Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 154: Love Is A Battlefield

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

Shemeka Michelle ~ https://www.shemekamichelle.com/

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Shemika Michelle from Durham, North Carolina. You may know her as a, I can't remount handwriting here. Honestly, what's going on with me? A Blaze contributor, author, and of course one of my mutuals on X. You can find her at Shemika Michelle. That'll be in the description below, of course. Right back to our guest in two seconds.

If you would, or rather, would you kindly? Like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about this show. always looking for more volunteer dreamers, always looking for folks to join me while I play video games in the evening. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent The Fabric of Dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig, all this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, including downloadable MP3 audio versions of this very, this very dream interpretation interview show. What else? Oh, yes.

And if you would also head on over to Benjamin the Dream Wizard. dot locals.com trying to build a community there. That's, uh, you know, probably where I'd love to get most of my dreamers someday. Let's, let's do something there. People fascinated by this subject and, uh, we'll all come together and, uh, and talk about it with each other. So that is enough shilling out of me. Back to, uh, Shemika, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Very cool. Well, speaking of reaching out, I mean, it was just a few days ago. You messaged me at like, my time. I think it was like 4.30 in the morning or something like that. And you're like, I had a dream, we need to talk.

So you had, you had just woken up from it at that time. Yes, I was probably up maybe, I don't know, maybe 30 minutes at the time when I reached out because it was just bothering me so much. And I could clearly just see your name in my head. So I just went to X and sent you a message. That is so cool. I was pleasantly surprised. You know, it's not a lot of folks. I've had a couple folks reach out and say they had a dream.

and they have been, they have been guest too, but it's been rare enough that I'm like, oh, get a little for clempt, you know, like I get that feeling of like, someone knows me and they believe what I do is number one real and that they would trust me to try and help them figure it out. That's a very, what is what sort of I'm looking for? I feel like tremendously respected in that sense. And it's just, it's an honor, honestly, for me, you know, as much as I think I'm, I think I'm good at what I do, but, you know, to have other people say they think so and

then put their dream in my hands to help them. It's, uh, it doesn't get better than that. Yeah. So, I was surprised because I thought maybe we had talked before, but we have no history in,

um, in the DMs. So I was just thinking like, it was just so easy for me to go and find your name because I could clearly see it. And that made me feel like, okay, we must have had some type of conversation in DMs before. And no,

we had it. So I was like, well, it's meant to be. Yeah. Well, I think we are ex-mutuals in that sense. I think we both follow each other or at least I follow you for sure. And I think we have had an exchange or two on different topics. I mean, whatever anyone reaches out on X, I'm like, of all the crazy things I've said, at least I haven't offended or scared off this person yet.

I see all kinds of stuff. That's kind of my, it's kind of my stick. Yeah. I think it's sometimes you've got to be free to. just throw crazy shit out into the world. And because you're, you're honestly thinking it, whether you believe it or not, or whether it's, it's well formulated, whether it's your final opinion and, you know, or the firmest of, sometimes you just got to say things, say, okay, what, what if? I think I threw one out there

recently, which was, um, uh, oh, I can't even remember, if I can't remember the phrasing. I think I was following, yeah, it was following, uh, James Lindsay. So, okay, so number one, this, this show is like it's not political at all. We don't, but, I mean, if it comes up, and that's actually kind of the business. You're in a social and political commentator and whatnot. So I think it was following James Lindsay, and he mentioned something about the Christian churches being infested with like DEI or communist stuff. And I threw out and I just had this thought and I threw it out there.

I said social justice is a fundamentally Christian nationalist project discuss. I don't know if that's true or not. The thought occurred to me and I just put it out there and nobody responded. That's fine, fine. Maybe they're like, I don't know what that means. Maybe like, I don't care. Maybe like he's an idiot. I don't know.

I'm trying to put together the pieces as much as anyone else. I don't know what I'm talking about either. So, but that was just, that's one of those things where it's like, I don't know that I have an actual strong opinion. I made a statement. I did. Just for discussion. So people have ideas or they don't. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if you found that, found that to be true too. Sometimes you just float things out there and see what people have to say. Oh, yeah. A lot of times I just say something. And actually, I'll forget that. I've said it and some you know I'll come back a hour or two later and I may be getting cursed out and I'm thinking gosh what are they cursing me out about what did I say and I have to go and look back at my tweet or my post or whatever and I'm like oh I forgot I said that because you know I felt that way an

hour ago I just put it out there and then I moved on with my life and other people did yeah exactly no that's that's that's that's right too and that's where I'm at on a lot of these things of like I don't remember half the things I say and that's that's another reason why in terms of my my memory's not the greatest and and I very easily distract I'll go off on tangents we'll do big loops sometimes but I think that's one of the things that actually makes me a little it gives me an edge or a special talent in the dream interpretation type of thing is all of a sudden I'll just get a little explosion of tangents I'm like we got to follow those I don't know why I don't know where they're going they might all be wrong but let's just talk about that for a minute and then see if we

can relate it to something. And that happens, you know, you're not going to get the most in my books, you will, get, you know, as refined and focused facts in a lot of ways or clear, clearly spoken thoughts. And mostly in the footnotes, that's mostly what I do with that kind of stuff. But yeah, when I'm just trying to figure things out like everyone else, I don't think we have enough grace in the public sphere to have the conversations we need to, to make good decisions. I really worry about that sometimes.

Yeah, I definitely don't worry about it. Sometimes people want you to put a whole dissertation in, you know, just a few characters. And I'm like, I can't give you my entire train of thought in a post. I'm not even interested in doing that. Now, if we were to have a conversation, we may could eventually get to where I'm trying to go. But just in a post, I'm not going to sit here for hours trying to get you to explain. Sometimes when people even ask for explanation, I don't give it to them because I feel like it's more in depth than I have time for. So I just keep it moving most of the time.

You know, I like to keep things kind of lighthearted, but some people are like, you know, you can't just say that. And I'm like, I can just say that because it's freedom of speech number one. And it's my platform, you know, it's my page or whatever. I can say what I want on my page, my account. Yeah, but I, you know, I don't think too much into it a lot of times. Yeah. Well, you made two great points there, at least one point, and then I had a tangent, of course. But the idea that you just, you say it, you express yourself to the best of your ability at the moment with, with what you're thinking and the way you're trying to present it.

And you might miss a word. And I hate it when, when this happens too. It happens far too much. I think people are looking for a gotcha. They're like, oh, you forgot to say most because not all, not all.

And I'm like, can you just give me the, like, just assume I said not all. Because nobody thinks all, you know. Yeah. I mean,

that's common sense to me. I intentionally, a lot of times, will not say most or few or not all because I feel like if you have any type of intellectual ability, you can figure that out. It should be.

a given and I shouldn't have to say it if it doesn't apply let it fly you know yeah so I don't even get too worked up about the whole not all thing because people should be able to figure it out and if you if you can't you shouldn't be following me like you're not we're not in the same ability grouping it's very true yeah well then that that gets me to my my second point of the inspired things because when you said the idea of I'm not writing a whole dissertation here Like this is, you're asking a question. You're asking me to give so much detail that it would require an actual essay of multiple pages and citations. I can't be bothered to do that.

That's just not going to happen. They're like, oh, you're running away. Oh, my God. No, I just don't care. You know, then I love, I love posting that. What is it? Understandable. Have a great day.

Get out that meme. That's fine, fine, whatever. Not is, okay. We're done. That's my answer a lot of times. I used, it was years ago. I used to be a little more intent upon, I don't know what I was trying to do. Did I think someone was going to change their mind when they were coming at me hard from

the opposite side? Did they think I was going to change my mind? I'm like, what are people doing? What do they expect? I don't even know. We're all just sharing our thoughts. Just, okay, that's a thought. You had a thought.

That's interesting. Now, maybe I agree. Maybe I don't. Maybe we argue about it. Maybe we don't care. But it's, oh. Yeah. I don't know.

I was having to chat with a lady. I mean, I went to a doctor's appointment. I'm sitting in the lobby. Strike up a conversation with a gal. And we were talking about human evolution and the idea of, you know, the changes in the last hundred years are so different than what we experienced for thousands of years and not just 2,000, not just 5,000, but like 12,000, a long time, but 350,000 possibly. We were never evolved for this level of interconnectedness.

And a lot of people say that and no one really knows what to do about it. I don't know either. I mean, I don't want to see government force come in like. ban all smartphones. You're not allowed to have social media. I don't like that idea at all. Then again, we're not sure how to handle it. We're revolved for these small groups of so that the social opinion of the people around us that we live with that our actions directly affect have impact on us. I mean, that's a good thing to be in a group of people that are your people and you care for and support each other. So when someone says, hey, you kind of hurt my feelings,

that means something. Then again, you get, you know, seven billion people on the planet. it and a tiny, tiny slice of them all, even if it's a couple thousand, say, you hurt my feelings. And it's like, it hurts us in a way that it shouldn't because we don't know them. They're not our neighbors. They're not our family. They're not our friends. They're not in any kind of a tribal group around us. But we feel it anyway.

