o m i n mooman yeah gotcha i i'll go look that up and check it out um yeah to me um and and i think it may be related too Like there's a there is also the isolated nature of a lighthouse Usually there's nothing else around it

It's by itself because it's not really a place people are Live you know and then again there's always the Lighthouse keeper there's someone who's got to keep the light on or it's not doing its job And that can be a very lonely solitary thing Even if you bring a family out there that the family can be lonely because it's isolated You know there's is only each other to talk to and if you get bored with that There's no town to run into unless you drive several miles or whatever. I guess the other thing also comes to mind is the movie Lighthouse.

There's a movie called Lighthouse? Yeah. Oh, excuse me. I thought I was going to sneeze. Oh, no. Okay. What was that about? It's like

How do I explain A young man goes to Takes a job as a lighthouse keeper With like an older man And Wait wait, what William Defoe is the old man And then like Patrick Stewart is the young man

Gotcha that does sound familiar is that the one where we get all the memes and it's in black and white yeah black and white yeah okay interesting that's yeah yeah yeah what would you say

the themes of that were was it also lonely it's kind of because the man is supposed to quit his job like at some point like the contract ends and they keep waiting

for the ship to come, but it never comes. So they get stuck in the island. Okay. In the middle of the sea. Gotcha. So there's kind of a stranded, isolated theme in your head or associations with the idea of a lighthouse. Yeah.

Very interesting. But it's... There's also that, like, I was watching due to Max Derrard named YouTuber Say again, sorry, Max Something. Max Derrott.

I don't know who that is, yeah. Okay, he makes a lot of videos about Jungian analysis on different shows. Okay. And at the time I was reading the book, the booming book. Like he made, he, I watched his series on Eukal Jung's Iron because he made like a summary of the book.

Okay. To explain what it contains. And how to relate to the lighthouse? I think it's because like he was talking about synchronicity. Oh yeah, yeah. And I just like remembered like, like, I forgot. there was something like, I was like, holy shit, I can see this like teams in the book.

Okay. Interesting. And all of this is just related to the idea that there's a, an anime villain kind of instigator of this power, this source or generator or the cause of this ability. I wouldn't say the cause. Like, we don't know how we got that power. but certainly he's choosing to express it

and he's expressing it at the location of this rocky shoreline with a lighthouse nearby and you specifically didn't show yourself him destroying the lighthouse that wasn't his purpose but it was done in the presence of the lighthouse yeah yeah which is a very interesting thing it's like uh as much as a lighthouse is a iconic representation of in some ways in light to or understanding.

It is, it is the, a beacon, the true path in a way. Even if it's a warning, stay away. It's still something about like, there's an importance to it

in terms of knowledge in a way or... Yeah, that actually is also in the movie lighthouse. The old man wouldn't let the guy go into the light room upstairs and it was like really important

to him that he never goes there and the guy all of us wanted to go there. Yeah. And the towers in general and reaching the peak of a tower, climbing a mountain, getting up on the roof of something. Yeah. High places, uh, scaling a cliff. I mean, a lot of metaphors for, uh, effort yielding accomplishment, but also, you know,

we very much associated with higher places being better, but in general also higher places being mental accomplishment in a lot of ways. like the ivory tower, that idea of you reach the top and suddenly you have, and it's very interesting with the lighthouse, that's where the light is. You can see the light from the ground, but if you have to go up,

you have to climb to reach the light, and then you're in the presence of the light. You're as close to the source of the power or ability, something like that. So there's a very, very powerful metaphors with that. Well, a little movie, the light, there was heavy like symbolism of Prometheus

with the light like you know like the Prometheus brought the fire to the civilization yeah and well he brought the fire for humans and they started civilization

yeah exactly and that's something so going with the the idea from the movie that they would he tried to keep him so he was guarding kind of jealously regarding the truth or knowledge or some something's like you can't it was stopping someone from becoming his equal by allowing him to enter the light yeah room with the light um made it's definitely maintaining an artificial hierarchy type of thing um you would think if the light is good you would

want everyone to share it come on up all the people I want you all to be on my level uh know the things I know see the see what I have seen very interesting stuff there so this yeah this this for all that he's kind of a goofy anime villain in your dream he's particularly choosing to demonstrate his ability in the vicinity of the lighthouse near it like almost like he wants the lighthouse to see him but also he's not doing it against the lighthouse like you could definitely see he could even smash the lighthouse um but that's interesting too because smashing the lighthouse doesn't get you to the top and in the presence of the light like he's this guy's in your dream is

demonstrating a respect for the lighthouse in a way like a knowledge that it is a good thing that it is not an enemy that it should not be destroyed that the destruction of the lighthouse would be a bad thing but also it doesn't seem to be making any moves to try and get into the lighthouse like his power isn't related

to that yeah maybe we're looking at this too just popped in in my head the idea of physical strength and mental strength or physical ability a mental ability being two different things. Like smashing stuff is very physical. Light enlightenment in that, in the iconic sense, very not physical. It can be accomplished through physical means.

