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Jan. 11, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
48:24
594 Nate's First Dream: Nothing in the church...
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Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well, Steph.
It is just after 5 o'clock on the 11th of January 2007, and it's time for a dream analysis.
Our good friend Nate has posted a dream that came out of the conversation that we had last Sunday around his friend who was cruel and self-defense tactics and so on.
So, he writes, this is the first dream where I've managed to get any sort of detail written down.
I wasn't going to post it here on my LJ... some journal...
because it didn't seem to have enough specific details and there wasn't enough content, but maybe there is.
Here it is. I'm in a van going somewhere, but I'm not sure where.
I'm with several people, none of whom I can fully identify, but all of whom I recognize as being minor friends of some sort.
After some time in the van, either I'm driving or I'm not.
It seems as though I was driving at one point, but decided to let someone else drive.
Then, after a few blurry things I can't remember about the dream, next thing I can recall is that I'm at some great big reunion-type event at what looks to be a school of some sort.
The reunion seems to have a lot of people, yet I cannot...
Sorry, the reunion seems to have a lot of people I yet again cannot recognize but knew from long ago.
They all seem to have come from the Church of Christ crowd I grew up around.
Some of them from other churches, mostly around Houston, but some around the church camp Wildwood that I went to back in the 8th grade.
I remember getting sneering looks from them all, no matter where I walked.
I kept trying to go up this hill to the entrance.
I would go in and back around again, up the hill to the entrance.
As I would go in, I kept getting dirty looks from them.
After some time, I got tired of this.
However, during all this entering and re-entering of the school-like building, with the churchy people, I recall wearing different clothes each time, but I can only recall the pants.
The first time I go in, I'm wearing jeans.
I keep filling my pockets for the keys, like I tend to do when awake quite often to ensure I have them.
The keys to what? I'm not sure, but it's almost as if I've got keys to a motorcycle, my old motorcycle from years ago.
Then each time I go through the entrance, it seems like I change from jeans to gym shorts with pockets.
The gym shorts have pockets at first, and I have my keys in them.
Then the gym shorts have pockets, but my keys are gone.
Again, I keep going up the sidewalk hill getting dirty looks, and I don't like any of the people there.
The last time around, my gym shorts have no pockets.
So I get tired of all this, and I decide to leave.
But how? I don't have any keys.
I wonder where they went. So I go down the hill, and for some reason I fall down into the grass when trying to fly down there to the parking lot.
I can feel the grass and the texture of it.
It feels real. Then I realize, oh, maybe I'm not dreaming.
So I get up and stumble over to the parking lot where I see a strange-looking motorcycle, which for some reason I assume is mine.
I get a little upset that my motorcycle isn't the Honda I recall having, but rather a Corvette motorcycle, which looks sort of like a Corvette.
Strangest-looking thing, because suddenly it was a Corvette, not a motorcycle.
I remember saying to myself, I don't have a Corvette, I have a motorcycle.
So I reach down and feel around behind the front left wheel and find keys.
I get the keys, and suddenly it's back to a strange-looking Corvette-like motorcycle.
Picture a Honda Goldwing touring bike with the back end of a Corvette.
Very odd. So I get on it and start the bike.
Next thing I know, I'm trying to drive it out of the parking lot, but can't get the gears to shift.
I keep pulling up with my foot on the shifter, and then accidentally shifting down instead of up.
I can barely get past second gear.
As I'm struggling towards the first traffic light, I look in a rearview mirror that bikes don't ever have, the kind that's usually stuck to the windshield of a car.
There is a cop car behind me, no lights on, but it's just up behind me, real close.
I had a feeling they were laughing at me at first, and suddenly I was home.
It wasn't my home, but someone else's home that I assumed was my home.
My ex-girlfriend was there, telling me that my motorcycle I had left at home, and that some guy named James Wyland, or something like that, was upset that I had taken his motorcycle.
She also complained about having dented her car while doing so.
Comments. Odd thing is she has my old car because she wrecked it when borrowing it and it sort of became worthless to me to bother selling it.
Too worthless to me for me to bother selling it, so I let her keep it.
If she'd pay for it, but of course she never did.
