All Episodes
Previous Next
May 11, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:05:06
754 Fleeing Freedom

A dream, a backstory, a liberation!

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody.
Hope you're doing well. It's Steph. It is, I guess, about 12.30 on...
You know, I actually couldn't even tell you remotely.
It's the 11th of April 2007.
Boy, you think that I had trouble getting the date right while I was in a car and going to work on a Monday to Friday kind of scenario?
Oh, Lord. I'm going to have to switch to some pie-generated random fractal statement of star dates, I think, just to maintain...
Even a shred of consistency with inconsistency.
But anyway, thanks so much for listening, as always.
And to a magnificently kind and wonderful and beautiful, dare I say it, donator from this morning who sent me a fairly thick wad of bills, which is just wonderful.
And I promise that I am going to finish the landing pages, which I am putting together.
I'm putting together landing pages for the StumbleUpon account, Aren't faced with a big hunk and steaming pile of podcasts that they can't figure out which ones are to do with psychology and which ones, you know, they may not be interested in DRO theory if they're more into something like...
Psychology and there are all these other kinds of situations where people are going to come by and not even know where to start, right?
So I don't necessarily want to start everyone on the DRO theory, since it may not be of interest to them, so I need to do a couple of things, of course.
I need to put some landing pages together on the one hand, and I also, of course...
Need to put together a filtered list of the podcasts, right?
I have some categorizations.
I have some of the later podcasts, which I haven't categorized.
And just when you're studying this kind of stuff, man, everything takes forever, and everything is dependent on something else.
My notebook is still in the shop.
Apparently, it's almost impossible to get a video card from ATI, well, I guess from Dell, which is the issue with the car, or with the computer, so...
Anyway, it's exciting.
I've certainly managed to get some things done.
I've done a minor rewrite of the webpage and answered lots of posts and answered lots of emails and some of the backlog is being cleared up.
And today, we are going to chat...
With a fellow I'm going to call Brian, because Bob is becoming a little clogged, let's say.
So, Brian, thank you so much for sending an email to me to remind me of an email you'd sent me about a month ago.
And please, especially if you're a donator or somebody who's subscribed, if you've sent me something and it has slipped my mind...
Then please, please send me a reminder.
It's not because I'm, you know, a callous bastard who just wants your money.
Okay, well, there's a little bit of wanting your money, but the callous bastard part is definitely not my nature, so please remind me.
I don't have a very good system of setting up reminders.
I've just installed Outlook so that...
I can schedule my reminders a little bit better, but it's a little catch-as-catch-can at the moment, so if you have sent me a pressing issue and I have not responded, I am not looking at your issue every morning and saying, ha ha, I shall leave him to writhe in his agony like the evil freedom manor that I am.
It is just that I have.
Lost it from my mind.
We do rely on a certain amount of processing that's a little bit out of our control.
If this sort of means anything to you, it's not an excuse for me.
I mean, I should definitely be better at keeping track of these things, but...
You know, like, I guess this is part of the fun that may occur when you get older if you don't keep exercising your brain, which is...
You put your keys down, and you sort of have to remember that you have the key...
Like, you have your keys down, right?
You kind of... If so, you have it a...
If you have a dental appointment, if you sort of remember that you have a dental appointment, even if they call you the night before, if the next morning, for whatever reason, you forget, well, you forget.
It's just sort of interesting how much we rely on that autonomic kind of pop-up, pop-up from the unconscious to remind us of certain things.
So, mine is not too bad, but it's certainly not great.
Some people are like a sort of steel trap.
They remember everything. Christina's like that.
She's fantastic that way.
She's incredibly organized and detail-oriented.
And I'm...
Well, not so much. I'm not sort of the Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations author who was famously, you know, put butter into his tea and was engaged in a discussion with Hume, I believe, of such intensity that he actually walked and fell into an open pit that, you know, you could probably see from low orbit.
So, I'm not that bad, but I'm certainly no steel trap.
So, if there is something that's on your mind or that you've asked me for and that I've responded with the positive...
And I haven't done it. Just send me an email.
I really do appreciate that.
And I do apologize for keeping people waiting.
It is one of the natural imbalances.
When you are waiting for something from me...
Or waiting for me to do something, or I promised you something, then you are waiting for me, and that relationship is one-to-one.
But my relationship with things that people want me to do is one-to-many.
And so it's not anything personal.
It's not that I'm rejecting anything, and I really do apologize for asking for this.
But if you do have something, that would be excellent.
Anyway, enough of that.
This is Brian.
we talked about him once before in podcast 688 about an abusive history you know you never become as sensitive to noise as you do when you're podcasting on the on the go so i've made it down to the park here without any loud noise but now of course i've come across a guy with a weed whacker so i've become this hypersensitive neurasthenic blanche du bois must flee from the noise kind of thing.
So anyway, we'll pass by this and continue on.
So, this gentleman reminded me, and I think it's interesting.
I'll read the letter where he reminded me, and, you know, massive kudos to this gentleman for stepping up and reminding me, which I know is not an easy thing to do.
So, he wrote to me and he said, Hi, Steph.
A month ago, I sent you an email in a dream, and had noted that it was a potential dream analysis material.
You responded that you would be glad to help and asked me to mention some of the undermining that my parents inflicted on me during my childhood.
I responded with some information, but since then I haven't heard anything from you, either in email form or in podcast form.
I'm not completely caught up yet, Steph equals Der Uber Podcaster, but I have been browsing the new podcasts as they come in, and I don't think you've done anything on this yet.
If you have, please let me know.
Well, I'm letting you know what I'm sorry that I didn't get to it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ah, you see?
That's the plan. It's all part of the process.
I'm sorry. It felt like being transported back to the age of seven with all the normal and healthy selfishness, cravings and wanting of attention that go with it.
The impact it had on me was to look at myself and realize how much the past twenty years was just one long depressed and nihilistic period wherein I rejected most of my desires and lost most of my joy in life.
These new feelings made me feel so incredibly small.
