Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 200: Beyond 80 Percent

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Ryan Olexson ~ https://www.beyond80percent.com/

Make sure. Okay, I haven't changed anything. The audio and the video is working. That's always a concern. I had one episode just once, episode eight, where my cat walked on the keyboard. Did I tell you that story already? I tell a lot of the same. My wife gets sick of it.

I tell her the same stories. It's like, you told me this 17 times. I'm like, really? Only 17? That's, it was a rookie number. He's got to pump that up. But now I'm paranoid of like the cats walking on. I don't know what to do with me.

Yeah, yeah. I'm always, you'll see me suddenly look like I lose focus and look down. over here. I'm like, it's still recording. Holy shit. So, okay. But other than that, all right, if you, um, if you're ready to go, we'll do about two seconds of dead air, I'll do an introduction and we'll get rolling. Okay. Let's do it. Good deal. Greetings friends and welcome back to another episode of dreamscapes. Today we have, uh, our guest dreamer Ryan Olexson from Austin, Texas. She is the host of, uh, the beyond 80% podcast and

ongoing discussion that dives into critical thinking, self growth and societal narratives. Uh, you can find her at beyond 80% dot com. That's 80. And link will be in the description. You know what I didn't do? I completely forgot to prepare my opening. For my part, would you kindly like, share and subscribe, tell your friends

always need more volunteer dreamers. I do video game streams Monday through Friday 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific most days. Every now and again, I take some time off. Like if it's a Thursday, I finish a game, I'll take Friday off and then start a new game on Monday, et cetera. That's enough about that. This episode brought to you in part by this

book that I don't know what it is because I'm going to add it in later. It's fantastic. They're all fantastic. You're going to appreciate the art and artistry that are put into recreating these works of historical dream literature to preserve ancient wisdom and more recent understandings that built up to where we are today in the world of dream interpretation and psychology in general. Of course, all this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, including downloadable MP3s of this very podcast so that you may take the wizard with you wherever you wander with or without Wi-Fi. I love that. I love alliteration. And of course you're going to want to head on over to Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com building a community there. It's free to join attached to my Rumble

account. One of the best places to reach out to me, become a member there and say, hey, I got a dream and we will do the thing. I've got plenty of time. You notice I don't have a lot of episodes lately. Dreams come in their own times, like a fact of nature. You just can't rush it. that's one of the things that makes them a fantastic mystery to solve is what even makes them happen in the first place we don't know I love that I love the mystery that is more than enough out of me Ryan thank you for being here I appreciate your time yeah thanks for having me I'm pretty stoked for this today yeah we already had a pretty great like pre recording conversation a while back and I don't typically do that I don't typically meet with people but we're doing a dual a dual purpose

thing I figured I'd mention that too where like you're appearing as a guest specifically so that I can then appear as a guest on your show when we can talk about your experience. And I think that's fantastic because it really does a much better job of demonstrating what I do to someone rather than trying to explain it to them. Because I can say all the words, but like, until you've actually experienced it, it's kind of a thing. It's enough words out of me. But one thing I was going to ask, oh, he'll try and put on my interviewer hat. I'm not good at that.

I just ramble. What is beyond 80% me? What is the 80% reference? It's like that's a very specific title, and I'll shut up and listen. Yeah, yeah. It's a couple of different play on visuals imagery for me. I went with it more so in the iceberg metaphor where you see 20% above the water, and then there's 80% below.

And I kind of see humans like that. When you meet someone, they give you 20% of themselves, but there's 80% to them that they're not showing you. And so the podcast is all about diving into the. that 80%, what, you know, what are the things that we believe as humans? How are we conditioned? And we go into those discussions. And I always have a guest on my show. So I like to focus on topics that are maybe against the societal narrative.

Those are my favorite. Those always get people's blood pressure going. But also some topics that are just fun to me in general. Actually, dreams and sleep overall is a huge one for me. I love exploring dreams. I'm actually in school right now to become a licensed therapist. And dream interpretation, dream, just analyzing dreams in session is a big part of what we're learning. So I am, it's a passion of mine as well.

I should have been writing down notes. I had all these thoughts. I'm like half of them are gone. I'll try and work backwards if I can. But I'm also very, yeah, very passionate about it as well, partly probably because I don't recall most of my dreams or that I even. had a dream and I think that's not uncommon with some people but at least most people remember some of them I got like five in my lifetime that I can tell you as a story a narrative here's what happened even if it's brief the rest of them gone with the ether and uh you know for for anyone

out there thinking you want to and you can you don't you don't need my personal attention anyone can do this as part of what I'm trying to do here's also demonstrate here's a method here's a way to do it and you can do this for yourself I would always recommend getting a notepad writing things down telling yourself the story composing it to do a narrative and then start trying to pick it apart. I was going somewhere with that. You can do this. Well, I can chime in here, actually.

So, yeah, I actually started to, I started to journal my dreams. And, you know, I was always one of those people like, oh, that was such an impactful dream. I'll definitely remember that one. And then, you know, the next day, it's gone. So I started creating like a journal on my, just on my iPhone notes, right? Because it's usually next to us in bed. And the minute I wake up and I have something.

I'll pull those notes up, type in, just the big parts, right? Like, who was there? What was happening? And if I woke up with a certain feeling. And what I've realized is I remember my dreams a little bit more, the more that I do that. And it's funny, preparing for this conversation, I actually pulled it up to see what dream I wanted to have interpreted today. And there are dreams on there that I couldn't even tell you that I had. I was like, I forgot.

I totally, I completely forgot about this dream. So it's also fun to kind of go through. I date them and then I also write the time down. So then I can kind of go back and say, okay, what was I going through in that time period in my life or why was it at this time? So that might be a little recommendation for your listeners if they're interested. You did save me. That was the point. It was start, you've got to write them down because they are ephemeral.

They just like fog in the sunlight of the morning just dissipates. And as you said, the more you get used to writing down, the better recall. And a lot of times you think you've only got a couple of details. And then you start writing it down and more details unfolds. Like, oh, I was in this place. Wait, now that just saying that, I got a visual of what I was doing in that place. And then you can't write that down too. And also for folks who are like, I can't type with my eyes crusted shut in the morning.

Put on the speech to text function and just say, you know, a dark room. there's a light through the window. I was, why was I six years old? Okay, well, there you go. Now you got something, and we can work with that. I did a dream interpretation once with a gal who's the entire experience. She didn't remember hers either, mostly, and it was the sensation of falling through a void. And we talked about that for like 45 minutes.

Believe me, these things, you think they're not interesting. You think they're not enough that someone would want to listen to, but there's a mystery in there to solve with every one of them. And I think that's fantastic. which also, I remembered one of the other things I forgot to write down. It's trying to work backwards to the iceberg metaphor. But in terms of psychology, I mean, why is this? So that's what I do. There's people who lean heavily into the spooky woo.

They communicate with spirits. They believe they're getting communications from angels. I mean, that's their thing. That's not my thing. I can't prove that. I can't tell you prophetic dreams. If you bring me a dream and say, Ben, was this dream, this specific dream, prophetic, I can't tell you the difference.

