Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 165: Dearly Departed

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Catherine Duncan ~ https://www.learningtolive.org/everydayawakening

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today we have our friend Catherine Duncan. She is an integrative spiritual consultant, author of the new book, Everyday Awakening. You can find that at Everydayawakening.com. Link in the description below as usual. For my part, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers,

viewers for the video game streams Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. Pacific 17 currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent, the fabric of dreams, Catherine Taylor Craig, all this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com. Also, if you'd head on over to Benjamin the dreamwizard.locals.com, trying to build a community there. It's free to join attached to my Rumble account. You can give me money or not. That's where I'd like to perhaps source most dreams in the future. That's enough about me. Back to, Catherine, thank you for sharing your time with me today. Great to meet you today. Wonderful. So let's dive right in and

talk about, you know, what is an integrative spiritual consultant and what's in your new book, all all those good details. I published my first book last summer, Everyday Awakening, five practices for living fully, feeling deeply, coming into your heart and soul. It's a book about what does it mean

to be fully alive right now? Yeah. I think that's an interesting question too. It's like, because people are, there's different ways of being alive. There's shades of meaning to alive. And it's like,

what is really living? And some people are just physically alive, but they're not, you know, active, not spiritually aware, not pursuing a purpose. I mean, there's lots of different ways that we need to fully engage with being alive, being in this physical reality. And that's what you're saying. So you have five areas that you focus on or explain? Yeah, five practices about how you can drop into your heart, your soul, my book has two exercises of how do you find flow? How do you find love in

your being? How do you come into the moment? It's about not living in our fast-chattering ego mind. I think it's so easy to live on autopilot and where our mind living head up runs our life. But it's about coming into our body into just this moment and feeling that preciousness of like, here I am. I'm alive and the awe of life and the wonder of life.

And this is something I've been contemplating since being a child at 11 years old facing my death and then in my 30s having a near death experience and then I became a chaplain. I was like, okay, where do you want me? Yeah. Irony, like I care for what you pray for. That's very true. And I just felt this calling to become a chaplain and I was with people in crisis and a life.

And I learned a lot. And that's what I'm sharing in my book, tips and tools and ideas like, how can you just be here now fully, vibrantly in this moment. Yeah. That is, you said something I just had to laugh. It's like, I think there's an old joke that's like, like, God, make me your instrument. Wait, not like that. And have I seen in those experiences like, yeah, I take it back.

Yeah, yeah, be careful what you wish for or pray for, as they say. No, that's very, very true. That's true. Well, that's very good. So what else was I going to say about the, you said being a child and, you know, about 11 years old is when you can remember having that. kind of the first onset of death anxiety is as some some psychologists might say of like oh wait a minute i'm going to die someday everybody i love is going to die someday and we and i think many adults

we've we've forgotten that that moment happened and that that was a crisis we had to deal with intellectually and spiritually and come to some understanding of it and how we resolved that question in our mind or integrated that that experience into our personality and our and our worldview says, you know, and maybe reaching adulthood and never having resolved it. These are huge, huge questions. Yeah. And when I was 11, I was 10, just turning 11, I actually had a physical crisis. I was suddenly gravely ill. I was in the hospital. I was diagnosed with a very rare childhood cancer. My parents were told I had a 20% chance to live for two years.

my life just turned upside down and this was in the 70s and they did have chaplains. They did have counselors. No one talked to me. And my mom, I'd say more religious, would say you're going to be fine. And that was very comforting, but there was no sense of reality about what was really happening. I went through intensive treatment, chemotherapy, radiation surgeries and not long into all of this. all of a sudden, I just, I felt like I could see either dying or living. I mean, I was just like on this tightrope.

Like, am I really going to live? And I grew up so fast. It just cracked me open. And that is actually when I organically started to pray. And faith up to then meant nothing to me. But I just started to pray, you know, could I live to be 20? And I started praying that like, if I got to be 20, I'm good. And not long after this sense of like peace, energy came through my body, took my breath away.

