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Nov. 22, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:15:18
1794 How to Interpret Your Dreams

Stef analyzes a listener's dream, and talks about both the content in the form of a dream analysis.

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Time Text
Alright, well let's get started.
This is the call about your dream.
Why don't you start with the dream?
Yeah, and just for what it's worth, I didn't really pick this dream for any particular reason.
I just opened up my journal.
Because basically you and I had talked before a Sunday show a few weeks ago about picking a dream, any dream, and running through a dream interpretation where you stop and explain along the way what you're doing.
It would be more informative about the methodology.
I picked a dream and I did try to pick one that was kind of chock full of metaphor and I think you did.
It was a week or maybe a week and a half ago.
It was pretty recent. It was about a week ago.
I was in a hut.
Did you take a look at it in the email?
Yeah, but I just want you to read it in case this goes out.
Oh, yeah, but I'm just saying there was that last bit.
Should I leave that last bit out?
Let me just double check. Yeah, I put a note in there.
Cool, just let me know. So, yeah, I was in a hut, not a dilapidated hut, but one with modern amenities, somewhat like a resort-style hut.
There's a stream encircling the hut, and I can see it through the windows.
My parents are in the hut, sitting down, and I feel guilty, as though I've been telling everyone that I no longer talk to my parents, but I go visit them on vacation.
Neither of my parents are talking, they're just there.
At this point, I walk outside to look at the stream.
There are no real strong emotions, like a fear response about my parents.
I just left the hut and dipped my toes into the water.
Sorry, can you just move back from the mic a little bit?
Oh, sure. Sure.
So, I just left the hut.
Is this better? Yeah, thanks.
So I just left the hut and dipped my toes into the water, which is cold and refreshing.
I feel relaxed, but with a baseline level of anxiety as I dip my toes into the water.
When I walk back into the hut, it's no longer a small hut, but a large university auditorium.
I'm sitting down. I can't remember why I'm sitting down, but I am.
The girl in front of me has dyed red hair, and I recognize her body figure as being Sue, let's say, the last girl that I dated.
She turns around, looks at me oddly, and says that I look familiar.
She asks me who I am, and I said, I'm Greg.
That doesn't seem to register anything for her, which is confusing for me.
The professor who is giving the lecture then gives the class instructions to split in pairs.
Sue immediately turns around and pairs up with me.
I feel uncomfortable about this, but I don't say anything.
As we're working, she puts her hand on my leg, and I feel even more uncomfortable.
I still say nothing. I also realize that there's no roof on the auditorium at this point, but I don't know if it was originally like that, or if the roof just disappeared.
While in the dream, it registers to me that I'm not asserting my boundaries, but I still don't just tell her to stop.
I leave the auditorium and Sue follows me out.
Instead of leading to the outside area with the stream, the entrance or the exit leads directly into the sunroom of my house, the house where my family spent the most time when I was growing up.
And what do you think about this last bit?
Yeah, I mean, I think to censor, we should choose a dream that we're not going to censor, or we should...
Right, right, that's true.
Okay, cool. So yeah, I'll just do this one.
So my mom is in the sunroom, and she starts to make out with my brother.
I feel numb and helpless, and I realize that Sue is no longer there.
And I wonder if Sue actually was my mom, and I wake up.
Right. Okay, so just the way that I'll start, the way that I generally start, and look, this is, you know, this is far from a science.
This is just sort of my particular habits of approaching it.
But it's a process of elimination for me.
And the first thing to remember for me is, well, let's just say this is all for me, right?
And I'll just put that caveat up front so we don't have to keep repeating it.
All me, all opinion, no methodology other than instinct, but worth reproducing.
So the dream can create anything.
And everything that the dream creates is everything else that it's not creating, which means it must have some specific reason for being there.
And it's sort of like when you ask someone, what's your favorite film?
It tells you a lot about it because there are There are hundreds of thousands of films in the world.
And someone picks a favorite, they're not picking all the others.
And in The God of Atheists, the woman who ends up writing the play called My Father Was a Banana, Which is actually quite a funny joke that I was very pleased with.
The Babelfish asks her, what's your favorite book?
And she says, Glamorama, which tells you an enormous amount.
It means that she reads a lot, and so there's all these other books that she has read that she doesn't like as much.
And she's in university, which means she's reading a lot, and she's enjoying a book that's not on any curriculum that I know of.
So anyway, this all sort of tells you a lot.
And so I assume that everything in the dream is there for some specific reason.
The other thing that I assume is that the dream is attempting to inform us about something that was unacceptable in our past.
The dream is attempting to inform us about something that was unacceptable in our past and it's also trying to tell us why it was unacceptable.
And the reason I think that that happens is a pretty well-known aspect of psychology or self-knowledge, a pretty well-known aspect of that.
You can't eliminate experiences or thoughts within the mind.
Like, you can't be as if they never happened.
All you can do is suppress them in the short term, or if that goes on for long enough, end up repressing them in the long term.
And so these memories are constantly trying to surface.
Our mind is composed of two forces, one healthy and one inflicted.
The healthy force is the force that integrates, that does not want barriers between knowledge, does not want splitting in the personality.
It wants to unify, it wants to integrate.
So, as I've mentioned before, The capacity for integration and extrapolation to abstracts is essential to humanity, and it's what actually keeps us alive.
All animals do this, right?
So Isabella doesn't come to a new set of stairs and think, aha, these ones I can fly from, right?
Gravity is a constant, and stairs are a constant, and falling down is a constant, and pain is a constant, and so she just works with those things.
So she wants to integrate that, to unify that.
And that is what the brain really wants to do.
Unfortunately, corrupt power structures in society, your parents, priests, and teachers, and governments, and so on, not all parents of course, but corrupt power structures can't exist if the integrating and universalizing power of the mind is allowed its natural function.
In other words, Psychological splitting, self-alienation, repression, confusion, contradiction, every spanner that gets thrown into the works of the natural integration of the mind completely messes up, sorry, enables and allows for contradictory exploitive hierarchies.
So... For unjust authority to be wielded, the mind must be split, memories must be repressed, contradictions must be inflicted, and the mind is continually trying to heal itself.
The same way that the body is continually trying to heal itself.
The mind is continually trying to heal itself.
To bring back into cohesion and into unity that which was split and buried.
Because that's what the brain does.
It integrates.
