Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 150: Like A Thief In The Night

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Maggie Daniels ~ https://maggielogic.com/

Let's do it. Greetings, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Maggie Daniels from Denver, Colorado. She is a poet, writer, director, and the author of Swimming by Maggie Daniels, where she talks about her experience with a complex PTSD, and we're going to talk about that and more very soon. For my part, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, to tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for my video game streams.

16, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent dreams in their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson. Book 17 is actually, the audio is done, and I'm going to be releasing that very soon. I hope there's always eyes to cross and tease to dot, but that's how that is. All this and more, of course, at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com, including downloadable MP3 versions of this very podcast. Also, if you would head on over to Benjamin the Dreamwizard.locals.com, so I'm trying to build a community, it's free to sign up. You can just become a member. You can give me some money if you want or you don't have to. It's just a place where eventually I'd like to get most of my volunteer dreamers from inside a community. People that like what I do and are curious about

other people's experiences and having theirs explored. So that's enough about me. Let's go back to Maggie. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Nice. So where do you even start? because we were talking about so many things. Well, maybe the best jumping off point is, you know, we're plugging your book, of course. You've got swimming. And I'd say, how did you come up with the title? What does it mean to you in regards to the material? Swimming for me at the time when I wrote this, I was 26.

My mom was found dead on my birthday. It was a very sudden, very tragic. and that hit me like a brick, like a thousand bricks in a bus, a bus full of bricks. Like, it was shitty. And I hadn't written poetry in a while, and I grew up always writing poetry the first time I was published, was like in the fourth grade. And my mom always encouraged me to write poetry. And the amount of emotion and just turmoil I felt inside, it just poured out into words. And I just started writing again and swimming to me, the poem itself, which is on the back of the book, the quote is, somebody told me, find what you die for, and then drowned in it.

I put pen to paper and just started swimming. And for me, at the time, I didn't have a reason to wake up in the morning. Like I was trying to find, like my mom was gone, the woman who brought me into the world. my first friend, the woman who shaped everything about me. Like, I didn't have a reason to wake up. And I found my reason with riding. So that's what swimming is to me, is you find something that you'll die for and then drown in it. I'm drowning in my creativity.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So I love that. Yeah. Again, that's what is the point of living? I think a lot of people have that existential question. Sometimes it's provided for us in,

in, you know, culture and in religion sometimes. But a lot of, a lot of that is also in our personal relationships. I mean, those are the, and then when we lose those, it's a, the bedrock of our lives becomes this shifting quicksand. And, you know, we got to, either we go down with it or we fight to get out. And it's hard to find that motivation. It's such a devastating loss. I mean, my mom lost her mom when she was 16 to cancer.

So that, you know, had a big impact on her life and how she sees the world. And she had to find her own reason to keep going. And I think for her, it was, I don't usually talk about my family too much. Sorry, Mom, if you didn't want this out there. I can always edit it later. My mom to strike the video. Content strike. No.

But taking care of helping take care of her younger. sister was was was a big deal. It's like well, I'm going to take on that responsibility as a purpose. And I got her through, you know, for that time. Hergiver. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, I, um, I leaned on to like my real friends and certain family members. And, um, I lost a lot of people. Like, when you're grieving, when, when, when things get ripped, when literally a soul is ripped, like someone doesn't exist anymore. Like it was mind-boggling. Like nothing matters.

Like superficial shit just doesn't matter. You see how tacky society is. And you realize who your real friends are very quickly. Like you see people so clearly like the fucking claws come out. Like it's so I don't even know how to explain it. But I lost so many people that I thought I would know my whole. life that I'd known my whole life just because they just like their mask was gone all the superficial things that like made them relatable or made us be able to have a conversation I didn't relate to

anymore um because of this loss like I don't know it's just it's hard to explain like someone getting upset over like just minuscule things that don't matter like superficial things and you um you you can't get out of bed. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Someone's like upset. It's raining outside and it ruined their day and you're just like my mom doesn't exist anymore. Like it's just like those differences and you just start seeing people as like, oh, you just don't get it. You know what I mean? Gives you a tremendous amount of perspective as to what really matters. I think it does. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big deal. And then there's, yeah, it's tough on relationships to from one, one change is in you and it's now you see the world differently your value structure changes

and that may not be compatible with how you connected with them personally before so that's from your side but then from their side as well i don't think a lot of us are well prepared to deal with major depression or PTSD or having our friends hit a patch of very intense suffering or change change or the change at all just the normal tragedy of life hits and a lot of us are insulated from that a bit too much

that when it comes around people it's when you find out who your friends are people who are like you're not fun anymore so don't call me and it's like yeah what I was just your fun time person

to hang out with and I guess that's yeah that's when you or they have this attitude like that was a week ago or a month ago I thought you'd be over that by now like that blew my fucking mind

yeah like like what? Yeah. People are still, it's been four years. It's only been four years and it feels like yesterday and people are still like, I'm concerned you're not over that. I'm like, but I'm never going to be over it.

Like what? That might be the biggest perspective we could share, say with the audience out there is there are experiences you have in your life that change you forever. There is no getting over it. It is, you are now a new person for the rest of your days. Yeah. Yeah. I had a, I had a.

I had a nurse on, I saw a video online of a nurse explaining what trauma is. It's like a little red ball and that ball hurts so much like the day it happens, right? But it's not always hurting. It's bouncing around a little box that is your life. And when it hits the corners like you're triggered, it's like you're there that day. But it's not every day it bounces around. And the more you fill your life up, the more you fill your box up, the less it bounces to the corners and affects you, but it's always in there.

Yeah. And that kind of summed it up for me visually. I was like, yeah, that's, that's, that's how it is. And the idea of, we can add, like, you can't get rid of the ball. It almost never goes away. But it, you just fill the box. Yeah, you fill the box. And then it gives it.

Or make it bigger. Make it bigger. There's a lot of great analogies for that, too. But the idea of padding, a buffer, buffer of other important things that the ball can bounce up against and say, you know, this doesn't hurt as much today. because I've got something else that's also very meaningful and important to me. Yeah. And that's an everyday thing.

Yeah. And just the duration of like in terms of grieving. So when they talk about, I say like major depression specifically, it's if there is a certain set of symptoms for a certain duration. And that's usually like they might have changed the standard or I'm remembering wrong. But I think it's an excess of two weeks. And that is.

also caveated by the by the idea that and you didn't just have a relative die because that's completely normal if you're sad for two weeks or two months or literally two years it can this is what I'm going to say too in terms of getting over it and that's a terrible way to conceive of it but having the pain decreased enough that you're coming out of it it can take people 10 years that's not unheard of to really get past a major event people get eating disorders people start eating like people will stop functioning I had a friend who had just lost her mother and she kept reminds she was like eat don't forget to eat because she had been in um hot in some kind of hospital care because she had health issues from being so depressed that her mother died and

thankfully I have a very loving and supporting partner that you know kept me you know hydrated and everything. But it's a whole new world and it's always there. Like, it's always there. And I remember my own doctor. She's not my doctor anymore, thank God. But my own doctor, I remember she was increasing my medication and she was like, I don't know why you're so sad. And I was like, my mom just died. And she was like, oh, yeah, I forgot that happened. And I was like, just hearing someone say, oh, I forgot that happened. I was just like, must be nice. Yeah. Must be fucking nice.

It is a lot easier. Well, I mean, the only, what am I trying to say? The only people who can forget it are people don't have to live it every day. So it is, in a way, it is very nice. I wish I could forget, right? Yeah, it's crazy. And the lack of sensitivity in the health care health care system of America is just insane. Like, it's exhausting trying to pursue therapy for your mental health.

in the United States. Yeah. It's not very well set up. And it's a horrible. I don't know if you've heard of, and this, we're just going on a tangent because why not the iron. It's okay.

The iron triangle of health care. Yeah. That makes, if you've heard of that before, so anyone who hasn't maybe is, I think it's quality, affordability and availability. And the idea that you can,

you can only have two legs at a given time. and so if you've got affordability and availability, it's not going to be good quality. And that's kind of what we get with, say, a lot of public health resources is that, yeah, anybody can get it sort of in a given area. But then it's like having a public defender at a trial. Like he's got 60 other clients this week. And you're going to get him for five minutes. And it's better than no lawyer at all, or is it?

I don't know. And they have all these rules and loopholes. You have to jump through to just all these things. And I lost my health insurance the year of my mom, like the day my mom died. I turned 26, lost my health insurance. Yeah. And it was like, oh, cool. So I just had to figure it out, man.

Yeah, I've been approved for the ketamine trials for PTSD and stuff. So I'm really curious on that. It's just like 400 pop. So maybe next year I'm going to do it. But I've had a lot of friends have a lot of positive. results from it. Good. Yeah. I mean, there are, I mean, we've been experimenting with psychoactive substances for probably since we were stoned apes in the jungle eating mushrooms, you know. Yeah. But in, in the medical sense, even in the dream books, you know, they've got out there,

they're, the most recent one that's coming out pretty soon. It talks about doctors experimenting with drugs and documenting their own, their own experiences. I don't know. It was, they were talking about um the cactus buttons mescal or something like there there was um now i've done dmt now really that have you have you ever done dm t all i never have but i've heard uh did you see the machine elves um i i guess it was a machine elf i didn't fully break through because we didn't smoke it correctly we didn't get to a hot enough temperature but i was in a shed with my friend and he's in front of me and I see something on my peripheral and I just turn and the rest of the shed is gone. It is outer space.

Wow. And this is never, I've done a lot of like all psychedelics and this has never happened. I've never had this kind of experience. DMT is insane. I turned my head and it was just outer space and there were these floating crater like rocks. And there was this creature on a rock that I can only describe as like this thing I'm seen from a video game. if you've ever played Zelda

Twilight Princess in the Twilight there are these creatures that like move really weird and they have squiggly things on their face and they're square but they have like

claws and stuff and it's like all like weird yeah that motherfucker was on a rock just looking at me and doing like weird movements and I just turned my head like I'm not gonna look at that anymore I'm just gonna go back to the shed

you did not get a good vibe from that thing, huh? It just reminded me of the twilight, like the other, like of that video game, like the Twilight. I was just like, okay, that's there. Yeah. And I'm here.

