Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 153: Gasping for Air

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Dana Diaz ~ https://danasdiaz.com/

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Dana Diaz from near Chicago, Illinois. We're going to get right. Wait, no, she is an author, podcaster, public speaker on trauma and abuse issues. We're going to get right back to her in two seconds. Would you kindly like, share, subscribe, of course, tell your friends. Always looking for more volunteer dreamers. You can see it's been a couple of weeks since I've had an episode.

So please reach out. I'm not currently overwhelmed. So I'd love to talk to you. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent The Fabric of Dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig lovingly reproduced, recreated, and enhanced, if I may say so, by yours truly your friendly neighborhood dream wizard. All this and more at Benjamin thedreamwizard.com. Also, if you would head on over to Benjamin thedreamwizard.locals.com, trying to build a community there. That's where you'll get the secret recipes for the cocktails I make for each of my

video game streams. So you definitely want to head over there. That is enough shilling out of me. Longest intro ever. Dana, thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to do this. It's very different from my normal topic of conversation, which is abuse and trauma. But this has been very relevant in my life, actually, the dreams and their meaning and the interpretation. So I'm actually super, super We're excited to have this conversation with you. Yeah. I would say just broadly on the subject of connecting dreams to life experience, the more intense,

positive or negative, the experience, the more likely it is, say, to show up in your dreams, the more you care about an issue, the more it weighs on your mind, the more you need an answer, need to resolve trauma, put it to rest. What do they call it? Yeah. What's the word? Yeah. Something like that.

Come to terms of it, come to understanding. because that's where dreams really started to, I mean, I think everybody, you know, on some level of entertainment at the very least is interested in dream interpretation. But where it came into play in my life much more seriously was back in 2020 during COVID. My book that has already been published covers this 25-year-long relationship that I had with my ex-husband, which was not good. It was abusive. He had an alcohol problem. Towards the end of it, he actually wanted to kill me and made two attempts after the divorce. So 2020 was kind of significant for me in that I consulted with the sixth attorney that I had, you know, during, in my duration of this relationship, it was the sixth time I consulted with an attorney about divorce. because I just, I couldn't take it anymore. I had actually become physically ill and autoimmune developed a lung disease as a result of what the doctors called chronic stress of living in this abusive situation. And a week after I talked to this attorney, having left her with some idea of what I needed to put together, you know, in order to be able to file for divorce, we go into the shelter in place for COVID.

So I'm stuck in the house with this man now, who wants me to do. and obviously like the relationship was beyond done. I moved to my basement just to avoid him all together, but there was still so much tension and hostility. But my dreams became so vivid. I mean, so vivid that, I mean, here I have this green notebook. This was my dream journal from 2020. And the thing was was that I was starting,

like I was starting to become curious about what these dreams were meaning. because dreams never, at least the ones I dream, never really makes sense, you know, as far as the who, what, when we're, and why. But I felt like there were certain things that I remembered about them, even if I couldn't remember the context, that I'm like, they have to have some meaning. And some kept coming up repeatedly that I'm like, okay, I need to like Google, what the hell does a Christmas tree and a dream mean? and then why is my deceased dog, like, nudging me with her nose as, like, where I'm laying sleeping? Like, why am I seeing her like this? Why is she trying to get me up out of, you know, and awake and out of bed? And so I started to just Google, dream meaning, and then Christmas tree or bloodhound dog or deceased dog or whatever it was.

And I would write down what I, and it was just so estuble. I mean, literally mind-blowing to me how relevant the symbolism was and what these meanings were. But at the same time, honestly, it got me through a lot of that time. And it got me through to where I finally got divorced. And here I am, three years and four months later, surviving, you know, guns and knives and all this chaos that was ensuing that year. So yeah, I'm really excited about this. I mean, it's interesting even just to look back at my dream journal and see the things that I dreamed about and what they meant and how it all evolved and made sense. But, you know, it would be interesting to see what you think about my dreaming now.

For sure. Yeah. Well, you raised several things. I was taking notes to myself. First, I wanted to not forget to ask about the book. I can't believe. I mean, you told me, you're an author, and usually the first thing I do is, oh, what's the title? How do people find it?

I know they go to Danasds.com, but what is the title of the book? Asping for air, the stranglehold of narcissistic abuse. And it's a reference to the lung disease that I developed as a result of living in this abusive situation. Nice. Because definitely my mental stress was manifesting physically and to the point where I had a backpack oxygen unit and I couldn't even tear toilet paper off the roll. I dropped to 93 pounds. I mean, he literally sucked the life out of me. Yeah. But I'm good now. I've gained, I'm at a healthy weight. I am safe. I mean, my voice is always a little scratchy, always going to be, but I don't need to use

the oxygen machine anymore. So life is good. Yeah, that's a big deal. I was writing this down and I can't write as fast as I think. It was gasping for air. What was the subtitle? The Strangle. of narcissistic abuse. It's a tongue twister. Trust me. It's hard to say. All right. I just wanted to get the full title so I can say it again at the end of the show.

Absolutely. Thank you. This is me. I mean, I say this to almost every guess off the air. We always talk first and then we'll talk after again to make sure things are kosher before I ever release an episode. But I try to nail down these things so that I,

well, part of what I always say is I'm thoroughly unprofessional. It's not, I'm just some guy in his garage. Who thinks he's a wizard talking to people about their dreams? So this is not a, you know, what is it? Like this is not a polished corporate product at all. So that's it.

But you know what? Nobody that's polished or corporate will appreciate you like the rest of us. Yeah. I get that. And that's fine. So it's all good. Yeah. There is a little bit of a stutter.

I want to make sure it clears up so people can hear you. Okay. I think you're back. Yeah. That's okay. As long as your voice is coming through. All right. I'm here.

I think one of the best free platforms for doing interviews like this. Video usually comes through good and audio, but every now and again, you get some hiccups. So anyway, we're back. We're back. Okay.

Yeah. And we're in the midst of a polar vortex. So I was what's going to happen. Yeah. Also possibly, I mean, this is, wow.

My brain just exploded again. So I was listening to these other guys talking about a magnetic pole shift. Now, I'm not usually into, okay, I'm into it. Oh. But like speculatively in terms of like, what if I used to listen to a guy, you know, you're probably a few years younger than me. I don't know if you remember Art Bell.

That rings, rings a bell, so to speak, Art Bell. That name sounds familiar. He did a radio show. One of the most popular radio shows on AM radio in the 90s called Coast to Coast A.m. With Art Bell, he broadcasted from the Kingdom of Nye in the Nevada Desert. and it's not, Nye County, Nevada, I think. Anyway, he would talk about all kinds of, you know,

cryptids, bigfoot, aliens, all kinds of stuff. And the pole shift thing, well, I, okay, just complete tangent, but I heard something recently that they've had to change the designation of runways in, in America because of the shifting of magnetic north. And that means that, so apparently the way it works is that if you're, if you're going to land on, you know, runway 39, it lines up with 39 degrees off magnetic north. Well, if you're lined up with 39 degrees off magnetic north and the runways at 38,

you're going to miss it by a full degree. So they've had to change the names of runways to keep up with this shifting. Maybe that's normal. But how does it shift back and forth and around a central pole or some people are theorizing? We're going to snap about 90 degrees of our magnetic. thing and now i don't i don't know how likely that is that's where i get into okay that's theoretical but but it's absolutely true that they have to adjust the names of runways based on where magnetic north is at any given moment so wow never heard that before my life i don't know what to make of it i'm not

claiming it and that's the interesting that gets us on to okay these these aren't even the questions i was going to ask this this is how it goes this is why i got a four-half hour episode i love this is interesting nonetheless well there's so i consider a lot of that stuff even though it's more perhaps. A lot of it's on the spookyoo side of like you got to, you can do some leaps of logic and have some faith in some things and historical records. And we all try and, but that that applies to dreams as well. There's a long history of dreams being thought of as the soul leaving the body to wander. It goes back to Greek times. In the, you know, kind of rationalist enlightenment 1800s. We're going to use the, use the Alexander Graham Bell was trying to invent a machine to talk to the dead. And he got the telephone. That's that's that's crazy. Right. Right. spiritism of that time. Okay. Well, from that from that time, dreams.

Damn. Train of thought. Oh, they were trying to, they had theories about dreams being psychic phenomena, prophetic dreams, receiving messages from other people. And then that's actually where Carl Young got some of his collective unconscious stuff of like we're all actually connected.

And there's a lot of layers to that. And that actually goes to what I was saying too. So this actually does connect. Ooh, I'm impressed myself. You talked about going to dream dictionaries. I actually did an episode ages ago of this, this series I discontinued,

which was the ABCs of Dream Interpretation, just turned to do a clips channel. I'm like, I don't want to make clips anymore. I'm done with that. Long story short. I did an episode kind of debunking the Dream Dictionary approach. And I want to give that,

and in it, that's my like 50-50 coin toss. What is the answer? You've got to pick one. And I said, well, not good. The reason I said that was that a lot of those are number one, based on ancient dream interpretation standards, which don't reflect modern scientific or psychological understanding.

So you'll get one size fits all answers. What does a Christmas tree mean? As you said. Now, sometimes you can get answers. Sometimes you get, what is it? They'll give five or six things it could mean. And if you just pick one, like, okay, that would make sense to me. In some ways that gets poo-pooed or dismissed as, well, it's kind of like astrology.

They just say nice things about your stuff. star sign and you're like, oh, that's me. You know, although it's funny, I'm a Pisces and yeah, that's kind of me. So again, I'm like, I'm credulous, but even though I don't, you are a typical Pisces. I think I'm married to one. So I know. That's why we get along. That's great.

Wait, are you just, just had a curiosity. Are you a Scorpio? Oh, close in personality type. Capricorn. Okay, fair enough. No, my wife is Scorpio. So, and actually, Pisci Scorpio works, works very well. So I was going to say that would be kind of amazing.

Anyway, more, more tangents. But, okay, so if we, what, if we accept that one size fits all is not accurate for, for dream interpretation, because you're going to have a specific attachment to the type of Christmas tree you saw in your dream, the ornaments you saw in your dream versus others. What time, let's say you saw it in the summertime in the fall. fire pit out back laying over on fire. It's a Christmas tree, but it's not Christmas. It's out of context. So all of that's going to modify things. Long story short on that. And I 100% so I'm going to intervene and say that when I started doing this with the with the Googling and whatever, that is something I found because I am not a one size fits all kind of person with anything in life. I don't think I am not a labels person with regard to anything at all because I think everything is

unique and fits a certain context. And I think it's the context when you're dreaming. As you said, is the Christmas tree laying down? Is it standing up? Is it dead? Is it alive? Does it have ornaments? Does it not? Is it located in a certain place? I think that it's in researching the symbolism and understanding the context of whatever it is that's really standing out as that symbol that you're trying to find meeting in is where you'll eventually come to understand what it actually means to you specifically. Because I can dream about driving a car, but am I driving it off a bridge? Am I driving it down a street? Is it daytime? Is it like you said, I mean, you have to look at all of those factors all together to figure out what exactly the meaning of this is. Yeah, yeah. And that's

exactly what I was going to say too. So even if we completely, again, in the purest binary sense, said, not useful. There's an incidental usefulness that actually does come from that. And that is focusing your attention on that kind of self-reflection. So you have a, this is the other thing I was going to say is that just as you said, you started having vivid dreams that stuck with you that felt like something. Yeah. I say my phrase is dreams self-select for importance. If you remember it, There's something there that's meaningful enough to register. And that you could probably benefit from having to look at. So if you do and you start with a curiosity, well, let's go to the dream books.

And then you start looking at things. And if you do find something and it inspires some kind of a thought of going, that makes sense. Then just that process of now self-examination or reflection, you start expanding on that and learning things about yourself and putting pieces together. So there's that kind of incidental benefit. That's why I don't take a hard line on it. I'm like, you love dream books. That's great.

I've got a couple of them myself that I've published that are like, there's a list of all the things that they mean right there. Go knock yourself out. I'm not going to, I'm not going to tell you not to buy my book. Yeah, I wouldn't go to a book. Yeah, I think those are garbage, honestly. It helped to Google because there's then, you know, a gazillion websites that claim to know what that thing means.

But there are many that actually will take the one thing and say, you know, if you're driving a car, you know, like I said, off a bridge. if you're driving it down a road. Is it a gravel road? Is it a paved road? If you're driving in daytime, if you're driving in it. So you can kind of get some sense, but you have to get good at it. I feel like I did good enough to where I was coming to some understandings with even my own, like, thoughts and my own feelings,

kind of making sense of my own psyche through it all, which is why I kept recording just the things that really stood out. I didn't pay much attention necessarily to trying to. remember the entire dream and and exactly what happened and what but the things that stuck out maybe it was a color maybe it was a number maybe i was doing something maybe something was happening to me but whatever it was seemed to have some kind of significance in my subconscious and wanted me to understand so i couldn't deny myself the the curiosity to to know and it was you know like i said i think when you're in a situation, I mean, I can laugh a little about it now, you know, that people might think it's like kooky. Like here this woman was in a situation locked in a house in COVID with a man who wanted her dead and she couldn't divorce him. She couldn't even leave her house to get away from him. And she's relying on dreams. Yeah. But you know what? When you're in that situation, you hold on to any hope you can get through the next day and to survive. So it was a godsend. And so people can laugh all they want or judge or make fun. But, you know, You know what? It got me through. And I'm thankful. And it gave me something to do during COVID, too.

That's what I was going to say is that, I mean, you could be sitting there and dwelling exclusively on hopelessness and fear. Exactly. And instead, you were putting this into a process of self-discovery, which was ultimately beneficial. It's like, you know, a lot of ways we can use our time, even when we're trapped, so to speak. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. For sure. So let's talk about dreams now. So do you have me like tell you about a dream specifically and you're going to tell me you're going to just break it down or how do we do this? I just sort of. Yeah.

