Dreamscapes Podcasts - Dreamscapes Episode 213: Married to the Job

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Sophia Demas ~ https://sophiademas.com/

Until then, it can be anything. And we get this whole quantum thing of like, well, is it there or is it not? Yes, Schrodinger's cat style, you know, it isn't a thing until it becomes a thing. What is it before then? It's something before it becomes a thing. And also the entanglement theory says that if two particles meet and then they find themselves on the opposite end of the universe, one affects the other. simultaneously no speed of light or it's simultaneously yeah and that's what happens with us humans so

yeah i think for humans that the idea of time and space that we experience is and not an illusion exactly but it is a matter of perception a matter of perspective it's the it's all that we can see but if we could see everything we would see it's all things happening everywhere all at once but we move through it in a way that we perceive as time and space. Greetings, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Dreamscapes. Today, our guest is Sophia Dimas from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has worn many hats in her life. She's been an architect, a fashion designer, a psychologist, and now an author of several books,

not least of which being the divine language of coincidence. We're going to talk more about that in just a moment. You can find her at SophiaDemus.com. Link is in the description below. For my part, would you kindly like, share, and subscribe? Always need more volunteer dreamers. I do video game streams Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific. Most nights of the week, sometimes I take a day off.

This episode brought to you by my most recent book. It is ABC Book 18, O'Neurochronologia. Prima Relequorum, the first of what remains. It's Neurochronology of Volume 4, Primo Relicoracorum. I'm getting tongue-tied and brain dead today. I need more coffee, probably. Of course, it is an anthology work collecting three, two discrete books and a very lengthy article from the 1800s,

looking at the Muslim, specifically Muslim interpretation of dreams and how they do, that's fascinating stuff. So if you want to get three books and one, basically, You're going to want to get my anthology works. Of course, you can find all this and more at Benjamin the Dream Wizard.com, including downloadable MP3s of this very podcast. And if you'd head on over to Benjamin the Dreamwizard. Dot locals.com, building a community there, free to join, attached to my Rumble

account, one of the best ways to reach out to me if you have a dream to share. And that's enough fumbling out of me. Sophia, thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. Thank you for inviting me. We can kind of probably pick up where we left off a little bit. We were talking about, well, we could start anywhere you. want to. We can talk about your books, but before we were talking about quantum entanglement and the studying

of synchronicity. And I mean, that relates very specifically to your book. So maybe that is a good place to start. Yes. I just, I started experiencing these miracles when I was 19 years old. And the first one, Actually, it had to do with a man and a dream. And the outcome just completely threw me for a loop. I mean, it was just by miracle, I mean, getting exactly what you need at exactly the right time. And it wasn't, it wasn't lost on me. I mean, I thought, how can, in a very short period of time, these two issues, existential issues that I felt were unsolvable, solved, and I transformed into a different person? So that was the beginning.

I began paying attention to what was going on, basically. Absolutely. I mean, we were talking about synchronicity. and that brings us to Jung, who coined the term, and he talks about the collective unconscious. And both he and Freud were very convinced that dreams were a communication from the subconscious. So that's part of where I get my theories as well, is that, you know, what is the subconscious? Everything we've ever experienced is kind of hard-coded in the brain, like from early childhood.

And not always accessible as a memory, but every sensation and experience and emotion, it all shapes the way our brain is literally structured. It forms itself around these experiences in a lot of ways. So what I conceive of the subconscious is all that information we cannot physically process consciously. But it's there and it's available. And I don't know if you have a different concept of it or if that matches with your understanding. I'm going to take it one step further. Okay.

So there's things from our subconscious that the, dreams bring forth. But from my experiences, through our inner voice, we are, we are communicated with by the universe, this universe, this divine intelligence, I believe, without a doubt from my own experiences, knows what's better for us better than we do, and wants us to be happy and find our true purpose. So the way this intelligence communicates with us, I mean, you can use the word God, whatever, is by communicating via dreams or by putting coincidences in front of our path. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Okay. So 18 years ago, I had a medium tell me that I was going to write a book. And that was the last thing I wanted to do. I couldn't even conceptualize what this

book would be about. And, you know, why would sequester myself? Because I felt I was a people person why would do this well um it happened that way and um so what so what i wanted what happened was um because every time i would tell one of my miracles to a friend um the the reply was always the same these these things only happened to you and i'm like no i mean i'm not a special person. And then in 2011, I was reconnecting with a childhood friend, and I told her my latest miracle. And she says, oh, gee, these things only happen to you. And something clicked. And I went, wait a second. You know, I mean, everyone has a, you know, like a dream story or a coincidence or a miracle or a sign from a deceased, loved one.

But I had had so many events that I thought, wait a second, there's something to this. I mean, this is really remarkable. So what I did is I listed all my miracles as chronologically as I could. And then I realized that preceding each miracle was a coincidence. And then when the key of how this worked hit me, that in every instance of the coincidence, I took action on that coincidence. And by taking action, I co-created this miracle with this divine intelligence or with God. So it was a joint thing. And that's when I decided, wait, I have to share this.

And that's how the first book came about. Yeah, that's, and we were talking a little bit beforehand as well, of the idea that I've had similar experiences. And I don't think of myself as really special either. But, but the special part of it, I suppose, is becoming aware, giving, you know, having it come to attention somehow. But then, but actively focusing attention on is looking for opportunity, for synchronicities, feeling them when they hit and trying and letting it linger and saying,

what, what is this? What am I supposed to do with this? And I love what you were saying, too, about the idea of, um, a lot of people get hung up on the ideas of God has a plan and, and what does that mean for free will and all this different kind of stuff or the idea that, you know, that our life is guided in a certain way. I think people do and don't like that idea. They maybe would love some guidance sometimes, but also they don't want to give up control. So, but I don't, what I think of it as is, you can call it the universe or God as, as, as you were saying, opportunities are presented. And they don't appear to be random. Now, some people are going to say, well, they look random to me.

