Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 156: Organized Chaos

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

G. William Domhoff’s Dream Bank ~ https://dreambank.net/

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes today we have our friend lewis uh he's been with us several times in the past and uh always great to have them back a one of the most fascinating and prolific dreamers i i've met and uh let me say this as far as uh i've actually got you know a long history okay so if you're a guest my brain's all over the place i'm not prepared for this you didn't expect me to prepare did you this is all the opening to the show we're not it is what it is uh if you were ever a guest you will will be invited to the super secret discord. It's not a secret, but basically it's full of only guests.

I got this is episode, I think, 156. That means there have been about 150, at least, people with a couple of return guests. And you will be a member of that exclusive club. And then you can also, you know, post your dreams there. And we've been in communication. And I get not quite daily, but at least weekly updates on long, intensely detailed, or immensely detailed, intense dreams. And I'm actually thinking of doing a,

case study at some point, like put them, put them all together in a book and go, this is, this is just amazing. What happens when someone is a frequent and, and detailed dreamer, here's what it looks like. And I would interspers these, these interviews we've had in terms of analysis and whatnot. And maybe even build it, I was thinking about like, how do I write a book? I'd build. Hello, Lewis.

How are you today? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't even say hello. I'm just going off. Welcome. Welcome.

Glad to have you here. But I've been, but I've been thinking. of like how to put all this stuff in a into into a book and then organizing it in terms of like themes that go across it like here's why all these things seem to be recurring or or here's different um it would be towards the idea of showing here's how these consistent life is how these life events that are meaningful consistently show up across different dreams and they do seem to there's several several of your dreams are like that so um anyway that's my ramble i am not awake yet. This was a spur of the moment. I got a communication say, hey, I had another dream.

I'm going to take an episode. I haven't talked to anyone this week. So let's, let's do it. But anyway, I'm going to do the actual opening, opening, the shilling. Would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers. Please reach out across social media. You don't have to be anyone special. You can be a complete rando. I will, as you can see over here, I will protect your identity. We don't even know if, if Lewis is our friend's real name. And I'm not going to ask. We're just going to go with it, because that's how I roll. And I'll put up a little looping video.

You don't have to use your real name, your real face. I'll talk to anybody. It's about the dreams, about the experience and the mystery of solving it together. Long story short on that. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent. The Fabric of Dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig. You can get all this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, including downloadable MP3 versions of this very podcast.

And if you would head on over to Benjamin thedreamwizard. Locals.com. where I'm trying to build a community. That's actually where I'd like to get most of my volunteer dreamers from. Free to sign up. You can kick me some shekels or not. That's up to you. That's enough shilling out of me.

And we're back to Lewis. So I know we're, you know, as we're recording here, we're going to take a break in a minute to get you over to a meeting and then we're going to come back and finish up. But I think we have just enough time for you to kind of tell me the dream beginning to end as the experience and then we'll analyze it when you get back. For sure. Okay.

I'm ready when you are. Let's do the thing. So, I cut out, and I can't remember, other unimportant, you know, shit that happened prior to this major part of the dream. But the most, what stood out to me and what I remember, for the most part, at least, was it took place in this sort of, this courtyard. This courtyard was massive. It was open air. if you're I know you're not familiar with the Witcher 2 but there's a

in Loch Muin it's kind of like the last part of the game the floor throughout the entire area is checkerboard you know black and white you know big tiles you know and um

um that's that's the floor but it's and the the outer edge of the courtyard remember which are three when you go into Vizima the courtyard over there

yeah I think so and yeah and that was the outer walls kind of you know gray you know mythical castle like right and there was a a platform

hold on where's my my water Yeah, take your time. I got constant dry mouth too. There was a platform of marble up in the

in one of the sort of just a little distance away from me and what do you call it? There were brass there was a brass statue of this of a woman

and what did they look like? I think they were, it was a possibly nude statue. The pose was neutral, like just kind of standing there. No real, no real action, I guess. And I was with like five other people, randomly generated, right, per se? And they were standing on the, on the, or where actually where were they first maybe they were um

I think they were that uh whatever that audio is in the background is completely drowning you out I can't hear you at all I'm sorry yeah that was the TV but um those randomly generated people were were

uh were standing uh you know, on the ground with me. And there was this sort of woman in her, in her 30s on the other side of me, you know. So I'm in sort of a triangle shape. The five people were to one side of me, you know, just a few meters away. And then the other one was on the other side, like a few meters away.

If that makes sense, right, in a triangle. but um with you at the at the peak of the triangle or as one of the elbows yeah one of the elbows okay and uh this uh this uh this moment was um you know sort of been a wizardly or would she looking uh looking gown I guess. Not really what's the word for it? You know, not really

tattered or whatever, but kind of a clean look. No hat or anything. It was just, I think she had like grayish black hair. But for some reason, I know this is kind of jumbled up. I'm trying to make sense of it for the most part as I go. Do your best. But she took those other five people and a platform raised above them, marble platform, you know. And they were up in the air, and they were trapped at there for some, I don't know how, but they were trapped up there.

Wait, no, the marble platform was floating. It was a column, but only, you know, like the top part of it, but it was floating in the air. And they were trapped up there, and they couldn't get down. and there was like bars of lightning above them, but it wasn't actually, you know, harmful lightning. It was just kind of there as, I don't know. But then I had to battle this woman in sort of, I can't remember what way it was. It wasn't wands and shit, you know, it was just kind of our hands with,

I don't remember what was, what we were launching, but just magic spells I guess and the bronze statue of the woman next to me or kind of a little you know a few meters away was I look over at it and it was it suddenly started to

drench itself in blood from you know head to toe and it became you know completely covered in blood and I didn't That was weird I was questioning within the dream why this is covered in blood now and that's the last thing

I can actually remember off the top of my head Okay Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you Here's the veil of night And shine the light of understanding Upon the mystery of dreams Every episode of his dreamscapes program Features Real Dreamers

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 Dream Wizard.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. Hello? Yeah. Okay, all done with the meeting? Yeah, right on time. If you just got back. Hey, nice. Beautiful, wonderful.

to let's see 20 five minutes we'll cut that all out um okay good we'll carry on so uh it's good we took a break um

uh number one for me to take pets outside of course but number two I'm at a minute to reflect usually I just jump right in I don't have a lot of time to like think about okay how am I going to approach this one thing I've been thinking of trying to do lately is bringing a little more structure to what I'm doing. And I'm hearing myself in the background.

I don't know why. I have my phone on speaker right now, so I don't know if that's it or not. Usually, I think usually that's not an issue, but it is now for some reason. Huh. Let me take it off speaker and see it. Yeah, you can hold it to your like an actual telephone call. It might be something we have to do. Sometimes if there's background noise and it's activating your mic, it'll also pick up me.

So if there's no background noise, then it mutes me. Otherwise, it thinks you're speaking and it captures me at the coming through your own speakers at the same time. That's one feature of Discord. No, no. And I hear you just fine. Well, I think I kind of hear you just fine. Say a short sentence, would you? I love to get my peanut butter cups out of my car

Now it you are muffled like you're speaking through a scarf Or um Like you're holding I don't know if I if I put my mouth directly to it or Yeah no that's much better Okay Yeah yeah when you have it on phone you actually have to hold it like a phone and put it to your face And have your mouth like an inch from the from the mouthpiece

Yeah That's much better Um, okay, so, uh, long story short on that. I was explaining what I'm going to try to do. Okay. Well, I was explaining my, my thought process, which, uh, is part of my process. So I've lately been thinking about how to bring more organization, you know, make my process an actual process. It's usually just intuitive and I don't want to lose that part. That's good.

That's necessary. That's how I've managed to do what I do. But it's also very disorganized. And, and it usually works for me, but, you know, I'm like, well, uh, I'm like, well, uh, What can I do? What can I do better? I'm always looking for, I don't think I've,

I've stumbled upon the end. I'll be all of what I do. And I'm always hoping to refine the process further. Yeah. You know, long, sorry, short, too late for that. There's, so my influences are definitely Freud and Jung, big, big seminal figure, so to speak, standing on the shoulders of giants,

but also a guy recently who's been a UC Santa Cruz professor, now retired, William Domhoff. And he has a thing, called the dream bank, and why is that relevant? Because he focused more on numericalizing dreams, counting things in the dreams. What do we have? What, what instances of certain types of objects or people, et cetera?

What, you know, how many, how many animals, how many buildings, how many yada, numericizing, numericalizing, counting, counting things. So I was doing that in my head, too. I mean, we have one, I mean, if we do it this way, we do know, one location, you know, or setting for the, for the whole thing. We've got, and this is why I wanted to get the feedback, too, and talk to you about it. Seven total people, you, the sorceress, so to speak, and then five other people, or was. Yeah. Okay, okay.

So two is people. and that is one we'll say you know we'll say one is the dreamer two is the uh or one one one dreamer one um antagonist uh sorcerer five by by so say bystanders um and then also um let's see uh uh third category would be say say maybe like objects and that's different than the setting necessarily. We've got, you know, one statue that is, you know, bronze, and then it's also got the blood eventually. But we also have one marble platform or two marble platforms, one that the statue's on,

one that the people are on. The statue wasn't on a platform. It was just by itself. Oh, okay. So there was a marble platform and then a statue. See, this is what I'm trying to bring more. more systematic thing to it because it actually helps me ask these kind of questions. So one statue by itself and then one marble platform.

Yeah. Or floating marble platform. And they were already floating on that platform since the very beginning? Or they got moved, right? Because originally you were in a, as you said, a triangular type shape with you at one of the elbows. And then somehow they got moved to the platform. they were no they were where they were standing they got raised up okay and then you got left behind

because you were off off the platform so they were actually standing on the marble platform to begin with but you were not or the sorceress created it so she kind of created it and then teleported them there in a way or like the the manifestation of it included them being on it yeah okay did were they moved spatial from your location in terms of like you're in a shape and you're on the on this elbow here did it just appear under them and raise them up in the air or did it actually relocate them off to the side as a part of the manifestation yeah it appeared underneath them okay that's good to know um so and then that's the next thing we're counting in a way is how many behaviors what what did people do in this in this type of type of setting so um Let's, you know, let's see. Which are two. Courtyard.

And then I'll just put, you know, behaviors. We've got, um, the first behavior might simply be observing the statue. That's what you all did together, that that triangular shape of people. It was just to be that observed it. They didn't.

I don't recall them. Okay. Actually looking at it. Um, okay. So you, um, uh, dream,

dreamer only. So one behavior of observing the statue, you only, one behavior of you, standing in a group with these other people, standing as a group in a, you know, triangular formation. One behavior of conjuring the, and this is a good place to stop and say, where did the sorceress manifest. Was that person always there off to one side, or did they suddenly appear? She kind of just appeared out of, just came into the scene.