And it unifies, it extrapolates, and it synthesizes.
It philosophizes, you could say.
And so a dream that occurs to my mind, I mean not all dreams, but one that is powerful and particularly one to do with our history.
A dream must be trying to tell us something that we were not allowed to listen to or not allowed to experience.
When we were younger. It must be something that we wanted to do because without desire there can't be repression.
Right? I never wanted to learn Mandarin and I never got punished for either wanting to or not wanting to learn Mandarin.
So it must be something that was desired in the past that was not achievable and the desire must still remain otherwise the dream wouldn't be giving something specific.
The desire must remain.
And what I believe happens is that something...
I mean, you've heard me say this a million times with dreams, right?
What happened the day before?
Something the day before happens that is like a tiny chink of light opening up to a cell long and shrouded In a kind of hibernating darkness.
Something happens where a prisoner stirs and actually becomes quite hysterical in his desire for escape from the prison of history.
And he scrabbles and he bites and he loses his fingernails and he pulls a whole subterranean count of Monte Cristo act to get out.
And I think that's what produces the dream.
Because the question also then, if you're dreaming about something specific, why wasn't it last night?
Why isn't it tomorrow night?
Why is it just this night?
What happened in that day that the brain is shooting up these reintegrating images, trying to tell you something?
And the reason that the brain tries to tell you something obliquely is very simple.
It's that Direct communication from whatever part of you is trying to reintegrate.
Direct communication was forbidden in the past.
So saying, why are dreams so obscure?
Why are dreams so metaphorical?
Is like asking why kids pass notes in class rather than just talking to each other.
Because if they talk to each other, they get punished.
So why do prisoners in jail Pass notes and drum Morse code on their bars, but because if they talk to each other, they'll get punished.
So direct communication from the unconscious, direct integration from the unconscious, between the unconscious, the conscious and all that, the subconscious.
Direct communication is impossible.
So the unconscious is going to communicate in an oblique way Because if you are in a situation in life where you can actually explore your dreams, where you are open, where you are on the path towards integrating your identity,
healing the splits, bringing all the disowned selves back into the same room, reintegrating to a whole self, then you're going to pursue the dream.
So the dream is like a...
I'm trying to think of a good way to put it.
You know what it's like? It's like when you're sleeping with someone, after you've slept with someone, you sleep with someone, and you want to know if they're awake.
Well, unless you're a giant asshole, you don't say, Hey, are you awake?
You say, Hey, are you awake?
As quietly and softly as you can.
Because if they're awake, they'll hear it.
If they're not awake, it won't awaken them.
It's a very soft and delicate thing to ask if someone's awake when you're sleeping right next to them.
And that is what the dream is trying to do.
The dream, and this is why a lot of times we don't get repetitive dreams.
I mean, sometimes we do if it's really important.
Really, really important. But the dream comes up and says, are we in a state Where this dream is going to be examined or are we still in a dangerous state where this dream has to be ignored?
It's like a little smoke signal that's sent up.
It's like a little feeler that is sent out.
And if you meet the dream and you examine the dream and you explore the dream and you try to understand the dream, then the unconscious gets That you're in a state where reintegration is possible.
You're out of a dangerous situation.
You're out of repression. You're out of abuse.
You're out of subjugation.
And therefore the reintegrating process can begin to occur.
And that's what the unconscious is trying to do.
And that's why when you start really digging into your dreams, they come so fast and furious.
Because the unconscious is like, Fuck!
Great! We're out of prison.
We're out of danger.
Let's start really healing.
So that's sort of my general approach to dreams.
That's why I sort of say what happened the day before and then what was it similar to for yourself in the past.
Does that sort of make any sense?
I'm trying to make sort of two Too, too lengthy, but that's my general approach.
Absolutely, it makes sense, yeah.
Everything you said, especially, I had a big aha when you said that it's the metaphor of the passing notes in class.
I think that was a really good way to put it.
Yeah, I mean, it's something that always happens in bad families, right?
In bad families, and in bad dictatorships of every kind, The slaves are beaten, which produces weaselly behavior.
And then the slaves are mocked, attacked, humiliated, and criticized for the weaselly behavior that has been produced by the aggression and abuse.
Right? I mean, it's completely typical.
And it's important to look at the dreams as our children who are trying to talk to us.
Right? And...
And so if the dreams are being oblique and they're being confusing and so on, that's because we have that which in us, that within us, which will attack them for being direct.
In the same way that for a lot of us, we had families that would attack us for being direct.
Or we had priests, or we had teachers who would attack us for being direct.
So the obliqueness of dreams, while it can be frustrating and annoying, I completely understand that, is there as a consequence of Of being attacked for directness and honesty.
This is a very typical thing that happens in hierarchies.
You attack someone and then you attack them further for the behavior that's produced by the initial attack, if that makes sense.
Let's have a look at the dream in a little bit more detail.
I like to look at the dream first.
Before I look at what happened the day before?
Okay, I was just going to ask that, yeah.
Well, the reason being that I don't know what to look at what happened the day before if I don't know what the dream has at some level, right?
Because so many things happen in any particular day that, you know, without knowing what it might have something to do with, it's very tough to pick what it might be.
Does that make sense? Right, and I do just, for what it's worth, I did look, as I was typing in the entry, I did look at the day before's journal entry, just so that I got a good sense of that.
So I do have an idea of like the three or four promotional things that occurred the day before, but I'll definitely, yeah, I think that's a good approach to go through the dream first.
Right. So we'll go through it very briefly and just look at the general themes.
And dreams are almost identical to economics in very, very many ways, right?
In that dreams are the black market of the mind, right?
They're kind of underground, they're underworld, they're the agorism of the free soul left over from a prior tyranny.
So what I mean by that is in economics, the great challenge of economic thinking is to look at what is not there.
Rather than what is there, right?
So, of course, the typical example is if you tax and spend to create jobs, the jobs that are created are very obvious, but the jobs that weren't created because you taxed are much harder to see.
So it's what's not present in the dream that is the first thing to look for, right?
So a dream to me is almost like you put a cup upside down and then you shake a bunch of flour above it On a counter, and then you pick the cup up, you've got a perfect ring of non-flour, right?
So you kind of need to look at what's not there, rather than what is there.
Because that's the kind of oblique communication that occurs.
Right. Okay, so you're in a hut, not a dilapidated hut, but one with modern amenities, like a resort-style hut.