How could I be so petty? How could such a trivial thing upset me so much?
I don't think it's trivial, though.
Since I think that you have no responsibility whatsoever to do a podcast on anything that I or others send in to you, I had decided to just deal with this myself.
However, listening to Podcast 704, it changed my mind about dealing with it myself.
And I think that without me, at least bringing this up with you, my exuberance about this conversation would be affected.
Oh, brother, that's fantastic.
Fantastic Guard your joy with dragons This seems quite pathetic to me, but there it is I now think that I would at least like to hear any reasons you had for not addressing my email I am most emphatically not trying to get you to do a podcast on this I believe that I would just like to know for my own improvement what reasons you had.
And, I mean, again, I can totally understand that.
Apologies again, but it was not that I had decided not to do it.
And if I had decided not to do it, after promising you that I would, I would have sent an email.
Just assume forgetfulness more than anything else.
This has been a pretty hard email to write, as in the past I would have just not responded.
And that, again, fantastic. I have been for most of my life closed with people.
And if some conflict would come up, I would just leave instead of voicing my problems.
This has made me remember all of the feelings of helplessness and neglect that I have so often felt as a child, and the memories that are associated.
The most amazing memory that has been stirred up is of me running away from home at the age of four.
Four! My god, brother, you had me beat by two years.
I ran away at six. I don't even remember why, but I do remember feeling rejected even then and that I had to get away at four.
What the hell was going on for me to feel that I had to get away from my parents at four?
Well, same thing is happening the rest of your childhood, I'm afraid.
I travelled about half a mile from my house to a construction site and one of the workers brought me back home.
And of course nobody asked why you were running away.
No, no, no, no. We, uh...
We find any of the unjustly imprisoned convicts that are loose in the land of freedom, and we seal them back in their sepulchres.
We seal them back up in their tombs and dust off our hands.
It is incredible to me how far back the emotional scarring goes and how deep it hurts.
Thank you, Steph, for helping me back into the path of self-awareness and helping me start to feel real joy in living again.
And the emotional spectrum that goes along with it, it's beautiful.
I mean, it's so moving.
It is so moving for me that this conversation is helping bring people back to life.
I can't tell you just how moving that is for me and how beautiful it is to be on the receiving end of all of this.
It's like staring at this incredibly gorgeous kaleidoscopic sun, and it makes my eyes tear, and it's overwhelming, and the beauty of these resurrections that are all around us in these conversations is just too wonderful for words.
And again, a thousand apologies for not getting back to you.
So, this is what the gentleman wrote.
Hi, Steph. Attached is a dream I had last night, and I thought you might find it interesting for dream analysis show material.
It stood out for me in that it was incredibly vivid and also incredibly emotional.
In most of my dreams, I feel rather detached emotionally, but this one was very intense, and I was actually shocked awake at the end.
Here is some info about what has been going on for me lately.
You and Christina did an Ask a Therapist session on a letter I wrote, podcast 688 First Letter.
Thank you both for that. Since then, I have been exploring my childhood both in therapy and with my wife.
I have been, over the past month, starting to get a picture of how bad my childhood was.
I was starting to feel very sure that my parents' physical abuse of me was abhorrent when I wrote the letter, but since then I've started to realize how much more went on.
There was a lot of teasing, undermining, and just general destruction of myself by my parents, both explicit and implicit.
Before you posted the podcast response, my father actually contacted me after almost three weeks, stating that he and my mother would be home on a certain night if I wanted to call.
I talked it over with my wife and came to the conclusion that I was probably not ready to have a discussion with them, as I was incredibly terrified about doing so.
You and Christina also came to this conclusion in the podcast, right, right, I recall.
Listen to your fear, which you were never allowed to listen to as a kid, right?
To mask it and listen to your fear now.
I instead wrote them an email saying that I wasn't ready to talk about these things yet and that I needed more time.
Since then, almost one month later, I have received just one email from my father in which he subtly pokes fun at me for, quote, pondering my thoughts and then asserts that I need to make arrangements to take over the loan my mother took out for me.
This loan was a supplemental school loan, which they took out for me a few years back, as they still wanted to claim me as a dependent for tax purposes, but being a dependent meant I didn't get as much financial aid.
I was already on my own at this point, and I stated that if they wanted to have me as a dependent, they had to take out this loan as I needed financial aid in order to attend college at the time.
The loan is not connected with me legally as it is completely in their name.
I have been paying it off on a regular basis and I would rather just have it transferred into my name.
But due to the nature of the loan, this is impossible.
I told them this over a year ago and now they bring it up again in the same manner as they did over a year ago with no option as to how I could take it over and no discussion whatsoever.
I don't actually have access to the account of the loan, so I can do nothing about it other than taking out a separate loan and paying them directly.
The interesting thing is that I think I'm ready to defu, but I've not done so because of this loan, which is why the loan exists.
That's me, sorry. I want to have taken care of this before I break off ties, because, if I do not, there could be a circumstance in which I would have to contact them about repayment.
And this would, of course, be awkward.
If there's any more information you would like about this dream or background info, please feel free to email me.
I greatly appreciate any insight you might have into my situation and my dream.
Thank you again for the glory and beauty that is Freedom Aid Radio.
Thank you. Now, I did ask him for some additional information, so let's get into that before we go into the dream, and I also have something to say about this loan.
This is Brian going on.
My mother once, when I was just entering puberty, and of course already sensitive to physical differences, asked me, Why don't you have armpit hair yet?
Your younger sister already has armpit hair.
What's wrong with you?
This was in a very mocking tone.
My parents would occasionally decide to have the family go out for dinner.
They would sometimes let the children, my sister and myself, decide where we would go.
And if... Last time we did this, my sister decided it would be my turn.
Now, they were pretty brutal about squashing most other desires I had, examples are in my previous Ask a Therapist post, and when it came time for me to decide, I didn't ever really have a preference or a desire to choose.
I was pretty depressed around this time, or rather for most of my childhood, I now think, and I agree.
