Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 173: Somatic Phraseology

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Richard Craft ~ https://linktr.ee/RichardPCraft

Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes today we have richard craft from tyler texas he is the host of the men of the house podcast uh exploring i wrote this down because i have to exploring unfiltered the unfiltered truth of fatherhood self-care mental health and navigating the chaos of everyday life i need some advice with that so we'll get some help for me too um you can find them in as a link tree uh under richard p craft and that is going to be in the description below uh For my part, would you kindly, like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for the video game streams, 5 p.m. to roughly 8 p.m., Monday through Friday, Pacific Time.

Ooh, where was I going next? Also, this episode brought to you in part by ABC Book 4 entitled O'Neuro Chronology, volume 2. Lots of numbers in there. It is the continuation of my three-part anthology series collecting shorter works of historical dream literature that just, I wasn't comfortable trying to sell a 60 page book on Amazon. So I took five 60 page books and put, you know, or shorter works and put them together in an anthology of three. I've got more of those coming, actually, eventually when I get back to work on books, shh, don't rush me. All this and more you can find at Benjamin the dream wizard.

com, including downloadable MP3 audio only versions of this very podcast. You can take the wizard with you wherever you wander with or without Wi-Fi. I love alliteration. Also, if you'd head out over to Benjamin the Dream Wizard. Dot Locals.com, building a community there. That is also the exclusive place to find the recipes for the cocktails that I create for each new video game. I'll be to keep that up as long as I can. I think I'm running out of ideas. I might start needing some suggestions.

That is enough out of me. Let's get back to Richard, thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. I appreciate your time. Period. you.

Not a question. Well, hey, that's the most important thing we have. So, you know, to give each other our time, I think is, you know, it's something I think about a lot, you know, when I interact with people and somebody interacts with me and they take their time that, you know, we're exchanging the most valuable thing. We can never get back. And so, you know, try to make it count. I was going to say that exactly, too. There's a lot of things you can spend in life. If you can spend money and you can get more.

You can, you know, you know, spend your time. Can't get it back. That's, yeah. And that's why also, you know, don't waste time on people that are not good for you or they're not listening or, I mean, all kinds of things. You know, they don't want your help. You know, don't, don't try and be, you know, rescue people that don't want to be saved. That's the tough part too because you go, like, if I could just convince them,

I know how to help. They have to let me. It's like, the old joke in psychology is how many. psychologist does it take two screwing the light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb has to really want to change. I love psychology jokes like that, too. Well, you know, the funny thing was, is I interviewed a journalist. She worked for NPR and whatnot, and she kind of got sick of the news, or it was hard

to tolerate the news. And, you know, one of the, in discussing people who may want to change is kind of one of these things of, like she said, is, hey, sometimes when you're trying to understand somebody, work to understand not to change their mind right away. And if you're not trying to convince them to do something, then oftentimes it can drop the guard a little bit. And you can actually meet on the wavelength that you need to. And then there's a possibility that, you know, if that person has their guard down, because

they're automatically going to put their guard up if they think you're trying to change them, then maybe they'll see your point of view from, you know, you know, as it should be, if that's your true goal. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, that's very much the theme, I would say, of this show that I do is like, we don't, I don't do debates, you know, I'm not here to change anybody's mind. And also the most important thing with dreams is like, the answers are not in me. I'm not talking, I'm not getting messages from God.

I'm not hearing the voices of spirits. I have no magic powers. Although, if you understand magic properly, I kind of do. You got to lean into it. though, but it's not magic, man. I'm not conjuring fireballs or, or seeing visions and a crystal ball, although I kind of do, but it's more like it's in the mind's eye. So all I do is I say, I get, maybe I have a natural talent for kind of an explosion of

possibilities. Oh, what if it's this? What if it's that? And some things resonate with me. And then I share that and I say, what do you think? And if you go, no, I'm not feeling that. Well, then that's the wrong answer. I was incorrect.

You're not getting You're not getting your answers from me They're in you and the way I describe I'm talking too much The way I describe it is I'm You invite me into your head In the dark recesses and corners And I stand behind you

Look it over your shoulder with a flashlight going What do you see over there? What if we look at it from this angle? None of that is in my head You're almost like you're almost like You know now we got so many new fancy things I recently stayed in a hotel on vacation That you just touched the mirror

And it lights up you're the flashlight for the mirror that we need to see. I'm, that's what I try to be. Yeah, and that's the focus, too, of what I'm doing. So all of this related back to your point of,

like, I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm special or tell you what you should think about your own thoughts, your own life. Right. We're just looking to see it as clearly as we possibly can. And then I think there's a visceral connection. I'm just a zing like, like,

down the chakra. If you believe in that, although I think a lot of these things, it's a great thing, too. I believe, when I talk about like magic, I believe chakras are real, but in the sense that they explain something true, whether or not there are these literal cores of energy and we can read it with some kind of chakra meter. Right.

Probably never going to happen. But that, but I, you know, understanding these concepts are powerful. If they allow you to focus your attention on understanding the world in a certain way, understanding yourself in a certain way, then you can respond to those ideas. I think that's just all psychology does, too. Well, you know, it made me think of, you know, I had this. Um, yesterday I told you recently, like, so my father's been in the hospital and I've been kind of tending to that and under a lot of stress. And so I kind of was at this point where I was like, um, no business for yesterday at all. Zero business, no socials. I'm not checking numbers. I'm not

doing anything. Um, I need to sit in silence and seek clarity. And I was thinking, I was like, okay, you know, like some people are very spiritual. Some people are very scientific. And there's both sides of, hey, you know, whether it's Big Bang, believing in God, or believing in strictly science. And, you know, it's almost like when sometimes two people debate and you think about the truth is probably somewhere in between. Well, where is the in between of science and spirituality is kind of reality where we're at? But then at the same time, you know, if you know anything about science, there's frequencies that we can't see, we can't hear that are invisible to us. It doesn't mean they don't exist. And so when you said the word chakra and energy and not necessarily this concrete ball, you know, it made me think of that that, you know, sometimes just because we don't see it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't mean that it's not a factor at play.

And so when you go, okay, totally science, totally spiritual, the truth is probably somewhere in between. But you also have to take account for the parts that are true that we can't see, whether it's energies or whatever. Spirits, you know. For sure. Yeah. And I've said this before. And people have in my audience are probably sick of hearing it. But I divide my dream work into heart science, you know, psychology, and spooky woo.

And I leave, and I say that with affection. I leave the spooky woo out because I can't speak to it sufficiently, like trying to stay in my lane. My lane is what I can do over here. All the other stuff might be real. And in these, you know, the dream, shilling more of my dream books, all this historical literature. There are, the books are full of examples of some pretty weird stuff that I can't explain. You know, it's prophetic dreams and there's visitations from deceased relatives that communicate things like, hey, I hid the money over here. Now, nobody knew that.

He didn't, I mean, unless it's a complete lie, which is always possible. But if we take that story at face value, his dead father came back and said, your inheritance is here. I didn't want to leave without letting you know. And he never heard from him again. And the money was exactly where he said it. Well, I'm like, what is that? I don't know.

Now, if you, so, and I say, if you bring me a dream and you go, is this, this dream? Prophetic, Ben. I can't tell you. I don't know the difference. I don't know how to differentiate it. So that's why I stick to the scientific side of things. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the other half. And then I speak, I think a lot of what people, what am I trying to say, dismisses as spooky woo and magic is certain things like the idea of chakras.

Now, like I said, I don't know if it's actually something we can detect with the chakram meter. But I do know that you, when you hear certain devastating news, you get what people call a pit in your stomach is a physical, visceral sensation that's connected to our emotional state. that's real. I mean, you know, I like to, you know, understand metaphorical stuff.

It's as real as our emotions. Now we can, we can say emotions are, well, it's just a chemical in your brain and sensations and stuff like that. But it, concepts are real.

The idea of you are inside a circle or you are outside of a circle. These things cannot exist, coexistent. You cannot be both inside and outside the circle. Reality doesn't allow that. So conceptually,

inside the circle is, factually real. It's a real physical state of being. That, you know, you, now we can't measure it, but that's kind of metaphorical for other stuff that we can't measure. It's like, if you can think of it, if you can conceive of a category, then that's how the

you know, like the Greeks and Romans conceived of gods, like Ares, the spirit of the spirit of war and the drive to be victorious and whatnot. They thought of us as not being our emotions, but being inhabited by the spirit of

external forces. And that's, that's, well, we're getting way esoteric on this stuff, too. But that's how I can conceive of angels and demons as well. I was thinking, though, some people, some people with, um, with, hold on, let me turn on this light real quick. Take your time.

I noticed that forgot. One little. Um, I got so distracted by the discord. I forgot to make myself a little bit. You got remote control lighting. That's cool. Um, one of these, one of these days I'm going to put up, uh, like I saw you got the, uh, the light cords around the room.

I always used to love to do that with like, you know, just just the white or blue or whatever Christmas lights. I love that. This was my daughter's, this was my daughter's playroom when she was little. So we finally, she's got her room because it was an office attached to our bedroom. And so the lights are left over, but I love them, especially from being in the military. And you used to run like blue lights in the daytime and the Navy on the ship. And then you run red lights at night. And so I kind of use, you know, I use that same theme.

but you know what you were saying before I was like it kind of reminds me of you've heard stories or podcasts or people tell a story of something let's say bad that has happened and people get a feeling prior to that encounter like I knew something was about to go down whether they were attacked by an animal or person or something like that or in combat people go into these situations where the energy is actually a visceral reaction a visceral feeling that they get and then whatever it is comes into fruition or manifest. For sure. No, I've had some strange feelings before things too. And that's,

I don't know, just made me think of that movie. I don't, you see the movie Donnie Darko. It's been a long time from the 90s. It's been a while, but yes. One of the first,

possibly the first major motion picture, anyway, of Jake Gyllenhaul. And, I mean, that one was just like, what's going on? here it's crazy that a whole

if you look into if you go down the rabbit hole on this one uh uh it has a whole website dedicated to it where there's like this theory and this professor that put it forward and then that's what's happening in the you know and I'm not sure whether the theory existed or was created to kind of sell the movie viral marketing this might have been around the time of blue the Blair Witch project when they're like you know let's pretend this is all real

and the butterfly effect yeah and get people invested in it like oh is this real let me go look it up online uh So anyway, in the movie, you know, no heavy spoilers, but there are parts in the movie where he sees a trail coming out from his chest and follows it. Now, there's questions. What is going on there? Is something supernatural? Is he schizophrenic? We don't know.

I mean, they leave it open, open to interpretation. That gets fantastic. I like those movies, too. But sometimes there's, I've had feelings like that. I don't see a chord, but I'm like, I feel like I need to do something specific. And I do it. And then weird, weird stuff happens. or I get put in situations to do things where it's like I could have chosen not to,

but the situation itself was presented for me. There's there's all kinds of weird. I've been thinking through this too and you can, upwards all over the place. That's what this section of the show is. It's babbled my thoughts. I've been trying to kind of, Johari window,

you know, four square quadrants, this idea of preparation and opportunity and how the universe kind of, you know, so in one square would be, I'm not prepared and I have no opportunity. Well, that's fine. You weren't ready for it anyway. Don't worry about it.

Then there's, well, I'm prepared, but there's no opportunity. That happens a lot. But then there's, I'm not prepared and there's an opportunity. Fuck me. I've missed a chance. And then there's, I'm prepared for the right opportunity. And that's kind of what we're aiming for in life a lot of times is just to be ready to do. And then you could always look at an opportunity and say, well, I don't want to.