So another thing I wanted to say we're going to jump right in. Yeah. Was that just as you were doing, I don't think anyone needs me. I don't think anyone actually needs my particular method. I don't even understand my method. This is just, I are intuitively arrived at. listening and collaborative narrative building. That just made sense to me.

It's just what I do. But I think you can listen to yourself and collaboratively narrative build with, you know, between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. So I think anyone can do this for themselves with a caveat that it's probably always going to be better to have a partner of some kind who has the ability to give you a little, You know, it's like you got a business plan and you've got a successful friend and you go,

how would you do this? What do you think of my idea? And they give you feedback and they ask you questions and you come to consider things you hadn't generated in your own mind. And you might even have them say, well, here's what I did. And it worked for me. You might want to try that. You're like, okay.

And all that over, what, an hour lunch with a friend and you're just having a good time and you're just chatting. Right. So, you know, I don't want anyone to think that, and, you know, and I say this a lot to folks, too, is like, I'm actually not any kind of authority. I'm not any kind of, I call myself a wizard, but it's not to impress. It's not to assert dominance. It's, you know, it's what I think I am, honestly, you know, metaphysically and all that, you know, not thrown any fireballs, literally, except beverages. That was one of my custom cocktails, Dream Wizard's Fire.

Air ball cider. But so, and also I say that the answers are not in me. What, what you're doing, and all my guests do is invite me into their mind to kind of stand behind the shoulder and shine a flashlight around saying, what do you, what do you see over there? Do you see what if we look at it from another angle? And then that, like just like a landscape of the interior landscape opens up for everybody. So long story short on that is, yeah, you don't need me.

specifically. You can do this on your own and actually the more you practice it, the better you get at. Look, you probably found that yourself too. So you started with the, maybe you can say a little bit about your process there. Number one, Dream Journal, fantastic. If you don't write a lot of this stuff down, good chance you're going to lose most of it. You forget it. Yeah. Yeah. And it just fades because we're focused and busy and our conscious mind needs to the limited bandwidth. You've got to take care of yourself during the day. You've got to do your things. So you can't hang on to every memory you've ever had. It's just clutter. Now, it's in there.

That's the funny thing is the unconscious in the minds, like every experience, sensation and thought we've ever had is in our brains. It's there. It never goes away. And that's what forms the subconscious. And it's all these billions and billions of neuronal connections. Now, that's a funny thing, too. There's billions of connections.

And they're multi-connected too. So it's like you have a split path. and then the forks again, forks again, forks again, and then some of them connect back to each other, like roads and grids in a city. And the specific pattern, electrical impulse and chemical combination takes is the memory itself, is the memory of an experience, the memory of a sensation, the memory of a thought that we've had. And that's where, in my estimation, that's where dreams come from is the ones that are significant to us that have some kind of a meaning bubble up and and hit our conscious mind

in a way of being able to recall them. So I'm going to stop there. I was asking you a question about how your process. No, it's okay. I'm intrigued at what you're saying because it's very relevant to what I do every day because my unfortunate lifelong experience as a victim of abuse in childhood and then in a 25-year-long relationship turn marriage. I mean, obviously, I

had some PTSD to figure out when I got out of there. I mean, people talk about being triggered, but they say it as loosely as they say the word narcissist anymore. I experienced all of that firsthand, full force. But what triggers are

exactly what you just said. Something happens in the here and now present, visually. Maybe it's an audio trigger, whatever it is. And it starts, your brain starts making those connections. This connects to this. Oh, this happened in the past.

This person did this to me. Then this person did that. And it has that domino effect of like, oh, crap, I'm in danger. And that's when you have this post-traumatic stress, whether it's a panic attack or it manifests. And, you know, some people have a seizure. Some people can't breathe. I'm not breather. You know, whatever it is.

So, I mean, it's exactly the same thing. Your trauma hides in your subconscious. because as you said, it's all there. It's just that we as people, well, me meaning me and the people that I'm trying to help in this world, I've had to learn how to suppress those patterns from being made to say, okay, the patterns made, but we're going to establish a new reaction to that pattern, to that trigger, so that we can live in normal society without feeling like we have to be isolated. and can't go anywhere and can't, you know, communicate with anyone.

We have to make ourselves safe. And we call that self-regulation, but it's the same exact thing. But where the dreams come in, when you're sleeping, you are, you know, dealing with your subconscious. And so you're not actively able to stop anything from happening. But I think that's the beauty of dreams is that it can happen in a safe way for your mind to work out all that muck in your subconscious, whether, like you said, it could be good or bad, but whatever is really affecting you in that moment or whatever has affected you in the past, you know, more than anything else. That's usually what comes up, I think. I think it's interesting that in my

life, I have, I mean, for as long as I can remember, I have a lot of dreams about houses, not necessarily houses that I've ever even lived in, just houses. And I've come to know through some experience with the stuff that the house kind of is representative of your mind. And, you know, like it can be your life or whatever, you know, where it depends. Are you in the basement? Are you in the upstairs?

How many levels does this house have? Are you hiding in the dark stairway? Like I was in one dream that I can remember from long ago. I just remember a tall shadow man. like, you know, skulking and like I'm hiding from him in this dark little narrow stairway. And it seemed to be like the 1800s or something versus something like I've had dreams about now where I'm standing outside a house and it's burning down. And, you know, so there are things that are very relevant about certain things that you repeat dream. For sure. Yeah. And dreams. So this is why not the one size fits

all thing, but so it's one of those, it's one of those weird yin yang things where it is neither and both all at the same time. And it's always more than one more than the other. But, um, so if we were to say, uh, have a dream where you're in a dark forest alone at night and there's no moonlight and there's a, a figure approaching. You hear footsteps. I think that was actually a dream one person told me about, like three years ago. Um, that is its own type of environment. You because, you know, there's, this is where we get into the collective unconscious stuff. Like humans have a specific relationship to the dark forest at night. Mythologically, it's in a lot of stories.

In the story of the Holy Grail that they went looking for the Holy Grail and each night was told to choose the point of the forest that appears darkest to them to enter on the journey. And very powerful stuff. But then it's also because physically how we're constituted alone in the, the woods. There's no civilization. There's no help. There's no other people. There's no infrastructure. There's you are you are law of the jungle scraping for survival. There's a million ways to die. And there's there's, uh, it's so it's a very, so we start getting into a lot of those themes of like being alone, helpless, uh, et cetera, et cetera. All of this to say, houses, we live in them. It's like a central shelter, central to the human condition. So there's going to be a lot of

of invested meaning in what a house is for you in your experience. If every, you said you had childhood trauma, if every instance of childhood trauma, say, happened in a specific room in the house, that's going to feature heavily in a dream. Or it's going to spread to other rooms in the house. And the house can be, as you said, your mind can be your physical body. But the mind is often a very common one.

So this is, again, we get into the dream book. If the dream book says, well, the house is often representative of your mind. True, is it for you? Maybe, maybe not. But that's a good place to start very often. That's often what I do too is sometimes I start with some of these vague, common cultural understandings of things. That's another thing too of talking to people from different cultures.

And I've had that experience of like, okay, so there was a gal I talked to, I think, from Iran and she was flown over a river by two. female figures that each had their own powers and they were basically enabling her to to have this experience of flight over a river. And so we needed to talk, you know, for her culturally, who are these women? How, how is that type of woman understood? Is it literally a goddess from an ancient religion in your specific area that you knew from your studies in school? And we did, I think we did get into some of that stuff. Long story. on that. Yeah, yeah. And all of this from, what does a house mean? I don't know. Let's find out.

No, but that's exactly true, though. And I think that's relevant in a lot of, again, I feel like it just applies to a lot of things because we can't just, we can't just say that this is this one person's, you know, like, for example, I mean, you're talking about culturally, when I am talking to people about narcissistic abuse even, just let's say real life, I don't see a lot of prevalence among, you know, like Asian communities or, you know, I'm looking at, yeah, there's a lot of like Hindu, Indian, you know, that, I think because they, the men are typically, I don't want to say abusive, but they are dominant and they are, the women are expected in some certain ways to be subservient to the men in those cultures.

So it's, you know, what might be considered narcissistic abuse to an American is considered normal cultural expectation for somebody in another culture and place in this world. So yeah, it's interesting how that can work. But it just testifies again to exactly what you said. There's no one size fits all. Yeah, definitely so many layers of context. And yeah, that's where you go from the broad, like I say, collective unconscious, literally seven and a half billion people on Earth that all have common human experiences because of the way we're physically composed. We need food, shelter, love, all that good stuff.

And then you get down to, okay, well, what local area, what local customs and beliefs? And it can go both ways on that thing. There can be like a strongly male-dominated women expected to be subservient. So the concept of, as you say, narcissism doesn't come into it. It's like, this is just normal. It's not, so it's a very, I'd say, well, specifically Greek, ancient Greek, Western concept of this hunter narcissus who fell in love with his own, with his, and that's interesting. It's connected to the story of, it absolutely is. Connected to the story of the wood nymph dryad, I think, echo.

And so she fell in love with him, but he's in love with his image in the water. And I think he stays there to the, well, they cursed him and he turned into the flower, the narcissus. and then all she could do was was call his name or repeat his words back to him that was it's been a long time i'm gonna do a series of books eventually this is another tangent but it's gonna be a wizard's guide to xyz like like like the books for dummies or whatever so i'm gonna start with it i love it's gonna be i'm really excited about i've got like six or seven more dream books to publish and i think i'm out of material then i think i've covered everything it's worth covering as far as i can find scour the internet and and archives to find all this stuff um

first one's going to be Asap's fables, but eventually I'm going to get around to Greek mythology. And it's all going to be focused on philosophical and psychological principles demonstrated by these things. And I'm starting with Aesops because, you know, when I was a kid, I would hope most of us read Aesop's fables. And we got the idea of sour grapes. If you can't have something, you pretend you never wanted it. You lie to yourself. You're in denial. Wow.

And then you get it. And it's just, you know, and no one thinks Fox has talked. It doesn't matter if it ever happened. Yeah. But it's the, but understanding those. concepts of like, that's me. That's the human experience. I was going somewhere with all of that. But anyway, that's, that's a project for another day. It's no, I love it. You have psychology is my thing. That's my realm. So you've got me hooked. I, I will absolutely buy your book or books,

because you have a lot of them. There's a lot of them in you. There's going to be a long series. I think, you know, I've got at least five, maybe six or seven planned. And that's like, we're talking, I'll probably publish the first one in like four or five years from now. got all these other books to get through first. And, um, but enough about me. That's good. We were going to get on to, to your dream. So talking about your dream experience, um, you were starting to say, well, how do we do this?

Um, I do like to focus on a specific recent dream if possible. And the reason for that is freshness in your mind, not only of the dream itself, but of the circumstances surrounding it. So if you had one last night, that's ideal. And that very often happens. I'll have people go, I had a dream for you about. I had another one last night. Let's talk about that.

And I'm like, I think that's programming in a sense of like, you know your brain, your subconscious knows you're going to be talking to a guy about dreams. So you have one inspired by that knowledge of a coming experience. Yeah. Let me make the most of this potential by getting something really juicy that's really meaningful to me. Now, it doesn't have to happen to you. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. Yeah, I tried.

I went to bed last night. I was like, I literally was laying down. like, I better get a good one in tonight. So I have something good to share and then nothing. I mean, I dreamed, but I couldn't even tell you. And there was nothing, like I had nothing when I woke up. Like if I don't write it down immediately, but I can remember the ones that really hit me hard, I can remember.

And I did have one the night before last. And I mean, honestly, I didn't even try to like make sense of it. I just figured I'd throw it out there because I knew you'd want a recent dream. So I don't know if it's going to be very exciting, but you'll have to ask me for the details, but I can tell you what I remember of it. Well, all of that said, I had a little more just for context on the process there. All of that said, if you're most, like let's say you're going to have this opportunity once, we're never going to talk again.

Fair enough. You can pick anything. I'm not going to limit you on that. I'm not going to demand something recent. It can be a dream from 10, 20 years ago. It can be a recurring sequence of dreams he had as a kid. it can be anything you want to talk about because I know you have an abuse

and trauma history there's there's and I don't say this very often but I I usually say it to guests if they ask about about it but it's a good thing to remind people there's two types of dreams I don't do in this venue as entertainment people are going to watch this this is not the Jerry Springer show we're not here to

embarrass you but there are things that are so sensitive I will not handle them in this form you need to talk to a professional in a private sense and one of those is childhood molestation And the other one is, is recent or past rape experience. Now, now we can talk about those subjects in general. We can even talk about your experience, but I won't do the, I won't risk the potential

harm of doing a bad interpretation for entertainment's sake with a person who's having ongoing, ongoing, current nightmares about these past experiences. You need, like, real dream interpretation in a psychological context, you would, you could spend three to four months of regular weekly sessions talking about one dream in depth and making the most of it privately that we do you know two hours and and we just chat and try to have a good time and and it isn't because that material's too dark and I wouldn't but I don't want to risk doing it badly like I said for the sake of entertainment I'm not going to no and no worries there I figured I was just going to throw this like you said it's fresh and I didn't write anything down I just figured and

still remember it pretty clearly. So I'm like, it must mean something. So you're going to help me figure this one out. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So, yeah, as I say, my process, I just shut up and listen. You tell me the dream beginning to end, how it unfolded.

