Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 157: Open House

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

The Story of Hersh ~ https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-matters-now-to-rachel-goldberg-her-son-hersh-held-hostage-by-hamas

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Gabriele from Sydney, Australia. We're going to get right back to her in two seconds. Would you kindly, like, share, subscribe, to tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for the video game streams, etc. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent The Fabric of Dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig, lovingly reproduced, recreated, and enhanced,

if I may say so myself, by yours truly, your friendly neighborhood dream wizard. All this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com, including downloadable MP3 versions of this very podcast, a complete listing of all the books, an encyclopedia, all kinds of good stuff. You should go check it out. Also, if you would head on over to Benjamin thedreamwizard.

Dot locals.com. That's attached to my Rumble account. We're trying to build a community there. At some point, that's where I'd like to draw up most of my guest dreamers from, people who are fans of the show and would like to have their turn in the spotlight, so to speak. That is enough shilling out of me. Gabrielle, thank you for being here.

I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. I'm a mixture of excited and there's a bit of trepidation. Well, that's a great thing to just throw out there for looking at. I mean, initially you, I think, reached out to me, you found me and you're like, oh, this is fascinating what this guy does. Do I have that right? I get, I talk to so many people.

I forget who's who sometimes. I said something like, is this for real? I'm clear. Do you do dreams analysis live? And you said, yes, I said, well, that sounds really interesting. And it's interesting to me because I have been working with my dreams ever since I was a young child. Yeah. I took note of a really big dream.

First time I was eight years old. So I'm into it. And, yeah, I've had a dream the other night I'd like to talk about. And I've got some ideas what it might be. but it would be really great to get an outsider's perspective. That's very cool. It's neat when people, my brain's already exploding all kinds of things to talk about. But it's very neat when people already kind of feel like they've got a handle on what it likely means from their own understanding.

And then they bring it to me and say, well, let's see what this guy can do with it. I call that the stump the wizard type of things. But speaking of, you know, wizards and what I do, specifically. Specifically, I mean, that's partly serious and partly facetious. You know, I don't actually summon minions and throw fireballs, you know. But I think what I do is carrying on the grand tradition of the archetypal magician, you know, the wizardry in that sense. And I aspire to to be, you know, I consider Socrates a wizard and Gandalf literary, both possibly fictional literary characters. But in that search for truth and trying to do the right thing and be of benefit into the world, fight the great evils of the world, you know, in my own.

one way. Right, one dream at a time. Well, which is cool. So in that vein, you don't, maybe you need me, not you, the grand, the royal we, um, need someone to, to introduce the concept that this is legitimate, that this is something that can be beneficial, that it has purely psychological roots. It doesn't have to be magical, even though I, I think there's a bit of magic to it. And this is, you know, the associative inspiration. No one knows where it might as well be the muses on whispering or you're from Mount Olympus. Who knows where inspiration comes from. So I lean into that type of thing.

But you don't actually need a wizard to interpret your dreams for you. You don't need an interpreter. You can do this yourself. You can write them down. You can think about them. You can follow your own associations. You can kind of do what I do. I just do a little helping hand.

It's like someone can go to the gym where they can have a personal trainer say, you know, let's do Lats today, that kind of thing. I got the froggy's throat today. that's okay that's okay we're good um you need to take a moment i'm happy to no i'm just gonna i'm just gonna cough randomly is what i do you're not too much you're gonna make me laugh too much i'll have a real episode of i'll have a mini blackout in my chair that happens sometimes laughed myself into a into a head rush um okay so uh we are uh a bit limited on time so we're going to jump straight into the dreams not something we usually do i usually spend more time

chatting people up getting to know them, letting them plug this, that, or the other. But we're just going to get right down to it. So my process is, you know, first and foremost, I shut up and listen. You tell me the dream as you experienced it, and then we see what we can make of it together. So I'm ready when you are.

All right. So I always write my dreams in the present tense. Okay. Because that's a way of taking me back into it as if I were there. Yeah. And just so that you know, probably a little bit of a backdrop, because there is the context,

the place in the dream, there is reference to one of the hostages at the moment, you know, in the Middle East. And I'm Jewish. And so that whole thing has been really keeping me up at night. And one of the role players here is one of the hostages, a young man who had his arm shot off. and that was his dominant arm. So I think there's something in that for us to explore. But so let me read it out. Would you like me to read my musings afterwards as well? Or do you just want me to read the raw dream? I would say that's a good question.

I am, my process is one under development. So firstly, I have no idea what I do or how I do it. It's kind of become a thing and I kind of just flow. with it, but I'm always trying to refine it. So maybe if I were to describe the best way to do it, it would be just the dream as you experienced it. And then we'll get into the commentary as we go through it again. We're going to go through it a second time to start discussing it. So that would be, I find my ideal, ideal method. Yeah. Okay, that's fine. And the young man's name is Hirsch. So when I reference Hirsch, you'll know who I mean. Okay. A friend and I have been

fascinated with a magnificent home that fronts onto a cobbled square in the middle of a shopping area, a well-to-do shopping area. It has come onto the market and is for sale. We walk past one day and catch a glimpse of the courtyard and entrance hall as the door is open. We really want to visit. We go one day to an open house. It's being sold by the family of hostage Hirsch. There are many other people at the open house. Hersh's parents are clearly wealthy. Their home is magnificent in some parts. When I walk into a living area is so stunning and I'm absolutely gobsmacked. High ceilings, lots of natural light opens onto the garden and is so tastefully decorated, but it's empty in terms of people. Other parts of the house aren't as magnificent,

but still wonderful. I walk from room to room, making sure I see every room in the house. With the kitchen, it seems odd that we have to walk outside to get to other parts of the house from the kitchen. When it rains, there's an awning,

but that's all. Then I see others using an indoor passage, and I realize I'd missed it, and it is possible, to walk indoors. In other words, to leave the kitchen indoors without going outside.

The parents' room is lovely, and then I'm searching for Hershey's room. I open a bedroom and look for his belonging, but then I realize it isn't his bedroom. It's one of his sister's rooms. When I find his bedroom, I quickly close the door as I don't want to be contaminated with or affected by the energy of his death. Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you. Here's the veil of night and shine the light of understanding upon the mystery of dreams. Every episode of his dreamscapes program features real dreamers, gifted with rare insight into their nocturnal visions.

New dreamscapes 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 comments. contact page at Benjamin the DreamWizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature available on Amazon, documenting the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com. Okay. It's a good one. Lots of details. Very vivid on that, all kinds of things. Yeah.

So I'm thinking. I'm thinking I might have missed a bit of stuff. I tried to capture the way you phrased things. Because I think that has its own unique meaning. Exactly. Yeah. And I guess what we'll do is we'll just charge ahead with the going through it again so I can start to see it a little bit better through your eyes.

Oh, I remember what I was going to ask. this person from real life who lost an arm, they lost an arm in real life and survived the experience or lost an arm and then did not come back alive? We don't know. It's one of the Israeli hostages that's being held in Gaza. Okay. So I don't know. We don't know that he's dead or alive.