There's a stream encircling the hut, and I can see it through the windows.
Right. Now, the first thing that pops into my mind is that's like a moat.
Right, right. Yeah, that actually, I didn't have that word come through my head when I was typing it in earlier, but it did cross my mind.
Like, why is it not like, why is there not like a pathway of green and kind of like a more of a U-shaped stream?
Like, why is it a circle, right?
Right. Well, yeah, I mean, it's going all the way around.
So my guess would be that this is about boundaries.
This is about assertiveness. It's just, it's the very first thing that's in the dream.
Your hat could be on stilts.
It could be on elephant legs.
It could be doing the jig. It could be propped up by an infinity of turtles.
It could be anything, right? But it is a stream encircling the hat, which is a separation from those around.
So that would be my sort of first thing.
So, you know, the first thing that I would say is boundaries, maybe.
Maybe, right? And we keep going and see if the theme of boundaries is revisited in the dream, and that will tell us what to look for in the day before, if that makes sense?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so my parents are in the hut sitting down, and I feel guilty as though I've been telling everyone I know that I no longer talk to my parents, but go visit them on vacation.
So here's an interesting, time, time, time is very, very important to keep track of in a dream.
Because the unconscious is fantastic at time in a way that the conscious mind is not.
Time is like a service in an operating system.
It's like a background process, right?
We've all had those things where you're sitting there doing nothing and it's like, oh shit, I'm late for something.
The impulse just comes up because your unconscious is like, hey dude, you know?
Whereas if it was just up to your conscious mind, you'd sit there until you write it.
Time, you know, 12 years after you're born, the unconscious goes, hey, let's turn on the puberty taps, right?
Because it's time and all that kind of stuff.
And four years after that, if you're not so lucky, your hair says, okay, bye.
So, time is very important.
So, what's interesting about this is that you haven't talked to your parents in some time and so the fact that they're in the dream means that it's not about the present, right?
Right.
Now, the first thing that I always think of when I see parents in a dream is it's about But in this case, it's not specifically about the past because the unconscious can perfectly reproduce your childhood room if it wants.
So if you sit down and you say, I'm going to picture everything that was in my childhood room.
Well, you can. You can picture everything.
You can picture a whole house, your basement, your street.
You can do that in your mind's eye any time that you want.
The unconscious can do that in dreams, but it's choosing not to.
So the question is why. So this is about...
Sorry, go ahead. Oh, and I was just going to also point out, kind of relevant to what you just said, was like, also just I think it's important that I'm aware, like this self-awareness in the dream that...
I've been telling my friends that I don't talk to my parents, but I'm still talking to them.
Yes, we'll get to that in a sec.
So this has something to do with the past because your parents are there, but it also has something to do with the future because this is something that has not happened to you in the past.
Right, right. So it must be something to do with the future, and the dream is telling you that it's about the future, because your decision to not see your parents is in the past, and is referenced in the dream as being in the past, right?
Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
So it comes from the past, but it's talking about the future, right?
Yeah, so basically the principle from that is try to figure out what's the setting and what's the time and why is it in this time rather than what's this dream talking about as far as time?
Because just giving the respect to the unconscious as far as what you were talking about time.
Is that the general principle that you're talking about?
Yeah, when in time is this occurring?
That's really, really important.
This is occurring in the future, but it's referencing the past.
Now why would the unconscious be talking about the future?
Why would the unconscious talk about the future?
Likely to protect me from something that's a possibility.
Or to prepare for a possibility.
To change it. To change it, right?
So the unconscious is saying, this in the future is not desirable.
Right. So we need to change something because where we're heading, right?
It's like you fall asleep on a boat and you have a dream that you're going over a waterfall.
That's a good time to wake up, right?
Because you know what's coming.
It's a waterfall, right? So if you're dreaming about the future, it's because...
Because if the future's going great, you're not going to dream about it.
Right, right. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, it does.
All right, so...
And now... You feel guilty as though I've been telling everyone that you don't talk to your parents but go visit them on vacation.
I'm not sure what that means when you say as though.
Yeah, well, this has actually been a theme that's come up in my dreams where I'll actually wake up unsure if I still talk to my parents or not.
And I have to just get reoriented.
So I think the feeling is similar to the theme that I've had in past dreams.
So I guess it's hard to tell because I don't know in the dream.
It's not clear to me whether or not I've been telling people that I don't talk to my parents.
I've been telling my friends that I don't talk to them, but I see them on vacation, I think is the clearest way to put it.
Sorry, that is the clearest way to put it, because I just don't know what you're talking about.
Could we try it? Maybe, you know, in Spinal Tap, where they say this one goes up to 11.
Let's try turning the clarity up to 11, because I hope that there's one step beyond this that makes it clearer.
Okay, okay, yeah. So, yeah, I'll go with, I think...
Yeah, I've been telling my friends...
I get the sense in my head that, like, I don't...
Obviously, this didn't occur in the dream, but I know in the dream that I've been telling my friends that I don't talk to my parents, but I'm seeing them on this vacation resort-y type thing.
Well, but... But the dream...
In the dream, you don't talk to your parents.
Mmm... You see, neither of my parents talk, right?
Here's the two sentences, right?
As though I've been telling everyone I know that I no longer talk to my parents.
Neither of my parents talk.
Right. Well, I think the sense I got in the dream...
You're right, right?
Right. Well, the sense I got in the dream was that I was, like, guilty for being around them.
That I was there on my own choice.
And like hanging out with them, I think was the sense.
And that's why I put that line in there about the kind of business.
Well, okay, but let me just go back here because let me give you an alternate scenario in the dream, right?
So you say, although I've been telling everyone that I no longer talk to my parents, right after that you say, neither of my parents talk.
Now, if you'd said, although I've been telling everyone that I no longer see my parents, but my parents are there...
See the difference? Yeah, yeah.
Okay, that makes sense. And why do you think then that there's that?
I don't know. Let's keep going.
I just wanted to point out that you aren't actually talking to your parents, so in a sense you're fulfilling the letter of the law, though not the spirit of the law.
Right, gotcha. Yeah.
You know, because someone could say, did you talk to your parents?
Like, no. Because they were just sitting there.
But you wouldn't, you know what I mean?
So it's like you technically aren't talking to your parents, but...
They're there, so to speak, right?