It wasn't really like she manifested as like a spirit or whatever, but the scene just made her there at some point. Okay. I would call that a behavior of, you know, sudden appearance, so to speak, if that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. That's kind of how I'm classifying it in my head.

head. It's like what, what is happening here? And then in a way, this is, this is distilling the dream down to its key components, which is something I do anyway. And so, uh, this is more of like me trying to make an outline in a more, in a more organized form of what am I actually looking at here? And I have, this is a complete, you're coming along with me on an experiment here. I have this. I have no idea how this is going to work. This is the first time I've ever attempted it, but I've been wanting the opportunity to do so. And I was going to do it with someone at some point maybe you know the next person I spoke to just happens to be you um okay so we've got you uh behaviors you observing the statue uh the people nearby not seeming to be aware of it or

or not so that you noticed that that feature did not stand out but you uh one one they they were aware of it but they didn't penny fine okay if you think about it you think that they they knew it was there but they weren't looking at it that was not the focus of their attention yeah okay fair enough. Um, and that may be, uh, interesting fact. It may not. I don't know. Put a pin in that. Hang on to it. Um, one, it's a behavior of being in a group formation. It's kind of hard. Do we call that a behavior? Do we call that a location? Do we call that a feature of the setting? I'm putting it into the behavior category. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this, I'm misclassifying it completely. I don't know. Um, we've got to break it,

excuse me, right into the mic. Uh, we got to break it down somehow. So, and then one behavior of the sorceress's say sudden sudden appearance then the behavior of the manifestation and raising of the marble platform yeah okay no

I just took you outside now now he wants me to throw his toy he's gonna go get it this is this is already one of those streams that's okay I heard not stream but you know episodes one manifestation or one behavior of manifesting and raising a marble

platform. All right. And then it was when it was raised that the lightning appeared or it was from the moment of the marble platform appearing there was already a cage, say, a cage of lightning in existence.

After, you know, when the platform got to its stopping point, that's when it sort of appeared. Like, I wouldn't, was it really a, a cave? Come here. I mean, they could, in all reality, if it was actual, they could escape, but within the dream, they didn't or couldn't for some reason. Okay, so not actually a cage of lightning,

but lightning around it in a way that was, was threatening to them or simply present as a light show? How would you, how would you describe it? What's it like a light show, but yeah, just present around? them. Sit down. Sit down. Sit. Okay.

And I don't think it would have hurt, hurted them. At least not what I think. But okay. Fair enough. This is where my system is already starting to break down. Where do I write little details like that? Where it's like,

because it doesn't really seem to fit under behavior. It's a description of the platform and manifestation and the lightning itself. I guess I do a little, maybe a little sub, subnote here. Um, not a cage. Um, not dangerous. And, um, well, not a cage and not dangerous.

I guess that's sufficient. Uh, okay. And then the next behavior we would classify. Did, who initiated the, um, say, magic exchange, uh, or combat? What, did the sorceress fire first? Or was it you initiated the, um, first attack. Kind of at the same time. Okay.

And we'd say one, the next behavior is, uh, um, simultaneous exchange of, uh, we'll say magic. Simultaneous exchange of magic. And then what kind of magic was it? I mean, literally throwing fireballs, uh, grabbing each other and throwing each other across the room telekinetically. What was the, shooting lightning at each other?

What, what happened? I don't know if you ever watched that, that, uh, I don't know what, I'm not familiar with, with the,

the JK rolling shit, but you know, when, when, uh, in the movie, I think one of the last one, when he's,

when he's, uh, sort of battling, Oldemort, that kind of laser beam shit, you know. Okay. So it was not,

specifically fireballs. It was not specifically arcing lightning in weird forms, but more like almost shooting laser beams from the palm of the hand at each other. More direct, linear. Okay. And was there a resolution to the fight before you woke up or just the initiation of the combat? Or before you, there was just the combat and no, no resolution. Yeah, no actual resolution, but it did stop at some point. Now I remember that. Okay. It just, you're fighting and it ceased suddenly.

And that is, yeah, that's when the statue started to bleed. Okay. You know, I completely forgot about that. I'm glad you brought it back. I would have had to go back over my notes. So, and then. one behavior, we would say, of after, look at the dog came into my lap and then he wanted to get up and then he's going to get down again. I'll give you, I'll give you like three to five odds.

He's going to start barking at me again. Like, no, it's time to throw my baby. I don't want to sit in your lap. Okay, so back to the dream. One behavior of after the combat ceased. Statue bleeds. Does I feel like we covered everything? Did I leave anything out?

those are the major points at least i mean there's still uh you know little tidbits i could probably add as we go sure sure uh i mean i did leave out some things like the the um age of the woman in her 30s-ish and the description of her you know the gown and the uh the grayish black hair those are maybe possibly relevant i mean almost certainly relevant to figuring out who she is or who she represents in this in this um sequence of events um i could best uh what was it what was that her at least in my mind right now at least the closest i could say the woman resembled was uh do you remember that woman on youtube who used to make uh make food like uh She would do like homemade

taikis or whatever the fuck it was or some, you know, or burgers, you know, from McDonald's and she would try to make them herself. I can't remember the name of the channel. They stopped making videos like a year or two or more ago. I can't remember. No, was she pretty famous off of YouTube or really just YouTube famous?

Yeah, YouTube. I actually don't know. I never really watched it. you know, full time. I was just when it appeared on the front page. Sure. Well, I was going to ask you for more physical details of the woman. And that's actually one thing I probably could have done under who were the people.

There was you and the woman and then the other the other people. And I wanted to actually get that. That's where I probably should have done. It was under detailing who were the people present is, okay, what were they like? I wanted to get to some other stuff. So I, uh, let's go. Let's go back though. We'll go to page three.

And now the rest of the story. I got to miss Paul. So the people, let's see, sorceress. And you described her as 30s and grayish, black hair, robes. You were about to tell me something else.

Sorry, and I think I cut you off. Something else about her. Yeah, there was, there was there's just also older woman on on Instagram I remember I can't I know her username but I can't find her account right now she looked that's like something I was going to say the the sorceress looked like gotcha well and when you say older I mean I think you're mid mid 20s or or at least under 30 yeah so older would be not typically closer to 30 but maybe closer to 40 but still in in her 30s and then that's why the the gray was starting to set in

i mean i yeah yeah i okay yeah i guess yeah because you're i mean you're describing her as older she has an older feel but not you didn't say an old where there's like older and then there's it's not like he wasn't like 50 or some shit you know yeah yeah yeah older is relative to you so or or yeah yeah by comparison and then old is like well that's kind of an absolute value you get to end of life you're old you know and that could be 50 60, 70 plus. You know, I'm heading towards old. So even though I'm also older than you,

but there are people who are older than me who aren't quite old yet. It's a very interesting way to conceptualize it. So, um, and any physical feature, she was a tall, short, fat, skinny. Um, she was, uh, I mean, average build, of course, but, uh, like most people in my dream are, but, uh, short. Okay. not you know like what's the what's the average height of a woman uh but like actually i don't know i was going to say five five five six is you know yeah brought yeah at least in america but uh

five or six inches shorter than the average man which is you know probably i think we're somewhere around um you know five eight to six one or something somewhere so you get an average like five nine five ten my best guess I mean I don't know if it's really relevant, but, you know, shorter than the average. Okay. More of a, would you say petite or stocky? Yeah, petite. Yeah.

Okay. And then any concept of yourself as a physical presence? No, just me. As I am. Okay. Fair enough. And that's, you know, if I ask that rattling in doorknobs and you suddenly said, yeah, I was someone else.

You know, I was not as I am. That might be significant. But this is more like, no, it's just you. This is you having this experience. Not quite you through the lens of something else. Or a specific aspect of you. As far as you know, you also in robes or any sense of your physical manifestation? I mean, I'm in normal clothes.

But they were clothes. I would not actually wear an actual life, I'd say. Oh, interesting. How would they be different? Like, I'm generally a kind of either uniform or sweatshirt person, but this was like t-shirt and jeans kind of thing. So actually, you're not much of a t-shirt and jeans guy. That's not your typical look. Not at all. If we were to focus on that for just a moment and try a free association t-shirt and jeans guy, what type of a guy is that?

Or what is it? What's your iconic image of the type of person who wears it? The first thing pops in my head is like James Dean. I see that black and white image of him leaning on a car looking off to the side, smoking a cigarette, rebel without a cause, you know, t-shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up on the shoulder. And, you know, it's a white t-shirt, t-shirt and jeans. That's the image that comes to mind. So all that said, what's in your head when you think of that?

I mean, in general, it's like, it depends. But at least concerning, because it was on me, it's like I'm not dressed well. It's like soul, you know, I feel like a sloppy person if I were to dress that way. Okay. What do you think it means to be poorly dressed or sloppy? What comes to mind when you follow that association? You don't really care about yourself. not bringing your best self in some ways probably i mean that's that's what popped into my head i should

ask what does it what does it mean to you to not care about yourself but that's not taking care of your appearance definitely there's there's an angle to that and an un unarmed yeah yeah yeah that's what i was reaching for so there's there's some part of yourself that's saying okay imagine you are confronting whatever the situation is but it's not the best part of you it's not you putting in the proper or sufficient effort to make a good to represent yourself well that does that make sense i can see how that's relevant actually yeah do you want to say more it's uh i mean as we like with my effort trying to uh save the people i was with i didn't really put in that much effort except effort of saving my own at okay that's that's that's that's

that's the feeling you get now, now reflecting on, on the process that, that unfolded. Yeah. Making some notes here. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, so we've got a very, very interesting kind of kind of tiny window to a portion of how you might view a particular scenario of like, imagine you're in a place where you've got a problem, get some kind of a thing you have, you have, you've got something you have to confront. There's a conflict happening here between you and the sorceress, you know, and your primary concern is. saving yourself more than saving others. So there's a self-focus.

And in a way that you're, let's see, the scenario could have gone either way, but it's your feeling about it now that we're discussing it that matters most, which is you can imagine a scenario where you're willing to self-sacrifice because saving the other people is most important. Well, in this scenario, you're looking at, and there's also a, okay, so then that's one reasonable type of response.

We can imagine that scenario. There's also another kind of scenario. where you, God, you would love to, you wish you could help those other people more, but you're in a fight for your life. You have to survive first in order to be of use. But you're even, you're even conceiving it. Okay, I'll stop. Go ahead.

No, keep on. Okay. And then the third, third scenario for that would be, you probably could be fighting harder. You're being a little self-critical of liking, I didn't try as hard as I could have. I didn't put as, I could have put more focus on thinking of, others and you know I could have maybe tried harder and conquered the scenario through that superior effort and been of more benefit to others as a result is that where we're going with it like when I when I was fighting the source I didn't really have to exert myself right it was just

happening and it's like I didn't you know it was just I don't know how to explain but you know I didn't have to exert myself at all to do anything even though uh actually I don't know how to add on to that fair enough no we can just dwell on that for a moment um there are some scenarios where

the victory was so easy you didn't need additional effort that's what wasn't I'd say It wasn't exactly a victory, but we just, the fighting between me and the sorceress ceased at just one point. It's like suddenly stopped and, you know, every, she just stood there kind of that didn't do anything more. Sure. And then, you know, group was kind of, I'd say, rescued per se, even though they didn't come down from the platform.