Okay, fine, maybe they are. But it's still an opportunity. You can take it or you can leave it or you can be unaware of it. And those are, those are your three options. You either doesn't, you don't know what happened or you make a decision one way or the other. sometimes you act okay a fourth option you accidentally fall into it and make make a choice for good or real maybe i need to draw a little johari window for that or something and try and figure that out i like making diagrams but um definitely being aware of an opportunity is better because you may not

want to take it or you might uh depending on what it is there's a lot of opportunities to do bad things that are you would maybe choose not to do but there's probably a feeling for the for for good things as well i'll stop there okay okay so this being guided is you're not, you're given free will. So this guidance is kind of like a road map. You're given a roadmap. So you can either align or take another turn. It's up to you because you have free will.

But I have sort of defined a spiritual journey in three parts, which kind of touches on what you're saying. So I think most people are in level one, where I call it you live life from the perspective of wishful thinking. So you wish something, here comes the dream. Like you're, oh, wow, you know, or here comes the coincidence, and you're like, wow, that's such a coincidence.

Do not take action and continue. wishing. Continue wishing. Another coincidence. Wow. No action. Continue wishing. The second level I call living from the perspective of hope. So now you're getting it, right? I mean, oh, it's a, wow, that's really an amazing coincidence. I'm taking action on this and hopefully I will get what I want. The third level, which I'm not on all the time, but I've been there, is from the perspective of faith. Once you get to that level, you don't worry about anything.

You know, it's like if you just know that what is best for you will come about, communicated to you. And that is when you don't even think about taking action, you just do. And at that point, even an obstacle. I can't tell you how many times I've said, oh, God, why are you doing this to me? And either two days later or two years down the line, I have thanked God for that obstacle. And one that I write about that had to do with our honeymoon, that literally the obstacles saved us from certain death.

So, you know, it's, that's how I view sort of a spiritual journey. Yeah, yeah. So I'm trying to describe my perspective. So what do I do with the dream thing is, uh, I, I see the totality of it. And, uh, there's a, um, the hard psychological side of we're going to relate this to your personal experiences and emotions and there's all that. And then there's the purely supernatural side-ish that, you know, I lovelingly called the spooky woo. And that I accept exists, but I don't understand it well.

And I'm so the example, like is if someone came to me and said, Ben, is this a dream about my psychology or is this a prophetic dream? I couldn't tell you the difference. I can analyze it psychologically. But if you feel it's prophetic and you want to investigate that more or you have a deep belief or it just feels right to you, go with it. I mean, I can't tell you yes or no on that one. So I try and stay in my lane on that side. But that being said, I do consider myself a mystic in a sense, a skeptical mystic in that there is more under heaven and earth, Horatio, all that good stuff than are dreamt up

by my philosophy, certainly. But I don't know what to do with it or how to access it. So when you were describing that, it's like I think I also have fluctuated back and forth between that, like level two and level three type of thing where there's been times that I just I can comfortably, and without reservation, be a leaf on the wind and just say, I'm going, this is where I'm going. This I'm going to let the current carry me. And there's been other times, too, where, and I was describing this before as well,

the idea that there's been not just obstacles, but kind of disasters in my life, and my fault. Like, I did something impulsive, and it turned out for the best. Like, for some reason to, and now, there's two ways to look at that as well. this is where I was going with it. The idea that maybe subconsciously, psychologically, I knew I needed to sabotage something because it was not right for me. But I didn't have the conscious gumption or awareness to say, look, I'm going to do this intentionally. I'm going to sever this relationship or employment or whatever. And so it gets done for me by me surreptitiously. And the other side of it is maybe it's, you know, I get the impulse to do that because

the universe, God is saying, this is not right for you. And maybe they're ultimately the same thing in some ways. And that's where it's hard to tease out the free will and divine plan type of stuff sometimes. But I'll just stop there. The idea of, you know, a divine comedy of errors in a way that's sometimes intentional that then shifts you. Like, if I hadn't done certain things in the past, I literally would not be where I am

right now and I like where I'm at right now. Yes. It seems good and meaningful, that kind of thing. Yeah. So, well, I'm not a skeptic, okay? I mean, because there's no way that these things could have happened to me. So, so basically, you know, a lot of materialistic scientists believe that the brain is constructed so that it produces consciousness. I am not there at all.

Okay, for me, consciousness is all around us, and our brains are. constructed so that we click in to consciousness. And that's how we communicate with the divine. Gotcha. Speak a little. Oh, and, and, you know, you were saying that, you know, you consider yourself a skeptical mystic. But if you have any interest in mysticism,

if you go on my website and go onto my, my, my, what, I just, I just blanked out. It's the page with my mentors. Okay, so I have, there's eight people that I have, I had personal communications with that are my mentors. And if you read one blur on that page, read about Abbas Ameliani, okay? You can't miss her.

She's a nun. I can't miss her. Anyway, it is a firsthand account of biolocation. It's really remarkable. I would be not at all surprised to find that that specific person is mentioned in the footnote of one of the books I've published because I've been editing and republishing historical dream literature and I'm up to 18 books now. And they talk about all kinds of stuff. And when I say skeptical mystic, I don't mean skeptical that mysticism is a thing. that it's real but the idea of um like socrates style i know what i don't know so i i hesitate to say

here's all the things i know for sure on that side of things but i believe in it and and i want to understand it better so i'm open to all these conversations and ideas and i'm not dismissing anything out of hand but i but i also want to be careful with what i say i actually know and what i can what i think i can prove we were talking about that before as well the idea of um you get invited to a conference or to contribute to a publication that was scientists, hard scientists, studying coincidence. Did we talk about that on this yet, or was that only before we mentioned it? No.