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
So, you walk outside to look at the stream.
No strong emotions like a fear response about my parents.
I just left the hut dipped in my toes in the water, which is cold and refreshing.
Fear relaxed with a baseline level of anxieties.
I dip my toes into the water.
Now, I mean, that's a pretty clear metaphor, right?
Dipping your toes into the water is trying something in a small way with the hopes of doing it bigger later.
Yeah, yeah. You've heard of that, right?
Absolutely. I was thinking of becoming an actor.
I thought I'd just dip my toes into the water and get a few auditions or whatever, right?
Yeah, that was just way too obvious.
When I walk back into the hut, it's no longer a small hut but a large university auditorium.
I'm sitting down. I can't remember why I'm sitting down, but I am.
The girl in front of me has dyed red hair.
I recognize her body figure as being Sue, the last girl that you dated.
Right. So, in this dream, This woman you dated in the past, right?
Yes. Did she have dyed red hair in real life?
Yeah, yeah. And that's how I recognized.
At first I saw the dyed red hair and then I recognized her body and without her turning around I could tell it was her.
Okay, so this is interesting.
So why does the unconscious have you seeing only the back of her head rather than the front?
Right. Again, could be anything, right?
Oh, and also, just to be clear, I didn't put this in there, but she was a level below me, like, as though the auditorium's, like, slanted upward.
Sorry, you just shut out for a second.
You said... Can you hear me?
Yeah. So she's, like, the...
I didn't put this detail on the drain, but she is in a seat...
In front of me, which is also below me, so the auditorium seats are slanted upwards.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, I don't know why the unconscious did that for me.
I don't know. We're sure you do.
Whatever the unconscious is doing is what's important.
So if the unconscious shows you dyed red hair, what is the unconscious saying?
The unconscious is saying...
Sorry, I'm stuck.
The dyed red hair is important.
Right, right. No, I'm not sure you got that quite yet.
Well, I get that that's...
I get the principle that what the unconscious points out is important.
I don't see how it relates in this, like, with the dyed red hair.
I'm just... That right, right was the way I'm trying to make the connection, but I can't make it.
This woman is fairly young, right?
Yes. So the unconscious is saying, why is she dyeing her hair?
It's important that she's dyeing her hair red.
Right, yeah, she's 20.
She's 20?
And she's dying her hair red.
That's important.
In fact, you should have seen that first, but you looked at her face, not her hair.
And the unconscious is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Look at the hair.
It tells you something about her.
Right, right. In fact, it tells you everything about her.
I'm actually kind of sheepish right now that it took me so long right now to catch that.
I'm sorry if it was annoying for you.
No, no, listen. If you did get this so easily, it wouldn't be in the dream.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, I guess that was slightly important that she had dyed red hair.
And just as a side note, we can talk about this, I'm sure, in a little bit if it's important afterwards, but she had dyed her hair blonde previously and she was trying to figure out what she wanted to dye next.
She did go kind of through rotating what color she did.
That's just a side note about her.
Yeah, I mean, so it takes a fair amount of time to dye your hair, and it takes a fair amount of time to figure out what color you want, and it takes a fair amount of time to get good at it.
And all of this is when you're not taking care of your beautiful soul and becoming a better person, right?
So the important thing that I'm going to spend time on is my fucking hair color.
And money, right. And money, and money, yeah, and money, and money, and money.
I mean, in California, there was a girl with blue hair, and it was important that she had blue hair.
Everybody was ignoring, like it's just a different choice, but it's not the case, right?
Right. As you were saying earlier, the economic choices of what's she not choosing when she's having the dyed red hair, what is she not choosing?
Right, okay, so again, I know we're getting a bit into looking at the dream, but this is sort of, you know, the fact that the girl is below you, right, that's important, and the fact that you see her hair first in the dream is important.
Right, right. Okay, so she turns around, you say, looks at me oddly, and says I look familiar.
She asks me who I am, right?
Yeah. So, she is initiating a conversation with That is insane, right?
Right, right, yeah.
Right, so the unconscious is saying, she's crazy, because you dated.
Right. And she's not 30 years older, so it's not like you look totally different, right?
It's like you're still the same guy, right?
So you dated to this woman, she turns around and looks at you and says, you look familiar, who are you?
Right? Now what's very important in the dream is what you do next.
Right. You say?
I say I'm Greg.
Why is that crazy?
It's treating her question as though it's a serious question or question that I can just take seriously and innocuously like oh yeah you're asking me who I am I'm Greg rather than What?
Yeah, like you were at some conference and somebody says, what's your name?
I'm Greg, right? This woman who you dated looks and says, you look kind of familiar, what's your name?
Right, right. Yeah.
Okay, so you say, that doesn't seem to register anything for her, which is confusing for me.
And this is, you know, joking aside, this is very tragic, right?
Why is it tragic? Because she doesn't have that reality perception.
She's not in touch with what's going on in reality and that is sad because obviously that goes back to the past.
To her childhood? No, no, no, no, no.
And I asked you that question because that's exactly the wrong answer.
And this is what your unconscious is trying to tell you.
It's exactly the wrong answer.
Oh, shit. I'm so sorry.
I mean, saying that there's right and wrong answers in dream analysis is being a complete jerk, but I'm going to step into jerk shoes for a moment and just say that's the complete wrong answer.
Did you think I was going to go that route?
Yeah. Oh, I knew you were going to go that route, but that's why I wanted to let you go that route and then tell you that that's not why it's tragic.
Well, because, Greg, she's just a character in your dream.
She can't be tragic because she's not real.
It's like saying, you know, my hand puppet made me cry.
No, you made you cry because you're working the hand puppet, right?
Right. What's tragic is that you can't Even remotely be honest, even to yourself, about the events that are being portrayed to you.
You mean in the dream?
Yeah. Well, even now.
Even after the dream. Right.
And that being honest about...
Because you say, sorry, because you say, first of all, she doesn't even recognize you.
And then you say, well, I'm Greg.
And she still doesn't recognize you.
But, of course, we're visual creatures, right?
I don't wonder who my wife is until she gives me her name.
Right, right. Oh, Christina, yeah, you're the one from the altar, right.
Yeah. Right, so if somebody doesn't recognize your face, giving your name won't help.
Right, right. And then if she doesn't register your name or who you are, there is nothing confusing about it.
Because it's a dream?