She's ruined it so badly since that I have no reason to want to take it back because I'd never sell it except maybe to a junkyard for the parts.
Okay, so there's a couple of themes here.
Disapproval. Trying to get into this...
This dirty looks and trying to get into this school and the pants keep changing and you either have pants with no keys Okay, so I would say that this dream is a very, very powerful and important dream.
It's probably why you're starting to remember, and trust me, it's just going to get more vivid from here.
When I was going through this phase of really waking up to my unconscious and the power of my internal processes, I had dreams so astounding and so vivid that I've never had them again in my life.
But I would be flying over a city and I could see every hair, every pixel on every advertisement board, everything, every tiny little gleam of a pebble embedded in a street.
I could see everything in a city.
Oh, it was just amazing.
And it really is.
When the unconscious wakes up, it comes up like a geyser.
So you're going to have startling dreams for a while as you begin this process of authenticating yourself or becoming more authentic yourself.
And it may be alarming at times, but it's a beautiful process as well.
And I think this dream is a life dream.
It's a dream about your life.
And I think it probably comes out of the conversation that we had on Sunday Wherein you were telling me, just for those who haven't heard about a friend of yours, a woman who came to post on the boards, a friend of yours who just up and attacked you, just vented on you. This woman who said, oh, you're just negative and you're miserable and you're depressed and you're unhappy and you're too hungry for dates.
And what happened was you had taken the step forward of saying, well, where's the evidence for what you're saying?
Which is great. But of course...
It's not the final step.
If there is a final step, I'm still waiting for mine.
If there is a final step, that's not it.
Because that is when somebody becomes abusive towards you.
Saying to them that you would like some evidence is certainly more assertive than just accepting the abuse for the hell of it, which I'm not saying you did, but...
It's not as assertive as just saying, who the hell do you think you are that you get to talk to me like that?
And it's not as assertive as never being in that situation to begin with, as bullies don't tend to pick on people unless they have shown some capacity for self-abuse already, because bullies are vessels of explosive humiliation and they just want to detonate other people in the humiliation bomb, but they're absolutely terrified of humiliation themselves, which is why they pick their victims very carefully.
So, the real assertiveness is not getting into these situations to begin with, which occurs through a number of different things which we don't have to get into right now.
So, the reason that I think that this is a dream about the past and the present, and the simultaneity of the past and the present, when you are undifferentiated, when you are unconscious, when you are still in a primitive personality state, I'm not saying you are, but I'm just saying there is this tendency, and we all have this to some degree, Then, the past is the present, is the future.
There are the axioms, these axioms which we can't escape.
The past is the present. To be alive is to be abused.
That was how we survived the past, but that survival mechanism turns the present and the future into a mere repetition of the past.
It's that Groundhog Day thing, the same day over and over and over again.
So, you're driving, and so it's obviously about things in the past.
You are driving or being driven, and that indicates that you don't have a strong sense of self in the past, because you're at the wheel, you're not at the wheel, and you can't remember.
It's important to understand that dreams can tell you anything that That you can conceivably hear.
You can imagine anything that could conceivably be imagined.
And if you forget something in a dream, it's important that you've forgotten it.
It's important that you've forgotten it.
What you forget is often as important as what you can remember.
And I know that sounds a bit paradoxical.
How are you supposed to do something with what you've forgotten?
But the fact that you've forgotten is very important.
It indicates something about your psychic life, your psychological life.
So, in this situation, you're driving to...
It's interesting, because it's both a school...
Now, of course, when you were a kid, I don't know if you were driven to school.
I walked. Well, we didn't have a car, of course.
But I don't know if you were driven to school or not.
But being driven to a school, and then finding out that this school is a reunion, is a very clever way for the dream to juxtapose the past and the present.
Or maybe it's the future.
Maybe there's some reunion coming up for you.
But... It's a great way to unite both the past, which is included in the fact that it's a reunion, right?
And reunion is very important.
It's a great word for the unconscious to be For the unconscious to be working with.
And the linguistic skills of dreams is not something to be sniffed at.
I'm not saying you are, but...
Reunion is a wonderful word because it indicates that there was union to begin with, and then there was a breaking, and now there is a rejoining together.
There is a re-union.
So the past...