I'm going to be here. That's an interesting thing too. Because, so if we say, see something unusual. And we, we are possibly scared of it because of the way it looks or the way it behaves. We have to ask,

okay, am I, do I trust my intuition on that and go, I got a bad vibe? I'm out. This is not good. I don't like that thing. I don't want to be near it. Maybe that's saved our life in history, you know,

evolutionarily in the past. Then again, it might be we're seeing something that is, yeah, new, different, scary, but not dangerous,

not malicious. Some people will put different experiences. I didn't feel threatened or scared or anything. I was just like, cool story, bro. Way too high for that shit. I'm out.

That's there. Like, that wasn't there before. That's new. You know, like that was the vibe. But I didn't smoke it correctly. So I didn't fully break through. Fair enough.

As they say. Yeah. But I had my friend who did it. He, um, he woke up and he said he was in a surgery on another planet and another body. Wow. And centipedes were working on him. Okay.

Praying mantises. Praying mantises. Not centipedes. Wow. Yeah. And I mean, there's, there's so much we don't know that it, and I love the fascinating theories, the idea that it allows us to kind of see through the illusion of... Like, dimensions and dimensions.

Yeah, yeah. It's like if the multiversal theory is correct. It's true. Yeah. The way it kind of functions is the, you know, Big Bang to Heat Death Collapse to Singularity to Big Bang. And it's all taking place in the same physical space in a way. It's like the same circle.

But at each new... This is going to. get into my dream. This is my dream. Nice. Because we, that's what DMT is. We trip that when we're dreaming.

Yeah. That's part of, part of my fascination with it too, is, and I haven't started looking into it. So I don't talk about it too much. Like one thing I try not to do is, I'll ramble in all kinds of crazy shit. But I like to separate, wow, isn't this a neat idea? I don't know what it is from, I'm pretty certain about these things.

This, I think I understand how this works. So if I get into things like that, all I can do with DMT is go, cool story, bro. I got nothing. I don't understand how it works. Well, that's the other thing too. It fascinates me. Yeah.

Well, that's what was bringing me around too is so we have a long history of as the human species and what we were before that experimenting with different psychoactive stuff. And then medically experimenting with it to try and fix. Because, you know, we used to have just insane asylums. And people were just crazy people. And they locked them up because they didn't know what else. The CIA used to just, what was it? M.K. Ultra used to just fucking make people trip balls. They would do weird shit to them.

That appears to be entirely accurate and not at all. Conspiracy theory, as some people said. No, they said it. They openly said. I don't even say conspiracy theory anymore because the CIA came up with that turn. It's just, uh, no, it's true. At some point, it's like, this is just unverified prophecy. That's all, that's all.

We're just waiting for the documents to come out. Yeah. Is it been a Simpsons episode? Yeah. What I was actually referring to is even further back, we're talking like, two, three hundred years before that. It was the late 16, 1700s. And this was before we even started experimenting medically with psychotropics to try and say, well, can we make the manic person less full of energy? Can we, can we take the schizophrenic and help them stop hearing voices?

And what was Helen Keller tripping on? Right. Is that like the same time period? I'm thinking. Am I, am I on the right time period? Was she late 1800s, early 1900s? Is that the right time? I'm so bad with names and dates. I am. Yeah. I'm bad too. It's not my thing. Like I'll tell people, let's say, I'm explaining something to someone on another Discord or whatever.

And they're like, you got a link for that? And I'm like, no, it's just in my head. I haven't seen a link in 20 years. But I know what I'm saying is accurately reporting what I read or what I think I was told or my understanding of it. But, you know, it's how all human history has been passed out. Yeah. And so now we're getting into a new phase where a lot of the stigmas falling off.

the psychedelic side of things. And they're looking at it. And this is like, I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Yaddy. Oh, disclaimers. But they seem to have been some positive trials with ecstasy or MDMA, resetting people's. I've got some in my fridge right now.

Post-traumatic stuff. So it may, you know, and then again, I don't know the dose. I don't know the conditions. I don't know the duration of positive effect or the percentage of people who gain. a positive effect are certain types of trauma more immune to that kind of a but then sometimes the the basic premise of well if we just kind of reset the brain a little bit just just just shock it out of and that well that was actually kind of the purpose behind electroshock they thought they were we have a new we have a new technology they weren't trying to torment people they were

trying to help reset the well the brain is a biologically electrochemical chemical machine we can apply these currents and voila and you know the funny thing is that got a bad rap for a a long time and it was used too much and it was used the wrong way and it was not good science. Now people who have been had major depression for years, been in and out of hospitals, deep clinical depression, not responding to medication, not responding to therapy. They get electroshock. They're groggy for a day and they come out of it and they're like, I'm okay today. I feel okay today.

Now it, from what I know. You have to find what works for you. Yeah. It's on therapy. Yeah. And so that's, that's one of the things where I look, I don't rule anything out. You know, I'm not going to advocate for lobotomies. We seem to have figured out that's not a good idea.

But I don't want that. Yeah. But then again, and then we got to be very careful with that kind of stuff. Because there's, there's, they do, they disable certain areas of the brain with magnets. And I think it's temporary. But then they ask people questions, well, how do you feel about this, that or the other? And it does seem to have, it changes people's opinions and personality in some ways. And, but then again, what if we get down to the point where we can,

almost like, what is it where they do, they do certain, they do something, it's not lasers, it's something else, but they do like cancer treatment where they can put a beam this way and put a beam that way and it just hits the cancer inside. Radiology. There's a radiology type of thing going on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go. That couldn't think of the word. What if we could do that to the brain?

Now, again, lobotomy, bad idea. Just taking a, it took a fork and just kind of scramble your eggs a little bit. That was never a good idea. But it was, you know, that was trusting science back in the day. So I'm always a little skeptical sometimes when people go. Same. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why I've always been nervous about therapy because my mom had a psych degree or major in psychology. And she was the craziest person I know. Okay. She was bipolar. A lot of us are. Before like, before bipolar was on the books. Yeah. You know what I mean?

she was bored in the late 50s, and yeah, she was hella bipolar. And that contributed a lot to my CPDSD because when my nervous system was trying to regulate and develop, I was constantly in a state of like going up and down, managing trying to regulate my mother's emotions. So it was exhausting. Yeah. But love her. No, for sure. And then, well, and then even that goes to another fantastic point, which is that even if, say,

someone isn't the most stable person, we still feel a tremendous loss. And there is a tremendous loss in having them just suddenly removed from our lives. Yeah, she never got to win over her mental. Like she never got time to like rest. That's that's my biggest regret for my mother is she never really looked after that part of herself. Like that's why I focused so much on my mental health because I saw how much my mom's deteriorated throughout her life. Yeah. And I just really wish she would have had the willpower and the resources to, like, the support to really do what she needed to do for her mental health, but she just never did.

So that's why I'm heavily advocate it and trying to be really verbal about it because I'm really trying to like change that aspect of my genealology whatever they call it breaking the generational curse or whatever for sure because it's in your DNA like you're when your mom and your grandmother is living their lives you're inside like a piece of you is inside their body their eggs are with them at all times so their trauma is your trauma and that gets passed down and passed down and i just saw that with all the women in my family with the same shit. You know what I mean? I'm just trying to break that cycle. It is a very powerful thing for a lot of people to understand as well is that these, um, most of these conditions are genetic. They're,

you know, you're predisposed and it's an interesting thing too because like there might be someone who is, you know, had an uncle who was schizophrenic or a great great uncle. And that's in them too. It's in, it's in their mother's side of the family as well, all the way back to that. What I think about, I think about that all the time because me and my husband want to have a child someday. And it's just like that's in the background, you know what? Yeah. That can be, that can be a tough call too. It's like, and I don't, I don't pretend to have advice for anyone on that type of score.

Where was, where was I going? The idea that it may be in there. And then it may never be expressed in a given individual's life. It may never come out. It may never be triggered, so to speak. And then there may be a traumatic event. And this is kind of where the myth that LSD necessarily causes permanent psychosis is that with some people, that person, their specific biology, that specific formulation, that specific dose. It unlocks it.

It unlocks just for them in that circumstance. It's highly unpredictable. Some people, even if they just smoke weed, it unlocks that if they had schizophrenia. running it down the it's crazy and i'm still glad i'm not one of those people because i i enjoy getting high i'm sorry right no no yeah nothing nothing to feel sorry for and it's it that's that's what am i trying to say is i want people to have fun and i don't see a problem with getting high of course not uh you know um after uh after you and i wrap up here i'm going to play video games for about three hours and i'm going to be sipping on uh uh uh would say a custom cocktail that i've made

concoction that I've made just for that game. And then viewers can drink along. So I'm not going to be a hypocrite who says, you know, alcohol is different. There's nothing wrong with that. Marijuana is the devil's weed. But alcohol, no, no. It's all drugs. And when humans love to get high and you do it safely and you do it responsibly,

you're not hurting anybody. Yeah. I've got family members that call me a drug addict. Because I smoke weed. And I'm like, bra, if you only knew when I was actually addicted to drugs. Yeah. No, there is a big difference between responsible use and moderation. And, you know, what I don't do is roll out of bed and, and, you know, take a shot.

It's just not. Yeah. Don't recommend that for anyone. You know, some people. Moderation with everything. Yeah, exactly. But then it's also hard to say, it's safe for everybody. Like, I wouldn't want to tell someone, hey, go ahead and drop ass and it's not going to hurt you.

And then it does. And I'm like, well, shit. Yeah. I have no advice on that score. And that's like I say, I'm not a doctor. Be careful. Have fun. You know, if you're, you know, there are different things you can.

can tell people, though, of like, hey, if you're going to be with a group of friends who are doing that, maybe have one sober friend who can call 911 just in case. Oh, yeah. No. And make sure no one tries to fly off of. I'm a great friend to do drugs around for the first time. Like, I will walk you through what you're going through 100%. Yeah.