I mean, it's a lot of things are not, you know. But then I always say that just because, you know, like with jobs, that's the most common one that people can relate to is just because somebody says, yes, we'll hire you. Doesn't mean you have to say yes. That's true. Or like. People think they feel this obligation because like oftentimes when people are looking for jobs, they're in a place of need. And that need causes them to maybe not think it through and just go, I need the job. Or, hey, it's a little more money and I need more money.

they jump at the opportunity as opposed to going, is it really a good opportunity? Because when you were discussing the quadrants of going, hey, I'm not ready and there's opportunity, you also have, you also, you can also shoot your shot and jump and potentially get closer to a different quadrant by, you know,

sometimes, sometimes existing within the opportunity or going for it, kind of this learn as you go is, like parenthood, I don't think you're really ever ready. It's kind of like getting kicked in the balls. You just got to suck it up, and you know it's going to hurt and take it.

That's true. I think with some opportunities, I don't know that you can be 100%, almost like when I started a podcast. It's like you evolve and it grows and you get better and you learn more. And as you're doing that, technology and things evolve with it. And, you know, at some point, you're just looking for something that, where it coincides and kind of makes sense and can, you know, works for you.

And then it kind of rises up to a level, I think. So I think, you know, like with any, with any kind of those four options, you know, you're looking to try to get close to a center somewhere to where, even if you're not ready, maybe your confidence in your abilities will give you that confidence to take the leap and actually do that. So, you know, yeah, it's not all one direction. Well, now the more I'm thinking about it, almost each quadrant could break down it in more quadrants in terms of like, let's say you're prepared and an opportunity presents itself, but it's not. good for you in a way.

And what I was thinking of is, you know, opportunity to do something illegal, criminal, harmful to other people. So you're prepared, you have the physical capacity to do it. The opportunity presents itself and you don't take it because it's bad. It's a bad idea. You reject some opportunity. What is that that mob mentality of a breaking into Apple stores and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm not that kind of person. I wouldn't even be interested. And even if the opportunity would present itself, I'd be like, eh, it just, it doesn't line up with who I am, spiritually, emotionally, or anything like that,

who I am, what I stand for. Yeah. And that's, so that's, yeah, I'm always trying to conceptualize things like that, too. I love the, I love little matrices that explain things. So, yeah, definitely look out for opportunities that are, they're there. And you could, but you shouldn't. Don't do that.

And I've had some, like, I've had some with jobs that were like, hey, you know, I mean, it would be a good opportunity. But, you know, I'm not willing to relocate myself, my family, and everybody further away from existing family and opportunity and be in the middle of nowhere with no, none of the other things that are important. Because, you know, your occupation is only one piece of your life. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that brings to mind the idea of opportunity costs. Like anything you choose to do means you're not choosing to do something else. And that's with the limited time type of thing. It's why you should give your time to the right things and people because otherwise it's wasted. You can't get it back. And it's just gone, gone for nothing.

It's a tragedy, really. That was the opposite, too, of like, sometimes you get a new, you get a good opportunity and it's fantastic. And then you outgrow it. Like, now, me in the past, I've been kind of lazy. I'm like, I guess I'll just do this job until I retire. I was working inpatient psychiatry dealing with some of the worst symptoms. Yeah, I was going to say worse patients, but the patients aren't the bad, the disease. is, you know, that's ruining their life.

And, you know, so knowing when it's time to say, I've gotten everything I can from this, I don't need to stay here. I don't get to, sometimes you don't want to get too comfortable and just say, well, I'm just going to float the river, whatever. Like, sometimes you guys say, I got a, I got a paddle in a different direction. Let's take this tributary. Yeah. You know, it's like, you know, five years ago doing this, switching over to doing this.

Okay, I paid my dues to spend my time in there. I learned what I needed to. But then I couldn't do this. without that either. Like I wasn't going to get here without going through that first, even though that was also very, very much a difficult struggle. It's like, okay, this is going to suck. It's going to be great.

And it's going to be hard. So I did 12 years in health care. And my first six were as a senior clerk and a level one trauma center working nights. And so, but, you know, I had already had a bachelor's and whatnot. And I just kind of ended up there by accident because of a different department that interviewed me, passed me off. But I love the job. I love the excitement. I love supporting the clinical staff.

I was really good at it. But there came a point year five or so that it's like a solo job. And there's no step up. Like in our ends, you can become a charge nurse. So there's one, two, three, and this and that and certifications that allow you to do more. This was the job. No vertical, no lateral movement. My wife's like, well, why don't you go get your master's?

And I was like, I didn't really want to go back to school, but ended up applying to a master's program, got in. And while I was in my master's, I got a job to be an administrator, run ambulatory clinics, if you will. And so I took that as I was, you know, and so that was a big spur of growth with, you know, relocating with a one-year-old in a master's program, moving from doer to manager, all of it. but you know juggling all the different things that was one it taught me what I was capable of and what I could do if I put my nose to the grind and worked hard and sacrificed a little bit 15, 18 months worth of time but you know it it not only did it let me know that but then that was what and that was the growth that was the growth that was the growth.

And then I did that for six years, and I got laid off during the pandemic because they shrunk management and kept people they could pay less or with less qualifications and coupled them up together. And, you know, of course, at first I was devastated, but, you know, I learned to use it and understand that as the blessing it was and the opportunities that afforded me with time because I had worked so much as an administrator and you take calls at two and four in the morning when people call in. or doctors call in and all kinds of stuff. But, you know, as I've progressed through podcasting, I've learned how, okay, we didn't have a lead nurse for two years. And I interviewed for that position for two years. All the interviews I did worked well into podcasting. You know, that was a skill.

I had no clue that it had prepared me. I never could be doing what I'm doing. some of the organizational skills I have project management teams I've participated on. You know, all this fits into when you start a podcast. You're essentially trying to become an entrepreneur to add value and to potentially couple and have ad partners or to cross it over into another business. But it is down that entrepreneurial space. And, you know, knowing about business and P&L and project management and, you know, costs and standardized costs and things across systems and streamlining things.

You know that in all the interviews and talking to people who can be difficult to talk to, like higher level hospital administrators and physicians and physicians who are hospital administrators as well. It's double. Yeah. So like herding cats. Yeah. But, you know, it gave me so much. And once I learned to kind of be grateful for everything that it gave me.

and realized it was kind of part of the process, I could stop being bitter and move forward. For sure. Well, that's a great transition into talking about your podcast, The Men of the House. Is there a particular Genesis story for that? Yeah. So, you know, I'm an only child, so I need a lone time.

And when my wife, my family and I vacation, and there's oftentimes I get up early. I'm not a great sleeper. And I will, one of my favorite things to do is to go to the Waffle House by myself and have breakfast. And we'll vacation. And we're a Myrtle Beach or something and we're on vacation. And I'm walking to the same Waffle House every morning. And, you know, there's people who don't know this booths are for two or more.

If you're one, you sit at the bar or the low bar at the counter. And there's a guy to the ride of me. guy to the left of me and I'm like hey kind of what's their story like we're all here I know what I'm doing this is my time this is my little I can read the news have some coffee have breakfast

have my solo time what's their story and I'm like we're kind of like the men of the Waffle House men of the house and then I wanted it to kind of be a book but I really didn't have you know maybe I wrote a chapter I didn't have a full story yet then I thought about a blog but

I didn't word press it much It didn't gain much traction because the marketing part of it, I think, was difficult for me. And I was full-time hospital stuff. And then when I got laid off, at some point, I was like, I think my daughter and my father were both like, maybe you should start a podcast. And when I was applying for jobs and not having any luck or turning down jobs, and I said, yeah, maybe I'll call it the men of the house and take that concept of how we're, you know, We're all similar. We're more alike than we're different, but we fight and argue over things that we're different about as opposed to learning and respect and seeing what we can learn from it or how we're different of going like, hey, I'm in Tyler, Texas. You're in Portland, Oregon?

Yeah. And so it's like, well, what's it like there? Well, what's it like there? And we both realize, hey, I'm the Rose Capitol. And, you know, there's synchronicities. Rose City or whatever. Like, but, you know, like, hey, what kind of pizza do you got up there? What kind do you have here?

What's different? And I think that we share more and we could become closer and help each other out more and just have a little more overall love and compassion in the world. If we took that kind of point of view as opposed to the differences. And so, you know, as crazy as life is, you know, the men of the house, podcast is that. It explores fatherhood. Some of what's what's the story? What's your story? You know, when I interview people, it's like, hey, what's your story?

It's an opportunity to see what bothered them, see what they overcame. Record history a bit because, you know, I have pictures of my great-grandparents, but there's some I never met. You know, now with this medium of being able to record history, kids, grandkids, people will be able to go and listen to their great-grandfather and hear their story and hear where they came from or the origin story of their family. And then it's also like this thing. I also love to explore like a situation like mine and what's come out of it and what I decided to do with it and tackle it. People have these stories all the time where they made a change in their life.

Something was plaguing. Maybe it was alcohol or drugs. And they decided to get clean. and their world is just opened up and blossom as a result of that. And I like to figure out what that is because whatever it is that you're struggling with or that pains you, step out on that ledge and just go for it. And you don't know. You might meet your future wife.

You might be the next president. You don't know. Like if you just have some faith, take that leap and step into being the best version of yourself and be better. and be kinder and see what other people's stories are. And don't be an asshole and don't, you know, stop being about number one. You know, I mean, you're not going to take it all with you. Things are things, you know, you can always buy more things, but you can't buy more time. You know, you can buy experiences, and I think that's valuable.

But, you know, it's like I think we're at a crucial point in time in our world to start figuring out what's important. You know, for a while it seems like it's been very capitalist driven and money's been kind of this thing and status and this and that. But I would like to see a more utopian kind of unified place of let's help each other out. We're all in this together. We all have the same end. I don't care how much money you have. It's true. Yeah.

And it's very true to say beyond a certain level of necessary. material circumstances, let's say. You know, you've got food shelter and, and, you know, your health is, is good. Then more stuff, it doesn't serve a lot of useful purpose. Like, it doesn't add satisfaction or happiness to a lot of people's lives. It raises the, the baseline or bare minimum or zero level for what people consider to be enough sometimes. So, yeah, no, I'm definitely not. Some of my favorite things to do are,

I feel like I'm winning the game of life if I have a pair of shoes and I make them last five years. I don't want new shoes. I want old shoes that I'm still wearing because damn it, I bought quality and they're still comfy. And, you know, that's what I aim for too. I can drive a truck from 93, 96, something like that. I buy the same model of shoe each year.

Like, because I do a lot of exercise. So maybe they last me six months. And then what happens is like, I have like a pair I wear out, a pair I wear to the gym, and then a pair I wear like if I know it's going to be muddy or I'm going to go walk on the beach or something like that. Well, I probably should wear. I buy the same pair. Yeah, I should probably wear out my shoes by walking a little more than I do. There's a reason I'm a chubby wizard.

So anyway, it's not just making my shoes last. So I was going to ask you about the podcast too. So in getting into, well, what is the podcast? Some people do educational. It's me doing content. I do videos. I do that kind of thing. And there's some people who are like, well, I do interviews with specific types of people.

There's some folks where it's just like freewheeling. I'll interview anybody about anything. Tell me your story. Yours is more of that kind. Pretty much freewheeling. There's solo episodes. There's interviews. But, you know, the interviews are usually pretty pretty.

substantial in terms of content deep dive like personal struggle, you know, whether it's one of my first, my first two interviews, very impactful, you know, a gentleman in recovery, sober and relapses and gets shot by a family member. Another one, father, who's 16-year-old daughter, hunger self and the survival of that and the mission after that and what he does and you know musicians who have struggled with drugs and alcohol so all kinds of people care caregivers um yeah but usually it's it's something meaningful and how people have gotten over something and move forward because a lot of My story, you know, I say like I never had the story for the men of the house, whether it was a book, whatever. But I think kind of the beginning of the end of the story was being laid off, looking for, you know, applying for 300 jobs in like three years, not having any real luck.