Fair enough. They were perhaps out of danger, but it wasn't fully resolved. The platform never descended. They were never freed in that sense, at least not that you saw, which may be relevant or may not. What I'm getting at is, let's say you're playing, you know, tackle football against a two-year-old. No effort required. Actually, significant effort not to damage the two-year-old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one kind of a scenario. Then there's another type of scenario where you are more evenly matched and, if you If you had put in more effort, you could have prevailed sooner or to a greater degree. Do you see where I'm going with the distinction between the two? I mean, there's two different kinds of lack of effort. Like one where you shouldn't try harder because that would produce the worst outcome. And the other one where you should have tried harder because it would have produced a better outcome?

Yeah. And are you feeling like it was more the second? Maybe you're a little down on yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But sorceress. I'm just, I'm just some person, you know, a normal person. Like, I'm not going to really kick ass.

You had that feeling in the dream of, like, I'm actually not even able to keep up, or I shouldn't expect myself to be able to. I'm actually outmatched, or now you're thinking that reflecting on it. I wasn't exactly outmatched, but... Seems like you held your own. There's, yeah, yeah, for sure. They're, you know, they're... So they could have probably a blue... literated being and whatnot, but I guess didn't.

I don't know why. So you actually now looking back on it, it feels like you probably should have been defeated, but the other person chose to stop. You didn't actually prevail as much as they chose not to destroy you. What kind of certainty would you give that perspective? You know, one out of 10, 90%, whatever. Eight out of ten.

Okay. Gotcha. But you also have a, say, very relatively reasonable, let's see, what am I trying to say? Reasonable is not.

It may not even be the right word, but the idea of, it's an unsurprising turn of events that you, I'm just a normal dude, who even knows how I'm firing lasers out of my hand, I just am, but here's someone who's,

you know, the way you present yourself and the way you present the other person as icons of the type, like you very well could have put yourself in wizard's robes as well and shown yourself using superior force to dominate, to overcome. But you're saying, I was a regular dude trying to fight someone who is iconically stereotypical of the type, an actual sorceress in robes that you would expect that person to be wearing because they are, what am I trying to say? It is a visual representation of competence in that sense.

So, and then you've put yourself in a visual representation of incompetence or someone who's out of place. So like, I was never up to this task in the first place. Does that kind of making sense? Or at least not comparatively. Okay. Yeah. All of that just from looking at the people involved, you and you and them.

Yeah. Go ahead. I wanted to add, it wasn't exactly like a rope. like, you know, like a wizard row, but it still had that in the dream, at least that sense that it was a wizard row, but it didn't have a front opening, right? If that makes sense, it was just one long black dress, right, if that may, or say, maybe, maybe not. So as much as you would expect to find just a regular Joe on the street wearing t-shirt and jeans,

you would expect to see this person or this type of outfit on a person in what setting? Formal dinner. Okay. There's very much a class or status representation going on like a status differential between you two. You're showing yourself. Yeah, I see what you're what you mean by that. Yeah. You know, I didn't consider it in the room at all.

But yeah. Sure. Yeah. Well, that's why we look at it backwards. So, so, or in retrospect. we try to try to put these things together. That's where I was going with the idea. And this is also kind of just additional confirmation of how you conceive of what that style of dress means.

You know, if you've got, if you showed up to a formal dinner party in a T-shirt and jeans, you would feel very much out of place. And you'd be like, I didn't dress as well as I could have. I didn't bring my best, the best representation of myself to this or the best. And sometimes that's a metaphor or a icon. unimaginistic representation of I'm not giving my best effort, which is, which is actually where we're going with that because there's the, the physicality of the, of the exchange and how it didn't feel like you won. It felt like it just stopped.

And probably it stopped because she decided not to prevail against you, to leave it a draw in, in that sense. You were, you were in a sense shown, you know, a mercy or kindness by this other person who could have defeated you. yeah for sure okay and then what happens and this is why this is getting you know this is all tangled up we're actually doing my I can't abandon my process whatever used to be the intuitive stuff was throwing it all in there in this hodgepodge of a new whatever I'm trying to do here um what I've done in the past is is try to find triggers for the chain of events like what caused

one discreet engagement or encounter or experience to transition into the next. And it was this moment, perhaps, of the person compared to whom you were outclassed, choosing to be merciful, that then the statue starts to bleed. And if you think about it in that way, does anything come to mind? I wouldn't at least I wouldn't consider the statue bleeding her being versed and scroll it was just something that suddenly began to happen yeah there's no one not saying there was yeah go ahead or any uh possible i don't think at least correlation to why it started bleeding yeah that's what we're trying to

together. I mean, not that the statue bleeding was a manifestation of her mercy in that way or the decision not to be destructive at the very least. I mean, there's all kinds of different forms that, you know, mercy is its own kind of thing. There might be a better word for it. That's just what came to my mind. Maybe I should ask you, how would you describe that? See, this is me reflecting on my process, too, like, why would I make a suggestion when I could ask a question? It might be, you know, something I need to focus on more. What I'm trying to do is saying that there's something about seeing the resolution of that scenario that then brought to mind the need to see the statue begin to bleed and get covered

in blood. There's some causal connection between the two in a sense that it's not that the bleeding statue is not a representation of the act of mercy. That was its own discreet thing, but it's what comes after. So, okay, now what comes after having had that kind of experience or reflecting on that experience or witnessing that experience that then would, would trigger in your mind the visual representation of, because the statue could have come to life. It could have taken off like a rocket. It could have disappeared. Any number of things could have happened.

But what happened was it started to bleed. So there's, there's some causal connection there. and I'm not sure what it is. And you may not be sure what it is. But when I phrase it like that way, what do you think? I honestly draw blank. Okay. Well, here's one thing.

So we were, this entire third Pam on three said, you said it was a short dream. And the telling is always, you know, longer or shorter, depending. But we've barely gotten through the first two, um, you know,

and that's an object. Yeah. So we're getting on the eyes. we got through, we haven't even gone to the bystanders and who they are and what they look like and what they were doing maybe, which may not bear strong, but, but we've actually now, we're connecting this to the, to the statue. Let's say a little bit about, a little more about the statue. You described it as in a neutral pose.

Just kind of, you know, standing, standing there with, like, what's a natural stance? I guess. One leg, just a tiny bit forward of the other. And, you know, just like it's not, you know,

in a walking position, but just standing. Yeah, there was no suggestion. It wasn't, the thinker sitting and with his, with his elbow on his knee and his, and his chin resting on his,

on his fist. It wasn't, um, you know, Michelangelo's David necessarily. That was, or was it? Was the statue nude?

I think, did you say? Yes. It wasn't. It wasn't. It was new. I think you did say that. What?

So the, the, um, sorceress was a little, you know, was on the petite side and a little shorter and a little older than you. How about the statue? Relative age,

height, um, body composition, you know, I mean, it was, it was on, the statue was of a young,

younger woman, obviously. I mean, you know, but, uh, and relatively, like,

any Roman broad statue would be right so a little more on the slender side say versus hourglass volumptuous large breasted that kind of thing white hips yeah okay fair enough any long hair short hair any any other features um um I mean uh that's the best feature um uh the hair I don't have any really thing to note on. I mean, it was just shoulder and pushed back. Okay. So, behind the ear type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. It's maybe unremarkable hair. Just writing that down in terms of like, nothing stands out. You could have said, yeah, shit. Now that I think about it was Medusa. It was Medusa snakes. It wasn't. But it could have been. And you just never really crossed your mind to say that until I, you saw the image again in your

mind you're like well here's something now was she um carrying anything like you've seen nude statues and they've got a bow and arrow strapped over their shoulders you know that kind of thing no it wasn't wasn't it was just uh just not holding anything right at least i ever fair enough fair enough um hands by your side outstretched crossed crossed across across her chest anything i think yeah just by side That would be a more neutral. So it wasn't an athletic pose. I think you already said that too.

So not running or dancing or doing anything. If you had to guess what the person was doing, they were just standing for, standing for the sculptor. They weren't, they weren't imitating any kind of action whatsoever. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. And when you noticed the blood begin, where did it start to manifest?

Like out of the eyes, out of the top of the head? It just like, yeah, just start fring from the top of the head. You know, it just came, it wasn't like a small trickle. It just, it came out of it like enough just to cover it completely, you know, as it passed once over. Okay. And you didn't have the impression that the blood was coming from somewhere up above and falling on the statue. It was manifesting from from the statue itself. I wouldn't say it was from the statue itself.

It just somehow manifested on the statue that started from the top. Okay. Interesting. So it isn't as if a tiny hole or wide hole opened at the top of the statue's head and it gushed out and covered it. But somehow it's almost like a covering of blood was layered onto the statue from an unknown source. Yeah. Okay. Did the appearance of the statue change other than that?

Any, any shift in pose, any shift in expression on the face? Not at all. Okay. So the statue was just a statue. It kind of impassive as far as that goes. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Oh, that's right. As it got covered in blood, I had this overwhelming sense of dread, but nothing actually happened. Nothing bad. Yeah, nothing actually happened other than dread at the emotional response at seeing the statue suddenly become covered in blood.

Yeah. And it's interesting you saw it as a process unfold rather than you simply glanced over and, wow, suddenly the statue is completely covered in blood and you didn't notice when that happened. You actually saw it happen. That's why I'm saying there's somewhat of a causal connection there in terms of the fight ending and the standard. changing. One followed the other. So there's some result of the fight that caused you to need to see the statue change in that way. Nothing's coming to mind on that score. No, because after the group was, like I said, freed. But, you know, they couldn't leave for some reason. You had the sense that, well, okay, so not just the sense. You're saying they never, the platform never came down.

So they were out of danger, but still in a form of confinement, so to speak. Yeah. Still raised in the air. That's like, well, let's get on to that too. So we've got the other, the other people to examine. This actually might be a good way for me to try and keep track of things I have and have not asked. Because I go back and go, okay, yeah. The people.

Let's do that. Bystanders. Also, this, the, so going away, rewind, back to the beginning, so to speak. You're in this triangular formation with them. And one, two, three, four, five, six. Let's see, one, two, three. That doesn't break down to an even distribution across the triangle. It would be one, two, and three.

I mean, the group, the group wasn't one elbow. The group was, was, was it, it was actually not a, it was not six, people including yourself formed in the shape of a pyramid as much as it was two points. It was more of like a wedge, a Chevron shape, rather than a, and they were all in line. Does that make sense? Well, they were standing in just kind of not exactly a huddle, but, you know, in a group. And, uh, this was vaguely triangular, not specifically triangular. Yeah, I mean, that's just the way I can make, you know, try to get.

you know, to picture what, you know, positions we were standing in. Any features of any of the people stand out, the composition of the group, it was all female, it was all male, it was half and half, old young. And it was one of them that only stands out in the dream was, or at least two of them. One was this darker skin guy who had really short hair.