It's an unknown. But there's obviously a lot of, I've been worried about him and I've been following his family story over the past few months because they're very relatable people to me. His parents feel like the academic, you know, and they just, they feel like people I'd be friendly with, you know. Sure. And so I've been following that particular hostage story the last few months, and it's been top of mind for me. Absolutely. So we don't know if he's alive or dead.

What I do know is that he's lost his left arm, which is his dominant arm. Okay. Are you also left-handed or no? No, I'm right-handed. which I think the way you phrased it, you know, that his dominant hand, which is... It's his dominant. That's the issue. That's the issue.

For sure, for sure. Do you know, speaking of the setting, and we're going right back to the beginning, is this taking place in Israel? This is their house in Israel or you don't know? No, you know, it feels like it's got like a Santa Barbara feel to it. I mean, I last was in Santa Barbara. I don't know.

It's decades ago. I can't even remember it, but it's got that feeling to it. and it's affluent. There's an affluent air to the neighborhood, to the house, of course, to the neighborhood. It's into the shopping area. It's an affluent air. So this place, what was the purpose of your visit to Santa Barbara when you did go?

Oh, it was just a holiday with friends when I was much younger. Okay. We did like my brother's ex-girlfriend and his child and sweetheart and I and a few others went traveling through America. And we actually just landed up there. We went to Yosemite, and it was just a very brief whistle stop. I don't even remember how long we were there. It might have just been a day. Honestly, I think you've seen parts of America I never have.

I live, I live, you know, just a few hundred miles away. I've never been to Yosemite. I mean, I've seen, I live in Oregon, so we've got lots of trees everywhere. I'm like, yep, it's a forest. I know Yosemite's not. No, yeah, yeah. Yosemite's got its own charm. And the things you can't, like the natural hot springs and the guys are old, faithful,

that kind of thing. And the hiking. And the mountains. It's really beautiful. I think it's maybe only a three or four hour drive from, you know, we've got Eastern Oregon and then kind of down south and boom, you're right there. And I'm a homebody. I never, this is my little Wizards Cave.

I never leave here if I can help. I do not actually enjoy travel at all, not just the expense, but that's, yeah, that's my thing. I like my little comfy nest. Well, you travel in your dreams, don't you, Benjamin? Right. The funny thing for me is I am, I've become lately, and say lately over the last few years, more aware that I have had dreams, but I don't remember my dreams.

I cannot hang on to them. It is unheard of. I have a snippet I can actually share. And a recent one was I was standing by the open passenger side door, rear passenger side door of a white car. And that's it. That's my only experience of that dream. That is a miracle that that made it out.

I'm usually just way too deep in sleep. So it's slightly more common that I remember. I was having some kind of dream and just nothing sticks. And then it's most common that I wake up and there's no memory of a dream at all. So that's probably part of my fascination. I can count like literally on one hand the dreams that I do remember. When I did my 100th episode, I shared a couple of those. I'm like, well, here's the two dreams I do remember.

And the understanding I brought to them, which actually set me on this path from like 25 years ago when I was in college doing a history and systems of psychology class. And they were getting into, well, let's talk about for real. And why don't you guys go home and do one dream interpretation of your own dreams or a friend or make one up? You know, young was like, okay, we could just do active imagination. I brought back two dreams, one Freudian, one Jungian. And the teacher was like, A plus. I mean, not a play. He gave me an A.

But he's like, you really understand what this is? I'm like, I felt good about that. And that's my story. I have a natural talent for it. I'm going all the way back there. Okay. So. You want me to read?

read it. Well, I'm going to go through my notes. And if I get things wrong, please tell me. If I forgot something you think is a key point, let me know. And then we can also expand on each thing. So I was just getting the setting, you know, bam, you are here. This is a dream. What's happening? Where am I? And you've got a person from, we've got a very interesting spread all over the map here. You're in Australia, but you've been to America and you've been to say specifically, Santa Barbara and you're setting the dream in that place you visited when you were younger, but featuring a person from Israel. So we're just,

we're just all over the map here. Right. Don't get crazy. Here's another one. This is baby. Yeah, they're going to come lay all over my paperwork. You know it.

They can probably feel that on the cat person. Right? Everybody loves the babies. I don't think I've had anyone say, get those cats out of here. But yeah. So there's something going on with this of like, looking at it through through these multiple different lenses. There's a reason you chose to put this story in,

in this place you only briefly visited because it made some kind of an impression on you for the type of place that it was. And you mentioned the idea of like affluence and the idea of the some. Yeah, upmarket. The place, I mean, the feeling of Santa Barbara was minuscule. You know, I didn't even capture that

when I wrote it down. was more the feeling of affluence. I was in an affluent neighborhood. That's more the issue. That's more the theme here. Absolutely. That's where I was going with it. The idea that it isn't about Santa Barbara as much as what Santa Barbara represents.

Of course, this is all representational stuff. And it's a certain kind of a upscale, affluent place. And that has also its own kind of associations with it that, you know, and I should probably be asking you rather than telling you, but what comes to my mind is the idea of a place you would be surprised to have certain traumatic bad things happen, like a war. Like you can't imagine Santa Barbara at war or being raided by armed people like, like happened in Israel.

So it's a very much out of place, even a shock, shocking turn of events. Is that? Yes. Yes. I mean, it's a very, it's very strange that I'm screaming about a hostage person. family whose son is missing, with an arm missing, when it's in this peaceful and very, very beautiful home. I mean, the home itself, there are a lot of people visiting at the showhouse, but there's

a serenity to it. That's the word that comes up, a serenity. Yeah. And an aesthetic. I wrote down to ask about it, like, peaceful, but serenity. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also writing notes now as well.

Yeah, for sure. Baby girl. I've got to get off my paperwork. Okay. So, and the initial behavior in the dream was you were out walking with a friend when you first became aware of the house in this neighborhood? Yes. Any particular friend or? No, somebody just was an anonymous other friend.

I don't know who it was. I think female, female friend, yes, was a female friend. are no one in particular. Okay. And that can usually be significant too. Like if it was a specific person, that would say something. What's your relationship with that person? Why would you want them there with you?

But in this one, it's probably more akin to the broader concept of friendship or being not alone or sharing a social experience. I don't know where you would go with that if you had to describe it. Well, it's interesting because at the moment, I've been through a huge spiritual upgrade in the last, I'd say, year and a half. And it's affected my friendships. Oh, wow. Yes.

And that's been on my mind. And, you know, but that's what the general, the broader context of friendship at the moment is bringing up for me. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So in this particular dream, you've got someone with you that you identify as a friend. and not like, what is it? I like to do counterfactuals. Like it wasn't a real estate agent showing you the neighborhood. It wasn't a dog catcher trying to make you put your dog on a leash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it was a friend and it feels like maybe we've been shopping together. It was that kind of a scenario. Yeah. And then the, so you're out shopping. Shopping is, if we just focus on that for a second in terms of like a behavior, It can be just a social experience. You go shopping with a girlfriend and really, do you buy anything?