Study reading books, but it's, you know, it's physical tools used to accomplish mental ability. And that they each have their place. You know, smashing things is very powerful, but the enlightenment is also valuable, equally valuable. I don't know, rambling in bed. I don't have any thoughts come to mind. Yeah. What we got here? Second page, page two.

And there's almost a, almost a change. That's one element of it. And then after having seen that and gone through that experience of smashing the coastline and the cliff near the lighthouse, could have smashed the lighthouse, but chose not to. It's like the purpose is to be in. Then you start thinking about what this thing might sound like. It's very interesting. transition to almost a different anger. Like this question occurred to you in the dream.

Very interesting. What do you think about that idea? Where did that idea come from or how do you think it relates to what we've been talking about so far? I don't know. This was still like the idea that I was just making up ideas in my head. Even at this point you felt semi-conscious in terms of... Yeah.

As if you were aware of these images coming to you. Yeah. You were just aware enough to almost ask yourself a question. It wasn't quite involuntary. Yeah. Okay. It's an interesting question to ask. What sound would this thing make?

And that immediately brought to mind the idea that it would make a sound that could not be clearly. or precisely imitated or reproduced, not even the, you know, iconic standard of high-tech fantasy is Hollywood, so it jumps to mind. Not even the best movie makers could accomplish duplicating what this thing is,

what it sounds like. And that's an interesting thing because you didn't imagine. I was also like thinking like, how do I say this? I didn't really trust that Hollywood even try to make it sound like realistic but in my mind I was like

thinking about like how would this thing realistically sound but at the same time like well we will never know because this will never happen yeah yeah those are all the kind of a little fantastic bundle of thoughts we're kind of picking out like

a Gordian knot there so there's the idea of something being so unique that it is almost impossible to duplicate and the idea that the people who would be best capable of approximating something probably wouldn't care enough to try to do it well there's something something going on in there yeah so even the um not even the uh hollywood masters not even the people who should be best at attempting to duplicate specifically a sound would care enough to try.

Well, it was more like Hollywood would, this kind of thing would only appear in Hollywood movies. Sure. But they probably wouldn't get the sound right and they probably wouldn't even try to make it sound.

They would just maybe make it sound representative of like cool or something like that. But not realistic. Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating too. There's different reasons to, let's say, take it completely out of, out of this thing, but communication.

I could be speaking to you for the purpose of charming you, making you like me. That's one purpose. Another purpose is I'm speaking to you to communicate information. What I want is ideas from my head to be understood in your head. And that's completely separate from whether you like me or not. someone can be an asshole and speak the truth and someone can be very charming and they're a snake and they're lying to you so there's so so there's a um there's an assessment or analysis of purpose and it's interesting that it is sound um you very also again analyzing the counterfactual

you could have dreamt uh could you could have had the dream experience that they would never be able to reproduce this visual that I'm seeing, that even the best CGI couldn't duplicate this and had all the same thoughts about that. Visual. Say again? Did you mean to say visual? Because I think like Hollywood could make the visual, the audio. Did you have that thought in the dream that like they could reproduce this visually,

but they get the sound all wrong? Yeah, they could like with the CGI and. stop them. Okay. Well, what I was doing is proposing something you didn't specifically focus on. You focused on sound. And I'm trying to tease out, okay, why sound versus sight versus touch, et cetera, et cetera. So there's something about the sound that's unique.

It was specifically the sound you said they couldn't or wouldn't try to reproduce this accurately. And there's something about the accuracy of a specific sound, which kind of says to me something about communication. transmission. What am I trying to say? Truth telling in a way. Hearing, hearing accurately. Hearing the truth.

Hearing, hearing something represented as it is versus some other way. I'm talking all around these different ideas. I don't know if anything comes to mind regarding why you think sound was what you focused on and not one of the other senses. Yeah. I don't know. Fair enough. And sometimes these are things just to consider.

We may not get a specific answer right now, right, today. It could be because visuals are much more easier to, how do I say this? Like, you know when you see something, it's our main sense. We can easily, like, see it correctly. whereas when it comes to audio I was just thinking about acoustics and making sure that the sounds of each individual cats

there would be like billions of cats in this thing so like able to paste them because they wouldn't go in a unison or any kind of pattern Okay And there's visuals You really have to see only from the service Something and you kind of know already

Sure like whether it's right or wrong Yeah Without saying too much about your personal life Do you use do you work in audio production? No Okay just curious You mentioned the audacity program I use that

I absolutely do That's how I record my audio books on my channel Yeah. And also sometimes I'll take MP3 rips of the show. And, well, I do. I rip MP3s and put them up on my website. As I mentioned in the beginning, had it on over to Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com.