Once the past really joins up in a present way with the present, the future can be different.
If the past is repressed...
If the past is pushed away, if the past is...
If we survive the pain of our past by universalizing things, right?
So we got abused, and we survived that pain from our children by saying, everyone abuses everyone.
Everyone's a bully. Everyone's mean.
My parents aren't particularly mean.
Everyone is mean. So, if that defense mechanism, which is essential when we're children to keep our sanity and our soul, if that defense mechanism extends forever, then you live this life of being abused over and over, and you almost invite it.
This is, I mean, not saying that you are, but this is the root of masochism, is the need to reaffirm the evils of the past, and thus to let the parents off the hook to some degree, or let those who were supposed to take care of you off the hook to some degree.
So if we don't deal with the past, it becomes the present and the future.
So you're going to a reunion, and that's a wonderful thing.
It's a wonderful word.
You're not going to a hazing, right?
You're not going to a lynching.
You're going to a reunion.
So you're going back to your past, which means that your past comes alive in the present, which means you then have choices in the future that can be different from what has already happened.
So you're driving, but you're not in control.
You kind of are in control, and you kind of aren't in control.
And there's an interesting process that's going along here, which is that you keep wanting to go into this school, and I can't figure out why.
And you don't mention why in the dream, and I'm not sure...
I'm sure if it was clear to you why you would have mentioned it, but...
There are all these people around who are consistently sneering at you.
All these people around who are consistently sneering at you.
And you want to go into this school, and everyone you mention, these kids who were at the Bible camp and so on, Wildwood I think it was, these kids are all sneering, they're all adults now, they're all sneering at you, they're frowning at you.
But the dream is indicating that there's a profound passage of time Here.
Because your clothes keep changing.
And, you know, we don't change our clothes during the day when we're at school, unless we make accidents in our panties.
So, this is an indication in the dream that this is going on for a considerable period of time.
That you're trying to get into this school, and everybody's sneering at you, and you can't find a way in.
You try from different angles, and you try from different angles, and you just...
Can't find your way in.
And this is a very complicated metaphor, at least it is for me.
Maybe I'm overcomplicating it.
I don't think you can overcomplicate dreams.
They're incredibly rich landscapes.
But this is something that I believe about religion, and you can let me know if it strikes a chord with you.
There is an almost bottomless well of contempt and hatred within religion.
There's a bottomless, and I know everyone's got their nice grandmothers who are Christians, and forget that.
Because you only get the nice Christians if you're a nice religious people, if you don't confront them, if you don't push them to fess up to the irrationality.
But there is such a bottomless well of rage and contempt in religion.
Because it's not true.
None of it's true. None of it's true.
If you want to know real contempt, put yourself in the mind of a con man and how that con man feels about the people he's conning.
There's no contempt in the world like the contempt a con man has for his victims.
It's far greater, even, than the contempt...
Ooh, don't crash...
Bad, bad, bad. This guy crossed two white lines into the merge lane and...
Oh, man. Anyway. There's no contempt like the contempt of...
Even a robber doesn't feel contempt for his victims because they're not voluntarily participating.
A mugger doesn't feel as much contempt for his victims because at least he's got a gun to their chest.
But a conman, a silky smooth, oily, glib conman, there's no greater hatred and contempt, I believe, in the world than the contempt that a conman, of all stripes, politician, priest, and parent, that a conman feels for his or her victims.
Because the conman is trapped by his victims.
And I apologize for the morally unclear language, but the con man is ensnared and trapped by his victims.
Because if there were no victims, like if people were just smart and didn't fall for con man, then he'd have to get a real job and have to go through all that unpleasantness and difficulty, which would leave him a much better person.
So, the con man is entrapped by his victims into the life of being a con man.
And he is harmed far more than his victims are harmed.
Assuming he's not conning you out of your entire life savings.
A con man is harmed far more than his victims are harmed.
They walk away poorer but wiser, but he's entrapped and ensnared.
And there is a true self within every con man that is just dying and dying and dying and dying for people to tell him to fuck off.
Just dying for it.
And this is true of the bully as well, but that's fairly deep empathy, and I'm not saying that that excuses either what the con man or the bully is doing, but the con man is trapped in his parasitical life by the fact that there are hosts.