And I think we're still trying to figure out what to do about that. I don't know. Yeah. I was just talking to someone the other day and just saying how when I get with my classmates, because we still get together a lot, you know, whether it's reunions or just saying, hey, I want to, you know, we need to hang out. We're never on our phones because we didn't grow up in a time when you were constantly on the phone. So it's like when we get together, we are entertaining each other and having conversation and the phones rarely come out unless we just want to take a picture to, you know, capture the moment. But then you can go in other circles and you don't have that type of relationship and everybody's on their phone, you know.

And I think that like some of the things that social media has done is good, you know, and I think about the fact that I know you, you know, and I was able to reach out to you. We're doing this here right now because of that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, that's great. You find, you know, some of your tribe, you know, like. like, oh, you know, I don't have anybody in my immediate circle that I would just say, hey, help me interpret this dream. But social media has made it so I have somebody in my immediate circle, you know, that I can actually reach out to.

And so those are good things. But then when you think about how people sit and they judge their lives based on what they think they see from someone else and then they become depressed because they feel like, you know, I'm not where I think that person is, then that's the downside. And I also see the downside with a lot of these kids nowadays. It's like the camera phone, and I'll say, especially in the black community, it's like the worst thing that has ever happened to us because there's this sense of, I don't want to be embarrassed.

You know, I don't want to go viral and I'm, you know, maybe getting beat up or something. And so then I have to do something that I normally would not have done 20 years ago if the camera phone didn't exist. You know, I just. Yeah. So it's the good and the bad, you know, I hate it for the kids that are or the younger people that don't know both worlds. And so they don't know how to navigate. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a lot of questions about whether kids should be using that stuff at all. I mean, we used to be able to grow up and make our mistakes privately. Right. I did a lot of cringy shit when I was, you know, a teenager and younger. And I'm kind of glad there's not video of that out there, you know, forever on the internet. I think, I don't know how to, I don't know how to solve for any of these things. I guess we're all just kind of talking talking through the problem. I think some of it is, I think as with most things in the world, a lot of the answers have got to be social.

It's got to be we discuss and agree amongst ourselves. You know, this isn't working. the way it's happening. What if we approached it a different way? What if we all made different choices? And it's hard to get everyone on the same page on that, but I don't see that there's, you know, me being broadly libertarian, I'm like, well, I don't like using force.

So I'm going to use a whole lot of words. And, you know, before I would ever consider regulation or government of intervention or any of that kind of stuff, you know, it's, I would almost rule that out intentionally. But, you know, there's some things it's, you know, you probably want people arrested for murder. Fair enough. Do we want people arrested for, you know,

using a cell phone while a minor. No, that's probably not a good idea. Right. That's not going to help anybody. But, well, okay, so we got your social media presence and whatnot, but you're also a Blaze contributor and an author. And I wanted to ask you about some of your books. I don't think I know what you got out there.

I just have one book. It's called Keep It Naked, a Naked Girl's Guide to Live Life Authentically. And it's actually, it's an old book. It came out in 2016. And I can just talk about the name for a bit. I had a group called The Naked Girls, and we were just a group of women. Naked to us meant to live life, open, honest, and emotionally exposed. So we just vowed to kind of be open and honest with our thoughts.

And I used to be really heavily in the church. And then I went through a divorce. and I felt like going through that divorce, I had to pretend. You know, like I still had to go to church and sing and dance and preach and teach, although my life was cracking like glass. And so it was kind of at that moment that I said, I don't want another woman to have to be going through something or in a place where she can't be honest because everybody around her is lying

and everybody, then she feels like she has to, you know, live or tell a lie. I just want to be open about the things that I struggle with or I'm happy about, you know, just being honest. And so I started this group called Naked Girls. That's where it came from. And people used to ask me a lot of questions and my tagline was keep it naked. You know, a lot of people say keep it real. but for me it was keep it naked because when you're naked you can't hide anything. So that was my tagline and people would ask me questions about, you know, a variety of things,

parenting, marriage, divorce. And so I decided to put it all in one book. So it's really like a self-help book based on my life experiences. And I haven't written another book yet, but I am working on one, on feminism. And so, but that's the book that I have out. And I always have to give the explanation because people will just assume, you know, even on the front of, on the cover, I'm naked, but it's not about little nakedness. Kind of live nude girls, but not that way.

Right. Yeah, yeah. No, that's fantastic too. It's like that's, I think we need that in our lives. We've got to have at least some people close enough to us that we can be authentic with. We wear a lot of masks in public and we have to to some degrees and we overdo it to some degrees. And that's, that's tough. If your entire personalities of facade, that's not working for you.

If you never adjust your behavior to circumstances, that's a problem. There's a time and a place for, you know, a season for all things, as they say. But if you don't have someone where you can be a little more on the raw side, where you can drop most of the masks and the only, the only role your. playing is is a genuine partner in a in a mutually in a relationship of mutual respect, you know, and that kind of a thing. And then anything else flies as long as you're, as long as you're enacting that role. And then you can be authentically naked in front of another person. I don't know if any of that's speaking, speaking to the way you view it. Yeah, you know, I just think like, especially if you need help, um, if you, if you,

are lying about where you are, you know, and that's even just in, in the natural, you know, if my car breaks down on Austin Avenue and I'm on the phone with the tow truck, but I tell the tow truck, yeah, I'm on Roxborough Road, you know, because it's a much better, you know, Roxburgh Road is where all the happening people hang out, you know. He'll never find me because I'm lying. I'm actually on Austin Avenue, and I need to be honest about that. So, that I can actually get the help that I need. And so that's kind of what I found with a lot of people. You can't really get the help because you're having to wear this mask

or pretend that things are what they are not. And a lot of people just stay stuck in the same place because of that. And so that was for me the biggest thing, you know, because I just saw so many people not advancing in life because people say all the time, I don't care about the opinions of people, but most of the time they do, which is why they stay stuck in certain areas because they're afraid to actually be honest, you know, so that they can grow and evolve and move past that. Because sometimes you need help.

You need somebody to grab your hand and walk you out of that place. but if you aren't willing to be honest about where you are, you don't get that. You won't get that help. Yeah, for sure. That's it. I love that. It's a great analogy. If you don't tell the tow truck driver where you actually are, they can't bring the truck

to tell you. This is not going to happen. Yeah, you got to. That's a great thing, too, like some of these psychological principles. First, you got to admit there's a problem. Then you got to ask for help. You know, even if the only person you're asking for help is yourself, that can be the first layer of like, okay, what can I do to fix this?

admit there's a problem and then start asking that question. And there's a, I don't remember whether it was, I mean, I'm always thinking about Jordan Peterson. He probably said something about this, but like that, an act of prayer in a ways, like opening, opening yourself up to the possibility of receiving an answer for a struggle that you're having. And you just ask the question and you put it out there and focusing your mind in that direction is, it's kind of a, I was playing with this idea too. I put out a tweet. I can't remember. I'm still called on tweets. I can't Zit's.

Yeah. Posts, whatever we call them. Um, that said something about like, you know, it's, there's a, it's expressed as like seek and you shall find. And people look at that like, well, I've saw it for a lot of things and I never found it. So it's not, not all. Again, we get that thing.

And I'm like, but the principle is if you never look, you're never going to find. You have to look so that finding is even possible. Um, so that, yeah, that's number one. And then if you can confront yourself and say, I am. I'm not handling this well on my own. I'm not sufficient to the task. It's overwhelming relative to my ability, which could be better another day, but it's not good enough right now. Then you got to open that up to other people and say, hey, can you help me?

And I struggle with that myself too. Okay, so a lot of people, their primary purpose is I don't want to be embarrassed. I don't want to appear weak. For me, it's more like, I don't want to be a burden. That's my struggle. And both of those are valid things. Like you don't want to make yourself dependent on someone and get. into a codependent,

abusive relationship or whatever, or be just a moocher or a lazy, you know, whatever. So there's an extreme on that side, too. The other side is, you know, no one really wants to look weak or embarrassed. And of course we avoid that too, but there's healthy ways to go about that to say, I am, I'm only human. I'm insufficient to this task. But my struggles, I'm, I'm a crazy person.

I think I'm a wizard. So being embarrassed is not my problem. My problem is that, burden being a burden on other people i don't want to ask anyone to help me i don't want to like god it's hard for me to do that sometimes so i don't know which side you fall down on yourself mostly um i think both at times number one i think it can be difficult to ask for help because i sometimes don't want to be vulnerable to look like i need it you know what i mean like like who can you trust sometimes to actually be completely honest with.

And that is, because, you know, you have this where people think that you're strong and you always have it all together. And then the moment you don't have it all together, you have to watch them fall apart because they're so used to you having it all together that when they see that you don't and they look at you like you're some type of hero or superhero. you know, because you always have it together. Now you have to, you weren't all right, but now you got to be all right because now you got to comfort that person that thought that you were always all right.

So it's like I have, I fall down on both sides because, you know, just people are used to some people being that strong person all the time or always having an answer. and sometimes I don't have an answer. And that's kind of going back to the naked, you know, thing. It's okay to say, I don't know. You know, maybe I'll know tomorrow. Tomorrow I may have an answer or next week I may have an answer. But today I'm confused and I'm not sure which way to go.

And I'm afraid because I don't want to make a mistake or, you know, I don't want to make the wrong choice and it be a catastrophe. And but sometimes that's the truth. That's how we're feeling. We don't know. And it's, it's okay to say that. Yeah.