Maybe you do. But that's not the point. No. Yeah. In fact, it was a back, it was like, I only knew we'd been shopping because when I looked around, this courtyard was amongst upscale shops. Mm-hmm. But I didn't go through the act of shopping.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So there's the socialized. But then there's also like, we've gone shopping because there's a goal. You know, like I'm going to buy a car. You don't go. a grocery store, you go to a dealership because you're on a mission to get a car. But then there's, so would you say it was, it seems, it felt like more social, more social shopping.

That leans into the, the, the friendship to. And so you've got, so we start kind of telling the story of it. You're with a friend who doesn't feel like a friend you're leaving behind. It feels like a, more of a peer type of a friend. And you're out doing the social experience of shopping, seven girls day. And you come across a house, that is for sale. Not yet. Not yet. That's okay. I want to get the sequence of events.

Not yet. So the house itself is not yet for sale, but it's a house. It feels like we've been watching this house with wonder for a while. And in this dream, we are now able to see into a part of the house because a door is open, so we can see into the entrance hall.

hall and we can also see the beautiful cobbled courtyard that is in front of the house because the door is like a gate is obviously open. So we've been fascinated with the house for a while. Now we've got a glimpse into it for the first time. Yeah. So there's the experience, if I'm seeing it correctly in my mind, like there's a courtyard and then a gate also kind of

when the gates open and the front doors open. Well, I don't know if it's the gates, but we're able to see into the courtyard for the first time. So there's a view into the courtyard before we hadn't kind of seen it. Now we glimping into the courtyard. So there must have been something open. But I don't know what that is. It's just we can see into it. But the actual front door of the house is open as well.

So we can see into part just a bit of the entrance hall. Yeah. So there's a there's a sense of something hidden being revealed or something of fascination, something of interest, like a mystery, starting to be solved.

You kind of get that feeling? Yes, yes, yes. And the feeling that goes with that, Benjamin is wanting to go in, wanting to solve it. It's like leaning into the experience. and not being afraid of it, being intrigued by it. Yeah, and this is, these are all,

it's all surrounded with markers of things that are, I would say maybe unique to you and maybe, maybe not, maybe more general, but also the idea of markers of attraction in a way of like, you know, it's, it's a very nice neighborhood. When you were, when you were traveling at all, did you ever get to San Simeon, Hearst Castle? Does that sound familiar?

It's a place in California on the, on the coast and it was the newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, and he built a large, sprawling house, basically. But like, to call it a house, it was more of a mansion and it was more of like a multi-structural complex. So they called it the Hurst Castle, like going back to old, you know, medieval, medieval style castles, even from the late 17, 1800s, you know, not quite medieval, medieval, stone, you know, that kind of thing. Anyway, and that's like, that's a tourist destination. And people go and my parents took me there when I was young. And it's like, this place is just amazing.

It's huge and it's pretty. It's ornate, opulent, giant swimming pool with statues and, you know, long, large dining room, dining hall. I mean, a place you'd. So if you're just standing on the outside and like, God, I wish I could get it. I wish I could see inside someday. And then one day the door opens. You're like, whoa. So there's all these things of like, there's something.

I suppose something of. Alluring. Alluring. Yeah, something of value there that you're like, now. I get to satisfy my curiosity about what this value is? Why? What is the, what is the secret of this place that, that, that, what is it that I want to know?

What am I going to find inside? Yes. Got something going with that. Yes. Baby girl. Yes, that really lands. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the, that's the feeling I'm getting. So, that's the felt sense, definitely. Yeah. And I, I, I forget to ask people about colors. I forget to ask people about. emotions. So, because I, it's intrigued. It's intrigue.

It's like it's intrigued. There's something mysterious. And like, yes, I can find me. I can find you see it. And then the house goes on market. Yeah. Which means I got full access to it. Yeah.

And the sense that you've got before is we've, I've seen this before. I've not had the opportunity to satisfy that curiosity. But now you get this glimpse. And then that, um, did anything else happen at that time? This is kind of the introductory scene. And we haven't even moved, moved on from just like, just I'm standing outside the house I can now see in.

And we've just been describing all the things around with a friend. We're in the shopping district. There's a beautiful house. And we've always, and this knowing that you've always wanted to see it. And suddenly you're seeing, you are granted an almost random opportunity to see more of it than you maybe thought you ever would.

And that only spurs the interest to see even more. Does anything else happen during that, during that experience? Or it moves almost straight to a scene change. Scene change. Scene change. So how did you, what is the next physical environment you find yourself in your, bam, you're at the, you're in the house. You're in the house at the open house. At the open house.

And actually, I think there was a. sequence, I know sequence matters in dreams, which is why I think I got the sequence wrong. Usually connected thoughts, yeah, yeah. Yeah, connected thoughts, exactly. I actually think I went into the kitchen first, and there was a big, there was actually a, that was the big scene in the dream was what happened in the kitchen with the interlocking um, uh, corridor passage. So I think that's actually where I went first.

I went into the kitchen. Gotcha. And then what would you describe as the size, the shape of the kitchen? Any features stand out? The kitchen felt like it had like a Santa Barbara kind of feel, but it was modern. It was very busy with people. That's where all the others who at the same so-day were congregating. seemed to be where everybody was in this kitchen.

And, yeah, so that was important. I think I feel a bit of navy blue coming through. Yeah, like navy blue tiles, but I might, I'm not sure. Maybe I grinned that. I'm not sure, but it feels that way now as I'm with canting the green. Sure. Lots of activity. I think there's a time.

terracotta floor. There's a terracotta floor. That's why I've got that Janabarra feel. It abuts onto an outdoor patio. And I actually entered and then exited the kitchen through the outdoor patio, which then led me back into the house. And it was quite a weird way that, it struck me that that was a weird access point. Like, why couldn't I enter? inside the house why did I have to go outside the house let me just go back

it seems odd that we have to walk outside to get to the other parts of the house in the kitchen and then I thought what if it rains like how is this practical what if it rains and then I realised there was like an awning so you could still walk outside

even if it rained but it still felt like really peculiar. And then I saw others using an indoor kind of a passage, which I saw as a transition in my life, but a passage. And then I realized, oh, why didn't I see that?

You can actually, you can do it that way. One thing I may have forgotten, and it's my fault may be moving on too fast, was at what point in anything we've discussed so far, Did the sure knowing that this was Hershey's family's house? Was it from the very beginning? Or did that realize?

Yes, it was from the very beginning. Okay. Yes. We go one day to an open house. It's being sold by the family of hostage, Hirsch. So I knew when I was going to view the house that it was his parents, his family selling.

And you knew that from the very beginning of the dream, or only when it became a parent that, it was the open house then there was a discovery of that. I think it was the open house. I feel it was the open house. Okay. Let me change. If it was something, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Not sure what it means, but definitely got to get the sequence of events straight in my head. Yes. And there may be something. I mean, just if I dwell on that for a moment, there's the, what am I trying to say? It's not like you were fascinating.

with the house because it was his, but you had a fascination, a pre-existing fascination, and then the ability to look deeper into it, you discovered it is the house of this person whose story I am also interested in. So there's like a revelatory pathway going on there, something like that. Correct. Correct, Benjamin. That's exactly it. Yeah.