If there were no hosts, he knows deep down he would have to get a real job, and he would have to become productive within society.
Or maybe he'd become an open robber or whatever, but at least that problem of hellish contempt would be alleviated.
So, the fact that contempt and scorn is associated with these people, these religious people from your background, to me is not at all surprising.
Religion is dying to free itself from fantasy.
Even religious people deep down are dying, dying, dying to free themselves from fantasy.
And yes, they will kick and scream.
But in his heart of hearts, the priest feels greater despair at every baptism because he is more and more walled in to the sick fantasy Because there's no God.
There's nothing there. There's no one talking.
Everybody's just pretending.
Everybody's just pretending.
It's like, and I've mentioned this metaphor before, but Solzhenitsyn talks about it in the Gulag Apicalago, where he says that, Some functionary comes to visit some group of people, and I think they hold up a picture of Stalin, and everyone gets up and starts clapping.
Everyone gets up and starts applauding the picture of Stalin.
And everybody knows that the secret police, the NKVD, are in the house, and that they're watching everyone.
And so everyone is clapping and cheering, and they're all exhausted.
Their hands are raw.
This goes on for 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
And nobody wants to be the first to stop.
Because if you're noticed to be the first person to stop, then you're going to get into some serious trouble.
20 years in a gulag.
10 years in a gulag.
Shot. So everyone is in this desperate pantomime, and they're all dying for somebody to be the first to stop.
They're all just dying.
Their hands are bleeding.
Their throats are hoarse from cheering and clapping, and everybody is just dying for somebody to just stop.
To just stop.
stop.
And this is true, and this is deep empathy, and I apologize if this is too much for you, but this is right at the edge of what I'm capable of, so I hope that it's useful.
But let's just say, Nate, that you have the intelligence and the empathy and the awareness, or at least the capacity for that, To break this stasis spell of religion on people.
This sick fantasy of religion.
You have the power to do that.
Well, nobody is going to look at you with more hatred and with more scorn and with more hostility than prisoners behind a door that You will not unlock.
You keep walking past them.
You keep walking past.
You're jingling your keys. This maybe is why the keys are in the dream.
You're jingling your keys.
Dum-de-dum, strolling right past.
I don't believe in God really very much deep down.
What is that thing?
It ain't necessarily so.
It ain't necessarily so.
Things that you're liable to read in that Bible ain't necessarily so.
Oh gosh, how does it go?
Jonah was...
David was small, but oh my.
David was small, but oh my.
He smote big Goliath, who lay down and dieth.
Little David was small, but oh my.
Jonah, he lived in a whale.
Jonah, he lived in a whale.
He made his home in a fish's abdomen.
Jonah, he lived in a whale.
It ain't necessarily so.
It ain't necessarily so.
The things that you're liable to read in that Bible ain't necessarily so.
So you're walking past this cage, this cage of Christ.
And you're jingling your keys and they can see with all of the finely tuned antennae of prisoners that you have the keys and you can get out.
They know that you're the one who's going to stop applauding Stalin's picture first.
And you won't do it. And you keep trying to get into the church.
You keep trying to get into the school.
I think that it's a combination because it's people that you went to Bible camp with.
And they know they can see your hesitation.
They can see your skepticism.
In the film Bible Camp, this tortured, poor, agonized, blonde boy.
Oh, just wretched.
Just wretched. And he says, well, you know, you can't see God, and it's really tough, and I don't know.
And everybody's just quiet.
And nobody tries to evangelize him.
Because everyone's just applauding and just dying for somebody to stop applauding.
That's why I kind of think that, I mean, again, this may be nonsense.
This is just sort of where I'm progressing to in sort of my moral thoughts about life and the world.
But who's responsible for religion as atheists?
I mean, because we're not doing what we need to do.
I mean, obviously these people can't free themselves.
Obviously they can't stop clapping, but we can stop clapping.
And we can go for the jugular in this stuff.
And we can free people. And they'll hate us.
Yes, of course they'll hate us. Because they're afraid.
But they're desperate to be free, but they're afraid of being free.
Because if they become free, and nobody else is free, then they're completely alone and rejected.
So, who's responsible for religion?
