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Nov. 13, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:49:08

When the ABYSS Gazes Into YOU! Freedomain Dream Analysis

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	I dreamed I was on the 8th floor of an apartment building where my family of origin lived in the layout of the first floor of their house.
	I was watching porn that was providing dopamine.
	I wanted to find a particular video but I couldn't and left my room.
	My older brother wanted to play a strategy game on my PC and I let him.
	I went out to the living room and was sitting on the couch thinking about the porn.
	I wanted to go back to my PC to look at it.
	There were tremors and the building shook.
	My mom came out wearing my baby daughter and started yelling at my brother for gaming so much.
	It was true that he was gaming non-stop for six hours.
	I got mad at my mom and told her that maybe she should be curious about why he has such a massive hole in his dopamine that he's trying to fill it with gaming and to leave him be.
	My mom got pissed and stormed off.
	More tremors shook the tall apartment building.
	I fled and I went to the first floor and met some kid who said he came up from the negative seventh floor.
	I was surprised how deep the building went.
	I asked him to show me.
	He did.
	He took me down this concrete staircase down several flights, another staircase, and a few floors.
	The layout was winding and confusing, going further into the earth.
	Finally, we were at the bottom.
	It evoked terror in me.
	It was concrete, clean, evidence of habitation, deep, isolated, no sunlight, safe, and suffocating.
	sorry sorry What does evidence of habitation mean?
	Uh...
	Like mattresses on the ground, or what do you mean?
	Okay, got it.
	Yeah.
	And there's a bed on the floor, a desk with a banner behind it, and several more rooms I dared not explore.
	He went up and I followed after him.
	Right, okay.
	Alright.
	I mean, it's a great dream.
	And, I mean, some of it's fairly obvious.
	What have you got from it?
	Um...
	The tremors, uh...
	In the apartment, this life is going to come crashing down.
	I need to get out of here now.
	This is a madhouse.
	My mom would obviously be incredibly upset if I stood up for my brother like that.
	I think the kid who showed me how deep the apartment building goes is either me or my conscience showing me what's possible and where I come from.
	Right, okay.
	Right.
	Okay, so your dad is not in the dream, right?
	No, he's not.
	And why do you think that is?
	I am not quite sure.
	My parents were married, still are married.
	He doesn't He's kind of a support piece from my mom, really.
	He never lets any disagreement come between anyone and his wife.
	Right, okay.
	Alright, and how long ago did the dream happen?
	Maybe a month ago.
	I can still remember it, though.
	Oh, yeah.
	And was there anything that happened the day before, or anything you were anticipating the next day?
	Hmm.
	This would be about the time when those roommates were moving out.
	Right, okay.
	And some situations with work.
	I had recently started a new job at that point.
	So, I mean, both you and your brother are dealing with dopamine deficiencies, right?
	And your mother, of course, is blaming you and your brother.
	Well, not you so much, right?
	Because she wasn't aware what you were doing.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, he was playing...
	It was true that he was gaming non-stop for six hours.
	Now, is that from the real world?
	Or is that you knew in the dream that he'd been gaming for six hours?
	This is in a dream, yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	They were tremorous and the building shook.
	My mom came out wearing my baby daughter and started yelling at my brother for gaming so much.
	So do you mean in sort of one of those baby slings that you wear in front?
	Yeah.
	So that's a pregnancy thing, right?
	I don't think so.
	My wife and I wear our baby like that often.
	Well, I know I get that, but it's your mom wearing your baby daughter, right?
	I mean, has she done that?
	No, never.
	She has not seen my daughter.
	Okay, so the fact that she's wearing your baby daughter, she could be carried.
	Like, in dreams, everything means something because it's a blank canvas, right?
	Like, you could do anything, right?
	Like, your mom could be twirling your baby, could be wearing her as a hat, could be, like, just holding her.
	But the fact that she's in a baby sling, so the baby sling is to free your hands, right?
	And pregnancy, your hands are free too, right?
	So that's why I'm going with the pregnancy thing.
	We'll, you know, we'll see if it plays out.
	If it doesn't, of course, we can circle back.
	But there is something interesting about that, that she's wearing, which is, I mean, that's as close to pregnancy as you can get in a dream without your mother actually being pregnant, right?
	Okay.
	So yelling at my brother for gaming so much.
	So you got mad at your mom, told her maybe she should be curious why he has such a massive hole in his dopamine that he's trying to fill with gaming and to leave him be.
	So that's not true, though, to be annoyingly direct.
	And again, if I get anything wrong, you can certainly push back as much as you want.
	But you weren't mad at her.
	You weren't because you weren't being honest with her, right?
	Because you know exactly why your brother has this dopamine hole, right?
	Why does he have this dopamine hole?
	He did not get what he needed when he was an infant, and not as a child either.
	Okay, that's very tentative, and it's also not true.
	Right?
	Because a child who doesn't get...
	Like, let's say there's some guy who locks a woman in his basement and starves her to death.
	Would he just say, well, she just didn't get what she needed?
	No.
	Right?
	So it's not that he didn't get what he needed.
	Much, much deeper than that, which is why the flights of stairs keep going down, down, down.
	Okay, so why does he have such a dopamine hole?
	Because he's stuck up there?
	Thank you.
	No, in life though, right?
	Because this is about your life.
	This isn't about, right?
	This isn't about a game.
	Massive hole.
	Why does he?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, you do.
	I don't know.
	I mean, it's an interesting way to put it.
	You say a massive hole in his dopamine.
	So you've got a pregnant mom coming out in a way, right?
	Your mom's coming out, she's pregnant, and now you're talking about a massive hole.
	That's a vagina when you're a baby, right?
	You literally come through it like a train, right?
	Or like a subway.
	And your mother is not absent in this dream.
	She's in and she's yelling at him, right?
	Yeah.
	So, she's yelling while wearing your baby daughter, which is frightening to your baby daughter.
	Now, is your baby daughter, was she awake or crying or what was she in the dream?
	I think sleeping.
	Okay.
	So, the mom has a baby on her belly and is, how loud was she yelling?
	She was going for it.
	Like screaming?
	Yeah, screaming.
	Okay.
	So, of course, you don't scream when there's a baby around, right?
	Yeah.
	So, it's not that your brother did not get what he needed.
	He was verbally abused.
	You're really distancing yourself from me emotionally, and I'm not sure what to do about that. - We'll keep going.
	I can get more engaged.
	Okay.
	So, it's funny because you're saying that your brother didn't get what he needed.
	Now you're not providing me what I needed to call.
	You understand your mom's moving between us, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's incredibly frustrating.
	What do you mean?
	I actually had a glimpse of this earlier today.
	Just how much interference there is between myself and the outside world.
	How much I want to do with it.
	So, in your dream, if you do something right in a dream, it solves the problem, right?
	And do you solve the problem in this dream?
	Well, I might have left it off the end, but...
	The last thing I remember in the dream is walking out with the kid out of the apartment building and onto the street.
	Right.
	But that doesn't solve your mother.
	Given that my brother's still up there and my baby daughter's still up there and a building that's going to come down, then no.
	Right.
	Okay.
	What does the 8th floor mean?
	Because you've got 8th and then minus 7, right?
	Going down.
	Right?
	So, what does the 8th floor mean to you?
	Did you ever live on the 8th floor?
	No, but right before this call I was thinking about that apartment building and it was the one my brother lived in when I first went to college and we visited him.
	Right.
	Did anything happen when you were 15 or so?
	Fifteen.
	Anything sort of memorable or striking with you guys to your mom?
	In seventh grade and eighth grade, I got verbally abused.
	She told me I was going to become a school shooter because I play video games.
	Sorry, who told you you were going to become a school shooter?
	My mom.
	Your mom.
	Okay.
	So seventh and eighth grade, is that right?
	Yeah, that's correct.
	Okay, so here we have a minus seven and an eight.
	So we have seven and eight in the dream, right?
	So maybe that's a relationship to your mother, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so...
	You come out, and what would be the most powerful thing you could do with regards to your mother in the dream when she comes in screaming at your brother and wearing your daughter?
	Get my child back.
	Go on.
	She had my child.
	She took your kid from you, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	And rather than take care of your daughter, what were you doing?
	Pointlessly, trying to stand up for my brother.