Like since I did the introduction. This is the first time you're mentioning that scientists have gotten interested in both of my books. And I was invited to help plan and participate in the synchronicity. summit. And I was as the only non-academic non-scientist. So what I'm seeing is the reason I've been invited to that conference, Synchronicity Summit, and the International Association for the Study of Dreams as a non-scientist is because they, as much as I need scientists to back up my stories. They need anecdotal stories to back up their research. Definitely. And I think we were

mentioning before it again. That's why I have a hard time tracking what we've already talked about like before before and then want to bring it up again. I could have taken more notes. But we were talking about the idea that I don't think science and spirituality are actually separate things. I think it's all I've conceived it in the past of the, idea that religion was our early attempts at science. You know, it's to explain the natural world, what's happening here. And we tell stories about the forces of nature and the powers that move us. If we think about it, the Greeks, they thought of gods as, you know, humans play things

of the gods. And if you think about it, we experience love involuntarily. It's not something we don't choose. I will now fall in love with this person. Switch and we turn it on. No, no. Aphrodite sends Cupid to pierce our heart with an arrow. It's a description of a process in a lot of ways.

ways and it does appear involuntary and then they trying to describe what love is then they give those attributes to affidavit long story short on that our early go ahead um yeah but we are introduced to love via our primary caregivers true so we know what love is because of that I mean unfortunately um you know I mean I have been so fortunate to have had just these magnificent parents in a cheery childhood. But there are people who don't share that. They did not have happy childhoods. And I think that's what got me into, you know, going from career to career to helping people.

Because I feel it's an obligation for me to help people that have not had what I have. Yeah, that's a wonderful motivation. too it's like hey literally spread the love in that way um yeah and this and well the greeks also had like seven different words for love so the the aphrodite eros love was one kind but there's uh philia i think brotherly love and agape love a love of mankind in general philia filia is greek is my first language um so filia is used more in friendship yeah eros is erotic love agapi is love love but i only know three so you probably i can't remember the other ones either that's what came to i was hoping you wouldn't ask what are the other ones ben i have no idea i can't

remember my memories it's swiss cheese for brains um but no no you're right and so we um so that it wasn't just that we could be Aphrodite being the goddess of love it encompassed all seven kinds but we think of erotic love is you know the love between the man and a woman and then that's where the cupid comes and what's the difference and they have their different long story short on that our actually our early scientists are natural philosophers in a way go back to ancient greece and they were religious people they had their religion and it was played a part of their exploration and then also in the um uh early days of modern science going back 500 years or whatever it was primarily religious folks that did that

that as well. I mean, almost everybody was a Christian or a Muslim at the time or some, some strain of that. I don't think we've ever actually had a separation between religion and science. And it was, like I said, most of the, you know, was Isaac Newton, Christian, that kind of stuff. The people who were developing these theories were coming from, they didn't see any clash between God is real and I believe in God and study of the natural world and the natural laws and how the world works and go ahead. I disagree with that. Fair enough. I disagree because there are

hard core scientists that have absolutely when you die, you go, poof, you're nothing. These materialistic, here's a great example. Okay. So Galileo, okay, this is in Italy. Okay, had a friend who was a philosopher.

philosopher. And he was trying to get this guy to, he was explaining that the planets travel around the sun, okay? And this guy wanted nothing to do with this. I mean, in his, from his perspective, you know, the, the, it was like the world is flat, you know, kind of thing. And, and so, so Galileo says come look through my telescope and the guy didn't want to why didn't the guy want to because there was this chance

that Galileo was right and then his whole worldview would be down the toilet that's true so there's a lot of scientists who in fact this this synchronicity summit that I was part of, it was so well received that they published a book called The Playful Universe. And the participants met when you read their essays, I mean, they sound like religious converts.

Like before, before, you know, I was no, you know, consciousness was that, that was it. there's no synchronicity there's no it's what you see is what you get and now i see the light you know and so it it's a i think it's a process you know i mean there's there's people like um francis uh francis oh god i forgot his last name um so he was head of the Institute of Health, he got a, he was one of the people on the team that got a Nobel prize for decoding the DNA. So I read his book about something about God. And it was, it was through the elegance of the DNA code or decode that he became, it made him become deeply religious.

Here was an atheist that this was so elegant and beautiful. There's no way this could come about without a higher intelligence. So again, a process, an atheist that through decoding the DNA became deeply religious and deeply Christian. Mm-hmm. For sure. No, and it's not that the separation between science and religion has not, doesn't, doesn't exist in terms of, but the way I would phrase it is, I think that's actually man-made. I think that's a thing that we did to it, to, to this thing. We split these things. And it does, I mean, it's fantastic to mention Galileo, because it goes back that far. You've got, you've got, you've got an intelligent observable. servant man who is saying, hey, I've discovered something about the natural world. And it turned out to be true, of course. And you've got the power of the church saying, look, if we admit we had this wrong, it's going to look bad for us. So they put them into conflict with, and I think

if religion had been less, quote unquote religion, have been less focused on being right and more focused on knowing right than that could evolve and say hey wait a minute looks like we interpreted this passage wrong over all these years it looked like the sun goes around the earth of course it does but it turns out that's an illusion so we weren't wrong exactly we were just describing it poorly the book is still correct there was there's a way to make these things work and and i think way you know ever since way back then it appears to have gone on two different branches but I think you're right. It's coming back together.

And I think it should. I think it never should have been separated in the first place. Well, you're on to something when you're saying that sort of this illusion of there's no divine intelligence or God is manmade. Because researchers have analyzed young children. And they are very spiritual. I mean, they come out of the womb. being clicked into this whole sphere of connection with the divine and then you know life happens and you start getting distracted and that goes sidelight yeah it very much can and we lose

faith in in in miracles and and magic and the wonder in the world uh for a lot of reasons i mean and not not least of which is bad childhood experiences of uh you know not being loved well or treated well or uh discouraged from from the thinking fanciful things and trying to be you know more practical i'm like well how about both uh i think there's a way to do both at the same time i've always had a kind of i mean i it's i say this all the time i suppose i consider myself a brand of atheist more more on the deist side of things but i'm a agnostic you know atheist deist is so i i don't i don't know for sure i'm still figuring it out i I don't follow a specific religion.