Because if you're in a group and everyone's impaired and no one's looking out for it. And no one has the capacity to provide for the safety of others. It's, you know, there's just better and worse ways to. get yourself out of trouble in those in those circumstances um and again then we still don't know and hopefully those i think that the stigma is loosening up a little bit in terms of trying to apply those to some mental health stuff rather than seeing it as universally something that drives you over the edge into crazy town they're starting to see it as things that can maybe be safer alternatives to some people it levels them out to a normal line you know other people might have a genetic where

it doesn't make them go you know crazy but most people like me it's like drinking coffee it gets me to a normal place where I can function. Yeah. I think I've got at least a touch of the ADHD stuff too because coffee, just playing coffee. Yeah. I mean, just this conversation. I think that too. Oh, there's mental stimulation too.

Like, I don't know if you, I had this experience when I was, you know, a teenager, you go to Denny's and drink coffee and talk for like seven hours. It's 2 a.m. in the morning. And, you know, the waitress is like, you know, I'm going home. You guys ready to cash out. Yeah, we had Wobble House. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But, some of those conversations were just having a stimulating mental experience can be, can be very enlivening in that way to get you to the point where you're showing what might appear to someone on the outside to be symptoms of mania.

You know, like this rapid rush of ideas and pressured speech and exaggerated gestures and high energy. And, you know, looking at that and goes, you know, you see that slice of someone. And it's like, are they just. excited or are they manic? And so that's why it takes a bit of a trained diet and you know, tell the difference like, okay, what's the context? How long has this been going on? They haven't slept in three days? Let's talk. That's a problem. That is mania or what is got? Methamphetamine. Yeah, right. Either one, not so good. Uh, yeah. Read the room. For sure. Um, well, so I keep forgetting and then I remember and I don't want to forget again. Um, talking about

your understanding of PTSD and what differentiates it from complex PTSD and then what you've discovered in your in your process of learning about it and how your your specific experience of it what's worked to help mitigate it for it. There's so many questions in there, but it's kind of throw the door open. Okay. So PTSD opposed to C PTSD. They're basically the same thing, but PTSD is more known for like, oh, a singular event. Say you get robbed or you're in a war, like one event that is just very traumatic and very violent in nature. C-PTSD is usually trauma during childhood or when you're developing your nervous system or when something's going on for a long time, like emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, all of the above.

So complex PTSD is usually more severe on the symptoms. Like your emotions are constantly up and down, up and down with depression and hyper fixation and then drop. Like if I like this social interaction is probably going to make me like I'm going to probably like just drain and be drained for like a day or two. Those kind of things. I always feel like I'm outside of myself. Like with CPDSD, you feel like you're not connected to your body. You're always, they call it, what's it called when you're disassociating,

disassociated. That happens to me a lot. And flashbacks are really hard. It's really like you see a video. Like you're literally like, somewhere else. Like in like can like the room around you is gone. It's almost like being on DMT.

The room around you changes and you can kind of like in your peripheral you see your it's really where you are. But taking up the majority of your vision is whatever the trauma and trigger is happening. Yeah. And that happens to me a lot in my sleep. Like last night I had a lot of night terrors and sometimes I remember them. Sometimes I don't like last night I was just being jolted awake a lot. And I didn't know what the panic was from.

But that's why I was a little off today and kind of jacked like all over the place, like, brazzled. Because I didn't get much sleep and I'm always a little confused the next day, especially if I don't remember the dream or if I remember the dream, I'm even more confused because then I wake up not knowing where I am, not even knowing like what year it is. Sometimes I'm like, wait, what's real? What's not? It's kind of crazy. That's an interesting question that just occurred to me too, is like if there are under what conditions... Like the multi-universe thing. Well, that too.

Under what conditions would a person be more likely to experience... There's probably a term for it, but not knowing where they are what's going on compared to others. And I think there's... It occurred to me that's like, well, that would make sense with someone who's, say, prone to, say, dissociative episodes where they're not... There's just something where that connection to... to the grounded sense of being in yourself and connected to the environment. Nothing feels real. It just not,

nothing feels real. Yeah. It's like a, um, disconnect. And I think that's from all the like traumatic events of literally for your sake of mental survival, you just mentally disconnected. And now it's just like permanently a switch going on and off. Yeah. Well, that's kind of how what is it, the, the body's designed to react to like severe shock.

Like if you have a severe. physical trauma the body's like shut down power off let's just that's that's what happened in 2012 because i didn't know like when you're a kid and you just grow up and you live your life you just think that you're what you're exposed to is just normal that everyone goes through it is your baseline for normal yeah yes that's your baseline so you just don't think you're like i'm not starving in a third world country so like i'm not traumatized you know like that's the that's the mindset that you're raised with. Now he's going to start talking.

He probably wants to go out and go potty. Shush. Just wait for you. But you don't have that mindset. And then in 2012, I had a physical, I had my appendix removed very dramatically. Like I almost like it almost erupted. It was really bad. And after that, my nervous system was like, bitch, you got to deal with this.

And I physically was ill. I was sick every day. I was hospital. Actually, this is the first year in my adult life that I, I haven't been to the ER for vomiting and hospitalization from like my nerves and stuff. Making progress. But yeah, making progress. Slowly but surely.

But, and it all comes from being self-aware and being aware that this, my body's reacting to nerves and panic and all these things that I've been suppressing my whole life because I just didn't know I was, I, I wasn't expelling it, you know. Like your nervous system takes score and it and it holds on to it and you have to fucking. expel it. It's, yeah, it's annoying. Yeah. That's a crazy thing too. I mentioned this another podcast as well, but like that that's kind of how our current understanding of the subconscious is that it's like literally physically everything in the brain, like every experience, sensation, thought, emotion, everything you've ever experienced. It's all in there in the configuration of a, the zigzag, a lightning bolt takes through your neurons and forms new, neuronal connections uh can say that three times fast um yeah and so the same goes for it's like a

positive and the negative sign of is the positive side is we can come to subconscious understanding that influences our conscious behavior in ways we don't understand for the better or for the worse and physically um we have to reprogram those broken connections that have been so strongly reinforced, if we get into the idea of, say, someone who's got the classic trust issues, it's like, well, they've been betrayed so many times. That kind of feels like the normal. Now you've got to override that with a new understanding or a new conscious choice to say, no, there are ways to know who is trustworthy and that I can rely on them. And then that takes, what is it? Ah, I'm all over the place. I always am. This is how I do the dream thing, too. I was like,

oh, fought, fought, fought, squirrel, bicycle. Yeah, same. Yeah, yeah. That's one of my favorite jokes to. How many ADHD kids does it take to screwing the light bulb? Want to go ride bikes? Yeah, the light bulb never gets screwed. No, no, light bulb.

That was so five minutes ago. But for someone who says, say has borderline personality disorder, one of the classic things they say about that is if you spent 20 years with that disorder, it could take you another 20 years to reprogram it to stop defaulting to those negative. of behavior and getting sucked into, you know, all the different self-created and, and self-created is a wrong way to put it, but like, it's like manic episodes. Yeah. Or self-inflicted harm. Yeah, it's like self-sabotage type of things. Self-sabotage, yes.

Oh, I'm queen of it. Right. And that, well, that's what the self-awareness thing comes into. And that's talking about your mom there, you know, there were, there were days gone by where it was not well. understood and what was understood was that it was bad and it's not something you want to be. So that's not me. And you just live in denial and, and, and you'd never address it.

Oh, I've got cats. Oh, yeah. That was, that was the name of the game of the family is just, that's not the Suzanne we pay attention to. Yeah, we just shine that on. She'll go back to normal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just think that's just such a sad way to live. It is. Yeah. And it, it doesn't give us an opportunity to kind of. confront something we should probably grow. Yeah. That too.

Yeah. Or it's like, what is it? When say we were talking about addiction stuff earlier, it's like, when does someone go into, yeah, this is baby girl. When does someone go into recovery when they realize they have a problem and not until and then they don't realize they have a problem until it ain't working for them anymore. It's like, well, I got fired from the job and I ran out of money and maybe I'm drinking too much.

Yeah. You think? I couldn't tell you that you had to, you had to hit, what would they say call it? rock bottom, you know. And for some people with the mental health stuff, it's like it has to become disruptive to their life. They have to, the severity of the symptoms has to exceed their ability to cope in some very stark capacity. Yeah. And then they kind of kills you or makes you want to live. It either kills you or makes you want to live. That's the point. For sure. And I think we're getting, getting better at encouraging people to be self. Now, there's a two-edged sword with being self-aware.

it is a it is absolutely indispensable that we be aware of ourselves it is not really something humans can live without we're always aware of ourselves to some degree but there's two two downsides to it as well one is um being hyper aware of yourself leads to a lot of anxiety issues you're always like in your own head but but worse than that it can lead to a lot of um what am i trying to say it's not just anxiety but it's uh it's like self doubt and uh yeah and it's not a good look outlook on yourself i forgot how they how they word it like there's something there's something about again i lost my train of thought and and and the the concept i was going for though is the idea that excessive rumination and internal focus is actually really detrimental to your health

You got to get out of your head. You got to be experiencing. Ignorance is bliss. There is that. There is. Yeah, there is that too. Well, it's like, there's a, it's like a time and a place. It's like when it's time to think about your choices and evaluate whether you should make different choices, self-awareness, fantastic.

If you are trying to just be at a public event and experience what's happening and be present with your friends and enjoy the moment and all you, can think about is is somebody looking at me am i you know am i dwelling too much on you know i am dwelling too much on my own problems that you're not even you're not even there with with with other people or enjoying life and so it's that's one of those uh balancing acts i love the i love the i love the yin yang thing where i think everything is pretty much a matter of balance is to you know too much too little or too much it's a bad thing uh in most cases um the dog quit barking but i think she gave up yeah maybe Okay, that's, I was going to say, we took a...