	No, before that, you were watching porn, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So, you come out.
	Now, what was the age of your brother in the dream?
	Probably 15.
	Okay.
	And how much older than you is he?
	Two years.
	Two years, okay.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, and the only reason that you left your room was because you couldn't find the video you were looking for, right?
	Yeah.
	And my brother is coming in.
	Yeah, he's coming in, right?
	Okay.
	So, you wanted to go back to your PC to try and find the sexual video, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	There were tremors and the building shook.
	Your mom came out.
	Out from where?
	Either...
	Given the layout of the house, it would have either been the kitchen or from the basement.
	But this is not a house, right?
	Yeah, but the apartment was...
	It was just directly the layout of...
	Oh, the main floor of a house.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And that's interesting.
	So why would it?
	Did you live in an apartment before you lived in the house?
	No, I grew up in that house my entire childhood.
	So why would the dream move your house to an apartment?
	Other than the first two syllables, apart.
	You and your family are apart.
	And you're meant to be a part.
	Apartment.
	I mean, this is the way that dreams play with language.
	Like, again, there's nothing accidental.
	Like, you could have, the dream could have just put you in your regular house, but it put your house on the eighth floor of an apartment building.
	Yeah, and it happened to be the one where I remember visiting my brother when I first got independence from my mom and dad.
	And what age were you then?
	Eighteen.
	Okay.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	And as my brother, he, probably the last hard, hard moment I talked with him, he told me that, basically gave me a talk about how bad porn is and how I had the power to quit.
	And I went cold turkey from that day forth.
	Right.
	With only very few slip ups.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry, just remind me, do you have a baby daughter?
	And so your mom comes out wearing your baby daughter, starts screaming at your brother.
	So I got mad at my mom, but you didn't express your anger at your mother as far as I can see.
	Not directly.
	Because you try to engage with her and say maybe you should be curious why he's got such a massive hole in his dopamine.
	Right?
	So in other words you're trying to reason with your mother, right?
	Yeah.
	Have you ever had any luck reasoning with your mother?
	No.
	Right, so you want to look at the end of the dream which is not satisfactory in that you've left your daughter behind with your mother and the whole building might collapse, right?
	So you have to look at every decision that led to that bad ending.
	The dream is trying to get you to review every decision.
	So, your mom comes out wearing my baby daughter.
	So, sorry, the first thing is That you shouldn't be looking at the pornography, of course, especially while your daughter is with your mother.
	Okay?
	So, bad decision, right?
	Your brother wants to play a strategy game on my PC. I let him.
	Bad decision.
	Why?
	He's indulging in something that covers up the problem.
	And you are not going to take care of your daughter, and you're not getting the fuck out of the house.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So you're engaging in this shit, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	You need to find your daughter, and you need to get out, right?
	Yes.
	And you don't do that, right?
	You're watching the porn, and your brother's like, I want to play a strategy game.
	Like, go ahead, right?
	So you're settling in here for the long haul, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you want to go back to your PC to look at the porn, and this is heavy dissociation, right?
	You're not talking to your brother, you're not thinking about your daughter, you're not trying to figure out how to get out, you're not trying to figure out what you're going to actually do with your mom or anything like that, right?
	You're just really distracted and dissociated, right?
	And then your brother is too, right?
	Okay.
	Tremors of the building shook.
	So there's an earthquake here, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Mom comes out wearing my baby daughter, starts yelling at my brother for gaming so much.
	So in the dream, so it was true that he was gaming nonstop for six hours.
	So did you sit there on the couch in the dream for six hours?
	I'm not sure where the six hours comes from.
	Yeah, there's time dilation there.
	Okay, got it.
	I got mad at my mom.
	But then you try to reason with her, right?
	So why?
	Why?
	It's too scary to confront her directly.
	Well, why do you need to confront her directly?
	Why don't you say, oh, you're going to wake my daughter, let me take her off your hands, and then say to your brother, oh, I want to grab something from the store down there, and just get out.
	Like, I'm trying to understand...
	And it's not a criticism, of course, right?
	I'm trying to understand, why the engagement in this?
	Like, why would you start engaging in this bullshit with your mom?
	You can't reason with someone who's screaming with...
	Like, she's screaming at your brother with your baby daughter's ears, like, six inches from her mouth, right?
	You can't reason with her.
	Yeah.
	Everything...
	She is a master at manipulating social situations, or so I thought.
	Upon having more distance and time as an adult, I think that she's pretty average, and a lot of people who are even a little bit functional smell her from a long ways away and get clear.
	She raised me to kind of be the poison container where I will Trying to be reasonable and get people to calm down and never be direct or stand up for myself.
	And sort of remind me what your current relationship is with your mom?
	I haven't seen her in two years.
	And has she tried to get in touch?
	She's pretended nothing happened a few times.
	Okay, got it.
	And did you have, again, not saying whether you should or shouldn't have, but did you have the direct conversation with her where you expressed your anger at how she had mistreated you and your brother in the past?
	Twice.
	Okay, and how did that go?
	The first one is still kind of traumatic for me.
	I don't know what exactly happened there.
	I had moved in with...
	My boss at the time to get out of the house because I was living with my parents and I was visiting on like a weekend and she was trying to ask why the relationship had gotten bad and I was trying to explain and reason with her and Eventually, I just started crying and we hugged and nothing was solved.
	You started crying?
	Yeah.
	And why did you cry?
	I'm not sure.
	Okay, are you going to keep doing this not sure thing?
	Because I don't really, I mean, I don't know what this, I don't know what to say about any of that.
	Like, are you just going to pretend you don't know?
	I mean, you were there.
	I'll give you two or three.
	I mean, honestly, like, because you're going to call, we're going to try and dig deep, and if you're just going to keep, you know, I'll keep.
	But if you're going to say, on more than one occasion, I just don't know about something really important, then it's a dead end, right?
	Why did you cry?
	I cried because of how terrifying it was to realize that there was no person behind those eyes.
	you Thank you.
	How she's just a language input-output doesn't actually care for me.
	Okay.
	Did she win?
	Because she said nothing got resolved?
	I think she defined nothing getting resolved as winning, because that's how she prefers life.
	Okay.
	So, did you continue the relationship after that first interaction?
	Yeah, the relationship got a little warmer, and then it started getting cold again.
	Okay, so she won.
	So you cried because she won?
	Yeah.
	Not because of this empty-eyed nonsense.
	You cried because she won, because she outplayed you.
	And listen, I'm not criticizing you.
	I mean, she's your mom, right?
	So she knows every button you have.
	She probably installed 99% of them, right?
	So didn't you cry because she won?
	Yeah.
	That's a more empirically accurate answer.
	And the second time?
	Second incident?
	Yes.
	I went with my wife.
	To talk to both my parents and they were really upset to be having the conversation.
	And they were obstructing any definitions or productivity in the conversation.
	And eventually my mom stared at me.
	I'm talking with spanking.
	She stared at me with Kind of blank eyes and lift up a book and said that spanking is just a light tapping and there's nothing wrong with it.
	And I looked horrified at her and she started laughing at me.
	And I said, I'm not going to stay here for this.
	And I got up and left.
	And my mom cackled out, this is not real.
	And my wife turned around and said, this is real and you're going to have to live with it.
	Your mother said, this is not real?
	Mm-hmm.
	Okay.
	And what do you think she meant by that?
	I think she meant tell me that my life is not real if I go on this path.
	Thank you.
	But that's an odd thing, and I'm not disagreeing that she said it.
	I'm just trying to figure out.
	What does that mean?
	This is not real.
	Your feelings are not real?
	What does she mean?
	Well, from the context, I thought she meant the situation was not real.
	I'm not sure what that means, the situation is not real.
	Like, You weren't saying what you were saying?
	It wasn't happening?
	I don't understand.
	Yeah, like the whole situation, me living my life, getting married, coming to talk about childhood and parenting, and having this confrontation at the dinner table, that it wasn't real, none of it.
	No, but that doesn't make any sense.
	I mean, it was happening, right?
	Yeah.
	So what does it mean to say it's not real?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if she said, this isn't really you, I could understand that.
	if she's going to say, your memories are false, they're not real.
	But this is not real.
	I don't know what it refers to.
	Is she trying to will the whole thing out of existence?