And I don't want to pretend to. So Socrates's style, know your limits and don't pretend beyond them. That's like you make a fool, fool out of yourself. But, okay, look, doing the weave, bringing it back. The dreams that appear to us are rooted in our subconscious and our experiences and our feelings and our hopes and aspirations. You know, Freud was right when he said, every dream conceals a wish. A lot of people narrow that down, you know, it's a wish, it's a fear, it's a, it's a, it's a

It's a thought. I call them thought experiments. We'll put ourselves in a situation and say, how do I feel about this? What do I want to do about this problem? And in addition to that, I think it's one of the best ways to problem solve. Like, if you cannot make a decision or you don't know what to do or you don't understand something, you hold it in your mind throughout the day and you worry it through, worry it through or at least, you know, let it percolate in the background. You go to bed at night. You may have no memory of a dream and you wake up in the morning with an answer. I can't say how many times. that's that's happened to me. So one one piece of advice I give people is, you know, not just metaphorically sleep on it as in give it time, but literally sleep on it. And there's a, a lot of the historical dream literature I've got is full of examples of people that had solutions to problems. Mechanical inventions come to them in their sleep. They've been obsessed with a problem and bam, the pieces like literally fall into place. That's how I build that thing. And they do it. You want to hear a fun fact that I do. I've talked too much, please. So ironically, you know, we had scheduled this a couple weeks ago.

I had an interview with a sleep expert. And she had talked about we dreamed during the REM cycle of our sleep, right? So this is like right before we wake up. It's toward the end of that sleep cycle. We go through several throughout the night. And what happens is during REM, it's rapid eye movement. Your eyes are going back and forth, back and forth. So that is bilateral stimulation, something you'll also find an EMD.

or brain spotting, right? So it's back and forth, back and forth. And she had mentioned the same exact thing that people will sleep on a problem and wake up with an answer because they are stimulating both parts of their brain. Because sometimes our brains get stuck on a problem and we're just, we're just really heavily focused on our left hemisphere or maybe we're really heavily focused on the right. And during REM, we're stimulating both sides and that's what that magic happens. So I thought that was a fun little science fact. It is for sure. And two things on that.

It's like, why does it work? We're not entirely sure. I've got my own theories. I think part of it or a big part of it is closing our imagination off from external stimuli. It's like if you're in a room that's too bright, too loud, too much activity, it's really hard to concentrate. We know that what is it when someone does they are approaching a traffic situation? And they're going to need to navigate that safely and successfully because lives are on the line. We're driving 2,000 pound death, death machines at 60 miles an hour.

So what do you do? You turn down the radio. So you can think, you know, that kind of a thing. So I think that's part of what's happening at night. We're shutting off external stimuli. And then the full potential of the imagination is unleashed in that sense. And one small correction. I don't want to say that sleep expert was wrong necessarily.

We do experience dreams during rapid eye movement. And this was an unfolding of the science. So they're like, well, what are dreams? Well, hey, what is happening? We notice that animals, dogs will twitch. And so we see external signs of their dream process unfolding. So we started looking for those. And people will talk and moan and roll over and all kinds of somnambulism, as they

called them at the end of the day. I love these. I love the old words. They just sound better. Um, but, you know, sleep talking, sleepwalking, et cetera. Those are usually disorders. But, but one thing we notice is that with people who don't have somnambulistic tendencies, they're just, you know, motionless as most people are. Even they, their eyes moved. So they started waking people up during REM sleep and they said, yeah, I was dreaming. And they said, yeah, I was, that's it. That's when dreams happened. But then the next step was they started waking people up outside of REM sleep and asking them, were you dreaming? And they say, yes. Everybody says yes. No matter when you wake someone up. So the way I present it is, and again, a lot of this is great minds, standing on the shoulders of giants, all this, because I don't know where half these ideas came from. I don't even know if it's an original theory, but my conceptualization of it is that the lungs breathe, the heart beats, and the brain thinks.

And it doesn't stop from the moment you're born until the day you die. So even when you're unconscious, this process of mental activity is going on. And that means we're always dreaming. And that, but then a lot of the books, this is why I love this. Publishing these works, I'm just talking about my own, my own book, buy my books, please. One of the fascinating things has been, it's like a master class in everything that's gone before. All the greatest minds publishing on these subjects, gathering their experiences. I point to that.

Dreams, dreaming, rabbit eye movement. Damn. I think I lost it. Where was I going with that? What was I saying? We dream in all cycles. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. So, no, okay, that's going to get me back there.

Maybe it's not. No, I had an actual point. I really did. Dreams happening all the time. Ramping eye movement. Wow. That's how fast it goes. And then I don't know if I,

I don't know if I should hang on to it and try and find it again or let it go. And then we get awkward silence. That's not. It's probably going to come back to you in like a couple hours and you'd be like, that's what it was. Yeah. Well, okay, let's do this instead because I still wanted to get back to the 80% iceberg type of thing too. So that 80% that's hidden is a lot of it is hidden from us as well.

I mean, every sensation, emotion, sight, sound, all of this stuff that we have ever experienced is hard-coded in our brain. Changes the physical structure of our brain, everything we experience. And sometimes it's just, well, how strong does a particular neural pathway fire because it's been fired repeatedly. and then we get habits and behaviors of that kind too. So there's no, in my opinion, there's no better way to access that, and this ties in the private counseling thing, no better way to access that hidden part that's,

you know the Johari window. It's like known things you know and other people can see from the outside, things you don't know, but other people can see. And then there's unknown unknowns. And that is the mystery that's hidden underneath in that iceberg.

So you've got this dual thing where even 80% of our, personality, our thoughts, our experiences, who we are is hidden in a conscious level. And then of that 80% that's hidden, 80% of that is even hidden from us. So we even only know a portion of it, which is why we get, why do I do that? What do I care about that? Why does that annoy me? What does that make me happy?

Some of these things will never get an answer to. No, and I think you nailed it too, because I think when it, you know, when we look at the topics that we talk on beyond 80%, it's. It's kind of all of the above. It's the things that you hide from other people. It's the things that you're not consciously aware that you hide. And then there's the things that, you know, you think you hide, but other people see. So it's, it's, I love that you use that window analogy.

I haven't thought of that one before. And that, that nails, like, all the different realms of discussions that we have on the podcast. That's perfect. For sure, they're trying to reveal those things. But, you know, so I do a, this is interesting tangent masks. Don't let me forget masks, the idea of, there's a, I do a side project called AI Radio, and I'm taking all the greatest classical, classic poetry, the most famous, give me a list of the 100 most, and there it is, bam, the 100 most popular or most famous poems of all time.

I've turned most of them into AI music. One of them that just got released recently was called We Wear the Mask, and it was specifically written by a, you know what they call the Black National Anthem. Have you heard that expression? um, lift every voice and sing. I think it's what it's something like that. I may be getting it wrong.

Well, he also wrote a couple other poems and one of them was we wear the mask and it was, and it, uh, each one of these, I'm going on a wait, tangent here, but each one of these poems decides what it wants to be.