Because, yeah, what would be the other counterfactual? It would be the other way around. The other way around is that you didn't care about the house as such. only be, it was an object of fascination because it was the house of this person's family. But it's the other way around. Okay. Yes. There was an, the fascination was more like the way it looked and felt.

And there was something mysterious and cute and beautiful. It was a mix of just beautiful things that it pleased and fascinated. And that's what I'm trying to, and that's why the sequence can matter sometimes too, because you get these things of like, okay, which concept is nested under which other concepts. So it's more like the. Correct. broad level fascination with this type of thing.

Oh, look, this fits within that category. And we go a little narrower as we get down towards what are we actually looking at here? What's the whole point? Okay. So just to get that straight in my head. Read my own handwriting here. So the first, scene change. Then the first experience or whatever of this new scene is you have the experience of

coming in from the outside and having this thought. about that transition or whatever of like this is not entirely practical. Why is it, why is it I can only get into the kitchen from the outside from the patio? Yeah. Well, I was in the kitchen and then I realized I could only exit. I could only,

the only way to leave the kitchen was outside. So I realized I'd entered in the wrong way. I didn't actually, I don't remember going through the outside to get into the kitchen. I was now just in the kitchen. Gotcha. Yes. So there's two things there that kind of jump out to me right away is the idea of, okay, why the kitchen?

It's not the living room. It's not a billiard room. It's not a, you know, a basement home studio, whether that is a theater room studio or a recording studio. I mean, it's very specifically the kitchen. And this sense that it's only accessible from the outside. So there's something about the root of accessibility and the nature of the, the room. room itself that that were significant to you. Yes.

What is what comes to mind when I think of outside? The idea of being an outsider comes to my mind. Yes. And you're feeling something. Maybe I, maybe I stop. I don't know if you want to say something about that, about the nature of the, how you got into the room and the room itself. Well, let me talk about the room itself.

Yeah, yeah. Because I love cooking. It's a creative outlet for me. It is the way I nourish. myself and my friends. I love entertaining. So it has symbolism from that perspective for me. It is an act of self. It is a place I go to when I want to engage in self care, which is interesting. Yeah, yeah. So we've actually got, self-care is a great thing that you did that. And an outlet for so there's entertaining, which is the social aspect. But also it's, it's also self-expression in a way,

but specifically an expression of love towards the people you care about. Like I cook for you because I want to fill your belly with something that I made. Yes, and I get so excited when I have people sitting around the dinner table and they go, oh my God, this is so delicious. And I'm a really great cook, if I might say. And I make cracker desserts and that. And I cook, I make regularly, I make, I go to this coffee shop most mornings. And my act of love and thanks for them is to make them cakes.

And I actually tried a different cake last weekend, but it was too sweet. And I know that they don't like sweetness. So I tried pudding in pineapple and passion fruit, but it was still a little bit too sweet. So I actually didn't give it to them. I'm always doing that. Always. So it's a place of real expression, expression of love, expression of creativity. and it's a place that I go to when as an act of self-care.

If I'm feeling flat, I'll go and bake a cake or I go and make a dessert or I make a really great vegetarian dish, something that's going to be nourishing and really yummy tea. So if we look at all of that kind of kind of, you know, idea, idea cloud connected to kitchen. And then the idea of the impracticality of only being able to access. it from the patio from an external source. Like it's not, in the beginning,

it looked or felt like it was not actually connected to the rest of the house. But then you find out, secretly it was, but, but, but just that initial impression, the thought had to first cross your mind. Why is this place not connected to the rest of the house?

Because when I take you through the rest of the house, you'll see the other aspects of myself that feel void. So it's more, more this one part of you, the kitchen connected part, is not strongly connected to the rest of it, to the rest of you in that sense? I think let's explore.

Let's put that on ice. Let's check that out. That's a possibility. I walk into three other rooms. Yeah. And I have different experiences in each. And actually I go into four other rooms. And so, but nothing feels as busy and boisterous.

lively and connected, even though it wasn't connected initially, to me as the kitchen. It wasn't surprising to me that I went into the kitchen first. Okay. No, yeah. It feels like that's my heart space. If I can get a little bit woo-woo, the kitchen represents my heart space. I think so. Absolutely.

You know, and it's where you feel. You know, we can just say it's where I feel the happiest. It's what gives my life the most, you know, value or meaning or, and none of it can be. wrong for you, you know, that kind of a thing. It doesn't, it's not like I'm going to tell you. You know, you should have had the living room as your centerpiece. That's not for me to say. Like, why would I say that?

Well, I'll talk about the living room. That's where I went next. We'll get there. Yeah, no, perfect. So I wanted to, so you're in the kitchen and what you're noticing about it first is the approach. I don't know if we've quite nailed down why you had to get at it from the outside. That's okay.

But we leave that alone too. I don't think we have either. But I mean, the idea of being an outsider. That crossed my mind. Just wordplay association. It could be related to what we discussed earlier, which is, you know, in my own ascension journey, I've lost connection and contact with people who've been an integral part of my life.

And that's linked to feeling on the out, right? Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of writers on dreams that say your dreams love puns. They love wordplay. Like if you feel like an outsider, you are literally put yourself outside of a, physically outside of a situation to make that connection. But it's interesting that that's,

because I thought of, like I always think of passageways or that kind of scene as representing a transition in my life. It always feels like that's what it is. Yeah. And if I think about the transition, there's a lot going on in my life at the moment because I also recently left

27-year corporate career in organizational psychology. Huge transition. I'm now on my own and I've re-skilled. I learned how to become an energy master. And, you know, I coach people on how to master their energy and as a way of kind of shifting their state and moving forward in their life. And it's a very different skill sets. It's a very different life on stepping into people.

So there's a big. transition in my life and I don't think we can ignore this transition this outside then inside transition I think it's really probably I would say one of the most important parts of the dream for sure yeah and you might have seen me having a little laughing moment to myself I imagined you showing up to a corporate boardroom where the like you know finances and policy and you're like no energy energy let's get into this let's talk about how you feel and how we're going to maximize your spiritual potential and they're like, this is a corporate boardroom, ma'am.

That's just like that. Yeah, how you would not fit there. I did live on the fringes. Yeah. I was in the kind of the fringes of organizational life because I was always in my role as a facilitator, as a coach, was always,

you know, to get neutral and there was always a way from what was happening in business. and I always people into, I'm always people were very serious so, yeah, but I mean, it is, it's a big transition, I'm in this transition phase

and the discomfort of that seems to have come up in the stream. Yeah, I just got a an inkling of something that made sense and I don't know how to, so for in, in, in, What am I trying to say? In the sense of taking on a new career, if we put it that way, you begin as an outsider to that new experience as well.

So there's something going on there in terms of just needed to conceptualize that idea of going from outside, for lack of a better word, outside and experience to now you are in a new experience. And that's why we use those in and out, phraseology in that sense. Yes. I think there's validity. Yeah. And maybe, and there's this, you know, this fascinating, very attractive house. It's got, this is another thing I talk about in all the dream books I edit is like, psychology's been trying to wrap our heads around why is a person interested in some thing.