And deciding, I don't even want that job. Why am I applying for them? Just start a podcast. You don't know where to start. What makes you an expert? just because you listen to a lot of them. I was also doing Uber Eats at the time, you know, and getting a lot of shit.

Like, you got a master's degree and you fucking do Uber Eats. Like, okay, whatever. Yeah. Anyway, but I'm happy. I get to do what I want. I have freedom. I get to spend a lot of time with my daughter.

And, you know, and it really opened up opportunity for all the time I got to spend, you know, because I always say in the podcast, I used to say, you know, I thought I would become a manager, a director, and a VP. And by the time, my daughter graduated college

because I started this job when I, when she was one and she's 10 now going on 11. And I was like, oh, when she goes to college, I'll be financially and all that stuff secure enough to be able to be wherever she needs me to be when she needs me. If, you know, if she wants to move to New York and go to college at NYU and I feel like I need to be near her, I could. I would be in a position. But when everything happened, it's like, guess what?

Really, you don't know. The time is now. You know, I spent six years in a level one trauma. Center and you do not we are got the same end you don't know when it is it can be chicken today feathers tomorrow your life will be changed forever and everybody's life within your circle will be changed um and so if there's something you want to do something you need to say um whoever you need to say it to you just need to get over yourself and do it and um you know i had that idea and you know so there were some things that because

was taking 2 a.m. phone calls, 4 a.m. And my wife was a stay-at-home mom. Like, you know, I was checked out a little bit. I didn't put in the effort a father should put in. I wasn't the father I wanted to be. I wasn't the father I needed to be or should have been. I just wasn't great. Work with stressful.

I was checked out often and really understanding that now I have this opportunity and you just need to, you know, and it hasn't been perfect. It's been hard. It's been because there's still that whole, you know, there's this expectation of, well, you spend all this time getting a master's. That's what you should be doing. Even if the system sucks and is broken and you hate it and it'll never be fair and you'll never be paid what you're worth. And there's always going to be, did you go to the right school?

Do you know these people? Do you not know these people? That's just how it is. It's a lot like politics. I mean, people get in there and they protect their own interests. For sure. It's, you know, and. I hate it because, you know, it all starts off as something good to care for people.

The idea is good. The execution is poor. And it all leads back to money, whether it's insurance companies, big pharma, the hospital systems themselves, the people running the hospital systems, the bonuses they get, all that stuff. Like, a good concept goes awry, almost like everything else, because it becomes about everything that it's not. But understanding that, that I didn't want that, your time is now, take advantage of it, and just do what you want to do now because, you know, now is all you got. And you don't know and just say screw it, take the leap of faith and do it. And, you know, for me, July 26th, a couple weeks ago was one year of the podcast at 59 episodes, eight guest appearances.

I made it through. And I got outlines. it kept me consistent doing something focused, moving forward, pointed in a direction. And, you know, now there's other things that I look at maybe potentially going back and writing that book because I feel like I have the beginning of the end of the story. And coupling some other things with it. And so it's not just a podcast. There's this and there's that and some of these ideas that came about years ago.

But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. just navigating that and what the podcast is and what I encourage people to do and the stories I love to hear because I think we all need to hear them. And I think if there were more people, you know, like anything, it spreads and we could have a better world. We could, you know, I always believe in good, winning over evil. So, you know, I'm going to just keep doing my thing and hope that, you know, there's enough people eventually that it will catch on and goodwill prevail.

You know, that's my only hope. I think so too. Yeah. I think the more people aiming to create good in the world. It just multiplies. You know, it's the same thing with evil, too. I mean, evil can do a lot of damage. And that also, almost like a, like a spiritual disease infects people, person to person. You pass on these, these, well, I was going to mention, like, the concept of angels and demons earlier is like these are the, these are the conceptual focal points we invite into us.

And if you're conceptual focal point is, I want to be of benefit to other people because it makes me happy. And that's my aim in dealing with other people. Then that's the angel you're channeling through you. If you're, look, I want to spread the most harm and misery I possibly can't. Well, that's the demon you're inviting into you.

Sure. I dated a few of those. Right? You can make that your focus if you want to. I wouldn't do that. I don't think it's a very good idea for you or for anybody else. In terms of like college degrees, that's an interesting question too. It's like if you get a degree in something, do you have to be employed in that field necessarily?

No, yeah, of course not. I would say, I mean, the goal is. The value wasn't in that information. The value was in the process. And that's what I explain all the time like that, that with a one-year-old, being a new leader, sacrificing nights, weekends, long days, learning all kinds of new stuff. that's the value. It's not,

it's not the information. Information is information can be learned, forgotten, whatever. The value is in the process. For sure, yeah. And it's like,

a lot of it depends on how you quantify success. Now, if it's like, I must get a job in the field related to the degree at this particular place, and you put all these benchmarks on it. Forget all that. Are you able to use what you,

you've learned to earn a living, to sustain yourself and to, to give you the ability to keep living, provide for your family, share, be generous with others. If you can, you know, in any way use that material to produce that end, it doesn't matter what the title is. That's why I've, you know, so I've got my bachelor's in psych, and I thought one day, maybe I might hang out a shingle and get, get the masters. And I just thought, you know, I'm kind of content with what I'm doing right now. And then when I considered, you know, leaving that, I'm like, am I going to that next step?

Am I going to school and doing private counseling? I'm like, that's not really what I want to do. Like the end result. So for me, there is no, there's no degree to become a wizard. Now, maybe someday. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll start an actual Hogwarts-ish, you know, patent patent pending or with permission of, it's permission to take your rally. Good luck.

No, it'll be something. I won't be Hogwarts. It'd be the Davidson Academy or something. Who knows, who knows? But, yeah, so literally there is no degree to be a wizard. And so, and there's also no licensure, which is the other thing, too, is this is not counseling. I'm not selling any licensed service here. We're just, you know, two guys talking about life and dreams.

So, so, you know, but that's hopefully, God, if they ever get a hold of that like a license to be a wizard, screw you, government. God damn it. Just don't do that. Hopefully they think it's, hopefully they think it's, too silly. They'd never do that. There would be a registration fee. There would be, you know, you would have to have CEUs every two years to re-qualify and you would have to renew your license every two years. It would be for the money. Again, the whole concept. Demonstrate competencies

and necromancy, etc. Potion making. I was going to go somewhere else too. This is a kind of a hack question too, but not to put you on the spot. Are there any particular interviews or episodes that were most profound for you in terms of like this was a great opportunity for me to learn something and to get the message out about an important concept um like i said i'm putting you on the spot to try and think of what was your favorite what was your favorite episode um i mean i always really go back to uh marcel with and he's tomorrow need you and that was the gentleman whose daughter committed suicide. And the reason it was very, it's been very impactful for me is one kind of the way we met through TikTok,

kind of just hopped in on a live with him and didn't know what he was about really. And he's like, hey, I want to be on your podcast. And we kind of connected. And, you know, I talk to him, correspond with him pretty frequently. And he, you know, if I have a hard time, if I'm having a tough time mentally, like, he'll call me. And just say, what's up, do what's going on? And then I think about as a father, what, what anytime, you know, any parent will know sometimes your kids can be difficult. And they don't always do what you want them to do and this and that, the other.

And when I'm frustrated with my child, I always say Marcelle would give anything to have one more day, even if it was frustration. One more moment. And I always think about that in a lot of situations. And I think of him and that helps me with my patience, my resolve, how I react. And I know I have a lifetime of it and to go. So I would say from something that's impacted me,

then and continues, and I think that will continue, would be that episode. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great thing, too, is a lot of things in life are about perspective, about seeing what's actually happening from the right point of view so that you can avoid frustrations that are unnecessary. And what came to mind when you were talking about that is that you're just in the general realm of parenting, the idea of avoiding power struggles with kids. It's like a huge thing.

It's like, what is? what is the purpose? What is the point? What is the end goal we're trying to get to? And the purpose is not obedience itself. Raise a good human being. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's say you want something for her

that is, you know, avoids problems and leaves her in a better place. So those are the goals. That's the actual goal. The method is almost irrelevant. Anything that gets you there within certain boundaries is, is a good thing. Um, so looking at like, I want you to do this thing in a finger,

finger wagging, uh, obedience type of way. Like the obedience to your will is not the point that the good result is. So you can let go of this idea of, well, you know, I don't have to try and force compliance, uh, or, or, you know, just to make it for, it's like letting go that ego, ego self type of thing. Like this is not, this is the end result is not is not I have an obedient child. It's I have a child who's not hurt by something bad because I want the best. Well, not only that. When this is something good. When I was a leader, you know, my thing was is that, you know, I used to say this often was, you know, I, if I ask you to do or if I ask you or tell you to do something, you'll do it because I'm your boss.

But I don't want you to do it because I'm your boss and I told you to do it. I want you to want to do it because you and I have a relationship. relationship and you trust me and we value each other. And you know, I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to when it comes to, let's say it's working an extra day, picking up some overtime or something. And I kind of take that same approach with my daughter. You know, one time I was on TikTok live with Marcel and, you know, she asked me something and asked me about that.

And I told her that, you know, his 16-year-old daughter, committed suicide and do you know what that means and you know and I had this momentary thing of do I tell her do I not do I lie to her do I shelter her do I and I think of him and I go what's the long term what am I trying to do here I'm trying to build trust so that when my daughter's 16 like Marcel's daughter was she's having some sort of trouble she needs to talk to me she will feel comfortable and trust me enough to come to me versus doing something permanent. And that, you know, so that's how impactful, you know, that has been. But that's kind of the same thing is, you know, it's not about the obedience.

It's about building trust, long-term trust. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's a good answer. question. I hate putting people on the spot. And sometimes they have very good answers that I think are very very good. It's like, what are you learning about yourself that's that's like universally applicable to everything? That's right? That's a huge, that's a huge thing to be able to share with people. It's not just me folks. You know, this is a great great, great opportunity. Yeah, you're going to have this happen. And you're going to have to decide as a parent what,

what's right for you. But, you know, I know for me, I mean, I know I'm, I'm Gen X. and there were things my parents didn't tell me to protect me, but technology was different. You know, you had calling cards, and, you know, my parents divorced when I was overseas in the Navy. And I didn't know until I got back, and it bothered me. But it was kind of like, but, and so there was trust issues. Even though I was older and overseas, it doesn't mean it didn't affect me.

But then I had to go back and go, well, what was true and what was not my whole life? and so and so then you know well when did this happen and why and why didn't you tell me and now I can't trust you and you're supposed to be the two people I trust the most and and then I went off the rails and made poor choices and you know luckily I'm not dead and in prison or in prison or both but you know the point is is that all that is where you know my experience, the interview, everything, all of it comes together and meets at this point of what am I trying to do? I'm trying to raise a good human being. I'm trying to build trust. I want somebody who's going to come to me. And when I'm 19 or something, I want her to trust me.

And I don't want her to ever have to question whether or not I was truthful or real like I did my parents. Yeah. So it turns out you were the kind of person who would have wanted to be notified immediately. rather than say, because I could look at it from their perspective, okay, why would they, would they choose, assume a non-malicious cause? You're in the middle of a very tough situation and they don't want to burden you or destabilize your ability to succeed. So they're just going to wait to tell you. But you're like, no, no, no, no. That's bad. That's bad.