And then we'll go from there. So I'm ready when you are. Okay. Benjamin the dream wizard wants to help you. Here's 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 exploring 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 Dreamwizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature available on Amazon, documenting 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 thedreamwizard.com. I'm ready when you are. Okay, so I'm going to ask everyone's forgiveness because when I remember

dreams. I remember. I mean, there's not like a whole long story to tell. It's usually probably whatever ran through my mind before I opened my eyes and what I can remember. So I'm getting on an airplane. The airplane inside of it, it's daytime, by the way. I, there was light coming in through the windows on the airplane, but it wasn't a typical airplane. I felt like like when you get on an airplane there's normally like the middle row of seats and then the two you know banks of seats on the side this was more like a first class but i mean to say there was leg room like my seat was right in front and center and there was one next to me meant for my husband but he wasn't there yet i i remember feeling like where is he is he going to make it in time is he

going to make the flight, but there were maybe three seats across total. I mean, and they were very spread out. It was very wide, very open. It almost felt more like a living room, but it was clearly an airplane, if that makes any sense. And the weird, two weird things about this was I was dressed like to the nines wearing a blouse and a skirt and high heels and anyone that knows me knows that good luck trying to get me out of leggings and a t-shirt or leggings and a sweatshirt. Not my thing, right? I mean, I can clean up if I have to, but it's not who I normally am. And the other weird thing was that I brought a pet on board with me. The pet was this huge, gigantic, full-sized lion. that I was leading with a leash. It had a beautiful collar. I remember it's sparkling,

probably diamonds or something because they were definitely stones. And it was very well behaved. It never roared, not even once the whole dream. It didn't make a peep. It just sat next to me, you know, just as a dog would or a cat just kind of laying there and I would pet it. But I held on to the leash. I never let go of it. So there were, maybe two or three other random people. I have no idea who they are that were, you know, onboard this one room airplane basically that we took off and my husband still hadn't made it. And I was still like, why didn't he get on the plane? Where is he? But then the next thing I know I'm standing at like, I guess we had like a little bar area in our, on the plane in our section at least.

that I thought there were other sections. I didn't see any. But the waitress or the waitress, the flight attendant said, you know, could I get you something to drink? And all I wanted was peanut Eminem's. Now, as an aside, I do love peanut Eminem's. That is my favorite little, you know, snacky snack if I indulge myself. But I'm not a junk food either. I do eater. I do eat very healthy. So I'm snacking on these peanut-em's just standing at this bar, holding the leash of this lion that came on board with me. And you hear on the overhead, the pilot says, oh, we're going to have to return to the airport. You know, we're having problems with the plane. So then the next thing I know, you know, the plane has landed, but it's not like the landing of any plane.

It's like we were there. And then all of a sudden we were just back down on the ground and they opened the door. and there was a little stairway. And me and my lion just, you know, traipsed on out like nothing. And we were basically standing in the middle of this seemed like a parking lot. Not quite a, it didn't even look like I was at an airport outside.

But just standing there. And again, it's still daylight. It was a little cloudy out. But there was nothing else really relevant or prevalent. My husband never did show up. And then that's kind of when I woke up. don't know. I don't know what any of that means. Yeah. All right. Oh, good one. Wrote as fast as I can. Like I could, I could, I swear to God, I can hold this up to the camera.

I know it could read it. That's just that's how it is. I've got my own chicken scratch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. That is beautiful. That's, now it's always amazes me. It happens every time people go, it's not a very long dream and I don't remember much. And I write literally two pages of notes. Because every little, I'm trying to capture every little detail. And particularly sometimes the way it's told. The particular phrasing you use, I mean, a couple of things jumped out to me just to, it felt more like a living room. Very interesting.

I mean, that that's the, you know, and I'm not, what I don't do is pin people down to what you said, but more like, that's just spontaneously, what was the feel of the openness of the space, a living room, okay? Interesting. And the idea that your husband was not on board. Now, I wrote that phrasing down, but that is how I conceptualized it at the moment of like, you know, so he's not with you. And there's with you physically and there's with you supportively maybe to be the idea of being on board with an idea. Yeah.

Now, I don't know if any of that is actually, they're calling me to tell me they're not going to pick up my garbage again. We've had an ice storm here and the garbage company keeps saying it's not safe for our drivers. I'm like, I went to work yesterday. Get your ass out here. I know. And then you see them driving down the road and you're like, I'm pretty sure that, yeah, the world is safer without them on the road anyway. Maybe that too. Oh, I just saw me.

Okay, random tangent. I'm browsing Twitter and whatnot. I saw a video of icy roads in a suburban neighborhood somewhere in the Midwest. And it was a fire engine truck, huge, heavy. You'd think they would, you know, have the best possible attraction. They probably have studded tires. And this thing was spit a loop-de-loops down the road and just barely missed cars and missed houses. Oh my gosh.

It actually was coming down a road and there was a little, you know, an intersection, zigged over and zagged over again. And it spun perfectly through this and down the next road. It could have gone into a house. It could have gone into a car. It didn't. Unbelievable. So yeah.

That is unbelievable. So if there's icy roads and the garbage trucks go out of control, that's my very bad things. I don't blame them. But then again, Yeah, my garbage is pretty full. I used to go somewhere sometimes. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm paying for this.

Let's go. Okay, so my process, we shut up and listen, and then we go back through it again. So you, um, the initial environment, you appear in the dream of the first thing you remember is being on the plane. Yeah, I'm walking up the stairs into the plane, but I was, I wasn't, when I remember the opening, I'm walking theoretically the same stairs that I walked down to get off of it

and there were only maybe a half dozen stairs so this is a very low to the ground very small airplane I'm guessing because I don't remember but maybe a half dozen steps but I am already like I it's like I got the last step or two up on the plane and I'm in there

and I've got this lion on the leash and I never once like let go of this leash. Yeah, that was the other thing I was going to say is that you thought to mention that. You felt the need to mention that, that I had this lion under control. It was never out of my control. I never dropped the leash. He never yanked it out of my hands.

So there's something in there that feels important to you, the idea of. Yeah, it was a very docile, I mean, very docile animal. Yeah. It made no, it just, I don't. not it was almost statuess but but moving very gracefully as it walked and i mean it was very much alive but just it didn't make a peep and it was very well behaved and that's an interesting thing too that there's a recognition of the potential for danger in the idea of the necessity of a leash it's a very pretty leash and you're not cruel to the animal but even though it is well behaved and

probably in your in your mind or in in um if we if we say in reality the idea of a if there was a perfectly docile lion that was just calm and you could be guaranteed it was never going to hurt anyone you could probably go without the leash and it would just follow you but there's something in your mind that says you know even even the um the most well-behaved lion is still a lion and you cannot let go with the leash there's something in it's yeah and now that you're see this is why i'm glad we're we're bouncing these ideas i should also know note that that flight attendant, female flight attendant, and I remember seeing, like in my peripheral vision, at least two other people on board, so to speak, in this section, but I never actually

saw them. I couldn't tell you if they were male, female, or whatever, but nobody, the flight attendant specifically, the only one I really interacted with, well, the only one I did interact with, nobody was fearful of this animal being with me either, which was strange to me. In, in, in, in real life, not in the dream. In the dream, I didn't think anything of it, but I thought, wow, that's weird, that nobody was, because I'm sorry, I actually have been that close to a lion, and as much as I love animals, yeah, it can eat you.

Yeah, yeah, if it decided to. And that's, I would say, it very well could have been that you saw other people on the plane and you had no concept of what they were thinking, but you actually put them there to show that, say, let me rephrase that as it, it seems like you may have, the idea occurred to me, that you might have put them there to show that even other people reflecting their opinion of your behavior in that scenario, they would have been fine if you had dropped the leash. They had no fear of the lion. But you chose, but you chose not to. you said this leash is not going to be out of my control at any moment. And you did actually mention that, like, I think three, maybe four times in the description

of like, and I didn't let go to the leash. I had the leash in my hands. The line was still on the leash. So there's something very, very important in there of that. And the word control comes to my mind. And that can be good or bad. I mean, we want self-control, self-regulation, as you say. We also don't want other people to exert their control over us.

So there's and that's a very common theme say and this is why it's great you talk to people before you get where they're coming from. Oh, trauma and abuse survivor. That's very typically you're out of control of those. They happen to you and you cannot stop them. There is a complete lack of control. So a lot of people go overboard in trying to make themselves feel safe. And it's fully understandable. I will exercise hypercontrol because that is how I keep myself safe.

When control is gone, I am not safe. I'm going to stop right there. No, you're a. 100% describing a lot of what I am. I have been told in my life in a lot of situations that I am bossy and that sometimes I can be controlling and it's not coming from a bad place and it's not ill-intentioned. It's not a power trip. For me, it's if I can control things around me, then I feel safe.

Absolutely. And for me, safety has been an ongoing. issue in my life. I am safe now, you know, the last three years, but the first 45 years of my life, I did not feel safe. So yeah, and even part of me feels like holding on to that lion for me was like a security. Like I had something very powerful. Yeah. In my, in my, basically, literally in my hands, that if something went awry, that I felt that perhaps not that I can control what a lion does, but maybe I could release the beast if I had to.

Yeah. Just throwing that out there. But no, you, you absolutely hit the nail on the head with that. Because security and safety for me and will probably always will be something that will stay with me forever as a core part of my being. I absolutely need to feel safe. Absolutely. And again, there's a lot of people who, okay, where do I start with this?

I'm very strongly libertarian. I love my cats. I'm kind of a cat. You know, you can feed me and pet me when I want you to, otherwise leave me the fuck alone. Right. So there's a very strong streak of like, I do not like being controlled. And I have a very strong ethical standard personally. I don't exert control over others.

This absolute, you know, consistency of moral principle on that one is like, you know, do unto others, et cetera. This is this needs to be reciprocal respect. Right. And that's yeah, in that sense. So there's nothing wrong with control. It is it absolutely new. You want to be in control of the damn car when you're going down the road at 90 miles an hour. That's good control. You want to control of your emotions. So you don't flip out and make, make bad decisions. And you want to be in control of your own decisions in general and not have other people forcing themselves on it. It's absolutely unacceptable. And and yes, may I insert on that? Thank you for you.

You hit that before, but I do want to speak to that because in my childhood, it was my narcissistic stepfather. He was physically and verbally abusive. But I mean, what he said goes. And my mother submitted to it, my brother, I was the one that was like, no, this isn't right. I don't have to do it. Like, I am a free, independent thinking human being.

I was a tenacious little thing. but that's what got me the physical consequence. And I was the one basically exiled from the family. Well, he did. He told me that I'm not a part of his family. And I have been banished and were estranged. And my mother doesn't even have anything to do with me. But same thing in my marriage.

I was married to a narcissist the first time around. So what I'm saying in reference to what you just said is that everything, thing was dictated to me. And I don't think people understand. I was not submissive or weak by any means. I had a mouth on me. I fought it. But yes, in order to appease and keep myself safe when I didn't want to be physically harmed,

I had to give in. But when I say dictated, I mean everything. I was told what I called. couldn't, couldn't wear. I mean, my ex-husband was really bad with it. What I, he didn't even like me wearing a certain lipstick. I didn't even have a smartphone until after our marriage ended because he didn't like me on the internet. He didn't want me having outside influence. He didn't like me reading books. Now I write him. So, ha-ha. He told me I talk too much so I couldn't talk when the TV was on because it would interrupt him and the TV was always on. So there were all these

rules and restrictions that I was held down to. And so control for me is a very, I mean, we can call it a red flag or whatever, but, you know, I'm not a bad person. I'm not some wild animal that can't be trusted unleashed in the world. No. But control concerns me. Yeah, absolutely. And that's fine. And this is, that's why we've got to look at these things like in the most neutral judgment free, which, which therapy should be, a therapeutic interaction, whether it is capital T licensed, counseling and therapy or not. But, but so none of this is to say, oh, you got control issues and you need to change that. No, it's control could be a good thing. And so if we conceptualize the lion as an aspect of yourself, you've got the, you've got this tremendous. And as

you mentioned it too, I put the, the power of self-protection is what I, I wrote down when you were talking about holding the lion. You've got this, and what is it? There's a say, it's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. So the lion is in a way like your inner, this is an old Japanese saying, I think, it's like your inner samurai in some sense. You've got it on leash. You can unleash it if you want to.

It's perfectly harmless to anyone that doesn't seek to harm you. That's why I like the, that's again, going the libertarian side of things. I'm the, I'm a big believer in fuck around and find out. And if you do not fuck around, you'll never find out because I'm not going to, uh, start no shit. Take no shit. That's kind of that, that type of thing. Don't, you don't want a problem.

Don't start a problem because you're not, because I'm not going to start the problem. Um, so it's, it's very good to say I have, if we conceptualize it this way, I have within me a leashed lion that I can let off the leash if I need to. And he's not dangerous to anyone unless I need to let him off the leash. And that's up to you. Uh, so I think there's more of that kind of power of self protection. I'll stop for a moment. Yeah.

No, you are, I describe myself very much that way, even the fuck around and find out thing, because I am not a vicious person. I leave karma to karma because I always say she's a bigger bitch than I'll ever be. But I am very much that person. And again, I think that control issue is more. For me, it's, I like to, I feel like I've just taken my life back three years.

years ago since releasing myself of all of these people, all of these people who have caused me harm in my life. And so for me, that control, like I said, is not meant it's not a bad thing. It's me taking control of my life, but I very much have it in me. I mean, you know, they say you can be holy or go hood. And, well, you know, I mean, I could be a lot worse in the right situation, if provoked, but I have worked very, very, very hard to handle myself correctly and not be that person because it's not who I really am and it's not who I want to be and it's not how I want to present. And that's why I say I think all this has to do with like the healing that I've done in the last three years. That I have kind of taken the power back of my life.