Atheists. Who's responsible for the fact that we still have Christianity?
Well, the dais of the Enlightenment.
They didn't go all the way. They just wouldn't do it.
Just wouldn't do it.
So who's responsible?
Not priests. Not priests.
Not priests. They're profiting from it.
Of course they're going to want to do it.
It's just losers who are insane.
It's our responsibility that there's still religion.
And I know that that's a lot to take out of this dream.
I'm just sort of going with the metaphors, as they sort of strike me, but it's our fault.
It's the fault of the atheists that there's still religion.
It's not the fault of religious people.
And that's why they hate us so much.
That's why they hate us so much.
Because we can't free them!
But we're still wrestling with the entirely natural fear of confronting people.
I wrestle with that fear often.
It is sometimes very scary to do what I do.
But we won't...
We hate them, right?
I mean, this is our weakness.
Again, totally advanced empathy.
Maybe it's nonsense. This is sort of what I feel.
We're so angry at the religious people that we won't save them.
So we atheists, we huddle around, and we read each other's books, and we don't reach out, or lash out, or strike out, or hug out, or whatever it is that's going to do it.
Because we're so angry at the religious people, we don't have compassion for the enslavement that they're experiencing, and their helplessness in the face of that enslavement.
And so we hate them.
We think that they're... And I succumb to this and, you know, I probably would listen back to earlier podcasts and all that.
Or it could be said that we hate them too much to hate them openly.
I'm not going to get this dream done if I go in that direction.
So let's go back to the dream.
So you're trying to get into this school, which is a school plus religion.
And you keep trying different ways, different ways to get into this school.
You try angles and time is passing and you can't get into the school and everyone is looking at you in scorn.
Now, the interesting thing is that nobody else is trying to get into the school.
You'd think if you were there for a reunion, there'd be a bunch of you that would say, hey, we can't get into this school.
This would be the logical thing to do.
Always compare the real-world logic with what's going on in the dream.
There's a reason why it deviates.
Dreams are not just randomly fantastical.
There's a reason why there's every deviation from every single possible...
everything that would make sense, everything that would be logical, there's a reason why there's a deviation.
So in this situation, in the real world, you'd say, oh, a bunch of people here, we want to get into this school.
So... You'd all sort of troop around and try and get into the school.
But nobody else. They're just standing around looking at you with contempt and sneering at you.
Because they know that there is no inside of the school.
And the dream is telling you that you approach it from every angle over a long period of time wearing different costumes and you keep checking for your keys and then you have your gym shorts on and you don't have your keys and then you have your keys but you have no pockets and you keep trying to get into this school and people are sneering at you.
Why? Why are they sneering at you?
Does it make sense for them to sneer at you?
Is trying to get into a school some contemptible thing to do?
No, of course not. They're sneering at you because you are trying to get into the school.
And there is no inside to the church.
There is no inside to religion, to statism.
There is no interior life.
There is no inside in religion.
As Gertrude Stein said about, I think, Los Angeles, there is no there there.
So, religion puts itself forward as education, as state schools put themselves forward as education, and it's eradication.
It's not education. It's eradication.
There is no inside of a church.
There's only intellectual and spiritual death Inside the fantasies and the bullyings of others.
Inside fantasy, we expire.
Inside imagination, we flourish.
Inside a fantasy, we expire.
There is no insight.
And you believe that there is an insight.
The same way that you believe there was an insight to your last girlfriend.
Or the same way that you believe there was an insight to your friend who ended up insulting you.
And we all have these mistakes.
But there is no insight.
To these people. There are turtles all the way down.
That's actually quite true.
And so people are watching you come day after day after day after day trying to get into this church, trying to get into this school.
And this is a failure to learn, and they have learned this.
They're not trying to get into the school.
People who are religious thing, they're just bullshitting.
They know there's nothing inside. It's all complete hollow, bullying, empty shell.
I mean, in this dream, it's like you're a kid who keeps trying to open a block of wood.
You know those little blocks with a red letter A in it or something.
Every day you come into the daycare and you try and get this block of wood open.
And it's all scratched and you've got a plastic knife you're trying it with.
You're trying it with your teeth. You keep trying to open this block of wood.
And the other kids are standing around going, well, duh!