No, because in the dream it's not a dream.
In the dream it's real. Oh, right, right.
There's nothing confusing about it.
It is either she is insane or...
She is intensely manipulative and pretending that she doesn't know you, which means she's insane.
Right, right.
Right, so somebody who knows, I mean, unless she's just had a massive brain bleed or something like that, which would explain perhaps the dye job, but it's not confusing.
Right. What's tragic is that confusion is your defense mechanism.
Ah... That's what's tragic, is that confusion does not protect you from the insane.
In fact, confusion surrenders you to the insane.
Because there's nothing confusing about it.
I'm sorry? Oh, and it causes me to get wrapped up in that insanity too.
Because responding to that question of who are you is itself kind of insane.
It is, yeah. And I wouldn't say that you're...
I think that you're conforming to insanity.
And what's tragic about...
Conforming to insanity is tragic.
Because we all know, if we've had people like that who have had power over us in our lives, we all bloody well know what happens if you don't conform to crazy people who have power over you.
Right, right. They fuck you up, right?
Right, right. And just moving back a little bit, the reason that this is in a dream, because you referenced how in the dream and even when I was just answering your questions, I wasn't seeing it clearly.
I wasn't seeing the dream character and any of this kind of clearly.
Would that be because this is like a deep unconscious thing for me, this confusion mechanism?
Oh yeah, it has to be.
It has to be because...
In the dream, right, so there are three or four layers, right, where you didn't notice it was insane?
Right. Because the dream is not just the dream, it's what happens when you wake up, right?
So you had the dream, you didn't notice it was insane in the dream to do what you were doing or conforming to crazy, right?
And then you woke up and you thought about the dream and you didn't say, what the hell was I doing?
Talking to this person who didn't recognize someone she'd known for some time, right?
Right. And then you wrote the dream down, and it didn't occur to you then, right?
Right, and I'm talking to you now, and you asked me the question.
And then I said, hey, pick a dream.
And you thought, hey, I'll pick this dream.
And then you read it again, and it didn't occur to you again.
And then you typed it up, and you sent it to me, and it didn't occur to you again.
And then you read it to me just now, and it didn't occur to you then.
And then I read it back to you, and it didn't occur to you then.
And then I asked you directly, and you get the pattern, right?
Right, right, right. So this is how we know that it's deep-seated and perfectly understandable and perfectly healthy given a prior situation.
Right. That you have to conform to crazy because if you don't, what happens?
Well, whatever happens, it's unthinkable.
Right. It can't be tempted.
It can't be done, right?
Right, right. Okay, so again, it's looking at what's not there.
What's not there is a rational reaction to what's happening in the dream, after the dream, thinking about the dream, talking about the dream, journaling about the dream, right?
Right, that's a good principle to jot down to.
Okay, so is this useful?
Is this helpful, what we're doing?
Oh yeah, I'm finding it.
And just for the people listening in, I just want to make sure that I'm not doing too much of the dream, but rather still giving the principles.
But yeah, looking for what's not there is...
And this is why it's so hard to do dream analysis on your own.
Right? Because it's trying to show us something that we can't see.
Because if we could see it, it wouldn't be in the dream.
And so whatever the dream is, Whatever's happening in the dream is part of our thinking when we wake up and try and understand the dream.
So the dream is trying to yell into a deaf ear, but we have that deaf ear when we wake up, right?
Ah, right, right, yeah.
Right, so this is why therapy and community, this is why you can't philosophize alone, you cannot do self-knowledge alone.
Because The dream is about a blind spot, but that blind spot doesn't disappear when you wake up.
Then you look at the dream with that same blind spot, and you journal about the dream with that same blind spot, and it's only somebody else who can say, wait a minute, blind spot, right?
Yeah, yeah. Alright, so we're going.
The professor who's giving the lecture then gives the class instructions to split into pairs.
So this woman immediately turns around and pairs up with me.
This is tragic, right?
Right. Why?
Because she doesn't even know who I am, right?
No! Oh, shit.
That's about her again. What did I miss this time?
Okay. What's your next sentence in the dream?
I feel uncomfortable about this, but I don't say anything.
Right. This woman is insane.
Right. She says she doesn't know you, but she immediately pairs up with you.
Right. That's a contradiction, right?
Right, right.
If I don't know anyone in a group, why would I want to just pair up with just one person?
Immediately. And just moving backwards, how is that not...
I'm sure that it isn't.
I'm having trouble seeing how that's not what I said about how she doesn't know me.
And how that's why it's tragic.
Well, because you're talking about her state of mind rather than your actions.
Right. Oh, because I had evidence that she was insane.
The hair, pretending, thinking that you look vaguely familiar, and they're not registering when she, right?
And the fact that you're being drawn into this crazy, right?
And I say, well, why is this tragic?
They say, because she doesn't even know me.
And I know that that's related to what you're doing.
Right. But that's not tragic.
That's crazy. The tragedy...
What's tragic is that you can't say, I'm sorry, I can't partner with you.
Right? Right. Because see, the thing is, crazy people will always want to reason why you, right?
So people act crazy in life, and then other people say, well, I don't want to play with you anymore, right?
And they say, well, why not, right?
Why not? And then you get drawn into this stupid, right, debate about what happened and what was interpreted, and couples do this all the time, right?
Right, right. But so you would say, listen, I'm sorry, I don't want to partner with you.
I'm going to partner with any other carbon-based life form in the room, right?
Right. But then she's going to say, well, why not?
What's wrong with me? Why won't you partner with me, right?
Right. And then what do you do, right?
I partner with her anyway.
Well, no, you'd either say, look, we dated, right?
Right. We date it, so you're insane.
I think the red hair is disturbing.
Oh, so now anybody who looks a little bit different just doesn't fit into your little scheme and you just toss them aside.
That's how you think. That's how you, right?
Right, right. I mean, I already know that I'm going to get 100 emails telling me that it doesn't prove that you're insane just because you have a little bit of color in your hair.
Right. I know.
I know. I know all these landmines.
I hear the click when I put my foot down.
I just know what's going to happen. Yeah.
Because that's what people do, right?
The moment you put up any boundaries, they demand to know why you're doing it.
And exactly why.
Right? Right. And no matter what you come up with, it's just going to escalate, right?
So, yeah, what's tragic is that you can't...
It's a whole series of not having boundaries, right?