But sometimes I will rip the show and fix the audio because someone was a lot softer than me. How did I not fix that from the beginning? I forgot to check audio levels. It sounds different when the video's done. long story short um yeah but i use that program all the time and it's fantastic and i have a whole regimen i do to process the audio to get it to sound as good as possible to take out all the you know tongue clicks and hard essuses and um um um give it give it a good compression and uh do do a noise balancing so that the audio at the very end is all the same so there's a lot of work

that you that can go into the audio side of things it can be very complicated You know, and you hear it sometimes with people that kind of mix songs a little poorly, and what they come out with is drums that are too soft and everything else is overwhelming, or the drums are too loud and you can't hear the singer well. So there's just the right balance you've got to strike, and it can be hard. Anyway, rambling again. Yeah. So rather than sound being something,

specifically meaningful because it is sound. You've got a little bit of a thing. Well, the appearance of something is easier to imitate or approximate well than the sound of something so unique. So there is a little bit of a comparison going on there to the relative difficulty of certain things. Communicating a specific aspect of something. That's why I keep coming back to this idea of communicating.

It's like, what is it that a movie does? It represents things. It communicates. And to communicate isn't just to speak. You can communicate an idea by writing it down on paper and sliding it over to someone. That is a communication. It's a letter. Yeah.

Here's my thoughts. It's the transmission of information of some kind, visual information, auditory information. And there's a bit of a comparison going here of the relative capacity. to successfully communicate accurately what is being represented, what it's supposed to represent. It's definitely something, something in that going on that, that I could,

and again, you're, so, well, just like you're talking to me is like, you can tell me what you saw and you, but then he comes down to the sound and you're like, oh,

it was kind of like a billion cats meowing all at once. I have no idea what that sounds like, but you heard something. You heard something in your, dream that was almost impossible to duplicate. Oh, go ahead. I don't think I ever heard what it sounds like. I was just imagining if this really be great at what it would sound like.

Because I was still thinking it was like this was still like an idea in my like dream. Like this wasn't like something like I was inserted in a dream like I wasn't like me looking at this giant cat and thinking, oh no, I'm going to get crushed. Okay. So you didn't actually hear the sound, but you're imagining what it would be like to try and recreate it. And like, this would be so difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I think, again, I keep coming. And you tell me if I'm way off base and we can try and, we're trying to focus on different elements. But so there's an idea of you thinking about the possibility of communicating something. And, and humans speak with, we speak with our. mouths. We make ma-ma-ma noises, vibrations, sound waves. So accurate recreation of a sound or in my mind, it's, I keep coming back this idea of clear communication, the ability to express yourself in a way that other people can understand. I don't if that's resonating at all

or I'm way off base. That's what I got stuck in my head. Yeah, I don't know. I could, I don't know if this like adds anything, but I'm normally creative type. But I'm also like the type of Google wants to do everything. But I like, I don't have a sense of freedom. I cannot make like music or anything. And I can like that's like the, I'm more of a visual visual guy. So like sound production is not my forte. So you do work in some kind of visual media?

Um, like as a hobby. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And this doesn't have to be, dreams don't have to be earth shaking to have importance to us personally. Usually they're not. You know, we sometimes we do contemplate our navels and the, the meaning of life and the source of the creation of the universe, so to speak.

And sometimes it's a little more personal. And we're just trying to figure out what, what do I want? What do I feel? Um, so that that could. relate to you more personally. That's fascinating. So you do believe you have greater facility with visual imagery than sound. So that would be a natural thought like, wow, this would be really complicated to try and reproduce. Speaking of which, I just relax. You can stay right there. You can stay right there. And you were saying it, it was doing a weird whip-like move. Is that

what you were describing with the, you know, slashing the or smashing the coastline of the shore and the No, no, it was just, this is where more like the anime-esque feature start coming. It was like, I'm sure that I'm seeing this motion before, but like, think about like, I guess like, think about someone with like a retractable clause and they would like make this kind of like whipping movement like. like on a side and they would like come like with like at the moment like it's stop like sorry it's really hard to explain but I don't have camera it's okay I mean I'm gonna do a gesture I can imagine Wolverine you he does a sideways slash with the claws no it's more like the moment when he retract sorry like extends kind of a snicked moment yeah Like that kind of what you did, but like from the side and much more like overexate.

So it makes this kind of whip like motion out to the side. Yeah, that kind of. And at that moment, that's when it got longer. Because it's more cats and multiplying. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a gestural thing. Like this thing has taken on a life of its own.

We've already seen that it's dwarfed the man. He may have initiated the process, but now it is its own entire thing that is just. way bigger than he is. And it's in some way now it seems to be kind of self-directing its own continued growth, which I think of like the idea of a snowball. You know, you get it started and then it picks up more snow and before, you know,

you've got this giant just keeps growing. I don't know if that's actually a thing. It's the things I've seen in cartoons. You're from snowy places. Does that, is that kind of a thing? If you make a big of snowball and roll it down a hill, pick up more snow?