That's not trusting me to handle it, number one. And to tell me what's going on because I want to know. And I can be there for you and talk to you guys too. And so different brings to mind that idea of different strokes for different folks. Like a lot of people have different expectations of, you know, how a relationship is supposed to work. And even the most well-meaning omission can be very unacceptable to a particular person. Well, the after effects have followed me for 30 years. You know, I'm just now this past year, the past six months, I'm just now starting to figure out all this stuff.

through an incredible amount of self-work and discomfort and asking the questions and learning this stuff. But, you know, something that happened at 18, 19 years old that follows you around for 30 years, that's what I'm trying. Because that one thing made me make decisions and live my life in a certain way. and also not only that think about okay if I didn't trust the people who brought me into the world what are the chances I'm going to trust corporations people I work for

hardly anyone yeah random people on the street everybody's full of shit or everybody's bullshit in you so think of how one thing one omission one delay one not figuring out what you're trying to do here what your goal in is to raise

a child. Yeah. Behaviors, things that follow you for 30 years and I'm 48, just now figuring this out only because I have a kid and I don't want them to be the same way as me or suffer everything I've had to go through mentally and emotionally. Oh yeah. And then we, well, so you're also talking about so you said your kid's 10. Mm-hmm. Now so and there's a, and you've chosen not to say withhold information. And it's got to be age appropriate in a way.

But, but, but, but the age appropriateness is very often in the delivery. Like let's say you've got a six year old and. What are their favorite, um, older aunties, uh, you know, uh, who was only 16. She's six, you know, so and she's gone forever. What do you, what do you tell her? It's like, well, she, she went away. I mean, where'd she go? Oh, far, far away.

You know, I'll tell you more another day. But you don't say, oh. she's fine. She's just never coming over. You know, you don't hide the fact. And then when they get a little bit older, you can say,

well, some people choose to go away by themselves. They choose to go and leave her and then eventually you go, well, it's death. You know, it's a, and I think 10's, in my estimate,

what it's worth my, my wizardly opinion, I think 10 is plenty old enough to say, you know, some people choose to die by their own hand. Well, and you got to, you know,

in the context of that, too, though, was, you know, um, during, that incident and the years before you know both

her great grandparents who we lived with all of us together they were in their 80s past one year and then the next year you know so she had context of death that's also good too three years before well we've we've gotten so far away from that sometimes uh

gal I was following on uh on Twitter by the way don't follow me on Twitter I see all kinds of crazy political shit that this show is not about but anyway one of the gals she's like she had to bring her mother to live with her and her mother's declining mental health uh Alzheimer's ish type of stuff and that was us yeah and also you know basically you know her mother dying in the house with her own child there so that they could be it's like this used to be normal we used to have generations we had birth and death and it was all in the house and we got used to it.

And now we've kind of outsourced so much of this. Our world's become so sanitized that we don't realize where our food comes from, both farm-wise and ranch-wise. You know, you got to just, that was an animal. That's how you got meat, you know, that potato, someone had to grow it in Idaho or wherever. And, you know, becoming disconnected from these truths, I think doesn't allow people to see the world accurately the way they should. And then things like, you know, suddenly someone dies and it's like, I've never been exposed to this.

This is the first trauma. Now, I think it becomes traumatic because we're not, it's not normalized for us anymore. It's not, it's not just a part of living, you know, in a way that it probably wouldn't need to be. It doesn't need to be that traumatic if we get introduced to things gradually. You know, you don't, you don't run a marathon on day one. You run around the block and catch your breath and train. Right. Train your way.

Sometimes we have to train our emotions and our cognition to, to, to, to, you know, accept and understand things. Definitely, yeah, having it be so disconnected from our daily lives is, I'll think it's doing anyone any favors. Well, but I think, too, I think family units just in general are more disconnected, you know. And I say this, it's, you know, we lived in a multi-generational household. It was, you know, it was my grandparents, my wife and I and my daughter and my cousin who's kind of in between. You know, we live on 12 acres. And then, you know, when grandparent passes away,

and it was like my grandmother, my mother, my cousin, my daughter, my wife and myself. And, you know, I've always said this thing. And, you know, we have Asian friends and we're Latino. And oftentimes there are multi-generations within the household. And I go, sometimes you see other, whether it's other cultures, they send their people to nursing homes or when you said outsource it. Yeah. You know?

Yep. And so I think that too makes it less. normal because you're not seeing, you know, you're only seeing grandparents when you go to see them versus if you live with them, your great-grandparents, you see them every day. And that was kind of one of the things that I love about my daughter, was she knew her great-grandparents well, you know, at least eight years. So it's quite different. And she got to spend days with them, and in them too. So it kind of goes both ways in that, you know, we've taken, our eye off

a lot of things, whether it was farming, any of that used to be family, you know, raising cattle, that life and death cycle. But it was probably more normalized because the family also spent so much time together. They weren't separated as much where, you know, now,

whether it's putting elders in nursing homes and kids living on one coast, parents living on a different coast, or the, you know, somebody lives in, Washington State and the parents live in a you know a nursing home in Florida you know it's very disconnected I mean even though we have more technology and we can still get some of the effect but the the the physical connection that in person

you know the world is just evolved to a different state and it's it's not like that I mean technology travel things are faster and we can do things quicker and whatnot. So people choose to live their lives that way. And that's no dig on that. You do what you want to do and whatever's important to you. But it just reminds me of, you know, things were you relied more heavily on the people around you.

Yeah. Because it was necessary. And now we have a little more independence, but this also disconnected us quite a bit. I think so too. Yeah. And it's not, it's not exactly to, you know, your wagget people that want to live independently or whatnot. But it's more of like I do honestly,

genuinely, and I would encourage moving back towards multi-generational households. Or at least that kind of family compound living you were talking about. I love that idea of like, you get 12 acres, you got multiple little places. And now maybe grandma doesn't live in a bedroom in your house, but she's right over there. And you can just walk over any time and she'll come over and visit

and you're doing stuff in the immediate area. And you pitch in on projects and whatnot. There's a big difference between we've, speak on, you know, we speak on Zoom every day and we live next door to each other. That's, there's a much different vibe there. It's kind of, that's, that's a, you know, the whole, because we used to, we used to live that way, not too long ago, and humans haven't changed too much. We lived in kind of extended clan alliances.

We had multiple different families. Yeah, that were all kind of related. And, I mean, that's where you used to go, like, so the boys would go out and visit a neighboring tribe to find a wife so you don't get inbreeding, you know, and vice versa. They'd send the girls to go, to go to a different, tribe too and then it was more of a but that extended you know extended family thing is like i think we've lost something very important well i grew up as an only child but it was like all my cousins we're all kind of like only children but we all grew up on like the same 12 acres so it was kind of

you know and and that's kind of can it gave you that sibling experience anyway i mean it's it doesn't have to be your direct brother that's it's a unique thing but still at least you have kids your own age to play with it you're related to so yeah and that's how that's kind of how it always wasn't it's funny because we're all in many different places now kind of um sort of but yeah it's it was true you know the the clan kind of stuck close you know i mean one up this road and we all convene it you know one tree on the dirt road and that's how we where we started and ended each day yeah very cool very cool yeah um Well, I could probably keep asking you a ton of questions forever.

And we just naturally ramble on a bunch of different topics. But we're about an hour in. Do you want to switch over to the dream thing? Yeah, let's go for it. Yeah, let me write a little note here. Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you. Here's the veil of night and shine the light of understanding upon the mystery of dreams. Every episode of his Dreams program features real dreamers,

gifted with rare insight into their nocturnal visions. New DreamScape's episodes appear every week on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey, and other video hosting platforms, as well as free audiobooks exploring the psychological principles which inform our dream experience and much, much more. To join the wizard as a guest, reach out across more than a dozen social media platforms and through the contact page at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog of historical dream literature, available on Amazon, documenting the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube and at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com. You got two podcasters rambling. That's what we do.

Right? No shortage of material here. Okay. So for the dream portion thing, as per my usual process, I'm going to shut up and listen. Our friend Richard is going to tell us, his dream beginning to end, just like he experienced it, and then we're going to see what we can make of it together. So I'm ready when you are.

All right. Let me take a... Oh, yeah. Take your time, too. We can take a break. Yeah. We got all the time in the world. It's not super long, but it's definitely...

It's within kind of some of the stuff we've talked about of where does truth and things lie and science and... spiritual but let's see I had been in the military I had come back on scholarship to University of Florida

off of active duty I can't remember what the situation was kind of like with my parents because I but I'd come back from Japan and I'm in ROTC I have all this stuff

I live alone. One night, I'm asleep. I'm not a great sleeper. Anyway, I don't even know how I probably fell asleep. But, you know, the thing was is I remember feeling, like, I grew up with asthma as a kid. And I think if I sleep on my back, sometimes I feel like I'm choking, maybe. Maybe, I don't know. Or I've had these things where, um,

I feel like my head is spinning while I'm sleeping, but I have this thing of like almost like I'm going into this different level of sleep. But I feel like I always know like I shouldn't go there. I always feel like I have to wake myself up and come out of that before it happens. And so I always do. And I think this one time I couldn't. And then I feel like I'm laying. on my back, I feel like I'm choking and being

choked. I open my eyes and there's what I would appear, what I would call like a human version of the devil, dressed in all black, choking me. I can't breathe.

And then he punches me in the jaw and I wake up. And, you know, I don't know if I go back to sleep, but I have this friend, this girl who I'm hanging out with in ROTC, and it had kind of bothered me all morning. And I don't know what she asked me, but it prompted me to tell her about it. But the reason it was kind of profound is because, one, my jaw hurt and was swollen. And then later that day, I received a phone call from my parents.

And that evening or that morning, my grandmother had passed away, my father's mom. And so I had, to me, I felt like I went into that state and maybe it was my time to go, but my grandmother went instead in place of me. and that's why I was awoken because I was the one being choked out by evil. Just making a couple notes here. So we got a lot of interesting things. So I think I'm going to handle this one a little differently than, because there's not much content that's, that's okay.

That's not your fault. And it's, uh, it's very reminiscent of, of, um, sleep paralysis, um, episodes. I don't if you've ever heard of that before. Okay, well, good. So this is a good opportunity. So normally, like, we go through the dream. It's a narrative and I did this and I went there and this happened to me and I spoke with these people and then we got on a magic carpet ride.

All kinds of good stuff. I'm like, okay, let's go through that. So this is different. So, okay, the, so we're going to handle this more in a like exploratory. We're looking at physical symptoms primarily. And we can break, you break dreams out in a lot of different ways. Dreams are very often, oh, so much to say about this. It goes, there's a long history.

more than 2,000 years old of people using dreams to diagnose physical conditions. So a very famous case of a man dreamed of, you know, driving a team of sweating, panting horses up a hill and the, I think it was Gail and a Pergamon used that dream to diagnose

a heart condition with the guy. And you know, because if you think of it, the heart struggling, right? As if exerting force to go up a hill. So there's a okay, well, throughout history, as well. There's the classic iconic image of sleep paralysis. It's a painting, and it was on the cover of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams book. And if you, if you know, anyone out there,

maybe I'll try and flash it on the screen. I'm not going to, probably not going to go back and do that. But if you find the book, and you find the painting, it has a woman who is laying down, looks like she's in distress having fainted or, or she was asleep. And there's this little black imp sitting on a chest and there's a horse poking its nose through through the curtains in the background and that's the nightmare perhaps a mare like a horse and this and so what people describe with these sleep paralysis phenomenon is a inability to breathe combined with the sensation or the visualization of an entity sitting on their chest which is the reason they can't take a breath. So this is a very

consistent phenomenon that's been that's so well known. It's on the cover of Sigmund Freud's book from 1901. And the painting was from the 1700s, so it'd been known 200 years before that and probably a lot longer too.