	Like the whole conversation?
	Is she saying it to herself?
	This is not real?
	What does she mean?
	What I thought she meant was I guess will out of existence that she didn't It's most likely to try and hit a button that if she says, this is not real.
	I'm just reminded of this comedy sketch, but it's like, this is not real.
	And I turn around and I say, yeah, you're right.
	None of this is real.
	It was all just a prank.
	I'm going to come back in the fold and keep getting abused now.
	Yeah, I mean, it's almost like she was saying, this isn't happening, this isn't real, like vocalizing denial in order to wish something out of existence, but that's really crazy, right?
	I mean, people might say this, like, I can't believe this is happening, but they don't actually not believe this is happening, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, but then she would, like, message me later, like a month, six months after, like, nothing ever happened.
	Okay, so what would you have most wanted to say to your mother in terms of being angry with her?
	Thank you.
	Why didn't you love me?
	No!
	No!
	That's not true.
	That's weak.
	That's the self-pity.
	That's the crying.
	You already had that.
	You cried in front of her, right?
	The first time.
	So you already had the tears and the sadness, right?
	Just get the fuck out of my life and let me live.
	Okay.
	What else?
	Fucking if there's one thing she can do fucking make things right with my brother because I don't want anything to do with her.
	But she can't do anything about it.
	She's paralyzing me.
	Make things right with your brother, I don't know something there, and then she's paralyzing you.
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	She has no possible ability to help my brother, the damage she's done to him.
	She has no possibility to help your brother.
	The fuck are you talking about?
	She's harming him, isn't she?
	Yeah.
	So what do you mean she can't help him?
	She's harming him.
	Yeah.
	So what does it mean to say, like, if some guy is, like, I don't know, pulling fingernails out of a child, do we say, well, you know, that guy doesn't really have much power to help and heal that child?
	That would be what they call a non sequitur, right?
	Right.
	Thank you.
	Mm-hmm.
	If a lion is tearing a baby zebra in two, we don't say that lion doesn't seem to have much power to help the zebra.
	Would that make much sense?
	No, it does not make sense.
	And I'm not being critical at all.
	I'm just trying to get to where the dream is.
	Because in the dream, you run away.
	Leave your child behind.
	And the building with your child is going to collapse.
	Perhaps, right?
	You brought in that it was going to collapse because of the tremors and was that your sense, right?
	Okay.
	That's how the dream went.
	Okay.
	So...
	The running away and snipping at your mom like she's a reasonable person, like, oh, you should just be curious about why aren't you curious about why he has this dopamine hole and needs to play a strategy game for six hours straight, right?
	So rather than find a way To get your daughter away from your mother who's screaming over her little bald head, right?
	Rather than trying to figure out a way to get you, your daughter, maybe your brother, out, right?
	Of the building that might collapse.
	Because even at the beginning there's shaking and trembling and this and that, right?
	So you engage in a completely futile way and then kind of run away, right?
	And listen, brother, just so you know, none of this is any kind of criticism at all.
	I'm not saying you did anything wrong in the real world.
	I'm not saying you did anything wrong in the dream.
	I'm trying to...
	Trying to figure out what the dream's telling you, if that makes sense.
	So none of this is like, oh, you ran away.
	I'm not trying to paint you as any kind of coward or nothing negative like that.
	I'm just trying to follow the dream.
	I'm experiencing it as criticism.
	You are experiencing it as criticism?
	Yeah, and I completely understand that, and I'm not trying to criticize at all.
	I'm just trying to say that the dream is telling you that engaging with your mom and running away does not save your daughter.
	Okay, so your mom gets pissed and stares.
	So you try to leave him alone.
	Well, why don't you try and be curious as to why he needs all this dopamine, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Your mom got pissed and stormed off.
	So more tremors shook the apartment building, right?
	So the first tremor is your mom coming in, right?
	The first tremor, so this is a warning.
	This is going to collapse, right?
	Oh, and this is another thing too, of course, that by putting your By putting the layout of your house on the 8th floor, it raises the danger, right?
	I mean, if a house collapses, it's bad enough, but if you're on the 8th floor and it collapses, that's terrible, right?
	Yeah, the warning is increasing.
	And eight might be a reference to, as you say, grades seven to eight, but eight also could be a reference, especially since you basically call your mother a massive hole in a way, right?
	Because you're saying, you're the massive hole.
	Right?
	So a massive hole, almost like a vagina with teeth, like to eight.
	It's the eighth floor, like about the eight you guys or something like that.
	It's a cannibalistic sense in a way.
	And that's a stretch, but I'll just put it out there for, see if we can tie it in with something later.
	All right.
	So my mom got pissed and stormed off.
	Now, what did you not mention?
	And of course, I'm sure this was in the dream, but what did you not mention when you were describing the dream?
	Who doesn't ever come up again?
	My mom and my baby.
	Well, your baby.
	Yeah.
	So why?
	Why does your baby vanish from the dream?
	with your mom?
	I'm thinking get one shot I'm thinking I'm thinking I'm thinking I get one shot to save her.
	Well, you fled.
	Now, what did you...
	So when you said more tremors shook to...
	There's an earthquake when your mom comes in, and then there's an earthquake when your mom leaves.
	And that...
	You know what that strikes me as?
	And this could be a very, very primal memory.
	When you're a kid, you lie on the ground, and often your ear is pressed to the ground or pressed to the carpet, and particularly hardwood or tiles or something like that, you can actually feel your parents walking.
	Is your mom heavy?
	Okay, so then when she comes in and when she goes out, you can feel the ground almost shake a little.
	It trembles a little, right?
	Yeah, and I would put my ear to the ground when my parents would fight, and my mom would make a show of stomping.
	Right.
	Okay, so this is real early, right?
	This is real early that when your mom moves around, the ground shakes.
	So, your mom gets pissed and storms off.
	More tremors shake the tall apartment building.
	I fled, and I went to the first floor and met some kid who said he came up from the negative seventh floor.
	Now, this is an interesting thing, right?
	Because if you think about it in real life, obviously if you were in a building, where's your brother goes, right?
	He vanishes too, right?
	So you leave your older brother behind, you leave your mother behind, and you leave your baby behind, right?
	And you flee.
	So, that means that in a conflict in your mind, in a conflict between your mother and your daughter, you will save yourself and leave your daughter.
	And the reason why the dream is putting the ground shaking in is to raise the stakes and to tell you that You might have a deficiency of loyalty.
	Like, save yourself, because it's saying, look, it's not just that your mother is wearing your daughter, it's that the entire building might collapse, right?
	So you go to the first floor.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	And is this a building that you know at all?
	Because I know you said that the apartment was your house, but is this a building that you know in the first floor, or was it just some random apartment building?
	Yeah, I mentioned it was very reminiscent of the one my brother lived in.
	Oh yes, okay.
	And you meet some kid.
	Now, who's the kid?
	How old is he?
	The kid is going to be, I guess, like 10 or 11.
	And it's not a kid that you recognize, right?
	No, but I immediately felt great fondness towards him.
	All right.
	So, Mitzum Kitty said he'd come up from the negative seventh floor.
	I was surprised how deep the building went.
	But you didn't say to the kid, this building could collapse.
	When did you first, in the dream, when did you first get the thought that the building might collapse?
	When the dream opened, that first tremor that started off the dream.
	Oh, so you thought.
	It was more than just a little tremble, right?
	Okay.
	So, if you go down in the basement of a building that is going to collapse, that's suicidal, isn't it?
	Yeah, you get...
	Either crushed by incredible weight or suffocated, never to be rescued.
	Right.
	And you don't try to save the kid.
	So you say you feel affection for the kid, but you don't say, hey kid, this building's going to collapse.
	We've got to get out.
	No, I just immediately forget about everything that went on up there.
	Okay, so why?
	Why?
	Why do you think that is?
	Why do you think, I mean, the dream is telling you the whole shit show's coming down, and you're like, hey, let's go explore the basement.
	I think you experienced that in this call, that I have a tendency to not engage emotionally with stuff and just put it out of my mind as quickly as it disappears.
	So...
	Took me down this concrete staircase, down several flights, another staircase, another few floors.
	The layout was winding and confusing.
	Now, what was down there?
	I mean, we get to the bottom, but do you remember, was it just the staircase?