I have taken back control of my emotions and not, you know, I think they say go off the deep end. That's my husband's term for things. But, you know, there were things that two years ago, somebody could even look at me the wrong way. And I'd go cry for three days about it, about, who, why don't they like me? What did I do? Boo-hoo-hoo. And now I'm just like, okay, well, I'm not for everybody, you know, like I'm good with it. So I've come more into my own.

through the healing and through taking back my own power and, and my own, myself and my life. And so I feel like that all plays into this. Absolutely. And broadly speaking, there's kind of two ways people respond to, to this kind of trauma. And one is, I think, the healthy route, as you have done, establish the inner power of self-control and healthy, healthy boundaries. the opposite way that a lot of people go and it's it's it's you know it's hard to say it's not their fault but it isn't it's one of those again yin yang things it is it's touchy it both is and isn't

their fault but to do it poorly shall we say is to then repeat the pattern and say well i'm going to establish my inner power by dominating others i'm going to replicate it i'm going to become the abuser because that's power and well it's interesting that's how there are two ways that a narcissist is created and that is one of the ways exactly what you just said where they seek then to basically repeat it and do the same to others so that they fulfill their need to feel all powerful and exalted and all that stuff yeah for sure so what you've done is is i would say you know the there's exerting control over others and there's exerting control over yourself in terms of um also uh there's a discomfort that comes with

establishing boundaries. Oh, if I, if I, if I don't do what this person wants me to, they won't like me. So there's a personal power in being able to say it's okay if you don't like me. But, but also you've picked a new partner that I would imagine is very, what do I'm saying? Gentle with your boundaries, like knows your history and shows pretty extreme respect for your process in a way. I've known his family for about 18 years and I knew him. for I'd say five or six years. So yeah, he absolutely knew my, we live in a small town too, so everybody knows everything.

But yeah, he absolutely knew. Otherwise, God, I wouldn't be married. I wouldn't even be dating right now. I'd be scared. But yeah, he, I call him my gentle giant. He is a tall, big hunk of a man, six, what, six, five, two, twenty, you know, big guy. I'm five, three, like a hundred. Yeah. So he's he's my protector and my gentle. He's been, to say he's patient and understanding, he's been a lot of things, but he has definitely given me that space mentally and physically, really, to just do what I need to do. You know, to resolve the past and to move forward however I want. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a very nice situation. And so,

so far from the life I knew before that. But I feel very strongly about being accountable for myself and for, you know, being a better person and taking control of all that ugliness and making a better, you know, using it for a better purpose, which is what my ultimate goal is. Yeah. And I'd say that makes all the difference. It's like your ability to understand what you went through and take accountability for your own. actions in a way, you know, to realize you are responsible for what you choose to do, whether to replicate this or not. I think the work you've put into it and the, the, the, the, the way you understand it is probably what allows you to get the benefit of a good man

like that, you know, because you could have, if you were not working on yourself, if you were not, and working on yourself is it so hacking, cliche type of, always work on yourself, you know, you got, you got, you guys work to do. But, but it's definitely, it's self-reflection and understanding and patterns and habits. There's a lot. There's a lot. But if you weren't doing that work, like he probably wouldn't put up with it either, it'd be like, you know, you're kind of a mess and you're, and you don't seem to want to change. So thank you. No, thank you. Not for me. He would still be gentle about it. Yeah, he's very gentle, but he holds me accountable, you know. And that's what I that's the beauty. And, you know, we can go on about our relationship. But I think that is,

you know, the boundaries thing, though, that definitely spoke to me because that was probably the one thing I had the most difficulty with because I had always been a people-pleasing codependent because everybody had to, I was so scared of disapproval. Because I could never, to this day, I could win the Nobel Peace Prize. And my mother and stepfather could, they'd still somehow find a way of dismissing it or dis acknowledging the achievement. You know, so approval was huge. So the last few years learning to say no and finding out.

the very hard way who didn't like that and who was really in my life using me and taking advantage of my inability to say no or set a boundary was heartbreaking. I lost a lot of people not just divorcing, not just in the exile

from family when I am exposing abuses that they are not ready to hear about and acknowledge themselves. You know, I lost dozens of people. Yeah. just that are still alive, which is even worse because, I mean, knowing that it's a rough, it's been a rough patch, but I feel good about myself. And I feel, you know, maybe I'm like this stoic lion.

I feel that I have held myself to a higher standard and held myself well there. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's another great way to understand a slice of the line anyways that you have, probably within you a power to do great harm if it were unleashed. And that doesn't mean there isn't a context in which unleashing the line is a good thing for self-defense.

We would say the difference between self-defense and murder. You just let the lion off the hook and go murder. Could have torn up a whole plane if you wanted to, but you don't. You hold, you hold that leash. That's your leash. You are in complete control of that. Another direction. So it struck me.

And I'm glad we had a lot of other conversation about it first is that, you know, you're, you notice your husband isn't present. There was a seat for him. He was supposed to be there. And his absence was notable in that it registered. And you, and you remembered it and shared it. I was wondering is the husband the lion? But it seems like we've gone in a complete different direction.

That's why I love doing these things of like, uh, talking through it. Yeah. Yeah, because as we've been talking about the lion, honestly, a couple minutes ago, I wondered the same thing. I just didn't speak it. Because really, that is who he, I mean, that's his nature. He's quiet. He doesn't, and again, I'm talking about just sheer size alone. You want to talk about a man that can cause some damage?

He can cause some damage to things and people. And he wants to, you know, just knowing what I've been through. And he's even witnessed some things that, you know, he's expressed his design. to do things to people and I'm like, but we're not going to do that. We're going to be better than that. It's okay to have thoughts. Very much in that way. I wonder, I'm wondering the same thing because he is.

He's, I call him my gentle giant, but let me tell you, only twice that I can think of in the time I've been with him, I have seen the other side of him. And it's scary. Yeah, for sure. And I don't want anyone to think. didn't do anything to anybody, by the way. A disclaimer here. He didn't do anything to anybody and nothing was directed. It was all verbal stuff.

But he holds, he holds things within, he tolerates a lot. He has a very forgiving and tolerant nature. But boy, when, when he has been pushed those couple of times, I would not want to be on the other end of it. Yeah, definitely. And that's, again, framing these things contextually properly is like, you don't want to be a weak person. You want to be an absolutely deadly person who has it under control. And that means it's a choice. You're not harmless. You're not a bunny rabbit. You know, you're more of a

of a tamed lion in a way. And that's you, me, the grand you, the royal we. Now, now there may be an element where your husband is analogous to the lion and that might be part of it. But the reason I'm glad we talked about it before is that I don't believe. you think you have your husband on a leash. I don't know. No, gosh, no, not even close. Yeah, that's why I'm like this. He is a Pisces, remember you Pisces, let's just be real.

I say he blows with the wind and I think you do too. Whereas I'm a structured type A Capricorn that things have to be just so and what's the schedule. And so it's very opposite, but it works for us for some. We kind of are that yin and yang that balance each other out. Sure. Yeah, yeah. In the in the Piscian sense, if we would say, there's no leash going to hold us. We're our heads in the cloud. I don't even try and I wouldn't want to. No, no, no. That's what I was saying too is that I think there's an analogy there to the husband of like, okay, he's like in a sense, attained lion. Destructive capacity, but docile under control. No threat to anyone, but don't fuck around.

But the important connection was that you don't conceptualize him or your relationship. relationship that way as in you exerting control over him. So I think that's disanalogous. And I think it's better we talked about how it's more of an inner strength type of thing, recognizing your own potential. Yeah. Then that's, that's, I think the benefit of talking to someone else about this type of thing where they go, I don't think that's you. I don't think that's something you would conceptualize in that way based on your circumstance. So, but it's always good to entertain the thought and think it through and say, okay, well, it fits in some ways, but ultimately not so much. Yeah, but I will argue the, I'm one of these devils advocates, so I'm always going to argue the point less, you know, that we're dismissing.

At the same time, the leash was sparkly and pretty. And I remember, like, I don't know if they were diamonds or aquamarines, but a light, like, I mean, they were white with like a blue kind of iridescence to them around the collar. So where I'm going with this, I mean, if we went the round. of the lion is the husband kind of a thing, which does make some sense, a lot of sense, actually. Sure. The one thing I will say about my relationship with my husband, no, there's no leash. I wouldn't even want to put a leash on him.

However, he and I are very connected, and he is extremely, extremely protective of me. So the fact that it's a pretty leash, and I mean, I never. at any time was pulling on it. I mean, it was always hanging and the line was just always right with me and right next to me. Because, I mean, my husband, he doesn't even let me warm up my car in this. Like he is, it's like Princess and the P,

but he's never very far. Even if he's far, he's never far. He's very, very, very protective of me because of what I've been through and always just wanting to make sure that I'm good and I'm safe and I'm cushioned. and I'm happy and in every way possible, but not in a controlling way either. You know, I always, I always describe it to people as when I'm talking in the realm of trauma and healing and healthy relationships that in my former marriage and even in my childhood,

I felt like a caged bird. I was lucky if I got any nourishment or attention or anything. But my husband, I feel like I'm that same bird, but he holds me. in the palm of his hand. And I'm free to fly and do and be, but he's always there with his hands. And I can always come back there, you know, and return to him and I always do.

And he knows I will, but he's always there. Yeah. If that makes any sense. No, it doesn't. I'm glad you push back a little bit, impressed because a new thought inspired. So there's the aspect of lion on leash self-control makes perfect sense for you.

the the the the the the key phrase popped into my head a leash being a secure connection like like a secure attachment attachment that's pretty it's a nice one it wasn't like you know like the leather with the spikes or anything I mean it's a pretty like I'm holding him like a jeweled crown like I'm holding this hot lion in very high regard yeah and he's coming with you that the the the the leash is always slack he's a yeah a traveling companion in a way versus a yes a you know there's no there's no rains there's no whip you know this is not lion taming in it in a circus it's very different very different context no but the secure attachment is a big deal because i've always felt very and this is just another thing for my traumatic past remember my mother well i didn't even mention this before my mother didn't even want me

before i was even born she didn't want me and obviously her husband wanted me even less, but I never felt like I belonged. And I was told, my stepfather told me when I was a child that I was not part of their family. They were married, they had their own kid. I was just there, and they just had to feed me and shelter me until I was 18 and could have cared less about me. So there's always been this feeling of detachment.

And in my former marriage, part of the reason I stayed so long with this man was because I fell in love with his parents. They were the loveliest people, and they treated me like a daughter. And his sister was my best friend, or we came to be best friends. And in the midst of that marriage, when my ex-husband saw how close I was becoming with his family, at one point he admitted to me that he told them vicious, awful lies about me to make them hate me. And they completely dissociated from me. And I said, why would you do that to me?

you know I don't have family. And he said, because they loved you more than they loved me. And so he took that family. So I have had this, you know, part of my trauma in life has had this, is this feeling of not belonging and not having an attachment to a family or to a person. Like, I felt very orphaned and alone most of my life. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Oh, God. You just said so much about just the. the necessity and concept broadly of secure attachment. That's a huge deal. That's like what are we talking about? Like the stages of healthy child development. We get to that point of autonomy versus something that's not dependence with something else, but autonomy versus shame?

I'm not sure. And that's the thing. Everybody put their shame, their unhealed trauma and their shame on me. I was the scapegoat for everybody else not to have to deal with their crap. But now in this relationship with my husband, it's a very different dynamic, and it's the first time that I do. He has seen me at my worst lows of low.

He has been through some muck with me, and he won't abandon me. Like, everybody else has abandoned me. Even people I thought would never abandon me have abandoned. But this man will not, he will not. And I know that. Yeah. And you facilitate. facilitate that and strengthen that connection by the very act of respecting it in your mind and

in behavior. That's a huge deal. I mean, if you probably if you treated him with, with, you know, abuse and contempt, he would go,

yeah, tried, sorry, see you. Right. You know, it's one of those things where you like, you can't just be a consistently awful person and,

and rely on someone to be a saint and just let you get away with it. So that's, that's part of forming a secure connection, too. I was like, okay, we're going to, from a good place from, from,

from a desire to see our relationship improve. We're going to hold each other accountable in the nicest way possible, but but we're doing this, you know. Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's great. All of that,

all of that, all of that, line on a leash, one image. All of that conversation. Isn't that crazy? I know, but this is what I love.

And I'm so glad we're having this, you know, bounce back because I would have never put that all together by myself with Google. Right. We try. We do our best, but sometimes, sometimes you need a wizard.

Sometimes you don't. Yeah, we do. We need you. And we never got, I was going to start with the idea of, you know, the first thing pops in my head with a plane is generally travel. You're getting in a car, you're getting on a plane, you're going for a walk. There's this movement towards a destination, a goal. I just wanted to throw that kind of broad, top, superficial level theories at you or

associations at you and see where your mind goes with the idea of why are you getting on a plane? What does what does a plane mean to you in terms of in terms of that? Okay. There's a few things here. So at the end of my former marriage, one of the biggest things, like basically the night that I decided that I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I'm cutting this guy loose. I just can't take another day being married to him because Lord knows I tried.

I had this very, I had an epiphany basically, and all I had done, I was laying down in my basement. I slept on the couch in the basement and I said, what do I want? Because it's not this. This isn't even my life. This is the life he decided I was going to have, but it's not, it's not resonate. I feel dead inside. What do I want? And I wanted three things.

I had always wanted to write because I had gone to DePaul University. I got a degree in journalism. I minored in psychology. I always wanted to write, but I didn't write because he didn't want me to do anything that, God forbid, would make me feel any sense of joy or achievement. Okay. Second thing I wanted, I knew I wanted to be married. Of course, we all want our person.

We all want that person to go to dinner with and at the end of the day, our best friend to share life with and go, I just didn't want to be married to him. I wanted to be married to somebody that appreciated me for who I am, didn't try to change me or bind me to rules and restricted me. And I just wanted to be married in a really healthy, loving relationship. Simple. I didn't ask for much. The third thing was I wanted to travel.

And I had traveled a lot as a kid and in high school. That's the only thing from my childhood that I can honestly say I appreciate is that, you know, having a narcissistic stepfather, we had to do very, you know, exciting things because he had to have stuff to brag about. So we did travel a lot. And I missed that because my ex-husband could, he, he, the last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere. I had taken my son, our son, on a few vacations, but, you know, it wasn't anywhere near what I wanted to do. So even when I, with my new husband, in our first year together, we went on nine trips all over the world.