I mean, I mean, I guess. I have no idea if it's really a thing. So that is interesting. Yeah, the, um, um, I like that kind of phrase. It's taken on a life of its own. It's no longer just what the man is doing now that now the kind of thing he started is

doing itself. And, and it, uh, makes a whip like snapping motion and so it's a very, very dramatic dynamic action. It didn't just grow slowly or, or, or, You know, trickle, it kind of, bam. It's really just leaps, sudden bursts of growth in a way. Yeah. Right in this down here.

It's so much good stuff. And you thought to yourself at that moment, are the cats reproducing? Or you're looking back now and wondering, is that how they were doing it? What was your thought when it did that sudden growth spurt? I was thinking like, well, like it's not like a bioelemental village, it's just fire would like increase. But I was like thinking, well, this is like composed of literal cats. So it wouldn't, to even extend at its own will, like that's not possible unless like that would mean that would mean that randomly more cats are materialized and then I'm like, oh wait, maybe they reduce.

That could explain it. In a way, trying to kind of explain it to yourself as you're watching it, huh? Well, yeah, this was still me thinking that I was imagining this thing, like brainstorming like this ability. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, that is interesting too, yeah, because I've seen a bunch of anime and there's all kinds things like the um a classic example would be the um small staff that magically now it's a bigger

staff it transforms into a longer spear or something yeah it didn't look like that before and the transformation of an object into something of greater utility or or more um more dangerous than it appeared at first weapon weapon wise um and that may not be very significant sometimes we do we'll have a moment of like that's weird like i wonder how that happened and then we fill in the gaps with something reasonable. Oh, reproducing. Is that possible? But you also kind of had the thought that it was a really cool superpower. Like, this is actually kind of neat, like a cat tentacle whip arm that's just bigger than a lighthouse. Yeah, or it was more like a, it's funny because it's cool, like, thing, like this, like when something is trying to be cool, but

clearly the like the base idea itself is really ridiculous if that makes sense i think so let me try to feed it back to you a little bit so it's the the idea of almost like a cringe trying too hard yeah gotcha gotcha that just jumped into my head there too yeah gotcha we're almost there down to the very bottom of it um and as it gets longer and i think it um you said it begins to shake yeah like for some reason I was thinking like during if this is like cats reproducing it it would excrete some kind of liquid

which like I don't know if that makes any sense so you didn't say shake you said excrete I didn't say that initially but like the cats would when they reproduce, they would like excrete some kind of liquid. And since the arm would be now like soaking in the liquid, it would like shake the liquid

OK. Yeah, we can imagine that too. I mean, there's bodily fluids with reproduction in general, but also even if they were just kind of, what is it like when a an amoeba separates into two. There's like a word for that. Like, I can't remember the medical or scientific term. But anyway, that process with a larger creature

could be associated also with some slimes left over or something from the separation. Something like that. Yeah, but it was a reproduction. Basically, it was the largest cat or georgia. Like, you gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you had that sense that it was a more natural reproductive process. That's funny. Largest cat or G ever. But generally that it was the normal reproductive process, the not actually some magical mitosis. I guess what it was?

One becomes two. And that's an interesting way to do. And then it's a natural thing to think, well, that would be a sticky mess in there, wouldn't it? Yeah, probably. And then something about the arm shakes slowly. and that causes more fluid to be dislodged? Yeah, it's more like the dog shakes it for try.

Okay, okay, yeah. So it's actually the making a motion to kind of whip off the fluid. Like the arms. Yeah, except get this off me. Yeah, although in the dream it was much more like slower like and kind of like first segment like start rotating it then the next and went to the second one like it's it's like how do I explain this well anyway I think um in my brain I just got an idea of really really really really big things moving slow from a human perspective if that if that makes sense it isn't

that it's actually moving slow but just because it's so big it looks like yeah any any discreet section would be moving fast relative to the rest of it. But to see this big thing, you know, do a giant shake in the sky. It's covering maybe a mile of distance in that loop. So it looks. Although it didn't like, um, armed it did like itself make any like movement. It's like when dog shakes it for,

cry like the dog itself moving. It's just a very, like obviously it's so it does more like a cylindrical rotation type of movement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To kind of shake off the,

okay, interesting, interesting. But it was like very slow. It's like, it had like, that's what you explained like a giant thing. So it obviously had that like weight in it.