	Like, you know, when you go into those back staircases, you just go down these concrete stairs, and there are doors, but you don't know what's on the other side, necessarily.
	There'd be, like, it was a couple flights of one staircase, and it's just all concrete, and comes out, and there's, like, a lobby and offices, and Then another one, and some more offices and lobbies, and then the last one's the one that's all concrete and kind of looks like...
	No, no, but lobbies aren't...
	Like, you're now underground, aren't you?
	Like, you're on the ground floor, and then he's like, it's minus seven floors.
	I've come up from the negative seventh floor, right?
	Yeah.
	So we could say like negative one to negative four are all kind of office type layouts with lobbies and glass doors and glass windows that separate everything.
	How can there be glass windows?
	It's underground.
	Well, interior glass windows, like instead of an office being surrounded by drywall, it'd be surrounded by glass, like kind of open layout type stuff.
	Oh, okay.
	So there's just walls all around, but it's glass in the offices.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And I obviously, because it's underground, I can't tell how far these layouts go into the earth.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Alright, so you're at the bottom.
	It evoked terror in you.
	It was concrete, clean, evidence of habitation, deep, isolated, no sunlight, safe, suffocating.
	There was a bed on the floor, a desk with a banner behind it.
	And...
	You don't remember what the banner was, do you?
	It was red.
	Oh, just a red banner, that's it?
	Um...
	It could...
	My impression is that it represents some sort of government movement or politics.
	No, that's your umbilical cord.
	That's my umbilical cord?
	Yeah, it's your umbilical cord.
	So you're at the bottom.
	Clean evidence of habitation.
	Deep, isolated, no sunlight, safe, suffocating.
	That's exactly what a womb is.
	A bed on the floor.
	babies lie on the bottom of the womb right and this is the emptiness of your mother Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, all concrete, no decoration.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, deep, isolated, no sunlight, safe, suffocating.
	I mean, you literally can't breathe in the womb, right?
	Are you safe?
	Absolutely.
	No sunlight?
	Absolutely.
	Clean?
	Well, it has to be clean or you don't make it, right?
	Isolated?
	Sure.
	Deep?
	Yep.
	You weren't born prematurely, were you?
	Yeah, I was a C-section baby.
	Do you know what month?
	I don't know.
	If you were born prematurely, then...
	Not like a preemie, but I don't know if it would have been full term.
	Because they have a tendency to want to pluck babies out a week or two early.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, so you weren't a preemie.
	I mean, if you were a preemie, then the minus seven would be pretty obvious, right?
	Yeah, no, I wasn't a preemie like that.
	Right, okay.
	So what was terrifying about the bottom for you?
	So when the dream, like if the dream wants to give you terror, it'll give you like, I don't know, some old bear down there with like three heads or something, right?
	Some monster chasing you, something with spider arms and, you know, like giant teeth or something, right?
	But it's not giving you anything down there that's terrifying.
	Yeah, but I had the sense of existential terror.
	I know, but of what?
	Existential doesn't answer much, right?
	The impression I had was that if I were to stay down there for even a minute or two minutes longer, that some sort of shadow Lovecraft beast would come out and end my life instantaneously.
	Okay.
	But there was no evidence of that?
	No, no evidence of that at all.
	So, when you see something in a dream that is not frightening, but it's terrifying with no evidence, the dream is telling you that what you're afraid of is the fear.
	What I'm afraid of is the fear.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Because, I mean, if you get chased by a bear, right, and you barely get away, then you'll have a whole bunch of dreams about being chased by a bear to make sure that you don't get chased by a bear again or try and avoid it as much as possible, right?
	Yeah.
	But you, so it's saying that dissociation, trying to get to the root of your mother, is putting you and your child in danger.
	Like, into the earth is mother, right?
	It's mother earth in general, right?
	Father sky, mother earth, right?
	Because the earth is where we get our food and our life and we grow things, right?
	So the earth is like the mother, right?
	And sky is infinite possibility.
	Yes, yes, for sure.
	And we grow up, right?
	So we grow out of our mother and up to our father.
	So we grow out of, right?
	So, surprised at how deep the building went.
	But there's no one down there, right?
	No, as we're going through all these floors, that was like they could easily handle hundreds of people.
	There's not a single person.
	Right, right.
	Ostensibly, everyone else abandoned it because of the tremors.
	Oh, so you think everybody was out because of the tremors.
	Okay, got it.
	It gave me very much the vibes of being in a building on like a weekend or at midnight or something when no one's there.
	Okay.
	Now, why did you want to see how deep the building goes?
	Do you remember?
	Because you said you asked him to show you.
	Why do you want to see that?
	And again, it's not a criticism.
	I'm just genuinely curious why.
	Curiosity.
	It was sort of in the spirit of, you know, I've got nothing better to do, kid.
	Let's go exploring together.
	Well, except what's down there is terrifying.
	I didn't know it until I got down there.
	So you didn't feel any uneasiness going down?
	I'm not saying you should.
	I'm really trying to figure it out.
	I'm recalling if I did feel anxiety going down.
	Probably the last few floors I started to get cold feet about it.
	And when you got cold feet about it, did you want to go back up?
	No, I wanted to stay closer to the kid and finish the exploration and get back up.
	Why did you want to finish the exploration?
	What was your thought about that?
	I needed to know it was down there.
	Why?
	I don't have a reason off the top of my head.
	How did the kids seem exploring the basement?
	Enthusiastic, interested, curious?
	Did he have any unease, or did he want to turn back?
	Completely enthusiastic, like he knows the entire layout of this building, and all he does is goof around, have a great time going all throughout it.
	Okay, so he's having a blast, right?
	Yeah, it looked like he was coming out from the negative 7th floor to go to the park at midnight.
	Sorry, what do you mean?
	Like, he was...
	Like, he was gonna go outside and go to, like, a playground and play at midnight.
	Like, this was...
	He was having a great time.
	I don't understand, because he wasn't doing that.
	He was going into the basement with you.
	Yes, but when I first encountered him...
	Oh, he was heading out.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So this is his home, right?
	Yeah.
	So is this his bed?
	So where does he live?
	I don't know.
	Well, you said he's from the minus seventh floor, right?
	No, he just said he was coming up from the minus seventh floor.
	Perhaps that means he lives there, but I didn't get that impression at the time.
	It just sounded like, oh, I was just exploring down there.
	So he's coming up, but he's coming up from down here.
	So he's not scared of this.
	No, he's not.
	But you are.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So, what the, and he's an expert down here, right?
	Thank you.
	So he knows there's no beast.
	Right?
	You think there's a beast.
	He knows there's no beast.
	So he's the you who's not terrified of your mom.
	Yeah.
	And you said he was 10 or 11 years old?
	Okay.
	Was there anything that your mom did that provoked more fear in you at about that age?
	Yeah.
	And 6th, 7th, 8th grade, middle school years, there is.
	I kind of have a lot of amnesia from that time.
	The verbal abuse was staggering.
	Okay.
	So that's when she really terrified you, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so this is the part of you before your mom totally terrifies you that is telling you there's nothing dangerous down here.
	You're terrified there's a beast, but the kid is like, like, why would, how, you said you're sort of 15 or so in the dream, is that right?
	I'd put me at 13 in the dream.
	13 in the dream, okay okay So you're going back sort of three years, if this is you in a younger phase.
	Yeah.
	It would be me roughly at the end of middle school meeting me roughly at the start of middle school.
	So you're just at the end of middle...
	Oh, okay.
	Sorry.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Seven more rooms I dared not explore.
	He went up and I followed right after him.
	So you were far less...
	Now, you were far less scared than the kid, but you were scared of all the wrong things.
	You weren't scared of your mother screaming with your daughter on her belly.
	you weren't scared of your brother being trapped in a collapsing building or your daughter being trapped in a collapsing building or your mother.
	Yeah, but I was scared of my better self's clean room.
	Thank you.
	Your better self's clean room.
	Well, not a better self, it's just an earlier unharmed self, right?
	Sorry, not unharmed, less harmed.
	Yeah.
	That's really fascinating, you correct me like that.
	Yeah, it's not better.
	No, he's just...
	You know, if some guy gets stabbed at night, the guy, like who he was before he was stabbed, wasn't better, it just was pre-stabbed, right?