I can think they all have important things to teach us about the world. It's collected human wisdom for centuries, millennia. It's hard to discount all of that out of hand. And then a deist in general of like, logically the only thing that makes sense to me is an unmoved mover outside the laws of the universe that made the universe where everything comes from something, except whatever is eternal and always existed. So the idea that there is a God has to be. what it is how it works

I think we're figuring that out and I think I look but how can you believe that and call yourself an atheist well it's a atheist as in maybe I should say non-theist there's there's shades of atheism the idea of non without a

specific religious system is how I interpreted oh no no forget the religion yeah part I mean that's why I say atheists non non-theists I'm talking spirituality this connection with a divine it's not some got old guy with flowing white hair on a throne okay it's and and the greek orthodox sort of canon is very much like um quantum mechanics i mean it's like

this god is omniscient all-knowing omnipresent it's not a person in the human shape yeah yeah got to let go of that idea even even if the the conception of it as a fatherly masculine energy is kind of correct i think well although although in order for you know this to be a person jesus christ appears okay yeah that's more of a person person in that way that's a person person that you know is also god okay so um you know because i i went through a whole thing of trying to digest that. And from my experiences that have been so amazing, miraculous, I would buy anything.

Anything you told me, I would buy because what I've experienced is beyond, beyond science, beyond, you know, what we want. Well, that's, that's what I do with trying to stay in my lane, especially in terms of the dream thing and whatnot, is the idea of there's, There's certain things I can be certain of because I've seen it, experienced it, or it has a certain internal, internally consistent logic that's like, yes, that appears to be the way it functions. And that's the most I can say about that.

And then the other side of things where I can't explain it at all. And that's a lot more difficult for me to say, here, let me pontificate as if some authority. I just try not to do that in general. But no, but I think all this stuff is real and just how to understand it, how to explain it, how to make use of it. a lot of ways. It can be very difficult. Like I said, how to differentiate between this is a wish fulfillment dream in a way of telling you what you want and what you could do if you choose to because we've verified that with your internal psychology and connecting the dream imagery to

your life events. And the other side of things like this is a prophetic dream or this is a message that you should heed and therefore act upon in the same way that like, I think what I struggle with, too, is still, and that's why I bounce back and forth between the hope and the, what's what you call the faith, yeah, yeah, is the idea of I'm not confident in my ability to discern signs, omens, but I pay attention and I see the synchronicities, but I don't always know what to do with it. And very often, I don't know, I don't do anything because I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm like, maybe no decision is better than jumping into something, assuming I know what if I'm wrong. I don't know. Well, yeah, but when they hit you on the head, you know, there's no room for questioning, you know, there's just, I mean, maybe I should, I should give some examples or something because, you know, I mean, we're just talking sort of conceptually, you know, so. Yeah. And you said you had a, does this relate to the, the dream you had, or, or, or, well, that's how it started. That's how, that's what caught my attention.

We can get any examples you want, of course. Maybe we can start there, okay? Sure. All right. So I was in college. I was 19 and I was struggling with two existential issues. Okay. So one was I needed approval of others.

And, you know, and there was this girl in my class that was, She was just beautiful, and I really liked her, but she did not like me, okay? And I couldn't understand. I mean, I did nothing to her, but she just, like, completely dismissed me. And I just couldn't understand. And she would wear these baggy jeans and baggy men's flannel shirts, almost like, don't judge me by my beauty, judge me with my brains. that's what she was kind of well i love to dress so i guess you know she she created a story about

me or whatever you know so that was one thing that really disturbed me that why would somebody that doesn't know me not like me okay that was one the second one is i had bought my mother's law of no sex before marriage okay now and i had just met this this this man who was 27, he was getting his PhD in universal theory or something, and I was deathly attracted to him. And I, marriage was not an appealing concept to me, like, which, you know, I had to really work through later, because to me it was, it wasn't fear of intimacy, it was fear of entrapment. And so, so that just, you know, so I thought, wait a second. if I don't get married, am I going to die a virgin?

You know, like, no, wait a second. You know, so I was, but it was a law. I was following, you know, somebody else's law. I was following, okay? So, so anyway, I had just met this guy a couple weeks before, and I have this dream. It is as vivid to me right now as when I was dreaming it. Benjamin the Dream Wizard wants to help you hearse the veil of night and shine the light of understanding upon the mystery of dreams.

Every episode of his Dreamscape's 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 dreamwizard.com, where you will also find the wizard's growing catalog

of historical dream literature available on Amazon, documenting the wisdom and wonder of exploration into the world of dreams over the past 2,000 years. That's Benjamin the Dream Wizard on YouTube. and at Benjamin the DreamWizard.com. The sleeper has awakened. So I'm on a stage in a wedding dress. And the auditorium is filled with people.

And I'm inside a plexiglass booth. No groom in sight. And I'm just sitting there just marveling that all these people came to see me. and then a spotlight comes to my right and 12 girls all dressed in Indian saris the same saris came in three by three by three and took their position diagonally to me and curtsied and as they're coming in I realize that they're all my enemies from grade school like and I just kept thinking to myself It doesn't matter, I forgive them all, they're here, you know, it doesn't matter what they did, I forgive them.

And then the lights go on and I'm in a different venue. It was more like a wedding hall or something because that's what I was thinking, oh, this is, these are my bridesmaids, you know, and so, you know, I'm wearing this, you know, the wedding outfit. And so then I'm, all of these people that I knew were filing past me. And I thought, oh, this is the reception line. And most of them just didn't even turn their head to look at me. They just kept going straight ahead. And then one in every like 10 or 15 would turn to look at me, no expression. and two people looked at me and smiled.

It was a family friend and my best friend. And at some point, I looked down and I'm wearing the wedding dress, but I'm in a coffin. And apparently these people were paying their last respects. So I wake up, like completely terrified. I'm completely convinced that this dream is portending my imminent death. And without even thinking, I put on my clothes, it was 1.30 the morning, and I went to this man's house, apartment. I knew that he worked late. And I went to his apartment, and he welcomed me, sat me down.