I can't. I don't know anything. The other one was this, was a younger white girl, was blonde. And those are the two people I can only that have, you know, I can.

Sure. I lost a word. And the other, the other, say, three people, nondescript, they were just present, no idea if they were male or female, older young. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

These being the only two people who stand out, any specific behaviors you observed them doing prior to the, you know, they were present, but not focused on the statue the way you were. They didn't notice it. They were not aware that a statue was there. I mean, they knew, I guess they knew it was there, but they didn't. That's right. It's a binding binder to it. it mattered that. That was it. They were aware of the statue, but not focused on it.

Yeah. Certainly not focused on it like you were. Yeah. It's interesting too. So there's, what am I trying to say? There's a, it seems to me significant in some way. And I think obviously so, but I've got to say it out loud to put it into the proper words of like, you are attending to a feature of the environment that the other people find unremarkable enough not to

not to pay attention to like so you're you're having a different experience than them even though you are present with them in the same location yeah is that making sense yeah it might be a better way to say it but that's that's the general ideas like you're you're attending to some detail of the environment that they are not and it's not that they're not aware of it and maybe they've seen it before and they don't care. Maybe it's new to you. I don't know how you would characterize that. I mean, yeah, I get what you mean by it. Yeah. And there's something about that that makes them bystanders and you not.

You know, you very easily could have imagined yourself to be. Are you saying something, sorry? no no no there's an airplane I'm flying overhead okay yeah I was like I don't know what I'm hearing this is cutting in and out you very well could have shown yourself

to be one of the bystanders you very well could have shown yourself to be the statue but you're not you're involved in this in a different way and I think there's something significant about that of like okay I'm not the only one in this scenario but I am the only one seeing it from this perspective

I'm the only one aware of the statue even though and aware is the wrong you keep correcting me. I'm the only one who believes this statue has enough significance that I'm focused on it. I'm seeing something that they're not at that moment. What were they doing? What were they attending to? Talking to each other,

staring at something else. No, they were just existing in the space at that time. They didn't really have any words or actions. At what point are you talking about just like a whole time? Prior to the platform. Oh, yeah. No, they were just existing.

Fair enough. And they could have been doing something, and it doesn't mean necessarily anything that they weren't. Well, I'm sure it means something, but it would mean something more if they were doing something. But yeah, so there's, it seems to me, and you can corroborate or contradict that you're, yeah, what I was saying, what I was saying before, the idea of,

so it's as if you're a, imagining yourself in an experience that other people also experience. So what am I trying to say? It's like you're not showing yourself as experiencing something that other people don't, but from your, that's not the right way to put it either. What am I trying to say? Finding the right words is the hardest part sometimes.

You're imagining, or so it seems to me, I don't want to tell you that you are. What's a better way to describe it? There's a concept I'm getting at here. It's like it's not that you're going through something that no one else has experienced before, but you're definitely imagining your experience of it versus what other people might experience. Is that getting closer to something that feels right? I'm not, or say, I'm not grasping what you're, what you mean.

I don't know if I'm grasping what I'm saying. I'm throwing out words until it makes sense, right, until it's right, until it's right. until it makes sense to me. So there's something. Okay, let's do the counter. I like to do the counterfactuals. You didn't show yourself in this environment alone. You put the bystanders there with you.

So there's a reason for them to be there. Why did you need to? And you were actually a part of their group. So it's there's even though they got separated out. There's something about them being separate from you and being the ones that get in, imprisoned or captured on platform, whereas you were not that, I guess what I'm trying to say is that let's say if you are aware of something that other people are not, then you're the only

person that can do something about it because they're not aware. First, become aware of the problem. Second, decide what to do about it. And deciding can be fight, flight or freeze, you know, decisions are like that. But if you're blind to a problem, if you don't see it, then you can't do anything about it. Am I going somewhere? It feels right? Yeah. Even though I don't have anything to add to it.

Sure, sure. No, no. As long as it feels right, reasonable or what am I trying to say? As long as you're not like, no, that does. That's not it. You know, feel free to tell me that at any point. So there's something about, yeah, that's why I think I keep coming back to that idea of. awareness. Like, it's not that they weren't aware of it necessarily. Like, they'd maybe seen it before, but they're not seeing it the same way you do. You're seeing it in a unique way that makes you, in your own mind, responsible to do something about it. Like, now I'm in the position of a decision, whereas they're not. They don't see what you see. So they can't, they're not in the same position. Whether they should or shouldn't be is irrelevant. It's just they don't see it the same way you do. It's like you're seeing a problem that they don't. I mean, then that's what kind of feels right. Yeah. If we think of the statue in that way as a, a object of,

and I'm using all these words like you see a problem that it may not be it. You may just, you may just see a feature that they don't. And it's not that they can't, but they certainly don't see it the same way you do. I feel like the statue is, at least if I think about it, a statue could have been an object of desire. Now that you kind of think about it of like,

it's certainly a true. attracted your attention. And if you were to, you know, in your mind, look at the form. You can recall it is an attractive form. It's not an ugly unpleasant form. For sure. And sometimes we would look at that which attracts our attention as something attractive. And that's a weird way to think about it.

Because we tend to use words that have the both denotative and connotative meaning aligned. And so we don't think of being attracted. to paying our taxes. That is a literal, right? That is a literal fact. Yeah. It attracts our attention because there's a threat there. You don't pay your taxes.

You go to prison. So, but we, we think of attraction as to physical beauty or to, to romantic interest or to, um, personality. This is how we think of attraction.

But then there's also the, the purely physical attraction of a magnet. That is an attractive quality. And it's a funny thing is it's a, it's a verb, not a noun even though we call attraction we think of it as a thing attraction being a thing it's like it's a physical property that we then analogize to that which captures our interest in some manner so this statue has captured your interest as a folk an object of focus and an attraction to it in a way that it hasn't captured the attention of the other people present maybe because they've seen it before but for whatever reason they're aware that it's there but doesn't stand down out to them. They don't have that same quality of needing to see it or to focus their attention on it the way you do. Yeah. And before, and you know what? We, we, we don't know. That's the funny

part. No, for real. Nobody knows. And they're like, oh, well, you see, it's this, you get down to the bottom of that. So people have all kinds of fancy. Gravity. We have still, no idea. Well, we think it's a function of mass. And we kind of understand it a little bit. No, if we understood how it worked, we could turn it on and off. We can't. We can't turn on and off magnetism either. We can generate magnetism. We can magnetize a piece of metal with an electric current, but we still don't know what magnetism is.

It just, it is what it does is where a lot of this stuff comes from. And there's going to be some science nerd out there was going to go, actually his dream was a guy who doesn't know the fuck he's talking about. And probably I don't. But honestly, well, see, it's the other thing, too, is like, we have no idea where ideas come from. How did I not have an idea? a split second ago and now I do. Where did that come from? Why did that happen?

We don't know. We know there's a pyramid of effort or knowledge or concentrated, you know, the concentration of both effort and knowledge in a particular direction. We open ourselves up to the possibility of an answer and sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn't. And we don't know why. All you can do is, is, and there's a million strategies for making yourself more receptive. but none for bridging that gap.

And that's why I was going with the pyramid analogies. We've got, and that's where the kind of Illuminati symbol of the all-seeing eye at the top of the pyramid or the pyramid with the all-seeing eye on it and then above that is a flame. Or usually the eye is above it. And there's a gap. There's a gap between the pyramid and the flame.

There's the light bulb appears above your head, not connected to your head, not inside your head. It's something. And that gap is magic. We don't know what the fuck it is. or how it works. We can't force it to happen consistently, scientifically, scientifically. Like, if they knew how to, if any of us knew how to force inspiration, we would solve every

problem immediately overnight. We would just do it. We would just say, I need an answer. There it is. We know exactly how to generate the answer we're looking for. We have no idea. Long story short, that happens to a lot of things. And as much mastery of the universe as we think we have, we don't know shit.

So there's more magic out there. That gap, that gap is infinite. That's what people don't realize. That gap is unknowable. It is uncrossable by will alone. It is, it is, it's a gift bestowed upon us. I've just rambled for like five minutes on magic and knowledge. But I hope, I hope you're entertained in the audience is too.

Okay. So all of this in relation to the statue and attention, we have no idea what attracts our attention to something. Why are we attracted to a person? Why are we, why do something catch our eye? Why do we, where are we interested in one thing and not another? Sometimes we can distill it down to, well, here's early childhood experiences, et cetera, et cetera. Here's your tastes and proclivities and personality types.

But still, we have no idea. You know, why does someone, why does someone prefer chocolate over vanilla? No idea. We have no idea. So that's, that's what we're dealing with here. And there's some kind of, okay, I'm just going to stop there. Now that I've said all of that about the statue and about the concept. of attention and something that grabs your attention and attention relative to a group of other

people who are not paying attention in the same way you are. Does that inspire anything? I'd have to think about it for a while. And that's fine. I said a lot and I probably said too much. I probably could have stopped five minutes ago and you would have had an answer for me, but I filled your brain with my ramblings. Yeah, I mean, I ramble too. No, it's okay. Yeah, what I was looking at there is, is that idea. So there's something about that. You have another plane going over? No, not right now.

It's probably just the wind. Oh, it might be the wind, yeah. I was hearing myself again. So there's the experience of seeing yourself as part of a group, but having a different experience of the present environment than they do. There's something about them not paying attention that renders. them the ones that get captured raised up on the platform. Even though we were a group, I wasn't considered part of their group, if that makes sense.

Definitely. No, and that fits too. I'm like, you definitely stand out. You were like, there's a, yeah, there's a concept of being with the group of, what is it? The, um, alone in a sea of people, that idea of, you know, I was around so many other humans, but I didn't feel any connection to them. so I felt alone in a group. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, when I say that, does anything come to mind? Not exactly. I mean, it's, I just see it as it was, I guess. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah. You definitely see.

There's anything extra to it. And I think, so there's a lot of different ways. There's, there's, I am, let's say you're in a crowded bar and it's raucous and loud and everyone is having the greatest time and no one's talking. to you. That's a type of experience where you are present in the same environment with a bunch of other people where you're not connected to them. Your experience is uniquely different. You're the only one not engaged in the social experience. Now, I don't say that to say that's what this means, but that's a type of experience. And that happens in a lot of different settings. I mean,

being physically present is not the same as being part of the group. Right. Yeah. And so there's a There's also the concept of if you are the only one attentive to something specific and the other people are not, even though you're physically present with them, your experience is different. So that's what we see going on here, I think, is this idea of what separates you from this crowd, this group, is your attentiveness to the statute. It's the idea that you see something they don't or your attention is focused in a way that theirs is not. Is that? Could have been, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, feel free to say, that's not what it felt like. It felt like something else. But I'm trying to explain, well, what I see. Which may not be what happened. Maybe, I mean, I get what you're saying,

but was the statue of the sole cause that we were separated? Probably not. Okay. If you had to think of another cause, anything come to mind? I mean, what might have set you apart from them, even though you were standing with them? I don't know why.