Like the how giant is also the, it wasn't like dog when it does it like rapidly. More like you take a film of dog shaking and then like. Like slow motion. yeah yeah yeah yeah it's got a whole thing anyone who didn't uh who's listening to this uh without the video you just you just missed it um okay i mean and then pretty much right after that you woke up and you were in a confused state of mind like yeah what is happening um how how long did that last and what was that experience like you're like you just just that disoriented feeling of like

where am i what's going on and it faded quickly or did it last for a minute it? Did it take you a second to realize, oh, I'm still in a meeting and there's people talking? Yeah, it was like that because like I was still like thinking like, why did I think that? Because that's like a really weird thought to have a lot of cats having sex. Right. So it was like, I was like kind of embarrassed having that kind of weird imagery. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's one of the things about dreams is they are completely amoral.

And they're very rarely the exact expression of something, like if you kill your mother in your dream, it does not mean you want to kill your mother in real life. Your mother represents something

that you, or some aspect of your mother, you want to reject. Like, I'm not going to be like her. It's usually more something like that of like, so you're killing this representation

of, or maybe killing in your mind, the idea that your mom was a particular kind of person. it because she's not. I found that out recently. So you need to destroy that image of her, that false impression you had in your mind. So that's what that's the mother you're killing.

So it goes that way. So this whole cat sex orgy thing, it isn't about cats and sex and orgies at all. Yeah. It's, it's all something. And that's actually what we're down to right now is what does it all mean? We've talked about a lot of stuff, of giving you a lot of feedback, my perspective, we've dialed in a few things. understood them a little better without me going all over it again and giving my impressions or

whatnot do you feel the narrative has emerged any kind of flow to it that's starting to make sense what do you think um not sure yet uh i want to ask about something about the cat sure sure and this is like uh in post idea that i had like um do you know the game called Donut County. No, I don't. Okay, it's, it's this kind of, you know, Katamari Damashi. I'm not sure. English name?

It's the game where you, that's the English name. Oh, okay. It's this dream where you are like a little guy who may, has a sticky ball and when it like rolls it around it, like it becomes bigger because things sticks to it. Okay. No, I haven't played that one, yeah. Oh, okay. It's pretty known game, but Donut County is not that known for,

but anyway, it's kind of like the same game, but instead of like rolling around ball that sticks stuff, it's your controlling hole that gets bigger every time something drops in it. and bigger it gets more stuff you can drop in it. Okay. So in the game there's like one puzzle in one level where you can like drop rabbits in them. And when you drop like two rabbits, then like there comes like an animation like hard stuff coming from the hole.

And the whole like gets like bigger like as if stuff dropped in it. Gotcha. But the implication is very clear. Because like two rabbits produced. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's like a very note thing about rabbits that they reproduce fast. Yeah, that is a cultural expression fucking like rabbits.

Yeah. Yeah, but that game is pretty like child-friendly. Sure. So, and it generally very lighthearted the game, like colorful and stuff. So somehow like I had that kind of like innocent look at the whole cat production or reproduction. Yeah, yeah. Kind of a colorful, lighthearted, whimsical. Yeah. But in the dream like it wasn't like colorful or anything. But I was just like thinking how like.

Because that's really weird thing to think about the whole cat orgy. So I was thinking like, yeah, this is probably normal because it was normal in that game. Gotcha. And it may be significant that it kind of ended on a bit of an icky, uncomfortable feeling. Like, I don't want to really be thinking about that. Why did that cross my mind? And it may actually more represent that. kind of um because okay here's here's what i got going with the with the thing we're we're looking at

cats as a kind of an analogy in a way um what do i what am i trying to say about that um it isn't really about the cats cats stay in the end for something else but they're just a reference point and and a kind of imagery it had to be said could have been frogs you know i don't know that it's specific to cats it is specific in a way because this actually relates to an experience you that recently where you're judging boundaries and bonding and, you know, with, with, with, uh, with a new animal. And then it's the specifically the pet of a friend. And so there's something that this says, something that says, it says something about the nature of your relationship with your friend,

how well you get along with a cat in some ways. The cat's a part of their life. It's in some ways a tertiary or, or, um, connected extension of them. Um, like, I couldn't be friends with someone who was an asshole to my cats. Like, intention. It was just me. We'd kick them. Get out of my house. You don't disrespect me by treating my hand as poorly. That kind of a thing. So there's there's there's definite themes of that go in there of like a reflecting on your own choices or behavior and and how you feel about it. Am I comfortable with what I did? Did it turn out the way I wanted it to? Anyway, that all kind of just introduced. That's maybe why specifically cats. But then you've got this thing where and again, I was saying we've got an idea of this man's got a power and he's initiating the use of the power. It's very much a catalyst. But then the power grows out of proportion to him. You lose him in the visual.

He becomes minuscule. It's no longer about him. It's about the results of his power in the world, what he's doing with this thing. And there's a demonstration, a show of power, the smashing near the lighthouse, which may or may not relate to proper guidance, knowledge, wisdom, you know, enlightenment in some ways. I love those iconic representations. And demonstrating respect for that and the difference between the physical and the mental

abilities. And then the idea that this thing in a way takes on a life of its own in that it is reproducing itself. It is expanding and growing. It just continues to, you know, it's not like there was a horde of cats that rushed from other places at first, like external resources. Now the thing is kind of a self-contained unit capable of continuation, continuing itself. That very much, again, I think kind of relates back to some of those ideas.