So if your unconscious is right about the red-dyed hair on a 20-year-old, which I damn well believe that your unconscious is, you walk into this room, and your dream is saying, look, you saw her before she saw you.
Right, right. So why are you still there?
Right. Yeah.
Did you see what I mean? It's that lack of protection.
So if the red hair is a big sign of trouble, then you don't sit right behind her.
Right. Especially, as I said earlier, a large auditorium room.
I'm sure there are open seats and I could have sat anywhere I want.
Yeah. I mean, you're not sharing a bathroom on a small airplane.
Right. You could go a lot of different places, right?
Right. So your unconscious is saying, look, if you don't look at the signs at the beginning, which are obvious to us, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Trying to set up boundaries later, right?
Right. It's like trying to stop Hitler in 1940 rather than 1930, right?
Right. So once that starts snowballing or...
Yeah, snowballing. Once it starts snowballing, once you don't self-protect at the beginning, it gets progressively harder and harder and harder to self-protect as you go forward, right?
Right. The security or madness of life is all about the little details at the beginning of things.
It's not about the big stands at the end.
Right. And the unconscious, which It's thousands of times faster, and which processes people's personalities in a heartbeat, can keep us incredibly safe, even in a dangerous world.
Right, right.
Right, but we need to listen to it.
Right. And it's something I continually need to remind myself to do, right?
So, please understand, I'm not casting this knowledge down from some ivory tower of perfect behavior.
I continually need to remind myself of this.
So she puts her hands on your leg, the disco music starts, the baby oil comes out.
Oh wait, sorry. She puts her hands on my leg, you say, and I feel even more uncomfortable.
Still say nothing. I also realize that there's no roof on the auditorium at this point.
The roof just disappeared, right?
So this is very disorienting, right?
Yes, yes. I leave the auditorium.
This woman follows you out. Instead of leading me to the outside area, it leads directly into the sunroom of the house.
The room where my family spent the most time.
My mom was in the sunroom. She starts to make out with my brother.
I feel numb and helpless. She's no longer there.
You wonder if this woman actually was my mom.
You wake up. This woman, this red-haired woman, is like a ghost that leads you to the original trauma.
They all are ghosts that lead us.
Everybody we meet in our life Oh, right.
Right? Everyone we meet in our life, that we meet because something remains in the subconscious, are ghosts leading us back to the crime.
Right. In that sort of sixth sense kind of way, right?
Right. And this is a very old metaphor.
All art is a form of lucid dreaming, and it's a very old metaphor that the dead haunt the sites of their crimes, and they try to lure people back to catch the criminal, but everybody mistakes their message.
Right. So, yeah, this woman is saying, I'm going to lead you back to the source Of the problem.
Right. And she takes you straight back to an extremely boundary-less mom.
Yes. Right?
So she's saying, don't be confused by the present.
Don't try to assert boundaries in the present.
The reason you don't have boundaries, the reason you conform to crazy, is back in the past.
Right, right.
And the only way forward is down, right?
Right. The only way up is back.
Right. Wow.
So sort of in that last scene, just to draw, like, another bit right now from that that I'm getting is that it's, like, she disappeared, which I didn't know in the dream why she disappeared, but I think you just drew a metaphor that is ghost-like.
That's a ghost.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there is a kind of depressing commonality to dysfunctional people, right?
To really messed up people, to narcissistic or malevolent or just plain old evil people.
There is a depressing commonality, right?
So if you were to hang out with a bunch of racists and talk about race, they would all sound the same.
Prejudice, scar tissue, avoidance, repression, rage, acting out, projection.
These are all mechanisms that are common to everyone.
And they may take different forms.
Some people hate freedom, some people hate Muslims, some people hate Jews, some people hate blacks.
But the hatred is always the same.
The malevolence is always the same.
The manipulation is always the same.
The externalization of responsibility for your life is always the same.
It's always somebody else's fault for these people.
Why is my life so messed up?
It's always somebody else's fault.
Always. And that projection of responsibility to others is such a common trait that everybody who takes that horrible, ghastly path I was showing Isabella the beginning of Lord of the Rings the other day because she likes the fireworks, the bit where Gandalf lights up the fireworks.
And there's a bit where Bilbo, and it's in the book too, but Bilbo has the ring and Gandalf tries to take it from him.
And Bilbo gets angry.
And Gandalf says, there's no need to get angry.
And Bilbo says, well, if I'm angry, it's your fault!
And snarls at him, and you can see he's got this petty, mean Gollum-like look on his face, right?
And he looks like Gollum, and he sounds like Gollum.
He starts to say, precious, right?
Right. Because dysfunctional, quote, personalities, they're just robots, and they all look the same, and they all seem the same, you know?
And so in a sense, it's not like they're two separate people.
It's not like they're exactly the same person.
You know, cars that work go all over the world.
Cars that don't work go to the junkyard.
The broken things all look the same.
The broken things all end up in the same place.
It's only the things that work that get to travel.
All the broken things in this world, in the human souls of this world, all the broken souls look the same.
And so the dysfunction that your mom had, that this woman had, It's not like they're the same person, but it sure as hell isn't like they're different people.
You know, everybody whose arm is not broken can wave, can play piano, can masturbate, can, you know, whatever, right?
They can do whatever they want with that arm.
But everybody whose arm is broken, it all looks the same.
It's that white cast-like L, right?
It's just in a cast.
Everything that's broken looks the same.
Right? And if this woman you dated and if your mom are broken, they're going to just...
Be the same. Right, right.
And the unconscious gets those patterns almost immediately.
Right, right. Did your mom alter her appearance for the sake of vanity?
Yes, she actually dyed her hair.
Right. I was gonna ask that but I thought it might be too specific.
Yeah, she dyed her hair, she did her nail kind of manicure stuff, she did a lot of that.
Right, so your unconscious has had a lot of exposure to physical vanity, right?
Oh yeah. It knows the toxicity of excessive vanity.
Right, so when you see a woman who's 20, who dyes her hair bright red, you're unconscious, knows, right?
Yeah. And the dream says, we start with your mom.
Right, right.
And you in an ambivalent relationship with your mom.
Right. I'm here, but I told people I wasn't going to be here.
I said I was not going to talk to you, but you're not talking to me, so that's kind of true, but it's not really the point, and blah, blah, blah, right?