I couldn't really pinpoint exactly why that group was targeted instead of me, but even though all I can say is probably because I wasn't, even though I was with them, I wasn't part of them. And I don't know if that singled me out or if, I just had the word at my head, but I forgot it. What is going on? But, uh, are you kidding?

I just forgot what I was going to say. You know, they put something in the water to make it forget. Don't drink the fluoride. Don't do it. They, uh, I can't remember now. This sucks. I was going to say something, but now I can't. We were discussing the idea of being, um,

present with the group, but not a part of the group. Yeah. And there was a certain phrasing. Oh, probably, yeah, because I was the main, at least in the dream, I was the main character. So certainly, I had to be the savior. I guess I don't know if that's the actual reason, but, you know. Sure, that is a connection. We can draw, certainly.

And that is actually how the dream played out. I mean, you were imagined yourself to be the protagonist in that situation. So it's technically a factual statement. Even though it could have played out differently, it could have been like, you are you in the dream and you are present, but you're observing the hero act. You're observing the person. You are watching the person more observant or attentive than you handle a problem. In this sense, you are imagining that status is conferred upon you by the nature of the

circumstances, whether you feel. And I guess in some ways, because of the way it played out that the, you didn't actually prevail so much as the threat stopped. And it was kind of. In that realm of merciful action of like this person who could have defeated me, chose not to. Now, maybe it wasn't mercy. They didn't care about me. Something.

They had some other reason not to complete their victory. Yeah. I wouldn't say it was mercy. It was, yeah, something made, I guess, within the plot made them stop. Do you have a sense that this sorceress saw the blood and that is what made them stop or had a knowing that the statue was about to do something? Their attention shifted? It, I don't think she wasn't really a central part of the dream once the statue came into play. So I don't think, I wouldn't say she was, uh, was a part of it.

It was like the statue was part of the setting. Okay. There was a world prop. World prop. I like that. Like a world prop. Well, I think it had more significance to you than than to her, apparently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And it very well could have been, this could have been one of those doork knobs that popped open and you're like, oh, yeah, it was related or it seemed like that. I was suggesting there was a connection, but more in the in the sequence of events. And I don't want to do it like an ad hoc fallacy type of thing because this happened after, therefore, necessarily it's connected, it was caused by what happened before. I think it was, but in what way, you know, so there's something about the end of the fight that you needed to then see the statue covered in blood because that's what it meant for that conflict to end in the way it did.

Does that make sense? Well, it was more, I'd say it just, everything, the fighting, at least just, it just, suddenly ceased and that's when I, you know, I turned to face the people and, uh, and that's when, you know, the statue, I looked over to the statue. Okay. Was there, the people raised on the marble platform, it was directly into the air, perfectly vertical, not, they weren't moved off to the side. They were just moved out of the way.

So, yeah. Yeah. Well, and say that again, I had a radio call. Oh, gotcha. The people on the platform, the platform moved vertically only. It didn't slide off to the side. And actually, I never asked, were the people in between you and the sorceress? And they needed to move out of the way so you could have the fight underneath them or.

So like, I guess, to try to paint. in a better picture. She was to my, if I'm, say I'm standing north, she was to my left to my northeast and the group of people was closer to me, but they were to my northeast. Wait, the sorceress was to the northeast, right? Sorry, I mean northwest, the sorceress was northwest. Okay. And then where was the statue relative to? to that the direction you were facing. So the group was to the northeast and they were, I mean, to the statues to the east.

Okay. And that's an it's, and what I'm imagining is you're, you're talking about yourself facing north and then to your northeast. Uh, the, the, the, uh, which, which actually, the other way, uh, was the sorceress. And then the statue, uh, say all that again one more time. The, you're facing. Yeah, I'm facing north. To my left is west. Yes.

And to the northwest is the sorceress at a, like, maybe 20 to 40 meters away, or actually a little more than that. And just closer to me, like maybe 10 meters or so, 15, was the group to, you know, that I mean to my right to the to the north east the statue was to my direct right but still a few meters away at kind of equal distance as you know the group was to me like it but gotcha you know the stat like I made it more confused I think I drew I think I drew it out based on the points of the compass here um yeah Yeah, that's okay. That's just trying to see it in my head a little bit better. Because, yeah, it might have been relevant like we were all in a direct line.

The statue was behind me, then me, then the group, the sorceress, like, okay, that's interesting. I don't know, it was a little more spread out. But it wasn't, so the group got raised up off to the side, very much out of the way. And it was, it was your impression at the time that it was the sorceress that did so. She separated them out? Yeah. Okay. But if she actually did it herself or it was just part of the script, I don't know for sure.

Okay. Well, okay. Well, that is the question actually that I was asking. It's like she definitely did so. But it certainly seems to be a feature of the environment. It's like, let's say, if we're imagining this as a factor of he who, number one, have to be present and many people can be present but being present is not sufficient you also have to be attentive you have to notice something that the other people don't that's what separates you from

the group so this idea of physically being raised up out of the way in a way that they're trapped on a on a marble platform with lightning around it is in some ways a physical manifestation or visual expression of the concept of they are locked out of this conflict. because of their lack of attention. Does that make sense? I mean, they wouldn't say they had lack of attention, but they knew it was going on and they just didn't avoid it. They just let it happen.

Fair enough. Well, there's, and I'm not trying to press this on you. I'm trying to express myself more clearly. Yeah. Like, it is a necessary function of the, the type of experience where if you are aware of something and other people present or not, they are in a way locked out of what follows from attention. In order to be a part of the experience, they would need to have the same attention you do,

but they don't so that that separates them. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm trying to say. It's like a flow chart. and you have to tick the boxes. So number one, present, yes, you and the group. Number two, paying attention.

No, the group is not. You are. So you get to follow a different line on the flow chart than they do. Their line on the flow chart is you've now been excluded. You don't move beyond this box of being purely present. You have to actually take the next box, which is present and paying attention. don't know that I make yeah

because I don't want you to get I don't want to do a harder okay and I'm good yeah and the best

yeah yeah that is confidential okay this is a top secret yeah top secret message like CIP

okay Yeah. What is happening? We go ahead. I had a work shit, but, uh, yeah. Do you, do you got to get going? Are we, are we out of time? No, no, no, no, no, okay. That's just, that's okay. I might cut that out. I might not. Like, I don't even know what's happening. That was kind of funny, though. It's, it was like an amused tone in the background. I don't know. I don't even know what the words were. Hmm. Okay. So, we're imagining like a, like a decision-making flow chart or a chart, uh, chart.

flow chart of an experience, present, then we have to tick that box. Then we have to tick the box present and paying attention. And then the box below that would be present, paying attention, and now confronted with a decision, a conflict, so to speak. And the conflict, the conflict itself is whether or not to do something, not the actual conflict. that's that's why i'm struggling with that one so we've got um the flowchart you know present plus attention plus resolving resolving resolving the question of whether to take action

and do you see where i'm going with that keep going i mean i so yeah yeah i'm breaking it down in my head too so the the the the step that follows attention is not action. It's the question of whether or not to take action. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's almost like the first thing that popped into my head was the rush lyric. Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

The song Free Will. Yeah. And I mean, I... Go ahead. Go on. Well, I was going to say the question of whether or not to take action is its own type of internal conflict. And now you may resolve that conflict very easily. You may be strongly motivated to take action or not to take action in a way that it's almost instantaneous as soon as the question is asked,

it is answered, but it's always asked. Does that make sense? Yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah, the question itself, even if it's glossed over, even if the answer comes to you in a heartbeat, you know, it's still, we still don't avoid that. question. The question itself is is omnipresent. It's necessary. Anytime we're confronted with the choice, we have to choose. And like I said, even if we, even if there's never a question, we say that, but it just means we already know how we feel about that particular question. We don't have to stop and think. So I'm almost thinking this conflict with which or sorceress, whatever, is a representation of settling that question in your mind, that there's actually more of a,

more of a conflict to it. It's not such an immediate answer. Is that feeling at all relevant? I'd say that last part. Yeah, and I'm actually trying to think of a better way to say it. The idea of showing yourself in a laser battle, in a fight, an actual fight against another person, is more possibly representative of the decision-making process itself, choosing to take action. What choice do I make? Yeah.

The process of choosing, of coming to a decision about what actually. to pursue. Right. Does that feel right? Or you want to go on from there and just, you know, let it be what it is. I mean, it's not wrong. Okay. But I sit on it perfect.

Sure. Well, you do. You actually, you struggle with it. There's a, I think, I think a visual representation of an actual battle conflict. And this is all, like, the whole thing is actually taking place inside your head anyway. So it isn't actually what it appears to be. It's actually a representation of something. I went with, you know, the whole dream interpretation process is like, well, what is it a representation of? And I think we're, we're getting there in terms of that. And this is why I mean, but the

idea of, so there's the, there's, you have to be present. You have to be paying attention. You have to settle the question of action, which is, you know, do something, do nothing. And then there's the there's a resolution to it which you didn't this looks like a non-choice choice like what am I trying to say let me let me let me let me we stop there and back up so present paying attention with the question of action the resolution of the question um and that can be a lot of forms that's where I was going on on tangent there but then after the resolution is bloody statue and this is why I was saying that they are connected like you're showing yourself the aftermath of the process of decision making in some way.

What is the resolution? I think the resolution of the question of action is shown to you in the process of the fight, which is you actively engage. You were not just being shot at. You returned fire. you, it's like one, let's say if there were two choices, do something, do nothing. You were closer to one answer than the other. And that's why you embodied that answer.

And the antagonist embodied the opposite or less attractive answer, the answer that you struggled against or were. What am I trying to say? There's a lot of different ways we conceive of problem solving. and one of them is to say, well, here's what I really want, but is it good for me? Or is that the best possible outcome? Should I try something else? Then there's also, here's what I really don't want, but maybe I should do it. So there's almost always, it's, what am I trying to say?

It's almost never that we are exactly 50-50 balanced on the edge of a knife, unable to make a decision. There's usually some reason we're hesitant to enact a decision. And we think it's something unpleasant we'd rather avoid or we're worried it's something pleasant that we might not be good for us or that we shouldn't do. And then we war within ourselves with the shoulds and shouldn't, which is the better outcome. If I just stop there for a moment, does any of that feel relative to something or if you feel like we're going to the right direction? I understood what you said in the first part, but then it got too complicated for my dominance.

No, that's okay. And I'm probably just not being coherent either. But where do you think I lost you? If you tried to start feeding it back to me as far as what you understand them, where I lost you? Because I mean, what I'm trying to find out is what part of it of the dream are you comparing or making it for? Oh, the actual fight with the sorceress, the exchange of lasers. That is, there's something in there that is representative, I think. And you tell me, that's why I stopped to ask you, if this, that portion of the dream, that exchange of laser fire felt like, if it feels like I'm on to something of the idea that that being the conflict, an inner conflict that you're trying to resolve in terms of a decision making process. like where we put the metaphor to ourselves of, you know,

well, we use that metaphor, inner conflict. Like I was conflicted. Well, what does that mean? Are you fighting yourself? But there's no, you are one body. Where does the fight happen? The fight happens in your mind. And the fight is between conflicting desires or that kind of thing.