I was trying to explain poorly earlier of the snowball effect or initiating things that then the consequences become out of your control in some way. um and what it ends in is something that's not you're actually not comfortable with which is this whole you know it's growing on its own well that must be because they're reproducing you it's a giant sticky shedding fluid everywhere cat orgy type of thing i don't like that at all it's kind of nasty um when when i string it all together that way does it come to mind about you know the things you've been thinking about lately I think relationships, personal expressions of personal ability

and demonstrated in a way that you would want recognized, like you would want respect shown for what you can do. I don't know if any of that kind of stuff comes to mind. Hmm. Not necessarily. Also, I guess I could say that the whole, like,

shedding liquid. It wasn't in my dream like disgusting. It was more like cool detail, cool realistic detail. Gotcha. Okay, fair enough. Maybe I jumped into that. I don't know why I felt well just because you just expressed the cat sex. Yeah, it was a kind of an embarrassing thing to say now

out loud, right? It's like what the fuck was I imagining? Fair enough, fair enough. But in the dream it actually seemed kind of cool it's an interesting cool yeah unexpected and kind of neat um you know in nature can be kind of neat and grows at the same time yeah yeah yeah yeah so there's

if you ever seen a well a live birth it's pretty messy but you're like I just watched a new life come into the world literally I'm thinking of like um pictures you ever watched the video like a cow giving birth uh I don't think to a whole video I might have civics yeah

And it can be just that last second of the calf actually coming out. It's just like this right on the ground. The cow's just standing there. And the calf just falls out flop in a pile of goo. So, yeah, things can be cool and kind of neat in that natural science kind of way. There's another thing that comes to mind. Do you know Metal Gear Solid 4? Oh, yeah, I've heard of it.

I haven't played any of those games. Okay. Okay. So in the video game there's like these robots and the director has very, he likes world building and he likes to be very realistic real life to extend. So there's like we had seen where like one of the robots like kind of like exhaust some kind of liquid. Like it's kind of like peace. Yeah, yeah. So it seems like in mature mind, it might be a little bit like funny or ridiculous.

Why would you have a robot that piece? But in real life, maybe like one of the ways to robot to exuse like because doesn't everything have to eventually like defecate or like something like even cars have exhaust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it is ingesting fuel, it will have to excrete some byproducts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like in a sense, like that's a, we don't know if like future robots will like exhaust like liquid form or something. Yeah, for sure.

So it's like that kind of like some might think it's like funny and to extend it's funny but like at the same time it can be like a cool like a sci-fi like idea like all day. They have this kind of like a pretty realistic detail. Yeah. I can imagine that too. That sounds interesting. Like imagine robots were able to function because they have a tiny fission reactor in their chest. And it's water cooled or that's part of how they generate the electricity that powers the body. And so they have to drink water.

They have to intake water and excrete, say used spent fuel water. that kind of a thing would be very interesting. Wow. I can't imagine a robot needing to eat food unless it's more of a nanobot. Yeah. Anyway, you get the idea. So I think that's, yeah, there's definitely themes of self-representation and expression, certainly expression of, say, maybe personal power, demonstration of ability.

in some ways. And I'm thinking, and because we got into the whole, you know, superhero tangent of like the responsibility with powers that, yeah, it can go,

if you misuse it, it can be terrible. It can be very bad. And then it comes around to this idea of, you know, so you're separating this from yourself. This is not you,

but you're, but you are thinking these thoughts and you are observing, putting it, putting it in the fictional body of another person to kind of, think about the concepts more objectively abstractly you get hold it out in front of you go what is this thing um but but it is very much all the all of these things relate to us well how do i feel about that

what what do i think is true about that um so yeah what was i say on those themes of um you know communication expression accurate expressing expressions being accurate to to the point of of communicating the right idea giving giving the right impression in some ways. And the idea that possibly, this is right at the very end, that possibly you are inhibited by those things because you wonder if it's going to look silly. Even if you think you look cool, there's a bit of a cringe element to it. I don't know if any of this is resonating with you in terms of, you know, relationship

struggles or feeling isolated and wanting to expand your social circle, but doubting, you're going to find people that also like you. you know that there's mutual possible yeah I don't know that's just where my brain goes with this thing I could be way off base this is a good one in terms of a lot of bizarre

imagery that hard to hard to nail it down you could very well tell me no that's not true I don't feel lonely at all I don't feel like expanding my social circles I don't need anyone to respect actually