There's nothing inside!
And this, of course, with all empathy, this, of course, is you with your mom as well.
You keep trying to connect with your mom.
We all do. We all did.
You keep trying to connect with your mom.
Keep trying to go inside. There's nothing in there.
There's no way in. And yet it's so hard to let that go.
It's so hard to let that go.
To try and connect with people who have no interiors.
Who are turtles all the way down.
And you fear criticism.
The checking for your keys is the fear that you won't be able to get back home, the fear that you're going to be criticized.
I mean, I do this with my passport every time I'm overseas.
Nerve-wracking. Nonsense that it is.
I'm afraid of criticism.
I'm not getting back home. But the interesting thing is that people are frustrated because you're not criticizing enough.
And you're not learning the lesson that is very obvious.
The lesson that's very obvious is there's no way into the school.
There's no way into the church.
There is no inside there.
It's like there's a door painted on a cliff wall and you keep pushing at it.
And then the next day you keep pushing at it again.
It's like there's no door. It's just paint.
There is no interior to religion.
There is only ashes and bitter, unyielding conformity.
And so, it's like watching somebody take the same route to school every day, and the same bully takes his lunch money every single day, and the same ritual occurs, and there's no learning curve.
And I had no learning curve for many years either, so this is not anything superior.
But if you trust your instincts, it's clear to see that there is no inside into these areas.
There is no interior to this church, these people.
So then, you trip.
You go down to this parking lot.
You're trying to find your keys, right?
You're trying to find your keys to get out of this.
And this probably has something to do with the family situation, right?
The defooing. So you want to leave.
And then... There's a line from a Paul Young song called Wonderland.
For all the things that have to be, we often have to cry.
Then beneath the weight of gravity, we stumble, then we fly.
I like that line very much.
Except for the chorus is a bit droll, but the rest of the song is very nice.
He's got a wonderful voice, too.
But this idea that you're trying to fly down to the parking lot and you end up face down in the grass, and the grass is very vivid in the texture, right?
This is good. This is good.
This is good because this is you connecting with the earth, with the world, with gravity, with real things, with grass.
Not trying to fumble your way into solid empty buildings, but you connect with the ground.
And then you get into this oddly mutated half-motorcycle, half-car, and I don't know enough about what it is that you're talking about with the Honda and the Corvette.
I can sort of vaguely picture it, and I can't really speak much to that, but you're unable to get out of gear.
So you're trying to leave, but you're unable to get out of gear.
So finally you're kind of inside something, I guess, which is this half-car, half-motorcycle, and you can't get out of second gear.
And you look and you see behind you that there are cop cars.
And this could be overcomplicated, I don't know, but the violence that's on the other side of these illusions of state and family and church...
The cops laugh at all of us.
I mean, deep down. They hate us too, right?
Because we believe in their power, but at least they're not quite con men.
At least we obey them because they have guns.
The priests and the parents, they don't have guns, especially when we're adults.
There is no contempt like the contempt of a parent for a child who won't leave.
I was talking about this with Christina the other day, how our families, the moment we really woke up, our families orchestrated driving us away.
I'd love to say it was a trumpet to charge on my part, but our families engineered it that we would leave the moment we woke up.
The moment you wake up, people, they just want you gone.
They just can't handle having you in the same room.
Now, they don't want to face that knowledge in themselves because that means entirely too much about their own lives.
But the moment you really wake up and the moment you really start asking clear questions and thinking for yourself and being rational and accepting nothing but evidence and reason...
Oh, boy, oh boy, do people ever want to hit the eject button.
But they don't want to know that they want to hit the eject button, because then they're going to have to be clear about why.
So what they do is they just keep baffling you and irritating you and attacking you, right?
And the reason that this woman attacked you, my friend, is because you're waking up.
The reason that this woman attacked you is because you're waking up.
As you begin to wake up, you draw more and more ire from people because they don't like the reflection.
They live in other people's eyes, and when you begin to see them clearly, you begin to see that they're empty.
You're no longer trying to get inside a building that has no inside.
That's leaving your mother in particular.
And once people become aware of that, they know so much more than we do, because they're actually acting in the full grip of the false self and the unconscious.