So this was in the style of a very almost avant-garde, um, apex twin sounding, um, electronic minimalist type of thing and a very haunting melody. And this idea of, you know, it was the idea of hiding pain from other people.

you know, never let them see us without our mask type of thing. And most people struggle with that too because there's, there's a time and a place for everything. They say put on your game face and something, you go to work, you can't always bring your whole self because sometimes your whole self is a little gross or, or provocative. And that's natural for you and maybe that's fine in private.

But now you're in public or you're in company, and there's a purpose to most tasks. And then there's also, so there's masks we used up to hide because we have to because we're ashamed or afraid. But then there's also masks we put on of like, that are our roles and responsibilities. And, you know, there's an expectation of performance in certain ways. So you have to, you know, cut off the things that aren't,

that are extraneous to that and actually complicate or foil. What was a better word for that? Spoil, foil, the accomplishment of a particular purpose. I was going somewhere with all that. I don't know, but, but just the broad concept of, we don't always have to share everything with everyone. and there's a time and a place. Counseling and therapy sessions are great too.

That's one of the reasons I put such a heavy emphasis on consent or permission to release these episodes because, you know, I need people to feel comfortable and safe to drop the mask to a degree. I don't need to know everything. Please don't confess to any crimes. We don't need to go that far. But otherwise, you don't get good answers if you're not honest with yourself, honest with you, the interlocked to her interviewer. By the way, I'm a terrible interviewer.

I should be asking you more about you. And I was like, here, you inspired me to say something about me and my thoughts. No, this is, this is great, though. I mean, what you were saying about the mass, too, it's, it's, yes, I think to your point, it's that are, you have to be able to act. I don't want to say normal. I want to say act appropriately in the environment that you're in, right? But it's, it comes down to that.

hit the nail in the head about the performance, you know, are you, are you performing in every area of your life? And then, and then what happens when you're constantly wearing that mask? What happens to that person underneath? And are, are they going to start to kind of be like, hey, you're, you're forgetting about us. You know, you're lying about this to yourself. And, you know, so it's, it is interesting that you brought up this double edge, you know, in a way you have to wear a mask. Like, you can't go out into society and be naked. Some people might argue with me and say, why not? But, you know, You can't walk out and just be naked at the grocery store or beat up everyone you get angry at, right? But at the same time, you know, wearing a mask and especially when it comes to identities and taking on those roles, you know, what are you sacrificing in return?

And those are really kind of the things that I like to tackle, especially, you know, the therapist, the soon-to-be therapist in me really likes to tackle not only with clients, but friends and family around with me. and, you know, what are you sacrificing in return? And what would happen if you showed up without that mask and you didn't have to perform? What would that look like? And it's so funny because nine times out of ten, when you talk to other people, they typically love the most authentic version of yourself,

the part that you're not performing, the part that you're not, you know, trying to be this expectation of a role or an identity. They love the part that's just, hey, this is Ryan, this is who she is. And she's great without the mask. So I love that you brought that up. That's a great topic.

Absolutely. Yeah. And there's so many complications with it too. Like let's say you're pretty dedicated to wearing a mask. And when you shouldn't perhaps, let's just imagine that's the dividing line that we can distinguish it, which isn't always easy. But are you okay, living that way? I mean, let's say you've convinced a bunch of people to like you by pretending to be someone else. Is that worth your time?

Is that a good way to live? Yeah. I don't think so. Now, I'm all about the yin yang and the counterbalancing too. There was a guy who you reminded me of a story. He decided he was going to practice radical honesty for an extended period of time. I think he might have made it a year. And his report after it was finished is it ruined my life.

And he would never recommend it to anyone else. And it was like whatever I thought, I said it, whatever I felt, I did it. And I mean, there's even, so there's a difference between, oh, I God, what's a right way to phrase it? you know, hiding who we really are and then being a bit too, what is it? There's a, the concept of white lies. I mean, there's a little, or not broaching. Yeah, like not leaving something out. You know what I, you know what I would challenge him though, Benjamin?

And you might have asked him this, but I would ask someone like that, did it, did it ruin your life? Or was your life not really aligned with who you were as a person? Because that, that's the case too. I mean, I, I hear, I, these are my favorite. stories, you know, back to this balancing and the universe kind of comes in and sets things up in a way where, you know, if you've gone too far to the left, they'll pull you right back to the right. And, you know, these people, I've heard stories where people set up these

lives and to your point, everything's a lie. It's a, it's a show, it's a status. And when they realize, like, one of the lies comes crumbling down, like for this guy, that radical honesty, you know, it feels uncomfortable, right? Because everything has to crumble if it was a lie to begin with. So that's, uh, that's an interesting story. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, I think part of what he was saying, his, his examples for it were like, most people are just being polite to grease the wheel. So it's like if someone says, how you doing? And you're kind of having a rough day ago, I am getting by. You know, it's okay. And you don't get into it. And he would say, let me tell you. And he would just kind of, I could The kids these days call it trauma dump, I guess.

He would just be like, I feel shitty. And here's why. And now that other person's like, dude, we were just walking past each other. I didn't need to hear any of that. So I think that's what he meant by. Over explained too. Yeah, he looked like, yeah, it wasn't just, you know, do you feel like coming over? Nah, it'd be like, you know, it's, I don't really, I don't really want to see you today.

And that was the honest thing. I was like, I'm going to go hang out with somebody else. Wow, it's hard to take that, not take that personally. That seems like, it seems like growing up with the Northeast. That's pretty accurate. Yeah. They, um, the overly polite facade or,

or a radical honesty, but which, uh, radical, radical honesty. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah,

because there's a, there's a different regions too. This is a story I heard and I don't know, I don't remember where, uh, probably some comedian told, I steal all my best material. Um,

he said that he grew up, uh, or lived in both the East Coast and the West Coast. And he said on the West Coast, California style Oregon or whatever, there's a facade of, of, of,

for lack of a better word, virtue signal. It's like someone drives by and they see you by the side of the road changing a tire and they'll say, oh, that's so terrible. God, it sucks to have a flat tire that happened to me. I know all of I feel so bad for you. I got to go. Good luck. And they're gone.

And it's a lot of verbal platitudes of like they sound very nice. They don't do anything to help. On the East Coast, his experience was, or I think it was she. It was, she was actually changing a tire. and the guy a guy stopped and he's like Todd Jesus Christ

another woman driver Get out of the way And let me change that for you And he bitched the whole time About women about all this different stuff And he's like There I did it for you Get the hell out of here

And so he's like he wasn't nice at all But he did the job He actually provided some real help And you would imagine maybe the ideal Is a little kindness with a little help At the same time But there's two different ways Of kind of interacting with the world

Is it Are you gonna do something about it even if you're kind of a jerk. And then, you know, I've drawn from that and many other experiences. If you're going to be an asshole, you better at least be a charming asshole that does something useful. Yeah. You know, and I, I've lived on both sides of the coast, and I will tell you, I really appreciated

the northeastern way of life because it's, you know exactly what you're getting. You know, you come to the table and if somebody is in a bad mood or they don't like you, they lay it, they lay it right out. They may help you to your point, right? It's that they may help you, but they're just going to like. you know exactly where you stand. And I always appreciated that because when I went more into the South, you never know. You have no idea.