I was like, if you need to take him out. I'm wondering if I should do a 10-minute break, because sometimes he just, he'll take a break, and then he'll come back and he's like, still got to pee, Dad. What are you doing? Are you good to take a 10 real quick and we'll come right back? Yeah, that's totally fine. I think we got...

Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you pierce the veil of night and shine the light of understanding upon the mystery of dreams. Every episode of his dreamscapes program features real dreamers, gifted with rare insight into their nocturnal visions. New DreamScape's episodes appear every week on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey, and other video hosting platforms, as well as free audiobooks, highlighting the psychological principles which inform our dream experience and much, much more. To join The Wizard as a guest, reach out across more than a dozen social media platforms,

and through the contact page at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature available on Amazon, featuring the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. All right. Well, yeah, we could probably, I got a feeling we could just keep talking forever. But we got a little less than an hour for me and I got to get ready to play some bayonetta. I don't know if you're a gamer at all.

Um, no, I just don't have fast enough computers anymore. I used to fuck with Sims hardcore. I used to be that kid that was like on Sims for hours, but not anymore. And like old school, anything Nintendo, I love Nintendo games. Nice. Yeah, this one is a throwback to, you know, when I used to play, you know, button mashing brawlers like the, um, what is it? Speaking of Nintendo, the idea of, um, the teenage Muti Turtle game. Oh, Ninja Turtles.

Like way back when, yeah, those little 2D, well, sort of kind of two D. well sort of kind of 2D-ish 3D you could move a little up and down the screen as you move left and right yeah well it's so bayonetta is a button mashing brawer I'm terrible terrible at those games I have no you know there's the people who can you know 360 no scope headshot and call a duty or whatever that's not me either no I've horrible my phone's hurt like immediately now like I don't I'm just like I got old lady thumbs I can't say the yeah I actually have uh I never used to have a bringing up on screen never used to have a controller now I've got one uh it's one it's one it's one weird it's weird mouse and keyboard player all my life but i've now got oh yeah trying to i apparently my thumbs are retarded they just are it's just no way around the game i'm naturally good at and i take no friends or mercy in is mario cart oh nice i will whoop a bitch in mario car i remember i played my little niece she was like eight and she was like on maggie's not nice when she was I'm like, no friends in Mario Kart.

I'm also terrible with those driving games, except I found one that's, and this was a few generations of the phone back, but where you, you work the phone like a steering wheel, and I'm like, I can do this. Oh, yeah. That was pretty cool. Speaking of which, I should get this.

Those are my favorite arcade games. They're the racing ones. Yeah, those are kind of fun. I don't want to go to Dave and Buster Snale. I think I've ever been to one. I think we might have one out here in Portland. I'm not sure. Oh, you should check it out.

It's fun. It's fun. It's just a chucky cheese for adults. Right. I think I enjoyed the idea of going to places like that more than being there. Like, I don't like public places. Sometimes it's really draining because it can be too crowded. I get overstimulated very quickly in public spaces.

Me too. I'm more of a hermit. I just like, I got my cats in my garage and I just stay here. Same. If I never had to go shopping again, then it would probably be perfect. You just never leave the cave. Yeah. Like, I'm counting this as a full social interaction, honestly.

Absolutely. I'm good for the day after this. Then it's just drinking video games. Check it. Right. But dreaming. Okay. So you've got a dream.

And I'm going to shut up and listen. We're going to do the thing. So anytime. Okay. So this is my dream. And it's been repetitive. And it's kind of like an ongoing thing. It comes with the like multi-universe thing.

And it confuses me when I wake up because it's so realistic. I will wait. wake up. It's like lucid dreaming, but I wake up in my dream. Like I will wake up in my grandmother's house or my childhood home or my grandmother's beach house. Like somewhere I went was a lot as a child. And I will physically wake up in a room that I was familiar sleeping in on a sofa or a bed. And I wake up and I think it's real, but I'm very aware that I am 30 years of like of my life, all, everything that is current now. And I, I'm just like in a full sheer panic like why am I in this house? What year is it? And I usually

the reoccurring dream that I started having before my mom died was we sold all the houses I grew up in. We were alone. Gradually like sold my grandmother's house, sold my childhood home and sold the house that my mom died in. So I was having this dream that we sold, that the houses were sold, but all of my mom's stuff was still inside. And so in the dream, me and my mom are sneaking in trying to like steal her stuff back. And I had this dream reoccurring before she even died. And we ended up actually selling her last house with some things still inside. And it's so real. And it goes back and forth. I'll either wake up in the house and I wake up and it's me and my mom. And she's like, we've got to get my shit back. And we're trying to get her stuff out of the house. And

And like the new people call the cops and we like race back to our other house and hide. And then the other one is I physically wake up in my grandmother's home or my childhood home. And it's new owners. Like nothing is my, nothing is of my any family members' belongings in there. It's all new things. And this is what's so scary to me is I never see. these people. They're always turning on the lights or like calling people or calling out. Like is someone in there? I'm like, am I haunting my own childhood and grandparents home because I went home for

my mom's funeral and that reoccurring dream of waking up in this house and it being owned by someone else and nothing belonging to me being in there and whatever? And then never seeing these people just hearing them and the lights turning on and everything and just trying to like rush out of this house to not get arrested. I went home and I drove past my grandmother's house and there was a detail that was the same as my dream that I couldn't have made up. Like literally I woke up in my grandmother's house one time and it was owned by someone else, other things in there.

And I'm like, I need to get out of here. So I get out of the house. I go in the backyard and their cars parked off of the driveway on the grass. and I remember thinking my grandmother would be so pissed that they're parked on her grass like that. And then when I came home for the funeral, I just did a drive-by just to see the houses. And those same cars were parked in the same spot on the grass,

and it really gave me the chills. And I talked to my dad, who's like retired military, and he was like, oh, you probably, like, lucid, you were lucid dreaming. Like, that's real. You can astro project, and, like, the military has proven that. and I was just like it just blows my mind so I don't even know what's real anymore yeah okay so sometimes I feel like I'm haunting my own shit like my my childhood space and I just want to go knock on the door and be like does do y'all ever get woken up at night strange noises in the

house yeah yeah it's so weird okay what do you think what what what do you think those are two different dreams sorry two dreams no that's okay we're gonna we're we're gonna get back to I just had a thought as you were saying that. Have you ever seen the movie called The Others with Nicole Kidman? No, but the butterfly effect is how I usually explain it to people. Okay. That when I wake up and I'm frantically wondering what year it is, someone will look at me and be like, oh, what are you talking? Like, look at me like I'm the one being crazy that what do you talk about?

You just took a nap and it's this year and blah, blah, blah. And I feel like I'm like, well, this person's going to die in a couple of years. we need to tell them about that. And then they're like, what are you talking about? It's like different details of my life are the same but different. And everyone's looking at me like I'm crazy for asking questions. Yeah.

Well, I won't spoil the movie, but I will recommend it. I think you'll find it interesting based on how you described some of this stuff. So it's a, you know, I'll look it up. I'll look it up.

Yeah. I mean, broadly, it's a, you know, haunted house movie, is. I mean, that's what it's the,

oh, wait, with her kids, with her kids, with her. Yeah. She sees these kids. Yes, I've seen that. Oh, you did. Okay. I wasn't going to spoil it for you, but we can talk about it. But that idea of, well, you know, the twist at the end. Like, who was, who was, who were the others in that, right? I feel like I am the others. And I grew up. My grandmother's house was haunted when I lived there. Like, I had friends. You had those experiences. Yeah. Yeah. We have like recordings and everything, like weird things would happen. And I'm like, on a time, you know how all time. is happening all at once. I'm like, has it been me this whole time? Like, I experienced the hauntings of my own lucid dreams. Oh, that would be. Wasn't there a movie like that, too, where there was a little bit of a, the person, the person. That was with Matthew McConaughey and he, like,

ends up on his daughter's bookshelf. He travels through space and ends up on his daughter's bookshelf for something. Interstellar? And like it did some of the things he experienced as odd things were like him doing it to himself or something. Yes. At a different time. It was, oh, yeah. I think that's not the only one. That's how I feel.

Yeah. That's how I feel. A poor dog keeps trying to get back in my lap. He's going to. Oh. I know. Poor guy. He doesn't, he doesn't know.

Like when I, when I have the chair in recliner mode and I'm playing video games, I can tuck them in there. But right now I'm sitting up. There's just, there's no room. My ass takes up all seat. Okay. So what works best with my process is to pick one dream. So whichever one, I would say, whichever kind of dream happens.

happened most recently that you can remember? I would say the wake up one, the wake up one, though it's the second one I was describing. Okay, where it's, um, you awaken. And so, so how about how long ago? And it's the new owners and they're there and they, their things are there. And I feel like I'm the intruder in the home, but I never physically see them or they never physically see me or I feel like they can't see me. Yeah.

I had that probably last week. I probably had that dream last week. Okay. Yeah. Good deal. I know. That's fantastic when I, it's when it's kind of fresh. And for two reasons. One, you get better recall.

And two, you can kind of remember what was happening in your life last week. So at some point in the exploration, we'll probably get around to, okay, this is starting to make sense

because here's what I experienced that might have caused me to examine that idea in that form again. That's usually what's going on with recurring dreams is we've crystallized a concept into a dream experience. And every time, we re-experience that type of concept in real life.

We have to confront that kind of problem again. We go back into the dream experience to say, okay, if I look at this again, am I going to understand it better this time? Yeah. And usually about the time we figure it out, the dream stop because they don't need to, they don't need to come back anymore.

We figured it out. Whatever they were obsessing over has been resolved. So I've had that actually happen a couple of times with folks who bring me recurring dreams. Like, you know, after we talked, I haven't had that dream sense. like, oh, that's amazing. That's the other thing I was going to say, too, is like, I don't, what is it?