I told him my dream and how terrified I was about my imminent death. And this is what he said to me. I will never forget it. He said, this has nothing to do with physical death. He goes, you have, you're tied to certain beliefs that no longer serve you. And these beliefs need to die and have you replace them with beliefs. that you need to, you know, go forward. And it was like, oh, my God.

And then he proceeds to read poetry he had written about me. And I just couldn't believe that this guy knew what I was feeling. Well, needless to say, a week later, that was my first sexual experience, which I consider to be holy, you know? and since then so that was that solved one of the you know issues and since then i never cared what anybody thought of me i don't need anyone's approval for anything it was like i my whole perception of reality changed and so so that wasn't lost on me it was like what Oh, you know, how does that happen in a matter of not even two months?

I meet this guy. I have this dream. He is the one who interprets the dream. And then I am changed. And then we just fell apart because he was an intellectual. I was a party girl at the time. But it didn't matter. It was like an angel.

The perfect person came into my life and altered it. so that is and that's when it started and I think what happened it was like whoa somebody is guiding me somebody knows better than me and is kind of

it felt like it it wasn't I didn't know anything but as more and more of these things happen there's no doubt yeah well that's a fantastic example as well what I tell people is that you know i've condensed it into some phrases but uh follow your dreams they know the way and and

that's been interpreted uh or or understood to mean follow your passions you know what what you dream of but i i take it literally of like at the very least follow them pay attention to them and something because something's going on there and i've lost track of the number of times in my life i've gone to bed i have no memory of a dream but i wake up with an answer to something of well and in this through, been able to connect the dots in my head in some way that is completely opaque to me, but I come out the other side with an answer, I'm certain of it. And I know exactly why it's the correct answer, looking back with no memory of the dream. Well, in this particular dream, I mean, the fact that I had no idea how to interpret this, but this person who had just

appeared, you know, he described this. that I'm living in sort of a fake world. And then years later, a friend of mine who was a Jungian psychologist, I told her the dream. And this is what she said that really was fantastic, as far as interpretation. She said, you know that plexiglass box? The fact that you touched it and went, oh, it's plexiglass, that's fake glass. and you were surrounded by fake and and then you know altering my um my view you know um i shed i shed this thing that no longer worked for me so it was really an amazing guiding tool certainly no

And I really, I like that it seems, he gave you an understanding that is very similar to what you and I might have worked out. Had this been a new, a new dream. One of the first things I would have told you is that, yes, this is almost certainly not a dream about your literally impending death. Death is almost never death in dreams, that kind of a thing. Just like I told people in the past, too, it's like, if you wake up terrified from a nightmare because you were stabbing your dog with a knife, and you're like, oh my God, I love my dog. I would never do that. Why did I do that? I'm like, you don't want to hurt your dog. That's not what this is about. Actually, it's about you don't want to hurt your dog. And you feel like you're doing something that's not good for them, maybe, that kind of a thing.

So you're as if inflicting damage. So that's something I would have. Also, you know, when you, when you lay out your concerns at the time, the idea of being susceptible to the judgment of others, why don't people like me? And contemplating firmly this idea of marriage and, and, and, you know, sexual intimacy um both of those are are very much connected because what is one of the primary purposes of of um not primary purposes what what happens if you don't adhere to the uh sexes for marriage rule well you get judged by others so man there's a bam there's a huge overlap between

these two things you know they might not like my personality but they might also object to my behavior and and i've got these social norms i'm balancing with as well so the dream you've got yourself, um, you are on display in an auditorium. You're on, you're in a display case in this plexiglass thing in a gown. You're not at the ceremony in a church with someone you love. You're your, you're, it's like a performance in a way of these, these social norms. And it's just, I'm just here to be looked at. I'm just, am I going through the motions? Because that's what I want other people to see. Um, but then the next one you actually did, you know, after the bridesmaids came in and they were all the people, this would be fascinating.

too is like why did you bring them to stand at your side in this experience and why did bringing them to stand at your side transform the place into a reception hall and you're not in the box anymore now or are you still in the box in the reception hall no I'm in a coffin oh and that's and then they're they're filing by it's like yeah so if I go through this is this the death of my life in a ways if I get married my life is over you're thinking or you're wondering will it be over. Is marriage such a fundamental change that I can't be who I am anymore? I will literally die to become something else or the death of me, who I am now. And very often we do. We have to let our old self die so a new self can be born. And that can be a positive or a negative.

And I said, go ahead. Interestingly, that girl that didn't like me, we were forced to to be in the same study group and we became friends and this was after the dream this is after the dream yes after you stopped caring so much what other people think what other people thought and so and um i don't know what it was she said but i guess i feel comfortable enough to say to her you know about her clothes i said you need to honor your womanhood and all of a sudden she started wearing embroidered things and going into this feminine thing and we became friends. So I wonder if this attitudinal thing that resulted with, you know, after the dream made me comfortable enough to not care what she thought of me

and express myself and that changed things. Well, there can definitely be some folks who are also very naturally irritated by pretense, by social pretense. And that means by people who are overly formal or put on a smile, they would rather have you at your surliest, most unpleasant, real self. And then like, I can get, I know who that is. I can get along with that person, even if I don't, even if I, I don't like the attitude, but at least they're keeping it real.

There's something like that. Some people are very sensitive. Some people are more, they expect the social niceties. They want a little bit of the pretense and they don't feel comfortable with people who are more wearing their heart on their sleeve in some ways, always speak in their mind and never, never be intactful or diplomatic. I kind of get along with both types, so I see them. But I can also see how they get into conflict with each other because this person's like, have you know, you know, pride in yourself too? to, you know, present yourself well. The other person's like, dude, fuck your nonsense.