	Yeah, just before the damage.
	Now, you also weren't...
	So you weren't honest with your mom?
	Nope.
	You weren't honest with your brother?
	Nope.
	You weren't honest with this kid, because you didn't say, I'm scared.
	You covered it up, right?
	Yeah, maybe if I said, I'm scared there's tremors, he would have told me.
	No, no, sorry.
	Yes, about that, for sure.
	But if you said, kid, this concrete room is freaking me out.
	Like, my heart's pounding here.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So you're hiding everything.
	You're hiding the porn, you're hiding your anger at your mother, you're trying to engage with her, you're hiding from your own fear of the building collapsing, you're not rescuing your brother or your daughter, and you're then dissociating to the point where you want to go and explore a basement in a building that might collapse, and then You just keep going down, and then you don't tell the kid about how frightened you are, and then you don't, you know, the kid's fine, and you don't say, well, I don't want to go explore these other rooms, right?
	So you're hiding everything about you from everyone there is.
	Yeah, that's accurate.
	Okay, so why?
	Why?
	Why would you hide everything you are from everyone that is?
	There is no one.
	It doesn't do many good.
	It didn't get my daughter back for me.
	Sorry, you'll have to say that again.
	I couldn't follow the sentence.
	It didn't do many good.
	I wasn't using it for diplomacy to get my daughter back from my mom.
	In the basement, being scared of the monster or shadows that weren't there.
	Yeah.
	Well, and in the dream, you don't get out of the building.
	Do you?
	The dream ends with me and the kid stepping out of the front door of the apartment building out onto the street.
	Oh, okay, sorry.
	It just says he went up and I followed right after him.
	Okay, so you and the kid go out of the building, right?
	Right.
	And then that's the end.
	And do you remember if the boy says anything to you I mean, does he chatter?
	Does he, yes, this is cool, or are we going to go, it's just another flight or two, or what does he...
	No, he doesn't say a word.
	Oh, he's silent the whole time?
	Yes.
	So there's a gap, right?
	It's a gap between you and your younger self.
	Because he's also not empathizing with you, right?
	No, he's kind of playing and it's kind of novel to show a new kid, all the cool stuff, but he doesn't talk to me.
	And do you have a sense, because I was trying to sort of figure out where he lives, it's not in the basement, so you don't have a sense of where he lives, right?
	No.
	Well, it makes sense that maybe he'd be, well, time's all, not confused, but Broken from reality in the dream.
	It's possible that he's...
	That he's just not from...
	Or maybe he's imagination, or he's not from that dream.
	What?
	No, he's in the dream!
	What do you mean he's not from the dream?
	Ugh.
	I appreciate you keeping my language precise.
	Because he doesn't notice that you're frightened.
	No.
	So, he's not empathizing with you, and you're not trusting him.
	So, to you...
	Sorry, my apologies.
	To him, you look like a crazy coward, don't you?
	I'm frightened of this bed in the basement, right?
	Yeah, I look like a weird older kid that's not nearly as courageous or playful.
	Right, so...
	So this must be part of you that looks at your fear as shameful.
	That looks at my fear as shameful.
	Right.
	Yeah, and that's another dominant personality in me.
	Because you're ashamed of the porn, you are frightened of your mother...
	You're ashamed of your fear in the basement and you hide it from everyone.
	So do you view your fear regarding your mother and your father as shameful?
	Yeah.
	Why?
	Because they have no more power to hurt me now.
	Okay.
	That's not true.
	That's not true.
	No, hang on.
	That's not true.
	They could show up at your house.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	They could show up at your house tomorrow.
	What do you mean they have no more power to hurt you?
	I mean, it's still in your head, right?
	I'm letting the thoughts flow out of my head after I said it.
	I agree with you.
	You don't need to convince me.
	I already agree with you.
	I just need to say it out loud.
	No, that's fine.
	That's fine.
	Okay, so why is it shameful?
	Why is it shameful if you'll fear like that?
	Yeah, why is it shameful?
	Your mother said she thought you could be a school shooter, right?
	Yeah.
	Do you know what that means?
	It means she's pictured killing people.
	And she's projecting it onto you.
	So, if you had a kind of murderous mother, why would you be ashamed of being terrified of that?
	Thank you.
	I want to make sense of it.
	The verbal abuse I got from my mom is, as usual, very difficult to cipher through and figure out what's true and what's not.
	Sorry, what do you mean what's true and what's not?
	A lot of her control and verbal abuse would be to construct a narrative of how relationships work, of how the world works, and to...
	No, no, it's all false because she's evil.
	Because if she's screaming, you know, horrible phrases and words and definitions at you, was she physically violent as well?
	Physically violent?
	No, she got my dad to do that.
	So she instigated physical violence from your dad, right?
	And how violent was your dad?
	The worst incident was getting spanked with a wooden board out of anger and out of control.
	And how old were you?
	Six or seven.
	So you got beat with a wooden board when your dad was out of control and you were six years old or seven years old?
	Yeah.
	So why would it be shameful to be terrified of this insane and evil environment?
	They made it seem normal.
	They made it seem like I had it better than everybody else.
	But the body doesn't lie.
	I mean, you can bullshit the brain, but not the body, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, positivity doesn't make you slender, right?
	So, why would you feel ashamed of being frightened with that level of verbal and physical abuse?
	And I'm not criticizing.
	I genuinely want to know, like, how...
	How could you justify feeling shame at that level of fear when you were at that level of danger?
	I don't know what else to say, but it sucks.
	I have high standards for myself, but this is killing me.
	You have high standards for yourself?
	Yeah.
	What the fuck does that mean?
	I'm sorry, I don't know what that means.
	I mean, you're a baby zebra, for God's sakes, and you've got all the fucking lions in the known universe drooling and running at you.
	And you're like, well, I'm going to, my fear is shameful because I have very high standards.
	Like, I don't know what that means.
	I don't either.
	I'm trying to piece this out.
	I don't...
	Okay, let's make it easy.
	Let's make it easy.
	I'd love to make it easy.
	Does it serve you or your parents for you to believe that your fear is shameful?
	It benefits my parents.
	Of course it does.
	The lion doesn't want the baby zebra to run away.
	No, they would really enjoy if I had a Right.
	Your parents will highly benefit from you trying to reason with them.
	Mom, why don't you try to figure out why my brother has this massive hole of dopamine and needs to play six hours strategy games?
	I'm going to reason with you.
	And that's how you get stuck like a fly in a web.
	Yeah, it benefits them.
	So the toxicity is just another thread of bullshit to keep you stuck to the web so they can feast, so to speak, in my view.
	Yeah, they've made it clear that they kind of enjoy stealing my spirit, as Pinerand might put it.
	that's the thing they want to loot the most.
	It's a level of evil that's hard for me to comprehend that they just want to steal my spirit by having me around.
	Well, you absolutely comprehend it.
	Because what is keeping you in danger over the course of this dream is your dissociation from the imminent danger.
	And it could be that you're so angry in the dream, obviously, that you're so angry at your mother that you will even abandon your brother and your daughter so that a building comes down around her ears and she stays in. that you're so angry at your mother that you will Mm-hmm.
	Yeah, that's something I hadn't thought about.
	Because that's the net result, right?
	You don't confront your mother.
	You don't say, give me my daughter.
	This building's coming down around her ears.
	Let's get the hell out.
	You don't try and save your brother.
	You do save the kid.
	Or, no, but that's just an accident.
	The building just happens to not fall, right?
	Yeah, and he was going to be out of the building anyway.
	Well, he was, and then you took him to the basement, which put him in massive danger.
	Yeah, I'm going off the assumption that after we leave, the building might still collapse.
	I mean, was there...
	So there are two tremors that you talk about in the dream.
	Are those the only two tremors that you remember?
	Yeah.
	No, in the dream I had the sense that it would come down eventually.
	There'd be more tremors that eventually get it.
	But, you know, I had time to screw around for 15 minutes.
	Well, if you're going down seven flights.
	We're kids, man.
	You're fast, right?
	Yeah.
	Sorry, I'm thinking of my 58-year-old legs.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So, what's your feeling when you leave the building?
	Ambivalent.
	Ambivalent.
	Go on.
	There's a great possibility out there, but to go for that would be to abandon something.