I was just like, annoying, I wasn't alone. It started me on this journey of why am I here? For sure. Yeah, and that'll do it. There's few things that'll give you a focus to sort out your priorities more than a brush with death. You know, more than really confronting that. And there's maybe there's two separate things. And I was talking about, there's an intellectual process that happens where we realize, oh, this is the state of the world.

Everything dies. I'm going to die someday. And that is made sharper and more immediate by an actual brush with death. But they are actually two different experiences. I mean, there's one thing to know something intellectually. It's another thing to experience it viscerally to your core. Like, wow, this is happening. You know, I might actually die.

Not someday, but like now. that that that's a real classically that's a wake-up call like get you shit together what are you doing here if you don't have you I think that's the core of the question too like you know if you were going to die tomorrow

how and you knew that for certain how would you spend today what would you actually do meant to focus people on what's really important to you you know those are those are trick questions in some ways because you probably not going to die tomorrow and that means you know if you knew for certain maybe you wouldn't go to work that day

because there is no future. You would spend it with friends and family. But if you know you are going to be alive tomorrow, maybe you need a paycheck and a place to live. So you got to be rational about these things too and fit, fit it into, you know, in order to live fully, I have to stay alive first. This is kind of that Maslow's foundational stuff. Yeah, yeah. And it was definitely, you know, it cracked me open and awakening of like all of a sudden I realized, oh my gosh, I felt the preciousness of life. I felt like, oh, I had the power of just being in the moment, a sense of there's so much beyond me in this body.

It just, it was profound. So not surprising. I ended up wanting to come through me this book about awakening. And you'll get a kick out of this. I came across a tape this last week, and it's a tape from me when I was 18 years old in high school. I gave a talk in my high school. We had to give an assembly talk. And my talk I listened to and I remember now.

It was about seven, eight minutes. on what it means to be alive and grateful for life. Wow. And that brought you all the way back like full circle to where you are today. Like trying, again, trying to share with the crowd this message and how to, how to achieve that. Did you want to get into a little bit of the specifics on one element and kind of how you explain how to engage with that category? Absolutely. I'll tell you for a few moments, the five practices.

In my book are, come back to the present moment, starts everything. So just can you move out of your busy mind to just be in this moment? And it's a practice. So the first practice, and I'll come back to that, but come back to the present moment, connect with something greater, grow your trust, embody love, and hold openness. But I do believe it all starts with just being in the moment. And that's, you know, a practice. You can right now while I'm talking.

We're all breathing. Can you notice just for a moment your breath coming in? Can you feel when you breathe in the coolness of the air coming in across your nostrils and the warmth as you breathe out? Can you notice when you breathe in how our lower abdomen normally expands on the in breath, recedes on the out breath? I mean, just doing that, following your breath or using your senses. There's many different ways.

but just to just drop you into like, here I am. My mind, my ego mind is not going, going, going. You know, even your cat right now. He is totally present. He's all presents. Oh my gosh. We have a couple dogs. And it's just about the aliveness of the moment.

I think our animals are teachers of being in this moment and just embodying love. Just hear presence love powerful. Absolutely. Well, and that brings me to. in terms of my methodology, when you were listing those things off, I'm like, that sounds like how I do my dream interpretations. And I stopped you right before we started recording. I said, oh, wait, don't tell me the dream because I've found that if I start thinking about it independently,

I overthink it, and I go in wrong directions without the ability to immediately check in with you and say, what do you think about these two paths, which one feels right to you, which one might relate to your real life? and if I go off on my own, I'll come to all kinds of wrong conclusions. So what I have to do is be absolutely present in the moment with no preconceptions brought to it. None of that stuff that I've thought about beforehand. But also there's the, I don't know how I do what I do. I'm investigating my own method. What I do is intuitive.