Wow. We went on five last year. This year is going to be slow because I'm trying to publish two books and I need the time and the resources to do that. But travel is a big thing for me. So that's part of the plane. Yeah. And I know that travel is not going to be in our near future as much, but it will pick up

once I just want to focus right now in these next two books that I have to release that I'm working on. So the other part of this plain thing is sort of, you know, I feel that this year, or even in the last like handful of months I have taken off, so to speak. I mean, that is a term in my brain that I would use because when I, so my first book, gasping for air, that is currently out that we published last year, that actually was. a compilation of stories from my pre-marriage from a journal that I kept a record of what was happening because he was gaslighting me. There was a lot of fear that he was because he did actually admit twice that he wanted

to kill me. He was planning to kill me. I was afraid during COVID being stuck in the house, he was going to do something, make it look like an accident and nobody would know. so I kept this journal and I kept it under that couch in the basement that I slept on. So I released the book last year and it's very exciting to release a book and I'm not diminishing that in any way, but I kept telling people this isn't so much about the book. It's about the greater impact it's going to have.

I always wanted to be a public speaker of some sort. I never envisioned being on podcasts necessarily, but podcasts are a newer thing. But I have been on so many podcasts that now I'm going to be speaking in my second summit this week. And I'm going to be speaking in another summit this summer. The idea of a TED Talk has been promoted. Sweet. So that might be in the works. and so I feel like, again, like things are taking off in the direction that I want them to.

However, when I had this stream, was it the night before last, I've been for the last week, like mentally blocked, like writers blocked to a crazy level. My second and third books that are coming out this year are already written, but we're in the revision stage. You know, the publisher reads it over, sends me some notes back out. these chapters really don't progress the story. What about this in this chapter? Now you got to rewrite that.

So we kind of took a new direction with one of the books while she's reading the other one. And I've been trying to figure it out. And I just so blocked. So I feel like somehow to me that played into like we took off, but then we came right back. Like we're trying to get this off the ground maybe. but it's not.

Yeah, that's a great. We tried. That's a great spontaneous connection. Yeah. And I don't know if you remember what the, did the pilot give any reason for coming back? No. I can't remember.

Okay. No. Fair enough. Oh, no. I'm sorry. He just said they were having some technical difficulties with the plane. That's all that was said. It's kind of the phrasing.

Whatever. So I don't know. Yeah. So I have no idea. But I was fine with that because who wants to be on a plane that might go down? Nobody wants to crash. Let's just get on the ground safely. And we'll,

we'll figure it out. Yeah, yeah, first. Yes, exactly. On that, yeah. That's a great connection you put in there of like the takeoff and the return. Something's not, something's not working the way it should. Right. But also, so it makes a tremendous amount of sense the idea that travel itself is important to you. So I would imagine you've been on a fair number of planes. I've been on a lot of planes. Yeah, yeah. And then the idea of envisioning what it's like on a plane and envisioning maybe even the ideal circumstance, not only first class, but like a living room first class, wide open space, like very extremely comfortable.

It was very wide, yeah. I mean, and even the seats were not quite recliners, but like recliner like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here I'm an author and I can't even come up with the word. They would definitely recline more than, more than, you know. Yeah, I mean, it was comfortable. It was very spacious and comfortable. Yeah.

Here we have another guest. She's going to sit right on the notes. Of course, this baby girl. Of course. So part of that could be aspirational of like success to you means I get to travel in the extreme comfort of first class. And not only that, the best possible first class. So part of that. Another part of it might be definition.

What am I saying? So there's aspirational success. And the other side was, damn. No, I had a second thought. It's gone. The cat. No, I know what you mean because I was dressed to the nines too. And like I told you, that's not normal for me.

I mean, I do when I have to go somewhere that, you know, that requires that. But normally, I mean, literally like, good. You're lucky if you can get me out of my, like, pajama pants. Like, I'm usually just leggings and a t-shirt, very casual. Just not, I don't walk around with blouses and skirts and high heels and nylons. And even my hair, I remember, you could see this crazy curly hair. it was like all pinned up all like in a French twist like all fancy schmancy and pearls and like me and my lion were looking good. Yeah.

No, for sure. And he had that, you know, the diamond studded collar. Oh, yeah. And for you. So there's, she's going to fall on the dog. Oh, my goodness. There's very much a, what is it? What comes to my mind is the idea of self-representation, public.

image in a way. It's like, so if there's the, and I'm glad you mentioned TED Talk and the idea of, of successful public speaking or having success at it to the point where you might draw a significant audience, so to speak. And we all think about like, okay, well, how am I going to be perceived? And we would, I would make sure to put on pants before I left the house. So I may bear minimum. And then some people are like, okay, this, this event, this level of success, this level of prestige, respect, demands a little more effort from me to make myself presentable. And so for you,

you're like, well, if I'm going to get dressed up, I'm going all the way. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to do my utmost best to put on the best possible exterior for, for people to approve of in a way.

But, it's not just approval. I mean, we all look for that. Again, these are all neutral terms in terms of like it isn't, a lot of people go, oh, you just want attention.

Like, we all want attention. who doesn't want to be seen and respected and appreciated? You know, so these things are not derogatory. They get, as you were saying about like triggers, these words get overused and they're not,

they're not even applying the principle correctly to behalf of this stuff. What they mean is I think you're annoying when you say that. I don't like the way you say that or I don't like your face. And it's like you trigger me. Like, get over it. That's not a trigger. Anyway.

So I'll speak to that for a second. Sure, sure. And this might help you. So you touched on something that present. in my life twice that really affected me. I actually wrote about this in one of the books that will be coming out about my childhood. So my mother, when she got married to this man who was abusing me, he lived in, we were in Chicago. My mom's family's Puerto Rican, you know,

I mean, you know, thus the curly hair and all that. But I mean, I rolled my ours like my grandma and great grandma when they talked English, you know, everything was rolling and whatever. And my mother, when we moved to the suburbs with this man, you know, this is a predominantly Caucasian area, middle class, like she, my mother has always been concerned about appearance. And I think I was like, oh, her nemesis in that way, because even my husband now calls me his ragamuffin. I've always been the ragamuffin. I wear these worn out cons, you know, converse shoes with holes in them and some of my leggings have holes in them and because I just wear them to death. I mean, I love the warm. I just like being comfortable and I'm who I am and,

you know, like the hair, but see, this hair has been a thing. So my mother would straighten it on an ironing board and she would tell me to stop rolling my ars and she would take it. And she would take me to the gap and put me in ivory jeans and pink pastel polo shirts and like that's not who I am anyway but she was trying to make us appear a certain way right to fit in yeah and I never fit in I was even in school just you know connecting with kids you know there's the nerds there's the jocks there's you know all the groups I never fit into any of them because I was just like even like you were asking, we were talking before we came on this recording. And I'm like, I'm just me.

I'm just me. I don't know who else to be. But I pride myself in that because I was always trying to, people are always trying to mold me into something else. Now, where I'm going with this, so then I'm at DePaul University. I'm in college. I'm in the journalism program. We're, you know, part of that program, we're taking courses where I'm in a booth. you know, very much set up like you are over there with the microphone and everything in the sound booth.

And they're having me say the same two or three sentences over and over correcting intonation and emphasis and all this stuff. But then they put you in front of the camera and they would tell me that my hair, I needed to straighten my hair out or at least smooth out the curls because this appeared too wild or too young or too. And there was all this, I just felt like the judgment. I'm like, why can't, I mean, honestly, my hair does look fabulous when it's like curled a little softer and nice and done right. It looks a little better, but this is, this is me. This is who I am and why, like for me, it was like, here's my mother again. Somebody telling me, like, I shouldn't look that way.

If you want to do this, you have to look this way. So for me, that's just, ugh. It's just, it gnaws at the core of who I am because I don't understand why there's so much judgment and ideas about perception in this world and why people aren't allowed to just be who they are instead of having to conform to this. I don't even know whose idea of how we are supposed to be and how we're supposed to look. So go with that. Yeah, that's all, that's all really great stuff. basically I ramble just long enough for someone to have better ideas and say them. That's so interrupt any,

interrupt anytime. Yeah, yeah. Because as I said before, none of this is in my head. I have ideas about what you're sharing. And I try and reflect that back and clarify and new perspectives and whatnot. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's like you will have, and every degree, you, the world royal we will have your own connections. And it's like a, it's like an explosion in your mind.

It's like suddenly the light bulb turns. on you're like oh my god this this is related this is meaningful um so in the context just to clarify you you didn't know the destination of the plane we're going anywhere specific as far as you were aware okay so that because that would modify it maybe if you're like well i know for sure yeah i know for sure there was no luggage i didn't even see anyone else's luggage i didn't have luggage. It was just me with this lion on a leash. And like I said, I'm

like my hair, I remember, I was in a French twist. I had pearls. I wish I could remember what color blouse I had on because I know, but it was definitely like a long-sleeved, very silky kind of material, shiny satiny, whatever blouse and a fitted

you know, pencil skirt and I had heels like, you know, very proper and that's interesting too. And I'm glad you mentioned that. Okay. So before I forget, um, just the, the broad concepts of you're going somewhere, you're traveling. And the only things you brought you said, no luggage. The only things you brought you said, no luggage. The only things you brought you with you are literally your personal power and your public image. And this is what you got. You got yourself dressed. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Bam. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't even have a purse. Nothing. I didn't have keys in my, I mean, I, I mean, I, It was just me and this lion. And then to just kind of loop back a minute about what you said about the, you had to give a lot of detail about just how much effort you could or would put into this appearance down to the style of the skirt and the blouse and the pearls. And it's not just my hair was up. I don't know what kind of up French twist specifically. So you've picked the, now I don't know that each one of those things is individual. irrelevant or says something about you.

Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. No, but just the idea that it's so detailed. The idea that it was, it was conservative, but stylish. But I mean, definitely like I looked, let's just say, you know, you can call it successful, wealthy. I'm not sure, but it definitely exuded and it's not who I am at all. Yeah.

I mean, you want to talk about narcissism on a high, level and that is just not who I am. Well, that's, that's interesting too. And here's, you know, while you were describing that, I, I had a thought of like, it would be an amazing experience for you to go to a TED talk in a t-shirt and sweats and sneakers and don't do your hair. I can't recommend that because what would I do? I would probably put on nice pants and a deep, in a nice shirt.

Can I tell you though? What's, go ahead. I thought about it. I love that. I love that. I thought about just going like with my cons and my leggings and a sweatshirt. And you know what? If the opportunity presented itself, I might because that's what I'm trying to let people know, whether it's on a mental health, you're an abusive.

I'm trying to heal level or just on a, your human being in this world, just like everybody else. We have to be ourselves. why can't we be embraced for who we are? Why do I have to look a certain way for people to find me credible or to take heed of what my words are? Well, I've actually had people say to me that I should put a little more production value into the show.

Like right now, there's two of us on screen. You'll see it when you watch the video. I'm over here. You're over there. There's no camera switching. There's no editing for anything but at the request of the, you know, if we take a break, I'll cut that out. No one wants to watch an empty chair for 10 minutes unless you're watching.

some Twitch streamer. Right. But, you know, so I, there's a lot of things I do not do. So I think someone at one point told me, I don't know where this came from. They're like, you know, you should wear a suit and a tie. And I'm like, I don't think I've ever worn a suit and a tie in my life. I mean, I went to a wedding once when I was like six or something. And I probably, I think it was a ring bearer at my aunt's wedding or something like that.

But, you know, that's not me at all. This is, you know, you get my. No. You know. So I, I love how. But see somebody, yeah. And somebody like me who like is all of. I mean, that's like, I hate to call it a gimmick, but like my brand or whatever, what, I love authenticity.

I literally, like, when you came on the screen, I was like, amen. Like this, I love that you're relaxed and you're comfortable and your cat has been extremely comfortable laying there this whole time and your other cats are just walking around. Yeah, but you know what? You know, you got the one animal on your life. I love this because this is just life. This is what I do. But you're brilliant. And people need to start valuing the things about us that are inside of us that they can't see instead of trying so hard to judge from, you know, from what they do see.

Because what you see isn't always what you get. One of the wealthiest people, I mean, certainly not the wealthiest in the world, but one of the wealthiest people I ever met looked like some scum of the earth. He didn't even try. He wore jeans, I think, that were probably 20 years old in a jean jacket that was equally old. And he didn't try. He had Marlboroves. I can't even say it in the pocket all the time and took out a smoke like anyone else. But he was extremely wealthy.

He owned several airplanes. He owned several properties. He had a lot of wives, too, that got a lot of alimony. But he just looked like plain old regular guy Joe from like, you know, some rough part of town. Yeah. Why do we judge? There is a, there is a wonderful bell curb.

And it's for good or real. Yin Yang again. Hello. There's so, so on one end is people who are like, they kind of have nothing. And they dress like it. And that's just what it is. And they don't give a fuck either. And then there's all the rest of us kind of in the middle that are like, well,

I kind of have, I have enough I can make an effort. Should I? How much of an effort should I make? And, and that goes all the way. up to, you know, at the peak of it, we might say is people who are like, I must, everyday dress to the nines. I must follow the, the latest fashions. I must always be on the cutting edge.

I must be a trend setter. Oh, that's just obsession. And then you start getting into some of the other folks that are, that are just extremely wealthy. And they got, I mean, I dream of, fuck you money. I'll walk around, I'll walk around naked. I don't give a shit. That's, I mean, I would be fit.

Now, I'm not doing anything to actively pursue that. Like, whatever. I'm good. No, but I know what you know. But I love it. I know what you mean. Yeah, people who are like, I got nothing to lose by being completely authentic. And then it's also kind of how you know who your real friends are too.