	It's very abstract.
	What does that mean?
	To abandon something.
	Yeah, I can work with that.
	No, spoiler, I can't work with that.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I have difficulty.
	No, no, don't give me excuses or reasons.
	It's a problem.
	No excuses.
	I wanted to run away, but I knew that'd be abandoning my daughter, and I kind of didn't want to do that.
	Ah, so your daughter did come back into your mind...
	At the end of the dream or at some point before that?
	No, this is me transposing logic to the...
	No, no, no, no.
	Just stay in the dream.
	Stay in the dream.
	In the dream, emotions were not clear enough.
	Okay.
	I had vague feelings with no associated actions with them.
	I had vague feelings with no associative action with them.
	Oh my gosh.
	What?!
	Okay.
	Explain it to me like I'm your 10-year-old self.
	I'm trying to fight the fog.
	I know.
	So you didn't have any particular feelings of relief of getting out of the building or concerned about maybe people you'd left behind?
	And again, no criticism, I'm just, what was the emotions you were walking out of the building?
	You're obviously relieved to be out of the basement, right?
	Drawing in a breath of fresh air and enjoying it.
	Right?
	Nothing beyond that.
	Okay.
	So.
	Did you feel when you were climbing back up the stairs from the very bottom of the basement, did you feel like you might be chased or once you got off the minus seven floor, you felt better or safe or okay?
	Yeah, immediately after getting off minus seven.
	Okay.
	And was there anybody else in the building on your way back up or on the ground floor as you were heading out?
	Thank you.
	No.
	I think there were some kids at the park outside.
	But no other.
	So, there was grave danger in the basement, but the basement was utterly empty.
	What that says, and it's a very true and profound thing that your dream is saying, I think, Thank you.
	Outside of violence, evil only has the power we give it.
	Outside of violence, evil only has the power we give it.
	Obviously, if some guy stabs you, well, you're not giving power, like you're being stabbed, right?
	But outside of violence, evil only has the power we give it.
	Because there's nothing down there.
	Thank you.
	You're not attacked.
	It's empty.
	There's no threatening object or thing or person or smell or anything.
	It's empty.
	There's nothing down there, right?
	Nothing.
	Right.
	So what that means is you're afraid of nothing.
	Because the kid's not scared.
	I'm sorry.
	Thank you.
	But by being afraid of nothing, the nothingness in, say, your mother.
	Because evil is a void, right?
	Narcissism, evil whatever.
	That level of selfishness is a void.
	There's nothing down there.
	Just manipulation, maybe some strange sorrow, but emptiness.
	It's empty, right?
	And the emptiness is terrifying.
	And emptiness is terrifying.
	Because people who are empty don't have any empathy.
	And the dream is woven through with this lack of empathy.
	Lack of pornography is based on a lack of empathy.
	Video games is a lack of empathy because you're not actually dealing with your problems.
	Your mom's screaming right over the eardrums of your daughter.
	You don't care about your daughter.
	You try to engage with your mom, which shows a lack of empathy to her emptiness and manipulation.
	You abandon your brother.
	Your younger self, if that's who he is, doesn't have empathy for you.
	It's a lack of empathy.
	Emptiness.
	Seven more rooms.
	Several more rooms, you say, I dare not explore.
	But the boy had explored them, because he knew this area well, right?
	Yeah.
	So what's down there is empty.
	It's nothing.
	If it's your womb, if it's the core of your mother, the heart of your mother.
	Because you're dealing with your mother after you were born as a conscious entity, but the dream is saying if this is your mother's womb, then this is before you were even conscious.
	Thank you.
	It's also interesting.
	Kind of feel terror, even sort of remembering myself as an infant or a toddler.
	It makes me just feel icky to think that my mom would have that sort of power over me.
	Go on.
	Because of my own daughter and knowing how she is, I would never want my mom to be around My daughter, but she was around me with no supervision, doing whatever she pleased.
	I just hate imagining it.
	I think I avoid...
	I think this is very much that fear of what's down there.
	And I'm very afraid of it.
	And I feel, I feel ashamed for being afraid of it.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	You know, it's funny because if you think of the phrase, there's nothing to be afraid of, it actually has two meanings, right?
	Yeah.
	There's nothing to be afraid of, and there's one thing to be afraid of, and that's nothing.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	Right.
	The emptiest people are the most dangerous people.
	Because they're empty and they have no restraint on their behavior and they have no empathy for their victims.
	games.
	It's like the most dangerous...
	Yeah, okay, maybe...
	It's like the gravest danger to the prey is the empty belly of the predator.
	That's primal.
	It is.
	Emptiness around you is a...
	This is the NPC shit, right?
	This is all the fucking 80% of people lining up to get jabbed with mRNA mystery juice, right?
	I mean, it is just, yeah, absolutely, we should do this, and anybody who disagrees is my enemy, right?
	This is emptiness, right?
	All the people who, well, I want to vote for the left because I want to make sure that I retain the right to kill a baby in my womb.
	Empty.
	all the people who claim to have knowledge or who claim to have compassion when they just want the government to get more and more power.
	It's like, well, I mean, I've had this for like 40 years.
	People say they care about the children, they care about education, they care about the next generation.
	And I say, well, why is there a national debt?
	And they're, oh, it's a court trap, right?
	Because there's nothing there to answer it.
	And if you go to explore...
	This depth.
	Right?
	Trying to figure, oh, what's going on deep down in my mother?
	Holy shit, man.
	That is a hole with no bottom.
	I'm not kidding about that.
	And I've been subject to this temptation many times over the course of my life.
	You cannot figure out what's going on with your mom or your dad.
	You can't.
	Because you're going down and there's nothing there.
	That opens up another dimension to the dream.
	Go on.
	That kid I ran into has no empathy either.
	He's just kind of nihilistic, happy-go-lucky hedonist.
	So maybe that's exploring it all.
	Happy-go-lucky hedonist.
	Yeah.
	That kid's beyond time, and that was obvious in the dream.
	Beyond time.
	Go on.
	He's like a mortal.
	He can afford to just dilly-dally in those depths and go play in the park at midnight.
	Oh, he's neglected?
	Yeah, he's never going to grow up.
	Oh, he's the part of you that knows the neglect.
	Because he's got no parents.
	Yeah, he doesn't have any parents.
	So he's the part of you that understands the neglect.
	So I'll tell you where a lot of parental violence comes from.
	A lot of parental violence comes from when the children begin to first figure out that their parents are empty bullshitters.
	If your parents are, right?
	There's no objective standards.
	They're just infants.
	They're dangerous tall infants.
	If you've ever...
	Thank you.
	If you've ever confronted someone directly with their emptiness, the rage that's right there is chilling.
	Yeah, I've done this a few times.
	Right.
	If you corner someone and point out that what they're saying doesn't make any sense, and you've seen me do this sometimes with the media, sometimes with trolls, like if you confront the emptiness that people have, It's a powder keg.
	So a lot of times, if your parents are sort of false and manipulative and empty, as a kid, and it often is around the age of six or seven, or eight, right?
	Which is maybe minus seven to eight or whatever, right?
	So it is often around the mid to late single digits where you first begin to look at your parents if they're really dysfunctional.
	And you say, oh my god, they're crazy.
	They have no standards.
	I mean, I remember my mother, this was before I went to boarding school, so I was probably like, I don't know, five years old or whatever, and maybe six.
	No, boarding school, I was in, so...
	No, because it could have been summers, because I was home during the summers, although I did spend one really long, dismal Christmas at boarding school, but...
	I remember my mother would be running up and down the hallway of her little apartment, and she'd be late for work.
	She had a job as a secretary, and she'd be late for work, but she'd always be forgetting something.
	And I remember these, like, tick, tick, tick, these little heels, like these little, she'd wear these long, thin heels, right?
	And she'd be, like, running up and down the hardwood floors, And she would be just late and she'd forget something.
	Oh, what's this?
	And she'd forget her wallet or she couldn't find her keys.
	Like something, right?
	Couldn't find the bus fare or something like that.
	And then we had a little bowl.
	It actually had a sign of, don't forget diner money.
	It was misspelled.
	It should have been dinner.
	I think my brother did the sign.
	Don't forget your diner money.
	And we had to bring in, I don't know, 10 cents or 10 pennies for lunch at school.