But I very much open myself up to, I would characterize it in this context as the spirit of love. the idea of I don't know I'm asking for answers and hoping that something somehow, whether it's purely physical, my brain, the connections, whatever it is, or it's a higher power, which it feels like magic to me. So I'm open to that as well. I mean, that's what if people say you're, you know, if you're channeling the spirit of God, I don't think it's a wrong description if you're doing it in that spirit of love. Like I want to be beneficial to the person I'm talking to.

I want good results for them. It's not about me. it's that egoless type of place like, yes, I'd like to look good. I'd like to not look like an idiot. But there's a method I have to use to get there, which is being of service and opening myself up to the possibility to receive those answers wherever they come from. I can say, you know, specifically, I don't believe specifically that I am receiving messages from God.

Metaphorically, metaphorically, yes. But specifically, I don't hear voices. I don't hear spirits. I don't have that experience. But I think those are true metaphors in a way. I mean, if we go to just briefly, you know, I'm rambling here for a minute, but the way the Greeks and Romans used to conceive of the gods as, you know, mankind is the plaything of the gods.

And they assigned our deepest instinctual urge as an external source, the god of war that drives us to make war, the god of love, that why do we fall in love? We still don't know. Oh, we can kind of quantum. it and say, well, it's this triangle with these three, you know, it's these three parts. And we do have these descriptions, but it's a, it's a power beyond, we don't know where it comes from, you know, and we just say, well, it is. It is. Science has said, well, this just exists. And okay, well, why? We have no idea. I'll stop there. I'll stop there. I remember in

graduate theology and divinity. I have a master's in theology and a master's in divinity. I remember professors saying, as much as you can prove and there's a belief, and there's a there's a God. You can also prove not. I mean, it's just like there's a leap of faith, but also tuning in, like, what really is true, what feels right. And, and I do talk about this in my book. I think every one of us, everyone listening right now, we all have gifts. Is it a sense of hearing more, seeing, sensing, feeling? I mean, I think I shared with you before we got on. I mean, I see spirits. I get guidance. I hear, I see, I hear guidance. Everyone. one of us, if you can cultivate more moments of presence, living, having that be your anchor

and using our mind, but more anchored in the now, the present, we can access gifts, one more maybe highly developed than another in us, in every one of us. Absolutely. And that's, so I separate dreams into two categories and I try and stay in my lane with it. So there is the supernatural, so-called, the spooky woo, I say with love. And the books that I've edited and republished in the history of dream interpretation is full of stories of that kind of stuff. It is the visitation of deceased relatives, which I think we're going to get to in a minute. It is psychic impressions from other people at a distance with no explanation.

How could this person know this thing? And it came to them in a dream. Premonitions of the future, of an earthquake, of the sinking of the Titanic. And people will hand wave a lot of that stuff away with, oh, you know, confirmation. bias. Well, I'm sure someone worried about the relative dream that the boat might go down. You are chewing on my cord. Stop it. Stop it. Nope. Nope. Um, but that said, I don't discount it at all because I have known people in real life who had a prophetic dream and said, you know, a week later, the exact sequence played out exactly in the dream. They were in the same location with the same person,

dressed the same, having the same experience. The exact words came out of their mouth. Like, that is I don't know what to do with that. Why don't I know what to do with that is I could if you bring me a dream right now and say, Ben, is this dream prophetic? Is something, is this dream going to tell me something about the future? I can't tell the difference. I don't have that ability. So just practically I have to set that stuff aside and say, stay in my lane and focus on

what I know, which is, you know, the more practical, philosophical, but psychological side of things of like, you know, our subconscious speaking to us. in terms of organizing our understanding while we're having this downtime. And the way I look at it just in general is, you know, I start with the premise, and I think it's true that the subconscious exists and that what it's made up is everything we've ever five senses seen, heard, smelled, but also our thoughts and feelings, our conceptual structures of how the world is organized and how we understand it. And then what's happening when we dream is that, you know, the lungs breathe, the heart beats, and the brain thinks.