I would say that I did not want to choose, or something along those lines, but they would insist that it was, quote, my turn.
We would occasionally drive around for well over an hour while I had to decide where to go.
As time passed, they would start to tease me and laugh at me.
Why don't you just decide already?
Your sister could decide instantly.
Do you want her to decide? I replied yes once, but no, it's your turn.
Lots of subtle mockery and eye-rolling during these sorts of events.
My father likes to remember an event that occurred during third or fourth grade.
We were, quote, learning some of the evils...
Of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs in school, and we were told to write some sort of essay, but I cannot remember exactly what the purpose was.
I wrote something to this effect, quote, I would never smoke cigarettes because if my father found out, he would really hurt me.
No, really, I'm serious.
He likes to bring this up and giggle about it, but I was honestly scared of what he would do if that were to happen.
I guess this is cigarette smoking.
I guess the teacher showed this to my parents during parent-teacher conferences, and I don't think it was brought up in a bad way from the teacher.
Why in the hell didn't the teacher see this as being bad?
Oh, my brother, because your parents aren't that unusual.
In regards to the dinner-eating timer incidences that I wrote about in the Ask a Therapist post, my parents would also tauntingly compare me to my sister in this regard also.
Why do you take so long to eat?
Look, your sister's almost done. What's wrong with you?
Also in a very mocking tone.
In many cases, when a nice something I did met with a disapproval, if I wasn't actually physically punished, then I was made to feel absolutely horrible through a sort of sick appeal to morality.
I remember once not remembering to write my grandmother a thank you card for a birthday gift.
I most likely ignored it and said that I forgot, as I could tell even at that age that my grandmother didn't care much about me.
She never talked to me or tried to get to know me as a person, but just, you know, purchased things for me.
My mother was furious, stating, You selfish son of a bitch, I can't believe you.
Your grandmother doesn't have a lot of money, you know.
This means a lot to her, and you just blow her off like you don't care?
You bastard, I don't even know you anymore.
Things like this happened a few times throughout my childhood, and even into early adulthood.
I remember my mother instructing me on how to wash dishes properly.
One rule she had was not to use the rough side of the scrub pad on the plastic cups we had.
Oh, these goddamn rules, I remember them so well.
One day I noticed her doing this, so I said something like, I thought she said not to do that.
She at first didn't remember, or know, or claimed to know, as I would say, what I was talking about, so then I told her the rule she had told to me.
She then paused for a moment, looked at me, and just laughed.
That was it. Nothing else was said.
My father often liked to hide in dark rooms, closets, etc., and jump out and scare us randomly.
This may sound like playful fun, but it was sort of nerve-wracking.
I was quite young and could be frightened because of this.
Yeah, of course. You know, by the by, and we'll talk about this in a moment, I'll come back to that.
I grew up on a farm and had no other people my age around that I could play with except my sister.
When I was about 11 or 12, a kid moved in to the area from elsewhere, and I met him in school.
He lived somewhat near me, and as I was older, I could ride a four-wheel ATV via country gravel roads to visit and hang out.
I remember being quite excited about there being finally someone I could possibly do things with on a regular basis.
He had ridden his ATV over to my house one afternoon and had to be home by six, as I didn't have to be home until around eight.
I decided to ride back with him to his house so we could hang out for longer, then ride home afterwards.
My parents teased me about this.
Oh, look, Brian has a friend.
How nice. Go play with your friend.
There was some giggling during this and a clear insinuation of me being gay or having gay tendencies.
I was old enough to understand what they meant by that.
This really bothered me the whole way to his house, and I remember being confused.
Am I gay? I just wanted to play.
Am I weird? I remember this bothering me enough to make me not want to see this kid much after that.
And that, of course, is perfectly predictable and perfectly natural.
So, before we get to the dream, I'd like to mention a little bit about what you've sent me, Brian.
Let's start with it going in sequence.
Let's start with this loan.
Um... Technically, in sort of accounting circles, this is an FTL. An FTL is fuck the loan.
Fuck the loan. Fuck the loan, if you don't mind me saying so.
You got less financial aid because of this loan.
This loan was for your parents' economic benefit.
And, oh, by the way, your parents are evil, torturing, sadistic, brutal, nasty child abusers.
I say, FTL. Fuck the loan.
Fuck the loan. And I would say, just say, oh, you know what?
I'm totally broke right now.
I'll let you know when I can stop paying the loan off.
And until then, blah, blah, blah.
And then just don't contact them anymore.
Don't contact them ever again.
Block the emails. Why are you still getting emails from this guy?
Why are you still getting emails from this guy?
Don't mean to sound harsh, but you've got to take the step.
And of course, I'm the last guy to sound harsh because I didn't respond to your email, but you've got to block this stuff.
These people are stone evil, beyond evil.
Satanic. And you don't owe them a penny.
I don't care if the loan's for a million dollars.
How much do they owe you for trying to strangle your soul into oblivion for the 20 years that you were under their thumb?
What do they owe you? And if they start to get shirty with you or they drop by, invite them in.
Invite them in. Make them a cup of tea.
Say, yeah, I understand that you're here about the loan.
I'll make a deal with you, though, Mom and Dad.
I'll make a deal with you if you like.
You can have one of two choices.
Either you can say, Brian, pay us back the money that you owe us.
Although you did not initiate this financial transaction.
Or we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Take you to court.
Although I know the loan's not in your name, but let's say they threaten something like this.
Then what I would do, and I'm not saying it's the easiest thing in the world to do, but what I would do is something like this.
I'd say, oh, okay, so we're going to bring court into this, no problem.
Let's make this deal. I'll pay you back the money if you don't mind the fact that I'm going to sue the shit out of you for child abuse.
I've got all the documentation and you're going to end up in prison for abusing your child.
There's no statute of limitations on child abuse.
So, you can get the money out of me, but you won't have any place to spend it except maybe buying protection in prison.
And by the way, even if I can't have restitution from the courts, what I'm going to do is I'm going to write down an explicit detail.