You could have the nicest conversation with somebody. You exchange the pleasantries, yada, yada, yada. And then two days later, two days later, you have someone like, you know, she was talking crap about you. She said she didn't like that. And you're like, what the heck? I didn't pick up on that at all. Yeah.

A bit excessive. And then that comes back to the masses. Like, what are we doing with our presentation? I mean, what is the purpose of that? I think it's excessive. That's, that's too much. I mean, you don't have to, I mean, at the very least, if you're going to be nice to someone don't shit talk them later, what is that?

But anyway, back to Yulispen, just a, well, actually, you know what? I don't want to run out of time for the dream thing. You want to, you want to shift gears? You want to get into that? I'm looking at the clock. Let's go. Yeah. At first, I thought we had 30 minutes.

I don't know, we got 50. I better move. Because you've got to get out of here on the time limit. So, speaking of time, is that a bug? I just got bit. That's okay. I will live. What time is it? It's 26. Okay. As per my usual process, I'm going to shut up and listen. Our guest dreamer Ryan is going to tell us about her dream, and then we're going to figure it out together.

So I am ready when you are. 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 nocturn. 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 dreamwizard. 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. Excellent. Okay. So I'm going to give you the date and the time because I did write it down.

Maybe it's significant. It happened on January 21st at 1226 a.m. That is this year? this year yes and and this dream has stuck with me for months um so that's why i'm bringing it here that those are perfect so i was walking down a street i was not familiar with it at all i saw a pool with a pool house and i walked into where the gate was around the pool um and i walked into the pole house and there was a big party going on. There were 50, 60 people, lots of people. Some of them I knew. I recognized mostly people from high school, actually. And there were other people I did not recognize. And so when I walked up to the people I did recognize and say, hey, what's going on?

How's everything going? They did not recognize me. They didn't know who I was. They kind of gave me confused looks like who are you and I would say it's me Ryan we went to high school together and just blank now the people I didn't recognize knew who I was and they came up to me and they were calling me Brooke that was my name in the dream and they were like Brooke it's so great to see you so happy to see you they were all very excited I was there and I was trying to explain to them that my name is not Brooke my name is Ryan and I don't know who you are um So during this conversation, I was very confused. And I remember the noise being extremely loud in the poolhouse area.

And then it was like a split second. All the noise in the room stopped. So I could see everything. It was, I could see all the people. I could see their mouths moving. But the audio, it's like someone unplugged it. And at that moment, I looked across the room and there was a little boy there. He was probably between the ages of four and six.

And he walked right over to me. He was very, very bright, completely different color from everyone else in the room. He stood out. And he was very serious. It's almost as if he was an adult and a child's body. That was the feeling I got from him. Like, he wasn't truly a child. And he had said to me, you are very intuitive.

you have a lot of intuition. Why are you not using it yet? And so he asked me this question, and I felt embarrassed when he asked me, and I didn't know how to answer. I almost felt, again, that whole, I was the child, he was the adult in that situation, and I got very kind of shy.

I didn't know what to say. And he maybe waited five seconds for a response, and then he turned around, and he walked out the door. and then the noise came back on and I could hear everyone talking again. And that was the gist of the dream. And I woke up right after. I'm catching up here.

Yeah. Luckily I can read my own chicken scratch. That's not always the case. All right. This is a good one. I mean, they're all good ones. I say that. You know, I say that every time.

I really do. Oh, boy. I love it. Okay. So there's a couple. a couple of different ways to go through this here. What if I'm not really sure about that. One of these days I'm going to write a book about my process when I understand it.

I don't know what it is. Speaking of intuition, right? Very interesting things going on here. So in the very beginning, we consider the setting, of course. You know, it's where a dream takes place often, often makes. So you're walking down an unfamiliar street. So the environment is. I like doing counterfactuals too because you weren't driving in a car.

You weren't dropped off by someone. You didn't descend by a rope from a helicopter. You are walking or moving under your own power. You're in on an unfamiliar street versus a familiar street. This is not necessarily, oh, look, there's my childhood home. This is, but I did want to get a better idea of urban, suburban, rural, what kind of setting? Yeah, suburban. It was like in a neighborhood.

time of day daylight afternoon no afternoon it was like early afternoon two one two o'clock okay in a prime time for getting out and visiting folks

not a lot of folks have parties in the morning some of them go until night but there's very often you know afternoon especially pool parties so there's a rationale for that at least in mirroring

what could be real life but then again the time of day could also matter. Sometimes it doesn't. It's a weird thing about these things. Like 90% of the time it's going to matter. But even 10% of the time, it's like it still matters, but it doesn't. So it's one of those things.

Like everything matters. Everything you see your experience is connected in some way. We don't always get all of it. But so if I get into your head a little bit and we're looking at the, the motion as it unfolds, are you walking down the right side of the street, left side of the street? Oh, yeah. And then which direction was like if you were on the right side of the street, the pool parties to your right? Or did you have to cross the street to get there?

Yeah. So the pool was to my right. And I was walking on the right side of the street. And I turned right to go into the pool. Okay. Again, that may or may not just helping me, helping me see it a little bit better. What kind of a place was it? Was it like the, you said there was a gate.

So it's a gated off thing. Was it an apartment complex? Was it someone's house? It's funny because it looked very similar to a pool you would find in an apartment complex, but it was in a neighborhood. It was almost a standalone pole, pole house, and it was gated. And nobody was in the pool. I feel like I should mention that. There was not one person in the pool.

Sometimes I just kind of blurt out things to consider. It's like, you know, why would, why hold an event, why create a gathering at a place where no one's going to use the thing that's there. And sometimes people do. Like if someone has a pool and they're hosting a party, um, you would have people outside and they're dressed nicely business casual, maybe kind of like,

you know, you put on a nice shirt and a dress or whatever to go to a house party at a friend's house. And no one's swimming because they're just, they didn't come with their swimsuit. But you have people like the back deck is open and people are there around the pool, even if no one's, no one's swimming. So it's not necessarily indicative of anything.

but it is interesting just note that you know no one's using the place for its purpose it's a very interesting very interesting fact um okay so we got that i'm seeing a little bit better and it is relatively packed 50 to 60 people um and why is that interesting so counterfactual again it wasn't one or two it wasn't thousands it wasn't you know carnival cruise you see those things but people are packed around the deck and it's like like cheek and jowl you just can't you get no elbow room. But it's, it's large enough. It's a large pool of people in a way. Very interesting connection there. Um, and they're divided into two, no, any, any, um, strong impression. You don't have to. It doesn't matter. Or may, may not matter. Any strong impression of their

attire. Um, they were kind of business casual, you know, presenting nicely. No one was in flip-lops and shorts. Um, or it didn't stand out. It was, it didn't stand out, but they definitely weren't and suits, I would say it was casual. Okay. Not hoity toady and not dressed down, but kind of middle, middle casual. Mm-hmm. Okay, now down to the spicy stuff.