There are more things under heaven and earth than are, that are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio, you know, that Shakespeare quote. And so, I am what I call a credulous skeptic. I'm willing to believe a whole lot of crazy shit is absolutely possible. I don't, but if I can't explain it and tell you the difference between this dream is prophetic, this dream is not, I leave it all off to the side. But astral projection in your sleep, these are. ancient ideas that go back, like I said, literally ancient, 2,000 years or more. And that and prophetic dreams and possible psychic connections with other dreamers or close relatives.

And then we experience those messages, say, in our sleep, lots of stories of people who say, yes, that happened to me. And I don't believe they're lying. So. They feel like new memories. Yeah. Like new experiences. A hundred percent feel like new experience.

experiences. Yeah. So I've had, I've had some folks who brought me a dream that they explained why they believed it was prophetic because that dream pretty much happened to them a few weeks later in real life. And now they're talking to me about it looking back. And I'm like, I believe you, not something I can work with. So did it lose you? Oh, no. I thought my cat was meowing at the door. My kitten woke up and he's a little needy. Okay. Well, if you need a break to you and you want to grab him, that's fine. You can cuddle in your lap either which way. Okay, so last week you had this dream again. So you're, if you could try to just tell me, well, you described it a little bit.

Is that, is that the, that's the broad strokes of it. You awake. You know what your grandmother's house, but it's a room filled with strange object. It's not the furniture you remember. Yeah. And there are other people in the house. And you know their presence because they turn lights on and off. and you hear them calling is someone there from another room.

Yes. Yes. I hear them calling. I hear them talking or I hear them call someone on the phone. It's this elderly woman. And then sometimes she has a husband or some kind of male person that comes there sometimes. Sometimes he's not. Sometimes she's alone. And sometimes the house is empty. But it's always a variation of those. And I always like. like try to hide whenever like I think they're going to come in the room because I really I think it's real and I always feel like I'm I'm trying to hide but I'm definitely like not hide like I'm just standing in front of these people and they're just like anyone's in there you better get out like yeah like I feel like I'm the ghost like literally like I'm they can't see me but I I it's feel so real that it's it's very it's creepy oh yeah and Okay, so my process is, we get the broad strokes, whatever, whatever you describe it is.

And then I like to go back through it again. And I try and see it as much as I can through your eyes. Literally when I say, I'm like, you're inviting me and I'm standing over, looking over your shoulder shining a flashlight. So I'm just trying to see what you see. You awaken in your grandmother's old house. That's like the beginning. Any particular room. Is it a bedroom?

Are you on a couch? Yeah. Three different. There are three different places I wake up. It's either in one of the two bedrooms I used to reside in when I'd stay at my grandmothers or down in the sitting room, the din, the sofa. This most recent time? Yeah, yeah.

And they've, no, this most recent time I woke up in one of the bedrooms. And I'll always, I look out the window and I'm like, what the fuck? like how is this even possible and then I start questioning everything I'm like is my mom alive is anything real like what yeah I'm like how did I wake up here I don't I live in Colorado and I start like self-douding my entire life sure yeah and you um I think the way you described it originally was you are waking up as yourself you're not a kid again this is not going to be yeah as myself yeah No, whenever it's, whenever I'm a, someone looks at me like I'm a, like I should be a child is when I'm like scrambling like what year is it and I'm talking to someone that's like it feels like I'm waking up in a memory like the butterfly effect. Yeah. aspect. I've seen the movie in forever. It's a great movie. Oh, yeah. It's really weird. I thought it was a fantastic. Well, before going into it. It's a good movie. No, it is. I agree. And I'm not saying. It's not fun to live it. No, no, that, well, that too. And it's like it's a bit. deceptive in a way because you think it's this kind of thought-provoking science fiction

philosophical and it turns into this kind of really dark thriller of like this is messed that whole thing is messed up what did I walk into but it's oh that's what made it so great is it's just you just stunned at how good it is and I'm like this is the guy from that comedy show where he plays an idiot uh you know usually con usually comedians do really good with drama because yeah that whole thing the comedy coming show with jim carrie uh that was fantastic i'm like he can do drama he can do a real you know with his humor in it too but um it gets you awaken in this room it's one of the guest bedrooms that you are familiar with from from from on and off i lived with my grandmother growing up um okay my mom had uh had mental health issues and hoarding issues so like

we just she would have whole houses that we just couldn't live in at times. Well, that makes it a very powerful experience, too, because you're going to a place of, let's see, that that, that has a whole multilayered, um, associative kind of constellation around it. It's good that it was a safe place of stability you could be when it was necessary. It's bad that it was necessary. You're taken away from your mom and it's, it's, you know, your mom's and it's because of this other constellation stuff that's going on with her and her inability to kind of regulate herself. We weren't supposed to be in that house. It was like you're an unwelcome, welcome, welcome. You know what I mean?

Yeah, and that's another layer to it as well is how did your grandmother see it? Was she a little perturbed? Oh, yeah, well, we have to do this again. Or was she more like, I'm happy to be here for you. It's sad. She loved her grandchildren, but she was perturbed with her daughter and very frustrated. Yeah, and didn't know how to deal with mental health. And she couldn't say no.

I mean, she wouldn't say no, but other families. It caused a lot of riffs between her siblings and things. Gotcha. Did you feel like as a kid, right or wrong, that you were an imposition that you felt Oh, 100%. 100%. Like it was always like be on your P's and Q's when other people come and have the, you know, script ready on how you answer questions kind of thing.

Like so no one gets the full picture on what mom's doing here. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And that's tough as a kid too of like to have someone. take you in and you're grateful to them, but you also feel bad that you are in that situation. Like you feel like like kids take on that. Yeah.

And you can't. Yeah. And you just accept your reality because like it's not anything you can like. Like you just exist like you're a child. You know. Yeah. For sure. So you just as a kid, you just want to have a cool bedroom.

Like you just want your room. Yeah. Yeah. And this, um, that was the next thing I was going to get to is any details of the room. How did you know it wasn't the other room? What did you see that was different? The furniture is either gone or very, like, very minuscule furniture, like, or in different places. Yeah, my, it was very, it was decorated a very specific way.

And it's just, it's laid out differently. But how the windows are, there are only so many ways. someone can lay out those rooms. So I think my mind just fills in the blanks. But when I went to the funeral and saw those same cars there, that freaked me out. I was like, that's weird. That's where I go, uh, cool story, bro. I don't know what to do with that.

I mean, I couldn't explain it to you. And it is entirely possible that, uh, you know, you did have that experience. And that's exactly what it is or something else. And I don't know how to tell the difference. Yeah. Um, I don't either. No, for sure. That's, I'd give it to you if I could.

I'd say, well, let me tell you something. I know nothing. Yeah. I guess what I was looking at is like, so you were, what, what you knew was that the furniture was not the same as it was before, but you don't have a recollection specifically of it was this type of furniture. It was a shelf of this kind. It was just more modern. It was just more modernized. My grandmother's furniture was a little bit more on the antique side and very specific style.

So very much just immediate recognition that this is not the same furniture at all. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Or sometimes you, in this most recent experience, it was not, was it empty, minimal? How would you describe that? I'd say minimal. I was able to hide behind just a bed and I just lay down.

But it was just like, you could see me like it's just not. It was just, I don't know. So there's a lot of ways to look at. Oh, go ahead. I think it now that I'm talking out loud to you that's how I think that the um me feeling like the intruder aspect comes from me being the child that feels like I'm not supposed to be in this house I'm not supposed to be here um I have no place and then um seeing it occupied by someone else meant subconsciously I think my mind just places me there like I'm forever the intruder of the space

maybe I don't know that's a that's a fantastic uh connection that's probably something I would have suggested a little bit down the road. But mostly I just ramble until people have their own epiphanies. And if nothing's coming, then I just keep saying more stuff, right? Just keep saying more stuff. But also, so there's a lot of ways to look at the, the road. So we're looking at a specific location. It's not an unknown house, grandma's house, definitely connected to family issues.

We're looking at rooms that are alien to us. This is not the same furniture. This is not the same. It's the same room, but it's not. And the idea that it would be more or less full of furniture, furniture has, you know, not one meaning in a dream, but since it's very vague and it's okay, it's more modern. So it's, it's, you're removed from the time.

So it's giving you a little bit of context of where you're right. You are yourself as an adult. So it's not, I'm a kid, but the furniture's all different. That would be something completely different. And, but what am I going with that? Lesser more furniture can be the, um, Furniture is often like a utility thing or a or an aesthetic thing. Usually one of those too.

We, we, as a kid, you say you want to want a cool room. You want your things. The posters you like. The, the lamp that you bought or picked out for yourself. The bed you remember, the comfortable, familiar to be in. But the room, it can also mean, what am I trying to say? It's the idea I'm going for. Being more or less full, like being in a completely empty room.

What would that be like? It would be like this, it's like a room that's not being used. It's a room that's lost its purpose in some ways. It's not. That's, yeah, that's how the room that I occupied the most immigrant, whenever I wake up in there, it fit there are boxes on the bed, like they haven't even unpacked. They haven't even fully made the room anything. Fuck my subconscious.

Fuck. Yeah. And that's an interesting thing too. So the idea of almost like stuck in a permanent state of transition. in some ways of like never unpacking the boxes. Is that phrase ring a bell? I wasn't ready for this. My husband's going to be like, yep, yep.

That's funny. No, yeah, that's right on the money. But it's just so crazy because it just feels so real. Like I really feel like I really physically go there. Yeah. Like if I, if that's purgatory is my grandmother's house to me. There you go. No, and that may be a powerful epiphany for you.

Look at this. He likes to chase her. He wants to bite her little, little. Oh my gosh, but she's so cute. I know. And they would, she would totally,

like, probably, like, lay with him and she would win. Snuggle. But he just wants to chase her. I don't know. He's bored.

It's jealous. I don't know what's wrong with him. Uh, speaking of, you know, displaced, um, persons,

so to speak, are, uh, you know, this peanut butter. he got taken in after my wife's relative died. So he's our inheritance is the dog. So he gets to come live.

Yeah, I got my mom's cat. I mean, he's past now. But at the time I had her cat and everyone was calling like, doodle still alive. He was the oldest. We got one that's coming up on 15 years. I think she's almost 14, something like that. And sprys all got out. The other one's losing her hair.