They're acting fully in the grip of that, so they have access to all of the instincts that rational people fumble with.
The corrupt people, the people who've given themselves over to the dark side, I guess.
They're acting in the full grip of the unconscious.
So they have access to all of the instincts that we question and stumble around trying to figure out if they're right or wrong and doubt ourselves.
I mean, they're just... Man, they're masters and we're, you know, they're like Bruce Lee and, you know, we're, I don't know, Danny DeVito in a body cast or something.
It's really not a fair fight.
That's why I keep encouraging people to pursue reason and to assume that their instincts are rational.
So... So the cops are laughing because they only have power because we believe these other people who don't have guns like teachers and parents and priests and so on.
So they're laughing because we're so easy to control.
They're just laughing.
And I think that aspect of it is a nice touch that the dream puts in about the nature of power.
The people with guns are actually only armed by the philosophers and the priests and the parents and the teachers and so on.
Otherwise, there are just people.
Now then it turns out, so you're having trouble getting out of the parking lot.
You can't get out of second gear.
And you're then at your ex-girlfriend's place, and she's telling you that you'd left your motorcycle at home, and that some guy named James Weiland or something like that was upset that you'd taken his motorcycle.
She also complained about having dented her car while doing so, and I'm not sure exactly what, that you dented her car while doing so, or something like that.
Well, I was first of all thinking about how this Wildwood, which was the name, I think, of the Christian camp in Wyland, but James Wyland, I don't know about the Jims or James Park, but Wyland is pretty clear that you are now in the land of asking questions.
Why? Why?
Why? Why? Why?
Now, the questions of asking why, the process of asking why, is interesting.
And when this woman attacked you, you went...
The first layer is compliance, right?
And you've outgrown that, which is fantastic.
Great, good for you, man. Jiu-Jitsu badge number six million.
The next layer is to say, why?
Why are you attacking me?
What proof do you have for your accusations?
And so you're in Y-land right now.
No longer just conforming, no longer trying to get into the empty building.
You're leaving, but it's really slow.
It's really slow, and it's kind of painful, right?
Second gear all the way.
And it turns out that you're on the motorcycle that you've stolen from Y-land, or that you've borrowed, or inadvertently borrowed because you thought it was yours, from Y-land.
And again, I think this works, let me know.
You think that it's your motorcycle, but it's not.
It belongs to someone named Wyland.
Asking people why they do things is an essential part of growth.
But I'm telling you, Nate, you know exactly why people are doing what they're doing.
And the dream is telling you that very clearly.
Oh, I shouldn't say very clearly.
Asking people... Somebody sort of starts verbally berating and you say, well, why?
Why would you do that? What's your issue?
What's really going on? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's faking it. Because you know what they're trying to do.
They're trying to humiliate you, trying to bully you, trying to put you back in the box.
And it's the price that we pay for weakness.
You know, there's nothing more dangerous than being half-evolved.
Nothing more dangerous than being the first mammal.
Dinosaurs have pretty much got things stable into a stable, kill-or-be-killed kind of ecosystem.
Not stable for any individual, but it's stable as a whole.
But, you know, that first mammal, ooh, ow, argh, I bet you the first thousand mammal species just got killed.
Being half-evolved is really, really tough.
Because you're no longer conforming, but you're not able to defend yourself.
You know, we've all seen those mafia stories where the guy begins to get a conscience.
It's always at that point that he gets killed.
As long as he's conforming in the mafia, he's okay.
He's going to last longer anyway.
Because people will at least fear him.
Or if he's never been in the mafia, he's going to be okay too.
But if he's in the mafia and then he tries to evolve, ooh-wee.
Ugly. So being half-evolved is a dangerous place to be.
Because you're now aware that people are attacking you and that conformity is no longer the answer.
Conforming and obeying to their bullying is not the answer.
So what is the answer?
Well, the answer is to keep evolving as quickly as possible.
And I think that at the end, don't drive around in this borrowed motorcycle from this place called Wyland and think that it's your own.
It's not. It is not your natural identity to ask why, because that would indicate that you don't know why people are doing what they're doing, and you do.
And you point this out at the end of your letter in your postscript, at the end of your dream.