I'd say that's a, that's a fantastic expression of strength, too, to say overcome our tendencies to avoid embarrassment or avoid being a burden. And to say, okay, this, in this circumstance, I'm going to resist those urges.

I'm not going to let that side of my personality control me. And I'm going to analyze it, uh, realistically and say, you know what? in this case, I do need help. This is just true. So, and then the, so the strength to resist the urges and then, and then also to ask for that, for that kind of a help. And it's, it's huge. And I think the more we do that, we find that there's actually people around us that, even the

ones that look up to us. And they're like, finally an opportunity for me to help you. And they're looking, they're actually looking for that. And I found that, I found that in some circumstances. We're like, hey, I hate to ask you. And they're like, would you ask me something, anything already? You never ask for anything. I'm always coming to you. Like, I know, I know. So, actually, I like that too. It reminds me of some, I don't know, anime or movies came to mind where, you know, the invincible hero. And then all of a sudden he's at one of his low points.

He gets trounced by a guy that was just a little too tough for him. They make their escape and his companions got to address his wounds. And I'm like, that happens. That happens. The most, we've gotten away, I think, well, this is the whole connected with like the dream things. It's like, we've gotten away from archetypal, mythological. stories that show heroes as having human foibles. I mean, heroes, heroes were never perfect.

And we've gotten into this, this age of, in some of the comic book heroes, that's our new mythology in a way. So I think that's why the whole Marvel thing and the Marvel gods and different stuff they are going on in there. And they're a little too perfect in some ways. And their flaws are like charming rather than kind of,

sometimes your heroes also did some bad things. They did some really great things, but nobody's perfect. And you get these images of too much perfection. I'm like, okay, you're never going to live up to that. That's not someone you can actually emulate. So I'm a little more of a fan of like the old Greek heroes where like they were not perfect people.

Some of them weren't even good people, but they did necessary or great things in the context of the story. That's, yeah. Well, that's speaking of books and like that's something I want to get around to writing someday. A new series that's been percolated in my head and I might be three or four years away from even starting. but the idea of a wizard's guide to X, Y, Z, like an idiot's guide or, you know, Windows for Dummies.

And it'll be talking about Aesop's fables and Greek mythology, the stories of King Arthur and Knights of the Roundtable, Holy Grail, all that stuff. I think that needs to be reintroduced to a new generation. So I'm hoping to be able to do that. We'll see. That's just an idea I've got going on. I don't know if you wanted to talk about what you're theorizing for the next book. You want to keep it a surprise? That's up to you.

No, no pressure. Well, it's going to be on feminism and it's going to really be how it's destroyed the black family. I know that a lot of families are struggling with feminism and the thoughts of it. But I have to write about, I think I do better writing about stuff that I'm very familiar with. And I can just look around to see in my own family or friends. friends and their families, how over the generations, the idea of I Don't Need a Man has just been very detrimental because we don't hear a lot of, we see a lot of other groups of people feeling like, you know, they want, you know, fairness or whatever, but we've taken it to the

stream of I don't need a man and our communities across the country are suffering because we are bringing up a lot of people who don't have that mom and that dad and that most of the time the dads bring that discipline and sturdiness that kids need that they don't have and so we're watching them kill each other. They lack conflict resolution skills. They're ending up dead or in jail. And it's really bad. When I think about what life was like for me when I was younger,

and what it is now, it's a lot different. You know, I think about when I was young, I could walk to the store, walk into my neighbor's house and the doors unlocked, you know, to now you have the doors locked, bolted, the alarm is on, there's a camera watching you. I mean, things are just so different, and I wouldn't dare let my kids walk. I used to walk sometimes home from school. My kids never did that.

They never had that experience because things have just changed so much. And I know that in predominantly black communities, a lot of that is because the fathers are absent from the homes. And the ideals of feminism kind of took root and went in a negative direction. You know, this whole, I don't need a man, is just crazy because the kids need a father. And we don't have that. and it's we can see, I can see a big change from just my, in my lifetime. This dog, these are, uh, my animals are value added content, but man, they just will not sit still and let me concentrate.

What are you trying to do, butters? You want to get down? Let's put you down. Let's do this. Let's put you down. Okay. We'll drink some water or something. They'll probably go lay on the bed.

Um, no, I, I'm with you 110% on all that stuff too. you know, I used to, I had my own, what might say political evolution. I mean, I've always been kind of on the libertarian side of things. So I don't want to exert control over anyone. And I don't want anyone to tell me what to do either. So it's that kind of mutual respect of like, hey, you do your thing, I'll do mine. No, no problem. And we don't, we don't mess with each other.

But I've always also been a little more on the, you might say, like, socially conservative side of like, there's more things that I think are the right way to do it. even if I wouldn't force you to do it. It's like one of those things where I'm saying, you know, I wouldn't recommend letting a firecracker go off in your hand. I'm not going to arrest you if you try. I think it carries its own natural consequences. But I'm going to tell you, I think that's a bad idea.

I do the same with the drug stuff. Like, in my opinion, heroin should be illegal. And you should not do it. That's a very bad idea. And then we, you know, things go from there. And then we've gone back and forth on the whole drug war thing. This is my basic perspective. So earlier in my life, I used to be a little more on the,

the um there's a a lot of people confuse libertarianism for libertine hedonism and they're not synonymous it's not the same thing it's not an endorsement it's like yes you can do that no syphilis is very bad and you should maybe not have so much sex that you disease yourself this is a bad idea like yes you should have the freedom to do it i strongly recommend against it so the um that's okay so all of that to say going back to the whole i used to consider myself a feminist when I thought it meant, oh, that's the idea that women are equal to men. And, okay, well, we're all human, okay. And I didn't think, and then the more I looked into it, though, the more of like, oh, feminism was a mistake. This was not good. And you mentioned something

that, I mean, just instantly the reversal in my head, imagine men saying, I don't need no woman. Okay, now men and women don't form partnerships anymore. And now they don't have kids together. And now society falls apart. And or the human race. goes extinct. None of this, none of this is good. And I wouldn't necessarily force people to, you know, again, using force to try and fix these problems. But I would tell people, yeah, not good to have a kid out of wedlock, not good to raise, raise children intentionally in a father was home. These are not good. It's not good for, it's not good for the mother. It's not good for the kid, of course. It's not good for the community society and it just

scales up from there, this whole grassroots level problem. It's actually, I don't know if you caught it. Ben Shapiro and Destiny had a debate on Lex Friedman the other day. I think his name's Lex Friedman. I didn't see that. Very interesting. Very interesting. I love the two of the fastest talkers on the internet. Those guys. It was kind of amazing. You have to put it on point five speed and slow down. Listen to them. But no, they got into that too. And Shapiro was very much, what was it? So Destiny was on the typical, say, you know, progressive or liberal side of things saying, well, schools need more money. And Ben Shapiro was saying homes need fathers. I mean, families need to be intact. This is the base unit of society. And I'm more along that line of thing, line of thinking. You know, and I think

that's where we need to go with some of these things. And a lot of it is that, that ideological stuff. I mean, what people believe, what they worship is what they do. So we've got to be very careful what we're teaching people. What's a, what we encourage, you know, socially. Yeah. I just rambled the bunch there you have anything to say oh no yes you're absolutely right though yeah and that's kind of where i am like i want to get i want to change people's minds i'm not interested in you know some things i would like to change laws like you know i think felons should be able to tow the gun hence you know my shirt black guns matter i'm i'm on i'm on i'm bored with that you are not in prison anymore we're going to take away people's first and fourth amendment right just because

they were a felon at one point? I can't get on board with that. So there are some laws I would love to change, but for the most part, I would like to be, you know, for people to just think differently, you know. If you think, you know, if you start to truly believe, you know, I should probably, you know, get with someone or be more mindful who I lay down with

and who I reproduce with, then that could actually start. to change things, you know, but right now, not what we're seeing, you know. But if I could just get people, you know, to see things differently, that's a start. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people talk about the pendulum swinging and there's, you know, different generations and how they feel and then, you know, kids rebel against their parents. So I think there's good news coming. I think there's a more conservative, order cohering around the idea of, hey, we're looking at recent history, some of the choices we made, some of the things we allowed to occur in terms of giving it permission to be without

stigma or whatnot. And then also, you know, choices, individual choices, structures to, what is it, the breakdown of certain traditions. There's a lot of, there's a whole new crop of kids coming up these days. It gives me a lot of hope. And I'm very, very sure about this. Um, they're like, you know, oh, which guys we're doing in the last, you know, 20, 30, 50 years is messed up. We're not doing that. That's, we're witnessing the consequences and we don't like it. This is something I like to remind people of occasionally. And I don't know if I've said it on here in a while, but sometimes the meaning of your life is to serve as a warning to others.

So, you know, not everyone is going to achieve great things. And, but hopefully you can try not to screw up too bad. But if you do that, that sometimes you got to embrace that too. And that's some of the best, what is it? speaking of drugs, some of the best drug counselors were like, I was an addict. Let me tell you how I kicked it. That is someone who's the meaning of their life

literally has become to serve as a warning to communicate a warning to others to help them, you know, survive the way they did. So it doesn't always have to be a bad thing of like, you know, fuck around and find out. Now you're going to serve as a warning to others. That's, yeah, you know, that's its own kind of thing. And I like those videos on X too.