She looks like it. She's so funny looking. I think this dude was almost 20 years, like 18 years old, that thing. He went to sleep on my couch and died. He just went to sleep. And I hope I died like that cat. Yeah.

No, I had another one. I woke up in the morning and he's, I think he's sleeping in front of the cat litter box. I think he pulled an eldest poop too hard and then he'll keeled over. I can laugh about it now. It was a little stressful. Speaking of trauma is like, and then you think of dogs.

Well, he was in his previous owner's bed when he died. and then he came to live with me. So, and she was already here. And so maybe he's trying to pecking order of like, it's my daddy now. I don't even know dog psychology is not my, not my, not my exchevdice. But getting to the idea of, yeah, stuck in a permanent state of transition. What I wanted to say about that is holding ideas like that loosely in terms of, okay, I had that feeling.

It was a real experience to have that. that feeling, but I'm not going to assign that statement of truth value, if that makes sense. Just like when you were a kid, I had the experience that we were a burden on our grandmother. Now, that's a real experience you had, whether you were or not, whether that's the message she intended, whether that's how she felt about you or just how you felt about yourself being like, I'm sorry, we're here again. I wish there was something I could do about it, but I'm helpless. But I'm five.

But exactly. And the idea that, yeah, it's some. So you may feel like you were in a permanent state of transition, but you're not. I'm not saying that's the truth. But I like to hold those ideas lightly of like, oh, that resonates. Well, okay, just accept it as a real thought. Yeah. I thought that did happen, but don't assign it a truth value.

It's absolutely true or definitely not true. But it's important that it resonates because it's definitely something you want to sort out. Well, what could I do to, you know, if you hit on something, I think, go, whoa, that's how I feel. Okay. Do I like that feeling? Not so much. I'd like to feel more settled. How can I feel more subtle?

What might make me feel like I have, I have arrived somewhere. I've made some progress. I've hit a destination. I've hit a place where I'm going to stay by choice because I can. And I'm going to make it happen. And here's how. So there's a lot of different things you can do with that idea. Yeah.

But yeah, that's great. I love it when people go, oh, my God. I was not expecting this at, oh, wow. Okay. This is what I'm going to get emotional. This is like really crazy. I hope so. That's what I do.

And we're not even done. So this is just, we've just, you've just barely woken up. But now we've got to deal with the people. So what is your experience of becoming aware of the others? How does that play out? Or do you do anything in the room first to get up and look around to go look out the window? Usually I'm very aware that someone has got to be asleep in this house. because I'm in this, like, I know we sold this house.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm hyper aware that someone owns this property now. And they're always in the main bedroom, my grandmother's room. And that's at its own end of the house upstairs. So, like, you have, like, a good grace period to get away. Like, there are a few ways out of this house to, like, weave around and not be seen by somebody. there are two different staircases, like a service staircase type deal to the kitchen and like a main staircase. And yeah, I just, and I think I have a lot to do with when I was a child, another trauma, I woke up during a burglary.

Oh. And someone was physically inside of her home. It was a grown man and he was armed. And what's crazy is I went back to sleep as soon as I saw him because I knew. knew we left. Okay, so all night I kept hearing things upstairs. It was wintertime, and my mom, my brother, and I were all sleeping, huddled in front of the fireplace in our small little house we had, right, to keep warm. And I keep hearing something upstairs, and I keep nudging my mom on the couch because we're all little enough to fit all on the couch together.

And my mom is saying, it's just the cat, you know, go back to bed because we had a cat. And I keep hearing the noise, and I see our kids. cat walk in front of the doorway to the living room and I'm like oh mom was right it was just the cat and then the cat scurries away and a grown ass man walks into

the doorway and he looks like an army guy my dad was in the military at the time so I knew what like military men looked like he had like a buzz cut and like he was like fit and he had what physically I could tell was like a shape of a pistol or firearm in his

hand and he just stood in the doorway, just what felt like forever just looking into my soul. Like, I felt like we just locked eyes for the longest time, and he was just deciding if he was going to go and through our living room or not. And then he just walked away, walked into the other room, and walked out our door, I heard our front door open. And then I just, I passed out, I guess, from just like shock or just sheer momentum. And then the next morning, I told my mom what happened because the neighbors were like, why is your door open? And my mom was like, oh, my God, the door's open and um i've had nightmares about that like ever since and i know like nothing really happened but

just that trauma of the strain waking up and a stranger is in your doorway like it was just so scary and um i think that somehow maybe contribute to like the whole intruder aspect of the dream maybe i don't know well could um maybe i just wanted a trauma dump that's that's okay no i just It's an interesting thing about this process is like it's the connections that occur spontaneously as we're discussing the dream itself. So there is because it came to mind. There's something in there of at least a thread of connection between that experience and what's going on in the dream. Some element of that, like a vibration that that string resonated and go, wait a minute, this other thing. I don't know why I thought of that.

Okay. So be it. You thought it. And it's it's. that may become clear in retrospect, we may never figure it out, or we might get to the end of this and go, of course. I think, what am I trying to say? A very relevant factor seems to be that you feel out of, you feel like the intruder in this dream. So that's a useful.

And it might have just been that word that triggered. Oh, and I've actually been on the other side of that equation. So I brought that memory back. So I think there's definitely. See, that's why I'm hyper aware of the other. people in the house. Yeah. When I wake up in the house.

And I don't know. In some ways, you're putting yourself into the shoes of that. And true to a person of like, wait, I'm the one out of place. I'm not supposed to be here. Um, and how you at least conceptualize that. Like, what would it feel to, to be in that situation to be, it's not, not unwelcome. Because that's, that's a different shade of meaning, but like uninvited. You know, it's nobody, nobody let you in.

You're just there. And actually, you didn't even choose it. Like, you didn't, in the dream, you didn't walk up to the door and walk into the house because it's grandmother's house. No, it's forced. I very much just wake up. You're put in a situation. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely like, okay, so I'm in an involuntary situation again, where I'm out of place. And I should be familiar with this, but it's, it's familiar, but it's all different. So there's something going on there too. You've got this iconic house that you were, and you're connecting it to this idea. of also when you were a kid you weren't it wasn't by choice either you know it's like you were you're true you know you would have rather not to be there they might have rather you didn't have to be there whether they were happy to have you or not and you know it's always stressful like you got a

family member you're happy to help them sort of but it's still a pain in the ass and it's like yeah it's both it's always both it's like yeah you know um especially when your house is across the street our house was across the street from your grandmother's house yes oh wow Yeah, and you just, well, at least that was easy. It's like, you know, you walk across the street and you're there. Yeah. Yeah. I almost kind of, I wish more, I mean, this is way off topic, but I wish more family

situations were like that where it was. I know it was a perfect like I love. But you know what they say? The most traumatized child is the closest to stay to home. And my mom was right across the street and she was the most traumatized child. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah.

If it was more of an intentional community planning type of thing that we did of like, you know, when you get old enough to move out and have a family of your own, you get the house next door. And then you get that intergenerational thing with a little bit of space. And I had the opportunity to buy my childhood home and I almost did. But I was like, I just decided not to stay with that. I let it go. It's a tough call. Yeah.

And it may have been healthier for you to say, you know, I'm going to fully and officially put that behind me and not go back. Some people need to go home again and deal with it that way. But if you don't, if that's not going to help you, Dad, don't bother. Yeah, no, I went back and I saw the family that bought my, my actual, my childhood home. And I'm just glad that it has life in it. Like, there's a, there's a real family in it. So, yeah, I'm glad I didn't buy it.

I think I did that once. No, what was it? What was I thinking? I went back to. a house I lived at when I was five years old when I was about 17 maybe 16 17 took a drive with a friend a couple hours away from where I was living at the time and went back to the house and I almost knocked on the door. I'm like, I used to live here when I was five and I thought that's just, I'm not going to bother these people. Oh, I was creepy. I stuck my book in the fucking mail slot.

I read a little note and stuck my book in the mail slot. I'm like, I hope you're not religious. The funny thing is I might do that today, but I would never. have done it, but I couldn't, couldn't bring myself to do it back then. One of those things were like 30 years ago. Yeah. I'm like, you know, that much of a different person now where I'm like, it's not that bad. I shouldn't feel so anxious about it. Hey, I knock on the door and they're like, who are you, go away?

Fair enough. Yeah. No, you know, but sometimes that's that social anxiety and public embarrassment thing of like, I don't want someone to tell me to go away. That just hurt my feelings. So, yeah. That's why I couldn't do it back then. So you have the experience of waking up and your thought in that,

room before you leave the room is i gotta get out of here i'm not supposed to be here yeah like i'm going to get arrested like that's how real it feels i'm like i'm gonna get charged with home intruder shit like yeah they're gonna be like this crazy girl like she has some tie to this house and won't leave it alone like those are the thoughts that go on my head yeah it feels real and we live very close to the police station was like right down the road it's a very small town like less than 20,000 people today. It was pretty realistic that the cops could show pretty quick and you could get busted. Yeah.

That's interesting too. So it isn't just I, it isn't just your. And there's an alarm system in that house. Now there is or the, or the one. So now there is. There's always been an alarm system in that house. And I am, when I wake up, I'm hyper aware that whoever owns the house has a different alarm code.

And I can't get out of the house without setting off an alarm. like that's it's one it's like turns into an escape room like yeah for sure our uh great escape prison prison type of thing almost like how do i get here without being detected there's a I used to sneak out that house all the time but I knew the code right exactly so that's interesting too the idea that there there's one layer of what is it I'm uninvited I better leave It's not right that I'm here. But more than it being just wrong, you have a serious or realistic in the dream concern. I'm going to be caught.

I'm going to be caught and punished. And there's actually kind of three layers there of like there's doing wrong. There's getting caught doing wrong. There's doing wrong, getting caught and then punished for it. And it kind of gets progressively. So we had like all three in your head at the time. So there's a, there's a layer of. Yeah.