actually I don't know if this is too much information but I actually have what is diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. Ah, okay, yeah, yeah. Like, first time I could ever live chat in like any like YouTube chat was like last year. Before that I had to, I was completely capable. And I actually like, reason why I like stick to the kitty because like I kind of overcome my like phobia and like just type something in yeah and well

yeah there it's like so um so for at least the past year you've been making an active effort to make progress on decreasing the experience of anxiety around social situations yes okay this is uh tremendous this is the result of tremendous of tremendous of tremendous you being here with me not only are we talking we're making a recording uh now i did promise and i promise everybody no one will hear this if you don't want them to and i'm serious we get to the end of this and you just don't you're not feeling it i destroy it uh guaranteed um yeah but that is huge and so yeah i mean that's kind of making sense a little bit in terms of these dreams is you know there's some people who are very naturally confident and they're almost to

overconfident to the degree of like, they just don't think about it very much. They just do what they do and fuck it. And they don't really care much. They're not actively malicious and they're not kind of an inconsiderate jerk, but they're like, this is me. What are you going to do? I'm a little bit like that too, but I got some of the social anxiety thing too. I don't want to be around crowds.

We resonated on that early on. Right. Crowds. No. No, thank you. What was I going with that? Uh, fuck. Crowds, social anxiety.

I lost it. do you remember what I was saying? Damn, it's gone. It's gone. I don't know where it went. I started thinking about crowds and went, no. Yeah, I work up the thing of thought. Yeah, I was going somewhere with that.

It related to the dreams and progress. You were talking about how confidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but then there are those of us, and I think I'm included in this, where we are more naturally hyper self-aware. And it's hard to turn. It's hard to turn that off.

I'm not just me doing a thing. I'm me watching me doing a thing and questioning, is this me? What am I doing here? And that's very weird, too, because I got like the legit autism as well where I'm just not aware of something. So I'm not, and I don't have a lot of strong emotional response to things. Like, I think it took a test once in it out of a possible score of 80, which would be normal or perfect emotional awareness or connection. or ability, I score like an 11. So I'm just not, I don't have that much emotional reactivity to things.

So I miss a lot of social cues and different stuff like that. And I say a lot of insensitive things are like, this is a neat idea. What do you think? And they're like, dude, that's offensive or disgusting or weird. And I'm like, I don't know. I just have thought. What do you want me to do? This is me.

I share thoughts. So yeah, yeah. But you've been building that confidence. And this makes a lot of sense in terms of you were probably reflecting on. this experience with the cat and how that impacts your relationship with the person. And then you're like, let's bring this into the dream experience and look at the idea of, you know,

you have the ability to communicate and the possibility to represent yourself well. Like visually, someone might look at you and think you're normal, but then you've got trouble communicating, speaking. It's like there's a disconnect of reproducing accurately what's in your head and getting it over to another person in a way that truly reflects who you are on what you're thinking. It's kind of a social ability in that way.

It's like, so your ideas, you're physically fine. Your physical ability is no problem. You don't worry about performance in that regard, but it's specifically with communication and speaking to other people to get your point across to be socially desirable. We've got some things going there. I mean, I'm going to stop for a moment and just, what do you think of all that in general?

Sorry, I've kind of lost the red line, but that's okay. question i said a lot and it's like late where you're at here it's coming up on um 10 10 p.m. your time or something they get that right almost almost yeah yeah um no i was just rambling trying to trying to give a narrative to the idea and how it relates to your life personally and what you're going through and and what what it appears like for that moment you were analyzing um without you know i was just curious too it's like Why, why this particular thought during this particular meeting and then you drift off into nappy time? I don't, I don't want to reveal too many personal details, but is it okay to say that kind of the general nature of your work?

So I'd know what the meeting was about and why it might have spurred that train of thought. No, not really. It's okay if you don't want to say that or, you know, I don't, there was like, only three of us and the other two were talking about like more like their participation in or like issues that only related to two of them and I didn't really have any input I'm still very beginner at the job until the other two were more at least the other two more at least the other one was significantly more like expert and the other one I think he well he was only he had a special role in the project but okay yeah yeah interesting so that you what you were experiencing there in that work Zoom call or whatever it was there was a social dynamic there anytime there's two people anywhere near each other that's a social dynamic going on that's why I always say, and this is just an interesting little tangent, some people refer to society as if it were a noun, as if it were a thing. In a way, it kind of is, because it's an emergent phenomenon or property of, but really,

I think of society, and I think this is true. Society is a verb. It is what we do. We socialize. We live in society with another, with one another. society is what happens when two people are near each other and have overlapping spheres of influence that touch each other's. And we've got to negotiate those things. Long story short on that, that was a little tangent.