Why do we have preferences for experiences? What do we like one thing? Why do some people, you know, and we have a lot of biological stuff we get into like, well, some people who are thrill seekers and their bio and then their chemicals in their brain. I'm like, yeah, but, well, you know, why would I enjoy sci-fi and fantasy more than nonfiction history? Romance. Yeah, exactly. Why do these things, well, you know, why for me? Okay, so long story short, we don't know what, but we recognize interest when it happens.

We go, that piques my interest. I can recognize a feeling of I want to know more. I want to get closer to that thing to see it, to experience it more. I was going somewhere with that. So why be, okay, so the broad, the new experience. We were talking about the transition from the old to the new experience. Yeah. Yeah.

And then there's different kinds of people. Like I do have a certain craving for novelty. I think we all do. I'd like to see and hear things I've never seen before. But I don't want to go anywhere new. I do not enjoy it. I will like to, what I, what makes me happiest is this is the same chair I sit in every day. I'm so happy to see this chair when I wake up in the morning because I know I get to sit in it and I wave at the chair at night because I'll see you in the morning.

You know, that kind of thing of like for me, it's that consistency of a of a well tread space that is my. Yeah. That that is very familiar. So that and why. Who knows? We say temperament. We say personality. We say all kinds of things.

We have no idea. It's all. This is my interest. This is where it goes. Okay. So I was going somewhere with all that. That idea in general. So you've had.

had this you're in this broad transitional phase in your life in general and there's probably something going on with this dream of like you're trying to understand okay why why has this captured my interest what makes this this house fascinating to me why is it why do i look at it and feel that's magnificent i have to see what's inside um so what i don't want to do is latch onto that in a two specific sense of like this is all about your spiritual journey necessarily there's probably also So the house has got to be related to you in a sense of getting to know yourself better. Oh, yeah. But that's also attached to this transitional journey of like, so what it is is like you experiencing this,

I am attracted to this new way of looking at the world. I'm driven to understand it better. Okay, let's look at me. Why am I doing this? What is what is it about me that brings me to this, that drives me to want to engage in this? I think does that feel like something? when you just kind of feel the dream? It feels like something.

Definitely. I just wrote why has this house captured my interest at this point in time as I'm transitioning. And then we kind of hold on loosely to the idea, okay, what is the house? Is it your new career? Is it you? Is it both? Is it something else? It felt like it was me.

It felt like it was aspects of me. I can tell you that's what it felt like. Yeah, and without getting to Dream Dictionary houses often are represented. of our mental state, our physical body. It's not uncommon. It's the idea of, you know, we live in houses, so the houses are us or become us or we identify with them. Yeah.

Something very common. Not always, but very often. It felt that way for me. Yeah, yeah. And certainly it has to feel that way or it's not true for you. Yeah. So if we follow that a little bit where you're coming in from the outside, you're literally entering a new look at yourself, a new look at your interest in this direction.

And the first place you stop is the kitchen. because that's where you're most comfortable, most familiar. You're like, well, how can I relate this to what I typically understand to be my most passionate creative space? It's the first thing. And that's actually the most crowded space, too. That's where all the people who are all similarly fascinated with the house have congregated the kitchen.

Like, of course, the kitchen's beautiful. This is the reason to be here. This is the best part of the house. So there may be. It's not. It's actually not the most beautiful part of the house. That's the interesting thing. The second room I go to is the most.

magnificent part of the house. Okay. So it's not the most beautiful part. It's the most, it's somehow attracted everyone, including me. So if it's not attractive purely based on its beauty, what is the attraction of the kitchen? Why is, is the kitchen such a popular place? Yeah. It feels, maybe just go into it for a moment.

It feels social, warm, wealthy. becoming atmospheric. The word that came to my mind was meaningful. And, or meaning, just the sense of meaning. Like if a kitchen, if something isn't the most, let's say a tool, if a tool isn't the prettiest to look at, it would still be the most useful, perhaps. So we don't look at a tool of a specific kind in terms of it. It would be nice if it was also pretty.

But if a hammer gets the job done, it doesn't matter how ugly or old. or beaten up it is. It's a hammer. It's meant to pound nails. If it does that job, well, it's a good hammer. We judge the quality of something by what it does in a certain context. And sometimes the utility of, say, a painting or a sculpture is to be beautiful or sometimes to be ugly on purpose and for a different reason.

So there's the way you were describing all of the aspects of yourself that revolve around giving you a peace of mind, a creative outlet, the ability to express. I know what it is. Go ahead. This is an aspect of my divine feminine. This is, it really feels like an aspect of my divine feminine. I don't know why I said that. Yeah, go with it.

I just ramble until I inspired something in the other person. Something you were rambling about inspired my divine feminine to say, hey, that's me. I think this is, if I think of my most baddesty, divine feminine when I'm at my best it's when I'm creating when I'm learning when I'm trying new things when I'm giving when I'm in the company of others it's all of those things is and when I'm nourishing myself and others I think the essence of my divine feminine is the capacity it's just nourishing it's that as opposed I mean I've got very facets of it, but I think that's where people feel my magic. Yeah. And for another person,

just to, just to like, again, counterfactuals by comparison, another person could have said, why was I in the garden? Why was I digging up roses? Why, why, you know, why was I growing growing tomato plants? And that could have been their kitchen for them. But for you, it's the kitchen. So, so if we're, I think there's something very powerful in that idea of the divine feminine. And this may be the aspect of your divine feminine that you are most comfortable with or that is the most familiar to you, the one you feel the most competence in. This is like your, but you, you, as we go on through the rest of the dream, we realize the house is bigger. There's other rooms here that could also be, say, filled with the same energy, but you just haven't utilized it yet. You haven't found your way.

Love that. Love that. Very much so. And there's a, there's a special thing I've been, I've been hanging on to it. And it's the idea that you initially thought there was no way out of this space, that the, why is this not connected to the rest of the house? But specifically in the sense of, I can't see how to connect this to the rest of the house. I can't see a passage through. And then you get shown one by someone.

And I want to know how, who, what was that like? Um, if you, if you throw your mind into that, looking, looking at that, like, how did you become aware that, oh, there is a connection? I became aware because I noticed people were walking through that part of the house. No one told, no one showed me. I observed and I became aware. Okay. That's a great turn of phrase too.

Um, what do you have to do to expand your understanding to learn something? learn something new, you have to want to know. You've got to do the observation and then and then the awareness kind of comes from that of looking, kind of like a seeking, you shall find type of thing. You got to look or you're never going to find anything. If you never look, you're never going to find. It's kind of the, it's interesting the way they wrote that in that, in that biblical phrase, seek and ye shall find. And then everyone says, not always, like, yes, but you have to seek or you will never find. And that seemed like a wonky way to phrase. I don't know. Not trying to, you know, retcom the Bible.