Yeah. No, for sure. And sometimes that can just be. you're trying to understand why do I feel so intensely about this. Well, there's rational reasons. You don't want to get arrested. Who does? Yeah.

But also there's another side of it, which is your, whatever's going on with this, you're analyzing the consequences of being in this situation again. So again, the idea of recurring dream sparked by something that happened in your life. You go, oh, here we go again, this situation that keeps coming up that I have. haven't figured out how to understand or how to resolve. And part of the way you're conceptualizing it, at least on this last one, is that not only am I in the wrong place without permission or, you know, I'm not doing the right thing, or I'm going to put into a position involuntarily where I'm in the wrong, you know,

it doesn't matter. In some ways, it doesn't matter how you got there. You got to get out. It's not your house. Yeah. So you just acknowledge that it's not right for me to be here. So involuntarily put in a situation where you're, you're not responsible. for it, but, but you're not, but it's not right that you're present.

Yeah. And it's going to be difficult to say hide this from the people you'd rather not see you. Yeah. Inevitably, I'm going to have to face somebody to solve the problem. Yeah. It's almost like you don't want to be caught tripping, you know, as the kids say. Yeah. It's like, yeah.

If you could just kind of get out of it quietly and no one, no one has to know. Because there's, there's an embarrassment. But there's no out quietly. There's no quiet out because of the. alarm. And beyond just say, it's bad enough to say get busted by someone and there's no consequence, but then you go an extra layer and say, this isn't just bad. This is, I could, I could suffer from this. Like something bad could happen to me in return if I don't succeed in removing myself from this, this situation. And the, it's also interesting to me that you never really see the other

people. And this is consistent across dreams as well. So it's kind of an. unknown other, a very generalized other. It's just the concept of other people in general. And not only that, but it's like, what am I trying to say? Like, there's a, there's a metaphysical truth to the idea of owning a piece of property. It's like it's a, it's a violation of that person to be there without permission. It's kind of what, how we conceptualize right and right and wrong. So it isn't like the house is deserted. And you're like, oh shit, I probably shouldn't be here because my grandmother doesn't live here anymore and I don't really want to be here. I don't even know how I got here. But more than that, there's like an escalated level of,

no, this is someone else's house. That's the nature of the wrong. I have supposed, I was supposed to move on from this. I shouldn't be here. Like, that's where it goes. Yeah. And it keeps bringing you back. And that's so there's, there's, what, hergatory. Yeah. No, I think that's a fantastic way to, way to conceptualize it. It's like, he, we do get, we get stuck in, uh, purgatory is a fantastic metaphor in general. We get stuck in a lot of situations where we don't know how to get out, but there's an, we have to expiate our sin. So we got to get out of us the things that aren't supposed to be there.

So we can move on to the heaven to the better, you know, to the better place. So I'm thinking, uh, sometimes a lot of times, uh, but not every time. Houses are, I mean, they're probably. property, but they're often related to, what am I trying to say? Like our, like our body. Sometimes. Like metaphysical. Yeah.

Like the idea of different rooms like the, the temple. You know, a temple, sure. We could say, you know, the garage might be analogous to our feet because that's where you can keep the car motion. The, uh, the family room is, uh, or the kitchen is, is the heart. Those kind of things. And it depends on, you know, and the den maybe where the computer was set up,

that's, represents our. These are just for a given person. Those might be symbols that relate. But sometimes there's more nebulous concepts of, and you were talking about the dissociative thing, too. It's like if this house was you and we conceptualize it as, as you feeling uncomfortable in your own skin in some ways. I'm going somewhere with this.

Trying to get out before setting the alarm off. Yeah. Yeah, and other people seeing you in some ways, maybe like the real you, maybe. There's something, something like that. I'm pulling at, you know, clouds here, trying to, trying to, trying to reveal what's, what I think is, what I think is in there. There is. And again, this is all just an idea.

That was very fascinating. Yeah, well, thank you. I hope so. I mean, if I'm on to something, I don't know. This is, this is just, I'm trying to tease it out. I usually take a little bit longer. it's like when we don't feel comfortable in our own skin and we're afraid of being caught in that sense of being seen for who we are by others and we fear the consequence

how others going to react if they like if they see the real me inside here where I don't feel like I belong so there's there's maybe some kind of a layer like that going on there The real test would be to say, okay, if we conceptualize it that way, is there any experience you had last week that resonates with that idea of being seen for who you are accidentally showing someone more of yourself than you meant to and you're concerned about how they're going to judge you? I would say, yeah, I think I've been making new friends recently. And I think that naturally comes with that, like that give and take of like, oh, am I love bombing too hard, you know? For sure. Those kind of things. Yeah.

Yeah. There could be, I mean, since that came to mind, we might have a connection there. I'm not trying to force it, you know, round pegs square hole, that kind of thing. How do we make more sense of that if we can? Definitely, it seems if we go along that line, it's, it's. might be connected to the, to the childhood trauma stuff of, because you have that, you know, definitely your grandmother's house. We were going to spell it out a little bit, trying to get things labels, you know,

it was the reluctant safe space in a way or, you know, in a sense. And you didn't want to be there. They would have preferred you, not there. They're happy to help family as far as it goes. But it's a burden and you know it and they know it. And no one says it. But here we go again. and that kind of thing.

So you've got this connection to that. And you could never really comfortably be yourself in a space where you're always the guest. Yeah. That's where it comes from. You're very much aware that it's not your house. And that can be very much related to. I think that's partly where I kept coming back around of that idea of being comfortable in your own skin, the idea of someone's if we don't feel like we're able to be our genuine self,

or we don't know who our genuine self is. and we're afraid of people seeing what's there because we're not sure we should be proud of it. Am I good enough? Stuart Smallie. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and people like me. Oh, I got the phrase, that's not very ladylike a lot. Yeah.

Sounds like it was. I wasn't the kind of judgment. My grandmother was a very debutante, very poised, classic, I'mless kind of, she was born in the 30s or 20s. So that is just different generation. And she was very intelligent. So she knew how to play the game. She knew how to do it really well. Like when I was a child,

she would make me walk with encyclopedias on my head. I was going to say the balancing books for posture. That's the first thing I thought of when you said, you know, Debutante lady like. She would do it in high heels. Wow. With the book on her head.

Yeah. And actually, that shit fucked my neck up. I actually got an x-ray a couple years ago. And my neck, you're supposed to have like a little bit of curve. My shit was dead straight. Yeah, too much

Now it has a curve Because my chiropractor It was too straight It was too much Fucking sit up maggie I actually wrote a poem about it It'll be in one of my Later books

But there's a line in it It's talking about I'm I'm too much I'm a I'm a Not lady like or I'm too loud Because I burst into every room

Looking for someone to love me Or something like that But I go back to that subject a lot when I'm writing like that judgment of this is how poised and how a woman's supposed to be in a girl's supposed to like the whole sexism of how little girls are supposed to act and abide in the south and religious like Christian culture is just like I think really really took a toll on myself conscious for sure that upbringing yeah yeah I was thinking of something else too it might have gone first thing I was thinking

of was, you know, it's not a bad idea to, you know, to practice balance and poise and posture to have a, but you don't want like a stack of encyclopedias. That's too much. It's a lot of his proportionality as well. So some people, well-meaning, trying too hard, not doing it very well. That probably, okay, that did. That brought me back around. The idea of, um, feeling worthy of being seen, uh, of being loved. You mentioned the love, love, love bombing thing, too, of like, you know, if I show them the real me, are they going to like it? And so sometimes we put on a little bit. Now, we put on masks of all kinds for different things, you know, um, if I, when I'm doing

the dream thing, I put on the therapist mask in a little bit of a way just because, you know, I'm not just going to say anything. I'm going to say things relevant to you in your circumstance. I'm an interview. You're going to try and give you good advice. Uh, you know, we're not talking about baked beans. We're talking about your dreams. I didn't mean that to rhyme, but it did.

Um, uh, so, uh, we put on our, our game face for, professional face for work we put on our our getting along with the family face for Thanksgiving that kind of thing yeah keep the some things to ourselves so they're different faces yeah yeah for sure and there's a happy meet you know the face we show our mother our mother's day and our friends on a Saturday night you know that kind of thing um so there's a there's a balance we need to hit and it can be hard for healthy people to hit between you know I love myself sufficiently and I'm a narcissist or I I'm aware of my flaws.

I'm all bad and no one will ever care about me because why would they? I don't either. You know, that kind of thing. So there may be some of that. I think we're on to something with the idea of feeling, it's feeling like you're not wanting to be caught as if you're doing something wrong. And I'm not, and again, this may be the same thing of like where it was in a permanent state of transition. That might be related to another dream.

I'm glad that resonated with you too. but I would hold those ideas lightly as like, I have the thought, am I good enough? I don't answer it necessarily. I just go, I'm considering my worth now. Yeah. Why would I do that? Is it relevant to a mistake I made? Maybe I want to be a better person.

Is it relevant to an embarrassment? Well, was the other person being cruel? And I don't need to feel bad about that because they're a jerk. So there's no matter where that, you know, the experience of the feelings kind of kind of separated in some ways from the experience. Then we analyze it in the context of the experience. So I think we're on to something there. I mean, the big, the big test would be as if we've, and we didn't even, I don't think

we even figured, did you ever make it out of the house or, uh, you woke up before you left or. Yeah, no, I barely ever make it to the driveway or sometimes I'll make it around. Sometimes I will make it around the block and I'll just make it to my other, to my childhood home and hide in the backyard. and then I'll hear police. Sometimes I'll hear police, like the sirens and stuff. And I'll just hide like, oh, I was just over here in this backyard. But very rarely do I make it all the way around the block.

Gotcha. But do you ever not make it out of the house? Like you do get caught, the police show up? Yeah. I mean, not like talk to get caught, but like houses surrounded. And you wake up without getting out. Yeah, I wake up without getting out. or I'm like hiding on the roof because you can climb out onto the roof in some parts of the house.