Yeah. As soon as I turned 18, I went and got a job in a strip club. I have three daughters. None of them have ever worked on the pole. So it's like I went through that and I experienced that negative, you know, part of my life so that I can actually be honest with y'all and talk to y'all about it and keep you from it. You know, if you're wise, you'll learn from my mistakes. And so I'm very happy about that.

So, you know, some of the things that I've done, again, thank God. there was no social media, no cameras. So you don't know if I don't tell you, but, you know, I'm grateful for that. But, you know, the positive of it is I had three girls who I was able to share that experience with. And they don't have to walk down that same road. Yeah, definitely. There's an old joke that's like, you know, father's primary responsibility in life is to keep her daughter off the pole. I always like the way that was phrased too

is like if she doesn't end up having and a lot of it can be there's so many layers to that joke where it's like it's funny because it's true it's like if her relationship with her father is bad specifically there's a high likelihood she's going to look for the wrong kind of attention from men specifically

and that's yeah I think one of the bravest things anyone can do is what you've done is to say you know I'm going to be open about my shame I'm not proud of what I did but I'm going to make it useful to someone else I'm going to try make sure no one else suffers like I did. And that's just, I mean, that's, that's what we should all be doing as much as, as much as

possible, I think. Especially now, because so many people glamorize it, you know, and they make it seem like, oh, you know, you could just buy a $3,000 bag from just one night of work. You know, they glamorize it. And, you know, if you're a struggling college student, you'd think, maybe I should, you know, but if you have a mother who has been down that road, mom has already told you maybe you shouldn't. And dad has already said, you won't.

You better not, you know. Yeah, definitely. Oh, that's good. Well, we're, I think we're heading up on almost 40 minutes in. It's just flown by. I don't want to shortchange us at all on the dream interpretation experience. So do you want to transition into that? It's kind of a hard, hard turn.

Oh no, that's fine. Go here. And we're going to have, we're going to have cats all over the paperwork. That's how I roll. 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 Dreams 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 the Dream Wizard.com. My usual process first, I just shut up and listen. Our friend, Shemika, is going to tell me the dream beginning to end, however you experienced it. And then we'll go back over it together and see if we can make some sense out of it. So I'm ready when you are. Okay.

So the dream. Actually, I'm just going to try to do it from memory. I did write it down, but I think I got it. It was just that me, from what I knew, me and my grandmother, who's still alive, was in a house. I could see my uncle who actually was murdered December 3rd walking towards the house. And it was just like intuitively, I knew that I needed to grab my gun and my extra clip. and so he came in the house and he wanted to kill me for whatever reason. And so it was like the house didn't really have walls maybe.

It was real open and it was just, you know, like we could go into different rooms really easily. like the structures were there like maybe the beans you know how when you're building a house from the ground up um like the beans and everything are are there but not really the actual walls and stuff some of them were intact some of them weren't um and so we were it was not like a run chase it was you know kind of like i'm ducking behind a wall to miss a bullet then coming out trying to shoot him and um because i knew it was kind of me or him and i don't know i don't know how long it lasted but it just seemed as if this house was just huge and he was constantly trying to shoot me um i hit him you know a few times but he never went down and i don't remember

anything really that he was saying to me at the time, I could just tell he was angry, he was after me, and I was trying to defend my life. And it ended when his son, who I didn't even know was around, I stepped out and shot him several times because he didn't expect his son to actually kill him over me. But his son did, and he went down. And I guess he had apparently shot my grandmother, because as I went back up towards where she was, she had been shot several times.

And I had thought he killed her, I guess, in the dream. But once I got back up to the front, I saw she wasn't dead. And so I said, she said something like, I'm alive. And I said, are you alive? And she said, you see me talking, don't you? Just like how my grandmother is, very smart mouth. And so I called in a dream. I called the police.

And I remember, because this stood out to me in the dream, I was trying to read, like when I told them I had a gunshot victim, I was trying to decide if I should tell them she was 89 or she was 90 because in February, she'll turn 90. And so that's what made it seem, you know, to me that stood out like, okay, this is a present dream because I'm trying to figure out, should I just say 89 because she is 89 or should I just go ahead and round up and say 90 because she's getting her turn 90. and I don't know

I woke up after that but so I don't know if the ambulance arrived or anything like that I woke up but my heart was racing and I think part of that

was because my uncle is dead but it felt so real and I just that may be why I wanted to reach out because he is dead you know and everybody

the rest of the rest of of us that was in the dream we're all alive but my uncle is not um yeah and it was just like i don't know a couple days before that i was talking and i said you know he hasn't talked to me since he died and um my i had another uncle who passed away 20 years ago he would always come to me in dreams. They were always pleasant dreams, but he would always come to me in dreams. And so I was saying to, I don't know, my mom or one of my friends or something, probably to both of them, this particular uncle, he hasn't come to me since he died. Like, and so then here I have this and I'm like, ooh, he must didn't like me. But yeah, so this, that was a dream.

fascinating. It gets great, great detail and narrative, narrative flow to the whole thing. I was going to ask you about, so, okay, first, just to address the idea, there is a long history and tradition of dreaming of the dead. And we could split it into two possible things. I mean, it could be viewed as the return of ancestral spirits in that way of like they actually do come to us in our dream. there's something about the veil of death and the world of dreams that are close enough to each other in a psychic sense. There's all that kind of stuff. Now, I can't prove any of that so I don't know what to do with it. And so I don't dismiss it, but I don't, I can't handle it in this, in what I do.

So what I do is the psychological side of things, which is more like what, when we'll get into it, of course, what does your uncle mean to you in this context? why was he a necessary vehicle for delivering the message that's going on in this dream? So, I mean, a great place to start is your relationship with this with this uncle? Was it, you know, distant, close? Was it antagonistic? Was he a dangerous person in general? And you always wondered whether he was a little unstable.

I mean, kind of how would you characterize your understanding of him and how you knew him? So my mom had me at 15 And so I had They were still in the home Because they were still, you know, so young So they were more like My uncles were more like brothers

Who sometimes thought they were my dad And this particular uncle We kind of had We had a good relationship to the point that he got out of prison. I allowed him to come live with me until he could get on his feet. And he cut my grass. You know, something was going on with one of my cars or whatever, you know, me or my kids. It was something that he could do, like changing a battery or whatever. We would do that or he would do that. But we did sometimes bicker because he didn't

know he wasn't a particularly dangerous person but he did not know how to talk to people and so because I'm a very strong-willed person we would really fall out because I'm like you're not going to talk to me that way don't you know and it was a constant me having to tell him don't talk to me like that in in recent years um we had a falling out because I voted for Trump and you know know he did not like that and um so much so that we you know after the whole january 6th thing he was like you know you're going to jail and you know i mean just never asking me um you know what did you do why you were there did you do did you go inside where you're not no questions just this you're going to jail and um we had a really big fallout over that so much

so that I said, well, since you voted for Biden, I'm going to let one of these illegal immigrants start cutting my grass, and I fired him from cutting my grass, and I watched him just over the last couple years struggle, you know, financially, because you made their own choice, buddy. And so one of our last conversations was probably in, October. I mean, we had Thanksgiving together, but we didn't really

you know, it was so many people. We didn't really interact. But one of the last conversation is just him and I, we had two. One of them he was telling me that he was voting for Trump this go around and that he thought I was right and he was sick of illegal immigrants

and, you know, he just went on and on about that. And so it was a very peaceful conversation. And then the last conversation we had was about his daughter. I moved and he was telling me, you know, if you can get her to move, come live with you, I'll pay half your rent. And that would go to your question of whether he was a little bit off because there's no way in hell I would ever let her come live with me. He could have volunteered to pay all the rent and that would have still been a note.

So he didn't always think things through completely like some of the stuff that he would say didn't make sense at all. And he's an Army veteran. Dealt with his own trauma. His wife was murdered. 39 years ago this year. And so

just never was really able to bounce back completely after that. Yeah. But he wasn't a dangerous person, a really good guy and would really always help anybody. It's just sometimes he talked very forceful and mean and I didn't like it. And I would always.

you know, let him know that. All right. Great. Well, this is why it is very important to dial in not just, this isn't just a dream about family. It's about a particular family member. And it's not, well, multiple. Your grandmother's in there too. And it's not going to be universal to every dreamer.

So, you know, here we have in the imagery of the dream, we've got. a circumstance where he is posing a threat. He's trying to shoot you, whether and your understanding of it is, is to shoot to kill. But that's not something he would have ever done in real life. You know, no,

your worst falling out, he never threatened you with a gun. He's not, he's not a dangerous person. He was never a, you know, hardcore, you know,

street thug type of guy. It was never, that was never him. So it's good to, so the first thing he does you ask questions. I mean, you just say, okay,

well, what was he? like what was what was your relationship with him like so all of that is going into why he's there in your dream there's some some element of of the way you know and what stood out to me was the idea of that he struggling struggled with say maybe a communication speaking too forcefully as you as you say make him maybe not some of the greatest decisions um uh what was it um it didn't always think things through uh So there's something that he's going to represent in this stream.

So it's not him that is a threat to you directly. If he had been, I'd like to go with a counterfactual sometimes just to draw a distinction. If he had legitimately been a dangerous person and he had threatened you in the past and you had had to move to a different town because you couldn't stand being near him because he might actually, he might actually do something. That would be a completely different understanding of this. So it's not that he was the threat. It's that something he represents, some way he approached life or the world or decision-making or communication, that you feel is a threat to you or that you're under threat from. Is where I'm going with that. I'm going to stop there for just a second and see if that feels like anything to you.