So do you think we're on to something in terms of like, this is part of a problem solving process, like an internal conflict resolution? not against myself i would say okay and maybe in that sense you know what you want but you're unsure whether you should uh kind kind of because there's the um say broadly forreting concept of a of the id the ego and the super ego and the say again yeah that like i i get that makes a little sense. And the way, now, no, I'm not saying there's, we've, let's see, it's like 120 years ago. We've moved on since then. There's other personality concepts, but I always like that one, just because it keeps it very simple. There are, uh, the id is basically like animal instinct in a lot of

ways. Here's, uh, if, if we were, uh, you know, we want to, how did, um, Jack Nicholson in one floor over the cuckus nest, he put it, you know, they said, what got you in here? He said, too much fucking and too much fighting. And that's the ego. Once the fucker, wants to It wants to eat. It wants to sleep. It just wants to satisfy animal urges. And fair enough. We are animals.

Those urges. Our instincts are in us. What makes us human is running it through the process of balancing it against the ego and the super ego. And the super ego is basically like the, he framed it as kind of like the authority figure, like the father paternal in your life. But it's also societal expectations. It is the super ego is what tells us how to. appropriately express our id

if that makes sense like we don't express the what the id you know the the animal instincts it's like a problem yeah super ego is basically like appropriate expression of animal instincts and it's and it's the civilization

imposed upon the animal human nature if that makes sense it's like it's the one that says don't piss and shit here go in the toilet and so yeah yeah yeah it's like this is not appropriate we don't do it this way we do it this way it doesn't say never piss or shit it says you do it in the toilet so it's it gives us the or is it pro-social proper and that's where he got into concepts of like sublimation and if we're not going to get it all that um uh great

great stuff i mean it's genius he just speaking of inspiration he's invented all that shit he's pulled it right out of his ass anal fixation although we get an oral fixation with the, uh, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Long story short on all this. Um, that's, okay. So then there's the ego and we haven't even gotten to that. That's our sense of self, roughly speaking. And it is tugged at by the id and the super ego.

Um, and then the reason he put it as super ego is like, you know, there's, there's our own desires, which are connected to the id. And it's, and he thought of these things as two forces separate from us working within us, our animal instincts are societal training in that sense or uh you know being informed of right conduct by philosophers who have who have engaged in the process of deep thinking about virtue they tell us here's what it means to be a good person and we try to enact that in the world that's that's that's super ego as well long story short on all this very often what we've got going inside of going on inside of us is being tugged at by these conflicting forces like there's

what my animal instinct is driving me to want to do in some ways. And sometimes the super ego says, no, it doesn't even, it says there is no appropriate way to express that. That must only be repressed, you know. And that's where we get that idea of repression. You've got to find out what is being repressed and why. And then maybe look underneath that to find, okay, why is this, why is the id pushing that so hard?

Okay, all of this related to, I'm trying to formulate my thoughts on how to, how to explain this in terms of conflict, inner conflict resolution, like when we're decision making. So sometimes the id and the, and the super ego are in direct conflict and we have to choose one. This, it's okay to lean into my instincts because sometimes they're right. The instincts, animal instincts aren't always wrong. We have an animal instinct to have sex. Hey, that's fantastic. Super ego says do it in a committed relationship.

So if you have children, you can raise them together. It's better for the species, it's better for society, that kind of a thing. Different people have different super-egos. They have different philosophical systems that tell them alternatives are better. That's, I guess I just exposed my super ego. That's the conclusion I would advocate, you know. Okay. So, but there's very often within us a, the need of a conflict resolution.

And the more things we've resolved over our lifetime, the less things we need to revisit, the more instantaneous our decision-making tends to be. until we're confronted by something out of the ordinary, something a little bit unusual, or an old question that was never resolved comes back and poses itself to us again. And that may be either your, so if we imagine this entire dream as a representation of being confronted by some problem you've become aware of and the need to resolve that in your mind, you're showing yourself, say, and all of this to explain the idea of the battle with the, so the witch or sorceress is representing either the superego or the id in that sense. And you are you trying to decide what you believe. And you, the you that is you is is on the other side of the id super ego conflict in that sense.

or at least you are the ego trying to choose between them. So you're in some kind of a dilemma that has to be resolved, that that inner conflict and what you, what it seems like happened, you can tell me, this is where I was trying to get to after all this way. What it seems like happened is that you actually didn't prevail so much as the question, the period of, the period of conflict elapsed. maybe without an answer. Resolved itself. And sometimes if we do nothing, that's, I mean, we use very often avoidance, delaying tactics to not make a decision. And then the decision gets made by time. The window closes for making a decision.

And that is choosing not to decide. And then you still have made a choice, the choice not to act. And the situation resolves itself. It expires, basically. So all that said and done, the result. you showed yourself is because I did not make a choice, because I did not actively resolve. Like I did not prevail or nor was I defeated. The statue gets covered in blood.

So we stop right there and we just say, okay, if you think of all of that, the idea of an internal conflict about decision making, the window closing, not making a decision, can you relate that to anything that might have happened? You said you had this dream last night? last night or do you want to say last night or do you want to do the actual time frame? Well, yeah, the actual time frame would be better just because it'll relate then to what you were going through at the time. Oh, yeah. This was like, actually, how long ago was it? What, last week or two weeks? Okay.

What was happening in your life? What question were you maybe conflicted about? What situation were you presented with the need or, the the suspicion that you should make a decision and then you just didn't and it kind of went away but it left you with a bloody statue i didn't really have any any major decisions i mean i planned a trip but i just booked it you know i booked it way ahead of time and actually i made i took you know submitted time off for one date and then and i found it cheaper on another date so I rescheduled it and all this, but it's like,

I didn't have any really major decisions that I could relate to the dream, I would say. Okay. I mean, planning a trip came to mind. Like, that's the only thing you can think of in that time frame that, where a decision needed to be made by you? Well, there wasn't really, uh, it wasn't really a time sensitive decision. It was just the only big decision that I really had, I can think of. Yeah, and you may be thinking too big.

What I mean by that is sometimes we limit our answers to like, well, nothing else I went through seems significant enough to have a dream about. And maybe it doesn't, but maybe it was. Does that make sense? The idea you may have been experiencing some kind of a conflict in your mind that didn't seem significant, but it was enough that you needed to revisit it in your sleep and played over in your mind one more time. and it relates to putting yourself in this. There's also some reason you chose the kind of Witcher universe. We never even really talked about that. There's like a kind of a gritty realism to that universe in a way that is more like Tolkien and less like some of the other fluff fantasy ones where it's kind of lighthearted.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, racism. You know, they get different species. Well, yeah. Yeah. species that don't get along. And like I said, a gritty realism. There's a lot of fantasy worlds where everything is very, it's pretty copacetic. What am I trying to say? There's not a lot of

tragedy in a comedy. I mean, that's the basic different dichotomy of storytelling. You know, and it sounds like the, even though I would say the Witcher and Lord of the Rings are both comedies actually in a pure dichotomy, the hero. prevails and lives and overcomes the evil. That's a comedy classically. And a tragedy is basically where the hero fails or dies. That's like the broad, but now I also think of a tragedy as sad or dark or, you know, grim, grim, dark is the way like Warhammer 40K has been described. It's in a universe.

It's just constantly a war. There's tremendous suffering everywhere. And, you know, you don't put that in say kids shows. You don't put that in a in a rom-com. That's the wrong tone. So, yeah. So, so in a way,

you're not wrong to say, wow, what, what events have I gone through recently in my life where, or around that time period in my life, where it would reach the level of a potential tragedy, where I would need to imagine it in this witcher form. I wouldn't say it was exactly the Witcher universe,

but it was, that's the closest, this thing that I can draw a similarity to in the way the world looked in the dream. Yeah. And I think in essence that means it was, but not, but you're right in that sense. You're like, the closest thing I can imagine is it's similar to that universe. Yeah. In feeling.

And you actually showed yourself a visual representation of say, I think you called it Loch Mouin. Yeah, Locke Mouin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you actually did set it in one of those physical environments. And maybe this could be, if we follow that train of thought for just a moment. Have you been playing that game recently? Or was that a while ago?

No, no. That was like well over four years ago. That was or even five or six. Sure. But it seems like it made enough of an impression that, like, after you woke up from the dream, you were able to go, oh, that was part of that game. I remember that location. Well, it wasn't exactly locked. Mouin, it was just the floor and kind of the little tidbits of the area look like it.

Sure. Because, you know, I mean, if I say checker floor, you're going to think of something completely different. But if I say Lock Mouin, you're going to know exactly what I mean by that kind of checkered floor. Gotcha. Yeah. Fair enough. But let's see, doing the counterfactual, so to speak, it wasn't a checkered chess board. in Wonderland.

It wasn't the checkered floor of a hospital waiting room. I mean, there was, you did set it in that. So there was something about the way that game made you feel at the time you were playing it, or the theme of the game in general is something that's like, imagine you're in within a universe that is similar enough that you would find a representation of physically. visually in that sense. Similar. Oh, yeah, like kind of like dark and grim, you know?

Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah, exactly. More along the, the tragic line of something that feels, um, more important. Like a comedy,

you know, things being lighthearted, light means the opposite of heavy, heavyhearted. Um, when we think of things as like, because like, what is it?

There's a vigorousness that goes along with our. laughter. It's energizing. And things that are, and so it makes us light-hearted. We feel, we're, you know, the idea of happily skipping through a field of flowers, uh, because we are elated or, or, or, or free of things that drag us down. We, we have these, um, and then the opposite being, yeah, things that are heavy, heavy-hearted. Because feeling sad, depressed, uh, losing hope, these things steal our energy. They make us, make our body feel heavy. They make us feel tied, weighted,

the gravity of the situation they say. It's because we feel you know, that lack of energy, that lack of lightness of hearts and spirit. Okay, I'm rambling on that too now. So there's something

it's and it's hard to say. So it might even be related to something from four years ago, something you were experienced. at that time that has resurfaced in recent days. And so you have an association with the game because that's what your major recreation was

during the time you were going through that other thing or you're comparing something recent to that experience. It was, you know, not the exact same issue, but something of similar importance that may be confronted with me. When I was playing Witcher 2, I was, I was an unemployed team. And then, so I don't know.

Sure. But I mean, it was probably actually, even though it was probably the best one I'd played, it wasn't really something I could draw a similarity to the screen. Start that sentence over again, although it was, wasn't the best. It wasn't, even though it was the best game I played at the series, I wouldn't I couldn't draw any similarities to the dream I would say I did hear that too actually that's why when uh we talked off off um you know before we started recording uh the idea that uh I didn't mind which or two spoilers I couldn't make it through one I'm able to play like 25% of the game and the idea of um the the combat system the way it was the way you had to yeah that yeah that sucks in the first one most people didn't like and then they said actually got better into and the story was actually better two is what a lot of people say. Oh, yeah.