Gotcha. Yeah. That's interesting too. So there's a if there's a fear of being seen, sometimes you realize you're busted. You know, there's no getting out of it. You've been caught, so to speak. Sometimes you let yourself off the hook in the dreams. And that might vary on a wishful.

This is where we get like the Freudian side of things. Every dream is a concealed wish. Well, a lot of times where we hope for. something good to happen. We fear something bad will happen. He was broadly right about that. But sometimes we're just running thought experiments too of like and sometimes we're actually analyzing a real experience retroactively going, well, looks like this time I got away. Looks like this time I wasn't caught, caught tripp and and subject to subject to consequence. And sometimes you're like, no, they got me dead rights. That's this time. And that, yeah.

So as I was going to say, if we, if we hit on. something relevant and we were anywhere in the, you know, horseshoes and hand grenades ballpark of what this dream is trying to say to you, then if it comes back, it should be different. There should be a different experience of it in some way. Or it stops happening altogether because you're like, you've, you've now made the, you've given, given the clay, a shape. So it was always clay. It was always clay. It was always, something, but now you've revealed the shape, you kind of chiseled the way the marble statue,

and you can look, okay, that's what it is. Now, once you make that conscious, it doesn't live in the subconscious anymore. Now you can just go back to, okay, here's the concepts I was. Now, if we're wrong, then the dreams may come back in exactly the same form. We'll go, okay, what's another angle to look at that from?

So I'd be very curious to hear back from you, like if this was useful in some way to bringing to light, bringing to the surface those ideas in a more coherent. giving it a, you know, giving it an explanation that that makes it no longer a mystery is, I think. Maybe, maybe I'll have it tonight since we talked about it so much. That is entirely possible. Sometimes when I talk about it, some things I will, like I can, I can totally manipulate what I want to dream about if I think about it hard enough before I go to bed. That's, that's what you were talking about the lucid dreaming thing is I, uh, people ask me, is it possible to dream program.

And I say, I hear that it is. I don't know how to do that. And I couldn't touch you. He's there he is again. Calmed up. He wants to go outside one more time before the sun goes down. We'll get to that. But I want to hear either way.

And it would be hopefully, hopefully we hit on something. And I'm thinking for you because you have strongly, it seemed to have a strong dream connection in terms of your experience of it. It's not, for me, it's very vague in distance. Like, what do I see over there? Was that a dream? I can't even tell. it seems to me likely that you might have this dream again,

but your experience of it should be different. Like you'll wake up in the house and this time you'll go, you know, maybe I'll just go march up to that room and say hi to the people and say, sorry, year again, what are you going to do? And then you might surprise yourself and have it be a thing where it's like,

I talked to them, they were completely understanding. They were like, oh, I get it. That's cool. Let me open the door for you. I have,

I actually have now that I'm thinking, I actually have talked to somebody before. and it's always me apologizing trying to explain that I physically just woke up in this house and they're just like, you're a crazy person. Okay. Like, that doesn't make any sense. No one just like, they're in a state of sheer just like processing someone's in their house. Yeah.

And I never, and it's never like physical, like, it's just like I know someone's in the room and I'm just experiencing me trying to explain to them. Yeah. What I think is happening. I'm like, I just popped up. Like, I went to sleep in Colorado and I woke up here. Yeah. Like, that's what I try to explain to them.

For sure. And that's a very realistic response. You could imagine in exactly that scenario in real life, you suddenly, you wake up in someone's house and you're trying to explain to them. I didn't just walk in here. I woke up here. I would think they were schizo too. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So you're putting yourself in that from their perspective. Well, how do other people, are they really going to believe that story? Of course not. But you might find in the dream that they go, I get it. Now I get it. You know,

this is kind of a thing. Or you'll have a different experience of, of the emotions involved in the dream. Or you'll find it easier to, like the windows open right next to you. You can go anytime you want. It's just all the tension evaporates and you're like, it would be interesting.

And this is talking, I'm talking about it so much. I don't normally do this either because I'm hoping to drop those seeds a little bit. Like if you do go back into the dream, you may have that subconscious experience of, of now watching yourself experience the dream in a way where you're like, what am I trying to say? Where you can go, oh, this is the same place again.

And now I know that I've been here before and it's not a new. I'm not startled by it anymore. Now, now I know that this has happened. I'm not limited by this. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where I'm going with that. Something like that.

Just hoping to, hoping to. make it possible to have a different experience in that environment. And then again, I mean, you may move on completely and be like, that dream just disappeared, gone. So I definitely want to hear back from you. Yeah. Definitely. Like, I've been having this dream for at least over a year, a couple of years. But having this, it's been, yeah, it's in there.

Yeah. So. Good deal. We'll see. Well, thanks for sharing it with this. That's, I never, you know, people go, it's not a very long dream. It's not very interesting. But they're all interesting.

I love them. I love them. It feels long with you there. it feels like you're you've always been there like it's like there is no time it's just so trippy i don't even know i feel like i'm awake those nights i feel like i don't sleep i feel like i am consciously awake the whole night wow yeah yeah that's not an uncommon experience it's so many different things of like people that report you know i had a dream it felt like it lasted five seconds and i took a nap but it was like an hour and it's like that five second dream took up the entire hour

or they have a dream where it's like, I was there for a hundred years and literally they were asleep for five minutes. I barely dozed off. You know, that kind of, yeah, yeah. It's just completely disconnected from our sense of space and time and just endlessly fascinating to me. That's what I said.

Yeah, it is very fascinating. I'm so glad to have had this conversation with you. This was really cool. Nice. Well, let's make it also a beneficial outcome for you as well. Let's throw some people. over towards, I didn't ask you if you had a website or anything. Oh, yes, I do. Maggieologic.com.

So my name, Maggie, and then the word logic.com. My mom, I'm just very dyslexic. And any time I would just like not understand something or say something backwards, my mom would just be like, oh, that's Maggie Logic. Don't worry about it. That's hilarious. I love it. I'm going to make sure you put that.

That will be link in the description below. So I'll just say this, once again, this has been our friend Maggie Daniels from Denver, Colorado. you can find her at maggie logic.com. She is a poet writer, director, and author of Swimming by Maggie Daniels. Available, and I didn't say this earlier, available on Barnes & Noble and on audiobook. And for my part, would you kindly like to share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more viewers, dreamers, et cetera.

16, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent dreams in their meanings by Horace G. Hutchinson, book 17 coming soon, hopefully by the end of the end of the day. this week, fingers crossed. Awesome. Right? And all this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com where you can find downloadable MP3 versions of the podcast.

What do I say? Take the wizard with you wherever you wonder. I love alliteration. As a poet, right? You get that. Yeah. And Benjamin the Dreamwizard. Dot locals.com trying to build a community there.

That's where I post the, that's where I exclusively post the recipes for all the themed cocktails from my video game streams. So if you want to know, if you want to drink, drink along with me, you got to go to locals. And that's it. The last thing just to say is, Maggie, thank you for being here. Good talk. Thanks for having me. And everybody out there, thanks for listening.

Okay, I got the recording. I got the recording started here. Yeah, sometimes I do that. Like, I just throw it on and then talk to people for a minute before I do the introduction to establish a comfort level. We were comfortable right off the bat. So it wasn't any need. You know, I suppose the other thing I forget to tell people.

I do not record without permission without announcing it like I did. I do not release recordings without permission. That means afterwards I'll talk to you for a minute and just say, you feel good about that, anything you want me to cut or the whole thing. No, too personal. I never see the light of day. And any reason or no reason at all, 10 years from now, you want your video off my channel. Gone.

No questions. I don't have people sign release forms. It's all. So it's trying to cancel me. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah. Cancel me for my own shit.

That too. Or me. say crazy stuff all the time and it's uh i'm a wizard so yeah i'm a i'm a nut job and and i don't always say things the best way but i'm trying to do trying to do something with what i'm saying i'm also clown in a way and it doesn't sometimes sometimes it comes off as insensitive i'd probably be a hate mob after me at some point for something i'm trying to take a beat myself more before especially before posting online or reacting yeah yeah yeah i'm actually almost leading in the other direction of self-censored a lot by trying not to be, trying not to be careless because of a fear of

public embarrassment. And I've leaned heavily in the other direction of like, oh, I can just be a crazy person and people can think I'm a crazy person and I don't give a fuck. And that's probably for the best for me, for my mental health. But then, yeah, I do say crazy things. And it's, they are legitimately crazy and people are like, I'm fine. I'm fine with crazy. I just don't ever want to be portrayed as unkind or cruel. Yeah. That's why I always take a beat and try to think of who I'm, whose shoes I'm speaking to,

who's wearing what, you know what I mean? That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, I'm not in the business of causing psychological damage. Absolutely the opposite.

And sometimes, so there's a, there's a great phrase that I love, which is my job is to, uh, comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. So sometimes I say provocative things that are meant to, open people's eyes to another way of seeing a situation because I think it's useful to them

or I think it's a good point to be made publicly because other people might draw some benefit from it. That can look like not the kindest thing to do to someone. Like, why are you poking me with a stick? Like, because you kind of need it. Yeah. Yeah. I know you don't agree with me.

There's a thin line between not being a yes man and punching someone down. You know what I mean? Yeah. There's a thin line. Yep. Absolutely. Um, well, let me do the, yeah, I'll do the, uh, two, two seconds of dead air. I'll do the introduction. We'll, like, just start the show. I might just put all this up there,

screw it. Yeah. This is a thoroughly unprofessional operation. It's okay. Right. Right. So I showed up for it. That's why it's thoroughly unprofessional. Yeah. And you get to pull the ripcourt afterwards if you don't like it. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's how I know. That's how I encourage people to be their most genuine self is because they know they can always. revoke that consent retroactively and it's no skin off my teeth like I'll just I won't have an episode this week whatever I'm not doing that to someone it's not the Jerry Springer show I'm not here to embarrass anyone we get better answers that way it's better it's better trust situation so yeah okay totally dead air let's do it greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes today we have our friend Maggie Daniels from Denver Colorado