And there's, so the supernatural thing would be you got visited by the devil and he was looking to do some harm. I I can't say if that's true or not. So I'll go on the physical side and the psychological side of things. There's the explanation that seems most likely is for the sleep paralysis phenomenon is when we go to sleep,

why don't we act out what we're doing in the dreams? Like we're running in the dream. We're completely still and breathing gently. Our mind is intentionally, we're designed that way. It's disconnected from the body so we don't act out. dreams. Now there's somnambulism, the sleepwalking phenomenon where you are passed out and walking around. There's cases of, and this is fascinating too, the cases of people getting up on the rooftop and doing cartwheels across the peak of a roof. They would never do this in real life,

terrified of heights, did it with with almost supernatural skill that no one knew they were an accurate. No one knew they could do a cartwheel and here they're doing it on top of a house. You know, things like that are mountain climbing or very dangerous, very interesting situation. There was actually a famous case of a sleepwalker who shot a policeman and his horse while he was passed out while he was sleepwalking. And they're like, oh, sure, that's a convenient excuse. But then they actually brought people who's like, oh, yeah, he's done some crazy shit in the sleep. This is, this is real. And they, you know, not guilty on that count.

He's like, I'm sorry. We'll keep the guns locked up. But I'm going to put it to bed. It's better than the Benadryl excuse. I was on Benadryl and killed my wife. Right. And that's, I mean, these are very serious. serious things. Like, you got to bring in a real expert to look at this and go, is this person just a shady sociopath telling stories to get out of trouble? Or is this someone with a real condition? We can document it. We know people have killed significant others in their sleep, strangled them and almost killed them, things like that. Um, okay. So there's, there's all of that. So that's one side. So then the flip side of somnambulism is the mind's awake, but it's still not connected to the body. And that's the, that's the other version of, of brain.

body awake, brain awake, body asleep. And we have our autonomic nervous system. It just keeps breathing and the heart beats and the lungs breathe while we're asleep. And we don't have to take a breath on purpose. And when our brain is awake but disconnected from the body, we can't move our limbs. We can't draw a breath consciously. We can't wheel ourselves to expand our abdomen and take in a breath. And so people feel like their chest is blocked. Like something's preventing it from, from preventing them from breathing because it's true. And now, the interesting thing is why,

why the sense, disturbing sensation of a presence and why the visualization of an entity, an imp, a demon, whatever it might be. You know, there's two different, two different, fields of thought. One is there's actually something there and sleep paralysis is caused by a supernatural force. I can't prove that.

Maybe so. Maybe so. But there's there appears to be something physical. We're talking about visceral sensations. There appears to be something physical with the idea of a presence, that sensation of feeling a presence. And then being on the twilight between awake and asleep, sometimes we can imagine we saw something. You know, the mind's eye sees something. feel something and then that goes away when the when the sensation of a presence goes away and we

come closer to consciousness. So that's what I was going to ask too about the end of that experience. How did it how did you come out of it? Like you had like you woke up to that experience and then it fell into when I got punched in the face. I woke up like instantly and was terror. And then stayed awake because, you know, this was probably 95-ish. Okay. So there were no cell phones, nothing like that. No whoop bands to record your sleep. And I just remember waking up, like, instantly when I got hit and being terrified and kind of not knowing the meaning of it.

And it wasn't really till way later that day when I got the phone. phone call saying like your grandmother passed that I took it as that was the meaning. Gotcha. Fair enough. And there's, like I said, there's, there's stories of plenty of people having visitations of deceased relatives, of, you know, premonitions of, ah, there's one guy who's like, he had a dream about the, the family dog having run down a train track, hit by a train, and then falling in a river and, and, or pond and drowning.

And he was horrified. is like I was the dog. I was, I felt everything. And a little while later, come to find out, their family dog was hit by a train, knocked into the water and drowned.

And they got the body back. And he's like, he told the family about that dream in the morning before they found the dog like two days later. How do you explain that? I can't, I can't explain that shit. Now,

like I said, you could just say, oh, that's completely fabricated. Maybe so. I read words in a book. What is it? But if we take it to face value,

if we assume people are not lying, that's just bizarre. So, I couldn't say that it isn't related to. And it may be both at the same time sometimes. There may be something supernatural going on that I can't define. And some of the physical processes I'm describing are also true. And they're working together.

Maybe I'm putting together the theory. Yeah. So with sleep paralysis, what actually happens with what is sleep paralysis? Because I've never heard of it. Yeah, it's where you're basically, you wake up and your body's paralyzed because it's still disconnected from your conscious willful. motion. It's still on the auto. It's still in that disconnect mode where you're having, you're running in your sleep, you're not running in real life. And then sometimes if you're

running in your sleep and you're running in real life, then that's, you know, somnambulism, sleepwalking. And sometimes that disconnect, the physical disconnect that shuts down the body and stops it from moving in sleep. That persists longer than being asleep. So you come into that, I'm awake now, but I can't move. I'm paralyzed. Well, you're not really, you are, but you aren't. You know, you're disconnected. Now, how to reconnect it.

It usually just fades on its own after a minute or two. It's very temporary. It's almost like you lay on your elbow wrong and you wake up and your fingers are numb. You just shake it out and it goes and it goes away. Now, that's the other thing I was going to say, too, is there's other physical explanations. Okay, so I'll give you an example. There's, there's one guy who, he, He had a dream that he heard this horrible, loud buzzing, like almost as loud as like an airplane or something, like a propeller or something like that.

And he looked down at his hand and there was this giant lobster-like insect and it was stinging his hand. And he woke up and he had a mosquito bite right there on his hand. So this physical sensations that we experienced during, during sleep, sometimes. make it into our dreams. Some other, another guy conducted some famous experiments. They're like mentioned in almost every one of the books I've got for sale. He

had his research staff conduct these experiments on him. They would whisper words into his ear when they were sure he was asleep. They would tickle his nose with a feather. And he reported all these different effects from this stimuli being applied.

They would hold a warm lantern near his feet. And he had dream that he was, um, that he had been kidnapped by robbers and they were applying hot coals to his feet. So something directly related to the physical sensation. Um, there's been, there's been, um, conjectures that, you know, if you're cold in your sleep, you'll dream of being in a, a snowy environment. So sometimes it's just that connected. Or if you're overheated, you're in a desert. Or if your mouth is dry, you might, you know, dream of waterfalls. Sometimes it's, it's, it's, It's a wish-fulfilling type of thing.

Yeah, that was my thing. I was like, I wonder, you know, why my jaw hurt that day. And, you know, did I hit myself? Was I thrashing around? Was I trying to wake myself up, like, feeling like I was in a headspin and hit myself or something? I don't know. Yeah.

But, you know, the weird thing was is I woke up on my back. And I'm not, I'm not really a back sleeper. I'm a side sleeper. I don't want being on my back. Yeah. Yeah. I always feel like I'm going to choke. So that's the other thing, too, is like as you were describing these things,

there were specific potential physical symptomology that I thought could provide at least some explanation. And that's, you know, when you're doing the dream work thing, too, it's, it's very important to differentiate between those type of things because I don't want to, I don't want to give you, well, I don't want to give you a bad answer. I want to give you answers at all. I want to draw them out usually. but also, you know, failing to account for some of these things. Like I'm trying to get better at asking about people's emotional state and whatnot because

that or did they see color? Sometimes those are meaningful. And if they don't mention those things, sometimes I forget to ask. But when they do, I'm like, God, thanks for saying that. That's very important. The other odd thing about it, which I think made it even stranger was, you know, sometimes when you dream, you're, you're dreaming, you're in a different

location. The thing was is the dream I had when I was being choked. I was being choked in the actual bed that I was laying in. For sure. Yeah. And I think it's this, I mean, from my experience

to the best of my understanding, it seems like you were in that, there's a twilight realm and it's not, you know, it's not magical necessarily, well, it's all magical, but it's a very real physical condition of not unconscious and not fully conscious. There's a transitional people that we don't understand. And it's been referred to as, you know, the, the, the, the twilight, you know, between dusk and

dawn, that kind of thing. That makes a lot of, it makes a lot of sense to me. And there's a lot of weird experiences we can have in there. Usually we're not as aware of it. I mean, what is it? When we wake up in the morning, okay, number one, we never remember falling asleep. Like the moment you fall asleep, no one can ever remember that. it's almost, and it's been theorized, and I think this is a great way to conceptualize it,

it's as if sleep requires inattention. You have to let your mind wander. You have to stop. I almost, I almost, because I'm a poor sleeper, I almost, you know, my wife gets mad because I kind of like the TV on because listening to ridiculousness or I listen to a podcast sometimes. Me too. And they say people with overactive brains, having something else to divert their attention.

Yes. puts it at ease and then I wake up and the headphones are under the pillow or something like that. For sure. Yeah. No, no. And that's, that's, uh, people, you know, throughout the years we've been theorizing, well, what the hell is sleep? And you go back far enough and be, well, that's when your soul leaves your body and travels over the hill and sees magical things. This is the tribal understanding from, you know, thousands of years ago. Yeah. Um, but then you get into the more scientific age and they're talking about like physically, biologically, what is happening. So like, okay, your temperature drops and your breathing slows and all of these different things they're measuring

and you sweat less or more depending on the person um but what is actually happening say psychologically and and the theory that makes the most sense to me is that yeah exactly as you're saying that the the the process of falling to sleep requires not concentrating actively focusing on something immediate in the physical environment including your own thoughts and if you know as far as sleep hygiene goes do what you got to do if you need headphones on a podcast I do it every night. I do it every night. And I never remember like this is a great way to way to test it too. I'm running these experiments on myself. What works and whatnot? Can I what's the last thing I remember in the podcast? And yeah. And it's weird trying to find that spot. I'm like, have I heard this

before? I'm not sure. And then after a while you go, okay, this is all new. But there's like a half an hour zone where it's like, I don't know. I don't know if I remember, I remember this or not. Some of it sounds familiar than some of it doesn't. So that's good. That's like that you're, you're letting yourself zone out. So that's kind of. of the psychological process that appears to be, you know, that sleep is lack of attention. We call it being unconscious as opposed to conscious. So it was, what does it mean? Well, it means lack of consciousness.

Okay. Well, what does that mean? Who knows? We're still chuck with you, right? It's all in our heads. And we can see physical signs of it. And we can notice brainwave pattern changes, but it's like, what is it really? That's the magic shit.

We don't know what it is. Why does, why do certain things bubble up from the unconscious and other things don't? I can only guess that some things are more relevant or some things were connected to recent experiences. We try and find logical, logical things, but we don't know if something else is also pushing it. Is it your deceased, is it the spirit of your ancestors trying to help you grow as a person introducing these ideas? Who knows? It's all possible. You know, I think I'd mentioned before, too, like, you know, I'd had instances where, you know, doing end-to-month reconciliation for a business,

and you got to account for all your money and you're like, oh, I'm missing 47 cents and you have to look through every day, every transaction. You spend eight hours or something doing it. You can't find it. You go to dream almost like obsessed with it. And then you're like, you know, I just,

and then once you shut down your brain, I would wake up and be like excited and go back to the office and it would almost tell me where I needed to look and I would find it. But it was that inactivity of searching that, you know, sometimes it was like we used to always say better rested, better tested in the Navy. For sure.

You know, there's only a point you could study so much. But at some point, it's that inactivity that allows some of the real truth, answers, or, you know, sometimes maybe it's just the recall because your brain is rested, that it allows that. you know, that inactive. I kind of refer to it as letting things percolate like coffee. It just takes as long as it takes. It's going to drip through slowly.

And then eventually you got a pot of coffee. But this is amazing because that is literally a story out of one of my, one of my dream books. There was an accountant who could not find missing money. It was driving him crazy. And he had a dream that's, oh, it's right here. And he went and there was, bam. Yeah. Yeah.

So that, that's the, that's the side of dreams. I lean into when I say physical material, you know, whatever, scientific, psychological, is there's usually a cause. It's usually related to something in your physical life. It's a problem you're dealing with. Dreams are very often problem solving. There's the possibility that that's all they are. And it just depends on identifying the right kind of problem.