So that is interesting too. So it isn't that, let's say, you could have been absolutely alone in the kitchen. And that would have been its own kind of experience. You could have conducted a systematic search and discovered a hidden passage or something. But that's not what happened. You notice that other people, the way it popped into my head was the idea of other people have already showed you the way. You know that other people have already been capable of doing this kind of a thing. So now you show yourself this representation.

of, oh, I just have to watch what other people have done, and I can learn from them. So it's almost like, I don't know, I want to stop there, just let's see what you think about that. I'm written it down, because I think it has such validity. I mean, I think that's it. I've noticed that other people have already been capable of doing this kind of thing. And I can, you know, and that's it. So it's the observation. It's the, it's the, less people tend to, there's a discovery process.

but it's not through me, it's through others. That's a thought that's starting to form. I don't know what that means. Yeah. And again, the counterfactual side of things would be like you could have had

the experience of trailblazing. I'm going to have to make my own path. You could have been, again, another counterfactual. It could have been, I literally picked up the heaviest skill that I found and I beat a hole in the wall

and I was able to walk through in the living room. That's its own kind of, I'm going to make this happen by if I have to break down a wall. But you didn't. You just noticed, you know,

this isn't as much of a complicated problem as I thought it looked like initially. That was it. That's exactly right. I actually said, I wrote that in some of my notes. Just hold in a second. Sure, please. I wrote, I'm overcomplicating things.

There's a more direct route between how I nourish myself, which is my divine aspect of my divine feminine, and the next room that I go to, which is this beautiful family room. So there's something around also, which we haven't discussed, which is taking the less complicated route. Like I've been taking this complicated, convoluted, and paths outside in the rain, when there was actually a simpler and more direct path to the next aspect of myself. Yeah. There's definitely a, what is it, the thing that came to my mind was the idea of an expert,

with a bit of a, what is it, a knowing chuckle coming over and saying, I see you've been doing it the hard way. Let me show you a trick. And there's that idea came to mind of like, God, as much as we feel like a fool at that moment, it's like, please, I would rather be foolish than make my life harder than it needs to be because I just wasn't aware of a shortcut. That is actually more, a lot of people conceptually shortcuts is bad. It's like, well, why take the long way if there is a shorter way?

And it's not cutting corners. it's not reducing the quality. It's just it's a matter of efficiency rather than insufficient commitment to quality. Yes. That kind of a thing. Yes. But it's interesting to talk about that, Benjamin, because I don't want to go into this in detail, because I do want to finish the dream.

But it's really an important here because I think one of the scripts that I've really worked to tie and untangle in my life is that. anything worth getting requires hard work. Oh, yeah. So I actually think it's linked to this. Sure. That's a tough one too because you should be prepared to work hard. And some things do require hard work.

And some things are very simple. And very easy. And you shouldn't necessarily feel like you're cheating just because something came to you naturally. I don't feel like I'm cheating because I can do this dream thing. I'm actually very humble that this is just how my brain works and I get to share it with people. So, you know, I don't feel bad about it at all. I'm actually excited and happy to share it with people. Even if I don't understand it and I can't make it work and I couldn't tell you how to do it.

Okay, so you did, you know, trying to help you manage the time and whatnot. So now we're moving into the living room and this is actually your impression of it is this is gorgeous. It's like miles above the appearance of the kitchen. aesthetically it's the most beautiful beautiful room it's tasteful it is so much natural light high feelings it's airy and it's just magnificent it's got like a it's just so beautiful but it's empty i'm the only one there oh wow no one else is viewing that room. So that's the part of me that I think there's untapped potential. I was going with that. There's a part of me that no one gets to see.

I think so too. Yeah. No, no, that's great. If that's what it feels like to you, I'm almost certain that's exactly what it is. But then why? Why does you show yourself this aspect of yourself, this untapped potential in this way. It's interesting that there's no other people there. You are completely alone. It's maybe a space you only show yourself. It's only an aspect of yourself. Only you are aware of that you haven't either shown to other people

that they haven't seen or an accident or that no one's implemented you on or. And then what is that aspect? So it's tied up with the concept of a living room. tied up with the concept of all of these great things. You know, it's very aesthetically pleasing, but also in a tasteful way. It's not gaudy or garish or bright.

It's not bright colors. It's tasteful. So there's a very, what is it? Because tasteful is one word, but there's, it's an aesthetic. Yeah, and it's a magnificent. And it's peaceful. It's peaceful as well.

High ceiling, natural light. There's lots of space. it seems like the thing that comes to my mind is it's a space that you're maybe not entirely an aspect of yourself, you're not entirely comfortable being proud of or showing off to other people. You have not yet chosen to invite people in.

Yeah. Something along those lines, but you're showing us to yourself going. I don't know what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if we're going to get to that either too, but I think it's powerful enough to say, What is, what is this side of me or this, this, this competence that I have, this, you know, some additional value were worth inherent to me that I have not chosen to show other people.

And then you meditate on that and something, you know, something. Oh, well. Thank you for that. Yeah. Probably come along. But it also might be, I mean, how did you, any emotions surface when you're in there? Or, all. Okay.

And one, emotion of all. I think I used the word gobsmacked somewhere, but I don't know, it wasn't related to that. I think it was. When I'm walking to the living area, it is so stunning, and I'm gobsmacked. Okay. It was all. So it might actually be a part of yourself that you are certain is present, but you haven't even found yourself in a way that, like, the discovery of it is stunning in that, in that way. it could be i don't know i'm throwing that out there uh yeah i don't know either that like if you can't

i think part of it where i was going some of that was i think this might be a part of yourself you're embarrassed to put forward as something for public consumption in a way you're um what is it when we feel someone who is um very pretty richards redison someone someone who's very pretty and someone says you're very pretty and they go i'm not and they really believe it they're really believe it They believe they're not, even though they are. So there's, and I'm not saying this is purely a physical thing. I don't know. No, no, no.

Could be. Although it does feel physical. It does actually feel physical. The room, well, no, it's feeling, the room is, if I compare to the kitchen, the kitchen had, there was a buzz. The primary experience of the kitchen was the atmosphere in the kitchen, whereas the primary experience in this room is the magnificent. Yeah, there's very much a visual, visual beauty to it. Yeah. Yes.

It's a visual. Yeah. So, I mean, without getting to, I don't know, this is, this is a touchy thing to get into with some people is like, tell me what you wish you were, what part of you wish was better. And especially if it's related to your appearance or something. I'm not, I'm not asking those questions. I might not even go in there. Because that is a hard thing to. for someone to say and be honest about if it were the case.

But it's also, it's a very awkward thing to broach and to get someone to, you know, it's like the pretty girl you tell her she's pretty, and she's, God, she's embarrassed. She doesn't want to be,

she doesn't want that kind of attention. She doesn't believe it. I'm using this as a metaphor more, more, because there may be other aspects of yourself where you're like, I think I might be good at this, but it feels, I was trying to find the right word to it.

It feels self, narcissistic, feels self-aggrandizing to say, look at how good I am. So this, this, but it didn't feel that way because the room didn't feel gaudy or showy or fee. Yeah. It felt tasteful. It actually felt understated elegance. Yeah, exactly.