The postscript of the dream where you talk about your girlfriend, that your girlfriend, you lent your girlfriend your car, she smashed it up, she never paid you for it.
You don't want it back now.
Well, of course, that's partly a metaphor for your heart as well, of course, although you do want it back and you do have it back.
But... And look, I made this mistake too.
I made a film for a woman and spent lots of money on it and never got a penny back.
But it was still freeing, right?
The price of this car is nothing.
I know it doesn't feel that way, but in the long run you'll look back and say, I never got anything as cheap as getting rid of that car and that girlfriend at the same time.
What your female friend did who attacked you for being negative and desperate for dates, although she's on three dating sites and I'm only on one, she goes out on more dates than I do, That approach, you've got to outgrow that.
You've got to shed that very quickly.
Very quickly. That's going to leave you very vulnerable in this hurly-burly world.
Because what happens is, you are looking for evidence that you are superior to bullies.
So this friend of yours attacks you, and you say, well, but she's doing more of what she's criticizing me for than I'm doing.
You've got to let that go.
You've got to outgrow that. That's all part of no parting shots and no comparisons to corrupt people.
You're looking for external validation of your experience with this woman.
And I understand that.
You're looking for external validation That you were in the right with regards to this woman who attacked you.
And also to some degree that you were in the right that your girlfriend was a bad person who smashed up your car and wouldn't pay for it.
But you've got to let that go.
You don't have a lot of time to mess around in this place, in this area.
Because you're vulnerable, right?
You are without defense.
The reality of self-defense is that you scan people when you first meet them.
Eye contact. Do they seem to aggrandize themselves?
Do they ask me about me?
Are they relaxed? Do they seem comfortable in their own skin?
Are they positive? What do they tell me about their other relationships?
What do they tell me about their family?
Be aware. Be alive.
Be alert. Be careful.
You know that old Hill Street Blues thing that was that bald guy who was the car?
Hold on! Hey, hey, hey!
Be careful out there!
Well, you know, it's a cruel world.
It's a brutal world in the social life that we have to live in.
So I'm telling you, Nate, be careful out there.
When you meet people, be fully alive, aware, and scan them from top to bottom and back to front, and check with your gut about how they make you feel.
Do I feel empowered when I'm around this person?
Do I feel confident? Do I feel more positive?
Do I feel energized?
Do I feel some level of happiness, some delight, some opportunity, some possibility, some excitement?
Or do I feel, you know, just a little uneasy or off?
Or do I feel nervous?
I bet you this person always made you feel nervous.
I bet you dollars to donuts.
This friend always made you feel nervous.
And I bet you dollars to donuts you go back to that first date with your girlfriend and it was all right there, right in front of you.
And so the dream is telling you that you need to speed up the lessons that you're learning.
You need to speed up the lessons that you're learning.
And I can only second that emotion.
And you are being asked of...
A lot is being asked of you.
No question. A lot is being asked of you.
You know, you're on the 25th mile of the marathon and now somebody's saying, sprint, sprint, sprint like a madman.
Well, I know that you're tired, but this is the breakthrough that you need.
This is the breakthrough that will secure your safety.
Withhold yourself from people.
Withhold yourself from people.
Find out if they're worthy of any trust.
Let them earn. Let them earn some trust from you for a change.
Rather than being out trying to please people, let them earn something from you for a change.
Let's put you in the driver's seat.
You evaluate people.
Don't worry about them evaluating you.
You evaluate them.
When you meet them and you deal with them, evaluate them.
Be alive to what you're experiencing in your heart and in your gut when you meet people.
Because your unconscious is really trying to help you.
Really trying to help you. It's saying, hey, hey, hey, down here, we got everything you need.
You want stats on this person?
You want information about that person?
We got it all. We processed it with a supercomputer of all time.
We got everything you need.
We'll just pump you a couple of emotions.
We won't even ask you... For any payment, you just got to listen.
You just got to tune in to the radio and you just got to listen.
We'll tell you everything that you need to know.
We are here to keep you safe.
We are here to help you. We are fighting for you.
We want to help you. We want to keep you safe.
No more pain. No more exploitation.
No more betrayal. No more destruction.
Let's be safe and secure and we can give that to you.
You just need to listen to us.
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