And I was immediately having thoughts as soon as you said this. You recognized about half the people. I don't know who you are. Yes. The wrong time. And what it was is that about half the people were known from high school

you said. Yes. Are you able to pick out individual people and give them names? You don't have to. As in like you can just say yes or no, you don't have to name them. Or was it like just the impression that I know these people, even if specific individuals didn't stand out. Hey, that's Jim, that's Sally, you know. No, they were specific people. They were and they were actual people you did know and have good recall of. You know their names to this day. It was the actual person's face. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Those people were they, were they, were they, your friends in high school? Were they just people you knew? Were they actually enemies? Were they the Mean Girls Club? How would you? Yeah, there's a, I wouldn't say enemies just not. I was intimidated by them in high school.

That was, that was most of them. And there were a couple that I was friendly with, but I don't speak to anymore. But there was no animosity. Not that there was animosity with anyone. It was just I remember feeling very intimidated by those people, worried about what they thought about me. Yeah. Very, very cool. That's, I, see, I couldn't have planned to come up with that question, but I think that, that is extremely relevant. Because, you know, you walk into, it shifts the vibe of a place. You walk in and you know everybody in the room and they were all your friends. And like, I feel comfortable here. Now you're walking into a place where about half the people were people that you were,

you may have looked back and considered above you or they consider themselves above you. Maybe they didn't treat you very well. Maybe they didn't welcome you into their, so they're very judgmental. So they, this group, this particular group from high. school is going to represent a concept around them and that's very much discomfort judgment um ostracism is not you know maybe it wasn't that didn't go that far but they didn't welcome you in these were not your friends necessarily a few of them you were friendly with but it was mostly just acquaintances at a distance you felt discomfort around um and then the other half the people would just

random anything stand out about them as far as um qualities uh any distinctions between them and the other group. When I ask it that way of like, yeah, you know, that you mentioned it, they looked like this. They look like that. Yeah. They were, they were very bright energy. I, you know, just their energy was very bright, warm, welcoming. They were excited that I was there. They were just very welcoming. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. We're getting somewhere with this. Let me tell you. We're going to, we're going to tie it all together. Um, the people. The people that you knew, they didn't recognize you at all. No.

So they didn't recognize, meaning they gave no indication of recognition. Oh, it's her. Were they unpleasant, unfriendly? Did they, did they single you out again? You got the same vibe from them you did in high school. Like, I'm not, I'm not welcome by them, even if they don't recognize me. It was almost some more just sheer confusion. And I, and for a second, I thought maybe I was crazy.

And I was like, wait, do I know you? Do you not know me? And I, they were so confused that I started to feel confused. Let me try and write that out here. So the feeling was, they didn't know who you were and then therefore why you would be there. And then you're looking at them as they're looking at you, showing what they're thinking and feeling. And you're like, wait a minute, do I know them at all? I mean, am I wrong about it?

I'm crazy. I was questioning myself. Yeah. I'm just writing down two big words changed unrecognizable those that's gonna I think that's working on something there um did you approach them or did someone break off from the group to approach you how did you end up in conversation interaction with them which group oh either one uh how did it unfold which which happened first I've got notes here but they're like I've got quotes and I'm like I don't I don't remember who she said said that um I it's me right I'm

So I approached the people who didn't recognize me first and then the people who recognized me that I did not recall approached me after. Do you remember having any particular feeling around the idea of approaching the people you knew who didn't recognize you? What was what motivated approaching them? Like if you weren't acquaintances with them, you didn't know them, they didn't like you, you didn't hang out. what made you want to go to them and announce yourself i i felt very comfortable doing it um and it was almost as if like why are you here i haven't seen you in 15 you know x years whatever um and so it was more of like this i can't believe you're here that was your your expression to them i i am surprised to see you okay yeah i want to put a bug in your ear about the idea

of the comfort of repeating dysfunctional patterns, like bad relationships, you don't have a good relationship with your father, and you pick an abusive man. Not that necessarily, but when you mention the idea of, you know, I approached them because I knew them.

They were familiar to me, but then they told me they weren't. They didn't know who I was. I was surprised to see them in this environment. Why are you here? And then also the mystery of it, why don't you recognize me? There's that going on.

Also putting that together. with the other words. See, I get, I get free associations, too. That's, that's how I do this thing. I'm like, where does this come from? God, angels, the muses, my own bizarre aspy brain. Who the hell knows? But you pair that together with change, unrecognizable. I think we're getting something. I think we're getting a narrative coming together on this. So you even, you approach them and identify yourself. You're like, okay, so obviously they don't recognize me. I'm going to announce who I am because I feel comfortable doing so. And you get blank stares and return you're like never heard of you don't know who you are why uh yeah yeah no recognition um

and that's where it comes back to that idea of you know change so much as to be unrecognizable perhaps um what are we doing here i got to make sure what page i'm on um how did the interaction end with them like were you saved by one of the other people coming over to interrupt okay so they jumped in as soon as that interaction had concluded now your your your dream vision inserted this other group that had this bright welcoming excited energy and they how did that um so they came to you and um introduced you they said hi brook it was it was like that um yes uh well they didn't say brook right off the bad it was they were like um oh you're here i'm so happy you're here it's great to see you

And that's when I was like, I don't know who you are. And I think that's when they said, oh, I know who you are. You're Brooke. And I said, no, I'm Ryan. And they're like, no, you're Brooke. And it was that feeling of crazy again. Like, am I crazy? Oh, yeah.

Right. So slow. And my mouth is so dry. We don't paper over. awkward silence on this show. We just let it be. I don't even go back and look for these things to edit them out. Okay, who cares.

It's thinking space. I love it. It really is. I mean, sometimes, you know, if it takes you five, 10 seconds,

now dead air. I mean, for just an audio podcast, people go, is this, is this thing still on? Did, you know?

Did it break? Yeah, yeah. Is the video lagging? Did it? The program crash or whatever, but sometimes you got to give it a minute. And like,

if you're not going to give yourself the space to think something through and go, what am I trying to, how do I feel about that? what do I want now the problem with me is this is completely off topic but we're going to bring it back um sometimes people you know they'll ask a question it's like the only answer i can give is i don't know and they're like well can you think about it i'm like yeah i'll get back to you next tuesday i mean for real like i'll need some time it's not going to happen in five or ten seconds uh so when that happens on you know i try and just move on like well okay we're not going to figure that whatever we'll keep keep the ball keep the ball rolling but we're doing good here so they recognize you as someone who you are not in your own mind it's like I'm not the person you think I am. And that, I'm going to write down that phrasing. Even though you didn't say that I'm putting it in quotes here, I'll put it, mark it off. That is more of the feeling you gave back to them.

No, I'm Ryan. I'm not this Brooke person. And that's interesting too. I mean, why that name? Not Sally, not Genevieve, not, I can go through the whole alphabet, not large marge. I mean, whatever. It's Brooke. How do we even,

phrasing thinking back on it or being put on the spot to think about it now, I suppose. Did you know a brook? Have you looked up to a brook? I know a brook. Not very well. I just know one. But I've only known one, one brook my whole life. And it is recent.

But that name doesn't necessarily. Now, I will say, I love female names that start with a B. That's always just, I love female names with B. I've always been fond of Benjamin. It's a nice name. And believe it or not, I actually knew a girl named Benisha once. I'm like, wow, we were Ben and Ben for like a minute, but that didn't work out. Anyway, that's all I'll say about that.