So I think there's a, at the very least, a part of you that you know is worthy of being seen, that it would, that you're like, why haven't, why haven't I shown this off to anyone else? And that's, that's where we get into that idea of in the dream, you're being brutally honest with yourself in terms of saying, no, I'm not narcissistic. I really am that good in this aspect. But then you wake up and the waking side of you goes, well, that's, I'm just not comfortable being that braggadocious. I'm not comfortable sharing that part of myself in a look at me, look at how aesthetically pleasing I am in this regard.

I run across that too. Like I don't like compliments. Someone says, hey, you did a really good job. I'm like, oh, please don't. Let me really don't, please. You just stop telling me how good I am. I can't. Let me go back fast.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We can leave that for what it is. It's wonderful food for thought. It's incredible. But it's, yeah. So this is the aspect of self that is underplayed. And I need to go and think about.

Yeah. But like your honest self-assessment is, no, I really have some value in this department. It's like, why am I not sharing it with others? Why is this room empty? Why is it not being appreciated by other people? Because maybe, because I haven't shared it with them. Or they can't see it. I haven't put it on display.

Was there any other action or behavior or, or experience in that room. I felt kind of like I was standing still in wonderment, taking it all in. Yeah. And then eventually you had a thought to move on to another place or something called you to another place. You were something to grab your attention. How did you go to the next area, room?

I think I just found herself in the next room. Another scene change. Yeah. I think they were just, I don't. There was at the end, I remember walking from the second last room. the last room, but I think I just found myself in this third room. Okay. What was that room? Now, this was the parents' room.

Okay. The bedroom, the marital bedroom. Any of the features of that place stand out? No, it was just, it was pleasant, but there was nothing, and I didn't stay there very long. It was pleasant. It was, again, not full of anyone. It was just me. And it just felt like, um,

You know, when you go into a stranger's room, like you don't hover there. It's their private space, right? Okay. So for me, it really felt to me like an aspect of my private self. I don't know if it's known to me or unknown to me. I'm not sure we can explore that. Yeah. That I'm not broaching.

Sure. That is interesting, too. We're going from, we're going deeper and deeper. in in some ways. I'm starting to see a little bit of a through light of like we are literally from the outside through the public crowded kitchen place to the aesthetically beautiful place now empty to a very core like what is the you know bedrooms stand out in our mind as as being a lot of things it's a place where we get naked and change clothes we're very vulnerable it's a place we go to sleep it's it's the place we don't it's not a lot of people in our life we invite into our bedroom

A private place. Literally a husband. Maybe the kids come in and jump on the bed with you occasionally. It's like you have to be really close to someone to get that into that room of their house. Yes. And it was like I wanted to honor that. So I stayed in like fleeting. And then I moved to the next room.

It was a fleeting experience. Yeah, definitely. And you had this kind of this feeling that it was. So in your mind, you've made this house not your own. It's someone else. So you got a little distance from me. You're like, okay, well, let's imagine, I'm not, this isn't about me, really. This is about someone else.

Now I can look at it and not ask myself tough questions. I just need to see it for what it is. And this was Hershey's parents' bedroom, which was very clear it wasn't my bedroom. Yeah. So there was a bit of a defense going on there. Yeah, and you needed to. Yeah, yeah, also that too. We, you know, want a little bit of a once removed type of thing just to give ourselves some, you know, objectivity.

But even being in there, like you kind of lean into the. feeling, or at least it stands out to you that this is a stranger's space and I shouldn't shouldn't linger. If we look at it in that once removed type of way of like if you said this is me or this is one aspect of myself that maybe I don't want to look at too closely, that it's a little uncomfortable to think about. And I mean, the one thing that comes to my mind, too, is the one thing I didn't mention because it's uncomfortable for me too.

I mean, a bedroom is the marital bed, so, so to speak, is where you have. sex, that's where you are the most intimate with another human being. Correct. Unless you get a little freaky and then the kitchen sometimes comes into play. But it's all personal. But yet that's usually the bedroom stand out for that kind of a thing. It's the place of vulnerability and sexual intimacy, very specifically. So there may be something there's going on with you.

And it may not be sexual necessarily. I think it's vulnerability. I think it's intimacy and vulnerability beyond that. I think it's actually beyond that. In fact, I know it's beyond that because it didn't have a sexual feel the room at all. It didn't evoke that, oh, I can't stay there because, you know, people are having sex in that bed.

It just felt there was a privacy and there was something I shouldn't be looking at. Yeah. Not in a sexual sense, in a vulnerable. Intimate sense. Yeah. Intimate sense. Yeah, and that's, you know, I just needed to mention that to say, okay, that's another aspect of bedrooms in general.

But they do very strongly associate with vulnerability and intimacy, especially intimacy. And we were talking about the idea of each layer going deeper and deeper into more private spaces. Yeah. And then so you didn't really have any much of an experience there other than that feeling of the space. And you needed to show that to yourself for some reason. And if we're taking that idea of a progression, The next space is the most inner private core type of space. And how did you, you do remember moving out into the hall to get there or no?

This again, scene change into one. I'll start another page here. Now, I think these two rooms are linked, okay? I think they very much are linked. And I know that this is the deepest aspect. Yeah. Because when it got to the last room, I couldn't, I actually felt contaminated. I couldn't stay there for a second.

So now I'm going in downstairs. It feels like it's downstairs, whereas the parents' room was upstairs. Because it feels like it's downstairs, and I'm looking for Hirsch the hostages room. And I want to, because he's the person I know, and I've been following all these months. and I open a room was one of the kids' bedrooms and initially I thought it was his room there's stuff like clothes on the floor

you know like a messy child's room and then I realised initially I thought it was male stuff but then I realised it was female stuff he's got two sisters in real life it was one of his sister's rooms so I kind of then I thought now I've got to go I find Hershey's

room and I left that room and I opened there was a door at the end of the passage that was I could almost it was not hidden

but I could almost have walked past it without seeing it and I noticed it and I opened it and I realized that was Hershey's room because it felt it was the feeling of death and it was the feeling

of suffering and that's when I thought I don't want this energy near me. I closed the door and I think that was when I woke up, the last part of the dream. Yeah. Okay. And I'm happy to talk about what death and loss represents to me.

Because I think that's been a big part of my healing journey is around that because I lost my father when I was nine years old. Oh, wow. And he was dying from when I was five years old. And so loss and death has been a very prominent part of my healing and letting go. And yeah. And so that's the part of me that fears loss and death so much. And that was almost too much for me to face into.

I knew the issue in this case. And I closed the door quickly. And it's funny because I'd searched for it. So, you know, I went to his sister's room. And I've actually searched for it. And when I found that part of me, it was too scary. It was like it was a mission to get there. And then I lasted a second in that room.

Yeah, definitely. There's some, what comes to my mind is the idea of watching scary movie. and the reason is that there's been somewhere I'm like fascinated by the concept and I'm I'm you know almost morbidly obsessed with getting to see it and after it's done I realized that was a horrifying experience why did I put myself through that why did I want that I did not enjoy it at all so that that's what came to my mind that that some some kind of resonance with this thing of like I can't not look at But I wish I could forget I ever saw it. Like I don't want to, I didn't enjoy the experience. There's something, something to that there. Yes, I think you're right. I don't know where, where your mind goes with that idea of dwelling in something, perhaps.