And when we're unconscious, the brain's still processing. And there's theories we need sleep because it needs to compress, compile, like a computer defragging. It's one metaphor. But also we're processing things like, well, I tell people, sleep on it if you don't know what to do. And I don't just mean, like, give it time. But I mean, literally sleep. And sometimes an answer will come to you, even if you don't remember a dream. You'll just wake up in the morning knowing what to do.

And whether it's from a supernatural source, can't say. Don't discount it. But also it can be explained materially of like we've given ourselves time to process. And very often we can get, we can have these dream experiences that come out with us and come out in the morning. And we recall them and we go, I see how I got to that conclusion. It makes sense. I see, I can understand my own thought process.

So I think of dreams is like our, the raw experience of our actual, what it's actually like to think when it's not. not being processed through conscious attention and distraction. But I'll stop there. I rant for so long. I'm sure you've got some things to say. No, I think it's all,

everything you're saying makes sense with me. So let me know when you want to dive into a dream. Yeah, let's make the most of our time. I know you're not, you don't have as much as some of my other guests. So that's good. I can,

you know, speaking of folks out there, I can work with what you got. If you only got 45 minutes, we're going to make it happen. So that's perfectly fine. Let's talk about your dream experience. You said it happened a while ago.

So you can give me context. You can launch right into a description. It's all good. 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 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, world of dreams over the past 2,000 years.

That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com. Yeah. So I do dream. And I dream, I have a few dreams that are so notable. They stand out to me. So I thought, well, let's go with this dream. Yeah. I'm the youngest of six kids.

My brother, Jim, died 15 years ago. at age 40, 46, 45, 46. He actually died of a brain tumor. He left behind his wife and his son Max. And he was just so full of life. I mean, vibrant, vibrating life. He, big athlete, just so much charisma, had so many friends,

his S for life. He actually, even during the 10 years, he went through treatment for this brain tumor that they finally ran out of options. He biked with Lance Armstrong across the country, raising awareness for, you know, cancer awareness. It was pretty amazing. And he just fought to the bitter end. I mean, he went into hospice for like two days and then he died. And he just, yeah, I was very close to my brother, Jim. And it was, you know, a very big loss.

It was interesting. So here's the dream about, gosh, within two weeks, week and a half maybe after he died. It was such a vivid dream in the night where I woke up in the morning just, it was right there. And it was Jim came to me, very young, healthy, vital. And he's telling me, you wouldn't believe all you go through when you die. He's like, there's all these layers.

He's like, you know, you go through all these layers. and seeing your life and letting go. And here I am. You know, and he just had this big smile on his face. But he was just like in kind of curiosity, fascination telling me that it's really a process you go through when you leave your body. And I'll just share, sorry by mixing up two dreams, but my father who's been gone, gosh, 18 years, he died like late.

70s. Similar kind of dream after he died. Within a week, he came back to me very vividly in a dream and just said, and he was very young and healthy and vibrant. And he just said, you know, I'm good. Everything's good and I'm healthy. And he's just like, I'm good. And just kind of like marveled at how vibrant he was.

And yeah, it was fascinating. Oh, yeah. There's a big, well, a significant history. And like a big depth or breadth of exactly these stories. I mean, it's so common to the dream experience that it is classified as one of the typical dreams, falling, flying, showing up unprepared to a test in school, all of these things, you know, being naked and public and embarrassed or not, which is interesting as well. so get return of a deceased loved one and in the history um these were you know pre scientific and even even you know way back uh you know more tribal times even before the

the formation of organized religion uh as as such uh this was absolutely considered the return of the spirit of a deceased relative me that was that was the only explanation later on we got to well in the say the evolution of dream interpretation the religious phase before we hit this more scientific rationalist world was this was your

deceased relative also but it was it was an angel was a spirit from heaven or a warning from hell like they would come and say don't live like I did and you know that that kind of thing which is interesting you know this so the devil's going to let someone

for a minute just to go warn someone else. That didn't seem likely, but you never know. And then we hit the, you know, rationalist age where it's like, well, these are just processes of the brain. And of course, you have memories in your subconscious and you have love for your, um, for your relative. And so, of course, you're going to want to see them and you can summon memories of them. And really just divorces it entirely from the spiritual side.