I'm going to cut you off. So this is a recent acquaintance that you've met prior to the dream? Maybe in the last two years. Okay. But don't know very well. I'm not a close friend. Yeah, just, yeah. Someone, you might say you admire or at least respect for their talent, for their

accomplishments? Yeah, respect. But don't, you know, think she's great, think she's nice, but don't have any strong feelings toward her either way. Gotcha. So on a personal level, though, but I was thinking more of like on a professional level, like she accomplished. Has she done some things that you look at and go, I.

She's younger than me. She's much younger than me. Okay. Mm-hmm. without we're giving her real name and we're talking about her too much i think she's relevant to the dream we can cut this out if we need to if you if you think it's saying too much about her but there's a reason she her name is being used and it may not relate to that specific person it could be but but that is the person that came to mind when i asked about it but then again i didn't ask about

literary figures i didn't ask about historical persons you know was a great grandmother named brook and she was a Annie Oakley type back in that. I mean, there's a million possibilities. It might not be this one person. Then again, it might be. But that's why I'm digging a little bit to say, you know, is there some reason that you would look to her in some manner of comparison to yourself? And if it's not that girl, then maybe it's someone else.

No, I wouldn't compare. Yeah. And I wouldn't compare. And then other than that, I've never known a Brooke my entire life. See, that strikes me right there. idea of like this is not a family name this is not i didn't have a best friend by that name you can't call to bind any any any any the only like the only um thing that kind of comes to mind you i have three kids and we my husband and i would pick out names and brook was absolutely one that it never got

very far in the consideration but it was a name i always really liked so was the name brin um you know my son has a bee name so at like that beat the whole bee name thing is I just I don't know what it is about being names. I love them. Fair enough. And it could be I could be see I rattle what I call is I rattle a lot of doorknobs. They don't come open. Fine. I move on to the next one. It could also be that yeah, you've got in your mind this idea of that's one of your favorite names, period. So if you were someone, if you were someone else, you might be Brooke. And what would Brooke be? Brooke might know a completely different set of people. So there's a lot of different ways to go

with this with this kind of thing um and then in the that's when you became aware as soon as you dreams uh in my estimation in my in my own theoretical approach the previous sequence triggers the next like a chain of thought stream of consciousness one thought to the next to the next so now that you've instantiated the idea or the imaginary idea of i have been approached i have been misidentified i have been identified, I have attempted to make a correction, suddenly following that experience, that little nugget. The next experience that happens is you become aware, at least, of the volume around you because it suddenly becomes dead silent. And that's when the small boy approaches you. Where does he come from? Does he come out of one of the two groups? Does he come? Was he walk across the

water. I mean, you'd probably mention that if he did, but. No, he, uh, he was in the corner diagonal from me, like in my eye gaze. So I was talking to someone explaining I was not this person. And then the audio cut and my gaze turned diagonal of me. Um, and he was in a corner. Yeah. So like a corner of the room. Um, like if I was, if I was facing, uh,

I'm not describing this right. If I was facing a corner of the room, he was coming from the corner, walking towards me. Gotcha. In my head, I'm imagining the people from high school on the left and from your vantage point and the people who thought they knew you on the right.

Is that? They were actually more in a line in front of me. So I was facing, let's say I was facing north. And they were, it was kind of on each side. and then I turned more toward the east and that was that corner that he started walking from. And was he coming from the side of the room with the people who thought they knew you

but they were called you the wrong name? A different group of random people that I didn't recognize. Okay, so there were more people there. So this is actually a third group of people that were not the ones that recognized you, but even some other interesting, unknown. Just the unknown, yeah, unknowns. group, yeah.

That's interesting too because you've got, you got people who know you but don't recognize you. You've got people who think they know you, but you're not who they think you are. And then you've got another group of people. You don't know them. They don't know you. And out of that group comes this almost a magical creature in a way.

I mean, he's, you know, because the experience you're having with him is, it's his approach or the sudden silence is like, up is like the inverse of a trumpet blowing to announce his presence. It's like by by the contrast. And he comes up to you and what did you say about him? So between four and six. So, you know, kindergarten age or whatnot, first grade ish.

You know, very small. Certainly not. Let's see. And not only is there a sudden contrast of dead silence, like a magical silence in a way, but he also has this brightness about it. I mean, you imagine it's almost like a glow or just, um, um, what am I trying to say? Where, where sometimes muted, faded tones in the background and then something that's a vibrant color suddenly appears. Is it more like that?

He was, no, he was bright. There was a bright, just almost like bubble around. I don't want to say bubble, but it was just this bright light around him. He also had very bright blonde hair, almost white. And his eyes were bright blue. when you think about that visual presentation does anything come to mind that's a hugely broad and vague question but you know my son yeah i was gonna say you remind you of your son someone else's child a kid you saw in a movie um and i didn't think that until i woke up but he had the same features he wasn't my son he didn't look like him but he had my son has the same hair the same blue eyes and he's about the same age And I do remember waking up like, oh, could that have been him? But I didn't think that in the dream.

Definitely. And then in what we, there's always, I think Freud came up. A lot of people shit on Freud for, for, honestly, things he got wrong. And fair enough. But he invented a lot of stuff. And one of them is the, beware the secondary elaboration. We wake up and start making up things after the fact and add things and add interpretations that weren't there.

It can be difficult and fair enough. but I think it's important that we distinguish with this person. So in the dream, he was not immediately like, oh, this is my son. So it isn't actually about your son in real life, but features of him or something he represents and not in a, again, counterfactual. He didn't come, you know, the room didn't suddenly get louder, darker. He didn't come aggressively. He's representing something positive, aspirational.

larger than life in a way magical. So there's something about your perhaps life experience, having had him, interacting with him, you know, all of these features, things you built, you've built positive associations around.

And it's interesting. So sometimes we'll put like out of the mouths of babes, emperor's new clothes type type of style. Kids say the darndest things. They are in their innocence are tremendously wise about some things. They'll just ask questions, there are not yet filters built up about what's appropriate to say, what is obvious based on common wisdom, which is actually received instruction from, well, here's how you understand these things.

So there's an unlimited potential. There's a bright future. There's all kinds of these metaphors that come in with. Why is he glowing? What does that actually mean? Why is, I think I have an idea about the dead silence. It's like there's a contrast. There's an announcement.

But there's also this idea of you can hear a pin drop. It is, no. everything around you, all the noise, the chatter of other people having their own little lives, talking about things that have nothing to do with you, not talking about you, not interacting with you at all. All that fades away. It just drops completely. It's like, forget all that. Listen, pay attention to this.

This is important. So there's, there's something going on there. Not only that, it's the contrast in the silence. It's the brightness. It's a, you know, shiny squirrel. It's shiny objects that get our attention in a way. Like, here, listen to this. This is important.

Yeah, that's a good point. I definitely was attention grabbing in all on all those ways that you just mentioned. Yeah, I think, and I think for sure it was meant to be. And the first thing he says to you, I mean, he approaches with the intent to deliver a message. So he's a messenger. There's very much, he's got something going on. And what he's telling you is, if I wrote down the quote correctly, he says you are intuitive. why are you not using it yet?