Like you were saying, the boundary issue of things. Like, if you always get the real me and you don't like it, that's fine. No hard feelings. Sian are, you know, but if you do, I know you're not, you're not falling in love with it with a facade that, that I have to worry about maintaining. I can't. Right. I can't be asked to do it, you know, on that side of things. And I don't think I'm functionally capable of just.

of being disingenuous at all times. Oh, God, that's a talk about mental bandwidth. That's, I don't know how people, I don't know how people do that. I just, I can't imagine. No, so, okay, so all of this is with the, okay, I did want to mention, if you decided to do it, you could probably make it part of the talk of like, hey, look at me, you don't get a lot of people in sweatpants up here. Most people dress up.

Let me tell you why I didn't and why that's a good thing. And you could open that way. I love it. You're giving me my introduction. If you, if you, if you, if you choose to go that route, and again, I'm not going to, I get to put, I think I would honestly, because what am I trying to do impressing people? They need to listen to me. You know, it's in my former marriage, I used to try. I tried so hard with him to see if I could change him or influence him. And I used to tell him, pretend I'm blind and pretend I'm deaf, although sometimes I can't be deaf. But I said, I want, you because it goes to this action speak louder than words kind of a thing i said i don't feel like you say you love me but i don't feel it or see it in your actions towards me so i'm like if i was blind how would you love me how would you show me you love me if i was deaf so for me it's

kind of like that same thing like what does it matter if i'm up there in leggings and cons you know maybe even with my curly crazy hair like just listen to my words That's where the value is. You know, I'm not here to be your eye candy. See, I'm already starting my TED talk. I'm not here to be your eye candy. I'm here for you to get something out of what I have to say, which is a result of my experience, you know, so thank you.

Now we've worked out. I'm so excited now I'm ready for my TED talk. We can even tell people, don't look at me at all. It's not, it doesn't matter. Close your eyes. Listen to what I have to say. That might be interesting too. Now, the one caveat I would give to that is,

make sure no one else has already done this before. You can probably only get away with the ones. Otherwise, they'll be able to say, they'll be like, oh, someone's already done this now. So it wouldn't be as impactful or original. So you might want to watch a few. Yeah, fair enough. Just watch a few. Just in case.

I don't know. But that would be fantastic if we, you know, between the two of us came up with an idea that honestly, no one's had the guts to do. I'm sure people have thought about it. What if I just went in sweatpants? Oh, no, I can't. See, look at us with our cats laying around and our curly hair coming up with brilliant ideas. I never do this too. I mean, people,

people see this and I don't know if they realize just how much of this there is. It's just crazy. You have a lot of curly hair. Yeah. I don't know. It's nuts. It's nutsy. And I only grew this.

Okay. So there is a little bit of the appearance going on here. What is a wizard? Well, it's typically a little bit older, a little gray in the beard, has a beard, because I'm a longer hair.

I mean, Gandalf. So there is, there are aspects to it where I'm like, I grew out my hair a little bit because wizards have long hair and, and a beard. And so there's, there's, and it's also like on the T-shirt here, it's the branding. Yeah, I don't have the hat, you know, so maybe one of these days, one of these days will get a hat. Yeah, I want to, maybe I should buy one of those sorting hats.

That, those are fun. But then I'd have to, I'd have to change the dynamic of my. Yeah, you would to fit it all in there. Well, what I do is I, and this is, you know, shop talk or whatever. I have the camera angle down so people can see me writing and taking notes because when I'm just like, talking to myself while in this dead air. Yeah, then you look weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and of course, no, if you get to the moment and you're like, you know, I feel like, and there's nothing wrong with this either way. You can go, I'm doing this for a reason. I'm doing this because I'm giving a fuck. Or you can say, I genuinely feel like this experience deserves a certain level of effort from me to be commensurate with the experience itself.

And that's fine. It's like we don't go to a wedding in sweatpants. We try to respect the event more than that. So I think either choice is perfectly fine, you know. But this one is, and that's the thing about the. dreams too. So you show yourself this image of yourself in the dream. We can look at it from a lot of different angles of like you are theoretically exploring what if I put this level of effort in. What would that feel or what would that experience be like rather than saying, oh, I necessarily must believe

this is the appropriate course of action because look, I showed it to myself. So sometimes we play around with ideas. A lot of dreams are what ifs, what if scenarios, I thought experiments. We put ourselves in a scenario to, to look at it for the purpose of thinking it through. Now, some dreams are definitely, this is what I want, wish fulfillment. Some dreams are, this is what I'm afraid of. Here's, here's trauma from my past that has been brought back to my mind because I was in a recent experience that made me feel threatened in a specific way, but That's a lot of a lot of dreams as well. You look like you had a thought.

Yeah. Go ahead. I am. I'm thinking and listening to you. You're very perceptive. No, as you're saying all that, I'm wondering. See, I'm trying to put it all together in my head. Sure.

For some reason, I felt like the peanut M&Ms. When she asked me what I wanted, I'm in this, I mean, let's call it first class to the extreme. I didn't order caveat. I've had caviar though, it's gross. I didn't order caviar or shrimp cocktail or I wanted peanut M&Ms. And I'm wondering now if, because that's literally like my favorite candy. And I don't have them very often. And that's the thing.

But maybe I maybe part of me in this, you know, this whole pretense that I was putting out felt like I needed something that was true to me, something. I mean, talk about that authenticity. Sure. Yeah. Like maybe those peanut M&Ms were Dana and her leggings and cons and her sweatshirt that just wanted to be who I am and didn't want to put this whole thing on. I just wanted a part of me back if that makes any sense. Sure.

I don't know. Yeah, no. And I think it's fantastic that that angle on it was inspired, but just, just randomly. Yeah, by what you were saying. Yeah, your own, your own. listening to you and I'm thinking peanut M&Ms and like that we hadn't even gotten there yet a very casual yeah but it's so casual compared to I mean you don't the way I was dressed and present I mean I should have been in some Parisian restaurant somewhere or something ordering

something fancy and I just wanted some peanut Eminem for sure yeah and there's um two two things about that there's uh the sequence of boarding the plane and then there's what I call like a hard cut and I put little delta next to it. It's a funny Delta airlines, but we're not mentioning any specific airlines. No. Right? But I put a delta as in change, a scene change. And it's, you know, I'm boarding the plane.

I'm at the bar. The plane is landing because we have technical difficulties. And it's actually in the bar scene. It's something, you know, the bar on the plane, food station, whatever it is. Yeah. It brought to my mind the idea of, you know, the, what was it, the cafe cars on a train in a way where there's like, Yeah. There's room to walk and there's some chairs and then there's the little counter and there's

someone there and they may serve cocktails and they may make you, you know, scrambled eggs or whatever they do. But at this particular, it was during this sequence that the, you discovered that the announcement was made about the technical difficulties. It wasn't, it wasn't discovered before you boarded. That would have been a different experience. And it wasn't after. Yes.

No, because I never sat back down. I walked to the. I mean, I call it a bar because it was an L-shaped, like, wooden counter behind which this flight attendant, so to speak, bar tender. But there was nothing, I mean, it was plain. There was no, there were no bottles. There was no food displayed. How did I even know they had peanut eminums? I had no idea.

There was nothing. There was nothing. You did ask for, you requested it. And I just specifically asked for. I just. And they had it. And do you remember receiving them? eating them? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And at the yellow package, I love peanut items. I tore it open and popped a few in my mouth. And that's when the

pilot came on and said, we're going back because of technical difficulties. Do you, do you ever put them in the freezer? I don't. I'm not a candy freezer person. Fair enough. Fair enough. I was going to say, I love the way they, I love the way they crunch and the, and the chocolate's hard. And it does a little something to the peanut. Like, I think frozen peanuts aren't as good. So, I don't know. It very much changes the texture. Frozen, yeah, he freezes. I was going to say he freezes his nuts, but yeah. And this weather, his nuts probably are frozen right now.

Right, for sure. Yes. Okay. So there's, you mentioned it as authenticity to yourself. And that's what I was mentioning, the idea of that's fantastic. You came to that on your own. And it's not something, it's, I'd say it's more important that that association was volunteered than I had to suggest it.

And you go, is it? I don't know. I don't want to put ideas and people said as much as. possible. That said, the alternative perspective that I was considering is the idea of you've mentioned it as your favorite treat in a way that you don't have very often. And that, and sometimes we use those as rewards for accomplishing goals. Like if I get this done, I'll reward myself. I'll get, I'll get my favorite treat. So there's something, there's, there's a comfort food aspect to it as well. So, you know, favorite, favorite treat, reward, comfort food, authentic, all of that kind of blends together

in this thing. So you're in this experience and you're like, if we're conceptualizing it as bringing traveling, go ahead. I felt out of place is what I'm gathering because everything you said, I definitely felt that those M&Ms were some, because I thought immediately when I woke up that, you know, and had that comfort food. and indulgence, but it's something that's very casual and common and not seeming to be like they should, I mean, they shouldn't have even had them. I would have expected them to have more, you know, fancy stuff.

Yeah, exactly. Or at least in that. So maybe it was, yeah, I just felt like there was some need for me to find something more true to me or some return to, to, just my casualness and my who I am. I don't know. Yeah, no, exactly. That's shades.

It's like, it's like, maybe I was uncomfortable in the state. I call it a state. Yeah, uncomfortable being so dressed up and putting out this. I always call it a pretense because it's a facade, but. Yeah.

I wrestle with that too, the idea of like, Yeah. If it's not, if I'm putting on a display that for the sake of approval, how do I, how do I balance that with the proper idea of authenticity, you know, because, and then there's different, and a lot of it I put as, you know, contextual is like, I put on pants before leaving the house, even if I don't wear them at home, that kind of a thing. It's like sometimes you do this for others as a little nod, but, you know, that doesn't mean

I'm going to buy the most expensive designer pants I can afford. Right. I don't go that far. I don't do everything I possibly could. Okay, long story short on that one, a couple of things came to mind of the, you say, you know, comfort food, indulgence. But what came to my mind was simple, simple pleasure, a simple pleasure, something that's not, I mean, you could have, what am I trying to say?

So I was conceptualizing this as well, building that kind of narrative art type of thing. you're entering a plane with with as as I phrased it earlier like you know your personal power and your and your public image and you're traveling towards you're engaged in travel which is typically movement towards a destination you don't travel for nothing you travel to get somewhere so there's there's a lot of metaphorical moving towards a goal in the act of travel so you get on a plane to go somewhere that somewhere is the goal and in the middle of the flight you go to the bar and and you to to visualize yourself receiving something and it's something you want and it's this very simple thing that you have at home that you don't have to go anywhere to get it's it's the most basic thing that that doesn't match as you were saying with the hoity to haughty side of things like the so what came to my mind was the idea of of the reward for the journey like you're what am I trying to say you're you're imagining maybe why am I doing this?

What do I want out of this experience? And if we go with that idea of, you know, do I really want to get to the goal or would I be happy with a bowl of peanut M&Ms? You get the peanut M&Ms, you eat them. And the pilot comes on and says, uh, technical difficulties, we've got to go back. And that sequence of events. And then you're back on the ground. It's like the, you showed the journey, the entire journey being canceled because something was not working correctly. So I think there's something.

I think there's something going in there about like you evaluating, what do I want out of this experience? What's the reward I'm aiming towards or the accomplishment in some ways? And you're like, you know, how accomplished do I need to be? I'd be happy with a bowl of P&M's. I mean, what do I really want? And that could very well be. I'm going to stop there.

I'm going to stop there. No, that could very well be. So thoughts going through my head. I'll go backwards. Just what you just said now that I'd be happy with a bowl of. of Evanoms. I have had a lot of people just personally. I know they're rooting for me and I know they mean well, but they're like, oh, hope you're making money on this. People equate success and money and I am repeatedly defending that, number one, I will never see the amount of money,

you know, come back to me that I have put into this, you know, project of publishing books and websites and all this stuff that I'm doing. But the goal has always been to just help people. And I knew that going into it. And I think that's why I'm like, you know, even when I got my first royalty check, it was like, oh, how much was it? How much was it?

I don't even know. It was like 25 bucks. I don't even know. But it was like, I don't know why people think, like they have this expectation. And I never had it because I know how this stuff works. I never did it for that. I just did it because I wanted to save other people and to make them more aware and to also

just be an example. Like you can go through crap. We all go through crap, but you can be okay. You can laugh. You can still enjoy life. You can still get married and have a healthy relationship. You can still live your damn life. You don't have to live in your victimhood and cry the rest of your life and then die and

that's it. So then the other part of that I'm wondering that, That's just speaking to the, I'm happy with the M&Ms because I would love, I am very happy with just plain old M&Ms. You're probably going to go buy some today. You've been talking about it. Yeah, I know, right? No, it's too icy out there. Otherwise, I would.

But now I'm wondering if the takeoff and the return and the M&M, like I'm wondering if all this was maybe a return. to exactly who I am. Like I was right back to where I started because one of the things that I joke about almost every day is I'm Dana in real life, but then like I joke when I put on it, you know, for a lot of speaking engagements, like the summit that I'm doing later this week,

I will have my hair done and I will put on a blouse and I will have my makeup. And I always joke with my husband, okay well now I'm going to go be other Dana because it's like my I call it my alternate personality you know and or you know my alter ego so I sometimes feel that that's an authentic in itself that there's like two Dana's there's date like you're seeing Dana Dana like this is just who I am every day I've been writing all morning and then I'm podcasting with you and then I'm going to go write again the rest of the night and make some hot cocoa and eat some

probably garbage because I can't today. And then at the end you say, today was a good day. And then at the end, I say today was a good day because honestly, today has been a really good day. I haven't had to deal with, you know, all the other stuff or worry about, you know, like, I'm glad like the first time you cussed on this. I mean, it's not like we're throwing them out there left and right, but we're just being you and me.