Just say what's on your mind. Don't hide behind a facade. So I get where they're both coming from. But yeah, so she was probably, in my estimation, she would be one of those people who was more like, now I know who she is. Now I can see her. Now she's not hiding behind what other people,

facade put up to please other people to protect yourself from negative judgment. Now we can be friends. Now I can connect with her. um it was like i said what is it was um i heard somewhere something that someone said um i'm gonna i'm gonna mess it up but like they'd rather have someone say to their face that they hate them than be nice to their face and hate them secretly that person they can deal with that person they can get along with i don't like you i don't like you either well now we know have a good day you too

nothing personal only business that kind of thing uh but it says something along those lines but I can see why that was a very powerful experience. I mean, I think without going into stories and stories of my own, but, you know, having something like that inform you, but really, really bring together in these powerful, iconic images that left you, and this is what I tell folks, too, is the idea that dreams self-select for importance. If you wake up and it, like, it is vivid, it is intense,

the feeling lingers, you're terrified, you got to you got to get out of bed in the middle and I can go talk to someone that dream absolutely means something and whether it's a divine message or or purely a psychological epiphany or both I would say that's something you want to pay attention to and act on in some way um well also I have not I still don't understand I mean I had so many friends that of all of my friends I would go to this guy's house at 1.30 in the morning. I mean, there was an inner knowing that I was going to get what I needed from him. That too, yeah.

And I think that may have come with the dream. Very often dreams come with their own interpretation too, which is a fascinating thing I've learned where people wake up and they know exactly what it meant. I think. Oh, I did not know what I thought this was. No, no, but I was going to say the second half of that is some people don't know exactly what it meant. but they're driven to action of a certain kind. That can come with it as well. I think this dream was probably, from what I understand, it could be wrong,

but this dream experience came about because of him in a way, because you met him and you were confronted with these things that you confronted with an uncontrollable attraction to him. And that puts you into conflict with your moral upbringing. and you're and so now you've got this i need to resolve um one way or the other either i decide uh what i'm feeling is bad and wrong or i shouldn't act on it or i'm going to decide my moral upbringing was flawed and i'm going to i'm going to take a different path and that's not an easy decision to make so it came and it's a terrifying decision because there's consequences to both sides

you lose him or give him up if you cleave to the to the moral understanding or you're abandoning everything your mother ever taught you that's huge that you know in that in that regard it's like if she in the sense of wrong and one thing wrong and all in terms of like but but not really but but the idea of this is a big one for her especially as you put it in your head and you've really internalized it so yeah this dream came along and you're like what am i doing what do i want how how do i resolve this this conflict you know how do i become comfortable being myself and not worrying about what other people think, but also, yeah, the desire versus morality side of the equation as well. And yeah, and really, him being the catalyst, you're like,

I need to take this to the source. I need to work this out with him. And you probably didn't know it consciously. You didn't go, oh, this is a dream about him. Therefore, I should go talk to him. But I think some part of you did know that that was where it came from and that why you needed to go there i mean you could have gone to your mom you could have gone nowhere and done nothing but that seemed a realistic you know he was available at that hour you know at the very least you figured if he knocked you would if you knocked he would probably answer something something along those lines yeah these are just all the surrounding circumstances that uh um and this is it this is interesting too is like i have people bring dreams to share um and some

Sometimes we try and save them in a way of like, for a section I call, rather than pure interpretation of a new dream that's never been thought of or discussed before. But this is more of a stump the wizard kind where I have you give me the bare bones and then we talk about it without you revealing what other people have said. And then I see how close I can come to that. But we're not going to, we're not going to be able to do that with this one because we're already kind of, we're all over the place in terms of that. But do you want to transition into doing a newer or different? you said you had a kind of a shorter one that might might work for analysis and then well i mean i'll tell you this was short sweet and to the point okay so no there's no interpretation on this dream okay so okay so here's again i had bought into my mother's concept because i was

very gifted as a child in art. So my mother convinced me that if you're a woman and you're good in art, well, the only possible thing you can do with that is to teach it in high school.

That's what she told. I mean, this is how I, from when I was little, she told me that I was going to teach art in high school. So I, again, in buying her story, and I went into, when I went into the University of Oregon, I went into art education. Okay, so I'm doing this, and I really was not enjoying it because, like, okay, you have, you know, drawing class at 8 a.m. And I'm not, I don't want to draw at 8 a.m. You know?

And then, then I get into it. Well, 10 o'clock, it's jewelry time. Well, I'm still the drawing. You know, so it was this kind of thing that I wasn't really enjoying. So senior year, senior year, I had six hours left to get my, my certificate, my diploma. in art history, and six hours of student teaching. So here's my dream. Doorbell rings.

I open the door. It's the mailman, and he hands me an envelope. And I open the letter, and it's my license to teach. And I look at this thing, and I go, I don't want to teach. and I threw this piece of paper in this little plastic blue waste paper basket. I woke up, I said, I don't want to teach. So I thought, well, what would I like to do? If I could do anything, what would I like to do?

I want to be an archaeologist. So I marched over to the registrar's office, and there's no archaeology degree. So they said, you have to go through art history. So I changed my major to art history. Can I tell you how this went over with my parents? Okay, my father, I mean, he wouldn't talk to me for like days. But then I got a scholarship to go to Italy and study a trisconology. Well, if I'm good enough to get a scholarship, then he kind of warmed up to this idea.

so that was the dream there's no interpretation some some could be absolutely that direct that direct and and it was like enough already you know like i'm going to save you from what you don't want you know and then interestingly when i was in italy one of my roommates and we would sit up and, you know, talk our philosophy and conceptuals and smoke galawas cigarettes. And so one of my roommates one time said to me, if you could be with anyone dead or alive for half an hour, anyone, who would it be? I have no idea who I said it doesn't matter. So I said, said, well, who would it be for you?

And he says, Buckminster Fuller. I went, I mean, okay, I knew that this Buckminster Fuller had invented the geodesic dome. But come on from every historical person dead or alive. I mean, you're going to, I said, why? And he gets up and he brings me this very thin little book. It was a 39-page poem by Buckminster Fuller. It was called no second-hand God. And I went and read this thing, and I'm like, oh, my God, who is this person?