I'm going to make it an affidavit, and I'm going to have a lawyer notarize it, and then I'm going to mail it to everyone that you know.
To your friends, to your family, to your church, whoever it is that they're part of, to their bosses.
I'm going to out you as sadistic child abusers, and then I'll pay you back the loan.
Of course, you won't have anyone who'll want to spend time with you.
Or, if they do want to spend time with you, you'll know that they're as evil and as corrupt as you are.
You have a great weapon called the truth, my friend.
You have a great weapon called the truth, which is liberated through a lack of guilt about being a victim.
Accepting that you were a victim frees your power in the present.
I would not pay one thin dime to these people.
I would not pay one thin dime to these people.
And I would feel no guilt about it.
In fact, I would feel that it was exactly the right thing to do.
I would save that money for my own child's education and not pay it back to sadistic and sick abusers.
So, FTL would be my suggested strategy.
Let me know what you think. Now, the other things that you mentioned, and we don't have to say too much about it, the mockery about physical development, and this is all very common and is all very grindingly predictable, which doesn't mean that it's any less painful or agonizing when you're going through it as a child.
The mocking, this driving around for an hour, driving around for an hour while you can't make a decision, and then mocking you for all of that, this is all.
It is exquisite sadism.
This is... I mean, this is more my brother than my mother.
My mother, as I've mentioned before, was not sadistic.
My brother was. My mother was not sadistic.
Just violent. Just explosive.
Just psychotic, right?
Just not sadistic. But these people are very, very good at humiliation.
Right? These are not dumb people.
Your parents are exquisite predators.
Right? They're not dumb.
They're very, very, very good at what they do.
And what happens with a predator is they will break your leg and then mock you for limping.
They will not feed you and then they will mock you for being tired.
And this, of course, is continual.
Of course, your father likes to remember that Right?
Your father loves to remember this story that happened in the third or fourth grade where you, and incredibly bravely, but, I mean, this is where your depression, I bet, really, really started, was when you did reach out to somebody else saying that I am experiencing the threat of extraordinary violence at home.
This is a message in a bottle, right?
This is a I am being abused message that you're putting out there in the world.
And your father... He's absolutely delighted at the fact that you put this out there.
In other words, he's taking extraordinary sadistic joy in the fact that you knew you were being abused, that you were tortured, and you reached out to someone for help, and nothing happened.
Oh, for a sadist, that is just...
It's an orgasm.
That you knew you were being hurt, that you reached out for help, and were soundly rejected.
Of course he loves her.
That was a high point of his evil life.
And of course, a time of great risk.
Because if you'd come across the 1 in 10,000 people who would have done something about it, he could have been really screwed there.
So it was a time of great risk, but extraordinary pleasure for him.
That you tried to reach out for someone's help.
And was soundly rejected and returned to the abuser.
And why did this happen?
Because this is not your parents.
This is the world. The world is either abusing children, covering up the abuse of children, or ignoring the abuse of children.
That's the world, and I don't want to get emails, as I always do in these situations, saying, oh, that's so negative, lots of families are great, and this and that.
Then you tell me in detail what your experience is to the contrary.
I'm just talking about everything that I've heard and read about, and after Freedom Aid Radio started, I've gotten a hell of a lot more material than I think most people will ever have in their lives, in terms of facts, so...
I have yet to receive one email of the thousands that I've received.
I've yet to receive one email of someone saying, I revealed my abuse to someone outside the family, and here's the good things that came of it.
I've yet to receive one single solitary email with that story in it, and if you have that story, I'm certainly happy to hear it, and I'll be happy to report upon it.
But so far, again, just working scientifically and empirically, this is the world.
This is not your family.
This is not this teacher.
This is the world. But not for long, my friends.
Not for long. Because we have the truth.
Now, the moral grindhouse, right?
Grinding you in the fine pestle of self-righteous morality.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That also is exquisitely pleasant for somebody who's a real sadist, right?
Because they get to torture a virtuous person with the very weapons of virtue.
I mean, you were tortured because you didn't want to be a bad person.
Right? So... The fact, like, when sadistic people, when evil people get to skewer moral people with the very weapons of morality that they themselves would never touch, oh, it is just delicious for a sadist.
I have no sadistic tendencies myself, but I sure as hell do understand them.
I sure as hell do understand them.
Yeah, the hypocrisy, the dishwashing, yeah, the hiding in dark rooms and closets, yeah, my brother was a big fan of this stuff.
My brother was a big fan of this stuff.
And you see this kind of crap on America's Funniest Home Videos.
Some guy's peacefully taking a nap and they come up with a bugle and blow it in his ear and blah blah blah.
You know, these are sadistic bastards, right?
You can't relax.
I own your body.
Invasion. Invasion.
I mean, this guy sounds really bizarre, but I was in a business.
When I was in business running Caribou, I went to the dentist and got my teeth cleaned and all that.
My brother came up and he said, Oh, I love that teeth.
I love that thing where your teeth are clean right after the dentist.
And this was with other people in the room.
He actually grabbed my mouth and licked my teeth.
That's a seriously deranged fellow, right?
And, yeah, of course, I mean, the moment you develop any kind of attachment outside the family, that has to be attacked.
It has to be attacked. It has to be attacked.
I mean, again, none of this predictability is at all designed to have you feel, any of the less keenly, all of the horror that went on.
The reason that I talk about the predictability of it is so that you realize that it was inevitable and not your fault.
Inevitable. And not your fault.
I mean, your parents totally gave themselves over to Satan.
To use a religious metaphor.
Like, not even a little bit.
Like, there was no tussle, right?
It's like, Satan shows up and is like, I want your soul.
It's like, great, where do I sign? I'm in.
I'm in. Jesus, I can't believe it took you this long.
Come on, let's go. I mean, I'm packed.
I'm ready to go. I got my kids.
I got my meat hooks. I'm ready to go.
So, I'm very sorry.
But for God's sake, don't give these people any more of your goddamn money.