We get into this materialist frame of mind, which, you know, that, as I was saying earlier, that is where I'm most comfortable exploring. That's where my specialty is. But I don't discount the other, the other possibilities. And that's, you know, I would say,

whatever works for you in a sense, like if you need to believe that this was actually them and it wasn't, it doesn't matter. And if I can't prove that it was, then it doesn't matter, you know, like neither one of us needs to be right in that. that regard. And at the bottom, I, I completely know it was them. And I mean, I see spirits. My brothers

come back and in plain view, seeing him. I've seen many patients that I was with as a chaplain that all of a sudden like, appear and thank me and leave. So I have not a doubt. Definitely. And so part of what I was going to explain this before, too, and I forgot earlier, um, part of my, skepticism is not really the right word, but inability to engage with that is that I've never had that experience. You know, I've never had a relative, deceased relative come back and speak to me.

I've never had psychic impressions, prophetic dreams. I don't even lucid dream. I hardly remember my dreams at all, but also no, no waking life experiences of any kind of supernatural stuff. So I think a lot of people judge the possibility of things based on their own experience and say,

well, I can't do that so you can't either. Of course not. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I don't dismiss it.

So, but, but I also don't know where to go with it sometimes. Like, uh, Mm-hmm. You know, the,

what am I trying to say? The, what I would do if we were going to try and do an interpretation of this from a psychological standpoint is I'd look at, uh, you know, the dream with your brother specifically and say, where,

where do the dream take place, what physical setting? What, what behaviors or engagement occurred during that time? What, specific phrases or phrasing of communications might you recall from it. And then we kind of dig into each one of those layers and try and figure out how that fits with your personal worldview. And what ideas or concepts or questions struggles you were dealing with in your life that you were trying to resolve by means of visualizing that that experience.

It really does, it goes to completely opposite direction of the spiritual thing. If we just focused on the spiritual side of things, that was him. And it was not a vision conjured by your mind. And you're certain. You have certainty that it was this communication based on your experiences. So I don't know how you want to approach this. I'm not really sure. This is one of those things where like, you know, I've talked to a lot of people about a lot of dreams.

And I'm always being challenged to expand my understanding and engage with new material. And I like that. But then I hit a point where I don't know what to do. I'm not really sure how to proceed. I don't know if you have any thoughts. We can just puzzle it out together, talk it through. Yeah. Well, I'll ask you, what feels right to you?

How do you want to, yeah, what comes to you for analyzing it or any insights or any, yeah, guidance or gleanings are coming to you? Yeah. I mean, I suppose my natural tendency would be to say, let's set aside the spiritual stuff, even if it's true. and look at it, just look at it hypothetically from a different perspective because that's what I can do. That's what I can offer. Sure. So if that's, you know, if you want to spend a few minutes talking about that, all right.

All good. I don't know. Suddenly it felt rude to me to say, I know that's what you believe, but let's do this my way. I'm like, do I really want to, how do I not say that? That's not what I'm trying to say. It's all good. Well, good deal.

Well, let's do, you know, let's answer some of those questions. I mean, what was the setting for this experience? Did you remember it taking place, you know, like in your actual living room in your house or some other place? Well, you know, when you met with your brother? So the dream, yeah, it was at night. And gosh, good question. You know, he just appeared as if we're outdoors, he appeared and he just looked really vital and healthy because he, by the time he died, it was pretty rough, you know. he had just

on downhill quite a bit. So he looked healthy and vital and he had just the sparkle and light around him. Yeah. So it was a, it was nighttime. And you had the sense that. No, it was daytime. Oh, it was daytime.