I mean, it was just, it just moved me. I'm like, so I read everything that, you know, I could get my hands on about him. And then a series of events, I went, I was back at the University of, oh, so I decided I'm going to, I'm going to study architecture. Well, that is when my father stopped money. The money spigot stopped. Yeah. And I didn't care. I didn't care.

I'm going to get loans. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. And a friend of mine who was president of the student, you know, student council or whatever, he comes over and he says, guess who's coming to lecture Tuesday? I said, Buckminster Fuller. I mean, he was my, he had become my idol. And he says, because he knew of my, I mean, my fascination with him. He said, would you like to drive to Portland with me and pick him up from the airport?

And something clicked. He came with his wife, Anne, and we started a correspondence. And then he asked me to come work for him in Philadelphia. And I find myself working with my idol, who up to them, you know, had been. my idol. So it's these kind of things. Did I manifest it? I wasn't trying to. I was like, oh, if I can write a letter to him and then we can have a correspondence, maybe in the future. When he asked me to work for him, I was just, it was one of the most things that blew me away more than anything. So it took me 10 years to get my architecture degree. But, but, but,

uh it was you know fall term winter term you know it was so after um fall term my parents my boyfriend brought my parents to uh school for the my review and it was like magic only god could choreograph this okay my two professors come over because they were trying to talk me out of a project because it was like too difficult for, you know, your pretty little brain kind of thing, you know? And I'm like, uh-uh, I'm going to analyze this joint because somebody designed it. I'm going to, so they came in front of my father and one goes, put it there. He goes, you did it. It's excellent.

And my father, I go, oh, here's my father, my father who had a second grade education in a poor, dirt village in Greece, but self-made, completely self-taught, self-made. To him, you know, professors were like priests. And he just started puffing up, water spigget back on. So it all worked out at the end. Well, you definitely had to have the guts to go your own wave. And I can't blame him for saying, you're switching a third time. I can't.

You don't know what you're doing. So, but then you also, you've got an opportunity then. you could say, oh, fine, I'll do what my, you know, I won't change again because that I'm going to lose the support. Or I'll take a chance and go on my own. I'm going to, I'm going to follow this passion and see what happens. That's, you know, having the guts to do that often makes all the difference. But, but look what I would have missed out on if I hadn't had that dream, that short, boring little dream, you know, it was just. That is definitely one of those dreams, I would say, comes with its own interpretation. And sometimes it's so obvious.

But why did it need to happen in a dream? Why wasn't that a conscious thought first? Sometimes we're afraid to confront these things that, you know, because, again, the fear of the consequences of like, I don't even want to think clearly about the problem because that means I've got to do something or that puts the pressure on. And yet, the clarity that I had, that that dream brought me this, there was just no doubt in my mind. All I knew is I didn't want to teach.

What else can I do? Archaeology. That's what I'll do. Yeah. You know, and that just, I followed the path. And then, you know, I, that was my 10-year career in that field. Yeah. And the idea of dreams are sometimes an ideal place because it's so raw.

It's just honest. It's, there's very little, sometimes it's very disguised because we're, we're dealing with things that are complicated and sometimes we're dealing with things we don't want to look at directly so we get very symbolic about it but sometimes it can also just be I'm going to have the guts to ask myself the question and listen to my own answer and just raw show it uh and very often we got to get to a point where that's we're ready for that to happen in some ways of like where we can't avoid it anymore and uh yeah the dream will sometimes come and and give us that clarity that's there's many different types of dreams that a lot of them are um that there's pure

wish fulfillment fantasy type dreams of like i just want to have an adventure and fun those happen too um there are also dreams that are very much problem solving dreams of like okay i've got a scenario i need to either understand or figure out a solution to and we'll kind of show ourselves at least clarify our own thought process in in that um well these two dreams were very different I mean, it's pace and point, you know. Yeah. Well, did you, I think you said you might have had a third one. Is this one more amenable to the possibility of a stump the wizard type of thing?

What? I'm sorry? Oh, I think you'd mention that you possibly had three dreams you could share and that we've talked about two. And if we did the third one as more of a stump the wizard section, like even if you think you understand it, you give me some of the stuff and let me try to give you an answer of some kind. Sure. but again, it was pretty direct, you know. Maybe so, yeah. In this dream, I was again going through something very, very difficult.

Like, I don't remember what the issue was, but it was something very, very difficult. And I had always had this, you know, wonderful relationship with my father, and he had died. And I was thinking of him. and I went to sleep and he is and I mean really worried really like I mean I don't know what to do

basically I don't know what to do and there is my father he is very close to me he is as real as real could be I mean and he he had this glint in his eye

like he knew something I didn't know and he would go just you wait and see everything is going to be just perfect just you you you don't know but i'm telling you you're it's going to be wonderful dolly and he would hug me and i could feel his mustache i mean i could feel his his breath i mean he was visiting me and he was telling me something that actually came to be. I mean, I, everything in my life, I am so grateful for, I can't be happier. Everything worked out so well. So he was right. But he had this glint like, you know, I know this and you don't. And it was just the most wonderful visit. Was that a little more consistent with his real life personality? Or was that actually

kind of different for him. Was he a, was he more warrior in real life? It was, it was consistent with his personality. But I was very conscious that he was gloating. And I know that he was telling me the truth, that things were going to work work out. But it was the way he was, he was presenting it. It's like, just you wait and see. And my father was, like, he approved whatever I did that he liked. and then disapproved you know if if he didn't like it it was like you're on your own you know and like kind of like who do you think you are you know to want this so but this was just I had a visit from him no question about it yeah that's where I would come down on fall back on my dichotomy of like I can't tell you if you really did if you believe he did

Fair enough. And I can't tell you you're wrong either. But I could only look at it from the psychological side of why would you put your own father in your dream? From that perspective, I could look at it. But you know, maybe you can give me some light about this. But I did a year study on Gestalt psychology with this amazing woman, absolutely amazing. Mariah Mariah Fenton, Maria Fenton, anyway, she was, she, she was the most, one of the most amazing, she's in, in my, one of my eight mentors, okay? And she, for 33 years ago, she was, she was, she was, given the, that she, she found out she had ALS. She was given two years to live. Her boyfriend proposed marriage that night when she got the sentence. And she lived for 33 years more.