The best you can offer them is not to throw them in jail, or out them as abusers to everyone around them.
You have the truth, and you have no guilt, and you have the power.
So, let me just leaf through this, and we shall get to the dream.
This is the dream. This, again, is about a month ago when this was going down for this fellow.
I'm traveling on the water.
In a craft of some sort, like a small boat or a jet ski of some kind.
I have a destination, a residence of a friend or acquaintance of mine, where I have been in the past.
I clearly, in the dream, have a memory of visiting this place and this person, a middle-aged male.
He lived in a cave that was situated at the edge of a large landmass.
Just behind his cave entrance was a very large, sheer rock cliff extending upwards many hundreds of feet and running the coastline.
This was my memory of my last visit.
As I arrived, however, I realized that there was now some distance between his cave and the cliff face, and in between was a decent amount of water, the same body of water that I was traveling over.
his cave was now a small island made of rock, which was long and thin.
At its ends, the rock island sloped into the water gently, and it rose gently to the highest point in the middle, which was the entrance to his cave.
I ran my craft ashore at the end of the island and started walking towards the middle, towards his residence.
He was standing outside the cave to greet me, and then he motioned for us to go into his cave for whatever I was there for.
None of this seemed strange until what comes next?
As I approached the entrance of the cave, I noticed a slightly younger but still middle-aged woman, who was physically very attractive, bound by rope to the ceiling of the cave entrance.
.
She was facing the floor and looked like an insect trapped in a spider's web with her arms and legs in awkward positions.
The instant I noticed this, I felt a huge sense of danger and that I had gotten myself into something rather serious.
I remember the man mumbling something about being severed from the mainland and now being sovereign, but this wasn't clear.
Just after I first felt terror, the woman began to get herself out of the rope, which gave me a second rush of emotion.
First confusion, and then even more terror, as I realized she was not actually a hostage of his, but rather a colluder with him to get me to do something, although that something I wasn't sure of.
She seemed rather matter-of-fact about the whole thing and was just climbing out of the rope as if it was no big deal.
I had a very...
I had a strong feeling that their intention was to put me into the rope web in place of her and I very quickly fled.
I was then either back in my watercraft or just traveling over the water of my own propulsion fleeing the man from the island who was now pursuing me.
I had a handgun in my possession and during the chase I looked back and fired a few shots hoping to stop his chase.
This whole time, I very much felt that I was fleeing from my life.
Next, I found myself underwater somehow, but I was still traveling fairly fast, just as I had been above water.
I still looked back occasionally to shoot at my pursuer, but now I couldn't actually see him following due to the water obscuring my vision, and I felt even more terrified.
I remember shooting until I ran out of bullets, then tossing my gun in the direction I thought he would be, even though at the time it felt like a futile gesture, since we were underwater and the gun didn't travel far behind me.
I still couldn't see my pursuer.
Next, I was above water, either getting out of my craft or climbing out of water, onto another cliff shore where there was a very large building.
The building was partly in the rock face, I believe, but this wasn't very clear.
The pursuit was still taking place, although I didn't know where my pursuer was.
I entered the building and proceeded to run down many halls and staircases in an attempt to lose my pursuer.
The building was large, vacant, with many long halls and staircases that wind around the central empty column, where you can look up and see the floors above you.
Every time I looked back, I would now see him a little ways behind me.
The weird part was that, although he was always very near to catching me while I was fleeing, he never seemed to be in a hurry.
I was confused as to why.
While I was running my hardest to escape, he seemed to be calmly following, but always keeping up.
This gave me a huge sense of despair, as no matter what my efforts were, I couldn't get away.
I was terrified, and then I woke up.
What a great dream. I mean, they were all great, but with the backstory here, I think that we can unravel this one in some more detail.
Without being too lengthy in some more detail than we have with other dreams.
Beep! This dream analysis continues on side two, because I'm at 34 minutes, and that would be a little shorter than the length of my average podcast, so you might want to save the dream analysis for your drive home.
Go check the weather. So, traveling on the water in a craft of some kind, like a small boat or a jet ski or something, Destination, a residence of a friend or acquaintance of mine where I've been in the past.
I clearly in the dream have a memory of visiting this place in a personal middle-aged man.
He lived in a cave that was situated at the edge of a large landmass.
Just behind the cave was a very large sheer rock cliff extending up many hundreds of feet and running the coastline.
This was my memory of my last visit.
As I arrived, I realized there was now some distance between his cave and the cliff face, and in between was a decent amount of water.
The same body of water that I was traveling over.
Alright, so...
Let me just get out of the wind here.
So let's get this situated here.
Now, you must be coming from outside the water area.
And again, I hope I get the geography of this right.
It's a bit confusing to me, but I think I've gotten it.
That there is a cliff that's embedded in...
Sorry, there's a cave that's embedded in a cliff wall.
It's part of the mainland. And you're traveling to see it, which must mean that you're coming from some island.
Oh, I don't know if you're going up.
I don't know if you're going up the water or up the edge of the water.
Maybe that's the easiest way for you to get to this cave.
I don't know. But the cave is part of the mainland.
It's embedded, right? Yeah.
And I don't think you mentioned why you were going to visit this middle-aged man.
But you realize that the cliff has now separated itself from the mainland.
Now one of the things I think that does happen in dreams is naturally, of course, if this happened in real life, you wouldn't go into the cave.
Or be very unlikely that you would.
I mean, just imagine this.
You're going to go and visit a cave, and when you come back some short time later, the cave is no longer embedded in the cliff, but is now a promontory or an island out in the water.
Well, you'd say, well, this isn't the right place.
My cave was in the cliff, and now it's out on the water.
And so the fact that you don't notice this is an indication in the dream that you're acting in an unconscious manner in this area, right?
Where dreams deviate from what you would do in real life, they're trying to point out to you that you should be doing something that you're not doing.
Right? So you are going to visit an acquaintance and it turns out that his cliff or his home or whatever you want to call it It's nothing like you remember it.