The way I describe it is, you know, the lungs breathe, the heart beats, and the brain thinks. And it doesn't really stop. It just stops focusing on what's in front of us and goes in. inside to focus on what's already happened and kind of sorting that out there. It's almost like, I don't know how much you know about computers, but defragmenting. Yeah, defragmenting. I don't need this information. This is useful.

Let's put that over there. Hey, that just gave me. When I put these two things next to each other, now I'm on this line of thought. Let's follow that out there. Where does, we don't know anything about like where does inspiration come from. Why do you have a certain idea? Now, sometimes you can set yourself up by focusing to have the, a greater likelihood of an inspiration, but like where does, uh, where does music and, and, you know,

melody and lyrics come from. Like, that's why the Greek said it was the muses. We're just getting these, this godlike, we're hearing the voice of the muses. That's as good an explanation as anybody's. We still don't know. We still don't know today. We can watch an idea happen in the brain, but we can't tell you why it happened, how it happened. Um, it's crazy. Uh, okay, we're going somewhere with all that. Uh, just two other physical conditions that might be contributing to this. So number one, you could have had a brief episode of sleep paralysis, but why the choking feeling?

Now, that can be related to the breathing, but it can also be related to, if you've ever been assessed for sleep paralysis? I'm sorry, sleep apnea. Do you? I used to manage a clinic that did sleep studies, took sleeping medication because I'm a poor sleeper and never did a sleep study. Has your wife told you you'd snore a lot or stop breathing in your sleep?

Um, actually only, um, only when I drank and I quit drinking over a year ago. Okay. But there, when I would drink, definitely snore. And doctor said, well, your bottom jaw and stuff are relaxed too. But, um, I think sometimes I snore sometimes. Okay. Yeah, because I've got sleep apnea. So that, that would be one indication of if your mouth was hanging open.

and you were the soft palate relaxed and your tongue was blocking your windpipe you'd be like and that's what wakes people and then they roll over or something and that's why you get poor night's sleep you end up on your back 99 or 90 whatever percent I'm pulling that out of my ass

but the vast majority of problems with breathing and sleep apnea is people lying on their backs and so having a pillow to you know sleep in the rescue position I call it you know with pillows tucked between your legs That's how I go to sleep every night. I don't wake up.

Man, I've adopted sleeping on my stomach. I herniated my desk, my neck once, and the only way I could get comfortable was sleeping on my side with my chin here to keep, like, my neck level. Okay, yeah. And it would kind of stretch the shoulder and the neck and feel good. Sure. And my lower back, too, and I've developed this sleeping on my stomach, but, oh, I'm trying to get away from it because I feel like it's probably terrible for alignment.

might be that's hard to tell yeah I'm not but then you also switch so you even it out you know you're like you switch through the night and it's I don't think it's a constant but I notice sometimes I'm more comfortable that way and I feel like it's alarming because I feel like I'm going to put my spine all out of whack yeah and I would say

consult the doctor I'm a wizard I'm not a doctor so that I don't know I don't know quite what's healthy for I'm not going to give anyone neck advice certainly that's like I don't listen to me It's okay, so sleep apnea could be one thing that contributes to that, but it's also two different conditions. And the third thing that came to mind was the idea of grinding. I mean, as a dentist ever told you, grind your teeth in your sleep or clench your jaw? Not necessarily, but before I went to Japan, so this was after Japan, there was this period in A school where I had

this tooth pain and essentially one of the doctors, they'd filled something, they forgot to put something, the filling cracked or whatever. But then I had a lot of pain after in this one area, and they made me a mouth guard in Mississippi before I went to Japan, and they were like, well, come get it before you go. And when I went to go get it, it was warp, so I never got it, but, you know, but they're like, just wait until you get to Japan. And then the tooth pain and everything went away. And I never really had any more issues, never went back to the doctor, never got the mouth guard or anything.

So I don't know if it was from grinding teeth. It potentially could have been. But, yeah, I was running more solo those days. You know, didn't have a steady girlfriend to tell me if I was grinding teeth. Gotcha. Fair enough. Fair enough. And so there's a lot of different things that could be able to.

Grinding teeth is usually, it's stress-related. What am I trying to say about this? It can lead to cramping in the jaw muscle. And sometimes cramping in the jaw muscle radiates pain as if a punch. So this is a potential alternative explanation. It could be something like that. I mean, when you originally told me you didn't say, oh, by the way, I had tooth pain therefore my jaw hurt.

It was like, no, I felt like I got hit. And sometimes that soreness from a cramped jaw, even if it's after the jaw is unclamped because it would be an interesting phenomenon to say you're grinding your teeth, which means your mouth has to be shut and your mouth is relaxed and open and the soft palate is blocking your breathing. Those seem contradictory. So it would have to be like if we followed a sequence of events that said you might have been grinding your teeth or having jaw clenching. And then it released and it was just a little sore. And then you had the soft palate clogging. and then that led you towards waking up,

but in a sleep paralysis way, where you had this like perfect storm. And then what happened was there's this blending of time in. Well, you know, I've never had one, but there's also the possibility of, I don't think I've ever had one, but I've considered it when I get that spinny head feeling and I feel like I have to wake myself up.

Yeah. Is a seizure. Would a seizure cause the jaw clenching, that feeling in the head, and then potentially blocking your airway. Yeah, all of those things could have related to it. And then what I was saying, too, is that there's a blending of time. Now, there's a timelessness in dreams where it could feel like you're there for an instant and you slept for five hours.

It could feel like it took 500 years and you were asleep for five minutes. I mean, it's completely disconnected from physical reality. And our thoughts move really fast. So, and actually the sensation of being somewhere for a lot of, long time is something we already know and we can exaggerate in dreams. So, so that's why I tell people, anything you, you, you feel emotionally or anything you know intuitively is equally as real as anything you see or hear or touch or taste

or smell because none of it's happening physically in a knock on the knock on wood kind of way. Right. So anything is, and everything is equally real. The most bizarre thing about this is just, I'm getting way into all these, these stories from the dream books of like, we almost never question dreams. We always seem to accept them as,

now unless you're a lucid dreamer, but we accept them as real. I was like, well, of course I'm flying. Why would I not be flying? I fly all the time. It never, all the most bizarre stuff doesn't phase us.

Certainly not in a way where we go, this is impossible. I must be dreaming. Now that, like I said, the lucid dreaming type of people, they get that feeling. But I don't know what to do with that either. Like, I'm not a lucid dreaming expert.

I've never had one. I couldn't tell you what it's like. I barely. dream myself. I believe everyone dreams the entire time we're asleep every night. We don't remember most of them. I remember almost nothing ever. So that's one of the reasons I'm fascinated with other people's dreams. Okay. So I was talking about time though. The twilight transition between sleeping and waking. There's something that happens in there where everything is simultaneous. So even if you, okay, so one story from the books, there was a guy who probably had sleep at me and he

every time he fell asleep he had a nightmare that a skeleton specifically a skeleton was choking him so he actually hired a guy to sit by his bedside and wake him up as soon as it as soon as he started snoring or as soon as it looked like he was asleep don't let me fall asleep i don't want to have this dream well he fell asleep one night with the guy at his bedside and he had this dream that felt like it went on forever and this skeleton was choking him and he got shaken awake by the guy sitting there he's like, why didn't you wake me up? Why did you let me sleep so long? I was in there forever.

And the guy said, you had one snore and I shook you awake. So this, this idea of the length of time and the, that it appeared, the experience happened was completely different than the actual amount of time. Now, if we take that guy's word for it, that he wasn't being lazy and he wasn't sleeping when he was supposed to be watching this guy. But, you know, it's, if we take it at face value, that's, uh, so what could have happened is that all of these things happen simultaneously as you're coming out of sleep due to kind of choking and sputtering a little bit, which combined with you, you're awakening to all

these sensations at the same time and having this brief period of sleep paralysis. And the brain could conjure what appears to be a devil looking, because you're looking to, your brain wants an explanation. What the is going on here? It's like, well, of course I would be, now, it is interesting to say that, okay, it's number one, very typical that people go to demonic shadow, imp, devil type of imagery to explain bad things happening in a supernatural sense. If it feels supernatural, it must be caused by insert icon. Like, now, it'd be fascinating to ask someone from India. What is their experience?

Mine was more like the prophecy. I think that was the movie or something, where it's like somebody that looks like they're almost in a priest uniform, but they're evil. Gotcha. You know, uh, uh, Eragorn, Vigo Mortensen, he played the devil in the prophecy. That's such a good movie. I need to go back and watch that again. I love that.

Um, well, this is what, where I was going with that, though, too, is like, the imagery is going to be culturally based too. So I, I need to look up and start looking into, do people in India, India, uh, uh, experienced sleep paralysis? And when they do, what do they see? What's the, what's the creature they see sitting on their chest? they have a visual experience. Was it Shiva or was it some other local, you know,

supernatural superstition that, anyway, I'll have to look into that. What do people of different cultures see when they have sleep paralysis? Very interesting. So, so there's a generic explanation for why it might have been like a devil type, type person,

but the psychological explanation would be you interpreted these symptoms in this type of an attack and put it in a visual, a specific kind of visual form, because that's how you understand that. And then we would look at that. So we could spend a little bit of time on that if you want to, the idea of why, why did it look like a priest that was evil?

You know, why did it look like someone who should be a spiritual guide and mentor, trustworthy, but actually was evil? I mean, have you had, oh, have you had experiences in the past, like,

uh, what's your relationship with, religion, that kind of thing. Yeah, so I grew up in a super religious town, a small town. But I would say I've always been a believer, but I didn't like to participate in what I felt was the ritual because I felt like. the people around me in this small town and some of them are going to listen to it and I by no means been perfect but you know I the way I felt the way people behaved and acted it made it seem like your belief was less important than your showing that you believe kind of like okay

You know, we can go to a pasture party and hook up with a girl and have premarital sex and do this and that. And still show up to church on Sunday, and that kind of makes it okay. You know, as long as we're showing up every Sunday and Wednesday, that's the important part. It doesn't matter what you really believe. It doesn't matter if you act in accordance with those beliefs. What matters is that you're there on Sunday and Wednesday. and I felt that was a lot hypocritical. And so I think, and there would always be like, you know, people coming to the house.

Like, we want your kid to go to our church or, you know, has your son been saved? And I was injured as a child at a very young age at one and spent three months in a burn unit where my parents couldn't even touch me. And so I was baptized Catholic because they didn't think I was going to make it. And, you know, I remember my mom. telling somebody like he's 10 or 11, like when he's educated enough to decide about religion, he can choose what religion he wants, but he was baptized because of this. So, you know, if he wants to go to your church, that's fine. But like, you're not baptizing them.

You're not saving them, yada, yada, yada. So that was kind of like, you know, my parents didn't force religion on me because my mom was Catholic. My dad was Baptist. It was very in the small religious town. You know, a white man marrying a Mexican girl wasn't like super in vogue then. And then a Baptist and a Catholic wasn't super in vogue then. You know, and there was mostly Southern white Baptists where I grew up. And so my religious thing was always kind of this like, I always felt I was religious.

I always believed in God. I always felt like I knew there was something there and something more and how I should conduct myself and behave. But the outside thing that was shown to me was that the people around me didn't get it because to them it was all about what other people can see. Yeah. That's a very biblical thing too. Hypocrical.

Hypocritical. The Bible talked about the two, like people who very conspicuously pray in public. so they can be seen praying for the virtue signaling of it. Yeah. But maybe they weren't really good people. So you, yeah. So the,

just focusing on the concept of, say, a priestly looking figure that was doing something evil is like, you know, and it isn't what very well could have been. I was molested by a priest. That happens. And I grew up in the Catholic church. Right, right.