Like, I don't know. How do you feel about your obsession with the, with the Hirsch case? I'm obsessed with it. Yeah. I'm obsessed with it in real life. Like in my waking life, I follow it every single day. I want so much for this young man to come back. I know he's going to be disabled because he's lost an arm,

but I look at his parents. They're so relatable to me. And I just want to put my arm around his mother, particularly, and say, everything's going to be okay. Your son will come back. And I don't know that everything will be okay. He might be dead. I'm sure he possibly is, you know?

There's a good chance, yeah. There's a very good chance that he hasn't had the right medical care. and he's dead. And so I'm, it's like, when I talk about this, it almost feels like I'm trying to soothe myself. Yeah.

There's a part of me that it's like I'm having a conversation with my inner child and I'm saying, let me hug you. And I am checking in on that aspect of myself in a manic way. And I don't think that checking in is all that healthy. I've had a number of people tell me, including my own mother, say, do you need to stop this. You know, it's bringing you down.

It's, you know, and I actually said to my cousin the other day, she said she doesn't even follow it. And I said, but I keep thinking, what if that were my family, I would want people to be holding the space for me. And he said that you can't hold the space from this, and this place of anxiety. And so that's what's going on in my waking life. That's what's coming up as you're talking. For sure. Yeah. And that's, it was inspiring some other thoughts in me, too.

The idea of, specifically the idea of the only thing worse than knowing he's dead is never knowing what happened to him. And whether that's absolutely true or not, but that's what crossed my mind. that idea of, you know, can you let yourself let go of it and never know? What would that look like to do so? You might be having trouble with that concept, which I've had, I've had some obsessions like that too, or it's like, I just have to know. I can't.

And that's why the end of the scary movie and like, and then I watch it. And I'm like, I wish I didn't do that. Why was I so obsessed with the idea of needing to see it for myself and then going, well, that was awful. Like so, and not even that, like some scary internet videos. there are some things I will never watch because I had them partially described to me. If anyone never tries to show you a video entitled Funky Town, do not watch it. It's relatively brief and it's awful and it's not something anybody should see, but it's something that really happened.

It is actual bad, bad things, Funky Town. And do not watch that video. And it's not the song, but it's, I think they call it that because that song is playing in the video and it's awful. so I actually have a vivid enough imagination that I was able to see some of the things that they were describing of like I think I could actually watch that happen to a person. Anyway, long story short on that. Sometimes we have those feelings of you have to know and you can't let it go until you do know. And then you regret it, but what were you going to do? You just can't let it go.

And how do you let it go if you judged it was necessary to do so? Okay. and all these things swirling around and we've gone deeper and deeper into like intercourse stuff you've gone through the, you know, the parents room and then you go on a quest like,

let's go find this kid's actual room. Like you assign yourself the task of in, you assign your dream self the task of pursuing what your waking self is pursuing knowledge of this person. Maybe as a person or their fate in real life in general. And the, you part of the searching process is maybe,

and you've probably gotten to know a little little bit about the sisters. You know he has sisters. How many people know about the family of a victim? Not many. Sometimes they know they have parents or they just know a person died or bad things happen to them. Well, I follow the Instagram account now.

You know, following the Bring Hirsch home Instagram account. And the sisters are talking on it. The mother's talking on it. The father. And I'm liking every post and sending my love. And so I would love to discuss and decipher for what is this obsession represent for me? Why am I so, why do I feel like I've got to hold the space for a strange family who I've

never met at the detriment of my own mental health? Yeah, that might be ultimately what this whole dream was kind of about is like getting to the, oh, you're going to start barking now. Stop it. Stop it. He's telling me it's almost time to go. You got to go too soon. I think you're almost out of time.

I do. I think that that's probably broad strokes with this whole dream was about is like looking into yourself through the different layers, getting down to why is this particular story so enthralling? Why is it so meaningful to me? Yeah. And what do I do about that? What do I do with the fact that it is meaningful to me, that I do have strong feelings about it? No one would say it was healthy to say, just live in denial. I'll just pretend like I don't care. Well, you do. Okay. Maybe if you understand why you can.

help resolve it in a way that's like, you know, like what would be an ideal outcome that kind of meets in the middle is like you are able to put it down, but you message the family saying, hey, please let me know if you find out anything. And then you don't worry about it. And you trust that if he's alive and they get him back, you're going to hear about it. And you don't have to obsess over. You don't have to follow it every day. That would say that's kind of meeting in the middle between obsessing and completely forgetting.

I don't know that you can do either one. And you can't let it go, but you can't live like this every day either. So meeting in the middle might be, there might be a healthy way forward. Or you'll find some other compromise that's going to be based on where you feel this, you know, the root of the obsession lies. And it probably is wrapped up in your sense of death and loss and,

you know, going back to being very young. My mom lost her mother at 16. And that changed your life. Changes your life to lose a parent. It does. When mine go in the next 10, 20 years or whatever, that'll change my life too at that point.

But so much more when you're small. Yeah. Stop it. Stop it. Come here. Danny, I want food. I think. I think you're right.

I won't stand between you and your dog's pee. But that's probably a wise choice. It's a way of closure for your sex. A way of closing this. I feel like it's the part of me. the unhealed part of me that was part of a family that was suffering in the not knowing for so long. And I've just, you know, and that's the unhealed. Yeah, it may very well be.

And I don't think we need to try to nail it down any more than that. I think sleeping on it and meditating on it over the next however many days and weeks is going to be what's best for you. I think we try to force an answer of like, here's exactly what it is and what you're supposed to do about it. We're probably going to get wrong. So, yeah, that's, that's one of the, yeah, that's one of the best things I try to do is just help people see a little more clearly what it is they were considering. I consider dreams, you know, I think about them as thought experiments. Like, what if? What if I look at myself or this other thing through this lens?

How can I understand it better? So, yeah. Great. Great podcast. Well, thank you much. Well, thank you much. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah.

And then we'll, of course, hang out for like just two minutes afterwards, after we wrap. up and we'll just a bit post showed it's another thing i don't tell people uh very often is we do a little post show debrief doesn't last long just how do you feel everything okay you want to talk about it um off off air stuff that's like you know not for public consumption so well uh if you are satisfied for for the moment i'll uh i'll go ahead and wrap a wrap it up um and i got to do the uh the housekeeping would you kindly like share subscribe uh tell your friends always need more uh volunteer dreamers viewers for the video game streams 17 currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent, the fabric of dreams by Catherine Taylor Craig, all this and more at

Benjamin thedreamwizard.com. Also, Benjamin thedreamwizard.locals.com. And really, yeah, don't forget to smash the like button on your way out, to share the show with your friends, all the good stuff. I really mean it. And Gabriel, thank you for being here. I couldn't do this without people willing to let me inside their head and poke around. So I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And everybody out there, thanks for listening.