So I was trying to get to that one. I like to be, if I'm going to play part three, I'm going to try and play part one and two and then get around to part three. I like that completionist. You know, as much as I'm not a, what do you call it, a achievement chasing completionist. I am never going to play a game for 100 hours to find all the tiny hidden statues. Fuck that. I could not care less.

But if there's a part three to a story, I want to know part one and two. And I tried. I tried playing it. And then eventually it wasn't, it wasn't until about, I think about a year ago. I got around to playing Witcher 3. And by that time, I was just like, I'm just going to play 3. I'm just going to enjoy it and know nothing and go in blind and just enjoy the story and not worry about it. And it was a good experience.

So I don't mind that at all. All of that to say. That, I mean, the idea that when you, when I asked you about the game and what was going on in your life at the time, what came to mind was unemployed teenager. So that is a particular experience of the world. And there's unique conflicts to that state of mind at the time, which you may be hearkening back to by saying, by putting this, whatever conflict you're trying to look at from outside the fishbowl in this dream sense may be related to what it was like at that time in your life

when you were playing that particular game. Now, if I put all, phrase it that way, does anything come to mind today? Is some, some related thought process or recurrent question? Well, I mean, I'm, I'm always worried about getting laid off from my job, but it's kind of like, isn't anyone, you know, especially in today. Sure. And, you know what it is is, is, let's say. Some people think in terms of their dreams that something has to be uniquely profound to the human condition in order for it to be a significant factor in their dreams. And that just isn't the case. It doesn't have to be new or unique or interesting to anyone but you.

And it very well could have been this particular dream came back because of a concern of where you're the stability of your employment. And that's not even unique to you, let alone the human condition. Like you worry about that all the time. But for some reason, you revisited it. it in this form on that particular night for whatever reason. And it could have been something as simple as you had an interaction with someone at work and you weren't sure you represented yourself well and you were worried they had a negative impression of you, even though they didn't.

They didn't give it a second thought. You did. Whether or not it actually, you know, you know what I'm saying? I don't know if any of that makes sense in terms of did you go through any experiences a couple weeks ago when the dream happened that might have left you with, you know, driving home from work with the impression of, man, I fucked up today, or at least I feel like I did. I feel like I could have done better in a sense of representing myself while putting in more effort. And now I'm worried, you know, that if I do that again, I'll put myself at risk.

Well, I mean, I could have brought, actually. Huh. I mean, I just do my bare minimum. You know, the more I do, the more they expect to me, right? Fair enough. Yeah. And there's some. But, uh, but yeah.

It's like, uh, hmm. Say what you're going to say. I'm still thinking. No, it's okay. That's why I ramble is to give people a chance to see if anything I'm saying makes sense to them or if it suddenly inspires some thought. I'm trying to be the magic in the gap between the pyramid of knowledge and the, and the flame of enlightenment.

Uh, it's, but I mean, the flame still has to appear in your head. I can't really. I can't give that to you. But what I was aiming for is, is, you know, sometimes it's, it's the most mundane of things that strike us as important because of what we're going through or our particular emotional state. And what's a good way of describing them? The idea of on any other day, it wouldn't make me cry, but on that, that day I saw that movie and I was already feeling kind of down and I had some tears. Now, did the movie cause the tears?

Sort of. It was more like you went into the experience with already in a particular state of mind. And that was the result of the combination of those two events. State of mind plus movie equals tears. And I just, that's the first example that came to mind. But that, that, so any, you know, it's like I may have experienced something a hundred times and the hundred and first time I have a different emotional reaction because, because of my pre-existing emotional state.

Or I may have never considered something. I may have done the same behavior over and over again. Suddenly today I see it differently. Now it feels different. Now I have questions I didn't have before. That happens to people all the time. And it can be very mundane. You know, all of this to say,

you may have had an interaction with, say, a particular coworker over and over and over again. And it's always been fantastic. And just one day you came in a little less sure of yourself. and had the same interaction, and you're not sure it went well. Even though it didn't occur any differently than it usually does, it felt different. And that feeling was actually just inside your head, but that doesn't mean it wasn't real. And that doesn't mean you wouldn't worry about it later.

All of that to say, anything like that might have occurred in your life. And it could not, it doesn't have to be work related. It could have been any relationship or interaction or choice. Well, I mean, it could either be that that I'm trying to avoid a specific supervisor. I'm trying to be less close to that. Because, you know, he gets on my nerves. But, or the fact that I'm trying to help family friend to find a job.

Okay. Now, that's an interesting thing to analyze the idea of, okay, so what... You have a unique problem in the idea of trying to help someone else find work. And that unique problem is you need to provide them with help of some kind. What help do you provide? That is its own unique. That's a question to be resolved. That's the question of action.

What do I do? How do I provide effective assistance in that sense? Um, yeah. And, you know, thinking back on it, do you feel like you were, what am I trying to say? Not sufficiently motivated, but do you, you know, are you, are you being critical of yourself in terms of thinking I could have helped more, but have tried harder? Whether, whether that's true or not. I mean, is that how, how you felt maybe after the experience? not I mean I I tried as best as I could

but I mean it's more like I wish there was more I could do because you know otherwise they're going to be homeless sure and that's that's realistic too you may have tried you may have done everything you could you may have brought your whole heart and soul

to the fight and you just you did the best you could and still you may have felt it was not enough because maybe it didn't work or maybe you're just critical of yourself of like, I wish I was better at this. Sometimes that happens as well.

That's, that's its own unique, you know, result of, of, so if we, if we look at that in terms of the, um, uh, when you, when you, when you,

when you think of that scenario with that friend or family friend or, or acquaintance, uh, and you think of the two people that stood out in the group that got raised on the platform. Is there any connection? Are there people in your life or people in their life that look like those persons? You know, the more dark-skinned, short-haired man and the blonde, blonde female?

No, no, no. The people in the group look absolutely nothing alike. No, no, I mean they look nothing like anyone you know or that he knew? Yeah, not at all. Okay, fair enough. Not even, I would say not even similar personality, if I guess. Gotcha. Gotcha.

I was just, that would have been an amazing coincidence. If like we may have really been on to something in that regard. And it could have been, I mean, sometimes these images in our dreams of like, we notice people are in a group. And just to give the group of people a little additional reality, our mind fills in some of the blanks of like, well, they noticed there was a dark skin guy and a blonde gal. just to say, okay, they were real people. They weren't statues. They weren't just blank. You know, they were people.

So it may not have been particular people, rattling that doorknob, trying to find a connection there. Where was I going with that? It's random generated NPCs. Basically. And that, you know, but would you say there were people in his life or your life that were bystanders watching him struggle and did not actively engage them? themselves and trying to help him that I actually wouldn't know about you wouldn't know about that okay well I mean he turned to you so he doesn't have a or did not have a support

support network didn't really didn't really turn to me but I offered that to help well there you go that might be the connection there in terms of you know of the people in his life of those present, you observed and your attention was drawn to a problem and you were by your, by your nature posed with the question, do I do something about this? How, how responsible do I wish to make myself or how responsible do I innately feel to try and provide some assistance to someone who needs it? Because I've been in that situation before and it sucks. Yeah. Is that starting to feel like? It might be related.

I mean, are we, uh, is there a visceral feeling of like, this is making sense or? If I think it's related to the dream, I don't think it's a high chance, but.

Fair enough. I mean, we can go a completely different direction. Maybe. Or it, uh, it could even not be related to anything at all. It could just be.

Yeah. A random. What the dream wanted to conjure up that thing. Well, I, fair enough. Yeah. Yes, you're not wrong about that.

But what I mean, when I say, well, it's like, I think there's always a, it's always connected to something. It's always some thought that we've had that we're, you know, and who knows, it could have been. So what you'd explained earlier, and I don't know if we caught it on stream or not, or call it streams now, but on, on the recording portion, you said this is, oh, yeah, when you began to describe the dream, this is the portion that stands out to you. You didn't really focus on what happened before or after in terms of dream. dream experience. There were events. There were other images and stuff disconnected as far as you can tell before this portion of the dream and more after. And that's actually, you know, as I say

with my theory of how dreams work, we dream the whole night. We never stop having thoughts. We just lose connection with present focus on our thoughts in terms of of immediately being aware of them. You know, there's there's being awake, conscious. I can reflect on my thought process. I can observe it happening. I can document it and describe it. And then we lose that connection with waking reality in terms of now we're just in our thought process versus consciously attentive to our thought process. It's a different, long story short, different experience.

So there's always, and it's entirely possible that this dream sequence is connected to the one that came before that really doesn't stand out to you. but suddenly this one has more intense a more intense feeling of significance than the other one and that's why you remembered this one this one seems more relevant to something more uh

it was the most significant so I remembered it but uh and the one closest to when I woke up but the other part I had they or I just couldn't remember that but by the time I decided

to write down notes and, you know, too much time and pass. I forgot. Sure. Yeah. And we might, you know, I, uh, one thing I would never want to do is pass the buck in terms of saying, well, if only you'd remembered more, I could have given me a better answer. I think it's, it's always my failure to, to, to connect it to something or make the proper suggestions. Um, but sometimes we don't get a very clear connection to waking life. It's, it's always amazing when we do. But sometimes it's, um, we can at the very least dialed down a little bit into what the nature of the experience was. We can kind of describe it in more symbolic terms, but we don't always able to say,

okay, now given that understanding, what direct event in life is it specifically connected to? We don't always get there. I like it when we do. And maybe I need to put less, less emphasis on that. but it definitely feels like we got some interesting sequence of events that goes from presence in a kind of tragic circumstance in a way connected to the Witcher world being more of a tragedy grim dark type of universe so there's it's this is not a lighthearted scenario this is something of serious importance where there's consequences on the line and the

consequences could be very bad rather than like it was lighthearted that's the opposite comparison. You're put into this process of your presence in the environment, your attention in a way that others present are not, that puts you into a conflict that doesn't exactly resolve as much as it ends or the resolution occurs due to a lapse of time rather than an active decision, a decisive victory by one side of the other. There's, it's more like a, what is it, like a boxing match where they're, tied and nobody gets knocked out and it's just round five and it's over.

I don't even know how many rounds there are. And then the judges are like, well, split decision, nobody wins. But the match is over one way or another. And the consequence of that seems to be this statue, which had originally attracted your attention. The, the attention to the statue is what separated you from the group that got capped. We didn't really talk much about what lightning might mean, the marble might mean, which may mean nothing, but I'm kind of, I'm running out of time. But the consequence then afflicts the very thing that captured your attention. I don't know that I was going somewhere

with that or I just wanted to sum it up for you, but any thoughts on that? Fair enough. That's okay. Go ahead. I bet you're wrong. But no, I don't have any further things to add. No, that's fine. And sometimes that is honestly, the best thing we can do is just, what am I trying to say? Just better explain the experience. Even if we can't nail down, why is this, why is it this statue that both draws your attention and the thing that suffers the consequence of the conflict? because you didn't get hurt.