	But half the time, there'd be no money in it, right?
	And it wasn't because we were that broke.
	My mom still had a job at that time.
	And so I just remember those two things.
	She's always stressed and forgetting things in the morning.
	And although we have enough money, There's no money in the lunch for school, right?
	Money.
	And those kinds of things where you say, well, how does this person who can't even get out of the house and get to work?
	And look, it happens to everyone once in a while.
	I'm sure you've had it, you know, where you're just like...
	Okay, this is the fourth thing I've forgotten.
	Every now and then it's going to cluster and it just takes forever to get out.
	But normally, you know, you should be able to get out of the house pretty.
	And I just remember thinking, like, so she's not really very competent.
	She's not really a very competent person.
	She's not a person of, like, she's not really trustworthy.
	She's not very competent.
	She's kind of stressed.
	She's kind of freaked out, panicked a lot, and all of that.
	And I just remember thinking, like, So she...
	I don't have much to look up to here, if that makes sense.
	There's no credibility here.
	How am I going to think that she can raise me when she can't put a 10-cent piece in a lunch bowl or get out of the house at any reasonable hour?
	It's like almost every morning, just, oh God, where's the good of this and all of that, right?
	And so, sort of maybe...
	At some point, and I assume it was around the beatings, right?
	Well, you're getting beaten by your father at the age of six or seven with a wooden board, and you're like, this asshole's out of control.
	Like, he's angry at me, and he's out of control.
	So how am I going to respect him?
	How am I going to listen to him about anything?
	I don't know.
	I don't want to put words into your mouth, but Yeah, I remember that after that incident, he came and apologized, and I very distinctly felt, this apology is not real, but I need to guard that secret in my life.
	Right.
	So you have to hide your parents' emptiness from them.
	There's a huge burden that the kids of highly dysfunctional parents have to carry, is we have to pretend they're not completely screwed up and crazy and immoral.
	Yeah, and that's a terrible thing to get good at.
	Oh, it's a terrible burden.
	And here's the thing, too.
	It's not just like you can't say it.
	It's like you can't even give them one skeptical look.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, my brother would be endlessly tormented for, what do they call it, with the eyes that no adult ever says, but they say it to kids.
	Rolling your eyes.
	Yeah, that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Or you better drop that attitude.
	It's thought crime.
	Like, child abuse in its most pervasive aspect in some ways is about the permanent thought crime.
	You can't even think.
	You can't even look with scorn.
	You can't even roll your eyes.
	You can't even, like, you can't express to the parent how little respect they've Engendered in you, if they're that dysfunctional, you've got to just pretend.
	Just pretend that they have something of value to say.
	You have to just pretend that they have some credibility or a lot of credibility that they're just wonderful and they're wise and they know what's what and they should instruct you in morals and virtue and courage.
	You have to just lie.
	Continually.
	And not just lie, like, you can't even, like, sometimes one scornful look will be enough to be, right?
	Yeah.
	I remember when I was 15, that's when I found your show, and I didn't get into any childhood stuff yet.
	It was politics at that point.
	And all of a sudden, my mom started nagging me for rolling my eyes, and I had no idea where it came from, because I didn't change my behavior in any other way.
	Hmm.
	Right.
	Right.
	I really don't, I would not be surprised if just like that 1% uptick in critical thinking, she recognized that and started trying to push that back out of me.
	Oh yeah, my mother hated the philosophers that I got into in my teens.
	I was about your age, got into philosophy about 15, and my mom hated them.
	Oh, Ayn Rand, she just raised you, and it's like, well, somebody had to, mom.
	Somebody had to.
	It was going to be that, or it was going to be some gang, right?
	Somebody had to.
	So, you're going...
	So, hang on.
	So, I think it's really important that you go to the bottom and you're terrified at seeing nothing.
	That's because when you go to the bottom of really screwed up people's personalities, there's nothing there.
	Just nothing.
	It's like this terrifying thing that Dostoevsky talks about.
	It's like, well, what if the afterlife isn't heaven or it's hell?
	It's just like some dingy change room in a bathhouse.
	With spiders.
	Forever.
	Right?
	That's nothing.
	There's nothing there.
	There's no true self.
	There's no empathy.
	There's no authenticity.
	There's no original thought.
	It's just emptiness and programming and pretense and domination and submission in necessary circumstances.
	So you get down to the bottom And there's nothing, and that's terrifying.
	I don't want to oversell this, but I feel that, I feel, it's a feeling, it's not a proof, but I think that's really important.
	That was the most fear I felt in a long time in that journey.
	Right.
	And so, yeah, at the heart of your mother, if it's the depths of your mother, if it's the womb or something, there's nothing there.
	And Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	The real question, though, is, and this is the last thing that we can focus on, how has this been for you as a whole so far?
	It is like pulling teeth getting through that fog.
	I really want to know what the deal with that is, but perhaps we can get there now.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So here's the problem.
	The problem is you go deep into nothing and it infects you.
	because you leave the building without thinking about your daughter or your brother or your mother.
	So earlier, when I said, what could you really say to your mother?
	And you said, why didn't you love me or whatever it is, right?
	It's like, the reason I got a bit snappy there, sorry about that, but the reason I got a bit snappy is because you know that there's nothing there.
	He doesn't have that capacity.
	So are you still, I mean, I don't mean to say are you still, because I'm pretty sure I was older than you, and I still occasionally try because I'm pretty sure I was older than you, and I still occasionally try to puzzle out my family members But are you still trying to figure out your mother and your father?
	No.
	I'm not making any inquiries and talking to family members or anything.
	But what about in your head?
	In my head?
	Because when I said, you were like, why didn't you love me?
	Like when I said, what would you say to your mother?
	You said, why didn't you love me?
	me, which means that you're still, that's still a question for you.
	Because that's like saying, well, why don't you ask, why don't you ever ask yourself why?
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	Your first born son needs so much video gaming.
	Right.
	So are you and it's not an accusation.
	I mean, I'm genuinely curious.
	Are you still trying to figure out what went wrong with your parents or why they didn't love you or that sort of stuff?
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Right.
	Because going down to the bottom of the building...
	Right?
	Again, your dream could have done anything, right?
	Your dream could have been like, well, I don't want to go explore those other rooms, right?
	Because if you had explored all the other rooms, you'd have realized there's absolutely nothing down there.
	Like, when you leave, it's like, well, maybe there was something down there that was scary, or maybe there was something down there that I can't understand.
	Yeah, and there's like this, I can go back down and look again, which there was that in the dream.
	Oh, you wanted to go back down and look again and check out the other rooms that you didn't see yet, right?
	Yeah, it was kind of like, oh, that's bookmarked that, and it's an adventure for later.
	Right, right.
	So, I'm telling you that there's just emptiness down there.
	There's nothing.
	The other rooms have nothing else.
	Yeah, I guess.
	Sorry, you could say, well, but, you know, I mean, with regards to my own mother, yes, I'm absolutely positive.
	She went through terrible traumas, through the war, through the end of the war, no doubt, no question.
	But it's all inaccessible to me, because I'll never get the truth.
	So there's, I'm not, with my mother's trauma and dysfunction and so on, I'm not saying there's nothing there, but there's nothing there for me.
	Because by acting out her abuses against me, she's cut herself off from empathy for me, and therefore the only way she'll answer me with anything is with manipulation.
	So it's all inaccessible to me.
	It's like that big diamond or whatever that Rose drops off at the end of Titanic.
	It's like, is there a diamond?
	Yes, but it's inaccessible.
	It's now in the ocean.
	Nobody can find it.
	It's covered up under sand.
	It's been swallowed by a shark.
	Whatever, right?
	It's inaccessible.
	So, I mean, without a doubt, I mean, what happened to your mother and your father when they were children and babies, toddlers, whatever, right?
	Was, I'm sure, terrible.
	And if we had some time-traveling drone that we would all...
	If I had a time-traveling drone that could go back and see what happened to my mother before and during the war, right?
	I mean, it's a pretty bad place to be born into Germany in 1937, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, you wouldn't want to wish that on your worst enemy.
	So if I could have some time-traveling drone and go back in time and see all of the absolutely terrible things, unholy, unimaginably terrible things that were done to my mother, right?