In fact, it's impossible for it to be where it is right now.
So, what the dream is saying is that you remember somebody in a vaguely positive manner and you remember the cave embedded in the cliff.
But you're wrong. The cave is not embedded in the cliff.
So, the dream is saying, what you remember is not true.
What you remember is impossible.
What you remember is a fantasy that totally contradicts reality.
If the cave is embedded in the cliff, it can't be a promontory out in the ocean.
So, if in real life, I mean, if you and I were traveling to this cave, and you said, oh, it's embedded in the cliff, and we saw this cave as a promontory outside...
Then I'd say, well, this is not the right place.
Right? Now, if this isn't the right place, we don't know what's in the cave.
If this isn't the right place, we don't know what's in the cave.
Which I think is quite important.
Because you don't go wandering into caves that you don't know what's in there.
At least that's not a very good idea.
So if you and I were traveling out to this and it was totally different from what you'd remembered, I'd said, well, this can't be the right cave.
So we either need to go to another cave or something or go back, but we don't go into this cave because we don't know what's in there.
Could be snakes, could be...
I don't know, a swimming bear could be just mold spores that are dangerous for our lungs.
I mean, it could be anything in this cave.
It could be unstable rocks.
It could be a landslide. It could be, you know, the tide could come in and we're trapped in there.
I mean, who knows, right? But we don't go into the cave if we don't know what's there, and you're not processing this.
Which means you're in an unconscious state.
You're acting on habit. Which means that you're acting on somebody else's desires rather than yours.
Because now that you're discovering the truth about your past, you still feel obligated to your parents to pay off this loan.
So although going back is an impossible location compared to what you remember, you still feel there's some vague friendliness and you still feel an obligation to visit, to go in or whatever.
Right? So then, go into the cave, right?
As I approach the entrance of the cave, you say, I notice a slightly younger but still middle-aged woman who was physically very attractive, bound by a rope to the ceiling of the cave entrance.
She was facing the floor and looked like an insect trapped in a spider's web, with her arms and legs in awkward positions.
Now, now you get the danger.
Right now you get the danger.
I'm guessing, although of course I don't know, and it's only your introspection that will say for sure, I'm guessing that The woman is the animus of the family.
It's the female within the family, right?
Because you mentioned a number of times being compared to your sister in a humiliating fashion.
And I don't believe that you've ever mentioned that your sister dealt with you with any sympathy whatsoever.
And if I remember the podcast correctly, your sister is decidedly unsympathetic and aggressive towards you.
So it may be that you also need to wake up to your sister.
Although you were both prisoners, one of you was colluding.
And thus was imbibing and being infected with the sadism.
And that's why you say she's not actually a hostage.
Rather colluded with him to get me to do something.
Although that's something I wasn't quite sure of.
So she's climbing out of the rope.
So this is a trap, right? This is a trap.
She appears to be bound, but she's actually free.
And she can free herself at any time.
I don't know the relationship that you have with your sister or her relationship with her parents, but I'm guessing if it's like most siblings where one person is free, the other person then cleaves to the parents.
The parents grapple to that other person that much more closely.
And... So, I would say that you may have a conflicting opinion with regards to your sister, that because you know the horrors that you experience at the hands of your family, that you might view her as someone who is trapped that you need to free, but the dream is saying very clearly, she's not trapped at all.
She's not trapped. She is a trap.
And once you get that...
That she wants to entrap you and that she's colluding and she's only pretending to be helpless when she's actually colluding with the sadists.
Then you flee.
Then you flee.
Which is quite right.
Which is quite right.
And your dream is telling you that fleeing, while a valid strategy to escape The person who is pursuing you is not a long-term valid strategy for facing the family within your soul, the family within your mind.
The history that we can't escape because we've lived it and it is with us.
The history that we cannot escape.
And you can... Be released from the concentration camp in the flesh, but the concentration camp of the mind, you can't flee from.
You can't run from. You have to turn and confront.
You have to turn and confront.
So fleeing this situation from a physical standpoint, to me, makes sense.
Now, you don't mention, and this is, again, this is very important in the dream.
You've got to look at every single detail.
You don't mention...
That on this cave is another jet ski or motorboat or whatever it is that you're using to get around on the water.
It's just a cave. So the question is, if you jump on a jet ski and race away, again, just talking real life, if you jump on a jet ski and you speed away from a cave where there's a guy standing there, how is he following you?
How is he following you?
Right? If the dream said...
I go up to the cave and there's a jet ski in front of it, which then the guy in the cave...
Sorry, the thought just struck me that since I said that it's either your mother or your sister or both in the dream, it could be that you feel some sympathy for your mother, but I'm guessing from your emails and communications that you don't, which of course is entirely right.
I mean... Bad cop and worse cop, right, as somebody else wrote me, with regards to female complicity and male abuse within the family.
So, in the dream, it's very clear that your father, or whoever this guy is, this middle-aged guy, that he has no means of pursuing you.
Because if he did, then...
That would be in the dream. So clearly the dream is saying, and he can't communicate.
He can't follow you. But he does follow you.
So you're fleeing, and this man is now pursuing you.
But is he running on the water? Is he levitating?
It doesn't make sense how he's able to pursue you, which is what the dream is telling you.
You've seen the danger, and you're getting away.
Now, you waited too late to see the danger.
You should turn back when you realize it's not the cave that you thought it was.
Too late you are realizing the danger, but not entirely too late.
In other words, you could have seen the danger earlier in the fact that this was not what you remembered it as, but you went in anyway.
Because if the cave is not the cave, then the person you think of as a friend is probably not a friend.
If your memory is that bad...
And the other thing that I think is occurring...
If you look, I know I'm skipping around a bit.
I'll get back to the guy pursuing you afterwards in a sec.
But the cave is now separated from the mainland.
Now, this is a symbol of a lot of things, right?
But basically, it has to do with denormalizing.
Denormalizing the behavior, which is the process that you're going through.
Right, and there's a huge difference between saying, yeah, I had a bad childhood, and...