If that's resonating anywhere, I don't know. I don't know. Like keep talking. No, no, that's okay. And what I can do with that is just leave it. Just throw it out there. Those are my thoughts. We're not going to hold on to them.

We're not going to prove or disprove them. But this is where I'm starting to go with that. I'm like, okay, it isn't about the uncle being an actually dangerous person. It's about something he represents that you feel is also threatening you. So it's not, what am I trying to say? It's not that you think he was ever dangerous to you. It's something he represents. or some some character

character flaw or failed approach to life is also currently threatening you now and you're like oh that's just like my uncle he did he did that kind of thing so I just want to throw it out there and leave it loose so we haven't even started like actually going through through the dream that's it but uh there we go we're going to get we're going to get there um so

I got cats on the papers there you go we're going to put we're going to put the papers on you. You don't like it. Of course not. You were, it was you and your grandmother in a house. Was it a known house, a regular house, like your house, her house?

Or was it a mystery house? You don't know where, who belongs to? No, I felt like it belonged to a neighbor. Coincidentally, the neighbor that was on the phone with, my uncle when he was killed. Okay. Okay. Another layer of,

and where was that? I don't know, I don't know the questions to ask about that. Yeah, and this house, I haven't been inside in probably 30-something years.

I have been inside this house before, but it's been a long time. Is it okay to ask about the circumstances of his death? It was just, you know, heart attack suddenly, did some accident or injury?

No, he was shot. Okay. Yeah, and he was shot by his wife's relative. But it had nothing to do with her. I don't even know all of the details. Initially, we were told that

this particular guy was in danger. Like someone was chasing him and he was trying to get help. From my understanding, he knocked on three other doors before he knocked on my uncle's door. And I was told that this neighbor called my uncle in an attempt to tell him

not to open the door for him. But by the time he got my uncle on the phone, all he heard was, you know, I'm not letting you in my house. and then he heard the gunshots. This happened at like 6.30 in the morning. But when you go and look at the tape, no one was chasing him.

So he wasn't, nobody was after him trying, you know, so he wasn't looking for refuge or help or whatever. He was out to do harm. And because we don't have all of the details, I honestly, I have been wondering, if he particularly mentioned my uncle's name, which is why that neighbor,

out of all the neighbors on the street, called my uncle to tell him not to open the door. But I don't have that information, but that's what happened. Wow. That's another kind of amazing circumstance. We've got other layers going on here as well that you've got,

we've got it kind of tragic. I mean, of course, it's a tragic circumstance, but it wasn't like, it definitely wasn't your uncle's fault. I mean, he didn't do anything wrong necessarily. Maybe the only thing he did wrong was being a little too compassionate, like opening the door to someone. We also have the tragedy of a phone call just too late. You know, so there's a missed opportunity for communication going on there. There's, yeah, the tragedy of someone who's like, well, I better, I better try to help. but they couldn't get it done.

They couldn't. Not faded. I don't know why faded came to mind. It's like just a, and it's, comedy is the wrong word, but there's a Shakespeare play called Comedy of Errors. That phrase stuck with me a lot.

It's like just so many things went wrong. And so we've got that additional layer on it. So you're in the house. You're not in your uncle's house. You're not in your grandmother's house. You're in the house of this person who was, maybe trying to give him a warning. Right.

But certainly, even if they were well-meaning, failed to prevent the tragedy. So there's something significant about you put it in there. And not only that, you put it in your mind, this idea of a house with insufficient covering on the walls, insufficient boundaries, separations between rooms. You've got kind of that exposed maybe, what do they call framing, so that there's, It's one thing if you're able to duck in the living room and there's a solid wall. It's another thing if you duck into the living room, but it's just open. There's nothing.

There's no barrier. There's no protection there. So you've got a very open, vulnerable type of type of space going on. Okay. So get into the chronology of the dream. When you first arrived in the dream, like your first memory of the dream, where were you in this house? You know, outside walking in. you were in the basement, you were in the, you know, living room.

I was inside looking outside. Like, I was standing in, I guess, what would be the living room when you first opened the front door. But the door, like, I could see outside of the house. So I'm assuming the door was open or there was no door because I could clearly see my uncle, like, walking towards the house. and or walking towards the door and the feeling that I got was Shemika, get your gun and your extra clip. So you were just with him walking up. And I don't, like I said, I don't remember any words being exchanged.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's very common in dreams too. knowing something is exactly the same as seeing something. So, uh, because none of it's actually happening. Like you don't have to ask him why he's there.

You put him there in that sense. So, so knowing it is he, if you had heard him say, I'm here to kill you, that would be the exact same as just no one in your heart. Oh, he's a threat. This is, this is a,

this is a bad situation. So you went to, um, what would probably be natural, in real life for you and a very practical responses, okay, let's make sure I have sufficient means to defend myself. So bam, gun, and I'm going to get that

and I'm going to make sure I'm safe. And where was your grandmother at the time? In the living room as well. She was with you there. Do you have any memory of specific furniture or a positioning of you and her? Like what was she doing there? It's chilling on a couch or?

I was standing. and I don't really remember where she was, I don't have memory of specific furniture in there. I know once I came back up after everything was over, after he had been shot in the dream, I came up and she was just, she was laying down, but I still don't remember any specific furniture.

She was just laying there, kind of propped up a little bit on her elsewhere. elbow and telling me, you know, that she was alive. Yeah. So you had the feeling or the knowing that he was there to hurt you. And so where did you go to get your gun an extra clip? I don't know. It was like it was right there.

And I just remember bending down on picking it up. And I do keep my gun on my floor by my big. bed one of them and the and the extra I recently just made sure I had the extra clip near two and so I just bent down and got it off the floor

okay it's good too that there's a we're getting more parallels of like let's say if you were not a gun person in real life but you did have one in this dream that would mean maybe something different but this this feels more

like um um consistent with reality in a way uh what am i trying to say the idea of this is not unusual for you this is that's what you would do you know if you're under threat you would you would do that in real life so of course in the dream you're like well this is how i protect myself um maybe you know in terms of that is like uh it's giving legitimacy to the threat as well that this is there's like there's threats that you need to gun for and there's threats that you don't like uh someone uh saying mean things to you on on on on on x not a threat no no no need to go grab but someone coming at you and you with the intent to kill yeah that's a very realistic type of threat so um they having a realistic response to it in the dream sometimes those things go bizarre and like well i need to run to

the backyard and grab the catapult i'm like now that's interesting this is this is not a catapult very much just a real real life gun um you you had a little bit of um it gets fuzzy from from there in the middle of like the running and the hiding and the dodging and the in the exchange of gunfire um so that may not yeah that may not be too specifically relevant in terms of unless something stands out of like the so you he shot at uni missed so he's he's making the genuine attempt with you know with intent uh but you're more successful in in in your efforts and he takes a few hits and he takes a few hit but it's not, but he's not going down. It's like you're deploying your means of self-defense well with skill to the best of your ability, but even that is failing to neutralize the threat.

Something going on there. Is there anything that, when you kind of think of that idea, is there anything about the process of the chase through the house, like where you remember hitting him with the first shot and then how you felt at that moment or any emotions that were going through your head when you saw that it was ineffective and anything like that. I think it was like the upper chest near the arm.

And I don't remember any emotion except. And it was almost like the house wasn't just the house at that point. Like the more I went to hide, the more it felt more like building like. It was a house still. but it was just so big that it felt like a building because in real life the house is only three bedrooms and I should not have had a lot of places to get to and hide but I did here. It was like endless for me to go and duck behind a different beam or whatever. That was the only thing that kind of stood out.

like, you know, goodness, this is more like a building now opposed to an actual house. It was so big. And that's the only shot I can really see in my head. They were mostly the torso shots, at least two. But he just kept walking. Kind of like the whole, like Michael Myers. That's what came to my mind. Yeah, yeah.

Relentless serial killer. Cannot be stoned. Yes, because there was no running. It was just, you know, just the steady walking and coming towards me. Yeah. And he just wouldn't go down. And he didn't go down until his son shot him. Yeah.

And do you remember what part? Let's see. There may be some transitional phases. A lot of things in dreams are connected thoughts. so there might be something to the idea of going from the living room to moving through the house to exchanging gunfire to realizing the house was much bigger and this is much bigger than you thought it was and it didn't feel like a house anymore felt like another kind of building there's there's probably a connected series of events there that then eventually culminate

in the in the his son showing up to do do the fire. final shots. So what I was looking for is like, do you remember the first, where you were relatively in the house when he first tried to shoot you or when you first tried to shoot? Like, who shot first? Maybe. I don't remember who shot first. I mean, like, positively, I would just think I shot first.