Sorry. I think I heard you wrong there. And it was outdoors. Sometimes we don't get a strong impression of the actual setting, but if you had to try to characterize it. Any physical objects in the area? I mean, trees, grass. Um, no, no, none. Nothing. Just the, just the certainty that it was outside in the daytime. Fair enough.

And then, you know, um, broadly speaking, we go, we could go into, and we may or may not, but, uh, some of the processes are, we can start looking at, well, what does it mean? Daytime. What's your associations with that? And why outside? Why not? Inside. I'd like to consider those, those counterfactuals too. Why not at night? Why not? I don't know what time of it was, but it was specifically daytime and specifically outdoors. Just spoke to a gal, well, yesterday, but last week at this point, I released these once a week. Where, no, no, it was the gentleman before that, where going, the dream transition from an interior space to an outdoor natural environment. And it was the difference between, you know, man-made constructs in a way and the embrace of natural

processes, things that just happen that you can't control very much so. So there's, there's different layers to this too. When we look at the, you know, subconscious things, there's certainly unique personal experiences, but those personal experiences fit patterns that are common to humanity writ large. And that's kind of where Young was going with this collective unconscious. He had layers to that too, but that's one of the layers is because of how we are physically constituted in the world, two eyes, two legs, et cetera, you know, barring accident or injury. we all need to eat.

We all have a certain relationship with, say, water. We must drink it and we can drown in it, these common human experiences. So the idea of daylight very often, not one size fits all, but, you know, night is mysterious, hidden, shadows, places a lack of understanding. Daylight is the best disinfectant, they say, you know, it's what is revealed, what is illuminated in that sense. and being outdoors very much often, as I was saying, connects to the idea of natural processes, which is interesting because you did draw that out and saying, he was telling you, man,

there's a whole process to this death thing. Like after you leave the mortal shell, you've got layers to go through. It's a whole thing. But you know, you see the result of it. And the result is he's vital, healthy. He's vibrant again. He's looking like he was at his peak.

Okay. So we've just got like literally the first thing. Where were you? Where did he appear? What do you recall about the nature of the interaction? Like your sense of self, your your emotional response to seeing him. Any thoughts that were inspired? You know the first words he spoke to you. Did you speak first? I think things like that. He started speaking and it felt just so natural. It felt like we're just hanging out talking. like we had weeks prior. It felt really natural. Focus was on him.

He looked really good. And his message was just so interesting of his comment. He was, like, amazed by saying, gosh, wow, there are so many layers we go through when we die. Hmm. He's kind of, I think, because, I guess in the moment, as I'm talking, is that because my background is a chaplain, and I was with people in crisis under life. It was almost like he was telling me, yeah, life goes on and wow, it's a process.

And well, here I am. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's very relevant that he would say that to you and that you have that experience in the chaplain business, I was going to say, but the chaplain calling. to be with people during the process of death. So if there's a process to death, there's processes in life process to the,

we call the death process. And then natural that, well, that would kind of continue on the other side. Whatever, whatever is us, really us, the soul that leaves the body and moves on, the fact that we go,

continue to go through experiences, processes is entirely likely. You know, if I, if I lead on the spiritual side, of things. And I'm not without, without my spiritual side.

I mean, I think I try to bridge the gap, but one foot on each side and say, this is all, this is all real too. I just don't get it as much as, as well enough to explain it. But I think we are more than our physical body.

I think what's, the experience of, what am I trying to say, uh, that we are a, um, you know, a meat puppet of a spiritual driver in a way.