Whereas sometimes, like when I speak in the summit, I got it. I can't let a word like that slip, which is fine. I know how to turn it off. But again, we're going into, here's my alter ego that I joke about all the time. And then yet I'm trying to just hold on to who I am because I feel like that's like the sellout version. Like that's the version of me that, you know, even on, I hate to say people, if you do go to follow me on Facebook or Instagram, I mean, that's fine. and it's me you're engaging with, but like even my friends in real life

are like your professional pictures on, they don't even look like you. Like they're me, but they're not me. And here, well, I'm just now thinking of another aspect of this. Yeah. I remember the last, like, you know, we get reviews as podcasters or for interviews I do on the radio. People might comment or on social media. And I remember not that long ago, maybe in the last week or two, reading to my husband,

we were laying down to go to bed at night, but I always have my laptop with me. And I'm like reading him some, you know, oh, she's amazing and resilient and brilliant and all this stuff. And I remember looking at him and saying, who the fuck are they talking about? That's that. Like, they hadn't seen me cry like a goddamn baby on Christmas Eve because, you know, of this mother wound that I had. have that, you know, yeah, I'm healed and I'm good, but let me tell you, sometimes you go backwards a few steps before you have to stand back up and wipe off the dirt and keep going forward. But I'm like, who are they talking?

Like, it does, I remember saying specifically, I feel like people, even though I'm trying to present this authentic thing and whatever, like, sometimes I think, like, they're creating this version of me that I don't even see myself as. for sure no that's a big problem too there's very much a curated best parts version of ourselves that a lot of us put out in public and that happens yeah i mean that's actually like an uh one ancient pattern but we even go back to like say the uh the stereotypical perfect looking family but then they got some dark secrets and that's i mean that's a trope that's a whole theme of things you know that's and that's you probably well you live for that yeah public

persona, everything's fine, but in the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So there's, and probably, you know, it's interesting too because you and I ended up in a lot of the same places in terms of our thinking about some things. Yeah. Even though my experience was very much different from yours. I love both my parents. They were always good to me.

I was a little shit and caused endless problems for them. They never worried about whether I was going to find my own way. But, you know, but, you know, so apologies to my parents out there. And thanks for never, literally. murdering me for being an asshole. Yeah. I was going somewhere with all that. Oh, the idea of,

nope, lost it again. Damn, public persona. You were saying because we came from different perspectives, different pasts, but we came to a lot of the same conclusions and ideas about these things. For sure. Yeah, in public,

well, the any public persona, there's a lot of us put on different masks and they can be specific to the role. I mean, if you're in the role of a surgeon, your job is to fix the heart. And so we constrain ourselves. Yeah.

But the problem with, say, the best parts version we put online, so other people look at that and go, they compare it to the full knowledge of themselves. And like, I'm not that good. They're not that good either. They're not as perfect as they look because we pick the best. Exactly. We don't pick the worst photograph of ourselves to put online.

We pick the one we think is best. Exactly. We tell the stories that we think make us look good. And that's why I think, you know, I'm not, I can't handle most reality TV. these days. And I was never really big into it, but the real world was interesting.

Even that was a curated version, but it was not scripted. It wasn't as produced as they are now. They are way overproduced album. Because I remember the very first season ever of the real world on MTV. There was some shit went down. Yeah. And actually now we're,

Oh my God. I remember that too. Now there's a new show. And I'm not watching it either because I just, I can't handle. My wife likes some of, those like bad girls club where they let's put the worst possible people the real housewives and stuff let's put all the worst people in house and watch them screaming at each other i get

viscerally angry i have to leave the room i cannot watch that stuff which makes good tally but yeah drama i guess but uh um even that is you know poked and prodded and escalated and selectively all yeah all that good stuff but anyway my wife doesn't watch this stuff anymore we turn off the cable we didn't have we just like youtube and read books and listen to music um it's going somewhere with that too. Oh, yeah, so we get this, keep it up with the Joneses type of thing where it's like, you know, everyone's trying to put their best foot forward. And then we're all trying to meet each other's fantasy expectations of themselves in a way of, you know, comparison. And it's not just one-uping in a, I'm going to do better than you because, to make myself

feel like I'm better than you, but also to, to, to, if someone's that good, I need to try a little harder or I need to make my public persona a little bit better to keep that, keep that image up. So I was going somewhere with all that. No, I'm I'm with you on this path because I think I'm figuring this all out now and I think we're right on all accounts. But, you know, what it brought to my mind was when my book was about to be released last year and I had this professional photography done that the publisher said I should have and which picture are we going to put in the book and which picture. And there were, I think, like, 180. photos. I had professional hair and makeup and photos and I said I hate all of them. I hate every damn one of

them. My husband looked them all over. He's like, you're gorgeous. Like I need to have some of these blown up. My publisher was like, are you crazy? Like you look beautiful. And I said, but none of them look like me. I don't feel like that's me. I'm looking at them. And I said, there is one out of all of those pictures that to me when I look at it, I'm like, that's, that's who I am. And I sent it to her. And honestly, it was a photo, ironically, that in the midst of this photography session at this professional studio, which cost a freaking fortune, I stopped the photographer. I stopped her direction and everything. I said, okay, just stop. I said, I want you to turn your back to me. Put your camera, like let it down, let it hang off your neck.

I said, I literally just was like, when you turn around, I'm just going to look up at you, snap the picture. Because I'm just, I'm not even going to think. I'm just going to look up at you and snap the picture. She looked like I was a crazy woman, but she turned around. I sat on the floor, criss-cross applesauce, very casual slump shoulders. and when she turned around, I said, I'm going to count to three, one, two, three. And I said, I'm going to look up and you're going to turn around and just snap whatever it is. Don't pose me, don't tell me, just take the picture.

And that was the picture that I told the publisher. I said, that is the only picture of all these 180 I like. And you know why? Because it captured me. And you know what the ridiculous thing was? The photographer, right after she snapped it, she looked at the camera. She goes, oh, my God. I mean, she was just like stunned.

But you know what? She said, that's good, huh? I wasn't, you know what she said? She goes, you look so sad. And I did. It was a very sad expression and I hadn't intended it, but it was the most real. And she also commented. And she's like, I can't believe you're sitting on the floor, Chris Christ.

Because she had me in these fancy, high-backed, you know, velvet chairs and, you know, very ornate, you know. And I'm just sitting on the floor, criss-cross applesauce looking like I just cried my eye. I just literally looked up at her with these sorrowful eyes and I didn't even mean to, but that was to me the only picture. Is that picture anywhere publicly? Oh, they didn't use that one, ma'am.

No. And every day almost I am, because I'm in control of my social media, one of these days sooner than later, I will release it and maybe even tell that story with it because all these other pictures are out there of me with this hair and this makeup. And it's just, you know, it's pretty, I guess. But, you know, it's not who I am.

Yeah, definitely. And then. So I feel like that that's part of this. That something is with this whole blouse and high heels and hair pinned up. And all of this discussion of that broader idea of what is your relationship, ship to your own public image and how important is it that other people, uh, see you in a certain way. I actually, um, I don't know. This might sound narcissistic, but I, I, I pity some people for the amount of effort they put into some things. And, and there's, there's a, I don't know,

again, the reason I went with narcissistic on that side, I was like, well, I think my way is better and therefore they're doing it wrong. This is kind of, there's a bit of a self-aggrandized. in judging other people's efforts. So I try to avoid that in a lot of ways, but I feel sorry for them in terms of like, you know, maybe that's what makes them happy. And it's all genuine for them and they really want to live that way. But I'm like, you're so obsessed with something that I think is ultimately not that important,

not as important as the effort that's being put into it. And I kind of, No, but you know why people do it? And I actually, it's funny because I just wrote about this in the revisions I'm doing in the third book that will be coming out. And it was my reflections on a picture of somebody real. So I'll leave who they are out. But I remember looking at the picture that was in a rustic setting, like it was outdoorsy.

And here's this outdoorsy guy and his outdoorsy sons. And there's the wife. And her hair was curly. but the curls were like too perfect. Even her bangs, not one hair was out of place. They were as like, and her nails were done. And I don't think she ever wore that camo vest or whatever, you know, in those jeans ever before.

But she was trying to look like, like, and to me when I remember, because I wrote a whole page about this, that somebody that strives to look that perfect is hiding something. but there is a sense of control that they have to have in how they look to others because they want to control how they are perceived. And I have a big problem with that. Yet I'm doing it too because here's all these stupid pictures of me. And they're nice, I guess.

I've gotten used to them, but. I think we all struggle with it. I think we do. I try not to go out in public smelling bad because I'm not. I don't want to offend anybody. You know, that kind of a thing. I mean, there's levels to it. That's, okay, maybe that's basic.

Maybe that's basic kindness. You know, in certain countries, that's actually not a problem. So, you know. Absolutely. No, it's definitely cultural standards. And I wonder if there's, I wonder if there's anywhere on the earth. Some tiny little town in some country somewhere where any one of us could go to me, for example, where like all the people there are perfectly.

accepting and good with all by idiosyncrasies and strange beliefs and habits and whatnot. You know, nothing criminal, nothing hurting anyone. Just, you know, just me being weird and doing my own thing. I'm thinking it's a nudist colony somewhere in like Florida or somewhere, you know, where they're just free and everybody is just, you know, has that free spirit and non-judgmental. I just wondered, like, I think it would, I'm not even sure. sure that place exists. I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is that that's why I said, you know, just even the tiniest little hamlet in some backwater of some country

who never heard of where that's the one place. And it may not, it may not exist. Just a little thought of, no, because every, even if you take, you know, let's think about Africa or like some indigenous people on an island somewhere, they still have standards that they hold their people to. and if you don't uphold them, exactly. So I don't think there's an escape from it. Maybe that's maybe, you know what, I am just, maybe that's it. Maybe I feel like I need to escape. Maybe that was my attempt getting on that airplane to escape this sense,

this alter ego and this idea that maybe I'm not presenting about who I really am, but then I return. I have peanut M&Ms and I return back to where I started. Yeah. To just being me. There was, that's what we were trying to connect. I was earlier in saying that is that there's a process to that second act in a way.

Because the third act is like, now you've arrived and there's a scene to it. And I wanted to touch on that too before we forget it exists. But it's kind of a process to that idea of receiving, you know, questioning what you want, receiving it, enjoying it, having it be fulfilling or, you know, reminding you of who you really are in that sense of what's what's important to you or what's satisfying to you and then immediately after that having the technical difficulties announced that caused the plane to land there's some some connection in the sequence of events there that

says you know once you've identified some element of yourself you realize why the process isn't working to take you where you need to go and so you're okay let's go let's just go down Let's stop traveling. Let's get safely onto the ground. And that's a place of reeval evaluation or what is it? You, like it's essay writing, but it's also in the,

was it epilogue? Epilogue of books and movies and stuff like that where they kind of reflect back on what happened and give it some context or, okay, how do the characters feel about their experience? So I think that's kind of what's going on with the, with the landing. You go back on the ground and you and the lion,

walk off the plane down a little set of stairs. I'll tell you, I've been on two planes in my entire life. I don't travel either. Like if I never had to leave in my backyard, I'd be a happy, happy man someday working on it. Yeah, that's my, actually, this is my definition of success. I can earn all the money I need without ever having to leave this, you know, three quarters, three quarters of an acre.

I'm feeling you on that. Right. I understand. And you get off the plane and it's more like a parking lot, not actually like an airport. Yeah. It doesn't feel like I'm at an airport. I mean, there's nothing. I see some kind of maybe a two or three story building, very plain.

Maybe it's like light brick or something, but that's on the other side of the plane. And the plane doesn't even look like. It's not a commercial jet, but it's not a, I don't even know if I didn't really make out the plane itself, but I remember just standing in this desolate airport. And again, there's a few people. but they're just in my peripheral vision. Nobody, like, actually stands out as being anybody or what their purpose is. And no interaction with them.

Yeah. That's why I didn't ask much about the people on the plane. No interaction at all. There's other people. They're just there. Yeah. So I get, I come down off and I go out, you know, a little distance and I'm just standing there with my

line. And there's nothing else there except me and these people standing there. Do you have the sense that it's the same place you left at the beginning? Yes. You do? Okay. Yes. I do have the same sense.

Yes. So there's interesting things that can happen there of like it could be the case that like if you had told it this way. And just as an example, when I left, it was very much an airport. When I came back to the same place, it was not an airport anymore. Is that where you're going with it? Or is it more like you never really noticed what it was before, but you know it is the same place. Even if you never saw. I didn't notice.

what it was before, but I definitely felt that it was the same place. Gotcha. So you maybe so there's, so we're going with that epilogue or third, third act kind of wrapping it all together. Like what's the result of this? What's that? I was thinking like essay style like you, uh, um, you know, you do an introduction, body conclusion.

This is kind of conclusion in a way. Uh, and not all dreams are like this. Some of them are a little more loosey goosey, but, uh, it's now that you've returned to where you started from that you're actually showing. showing yourself having a look at the surroundings. And that's when you realize it was, it's not the typical kind of airport, that it is,

is an airport, but it's not the typical kind, or it's not an airport at all. Correct. It might not be an airport at all. Okay. Interesting. There was nothing else, but that building, which was very plain, and there was nothing, no markings, no nothing. And just sky and this plane,

that I just got off of. Oh yeah, it was all daylight. Yeah. And it was still all daylight. Yeah. Yeah. And that may or may not. Well, you did mention it. So that's probably some relevance there.

Broadly speaking, night and day. Night tends to be, you know, night shadows darkness. Right. It can be a threatening time like the deep dark woods. It can be a time of both concealment or revealed secrets. Can come from night nighttime, night time's period. Right. But I feel like.

the daylight is like I'm seeing something clearly. I can see everything clearly. I'm back to where I started. And I'm fine. Like feeling internally, like I have to say like I wasn't feeling any worry for like, oh, is the plane going to be fixed? Am I going to be able to go on the trip? None of that was happening.