And you feel kind of guilty, but not enough to leave, but not enough to interact, but whatever, right?
Right. Right, so the dream says, this problem starts with your mom, and it damn well has to end with this mom, and if you don't get how this woman is your mom, Then we are in danger.
Right, right. It's gonna happen again and again and again until the base of our optimism is chipped away so badly by unconscious repetition that it all falls down.
Right, right. We have to stop repeating, which means we have to start resensitizing ourselves to the signals of danger That we were never allowed to experience as children because they were completely overwhelming and would have led to further attacks.
And there's no way that I know of to resensitize ourselves to the danger signals without re-experiencing some portion of the trauma.
Or, in fact, in a way, experiencing it for the first time.
That is why in every story of heroism, Freedom comes from a stroll through the fire, right?
Right, right. Again, to use the Lord of the Rings metaphor, right?
Right, yeah. They have inherited this evil ring created by a devil, and they have to return it to where it came from in order to end it, the evil, right?
They have to go back to its source, and they have to re-experience the flames, right?
Mm-hmm, right. The ring has to go back to its parents, right?
The children, the hobbits are children, right?
The children have to go back to the parents and stand in front of the horror of that parent in order for the ring to lose its power, right?
The ring is the cycle of abuse round and round, right?
Right. That's how you break it.
And he was a much... Tolkien was a much better parent than his parents were, and I think he got some of this stuff unconsciously.
And he was also an anarchist, by the way, but that's not particularly important for this dream, but...
But it's in all these stories.
Right. I'm not, just to go back to the very beginning, a resort-style hut.
Now, it may be important, I mean, I think the general purpose of the dream is there.
It may be important to ask yourself, like, why a hut?
Right, why a hut, yeah.
And why, as I mentioned in the dream, why a nice hut and not a kind of what you'd think of when you say hut?
Well, a resort-style hut is interesting.
If I understand what your unconscious is visualizing, the resort-style hut is interesting because it looks primitive from the outside, but it's very sophisticated on the inside.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
That's exactly the imagery.
And that is very interesting.
Right, right. I'm trying to place what that metaphor, like make that metaphor connection.
Yeah, and that's a tough one.
I don't know for sure because you also may have personal memories of a hut and childhood and vacation, so it may be mixed in with that.
But what pops into my mind is that it is so incredibly easy to underestimate dysfunctional personalities.
You know, if I had a dime for everyone who told me that libertarians are smart and sadists are dumb and anarchists are smart and politicians are dumb and, you know, all that sort of stuff, I'd own the world, right?
Or, you know, workers who say, you know, we hang together, we're tough and management is stupid, right?
It's like, well, if they're stupid, why aren't they management?
Politicians are so stupid!
Why are they ruling the world?
If priests are so stupid, why do they have a city made of gold in Italy?
They're not stupid.
Dysfunctional personalities are incredibly smart and sophisticated and powerful and cunning.
I mean, in my way of thinking, this is this universal belief in magic, right?
Magic, I mean it's partly the processing power of the unconscious in general, but magic is the astounding power that the unconscious of dysfunctional people has.
Dysfunctional people are entirely bent on controlling others, manipulating others.
All of the incredible processing power of the human mind, which for you and I is spread over a whole bunch of different things, You know, self-knowledge and self-improvement and our careers and objective reality and philosophy and art and friendship and all of these kinds of things.
All of that processing power for narcissists and manipulators and just messed up people in general is entirely focused with laser-like precision on controlling and managing the realities of others, the perceptions and reactions of other people.
That's why when you get around a crazy person it is almost impossible to stay sane because they're so good at what they do.
They're so good at disorienting you.
They're so good at acting in such a way of giving you a sort of friendship but with a hint of a little bit of danger just to warn you that if you don't conform there will be repercussions but then having a big smile in front of them and like they're so incredibly disorienting.
They're so incredibly focused.
On controlling other people.
And manipulating other people.
That, yeah, defenses, they look pretty primitive on the outside, but holy shit.
They're like the lair of a Bond villain inside.
Right. And it's also worth pointing out that there is a moat around the hut.
Like you mentioned earlier, this is a primitive, it looks primitive on the outside, it's sophisticated on the inside, and it's incredibly well guarded.
Well, but that's also a sign of crazy.
You're already in the land of crazy.
Because who builds a fucking moat around a hut?
Right, right. Right.
Like even that part of you saying...
Like you said, hey, cool, I put my toes in it.
Hey, this is nice, this is refreshing, without saying, where the hell am I? What Alice in Wonderland freak show am I currently in where they build a moat around a fucking hut?
Run! Why is this hut worth protecting with a moat, right?
And my parents are here, right?
Right. There's no...
I mean, I've never seen a stream encircle a hut in any resort, right?
So even the very beginning of the dream is...
You know, we're in Crazyville...
And we're telling you, we're giving you every indication.
You know, it's like the camera zooming in on the girl's red hair and the hero is just like...
Right? Yeah.
There's a film I saw many, many, many years ago called The Fourth Man.
It's a French film. I don't know if you can even get it, but it's well worth getting it.
I don't think I'm going to give anything away.
It's well worth renting because...
There's this woman who's a bad woman, and the signs that she gives out are so completely obvious.
Or, you know, the other example, of course, is American Psycho, right?
He's continually telling people, I want a decaffeinated cappuccino.
I mean a decaffeinated cappuccino, right?
He's constantly telling people that he's insane and evil and likes to kill people.
The signs are everywhere in The Fourth Man, in American Psycho, and in a lot of other films.
We're to the point where it becomes absurd, right?
Right. Like, birds fall down from the sky when this woman is around.
She's that evil. And everyone's like, well, that's strange.
Interesting. Let's go for dinner, right?
Like, they die in flight and fall on the beach.
And people don't notice, right?
Right. And so, yeah, at the very beginning of the dream, your unconscious is saying, this is messed up.
You don't know why you're here.
You feel guilty.
There's a moat around a resort.
This is not a vacation because you're already anxious.
And all you care about is dipping your toes in the water.
You freak! Run!
Right. Yeah.
When you put it that way.
So, yeah, so I think that I think your unconscious is saying we can absolutely keep you.
We can all absolutely keep you safe and lead you through the dark woods to the broad uplands of love and peace and happiness of the other side.
But you've got to slow down and you've got to listen.
Right, and not focus on the present as much as the past.
And not focus on the other person.