Don't it. Why wasn't I cute enough? Nope. No Monsignor's ever hit on me. That's a terrible joke. Right. Not to. I apologize to everyone who was ever.

molested ever. I have no filter. Me either. Yeah, I laugh at everything because But you know, but that's, but that exactly, you know, I mean, I wasn't raised. I was baptized Catholic, but my parents never made me do the whole catechism and whatever. Yeah. All that is confirm it. Um, because, you know, they never really intended to. It was more a decision about me making my own decision about religion when I could fully understand it. It was also your mom being Catholic at a very young age.

Like, my baby's going to die. I don't want him to go to limbo or whatever. Okay. It's baptized. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. For her sake.

Well, for years on her behalf. So, okay. So looking at it from that perspective of like, it very well could have been a very specific image of being abused by a particular person. Therefore, this image comes in there. And what it is is like, it isn't like that isn't real. And I was burned by the babysitter. So, I mean, maybe that.

Very well could have been. You know, like she left me in a toe. or something and I guess went to answer the phone and the other kids either pour ammonia or bleach into the hot water. Oh shit. It's worth the story they got, but we don't nobody really knows. Yeah.

But you know, the thing is, is could it be a confidant, somebody who's supposed to be caring for you? Something like that happens and you know, trust. Trust and hypocrisy seem to be the theme. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's what we look at.

So if there was like, that's what I was going to say, we rule out because this is a specific experience. And then we start looking at the broader themes of like, um, and what it is is like because you're waking up to this experience of, you know, I'm, it feels like my jaw's been hit and,

and I feel like I'm being choked. And I, maybe I can't, you know, move my body or defend myself. What the hell is going on here? And you start looking for, I mean,

it's very natural maybe in that moment to have fleeting thoughts of, holy shit, am I dying? And if that, where the case or am I being you know attacked if that were the case what is your brain saying about what you think is a likely source of something that would cause you harm and it gives you this image that's like this is a vector of um a vector of attack is kind of a way i'm saying but that's what i'm trying to describe is you know where you think is most the trouble or the danger is most

likely to come from is what's going to come to your mind is you know and so it's um religiously connected to people who are not living they're not walking the talk they're not living life they should they're doing doing harm with this exterior angelic image

projected one thing I was going to ask you too is like did you change anything in your life after this dream happened I mean it sounds like it's stuck with you to the point that you can tell the story 30

some odd years later. Did it have an impact in your life as far as you can tell, looking back on it? Do you make any changes? No, but as we talk about it, you know, I would say, you know, probably, you know, I described growing up believing, but hating the hypocrisy. I was very much at a conflict. point in my life at that time because like you know I'd done something kind of way out of character for me and bad and something I didn't feel like I could kind of be forgiven for

at a certain point in that time and and and so there was that and I don't know if that was near the time where I can't remember if my parents had split yet or not. But I had also come off of active duty to go into an officer program, and I didn't really want to. And at that time, I know I was fighting with myself of, you know, I wanted to stay in Japan. I didn't really want to come back. I didn't really want to go to college. I was having a good time just doing what I was doing, being. and you know my dad was very much like you need to go to school like your body's going to give out before your brain

um you know we worked too hard for this because you know i'd applied for scholarships and stuff just to because the expectation is i would go to college but i didn't really want to and you know even though i was stationed in japan i could not say no like this i'm 19 i want to do what i want to do I don't want to go to college. I want to stay here. And I couldn't do that. And so I was, you know, but I was there doing it. And I think I was enjoying it some.

Maybe I had accepted it a little bit. But deep down, I knew, like, it wasn't really what I had wanted. Like, you know, I would say every, whether it's woman or man, they're going to have a point in their life when they're going to have to tell their mom or their dad, no. Like, I don't want to do what you do. think I should do. I want to do what I feel is right. And I still, and I still hadn't reached that point. I started to go right two years old. No, no, running away and doing things. I got so much trouble. I was always a people pleaser though, you know, because I got praise like when I got good grades or this or that and I would always be a people pleaser and, you know, that I couldn't say no.

And so that was part of it. But, you know, you put all those things together and, And the other part I was thinking about when you were talking about that, and we talked about, you know, what does somebody from India see? Well, I very much, you know, believed in good and evil, angels and demons, spiritual, not knew that I had done something wrong and out of character and was working on that, knew I couldn't say no to my father and be my own person, all these things that I consider kind of a spiritual warfare thing. And so it led me to that question of when we were talking about it is, you know, if you didn't believe in angels and demons, would that, could you have that experience? Was it because I believe in them and believe that they exist and that there is a form of spiritual warfare that we don't see in a different realm? Is it because I believe in that? And I was fighting with myself and stuff that that was able to come through?

Or is it, you know, like I said, if you believed in none of that at all, if you were an atheist and like whatever, would it mean the same thing? Would you see that? Would it have any meaning? Would it have any context? Or would that shift your belief? Yeah, for sure. And if there are no answers to these questions, this is something I'd love to. And so that was the thing is, no, I don't necessarily, it didn't change anything because even though I've had these periods of, I wouldn't necessarily say that I walk away from.

my spirituality. I would just say that I've gotten to a few points in my life because I've done things that I'm not proud of that I would say I would feel unworthy enough to be forgiven. And so I would kind of punish myself and kind of self-destruct and kind of just not care and be like, look, I'm not even going to try to be worthy. and so none of that is changed. And I would say I'm probably back to that period where, I mean, you know, I've always believed that there's good and evil out there.

But yeah, it's, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. For sure. Yeah, no, these are all great questions, too. And actually, I wanted to mention, you know, like, say, the difference between you and I in terms of, it's, people usually use people pleasing as a little bit derogatory or self-deprecating in that,

in that way. Well, I mean, I could also say, um, in, you know, rambunctious,

uh, willful, a little shit, uh, you know, disrespectful, there's lots of different ways to characterize it. But the,

what we're talking about is actually the, what appears to be the inborn personality type that are temperament on the agreeableness access. And there's people who are, just they just love harmony more. And there's some people who love discord a little bit more. They love a little more chaos, a little more friction. Highly, and sometimes it takes highly disagreeable people to get things done,

but then they don't play well with others. And it takes highly agreeable people to work in a group, but then they have a hard time going against the group. So it's not like one is superior to the other. It's a very, you know, people who are too agreeable fail to advocate for themselves and get into trouble that way. People who are too disagreeable, well, they advocate for themselves a bit too much and people say you're not invited to the party anymore.

So there's there's upsides and downsides to both. Just to throw that out there and contextualize that as well. But as you were talking as well, I had a bunch of ideas pop into my head too. And I think it is definitely, okay, in my opinion, our thoughts and dreams always related to how we understand the world. That's the symbols we choose to insert or conjure up for ourselves. So if we look at it um, Biblically like the, the wages of sin are death. And so if you'd been through a, a recent experience,

where you'd done something you considered so sinful, like, then, then you would almost punish yourself or at least show yourself being punished because that's what you expect to happen. Um, and, and then in a way, maybe that figure represented kind of you in a sense of your own sin coming back to punish you of like, you know, you did something and now the consequences are here. I think that's not exactly what I wrote down, but that's that's the essence of it. The idea that it would be no surprise, like, is this the punishment I was expecting?

Is the, you know, and also then related to that idea of, of, you know, even you on the end. That's why I said this may have been you in a way, even if it did look like you. But the idea of. He looked like, he looked like an older version of me with a. Okay. Fair enough. If you did, okay, well, then. I know.

Now that I think back of going, like, did you have all the pieces of the story? And sometimes, sometimes you just need to be asked the right questions. That's what I find. People go, I don't know. It's a very short dream. I'm like, there's more there that you're going to do. When I look at it now, I mean, he had black slick back hair. Oh.

Kind of this, but a little more evil looking. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, so it's a very reasonable to say that we would look. at like, you know, you've done this to yourself. You're doing, what you're going, what you are suffering or what you're going to suffer has been caused by you.

And so it's, it's as if an external version of yourself were in inflicting that punishment. And having to be a little older is like, you know, this is the, um, uh, chickens coming home to roost in the future. This is you, you know, your future self doing this to you or it, and sometimes it's vice versa. Uh, you could have a dream where your younger self is doing it. you now. And it's like, yeah, that's kind of how time works. That's, that's, uh, today's Ben eats a, eats a piece of cake instead of going to the gym and tomorrow's Ben is fatter, you know, that, that kind of thing. Uh, and vice versa, the, the future you benefits from what past

you did. Um, so that's an interesting way to, way to kind of contextualize that as well, too. So, I mean, we've had, we've got almost a whole other hour out of like what was basically an episode, feels like an episode of sleep paralysis and the description was extremely short. but there's a lot of great. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. It's like, yeah, I'm not just, I mean, there's some people on having one line. They're like, oh, dream interpretations, Hocom, and you're just this con artist.

And I'm like, what? I mean, I think it's all connected. I think otherwise, why would I remember it 30 years later? Carry it with me. Yeah. Well, but my grandmother passed away. I mean, I remember that. But, yeah, we didn't really work in that angle necessarily, which.

But still, it's like, you know, and that's kind of where. it goes like, oh, synchronicity's real, not. My thoughts almost as soon as hearing that going, to me, my explanation of what it was was, hey, it was supposed to be you. And that's hard to disprove in a way. It's like that could also be true. Let's say everything you and I discussed is also true. And there was this other experience going on at the same time on top of that, which

is you actually dodged a bullet and maybe a relative took it took it for you on purpose and maybe they even knew they even had a choice they're like he can go or you can go what do you want to do we don't know that supernatural forces don't do that i mean i think there have well you know and descriptions and that's what you describe of going like all the things and but what you believe but then also you know you could tell if if i think as soon as i heard that and i was able to explain it that way to myself and accept it as what I believe to be true, then that probably would also tell you the level of faith and turmoil and different things I was going through on a spiritual level

that would automatically just cause me to explain it and accept that as truth and never really question it again. and never really tell the story more than a couple of times other than when you sent me the thing to be on the show. And I was like, oh, maybe it means something. Maybe it doesn't. But it's a good opportunity to revisit. Well, I very often say dreams self-select for importance.

If you remember years later and it still feels like something, let's take a look at it. Let's see what it was. And what I'd asked you was also that did anything change for you afterwards? And that is one way dreams. affect us. They can also be reinforcing. Nothing changes because you, it reinforced that you were on the right path in the first place, which was, don't give into these things that make me feel bad. Don't do things that I know are wrong. I'm going to recommit to that going forward. So it may have been actually

an absence of change that was most significant. I started, something actually, I started dating somebody shortly after that. And this has only come up as we were talking was. So because I had what I'd done, I felt low self-worth, invaluable. After this, whatever happened, shortly after, regardless, series of events, I started dating someone. I then felt valuable again, like a value. But then, of course, you know, years later, once that relationship ended, there was a period of, I wouldn't necessarily say invaluable, but heartbreak. Yeah.

But yeah, I would say if anything changed, I didn't value myself kind of before that, but shortly after that I did date somebody. And that, you know, I think for most people that it does give you a sense of worth. That's what I was going to say. It's like you, we very do, very often do draw our sense of self-worth from the validation of others, which is a trap in the social media age of like, you know, audience. they would call it, say, for a podcaster, is like, are you just telling people what they want to hear so they give you money or give you approval? But there's also something very real that we need from other people. Very few people are capable of being an island, being a true hermit,

having no interaction with it, needing no validation was, I'm fine as I am without you. I don't care what you think of me. Yeah. That's a little more than disagreeable side. Those people are in isolation in a prison somewhere. Sometimes. And if they're fine with it, if they're fine with it,

they're probably a psychopath because that's actually shown that's one of the cruelest things we do to people is lock them up in isolation and deprive them of human contact and connectivity yeah and me i'm uh i'm like a 98% hermit like i don't want to deal with most people but i'm enjoying talking to you i talk to my wife once in a while you know i have i have a wife it's one of those things where it's like i'm not a perfect isolation but i need very little and like if if you're the last person i talk to until next week when I have another two hour conversation, fine. But also relationship-wise, it's, and especially being young, too, it's like, what is my value? How do I define myself? And then when you have someone else tell you, you're valuable to me, you mean to me, that's huge. And it can be addicting and that's, it can be dysfunctional as well, which is why some people stay in relationships, they shouldn't, even if they're abusive or longer than they should when they've grown apart. It's like, what are we even doing here? Um, but to, to, to maintain a sense that you as a person have value, it's good to have it reinforced and enhanced in a relationship.