From what I'm just trying, you know, from what I'm trying to remember and how I'm feeling, I would think I shot first. Yeah, and it was like the room over from the living room. Was that room? Was that room identifiable as a specific kind of room? You know, a bedroom, kitchen, den, office? Not by anything that was actually in the house. I just would have felt, and I'm only thinking about my grandmother's house,

the room behind the living room is the kitchen. But I don't remember seeing any type of furniture that would identify it is that. I just know that once I saw him coming when I was standing and he was walking towards the door, I bent down, got my gun, my extra clip, and began to move. You know, and so it was like the room over from the living room. Okay. And then very reasonable that you would say shoot first. You don't have to,

you're not obligated to wait until someone shoots at you if you know they're there to hurt you. You can shoot first, you know. Self defense allows for that for sure. Do you have any distinctive memories of where you were at or what you were doing when he was shooting at you? We said you ducked behind some things. Like what is your recollection of how that kind of ducking and hiding process worked? never really crouching down but more of just you know how you would stand behind a wall and then come out to do your shots

so it was more of that and then maybe run into the next room and kind of doing the same thing as he was steady walking I would run to the next room and get behind you know the next beam or whatever And as he was walking that way, you know, step out to try and shoot him. And it was always kind of beams or pillars or the framing of the house. It was never a piece of furniture. Sometimes it was the wall, but there was like no doors, definitely. Okay. Very interesting.

Yeah. So there's very little, there's a lot of, right, you know, houses like that look, you know, to my mind when it makes me think it was like it's like like a, like a, the skeleton. of a house. Like, it isn't really a house until you start adding those, um, adding the walls until you start defining the interior spaces by separation. So I've got a thing going on here where it's like part of part of me is thinking, okay, a very rational thing to say it increases the perception and feeling of being under threat that there's less barriers to hide behind that there's less cover cover to duck into.

But there's also the. kind of metaphysical or metaphorical side of things where it's like you've got so much exposure that it increases the risk, that it makes it more dangerous because there aren't these more solid, solidly, makes me think of the idea of solidly defined boundaries in relationships. It's kind of ideas that are coming to mind. like if you have very porous boundaries or they're very poorly defined, it's easier for people to cross over them or shoot through them. In that metaphorical sense,

it leaves you more exposed and at risk because it's not a firm barrier. It's not a wall. It's not even sheetrock. You know, you can't even hide visually, let alone, you know, concrete wall style of like it would actually stop a bullet. So I'll stop there for a second and see if anything comes to mind. Yeah, maybe a new relationship. Like, maybe.

Yeah. We're still trying to establish boundaries. Okay. I'm glad that did come to mind. Yeah. There's, um, if we think of it that way, there's, there's very much a, the potential for letting danger into your life. by having a new person get close to you.

And that danger can be physical and the danger can be emotional. You can open yourself up. You can let your boundaries down and, you know, your barriers are self-protective thing. In order to be intimate with someone, you've got to kind of let that go. That's for other people. That's for people outside the house. That's for people outside my inner circle. Right.

So you let them in and that exposes you to, you know, risk of all kind, you know, emotional, physical. Yeah. And I'm very apprehensive about it. Like, I don't know if I would use the word scared, but definitely very cautious. Yeah. Yeah, especially because of who I am, what I do. I just don't have time for no foolishness. Yeah.

So for so long, I was able to use my kids as an excuse. well, I'm waiting to my youngest child, you know, graduates high school. And so as long as they were still in school, you know, that was my excuse to not really get too involved. And my youngest graduated in May. So I don't have that excuse anymore. And I don't want the excuse, but I used it for so long that, it was, you know, it just made life easier. It certainly does, yeah.

Yeah, now that it's gone, you know, I don't want the excuse, but still I'm very cautious of just who I, even, not even so much romantically, but even as friends. I'm very, very cautious about that. Yeah, there's a kind of a safety in that excuse as well, like, well, I don't have to take a risk. have a good reason not to take a risk. So I can just, oh, then I don't have to feel like I'm failing or I'm putting anything off.

You don't even have to feel like you're making excuses. That's a valid reason. And honestly, it is. It is because we get a lot of what, you know, some of the worst or most common cases of abuse. It tends to come from,

mom's got a new boyfriend in the house. And that, so it would be very reasonable, realistic and, you know, and probably, just the smart thing to do not to get into that situation in general. So, yeah, no, that's great, too. I think that's, I'm glad that I just rambled long enough that we kind of pick up on something. You know, like, I saw your eyes go, in a minute. That's what we do. So there's something, I think there's something too that going in there. Now, it may not be the relationship with this guy specifically. That's where we start picking it apart. He could be a great guy. He could be perfect. And you could have your own issues with. Should let him in or not?

This feels weird and you're struggling with that. Now then again, it could be him because what we've got in this figure of the of the uncle that had not been a regular feature of your dream until a few nights ago. Coming on the heels of you examining how much am I going to make, allow myself to be vulnerable to a new person and how how safe am I to bring them into my life. So you've got and the way you were talking about your uncle there was that a lot of, your trouble with him was communication, was the way he spoke, was his style. And I think that's, okay, but, okay, so there was that communication problems, decision making, and there was maybe one other thing you can't remember. I can't read my notes. It doesn't matter. But so there's possibly either some elements of the way you remember your, there may be some ways this guy reminds you of your uncle,

or you're worried he could be like him, even though you haven't seen the signs yet. You're wondering if you're going to see the signs. I don't know how much you want to say. This is where we get into think. This is why I tell everyone, no one's ever going to see this if you don't want them to because we've got to be able to talk about it. If you're willing, you don't have to. If you're unwilling, and that's perfectly fine too.

I don't know if you're comfortable saying, yeah, I've seen some signs in this guy that may make me wonder if he could lead in that direction. We're going to have some problems. Or I'm just worried if I let him in, that's when I'm going to find out later that he's got problems. And would it be as bad as the communication difficulties with my uncle? I think there's some reason the uncle showed up as an icon in the dream related to that concept of relationships. And I'm going to stop there for two seconds. Let you let you say some things.

Yeah, I definitely think that sometimes he can communicate better. Okay. So there is a little bit of that there. And you're wondering, I would imagine you probably haven't had any fallen out yet, the way you did with your uncle. Not to the point where I've had to block him. Oh, right. Because I blocked my uncle at one point. Yeah.

Yeah. So, no, not to that extent, but definitely seeing. the lack of communication skills. And I don't, because he will communicate for sure, but sometimes it takes going through, trying to upset, trying to communicate through being upset

to get, trying to communicate rationally. Hmm. Okay. Okay. I think we got, I think we got something that we were starting to flesh it out a little bit. Like the, the pictures coming into focus. And again, I'd like to do as much as I can not to hang on things too firmly, not to nail it down irrevocably.

Like we're holding on to a lot of these ideas loosely. And it isn't even that, what I try not to have people do is come away from talking to me going, okay, the dream told me I need to do something specific. I need to take a specific action. I don't give that kind of advice. And I don't even tell people really what to believe about what they're thinking. What we're trying to do is just look at the thought process. A lot of what we do in dreams is just what if.

It's a lot of thought experiments. Like it's considering, is it? Maybe it is? I don't know. Looks like it could be. Let me look at that. And so we're not really come into a lot of decisions in our dreams. Sometimes we do.

Absolutely. We're like, this is a bad idea. And you show yourself why. That's one kind of a thought experiment. So we could be building a narrative of this dream as in, you know, you've got the potential of a new relationship that you are, it sounds like you would want it to work. There's reasons you think it would be good. You know, you seem to like the guy. But you'd seen a little bit of like shit, this feels like what I would argue with my uncle sometimes.

And he wasn't thinking clearly, he wasn't being rational or he wasn't communicating well. and that then then in the dream you're putting that like okay so this this aspect of my deceased uncle a way he used to behave is now presenting itself as a potential threat to the success of a new relationship and then okay we go kind of with that hold on to that idea loosely if that seems like a theme that that works we start looking at some of the different elements so it's like why we kind of explained why this particular how house because it was connected to the uncles. So there's, there's, and that's another layer of communication as well, like you've got someone who's trying to try to get deliver a message too

late. That's, that's one kind of failure of communication, not speaking clearly, not listening, other failures of communication that might, you know, cause, cause conflict and whatnot. Why is the grandmother there? Why, why did this small house seem to have just endless room for this fight, this high, the hideous, the high, the highness, the, hide and seek gun, gun battle to play out. Why specifically, let's do this because we're getting there chronologically kind of. What would you say about your uncle's son, your nephew? How, when you think of, how do I frame this, how I focus your attention on it?

Like, what is it about your uncle's problems with communication that you think his, that you, that you think his, son would defeat because there's something about the way he approaches his life. Is he a skilled verbal, you know, I'm going to stop there. I can't even formulate the words. No, I don't know whether or not he's skilled verbally like that because we've never had any type of altercation where we've had to discuss something, you know, in a heated moment, you know him and I, I do know that he would protect me at all cost. Okay.

So I do know that for sure. Like in the dream, it seemed as if my uncle, his dad was surprised that he, you know, shot him over me, but I wasn't surprised. Gotcha. Okay. So that's great. I'm glad I, and I'd rattle a lot of doorknobs. I ask a lot of the wrong questions.

And then sometimes we get there anyway. So it isn't. So what am I looking at here? It's like, why would you show this person successfully overcoming the threat of another person? And it just so happens. This is the son or your nephew. And then your uncle are the two people involved. So we start looking for, okay, what is it about, you know, so if someone is

characteristically emotionally unstable and someone else is characteristically stoic. They're a rock and there and you rely on them and this person's always causing your problem. So you might bring those two people together in the dream and go, damn, this emotional instability is a threat. But I'm so glad I had my emotional rock here to stop the threat. So what you're looking at is he would, the way you phrased it, and I think it's kind of, you know, he would do anything to protect me.