Uh, and then what we, what, what is happening in the, the brain, all that electrochemical activity is where the soul meets the physical form and kind of the two planes intersect. That's the point of intersection between those things. And then, yeah, what we, what we are is, you know, continues on before that. So I've got my own beliefs that I can't justify. I take it with a grain of salt. But I think, yeah, we're a spirit, soul and a body for a short

time. And then we transform. And again, I was with so many people as they died. And I could see, sense, witness them like, all of them, all of them. And they came out. their body. I could feel it. They'd come back and see me. So I do not have one doubt that we, we do go on. Yeah. Of death is not an end. I'm kind of jealous of that experience in the way of like, I don't want to take it from you, but I would also like to have that to be able to experience that. There's, I have I been present? I think I've missed a few, a few deaths. Like I was almost present for one. But I've been in the presence afterwards and I've been there as people are dying and, you know, try to provide my own comfort in a way.

Just just be in there. Whatever you need. Hey, we'll hang out. We'll talk. We don't have to focus on this whole death thing. It's just kind of happening. But so his comment to you, he initiated. You're present.

You're more of a, you're there to hear the message in a way. Yeah. And his message was kind of gosh, wow. I'm just paraphrasing back to you. But this whole, there are some layers to this whole thing. this whole process when we die. And his attitude was not blazze. That's not the word I'm looking for.

But I think you had said something like very, it felt natural, very relaxed, very like, just like a shooting the breeze. But also kind of curious. He was like, wow, you don't believe all you go through. Like he died. So it's like, here I am. So it felt like he had,

he had the need to express. He had an awakening. He had his own awakening after death, right? Yeah, on the other side. Yeah. That's really it. It's just like, wow, here I am. And by the way, subsequently, he's been in my dreams a few other times where he just

looks healthy, vibrant, happy, walking on a beach. I mean, he's come back in different dreams. For sure. Well, what, so, yeah, just trying to get like how his, how was his demeanor, his delivery and describing it fantastically. Did he get into any descriptions of the last? layers. Did he say, hey, here's what I went through. Did he go on to kind of explain it a little more or not so much? He did not. Wouldn't that have been interesting? I was hoping. I was hoping a little bit like that that might pop in your head going, you know, he did say one other thing about that process.

No. Where are we going with that? What's, um, how did the experience play out or or conclude? I mean, beyond him telling you that brief bit of information that stands out, was there any other interaction with him or, or, or, or, how did the dream end? I mean, did you, you know, hug and he walked away into a ball of light or what, what happened next? I just, I felt so in his presence. I mean, we were just like there together. He's sharing this aha moment. I don't let me this.

He looked great. And then like, no, no, he was gone. And that was it. I mean, there's no, there's not much to report about the ending other than like we were together and then he was gone and then I that's what that's all I remember okay and then how did you wake up feeling after the dream I mean what what came with you back into into waking life and when I in the morning when I woke up I was like oh my gosh right away I was like Jim was in my dream and this is what he said it was fascinating I just his presence his message was just was just and it was

literally about a week after he died. So it was pretty quick after he died. And it just felt comforting. It felt comforting. I just, a deep knowing was within me that that was him. He was there. Okay. So it came out of it in the morning feeling comforted, positive, positive emotional, emotional response to it. Yeah. For sure. So, I mean, this would, we could look at it from a lot of different, a lot of different angles. One, the one that pops in, head immediately is very much on this, say, Freudian wish fulfillment side of things. I mean, what we would want more than anything makes sense is our, you know, the people we love are happy after they're gone and that they would come back and let us know it's okay on the other side.

We don't have to be afraid either. That and actually that is, the, the history is replete with exactly those communications. And there's definitely two different ways to look at it. One is, as I said, kind of the 40 and wish fulfillment side of things where, of course, we want to know that. Why wouldn't we? But that doesn't mean it isn't real. And that's the other side of like, it really is okay. And they do come back to tell us and let us know. And I think either way, it actually ends up being comforting, regardless of whether it's real or imagined.

Because that's, we're getting the absolute truth or we're getting a version of the truth that we can handle in a more materialist. framework, which I also believe that too. I don't think there's anything to fear from death, you know. And that's, that's interesting too. So I'm not specifically a Christian, but I think about different religions, concepts of heaven and hell and what it's going to be like afterwards. And I don't specifically embrace the idea that there is, you know, an eternal pit of fire. I don't think that's what it is.