And so anyway, so the way, so we studied dreams, okay? And her concept or the Gestalt concept was that let's say that the dream was, I'm, I leave my house, I'm in a car, and I'm driving on a bumpy road to a church, okay? So, according to the Gestalt, you are all parts of the dream. So you're the house, you're the bumpy road, you're the car, and you're the church. Does that, have you heard of that before? I have the it's um what I've uh put my thoughts together the purpose for publishing all the books wasn't just to get books out there so I can make money although that was also a purpose

self-sustaining here here buy some books but also creating my own in a way masterclass of dream interpretation where I've hopefully by the time I'm done I will have read everything that's ever been written on dreams and it'll be somewhere in my head so I've come across that theory specifically that every part of the dream is you and I lean towards the shade of meaning that every element of the dream was put there by you to represent something meaningful to you. It isn't that it is literally you necessarily. I, um, my, my approach is very eclectic. I kind of pick and choose and it's mostly intuitive. I don't even understand what I do. Uh, I just connections form in my brain and I offer them suggestions and people either go that makes sense

that resonates I get they get a zing like head to head to gut or or they don't and if if you're if um if I can use my creativity to offer connections that then feel meaningful I think we're on to something so it's for the same reason I don't cleave to the dream book type of thing like anyone can just get a book it's I use I use this example sometimes too if I If you can look up, what does a seashel mean in a dream book or a dream dictionary or whatever? And they'll say, oh, seashells represent this. Maybe. But maybe for you, seashells remind you of your grandfather.

Why? He had a house near the beach. You collected seashells. Why are you thinking of your grandfather? What happened that one time you were collecting seashells with him? What advice did he give you? Wait a minute. How does that advice relate to what you're going through right now?

And we get that, that thread pulls out. And we get a process and people go, whoa, my grandfather would have told me, this guy's no good. I should definitely break up with him. Bam, we got an answer from the dream. And it was just the bare image of, I'm on the seashore, the sun is setting. There's a large seashell. I pick it up because it's pretty and I wake up. We can get that from that dream.

So I don't know if that's clarify anything. If I just thrown a bunch of words at you there, it just made it more confusing. it's all possible you know sure sure yeah so there are times where i think i've offered understandings that yeah you are multiple people in this dream this these these people are actually you different different aspects of yourself i think that can be true i don't think it's necessarily always true just like the seashell doesn't always mean one thing um but telling the difference well when i figure out what i do and how i do it i will write a wizard's guide to dream interpretation but i'm not there yet so i think i got to get a thousand uh thousand

interpretations under my belt then i'll have a real good grasp on what i'm doing we're 213 as of right now um so yeah the gestalt thing is it's very interesting um but i don't uh cleave to it exclusively in terms of understanding dreams yeah does that answer the question uh yeah i mean you know i mean because but to me i you know like i i tried to use that you know sort of this breaking it down on the dreams that i i just talked about sure and it wasn't like i'm not the envelope or the license or maybe i am i don't know it doesn't always make sense right you know so sometimes the thing is what it is when it was Freud said sometimes the cigar is just a cigar Sometimes it's a penis.

So maybe you've got to figure out which one it is and why. So, yeah, yeah, I think it could be overapplied. I think the same goes with certain schools of specifically Youngian only or Freudian only or other different schools that have been developed. It's, I think it's a good thing that they attempted to formalize processes, but I also think the best way is in a collective approach that kind of begs and borrows as

appropriate from each one. I think they all have something to teach too. Like, you know, the concept of archetypes is huge. Even if each archetype as described isn't always entirely correct or applicable necessarily,

but just the broader concept of archetypes in general, you know, the hero, the fool, etc. I think these are very, very powerful. And they do come back and they appear in different forms as well. That's one of the big things that what Joseph Campbell found out with the hero of a thousand faces. There's a lot of commonalities.

But if you get a basket of the commonalities, you still have a basket of leftover differences that also represent different ways to tell that story. I think the same goes with dreams. You kind of get a, if you do what feels right for each one. for me the proof is in the pudding in terms of like if we get to the end of something and you've had an epiphany or an understanding that makes sense we did it we did the thing whatever that means whatever useful you can get out of it that's kind of my approach well didn't really have a question there just just stop talking um well speaking of stopping talking we've been going for

uh almost an hour and a half do you feel like we've uh had a good chat and got and everything we can out of the material. Yes. Okay. Sounds good. Well, then let's wrap it up and I'll get you out of here for today. Starting a new page of notes, but we'll go back here. All right.

By way of closing, I'll say this has been our friend Sophia DeMas. Demis. Sorry. Wow. I did that. I asked you in the beginning. And then I, so I'm going to call you Sophie DeMas, Sophia Demas, out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

She has been in her long career and architect, a fashion designer, a psychologist, and the author of several books, including the Divine Language of Coincidence. You can find her at SophiaDemus.com, and the link will be in the description below. Very briefly, for my part, would you kindly, like, share, and subscribe. Always need more volunteer dreamers. I do video game streams Monday through Friday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific.

This episode brought to you in part by ABC Book 18, O'Neuro Chronology, Volume 4, Prima, Relequorum. You can find all this and more. at benjamin the dreamwizard.com. And if you'd head over to Benjamin the dreamwizard. Dot locals.com building a community there for you to join and ask

to my Rumble account. And once again, Sophia, thank you for being here. It's been a very interesting conversation. Thank you. Good deal. And everybody out there, thank you for listening.

Hope to see you next time. Thank you.