The people on the statue, or the people on the marble platform didn't suffer for their experience. They were just separated, imprisoned, held hostage, who knows, set aside from the combat. The building wasn't destroyed. The world didn't end.

But the thing that attracted your attention and separated you from the herd in the first place, the magical focus. Anyway, the thing that attracted your attention is the very thing which suffered, is the consequence of the results of the fight. You know, the,

the, that may be as far as we can go. And you'll have to meditate on it moving forward. Like, what is the thing that got my attention that ended up covered in blood? Because the fight ended without a conclusive decision, one way or the other. There's something in there that might be uniquely relevant to you. And it could be as, what am I trying to say? it could be as meta level as saying

I've noticed a pattern within myself that if I, that I don't tend to make the decisions I should or could, I tend to let things, I tend to avoid making decisions. And the way I conceive of that in my head is that it's not good, that maybe I shouldn't be like that. That look, this statue gets covered in blood and that's just the representation of that.

I mean, why blood? Why not oil? Why not? Why didn't the statute? you melt why blood specifically i i don't know if you have any thoughts on that like what blood might represent um why why the statue was brass and not concrete not iron not uh gold um oh brass oh brass oh that's it could have been brass i mean it was just the color was bronze oh bronze okay yeah yeah i thought you said i thought you said brass maybe bronze is fine you know

bronze is um you know it's a nice statue material but but but but specifically wasn't a marble statue it wasn't a like i said made of concrete it wasn't made of wood it wasn't a carved wooden totem pole i mean it was a statue and it was specifically a statue of a woman so there's maybe something connected to the feminine in general female essence or or female vulnerability uh something worth something you would imagine is worth protecting statues are usually um well they're art artistic representations, but also what you choose to make them out of and the form you choose to give them. It wasn't like in Portland, we have this bill, I don't like a billboard. It's a welcome to Oregon sign or whatever, welcome to Portland sign, that kind of thing.

And it's got a deer on it. Now, why a deer? I don't know. We just have a lot of deer around here, probably. And it's a very, you know, Pacific Northwest rainforest rainforest type of animal. Deer, yeah, why not? That's, of course. And actually, if you go outside the city,

limits is a bunch of deer out of the woods. So it's a very normal thing you would see here. So anyway, subject matter of a statue or a piece of public art. Um, so there's something about it being, yeah, made of bronze and, um, of a female in a in a particularly, say neutral pose and, you know, nothing that remarkable about her. Um, yeah, I don't know if I was going somewhere with all of that. I think, I think we may have gotten down to the end of, uh, you know, the most we can do is kind describe it seems like this kind of a scenario, like this kind of a decision making dilemma unresolved by making a decision and then observing some kind of unpleasant consequence. Like you wouldn't describe the statue.

The way you said it was, um, gave you a sense of dread. So it wasn't a positive, wasn't a positive thing. Yeah, I mean, what, yeah, I mean, it was neutral when I, when it was just there, but when it covered blood, yeah. Yeah. And that could be as far as we go. Sometimes our, and then again, you may have another dream that helps you understand this better. You may be reflecting on this later in the day and something occurs to you. You might come to a decision in your mind and put it out of your mind and never think of it again. And it's just that easy to resolve. What am I trying to say? But long story short, what it seems like is the best. best we can do is to say it seems indicative of a certain type of experience. And you imagining that that's not a good resolution to that particular kind of experience. Like, you know, that you might want to be someone who, we talked about your, your clothing being mismatched.

This, this, this opponent force seemed of a higher quality class or value than yourself. and you were not bringing your best self, not your best dressed, uh, version of yourself, say to, to, to this fight to,

to resolving the question. Um, so moving forward, what could you do? You could attempt to be the kind of person who brings more of yourself or you're the best version of yourself to actively making decisions in a way that maybe you haven't in the past. Um,

if that seems like, something that might benefit you in general because it seems like in your mind the alternative is the sense of dread and the bloody statue is like this was not a good outcome was it a good outcome but you say was it or was it not oh um I guess I was leaving it open-ended in terms of like just making the suggestion that if we conceptualize this as you reflecting on on a habit perhaps of not being more proactive in in resolving certain I want to say conflicts but but taking actions when when a question of action is posed in your own mind um what what it seems like you're imagining is you know

when I don't cause an outcome to a occur sometimes or maybe regularly, the outcome is less than optimal. And I would have obtained a different result if I had invested more time, energy. If I, if I, if I'd been more actively engaged in in resolving the problem. Do you feel like that speaks to? I can, I can see that for the most part. Okay. Yeah.

And that may be, that may be, that may be, you may have just wanted to show yourself that particular kind of concept. And, and you may return to it in the future. You know, it's, how do we know, how do we know we've done everything we can? Sometimes it's very obvious. Sometimes you, um, let's say, there's a, there's a, there's a house fire and, and there's people trapped and you run in and you grab two kids and you run out, but you collapse due to smoke inhalation. You save two kids, but they were more inside. You couldn't get them all. You did literally everything you could. You may feel terrible about it, but physically you passed out. And the passing out was as a result of the, you know,

doing what you could to help the people you did. And then even if we blame ourselves literally physically, there was nothing else. You tried as hard as you could. And you were overcome by a lack of physical ability. So be it. There's other circumstances where we could try it harder and, you know,

and in less dire circumstances, but we still feel a little guilty about that. We're like, you know, I didn't do what I could have. And maybe I should have. And we feel, and it's that feeling of guilt that actually spurs us to question ourselves. And, and, but still, how do we, how do we be reasonable with ourselves? How do we say it is by this particular standard that I know I have done everything I can? That's a tough question sometimes.

And I think a lot of us struggle with that kind of a thing, you know, uh, for me, I've put on some weight, over the last year, uh, over the past couple three years, I'm probably heavier than I've been in my, my entire life. I know I could be more physically active and I know I'm going to have to, you know, so I'm not bringing my best effort to being as healthy as I could. So that's been on my mind a lot lately. I bet I've dreamed about it and I just don't know it, you know. Uh, it's any unresolved question or, or, um, concern in, in our mind can come back in dreams in that, in that kind of a and give us a little scenario to say this is what it looks like this this is what the problem is this is what you're thinking about it sounds like that might have been what happened to you

yeah it could have been fair enough i mean something like i'm not go ahead i disagree yeah i think you know this has happened to us in some of our past interactions in terms of like yeah i just throw some things out there and and you don't have an answer and i can't and i can't provide you with one and that's okay. I think that's fine. I should probably get more used to that in dealing with other people. Like sometimes we don't get a good answer or at least the best answer we can get is it seems like this kind of a thought process. And sometimes that's enough. Sometimes just clarifying, okay, what the hell was I thinking? Why? I mean, the answer is just in what caused this experience? What does this experience represent? And it may not always be connected to a specific event. And that's,

That's fine, too. So do you feel satisfied with the discussion? Are there any elements that you think, you know, we've left out that we should take a harder look at? Not really. I mean, there was a, I mean, the girl did some talking to me, but there was no, I don't remember words. And it doesn't, it didn't contribute to the plot any, in any change, I'd say. I mean, it wouldn't be any. Okay.

But yeah. Yeah, unless you could specifically recall exact words that were said, then all we could go with the idea of is that all we could do is go with the idea that whatever this opponent position was, the thing you were torn between, the thing you were wrestling with, the, the action of, of the conflict in your own mind, it was attempting to communicate with you. It had a point of view. It was speaking to you. It had something to say. And we don't even have to know what it is. And that's, that's very common to, when we're torn about something, when we're considering a question, it's because we don't have

an immediate answer. And both sides have, have. things to say in their own defense, so to speak, there's reasons why we'd be torn. Well, this is true, but this is also true. And those truths speak to us. So sometimes when we're conflicted, it's because both things are true. And we don't know which one is more true or which one is the better truth, even if they're both true. So, yeah, very often ideas advocate for themselves by the nature of how good or true or necessary they are. So the idea that this, the other side of the conflict would be speaking to you, would have things to say about itself, about the circumstances,

seems pretty reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's coming up on 4 o'clock and I got to get ready for my next stream. I've been playing Powell World lately. Have you played that? coworkers are talking about it but I don't I don't play

I'm not really into Pokemon and you know what it's not Pokemon but it is that that's that's the thing and people are wondering if they're going to get sued you know it's basically you capture cute little cartoon animal looking things in a fantasy setting by throwing a little blue ball at them and then you can make them fight with you as pets or put them to work in your base and there's a whole crafting and construction element to it.

Anyway, this is the first time I've played a game that is brand new and currently popular. So I'm hoping to drum up a little. Also, I'm curious about it. But I'm also hoping that'll, you know, drum up a few subscribers. So why not? Partly satisfying my own desire to like, oh, yeah, that looks cool. Let's check it out.

And then partly, I hope this is a good business decision. but I was just going to ask if you heard or seen anything about it. It's actually pretty cool. I kind of dig it for what it's worth. You know, I'm not sick of it and I haven't decided to rage quit yet. So we'll see. Anyway, I was just going to mention that to you because that's what I'm doing lately. But that's also why I got to go.

So I should quit talking so much. Well, as usual, Lewis, thanks for sharing your dream with me and with everybody. And, you know, feel free to reach out. I, you know, we probably won't. We'll give it a few episodes in between the next one, but please keep telling me your dreams and we'll work on writing that book someday. I always did. For sure.

The viewer can make up their own conclusion about anyone's dream. Absolutely. And, you know, it's, I never tell people to do this, but comment, leave a comment below if you have a different impression. If you have questions you think I should have asked, like I said at the very beginning, I'm always looking to improve this process. and I don't know.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how I do it. And so I'm still trying to figure that out. And, you know, hopefully when I get a better idea of what I am doing and how it works, then I can make it better. But we'll see.

Yeah, work in progress. I got another, what, 20 years before I become a real wizard. And then we'll, uh, we'll see if I figured it out by then. Anyway, okay, so everybody out there, I'll just say, uh,

Would you kindly, like, share, subscribe, tell your friends. Always need more viewers, volunteer dreamers, et cetera. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent, The Fabric of Dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig, book 17 of the ABC series available at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. Also, MP3 versions of this very podcast that you can, you know, download and take with you to the gym and whatnot. Although everywhere's got Wi-Fi lately.

So does anyone download anything anymore? Download them and save them. You can make your own collection of my podcast. but they're also available on my website. And head on over to Benjamin the Dream Wizard. Dot locals.com trying to build a community there.

It's attached to my Rumble account. Free to join. And you can, you know, interact with me. And hopefully that'll be a great place to get in contact with folks to be guests on the show. That's it.

That's the shilling. And Lewis, thanks for reaching out again. It was good to talk to you. As always, it's good night, America. Indeed. And everybody out there, thanks for listening.