The way I phrase it and the way I think it actually happens, and this is just my own, you know, theorizing, but it feels right to me. It's gut check. There's a feeling we get in life when we've made a mistake and we look back on it with regret and we go, oh my God, that's so embarrassed. I feel terrible. I feel terrible about this mistake the way I hurt someone. And I'm like, okay, that's how you feel right now when you're kind of stuck in this

meat shell. And we've got all these distractions. We've got this filter of physicality around us that actually doesn't let us feel that as fully as we would if we were. pure spirit. So what I think is, you know, hell is of our own making. It is the regrets we carry with us afterwards that separate us from the, you know, one true universal source of love. And, you know, so we, and what is it? You know, the punishment for bad people, so to speak, is that they are forced to confront every way they've hurt someone in their life. And that regret,

that pain is hell. And you have to kind of purge it. You have to go through. through it and say, you know, confronted in a way of, um, you got to go through the fire to get out the other side. You got to burn away all those, those parts of you that are, you know, so there's, yes, I don't think it's, and I don't think it lasts eternity. I don't think it can. Yeah. But in a way, anyway, go ahead. No, that resonates with me too. I, I mean, I am a minister and oh heaven, hell, all that. I just doesn't resonate with me. I mean, it doesn't. And, um, but what does resonate with me is, that when we die, we get a review of our life and we see where maybe we fell short,

where maybe we hurt someone. And that is the pain that, you know, that we walk through as we're on the other side to heal to walk through it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think that mirrors very, very much what we go through in real life. It's like you got to, you have to confront your mistakes and feel the regret and perform acts of contrition, which usually means don't do that again. I mean, it's the big part of an act of contrition.

is like it's not just, what is it? The ritual of an apology. Because people can say that and not mean it. It's like, do you change your behavior? Do you do something different next time? That's the proof that you've learned something. Can you learn? Learn and grow and heal and open your heart even more to who you're being called to be in this life.

Definitely. Yeah. Well, I hope I'm doing that here with you and everyone else. It feels right to me. This is, I don't think I've ever felt this engaged with a practice before, even when I was doing other things that were helpful and, you know, working inpatient psychiatry with people at their worst and just being present for them and helping keep them safe. That was, but this, this feels like something else. It feels like something special. Well, I'm just going to say, thank you for being here and sharing your story with us because I couldn't do it without guests who were willing to talk about their experiences.

But I think we're almost out of time. I'm going to get you out of here. So if you feel like we've explored that enough, you don't have any additional questions or anything. I don't know. Yeah, no, thanks. This was fun. Yeah.

I mean, the aha to me today. Yes. Came about with my brother on the other side. Almost like this opening awakening on the other side. It really feels clear to me. And that's lovely. So thank you.

Nice. I think I'm open to all of this. And I think we keep learning through the day, through the night, through just can I don't know can we all be open can we open and keep learning and growing and healing I think that's why we're here and learning how to love even more definitely I agree with all of that 100% ditto well let's do this let's get you out of here and we'll wrap up the show so this has been our friend Catherine Duncan an integrative spiritual consultant and author of the new book

Everyday Awakening you can find that at everyday awakening.com for my part would you kindly like share subscribe tell your friends always need more viewers and and guest dreamers, please reach out to me. You don't have to be selling a book. I'll talk to anybody. 17, currently available works of historical dream literature, the most recent. Whoa, the fabric of dreams by Catherine Taylor, Craig. I always screwed up at the end of the show.

All this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. Also, if you'd head on over to Benjamin the dreamwizard. Dot locals.com, join the community there. Free to join attached to my Rumble account. And that is it. Once again, Catherine, thank you for joining us and sharing your story. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Great to meet you. too and everybody everybody out there thank you for watching