Yeah. I was honestly, I felt very indifferent. I was just there with my lion like, okay, we're just going to wait here patiently. It is what it is. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I felt. Acceptance feeling. You reminded me of something.

So I'm always trying to do this better. I haven't asked about any colors. You never volunteered. So sometimes I don't introduce a lot of stuff. But almost everyone has feelings in their dreams. And you've volunteered a few, but I keep forgetting to ask that kind of stuff. And I'm glad every time you and other guests have done so. I'm pretty significantly on the Aspe.

side of the autism spectrum. I, uh, I've taken a test and I, I, uh, most people have a full range of emotional intensity that goes like zero, zero to 83. I'm at about an 11. So I have emotions. They're there, but they're very, just, just, it's like when you sprinkle a little salt on versus, you know, chew on a piece of beef jerky. It's a very different intensity level. Um, okay. So I don't think, there's one way I'm trying to get better. I don't think to ask people, how are you feeling? How did you feel about that? So it's a great reminder. So you, at the very end of it, there was no, okay, I also wanted to ask in the beginning,

in the middle and at the end. So in the beginning, when you were aware that other people were on the plane and they were probably looking at you, did you have any feelings about that or? No, and I didn't even feel like anyone, the only thing I felt. And it was, that was the only real prevalence of anything really on the plane was, where's my husband? Is he going to make the flight? You know, I was just concerned about where he was because he's always with me.

That's another thing. I wanted to mention his, we'll come back around to his absence briefly. And then in the middle section with the peanuts and the announcement of returning, any intensity of emotion there? And that's the thing. No, no fear that the plane was going to crash. That didn't even cross your mind. No fear.

Yeah, yeah. And really the only color that I'm, I remember in the whole, I mean, it wasn't a black and white dream, but the only color that stood out to me was the yellow. Because, I mean, that peanut Eminem package is a bright yellow. You did mention the color. I remember holding it and noticing. And I know yellow is a happy color. And I actually hate the color yellow.

But I do love it on a package of peanut M&Ms because they are good. That's that context right there. Like probably, I mean, number one, I'm not key to listen for emotion. stuff as much as I should be working on it. But also that kind of explains itself. Why yellow? Because that's the color of the peanut Eminem package. So it's self-explanatory.

One of those things we go, let's really interrogate why that package had to be yellow. No, it's yellow because it's yellow. It just is. Yeah, we don't have to. That's just what it is. A plane has wings. Now, if you were on a plane with no wings and it was still flying, we would talk about that because that's weird.

You know, and actually, if you'd mention that this bag of peanut M&Ms was black and white, it had no intensity. It had no vibrant yellow that I was used. to that would that would stand a lot of times it's when things are missing very yeah no this was a a very clear package of peanut emm and it's yellow packaging with the red and green with the eyes and the hands iconic yeah that's what dream symbols are icons i rhea irographs i think um right so okay all of that to get to the very end where you mentioned emotion and you were more did you say indifferent was was different was how you described it that was what i said indifferent it didn't

matter to me either way. Like I wasn't, I feel like if that had happened in real life, and this is where I'm coming from, I would have been like, oh my God, are they going to put us on the same plane? Is it going to get fixed? Are we going to go on the trip? And like nothing, I was just like perfectly fine, just standing there with my lion. It was, the weather was just, there was no wind, there was no sun. It wasn't cold. It wasn't hot. So, I mean, there was a real. It was just, it was just what it was. And it's funny that you said it is what it is. Yeah.

Yeah. And conversely, or as, as they would say, an Alice in wonderland-hand, contrary-wise, it isn't what it's not. A couple of things. So indifference is its own kind of thing. And that's the way a lot of people conceive of saying, I didn't have strong feelings one way or the other. I was either happy.

nor fearful. You know, that kind of a thing. But there's also a another way to conceive of that. And so there's the Western conception that being indifferent means lacking passion. It's like you don't care about anything so you're indifferent to it. Or if you don't care about a specific thing, so you're indifferent. And it's like a lack of care. But there's a more, say, Eastern conception of the idea of Zen acceptance of being detachment from emotion to the point where you can have it.

and it doesn't move, move you, it doesn't disturb you in a way. So that, that kind of, you seem to be more in a, in a place of Zen acceptance of the circumstance itself of like, it's going to be okay. This is okay. Yeah. And I will, I should note that is not normal for me at all. Because whereas you have difficulty really kind of, you know, with the emotions, I'm like off the damn scale.

because I experience every emotion and even within about 10 seconds, I can go from here to there and everywhere. I am a very sensitive and very emotional person, but I do try to control that a little bit more so I don't take people on the crazy train with me, although it's a great song by Ozzy. But yeah, yeah, that's not who I normally am. I have worked very hard to come to a place of peace and acceptance with my past. And I'm good with that. So maybe that's part of this. Could be. But in real life, no, I, I'm very, I, you know, I, I'm emotional.

I think, I think that very much, there's something of significance there because of the absence of a typical response. Yeah. But there's, there's a, there's a lot of atypical things going on, not, maybe not a lot. Well, no, there's actually quite a few. You're on a plane with the very, very unrealistic seating, seating plan. You're carrying a lion on a leash. The other people aren't afraid. You go to the, you know, cafe section to the bar, and they have your favorite food that you

would not expect to find on an airplane. It's typical that if there were technical difficulties, they would land, but it's atypical you would be, you would not be fearful. It is atypical also that you would have your travel plans canceled and be completely at peace with the whole situation, everything that just happened. Yeah, because I would be undisturbed. Yeah, you're showing yourselves a lot of, you know, I know, I didn't even mention, you had a look of the line on the plane, but dressed way up above what you would ever consider

your normal comfort, you know, so that's atypical of you as well. So there's a lot of reversals, like, counter points to, to go in some way this. I don't know. Yeah. I'm starting to make, no, this is starting to make perfect sense. I think I feel like it's taking us a while to get there, but I think I'm summing it up is that, you know, this alter ego that I joke about that, you know, has the nice hair

like my mother and the journalism to, you know, and the makeup and well dressed and presenting and, you know, we'll call it success, even though we could have a philosophical conversation about that, taking off. I am taking off my career, my whatever it is, my professional, that alter ego is taking off. But I just want to be me. I just want my peanut m and ms,

like literally that when you said that, that just resonated. I just wanted my peanut m&Ms and a return back and to be with my lion. and I was fine. Yeah. Yeah. In a way, if I, if I go on this journey and it doesn't work out and I just end up back

where I started. Like I'm away. That's okay too. Yeah. And that makes sense because I am. And I think that's the part of this that I think people are trying. I think in life people feel like they need to push and strive and more or more. And, you know, even when you just said, you know, you have figured out that success for you is really staying at home.

I joke about that too because it's only been more recently that, you know, God love this man. I'm married to now. I can do that. I'm trying to do what you're doing. You know, he has put us in a position and we have worked together to where I don't have to go get a job. I don't have, I can just stay home and write and podcast. And I mean, there are times I don't leave the house for four or five days. Milk or bananas or ice cream will drive me out because the Amazon guy can't bring those.

But, you know, that to me is success. And I love that. And I love that we just have our life. And so all of this makes sense to me now that, yeah, I mean, whatever happens, happens. But I don't need the more that people are always pushing me for. I hope you're making money with this. hopefully you'll get this you'll sell more books you'll be

on that you'll do more podcasts I'm fine if it all ended right now because I've saved a lot of women I've even men that have been in narcissistic abusive situations I have spread awareness

my my words are out there my presence is there but it's not who I am I'm just what did I tell in the beginning. I'm just me. I'm just here in my house with my cats like you. That's another wonderful full circle type of thing because in the beginning, you know, for 25 years of this marriage, you were trapped at home. Yes. And then you got the ability to

travel and you went everywhere you possible. I got freedom. I went everywhere. And now you've come back around to I don't feel trapped here anymore. Now I feel comfortable here. Now I don't want to leave. Now there's, you know, not that you'll never travel again, but There's no burning desire to get the hell out and go anywhere else. It's like, no, this is, now this is my most comfortable place. It's funny you say that because that was the thing. We went from all balls out to a little less the next year. And my husband used to his way of making me happy was we had a little game that when we were on our way back on the airplane from a trip,

we had to decide where we were going to next trip. And on the way home, I would play. Get the tickets and we were off. And it was planned and I had something to look forward to. But I feel like, I mean, it's funny you say that how you did because just this morning when we were eating breakfast, I said, you know, I hate, forgive me if you're in Illinois, but I hate this god awful state on so many levels.

Lived here, I've been wanting to get out. I almost got out, but my husband came along and it's always about a boy. but we stayed because his kids and grandkids are here. And of course, my son's here too, but I'm not, you know, like I'm good. Like we have Facebook and stuff and, or, you know, Zoom or whatever we want to do. But I said to him this. Yeah, exactly. But I said to him this morning, I said, you know, we haven't been anywhere in a while.

And, you know, I know times are a little tougher than they have been before. But I said, I'm actually getting used to this. I'm actually really blessed. and feeling good about this life and that, you know, I don't have to run away anymore. And so it's, it absolutely makes sense what you just said, that I, I'm good. I'm here and I'm fine and I don't feel like I have to escape anything or run away because a lot of it was running away, I think, too. Yeah, for sure.

But I still would rather fly away right now to a tropical island where it's 80 some degrees and I could have a peanut cloud on a page. I'm just saying. It's hard. You guys probably got 20 below in the last. week out there, didn't you? Something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We got something like that. I'm in Portland, Oregon. We got below 20, which is unusual for around here. It hardly ever drops into the teens, almost never below 10 degrees. So I know when it's, when it's below 20 here, it's like negative 20 somewhere else. Yeah, we have been as low as negative 52 with a wind chill, but that was about five or six years ago.

But yeah, we haven't hit that yet. I could live there either. This is bad enough. I mean, our back here has been icy for a week. and I'm like, that's about the amount of snow I can take. Well, even in Florida, I still have family down there. Even just this past weekend, some parts of Florida were in the 20s and 30s. And they had a weather forecast.

I actually have a picture of it on my phone where they were calling for falling iguanas. Because when it goes under, when it's under 45 degrees, the iguanas become immobilized. They stiffen up kind of like they're, it's like they see. seas, but they paralyze, and they fall out of the trees. So they literally had a forecast in the weather for falling iguanas. So imagine that. I was convinced it was like some of the falling fish phenomenon where they get swept up a little typhoon and the fish rains like miles from the coast.

Like, whoa. Well, um, yeah, yeah, some crazy stuff happening. Well, do you feel like, uh, there's anything we didn't quite cover thoroughly enough? anything you wanted to return to in the dream? Not at all. You got a pretty good narrative. I'm actually really impressed. This was much better than my Google search.

Ask the wizard. Ask the wizard. But I love it because like you said, there were things that you were just voicing that resonated with me very specifically. And I mean, I think that's what we come back to when we talk about what you do. is that, you know, there is some symbolism, you know, that can be generalized in a way, but it really is a unique and very, you know, personal experience because it's your subconscious

and your past and your perspectives and what you're going through now and all these things that are manifesting in a very strange way, but it's not that strange when you're, really break it down. Yeah, that's one of the things it's a, it's a, it's a plus and a minus to what I do. It's like, dreams are fascinating because of the mystery. And then we kind of solve the mystery sometimes and like, oh, well, that's not so fascinating. But now I have an answer. Yeah, no. And so there's a, there's a little, I don't know, it's like solving a whodont. I mean, you get the satisfaction of an answer really. Like, you can ever go back and be mystified by it ever again. That one experience. That will be another. That's the great thing about dreams.

You have another one tomorrow. So, exactly. You get a brand new mystery. I'll have some wild dream that I'll be like, oh my God, I have to call this guy. You might. I've had folks, especially folks who have recurring dreams. They come on when we talk about them. We try and nail down why this format specifically, why does this repeat in this way with these symbols in this sequence? And then they'll get back to me the next day going, oh, my God, I had another dream last night.

And this changed, this dream I've had for 20 years that was always the same. Now it's different. It was the same dream, but it wasn't. Now, because we've solved at least some of the elements of it where they were able to move past the blockage. Once you've been able to see clearly what it is, you don't have to see it like that anymore. Now you can continue the progress. I get it. It's what we were talking about with the neurons and it's what I try to help people do with their trauma because in order to heal from trauma, you have to change something.

But changing something requires figuring out what that little piece is. and then you react differently next time. And then your neurons switch to that route. And they don't go down the usual path as they always have. So it's all connected. Well, that is a perfect time to mention, you know, once again, that this is our friend Dana Diaz. And she is an author with a book out,

gasping for air, the stranglehold of narcissistic abuse. I'm glad I wrote it down. I was never going to remember that. you can find her book and more at dana s dyes.com link in the description below and then i'll just do my little outro real quick uh would you kindly like share subscribe to tell your friends uh always looking for more volunteer dreamers viewers for the game streams uh 17 currently available works of historical dream literature the most recent the fabric of dreams by katherine taylor crag i got so many can't remember the names uh all this

and more at benjamin the dream wizard dot com a full list of all the books links to the Amazon page. Also, Benjamin the Dreamwizard.locals.com starting a new, well, by the time you see this next weekend, I will have already started a new video game, but you can go there and get the most recent custom cocktail for each video game I play. This one coming up is, it's entitled Rocket Fuel, because I'm playing Guardians of the Galaxy, and one of the characters is Rocket Raccoon. Long story short, I'm shilling at length again.

I'm just going to go back to Dana. Thank you for being here. Very enjoyable to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Good deal. And the last thing to say is for everybody out there. Thanks for watching.