I was nearly broken by evil people.
It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to live it.
It's one thing to talk about it, and it's another thing to re-experience it.
Re-experiencing gives us energy, right?
I mean, if you imagine that you were in a prison cell, a dank and with spiders and rats and no light and bad food, no food, no water, little water, brutal gods...
If you had a pill that was given you every day that lets you believe in this matrix style that you were perfectly free, and it was actually better than what you remembered freedom to be, it's unlikely that you would work to break out of the prison cell, and that's the problem that dissociation...
It's morphine, right?
I mean, it removes pain, but it also removes spurs to action.
If you're on this endless, beautiful, perfect heroin while you're in prison, you're not going to want to break out of prison, at least not that much.
Or you'll say you will, but tomorrow, right?
The day after. Soon. Soon.
I need to build my strength up, you know.
The house is on fire.
We'll get you off the couch.
Right? This television station isn't exactly what I want to watch.
It's not necessarily going to get you off the couch.
House is on fire, you're off the couch, right?
So you're going through this process of denormalizing, and as you denormalize, and you recognize the horror of what happened, not relative to other people, not relative to other people.
People say, well, there are other people in the world who had a bad childhood, or a worse childhood, or I didn't have the worst childhood in the world.
Well, yes, you did. You had the worst childhood in the world for you.
Children don't compare themselves to others.
They compare themselves to reality.
They compare themselves to the pure form that we inherit at birth.
And you had the worst childhood in the world for you, and that's all that matters.
One of the ways that we bypass...
One of the ways that we stay on the drug of dissociation, of rejecting our feelings, of talking ourselves out of our feelings because they're uncomfortable, pain, anger, rage, fear, horror, is we do this false comparison.
Well, you know, people had it worse off.
I wasn't in a concentration camp.
Well, yeah, you were. And you were in the worst concentration camp in the world.
Why? Because you were in it.
And as kids, we don't compare ourselves to others.
That's an adult trick. That's what idiot patriots say.
Oh, would you rather be living in Syria?
Syria's not relevant. The fact that people die every day doesn't mean that you're indifferent to dying.
We don't compare. In our heart of hearts, we don't compare that.
It's just a trick. It's just a trick that we're taught.
Parents serve you food that you hate.
Starving kids in India, you know.
That comparison is a lie.
It's to deaden the soul.
It's to make you not be assertive.
It's to make you... You know, there are houses burning down even more than mine, so I'm not going to get off the couch.
Well, forget that.
There's the fire and there's your skin and there's the bubbling and the scorching and the burns, and that's all that matters.
So yes, you had the worst childhood in the world.
So you are fleeing, and there is no indication in the dream of how your pursuer is possibly pursuing you.
*sniff* And you keep running, and you keep running, and you're underwater, and you're shooting at him, but you're not shooting...
Say you shoot in his direction, if I remember rightly.
Let me just check. To shoot at my pursuer.
I'm not sure... That you're aiming right at him.
I'm not sure. I think you're just trying to scare him off and then you throw your gun even though it's underwater and clearly it's going to do nothing.
So there's a futility in your relationship with this pursuer.
Right? There's a futility and a helplessness and a despair.
Right? And I would say that's part of the process that you're working through with dealing with your childhood and what a magnificent, what a magnificently brave soul you are in doing so and how you are tilting the world to a different future.
Each and every one of us who's doing this is tilting the world to a different future.
We're not only can we save the world, we are saving the world.
We are saving the world.
Evil can spread like a virus, my friends.
But so can virtue. So can virtue.
And we're not running anymore.
Oh no, we're turning and we're fighting.
We're turning and we're fighting.
I've had enough running. I think virtue's been on the run since the dawn of time.
I think we've had enough. I think we've had a fucking enough.
And it's time to turn and fight.
And the dream is clear.
Like, you're underwater, you're above water, you're in a building.
No matter what you do, this guy's, you're shooting at him, you're throwing, this guy's still following you.
He seems very near to catching you while you're fleeing, but he never seems to be in a hurry.
Again, absolutely an essential detail, in my opinion.
And do let me know what you think of this analysis, of course.
I hope that it's helpful. He doesn't seem to be hurrying, but he's not catching you.
He doesn't seem to be hurrying, but he's not catching you.
What does that tell you?
That he could catch you if he wanted.
This dream character. He could catch you if he wanted.
He could catch you if he wanted, but he doesn't.
Why? Why?
Why, why, why? Why?
Well, because he prefers that you run.
He likes you running.
He likes you running.
Because if you run, he has power.
He's making you run.
Away, run, flee, run, shoot, dive, throw your gun, despair, helplessness, hopelessness.
This asshole in your dream has all the power in the world because he's making you run.
He doesn't want to catch you because he's not.
The fear is him pursuing you, not him catching you.
That's what is making you afraid.
If someone's chasing you and could easily catch you but don't, and to take an entirely opposite metaphor or image, you think of a father with his three-year-old kid who steps forward and says, I'm going to catch you, I'm going to catch you, and tickles him and then lets him run away.
And as a dad, you run slowly, you pretend to catch, you pretend, oh, I can't catch you, I'm so slow, you're running so fast, and the kid giggles, right?
If the father saw that his toddler was wandering near a cliff edge, do you think the father would be like, oh, I'm trying to catch him, I'm so slow?
No, the father would just sprint over and grab his kid.
So this is a game where the guy is getting pleasure out of making you run, but he's got no intention of actually catching you.
And the dream's very clear about that.
And the dream is also clear that he's manufactured.
That you're projecting into the world something that's within yourself.
And that's why, no matter where you go, he's right behind you.
No matter how fast you go, he's always behind you and never tired.
You can shoot at him, you can go underwater, you can go into different buildings, you can do anything that you want, and he's right there.
This is a very clear indication that the real guy in the dream is on the cave, going, wow, that's a fast jet ski.
Guess he's out of here. But you carry the image with you.
You take the past with you.
And thus your past becomes your future.