But when that goes away, when you eventually, if, if a relationship ends and you break up, not to then bottom out and say, oh, I'm worthless again. Well, it wasn't that person that made you worthless. They saw the worth that was already there. And you got to see that too. Even if it hurts to have them leave, even if you wish they wouldn't, you got to have that steady, even keel of like, okay, I'm, I am valuable. in and of myself, and I would like to feel appreciated, but, but, but not to lose that sense of, you know, that's a very, very like personality disorder, black and white thinking that happens to some people, even if it isn't a diagnosed, you know, actual personal, full, personality disorder,

which is like, I'm only valuable if other people validate me and I'm not if they don't. But you know, what's crazy is, you know, what's interesting with that is, and I just realized this, you know, it was my own inactions to cause me to in value my own self. And it's so funny that it wasn't that somebody made me feel less valuable. I made my self feel less valuable and less worth because of what I had done, but never put it together that, oh, you could also add your own value, that my value didn't come from somebody else making me feel valued. And that's kind of taken years and I'm still working on it.

We kind of want to feel, we do want to feel bad when we make a mistake. If we look at a situation and go, I didn't handle that well. The negative emotion is what's supposed to provide the motivation to change. I don't want to feel that way again. So maybe I won't make that mistake twice. Even if the, the assessment of the mistake was rational, the emotional content is the motivation. If you feel nothing, you just, there's an. no emotional response. Why would anyone do anything? I don't think logic alone is enough to make

us move. Imagine if we never felt hungry, but we knew logically we needed to eat. Would we ever eat? Would we just eat on a routine because we had to to stay alive? I think these are feelings that they serve a useful purpose when they're out of whack, when it's a disproportionate to the situation, when it's opposite what you should be feeling, all kinds of dysfunctional ways to have emotions. But, you know, and I don't encourage people seek out. trauma to motivate themselves to change. And I, you know,

but, but it can be. And it very often is, it's like this is, you feel bad because you need to do something. And you dissipate that by doing something. And very often it's, it's,

you know, it's making a change in your behavior or, or asserting more control over how you deal with your life. Sometimes it means, I'm too disagreeable. I should calm down because I piss that guy off and now I feel bad or, or vice versa. And there's,

it all kind of boils down to awareness. You know, us having this conversation and those listening becoming aware that these concepts exist and then applying them to yourself and then starting to be aware like because you have to have a certain level of awareness to even know like ah I didn't handle that the best way true a lot of people are blind but but also to to respond to it yourself and go I didn't like it because some people will just ignore it and chalk it up that, hey, that's just the way it is. They're unwilling to, you know, and then you ignore maybe what should be your guiding light.

Yeah. Ignore some things that are, that are wake-up calls. And I mean, a wake-up call could be very small, can be very simple. And it can be really big. And it can be like you've talked to addicts too. It can be what they call Hidden Rock Bottom. It's like, I got in some crazy shit and I realized this is not. not okay. This is, this is messed up. I'm hurting people. I'm hurting myself. I don't like this.

But honestly, no one changes anything until it's not working for them anymore. So sometimes you got to let people get to the point where they're like, this ain't working. And a lot of times we can do that with the self-assessment, which is how did that work out? Didn't turn out like I planned. Maybe I should do something different next time. It's just as simple as that, kind of that little pattern. Yeah, good, good talk. I think we've, how do you feel? How do you feel? feel about. I think we covered the dream and, uh, yeah, good conversation.

It's a lot of stuff there. There's a lot of stuff there. It's interesting, but you know, what I find too is, um, what I enjoy is I feel like I'm even learning pieces of stuff. I, little dots are connecting for me as I tell it and talk to you and realize some of these things.

It's like, oh, hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That is great. I mean, it's just,

uh, uh, something new every day, little pieces come together and you can always learn something more about yourself by looking back on some situations. The picture, the picture becomes more clear. Yeah. How did I get here? What's going on with me? Oh, I see. Okay, that, those dots connect. Well, and the fact that I can even go like, hey, I believe then. Maybe that's why I saw it. You know, I mean, what I believed in shaped what I saw, the world that I believed in. Yeah. And I don't think that makes it any less real. I think these are just the, what is

Is it? Many, many names for God, one God, but many names. What I describe it as water. I go, we all need water. We all just call it something different. We all know what it is. We all know we have to have it. We just all call it. Some people call it H2O, Agua, water, whatever.

Exactly. But it's all the same thing. Yep, exactly. So the specific visual representation of a concept is going to base on, but the concept's the same for everybody. It's the same type of. you know, looking, looking back on the, like I said, it made you think of those people that were like putting on a show of, okay, am I being like those people? I didn't like that back then. I recognized that was wrong. That pissed me off about those folks. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to do the thing I've always believed is wrong. What the hell? That, and that's a great wake-up call, too, of like, okay, let's not, let's not, just don't do that. Just, I don't have to be like that. I'm not going to be like that. That's a great thing to have brought to consciousness. so you can focus on it and put it into action. Okay, well, I'm going to keep rambling if I don't wrap it up.

So let's do this. Right. We are going to extend thanks to our friend Richard Kraft from Tyler, Texas. He's the host of The Men of the House podcast, exploring unfiltered truth of fatherhood, self-care, mental health, and navigating the chaos of everyday life. He has a link tree at Richard P. Kraft. And that link in the description below.

I'm going to find that put up there. For my part, would you kindly like, share, subscribe, tell your friends, always need more volunteer dreamers, viewers for the game streams, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Pacific Monday through Friday. This episode brought to you in part by ABC Book 4, O'Neuro Chronology of Volume 2, the anthology set of shorter works of historical dream literature, of course, all this and more at Benjamin the Dreamwizard.com. Also, Benjamin the Dreamwizard.locals.com. And the last thing to say is, Richard, thank you for sharing your valuable time with me. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

And everybody out there, thanks for listening. Okay. I got the recording started. Your mic's live, my mic's live. Videos coming through. I'm always super paranoid.

I lost one episode once, episode eight. The episode that was eight, it was eight by my cat walking across the keyboard. He ate it. Oh, man. I do that sometimes.

Nice hour and a half conversation with a dude from Italy, actually. And we talked about his dream and he's like, oh my God. I'm like, you're really good about this one.

No one will ever hear it. He gets that one for free. You know, of course, I don't charge money, but you all, everybody gets out of it. Yeah, but I don't even get a video out of it. Okay, two seconds. Yeah, but there's value in lessons in, in, in that.

Well, for sure. Yeah. What is, oh, I got a problem. And as long as the conversation's good at the end of the day, just because it wasn't recorded, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

That's true. It doesn't detract from the value. Yeah. It is real in life. It happened. And the ripples, you know, sometimes I'm a very tiny pebble upon. Hopefully his benefits going to spread in his life to the people around him and they're going to ripple their own ripples. That's kind of how I do.

One person at a time. I forgot to check something. I'm going to just look at this other episodes of the information. I need to plug over time. In your own geology of volume two. Okay. So I had to check that real quick because I was about to. she'll the same book twice two weeks in a row which is fun it's so funny i've seen quite a few people

um several podcasters with cats that cats just love the camera they want to be there the stars of the show i call it value added content they just you know and whatever possible i try to put them in in the screenshot maybe i maybe this one right here where are we at that's uh my group coaching is the same way both of the group coaching coaches they have a podcast and they're like um oh Oh, you'll notice the cat come across. And so I think one couple has two cats, and they both do have home offices and podcasts and all that. And I think they have to, like, corral the cats to a certain area because they'll, you know, bust in both of their offices. For sure.

Well, I've even put out bait boxes on the countertop cat traps. And they use them occasionally. But whenever I've got a notepad, they're like, this is my sit spot. It is what it is. You're going to have to move, boo-boo. Get your fur out of here, too. Yeah, I've naturally been allergic to cats, so. Oh, that's a shame, yeah.

It's not that I don't like them. Yeah. You know, people get it confused. They think, like, if you're, if you've had your eyes swell shut, they think like, oh, you don't like cats or like, oh, they think it's like some sort of fallacy. And I'm like, no, I go, I go, but I've never had the opportunity to actually love a cat because of that. but there was one time we found a stray cat me and my roommate and he worked at a resort and he brought it home and it was the first cat that I never reacted to and this cat ended up

because it was stranded it ended up we had to take it to the vet it wouldn't eat wouldn't drink it had liver damage they think it drank coolant because it was thirsty and abandoned and so it had liver damage and we eventually had to put her to sleep but I was like that was the first time I was able to be around the cat and yeah yeah I think cool it actually uh tastes sweet I've heard yeah something like that so you could actually hide it in let's say if you're trying trying to poison someone you could hide it in like uh yeah what is it um it's like mountain dew you know it looks just yeah there's yeah yeah i've seen some investigation discovery stuff where that's the case oh yeah but they can you can't get away with it they can detect

that they know exactly what yeah don't don't think you're gonna don't think you're dexter You're not getting away with that shit. Well, you know, the thing is, I'm sure what they show on TV is, you know, like anything, like military grade weapons, whatever, that's probably a fraction of what we're actually capable of because they wouldn't give out all the sauce for free. Yeah, yeah, certainly with the military stuff.

And a lot of times with police investigations, like they want to tell you enough, but not quite everything. Just, just, yeah. They don't want it to be a how-to manual. Like, here's the limits of our capability. Please don't go beyond that or we can't catch you. Yeah. Okay, let me do the intro.

We'll start the show proper. I might use some of this stuff too. We'll see. Yeah. Just a fun little chat. Maybe I'll splice it. Maybe I'll put it bonus content at the end or something. Whatever, whatever it is you like to do, I'm good.

I'm game. No, no filtration here. So you just take it away and. I like to do surprising. It's just not a good time and have fun. End credit scene, bonus content. Why not? I'll throw that in there.

Especially if it was kind of a fun, fun little chat about cats. And oh, I was going to recommend. I don't have you ever looked into those Devin Rex cats, hairless. I haven't. But I know my daughter would like a cat one day, so I'm sure eventually. They're so funny looking, like naked mole rats. They're just hilarious little things. They get cold, so they need sweaters.

You've got to get a little cat sweater. She would even love that even more because we have a multi-pooh that, you know, it seems like most dogs and stuff, little. dogs hate wearing stuff. Yeah, but that's what my little, little peanut butter, you see him running around there too. He's, uh, he's an old man. He's on his last legs these days. We'll see how long, you know, months or whatever.

But, uh, he's a, I think he's a purebred Maltese, like a, oh, wow. What is it? Uh, my wife's foster fathers, one of his foster kids, a boyfriend tried to get her, this puppy and she's like, I don't like you and I can't accept this gift, but he's like, I don't know what to do with it. So the foster dad adopted it. And then when he passed, we inherited. That's our inheritance is this dog, doggy retirement center.

With the cats, too. They just show up in our backyard. We feed them. And then they eventually, they come inside. Like, okay, you're our cat now. That's just, wow. Yeah, we're kind of the unofficial rescue sanctuary for the neighborhood. Just, just happens.

We can't say no. We can't kick him out or scare them away. But, okay, I keep delaying this. Let me do, let me do the intro. All right.