Right, right.
See, here's the thing you say also in the dream.
You feel guilty not because you're there and you have violated your values or your commitment.
You say, the problem is that I've told my friends.
Right, which in a sense is a form of vanity, right?
Well, it's focusing on your friends finding out rather than your commitment.
Right, yeah.
Or your self-protection.
You don't sit there and say...
You know, my parents were abusive.
I'm taking a break. It could be forever.
Nothing has changed. So my values are such that this is not a good place for me to be, right?
The first thing you think is, well, shit, I told my friends and here I am.
So my friends, like, I'm going to be revealed.
It's your friends that you're concerned about, in a sense, not yourself.
Right, right.
And when you...
Focus on that, you end up with no strong emotions.
Right, right.
I'm not listening to myself.
I'm focusing on what others are going to think and feel and what their experience is going to be.
I'm not focusing on my own experience.
Right, right.
But yeah, feel relaxed but with a baseline level of anxiety.
And that's what happens when The danger is in the future.
We can relax in the moment, but there's a kind of anxiety, right?
Like if you're in debt or whatever and it's not getting solved, it's like, yeah, you can kick back and watch a movie, but there is this kind of anxiety at all times because the future is going to come a-calling, right?
Right.
Right, that's exactly right.
So that's, yeah, that's the kind of stuff that I look for.
It's the rational behavior that's not present that I think that the unconscious is trying to wake you up to.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting what I was doing, because I try to interrupt my dreams or at least take a go at it whenever I can, which is, I think, useful.
But I've been focusing more on what's irrational and there whenever I did it, but not as much like what would be Rational behavior that's missing.
That was something that I think is a principle that I wasn't thinking about as much.
Right, right. I mean, that is the hardest thing to think about.
And that's what most people miss with economics.
And it's what people miss with philosophy, right?
It's what the self-detonating statements are all about.
You know, like a guy who sent me a long email about how quantum problems, quantum inconsistencies did show up at the sensual level, right?
And so I wrote back and said, well, then some of your letters must be out of place, so I can't tell what the hell you wrote.
Right. Like, he's relying on the consistency of matter to communicate to me that matter is inconsistent.
That's what I mean by, like...
Right. By just not noticing what's not there, or what's there that's not being talked about.
Right, right. You know? And so it's the same thing, right?
It's the same thing here.
You're not acting...
In a rational way, in the present.
Now, the last thing I'll say is that there's an enormous amount of hope in this dream.
This is a very positive dream.
Right, which is, I get that sense, but I don't see it.
Can you tell me what you're seeing?
Well, I'll just spend a few minutes on that, because I think that's really, really important.
First of all, the fact that a deficiency is being pointed out is because it can be overcome.
Right. You know, like, assholes don't have dreams about being assholes.
That's, right? Right.
They just don't. Because otherwise they'd change, right?
There's an old thing that says God won't give you more than you can handle.
He won't give you more burdens than you can carry.
I think that's sort of true of the unconscious.
It's not going to give you more growth than you can achieve.
So the fact that it's pointing this out is very important and very helpful.
That's the first thing that I would say.
The second thing that I could say is that If you could imagine a nightmare, this was a disquieting dream, of course, right?
But I don't think it could be classified as a nightmare, right?
Right, right. So, a nightmare would be you're strapped To some medieval scarred, bloody table while a guy goes to town on your extremities and your innards with, or threatens to, with a screwdriver.
And he says, you know, convert to Zoroastrianism or I'm going to cut your toes off.
Right. Because that would be conforming to crazy...
That would be a rational response.
Yeah, I'm a Zoroastrian.
Leave my toes be, right?
I'm in. Where do I sign up, right?
So that would be to justify conforming to violent crazy, right?
But this dream is saying you don't have to conform anymore because the danger is not there.
That's very optimistic.
It's saying, look, you're safe.
You can begin to experiment with that kind of assertiveness.
Because the consequences are that maybe you just don't go back to a kind of weird resort.
And that's a very positive thing.
Because your unconscious could, completely if it wanted to, could reinforce your conformity to crazy by saying that if you don't conform to crazy, your unconscious, like your inner torturer, is going to cut your toes off.
In which case, your desire or your instinct to conform to crazy would be incredibly and strongly reinforced, right?
Whereas this one is saying, what are the negative consequences?
You don't pair up with someone quite as easily in an auditorium?
Now, it's saying that in the consequence, you know, with your mom, the consequences in the past were very bad, but it's very specific about the past, right?
Saying this was the past. This is not the present.
In the present, you can do it without getting your toes cut off.
So to speak, right? And that's what I mean by it's a very positive dream.
It's recognizing that you have reached a place, you have got good companions, and you have good relationships with yourself, with others, so that you can begin to do this without incurring the same dangers that necessitated you having never to do this in the past.
Right, exactly.
So yeah, I think it's incredibly positive.
Cool. You know, when I sort of say to Christina, are you awake?
It's because I want to talk to her.
Right. Not because I want to avoid her.
That's a good thing, right? Right.
It beats that goodnight testimony thing where you just put a pillow over someone's head.
That's not what you want. Right.
So yeah, that's just the last thing I wanted to mention about that.
Cool. I mean, I think that the goal of this conversation was to pick out the core principles that you use, and I feel really satisfied in that.
Obviously, I'm going to want to listen and take notes around when you would draw back the conversation to this is what I'm doing generally, because I think those principles are going to be really helpful for dream interpretation, just figuring out what to ask myself.
I hope so, yeah, and also what to ask others, right?
Again, I think it's most productive as a communal exercise because you carry those blind spots with you everywhere you look at the dream, which is why they can be so frustrating to work with.
And of course, most dreams At least that I know of, and most dreams that I've heard about, and certainly the ones I've worked on for myself, they come from trauma, and trauma isolates, right?
So a way to undo the trauma that the dream is describing is to connect with others, to rely on others, to trust others, right?
Because if you try and do it all by yourself, you're not really escaping the trauma that gives rise to the dream content, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that does make sense.
All right. Okay, well, let me know if you think of anything else about it.
I'm glad that it was helpful for you.
I'm sorry if I dipped a little bit too much into the dream, but it's kind of a tough thing to do it and talk about it at the same time, but I think we hit a fairly good balance.
I think so, too. Cool.
All right. All right, man.
Take care. Have a great night. Have a good night.
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