There's a kind of a fierce loyalty there. So there's something about, something about the way you're conceptualizing that personality trait as the secret to defeating the threat. If I just phrase it like that, I don't know if you've any thoughts come to mind. I would say that I see both of them in this person. both of those characteristics.

Okay. Yeah. Good deal. So you may be looking at like this relationship could work. The threat I think might be present, could be neutralized by his better angels. Both of these things existing in the same person. One is going to win out over the other. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then there's, you know, you didn't. you didn't run away. You didn't leave the house. You didn't, uh, you,

you, maybe you didn't have, feel like you had the ability or opportunity, but you stayed engaged in the fight itself. I don't know if that means anything to you. Um, I don't run away very easily, um,

from anything, I think, um, so I think it makes sense that I wouldn't leave the house. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm always going.

going to fight. Generally, kind of a tenacious spirit in that regard. Yes. Yeah. And then, so that's one thing is like rising to a challenge. There's the tenacity to struggle through problems. There's also the possibility of the one layer of it could be assessing whether something is worth fighting with the fight.

So you might have, uh, again, the counter. counterfactual to the dream, you could have decided, I'm just leaving. He's coming to kill me. I don't need to stay here. I don't need to fight this fight. I don't have to. But you did. You chose to in, in, that's what I was trying to get to.

Did you choose to? Or it was never even a thought that occurred to you. Maybe I should run away. Yeah, I never thought maybe I should run away. I don't think I ever thought that, yeah. Fair enough. And the way you explained it is, okay, that may just not be in your personality. You're like, I'm not just going to.

give up on this that easily. It could be part of it. It also could be like now that you've in a sense given yourself permission to explore the possibility of having a new life partner, you might be inclined to not give up on it too quickly. You might be averse to that idea of saying like some girls, half a red flag they're gone. Some girls, it's, it's, there's red flag.

spilling out of the hallway closet she can't cram them all in there and she won't leave neither one of these extremes is good but um but it could be a very tough call to the idea of do do i really see what i think i see am i sensitive to hypersensitive to to this in a way that maybe you know the problems me i can chill a little bit and and not i don't need to worry so much and then the other the other side of it is you know how bad let's say it is there how bad is it something we can work with is it bad enough that I should probably just go. And the whole killing thing is like it's not your, you know, you're not, I've explained this to people too before.

It's like you never had any desire to kill your uncle nor Kim, you. So it isn't really about killing anyone. It's, uh, it's about defeating the, the threat that manifested in this, in this, in this, in this visual iconic form, um, because reminds you of this specific type of behavior. And you're like, okay, well, how do we overcome? How do I defeat that as a, as an obstacle? And there's a, maybe, maybe the, the houses lacking solid walls and being very expansive. I think if we go in the direction of, um, that, that idea of the vulnerability and the visit,

visibility, like you let this guy inside, he's going to see. He's probably going to, and if you do the dance of a relationship with him that can sometimes feel like a like a life and death struggle, even when we really love someone, it's like, uh, because relationships can live and die. you can kill the relationship by cutting a person off. You know, the relationship's dead. It's over.

But what you're going to have when you let someone in, and houses can often be like representational of ourselves or our minds in some ways, but they're going to see you. They're going to see a lot more of you than other people would. There's going to be less boundaries and barriers, but there's going to be less rooms where you can like, well, let's go over here where nobody can see me.

It's all exposed studs. It's all the skeletal, framework in a way with high visibility in so many different directions. And that makes sense too from this angle of the more exposed you are, the more at risk you are. The more you expose yourself to someone, the more vulnerable you make yourself, the more angles of attack they're literally going to have to hurt you if they wanted to. You're going to have less effective barriers to hide behind. Yeah.

So, yeah, so if you're looking at that. Those are genuine concerns that I have. right on. I mean, right on to me for being accurate, but not right on to those concerns. Sorry, sorry about that. But I think we all do. Yeah, yeah. I think we all do too. It's not easy. It's not and it's harder for some than others because of our life experience as well where we're like, I've been through some shit. I've been shit on by people. And I don't want to let that happen again. And I'm not going to let that happen again. Sometimes we deny ourselves opportunities we could have had. because we felt it was not safe to take the risk. Realistic or not, we can only go with our feelings of like, not this time, not this time.

Could it have worked out maybe? Could it have been a disaster? Yeah, you never know. It's one of those things. So we're good. Okay. Okay.

This is all feeling like it's coming together for you. Yes. Okay. Good deal. Yeah, I don't want to be. I can just tell you a story. I can just make shit up.

But it has to actually feel relevant and be connected to your life where it's, yeah, It does. We still haven't quite dialed in why your grandmother was there and why she was shot but not dead at the end. So maybe we talk a little bit about your relationship with her, what she means to you in the context of healthy partnership with a life partner, or good communication or loyalty, all those themes. My grandmother is everything to me. Again, my mom had me at 15, so my grandmother actually played more of the mother role. I mean, she had to because my mom was still a child.

And so, yeah, that's my baby. My grandma's my baby. I mean, like, communication-wise, she's very, she's very expressive with the shallow things. Like she'll tell you if you're getting too fat or too skinny or, you know, she doesn't like your hair. But when it comes to like deep conversations, she won't have those. Like deep, you know, you never really know what she's thinking or feeling about something

in particular because she's very old school. Like, you just won't know. And that's who my grandmother is. Okay. When it came to my uncle's death, like when they told her, she immediately thought he had done something wrong. And so she had absolutely no emotion behind it. And I didn't even see her crying.

at the funeral. I think the first time I saw her cry was we exchanged gifts New Year's Day. Since this happened right before Christmas, we waited. We exchanged gifts New Year's Day and my daughter had her name and she gave her a locket with both her sons that had been killed in the locket and I saw her like shed a tear then. Other than that, she's just not very open about her feelings. Okay. Yeah. But yeah.

She'll tell you you're ugly. You know, yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool. Okay, so what we have, all, okay, all the people in our lives and, and even beyond that, people on social media, people in media,

in general, famous people and whatnot. A lot of these provide it's more common with people in our lives, and it's almost exclusively that, but still, we look at how other relationships work with celebrity relationships and whatnot. But in your mom, you've got, I'm sorry, in your grandmother, you've got a one representation of a way to be in the world. That's where I was going with that idea is like, we look to a lot of different people for like, what if I did it that way?

How did that work out for them? And the people we respect the most, it carries a little more weight. the way they approach things. We tend to look at that and say, well, what am I trying to say? We don't look at it and judge them for it because we have too much respect to think we really are allowed to do that. So there's probably a piece of view that's like,

and almost certainly there is, considers how much of the way my grandmother did things should I embody in my process of life? How much should I be like her? And we do that with our parents, definitely, grandparents and whatnot, primarily parents or primary caregivers, as you say. So there's something about, and it's significant that she's with you. It was not your grandfather.

It was not literally anyone else on the planet. It was her. You wanted her there. So there's a context to the way she engaged with others, the way she kept some things superficial and played the rest of it close to her chest and you didn't know what she was thinking she sounds like in terms of like some people let it all hang out too much and some people you don't know what they think about anything because they don't say nothing and they're just kind of there and it seems like there was a there was a boundary there for her of a specific kind

things that were deeper more important more I don't know if you would characterize her as as being, what am I trying to say? Very unwilling to be vulnerable in front of others. Okay. Okay. That's, I think that's it because we're looking at two and with the idea of the house and letting someone in and the potential of a threat represented in a specific way, a potential.

So she's there with you. What does it mean that she's there with you? You have that mode of engagement you could choose to deploy intentionally. You could be as closed off as she was if you chose to do so. But what ends up by the end of it is that somewhere in this process, your grandmother was wounded, not fatally, but she took some damage. So there's a couple of different ways to go with that there. One is that you, in order to not be as closed off as she was, you're going to have to judge that a little bit.

You're going to have to wound your image of her like she could have been a little more open. Maybe I should be a little more. Maybe it shouldn't be as closed off as she was. Maybe it's not right for me. The other side of it is, oh, there were two directions. I was going with that. Oh, well, at the same time, you've also got yourself, you're showing yourself. you're showing yourself that this is not going to kill her, the part of her in you,

if you choose not to be exactly like her. She's going to survive. Your respect for her and everything she is is going to come through it. And she's even going to be snarky about it and say, well, you're talking to me, aren't you? Of course, I'm alive. You know, this didn't, I'm stronger than that. So it's kind of like in a way, by the end of it, giving yourself permission to say you don't

have to be exactly like her. It's okay to be different. I'm going to stop there. I don't know if you have thoughts that came up with all that. Well, I do know it bothers me that she's so closed off. And that she's so emotionless. It bothers me. Okay.

Yeah. Because you would like, so there's a, what is it? There's a reversal of, of, of, the circumstances. So you are trying to determine for yourself how safe it is to be vulnerable with a new man. And then you're also looking at it from the other way around where you're looking at your grandmother going, I don't want to be that closed off. I wish she wasn't. I wish. So you're also in some ways putting yourself in that role of her of like, well, what would I have to do to not be that closed off to the point that I miss an opportunity for what could be a good relationship?

because I don't want to be alone and I don't want to be in conflict in a bad relationship. There's got to be a way to hit that that X marks the spot of like where where the right amount of vulnerability and the right amount of relationship, good relationship come together. So that feels like it sufficiently speaks to the image of your grandmother being there. Is there more to it, do you think? No, I definitely think that could be what's going on because that's something that has been a topic of conversation in the last month and some change, especially after my uncle's death. It bothered her response when they initially told her bothered me to the point where I had to leave the room. And you talked to her about it?