So I'm frightened of something in the past.
I'm going to run away from it.
I'm never going to escape it.
And thus my future becomes blind running.
The past becomes the future.
The fear of the past becomes the direction.
Or rather the lack of direction.
The simple fleeing. The mad fleeing of the future.
Right? So you're trying to lose this guy, and you're in a situation here, and I've had these dreams too, and I understand these dreams.
And then, you're put into a situation where you can't be found.
building long, empty building, hallways, different levels, different floors.
And he's still there.
And Right? He's still there.
Now, what I think this means, throw all tempting obscurantism to the side, so we don't have as much time as we'd like.
What you are fleeing from is not your father.
Or maybe this is an uncle who abused you.
I don't know. But let's just say your father.
What you're fleeing from is not your father.
What you're fleeing from is your fear of your father.
You said that I did not call my father when my father and my mother were waiting for my call one night when they said they would be home because I was terrified of making the call.
Because you said...
Let me just get... I came to the conclusion I was probably not ready to have a discussion with them as I was incredibly terrified about doing so.
This is what the dream's about. I'm alone, but we've already done the FTL. So, I was not ready to have a discussion with my parents because I was too terrified.
Well, what does that mean? Logically.
It means that you think you should have a conversation with your parents.
And your fear is a problem.
Your fear is the barrier.
You know, like if I owe money to the bank and they're sending me letters, I should call the bank.
But I'm afraid to.
And so I'm going to succumb to my fear and do the cowardly thing.
Whatever, whatever, right? Back down from the fight.
Oh, my brother, I wish you could see.
I wish you could see what I see.
Maybe you can. Maybe you can, but you don't confront sadists, my friend.
Your fear is totally right.
You don't confront sadists.
You don't get into a fistfight with people who can't feel pain.
You don't...
A sadist and a masochist are two sides of the same coin.
Like Churchill said about the Nazis, they're either at your feet or at your throat.
Nothing in between. I think he just meant the Germans.
But the sadist and the masochist are two sides of the same coin.
People who take joy in inflicting pain also take a sick joy in experiencing pain.
Right? Not irrelevant to the board discussion we had lately.
If you go and confront a sadist, one of two things is going to happen.
Either they're going to hurt you, in which case you've just done what?
You've just re-experienced abuse.
You've just re-inflicted abuse upon yourself.
Instead of having your hand forced into a blender, you've voluntarily gone up, planned for it, put on your best suit, and stuck your hand in the blender and turned it on.
Don't do that. Don't.
Don't do that. It's one thing to be a victim when you're a child.
And to be helpless in the hands of your abusers.
That's one thing. But don't you dare do that to yourself now.
Don't you dare go back into that rat's nest.
Into that pit of vipers.
Into that chainsaw.
Don't you stick your hand in that blender.
Don't you put your fork in that electrical socket now.
This you are free to avoid.
This you are free to avoid, my friend.
Don't do it. I don't often give orders, and my orders mean nothing, but I'm telling you, don't do it.
Don't do it. Protect your child.
Protect your inner child. Protect yourself.
A visualization that was mentioned by a user on the board, which is useful when thinking about child abuse, is to imagine that you as an adult are back there helping and comforting your child.
And that's true. And that's a very valid visualization.
But you can protect your child.
And the way you do it is not...
Putting him in the vicinity of the orbit of abusers.
It's your parents who want you to confront them.
And why? Because they're both sadists and masochists.
So this is what happens. You sit down and you confront them.
Either they're going to fuck you up, which is going to give them pleasure, or you're going to fuck them up, which is going to give them pleasure and you guilt.
The guilt of which will also give them pleasure.
This is why sadism and masochism is the same thing.
If you hurt a sadist, he takes pleasure both in being hurt and in the guilt that that will inflict upon you.
Your poor mother, she's been crying and crying.
This is what Christina got from her sadists.
You can't win when you confront a sadist.
They hurt you, they're happy.
You hurt them, they're happy.
They're doubly happy, actually. Can't win.
Don't play. Can't win.
Don't play.
You owe your parents no confrontation.
You owe your parents no money.
You owe your parents no allegiance.
You owe your parents possibly a lawsuit if you're feeling particularly angry.
But I myself would not get involved in that.
Because life is short.
Live it while you can.
Don't throw away months or years or decades to vengeance.
You can block their emails, block their telephone numbers.
You can send them a letter saying, I can't pay you the loan back now.
I don't know if I ever will be able to.
I'll get in touch when, when, when.
and then just shut off all contact.
When you've had your hand stuck in a blender repeatedly by brutal abusers for 20 years, going back and saying, well, I'm just going to stick my hand in a blender one more time to prove some sort of self-mastery of I'm just going to stick my hand in a blender one more time to prove some sort of self-mastery They want you afraid.
That's what the dream is telling you.
And it's you who's making yourself afraid now, with some obligation, which is coming from them.
They like the idea of you frightened even if...
Even if you never ever see them again, they love the idea of you frightened.
If they can take to their grave the image of you frightened, a pussy, running, scared, wetting your pants, sweating, they will love that.
That will be meat and drink for them.
This is the blood these vampires feed on.
Don't give them that satisfaction.
Don't imagine that there's some scene you can have where you nail them and that's how you free yourself.
Don't imagine that there's some scene where you can have where you can hold out your heart to them and your experiences and have them see it.
Don't have needs with sadists!
A need to confront, a need to reject, a need to teach a lesson to, a need to any kind of need will fuck you up.
And you can't win. Can't win.
Don't show one soft shred of underbelly to a sadist.
You just leave. You owe them nothing.
They're lucky you don't have them thrown in jail.
And don't spend another thin dime on these people.
Stop running. Stop running, because you don't need to go back.
When you don't need to go back, there's no need to run.
No need to shake the air when you're already out of the jail cell and you're shaking the bars.
You're out! You're done! You're out!
You're done! Just walk away.
Live your life. Be free. You can go any direction you want.
Now. Except back.
▲
Export Selection