So that is, what is this? You felt embarrassed. You didn't know how to answer. You suddenly felt additionally shy, even more so than when you recognize there were people there that knew you from high school, even before you knew they didn't know you. We get that gut feeling of like,

I'm approaching a situation where I'm likely to be, it's likely to be difficult. I'm likely to feel. poorly in this interaction. I mean, it's not going to be pleasant. But even that there was an additional level that, that,

of, of, it like kicked it up a notch of like, it wasn't, it was more than, more than awkward social interaction. It was something deeper, something more meaningful.

Yeah. Something to really be personally embarrassed about, even if nobody else knew. Something like that. Yes. Okay. And then you had no answer. And that might be extremely relevant

as well. Um, he waited a little bit. And you got the impression he was waiting for an answer. He's like, you got anything to say? You can answer me or not? And then he turned and walked away. Mm-hmm. And then the sound came back and then you woke up. Yes. Okay. So I love this so much. This is, this is all good stuff. You are, um, in my estimation, what do we got going on here? And I'd like to, you know, I'm just asking questions. And then I start trying to spin a narrative too. So, um, you, and this is common to most people and and this is uh it's common to the human conditions that you are a much different person than you are today than you were in high school and you now you have a circle of friends that know you and like you and um you have husband you have kids you've built this whole life

is and that's why i said you know changed into someone unrecognizable you are no longer the girl they knew in high school so when they when you approach them and they don't recognize you you're not the same person you're not the person they knew you they're not being tricked, they're not being dishonest, they are, they are highlighting the fact that you have changed personally, that you are now someone else. And this other group of people, they look at you and you don't know them. They think they know you, but they call you by the wrong name. And that's maybe most important. They call you a name you would find pleasant, maybe a person you would want to be. Like, if I chose any other name, maybe I'd be Brooke. Like, I've always liked that name. That's a nice

name. So they, um, even so they have this, uh, bright positive energy. They, they represent high school maybe represents all the things you want to get away from. I didn't like those interactions. I didn't like those people. I didn't like how they lived. They didn't know what they thought, how they behaved towards each other. It was catty BS and nonsense. And, but here's a group of bright, vibrant, positive, that's what I want to move towards. And they see you and they think they know you. So there's some presentation about yourself or the, or the way you conceptualize yourself. that is, I am now more like these people such that they would recognize me as one of their own, but they don't know me because I don't know them.

So they're calling me by the wrong name. They've got the wrong idea. They think I'm someone I'm not. And we were talking about masks earlier a little bit too. And you may present as someone they know because you're adopting mannerisms, attitudes, behaviors. But they don't know the real you. They don't know your name actually isn't Brooke. Like I'm somebody else.

I'm not what I appear to be. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. but it's that realization of other people that I don't know, that are still people I respect or would want to emulate or get or become closer to how they live or the way they think about the world. It's that realization that I'm not actually who they think I am that causes this, this transition of, okay, stop, you've had a moment. And now this avatar, this, this angelic creature, this, you know, a messenger that has taken on a,

a form similar to your son. Is he your youngest child? Yes. I don't know. Why did I ask that? I have no idea. There's something about that. And you said you have three.

So he's the third of three. Yeah. I'm not in numerology or anything. I don't know that that means anything. Number three isn't anything. But, you know, the idea that you've been through multiple children in terms of, there's always the first one. And you're like the hyper protective, I don't want to screw this up type of child.

You learn some mistakes by the second one. The third one is almost. starts teaching you things. And there's a weird thing with the baby in the family. And you baby them less, but then you baby them more because you're no longer as overprotective as you were with the first one.

And you almost get to know them better because there's less expectations. There's a lot of different stuff going on with that right there. But anyway, you've decided to put that message in the mouth of this particular form of messenger. And it could just be, you know, for whatever reason, you love all your kids equally, but you look at him and you just melt a little bit more.

And you can't help it. So something that's a, You know, it wasn't, like I said, it wasn't a scary shape. And it wasn't an adult masculine shape or feminine shape that would be up here. It was definitely something else. And, and, but you did feel that switch in the relationship of like, this creature is not even what it appears to be. This creature looks like a child, but it's not. It is definitely not.

There's something else going on here. So there's also a bit of the idea of approaching in a form that is the most appealing to make you the most receptive to the message. And then challenges you. you have a skill. You have an ability, you have a talent. You have something natural inside of you that you're not expressing. Why not? And you have no answer.

And that may have been the entire purpose of this dream was to get to that moment of asking yourself, what do we do sometimes? We're not always honest with ourselves because things can be difficult to confront, especially when we're being self-critical. And we want to be careful about that so that we're not beating ourselves up and we're not letting ourselves off the hook in a way. that's ultimately, that's why I wrote down as well, dysfunctional, dysfunctional patterns too,

is the idea of, if you allow yourself, you'll fall back into comfortable negative behaviors. Because I'm familiar with this. I'll just marry another guy like my father who beat me. And that's what I know. And other things are scary, new ways of doing things. I don't know who I am or how to be in the world outside of this dynamic. So we've got that broad overarching story of you've got this,

And why a pool party? I don't know. You know, like, it's, you know, there's something about this setting. Yeah, yeah, that's a, you know, it wasn't, again, counterfactuals. It wasn't a high class ball at a hoity toady place with millionaires. It wasn't down by the river. It could have been. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, so that there's, there's

one layer of that where you're most comfortable with that. It's not urban. It's not rural. This is my, this is my speed, so to speak. These are the people that I would know. And from that pool, there's broadly two types of people, the people that I used to know who who don't recognize. recognize me anymore and the people who think they know me but I'm not but they don't really know me

and you've got this messenger so I think all of that needed to happen to get you to look back on where you've come from to where you are now and that specific message of leaning into your intuition and then this is where we get to the idea of the time and the place and I would usually ask that afterwards like okay when did this happen how recently so it was January turn and end of turn of the year. You'd woken up from a dream at midnight. I don't know if time of day matters as much. A lot of dream interpreters in the past have said, yes, time of day is absolutely relevant. Dreams are more likely to come true. If you have them in the morning, I don't know. But whenever you wake up from it and remember, it is perfectly fine. Were you going through

anything at that time where you were questioning where you came from, where you're going and whether you're making the best use of your talents? I think in January, I had to say, I was going to start the podcast by that point. And I was moving in that direction. I only launched it in early April. So I definitely was, I must have been moving or at least working on it by then. Yeah. Yeah.

Is there something about, so your son was about that age a year ago or at the beginning of this last year? He was around three and six. He was like three. Yeah. Okay, interesting. And I was wondering if there's any experience you had with him that opened your eyes to it or you see, I guess what do? We look at children and we see potential.

It makes us smile. It's like, you know, it's like, and then that reminds us, hey, I might be a little bit older, but I've still got potential. I'm not dead yet. What am I doing with my life? What am I, you know, if you had any of those revelations? Yeah. Well, he doesn't really talk. He's a little late talking.