Because I was that upset by her response. When they told her that he had been killed. Yeah, her response bothered me so much, I left the room. And I didn't want to go back in there because I was angry at her response. Yeah, yeah. And so you've been talking to her about it recently trying to say... I didn't even talk to her about it. It's just been a topic of conversation like, you know, me and my kids.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that, I mean, not giving advice, not making recommendations. That is something you could, could talk to her about. You know, and to what end? Probably just discussing, like, you know, I might ask myself. I might ask out of curiosity.

Well, who knows? I might not ask, like, actually, but you could. And it might be beneficial to go to her and say, you know, it seems like you keep so much inside. And I'd like to know you better. And it makes me sad that I don't. And I don't know how you feel about that. Would you, is that something you're capable of?

Is it something you would want to do if you could? Are you willing to work on that with me? It could be tough though. I mean, can I imagine going to my- She was in silence. She would not even respond. It wouldn't even respond. Yeah, some conversations you can't.

I would feel awkward about that too. And that's why I can't tell you, oh, you should definitely do this. Like, let's say I barely talked to my dad. Hypothetically, let's say he's a great guy. and we just don't talk and the time we spend together is awkward. Like I'm going to go to him and say, dude, we never talk and it's very awkward.

And I'd like to open up and share a feeling like, God, I would die of embarrassment. So I can't tell people what they should or shouldn't do when I'm not probably not going to do that either. Yeah, we have great conversations as long as they're surface. Like,

I love being around her. We watch Jeopardy together. I mean, you know, we can talk about, talk about people, you know, things going on in the world a little bit.

But just like a deep conversation. Like she is not going to really say, how are you doing and want a sincere answer if it's, if it's not great. Gotcha. Yeah. So she's not quite the most supportive person in that respect. Like she would never leave you out in the cold.

emotionally nurturing. I'll say that. Yeah, yeah. And that's very different than like, because someone could say absolutely nothing, but if you, and never a kind word in that regard, but if you called them at 1 a.m. in the morning

and said, you've got a flat tire, they're there. But they're not going to hug you or make you feel warm and fuzzy about it, but they're going to fix the damn tire and they're going to get you home out of the cold and the rain. It's a different way. And so, yeah,

some of this stuff is like, that's why I don't try to tell people what, well, this is what you're thinking. This is what it means to you. I try to make suggestions. So it's like part of you is like a lover and she's not going to change and our relationship's not going to change. But I don't want to be like that.

I think I want to do me differently. I think that might be where you're coming from on that. And I think we have a great relationship. It's just like I couldn't go and say, I'm so sad and she says, oh, you know, what happens? Sit here with me and give me a hug and, you know, that's not going to happen. I do that with my kids.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it would not happen with my grandmother. And but like I'm right now battling anemia. She made me beef, liver and onions for dinner Sunday, you know. So it's like she's going to do that. But if I was having some type of emotional difficulty, hang it up on us having a conversation about it. Gotcha.

And that might come down to people's natural talents in a way. It's like she just might not have a good grip on her own emotions and how to engage with someone emotionally. And she does the best she can. Yeah. And she's, I don't know, it's like that generation. They're just silent. That too.

They don't. Yeah. Yeah. The kids these days, we talk a lot. It's true. Always talking about our feelings and whatnot. Yeah. Sometimes too much.

There's a, oh, I mean. Too much sometimes. Well, yeah, there's a, there's been too much of a focus. So this is a completely off topic of the dream, but there's too much of a focus in regards to mental health of like, let's, let's think about ourselves. And really get into her feelings. Really. share and express and dwell and all of this stuff. And it's like, okay, for a specific purpose,

for a specific short amount of time to get a specific outcome, maybe every day all the time. No, get out of your head. Get into the world. Get into communication and action with other people. Do not sit dwelling on your own thoughts. That's like literally a recipe for increasing anxiety. And that's,

I think what we see with a lot of kids going on today is like too much focus on, you know, all look inside. Like, for a reason, maybe. Not every day, not all the time.

Not too much. Right. Yeah. And I can be her. Like, I won't have real emotionally deep conversations with my friends. So I can be her. Like,

I've had friends to tell me, you're just so hard or you're just so cold. Because, yeah, we're not having a kumbaya session. You know, at least not about us. You know, like, if I hurt your feelings, I apologize, let's move on. But I don't want to analyze it. I don't want us to be sitting there snobting with tears and tissue and trying to, you know,

I'm not doing that. Yeah, no, that's kind of not my style either. I don't want it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's different styles, different styles. But I think, yeah, I think that's, well, we've, and now he wants to go outside. Of course he does.

He wants me to throw his toy. He says, Dad, the interview's over. And I think it is, I would say it probably is because I think we've covered all the different aspects. You know, and we've gotten kind of a little bit of a narrative of like,

why this dream in this form with these people. What does it relate to that you're going through in your life? As far as I can tell, that said, I usually stop and say, is there anything we didn't focus on enough that you're like, what about this or why did that happen? or if you have more questions,

I'm always willing to keep going. You've got to shut up. No. I guess if I were to walk away with anything, it may be the duality. Me, you know, like the dual personalities that could be present in both him and I. I think maybe that's what I would.

walk away with. Yeah. Yeah, the idea that you've got, you've got conflicting needs that are both legitimate. I need to be safe and I need a relationship. I need an intimate connection with another person and they frustrate each other, those conflicting needs because reaching out for an intimate relationship and trying to establish and pull someone closer means they come close enough to hurt you. And protecting yourself too much means you have to keep someone away they'll never get close enough to feel a satisfying connection. So it feels like lately,

that's what you're struggling with. And it came out in this dream in this format of like, well, let's look at these people in my life that are very important to me and how I've engaged with them as kind of reference points for where am I at and how do I want to move forward with this guy. if that makes sense. Does that feel like it sums it up pretty good? Yeah, I think so.

All right. Good deal. Well, if you're satisfied that we got some kind of an answer that makes sense, you know, in your opinion, it was worth reaching out to me and then setting aside a couple hours to talk. Yeah. I don't know if I know what to do, but I at least have some clarity on what to think about. Yes. Yeah.

That's a very important thing, too. like I've said a couple of times to this. I'm not here to tell people what to do or give advice or or tell them that their dream is giving them specific directions. Like sometimes yes, mostly no. So a lot of people are left with a lot of things to think about and not a clear direction afterwards. But that's kind of what I do in terms of helping you see what happened as clearly as possible, why it happened. And then the next step, you might have another dream tonight that actually you will wake up from it in the morning knowing exactly

what to do because we have this chance to talk it out and try and say, you know, at the very, at the very beginning of, you know, the very first step, what am I looking at here? What is this thing? What happened? Yeah. So hopefully no one comes to the end of an interview, you know, an interpretation session with being like, but he didn't tell me what to do. Yeah. I don't do that.

I don't tell people what to do. Sorry. Talk to your grandmother. I don't know. Maybe she can help you. It might be an interesting experience. too of like, you know, let me tell you about this dream I had in this talk I had with this guy. See what she says. See if that's superficial enough to sneak some of the stuff in under the

radar. I don't know. I don't know. She was keep looking at the TV. Fair enough. Fair enough. Good deal. Okay. Well, nothing left to do, but just kind of read the outro stuff. And then if you'll hang out for, you know, a couple of minutes afterwards and we'll just talk to make sure. Some people just hang up. They're like, good talk. Bloop. And they're gone. I'm like, wait. wait so yeah Doug good deal um okay so for everybody out there listening once again this has been

our friend shemika michel from derm north carolina uh she's a blaze contributor author of keep it naked and naked girls guide to living life authentically did i say that right okay a naked girl's guide to live life authentically if that's what you said i think i was too busy chewing all of that's okay that's fair enough i want to make sure to read that out there You can follow her on the Twix, the Twitter, the X, at Shemika Michelle. And for my part, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers. Viewers for the game streams, 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent, the fabric of dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig. All this and more at Benjamin thedreamwizard.com.

Also, Benjamin thedreamwizard.locals.com, where you can get the exclusive recipes for the cocktails for the games. stream, speaking of which coming up Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. And that's enough the shilling out of me. Shemika, thank you for being here. It was really good to talk to you. Fascinating dream. Some people think they don't have a dream long enough or interesting enough. To me, they're all fascinating. I love the mystery. Oh, yeah. I'm very, when I was nine, I had a dream that my aunt was murdered and I could see everything in the dream, but the person that did it. And then my aunt was murdered and no one was ever arrested for the murder. So I take my dreams. Sometimes they feel like

nothing, but then there are other times like this when I feel like it's a clear message. I just may be having a hard time figuring out what that message is. And so I'm very attentive to my dreams. For sure. I think we can all learn something of value by paying attention to our dreams. And I'm glad I had the opportunity to help you do that. Yeah. Makes me feel good. Thank you. Good deal. And everybody out there? Thanks for listening.