You were experiencing a social dynamic in this meeting. And the dynamic was two people are talking and you feel kind of left out. You don't have. Well, it wasn't really left out. it was just like I didn't have any input. You didn't have anything to contribute. Yeah, yeah. So there was, and that's,

that's it too. Like, let's say you and I were talking and there was a third person listening and they don't know anything about Zoom meetings or dreams or they just have nothing to say because nothing comes to mind that seems relevant, significant, important enough to throw in two cents. They were discussing amongst themselves. So at that moment, you were just kind of letting it happen. And the longer it went on, the more you kind of drifted away and then you started imagining, I think that's related to it in terms of the feeling of being that that vague awkwardness of like,

I wish I had something to say. I would also like to contribute to this conversation, but I got nothing. And that feels like, you know, there's feelings of inadequacy to go with that sometimes of like, wow, maybe if I was more experienced or confident, I could come up with something to say. Maybe there's a personal failing that leaves me unable to contribute or participate in some way. And that might lead you off to, well, what are some other recent circumstances that I've questioned my abilities? Oh, maybe it was with the cat. Maybe I went too far.

Maybe I tested boundaries a little too much. And then it lead you into this thing of like, well, analyzing your own abilities and trying to do an accurate self-assessment. And it wasn't this kind of weird representational idea of physical power and intellectual power and comfort with different social social social. circumstances and ideas. I don't know. If that's feeling, if that resonates something in there, if we're on to something,

we can call that good and say, you know, we got an answer that might be relevant to you. If it doesn't, we can keep probing a bit and see if we can come up with something else. What do you think? Well, I don't completely sure because, like,

sometimes it's like, I'm in a meeting and, it doesn't have anything to do with me and nobody uses, even though we all have like in our work laptops, have camera, nobody uses them on. Yeah. So if two people are talking, I can be like, well, I can take a small break and look at my cell phone, look at the news. Sure. Yeah. But at the same time, it's kind of like, well, I'm still here. it's kind of like that

guilt of like I don't have anything to that to this. Yeah. What do you think of that general idea that this seems reasonably related to your ongoing progress with the social anxiety stuff? You think that feels like

a good answer? Sorry, can you repeat that? Yeah, yeah. Do you think the suggestion that I offered that this whole dream experience was broadly related to your journey through the through addressing and conquering social anxiety yeah it could that seems to fit a little bit well it like came out of blue you like started

talking about these things on my like that I could connect to but I would like I wouldn't otherwise like thing like this cat arm dream have anything to do with that right but you started talking about it was like oh shit oh you like hitting in my in my nerve yeah yeah that's what that's what this is all me rambling until someone until you have an epiphany until you go oh jeez that just made me think of this thing and it's thing the light bulb goes on and something connects um that doesn't mean we have all the answers that doesn't mean we described everything perfectly there may be more that'll come you may have another dream tonight that clarifies this even more for you that's what i think is happening in these

in these experiences were proposing ourselves little, little thought experiments that allow us to just drift through what ifs and come out the other side saying, okay, that was a thing. Maybe I don't need to understand it. Maybe I just needed to look at it. And I'll understand it later.

Very often what happens with me is I don't know how to solve a problem today. So I don't. I go to sleep. And when I wake up tomorrow, I know how to solve the problem. I don't know what happened. I can only assume I had a thought. I had a dream.

I had a thought process stream of consciousness that allowed me to sort it out in my mind. And because I didn't wake up and then re-address the problem and attempt to continue trying to solve it. I just woke up with the answer. That's weird. That's a, I love that. This is fantastic. Let's do all the work while I'm unconscious. That's fine.

Right. Yeah. Mm. Anyway, long story. short. We're, uh, we're heading up over, uh, two hours now. Well, if you feel like you got at least enough of an answer, you can continue to think about it. I think we, um, we did our best, hey, unless you have additional questions. Not really about at least this thing. Yeah, you don't have to. I just like to give that

opportunity. Do you feel satisfied? You think we're good to stop. Some people say, well, one more thing. What about that? And you do or you don't. It's not a big deal. So, um, you don't. Um, Yeah, well, if you feel like we gave you something useful to think about and felt like it resonated, we'll wrap it up here. I'll do the, do the outro stuff. Once again, this has been our friend Ditchson from Finland. And we always appreciate folks coming on, sharing their stories. And you can see, you don't have to be anybody special. You don't have to be a household name, a YouTube creator, publishing a book, running your own podcast.

You can just be a regular person. I take all dreams seriously. because the mystery for me is the fun part. I love doing that. For my part, would you kindly like to share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for the game streams, etc. 16 currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent dreams in their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson,

all this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, including every Wednesday downloadable MP3 versions of this very show. You get a little sneak peek before the video goes live on Fridays. And also Benjamin the Dream Wizard.locals.com building a community there, offer some sustaining donations or just drop it and say hi. You don't have to pay money. That's perfectly fine. And then, you know, yeah, just one last time.

Dixon, thank you for being here. Fascinating dream. Thank you. Yeah. And everybody out there. Thanks for listening.