And when he does talk, no one, well, at least me, I have a very hard time understanding him. And he gets very frustrated. And, but he is, you can just see the seriousness and how he thinks. You know, he's constantly thinking. And I'm, you know, I, I'm sure I've thought this for the last year that I'm like, man, that kid's super smart and he must be so frustrated. He can't speak. Oh, yeah.

Um, yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. Well, there's a, that, that kind of makes the silence make more, make more sense in some ways. Because in your mind, you're like, I really do want to. listen and how do I listen best to cut out distractions. If he's going to speak, I need a quiet space like physically, but then that gets metaphoricalized in the dream of like, how do I, how do I

listen better? Well, first give me absolute silence so I can hear his words and really take it in and process it. And then in the dream you're even, you know, so in real life you're having this experience with him like he's probably thinking a lot more than he's able to communicate or that you're able to understand. And into his mouth in the dream or the creature that looks like him, the transformation agent, something like that, is this idea of trusting your intuition more. Like you have the ability. Now, what does this actually mean? Is this prophetic style where it's like you need to listen to it and say, I need to assume I understand him more than I do because I'm just not allowing myself to do that?

Or is it more like I need to lean in to the intuitive understanding? because if I do, I will understand better. It doesn't have to be, what am I trying to say? It doesn't have to be, you don't have to, dreams don't always deliver an answer. Sometimes they deliver the question. And that could be the most important thing. It's like, what do I do about this particular situation? And what do they say?

You know, like in recovery, the first step is admitting you have a problem. So sometimes dreams just say, okay, by the end of the dream, now you understand the problem. Now you can start looking for an answer. Some people want the dream to give them the answer to the problem, but they haven't even discovered what the problem is. They haven't fully conceptualized it in their mind there too. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And the idea of, you know, starting this podcast, too, it's like you would have been perhaps at that time looking back and going, comparing who you are today to who used to be.

It's a big theme in the dream. But then also you connect with a lot of random strangers that you've never met on the internet. They listen to it's a one way relationship. They listen to you. And they're actually, as you say, 80% that fits with that too. It's like they're not seeing 80% of the real me. They're only getting 20%. Even though I'm trying to give as much as I can.

They don't live with you. They don't see you in the first day in the morning before you've had coffee. They don't know the last time you cried or had a had an incident of making a terrible mistake. All these things. We put the best parts version of ourselves online, you know, because we don't want to embarrass ourselves necessarily. I mean, some people do, but that's a whole. That's a whole fetish. That's something else.

But yeah. So and then you've got that, you know, children are very often iconic of unlimited potential or untapped potential that has yet to be realized. And they can very often in dreams come as, come as messengers to say, well, what is your untapped potential? What are you not leaning into? And you named it yourself. You put that into the into the mouths of babes, so to speak.

You've got intuition. Why aren't you using it? So since then, did you find yourself trusting your gut more or leaning into intuition doing things you don't understand because it felt like the right thing to do even if you couldn't explain it? Or are you more like that is a uncomfortable place for me. Even if I have an intuition, I must explain it before I act. There's two different ways. Are you more like that? Well, it's funny because I would say I typically am the person.

I need to explain it scientifically first and then I'll trust it. I've been in the last year, I would say I'm on this journey of like, let's lean into the gut a little bit more. And, you know, I don't know the answer. Just follow it. So it's been that you got both sides of it. Very cool. Yeah. How do you feel about the narrative?

We kind of spun together out of this dream. Does that make sense? Does it feel right? Yes. I, I absolutely. Everything rings true for me. And what I think is even more wild is the conversation, you know, just when we started this and how well it just themed up to this dream. I mean, I did not plan that at all.

So I just think it's interesting about the masks and 80% and how your dream interpretation really was spot on and accurate. And it definitely has, it speaks to just the journey I'm on right now in my own life. So, yeah, it was great. That is awesome. And now I feel horribly uncomfortable. I do not deal well with praise. So to have someone say, wow, that was really good. I'm like, now I'm, don't look at me.

Just don't applaud. Just throw money. You know, that kind of thing. I'm like, that's great. That was great. And I never know where to go with that. I was like, well, I guess you're welcome. You're like, yeah, I do this all the time.

Like, duh. It amazes me. I woke up today. Every day before these shows, I wake up and I go, do I have it today? Whatever it is, is it going to come to me? and most of the time it does I've had a few notable failures but the more I do it

the more easily these things come and I just I just rambled until something makes sense so you feel that zing between your head and your gut you go oh that's what it was wow and that's just to have it to have it so I mean where do we go with that and we got to get you out of here um I think you're already doing it I think you got the message of the dream

ironically you got the intuitive understanding and you acted on it before we got this explanation months after you get the explanation of what you're doing. Maybe that's one thing to learn from your son, and maybe that's a better way, I don't give advice, but to interact with him is focus less on understanding and more on going with your gut in terms of what he's trying to say. A little bit more.

It's like if you kind of intuitively get it, you can say, I don't understand, let's do it. I don't need to explain it. We're just going to see where it goes. Maybe that'll connect with him a little bit more and he'll be able to go, thank God, I don't have to try and explain it in a way she understands. Let's just go.

let's just yeah that that's a great and that's also really great insight and then you're both frustrated you know yeah yeah and i could be making it worse that's as close to advice as i ever get no that's a good one that's a good one so i appreciate it thank you very much okay we are tight on time i'm gonna wrap this up in less than three minutes uh uh if you feel uh yes satisfied i i appreciate it and i'm always happy to do it nothing makes me feel more embarrassed and more dissatisfied than giving i'm actually almost for clint a little bit giving something of myself that is useful to another person that really makes me feel like I've accomplished something. And I'm going to, I'm going to stop right there before the waterworks actually start.

I've never cried on stream. You got me pretty close. Don't do that to me. We'll talk about that. All the time. I make everyone cry. Don't you're good at it. We'll, we'll talk about that next time.

So, okay, let's do this. This has been our friend Ryan Olexson from Austin, Texas, host of the beyond 80% podcast and ongoing discussion that dives into critical thinking, self growth and societal narratives. You can find her, of course, at beyond 80.com. That's beyond 80%. Dot com. Link in the description, of course. For my part, would you kindly like, share, and subscribe?

Tell your friends, jump into the chat right now. That's what I say on my video game streams. Wow, I'm completely... Tell your friends, I always need more volunteer dreamers. I do video game streams Monday through Friday, most days Monday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific. Getting for clamped. Now I can't stop thinking about it.

It's okay. I'm moving on. snap beat pattern thank you very much the next thing is the book this book by this book at uh benjamin the dream wizard dot com where there is of course more you can also get um downloadable mp3s of this very podcast you may even be listening to this episode on um apple music Spotify i heart radio i think i posted all over the place i don't even know what my numbers are on those uh so let's hope someone someone's out there listening and if you'd head on over to benjamin the dream wizard dot locals dot com attached to my rumble account free to join. That is more than enough out of me. Ryan, thank you for being here. I have enjoyed

talking to you. I appreciate it. I really appreciate you interpreting my dream. That was awesome. You are amazing. Oh, thank you very much. Don't do that. And we'll talk again next week, you and I. And we're going to be, we're going to talk about this experience. So, okay, I got to get her out of here. All of you people out there, thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.