	I mean, they were raping every woman, especially when the Soviet troops came in, raping every female from the age of 8 to 80, repeatedly.
	I have no doubt that she was assaulted as a girl, and my heart would break and her life would make sense, right?
	Or at least be much more understandable.
	But that's all inaccessible to me, because she doesn't have empathy for me, For her own history, experienced choices to some degree, but also because of the cruelty that she enacted against me.
	She doesn't have empathy for me, therefore I can't get the truth from her, because telling the truth is an act of empathy.
	If somebody really needs the truth from you, and you tell them the truth, and this is why I think throughout the dream, you don't tell the truth to anyone about anything.
	And the price is you walk out leaving your baby girl behind, you walk out leaving your brother behind, and not even giving a second thought to your mother, and you want to go back and explore These dangerous depths.
	But you see, you went down and you explored the dangerous depths.
	You got terror.
	You thought there was something down there, right?
	Oh God, there's some beast that's going to emerge and kill me, right?
	So you thought there's something down there, but there's not.
	The dream is very clear.
	There's nothing down there.
	Not only is there no monster, there's not even a sign of a monster.
	There's not like claw marks on the wall or bones in the corner or, you know, whatever, a foul smell.
	It's just an empty, dead nothing spot, right?
	Yeah, and the thing I was afraid of was, I think, was the nothingness.
	Right, but that's because the nothingness is dangerous.
	Like this old thing from Nietzsche where he says, be careful that if you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.
	That's a beautifully phrased but not well explained reality, that the more you explore nothingness, the more it infects you.
	The more you explore the void at the heart of corruption, the more you imperil your own empathy.
	Because those of us who have empathy, we can only sense the danger of the void.
	We cannot perceive it directly.
	It's like a black hole.
	You can only see the effects.
	You can't see the thing itself.
	If you have a personality, you have original thought, you have empathy, you have sensitivity, you have emotions, you cannot comprehend the icy intergalactic emptiness at the heart of truly corrupt people.
	You know, people who say, will scream verbal abuse at a helpless and defenseless child or beat that child at the age of six or seven with a big wooden board and then provide an apology that doesn't solve anything.
	And I assume he didn't go to therapy or anger management or anything like that to really try and get to the heart of these issues, right?
	No.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	I mean, the people who just pathologically lie about things in politics and so on.
	The only way we can really understand that void is by losing everything about us that makes us human to ourselves.
	So trying to figure out what was motivating her, why did she do this, why did she do that?
	You can't get an answer, except by becoming like them, which you don't want to do.
	It's sort of like saying, hey, I wonder what it's like to be demonically possessed.
	I think I'll keep summoning demons until it happens.
	Well, that's kind of what the devil would want, you know?
	So, corruption wants you to study corruption.
	Because that's how it spreads.
	Yeah, that's...
	I'm starting to grasp it now.
	So how do you know when you're staring into the abyss, you're studying corruption?
	Well, if your mother comes out wearing your baby daughter and starts screaming at your brother, thus traumatizing your daughter, What would be the most healthy and sane thing you could do in that situation?
	Because the dream is, by telling you what doesn't work, the dream is also telling you what does work.
	What's the most sane and healthy thing you can do in that situation?
	The effect of the most sane and healthy thing is to get my daughter and leave, but I don't know how I would navigate that situation to do that.
	She's got my daughter hostage, pretty much.
	Well...
	But the dream is telling you what not to do.
	Because you got mad at your mom and you tried to fight with her.
	Like, she's a rational person.
	You can talk into growing empathy.
	Yeah.
	And everything goes bad after that, right?
	Well, um...
	Yeah.
	I'm starting to engage my empirical brain now.
	This is wonderful.
	Yeah, what I could do is I could play like nothing's wrong and...
	Kind of take my mother's side tacitly and say I want to hold my daughter for a little bit and then once I got my daughter, get it out of there.
	Right.
	And that would work.
	That would work every single time.
	You deal with it like it's a war because it's a war.
	Yeah.
	You don't reason with the enemy troops, right?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	It's just beyond any doubt.
	I don't owe her reasonability.
	There's nothing I can do to get her to be reasonable.
	I can...
	Fight like a war, yeah.
	You say whatever you need to say with no pride and no engagement because what happens is you start fighting with your mom or reasoning with your mom or saying, oh, mom, you should just have all of this empathy.
	It's like the dream is telling you she doesn't have empathy.
	She raised you and your brother and one of you is dissociating with, well, you're both dissociating with screens, right?
	So you're trying to fight with her, like, oh, I'm so frustrated.
	Why don't you love me here?
	I'm going to give you reason.
	You should ask this.
	It's like, and everything goes badly.
	Because she storms off, and the building's collapsing, and then you, right?
	So her emptiness switches to you, because you no longer think about your brother and your daughter.
	Yeah, I had a concern for my brother and it evaporated when I made the wrong choice.
	Well, made the wrong choice, it's just an instruction manual, right?
	You know, when it's like, do this, you know, you see the, put the mask on your face, not your armpit in the plane, like, tick and then X, right?
	So the dream is just saying X, don't do this.
	It's not like you made the wrong choice, the dream is trying to help you make the right choice by saying this is, they're not the right choice.
	Gotcha.
	Your mom got pissed and stormed off, and you fled.
	Now, her emptiness then transferred to you because you lost your empathy for your daughter.
	You didn't say, oh my god, my daughter's in danger, my brother's in danger, my mother's in danger, but maybe you don't care about her that much at the moment, and you don't say, oh my god, I'm terrified of...
	This earthquake and the building collapsing and we're all gonna die, my daughter's gonna die, my brother's gonna die, right?
	So you engage with your mother Without empathy.
	Now, empathy, again, we can feel around the edges of a lack of empathy, but we cannot experience it directly.
	I cannot experience what it's like to walk around the world and look at other human beings like they're just half-inanimate tools that I use to satisfy my own needs and pleasures.
	I can't do it.
	I can't get there.
	The closest I can imagine is To imagine that I'm the only human being, like this is like the narcissist view, right?
	I'm the only human being, and everyone else is like a robot that has been programmed to serve my needs.
	And anytime they don't serve my needs, I'm just going to hit them until they do.
	Like, you know, how you thump maybe a printer in frustration if it's not printing or something like that, right?
	You just get annoyed.
	Like, this shit is supposed to work for me.
	And that's just your relationship.
	Like, you're the only person.
	Everyone else is like a robot that's supposed to serve your needs, and when they don't, you have every right to get enraged at them.
	That's the only, like, that's just an analogy.
	I can't get into that mindset.
	Like, I can't inhabit that mindset.
	Because people are real and I care about people.
	So I can't undo that any more than I can listen to somebody speaking English and not understand what they're saying.
	Assuming they're not from Scotland.
	So you want to figure out your mother, but you can't.
	Because you have empathy and she doesn't.
	You want to figure out your father, but the more you try to figure them out, or why didn't you love me, or you need to think about why your son needs all this dopamine, right?
	That just makes you empty.
	It doesn't fill them up, it just empties you out.
	And you wanting to figure them out is the primary mechanism by which they're still trying to steal your soul in a way.
	"Oh, I went to the basement, man.
	It was really empty and terrifying, but I'll be back.
	I'll figure this out.
	God help you if you do.
	It means you're like them.
	Which you're not, right?
	As a way of making it seem more complicated than it is to try and draw me in.
	You know, I see the—because I used to do all these videos, like, the truth about—the untruths about Donald Trump.
	Like, I've done a whole bunch of, like, media takedowns, like, back in the day when I was doing politics, right?
	A whole bunch of media takedowns, which were all about, you know, they're just telling these lies, right?
	And I'm telling you, man, I cannot fathom what I have in common with people who just tell lies.
	Now, I mean, look, I'm not going to say, oh, I never told a lie.
	I mean, yeah, okay, little white lies here and there, whatever it is, maybe fudge a little story to make it funnier.
	So, but, you know, just in terms of, like, pathologically trashing people's reputation in order just to get political power, you know, this kind of Wikipedia stuff and all, like, I can't get that.
	I just, I can't get that.
	And so, but that's everywhere.
	They never say, well, we want someone to sit behind this desk and lie for like five hours straight.
	And they never say, oh, nobody's showing up.
	There's always just this lineup, right?
	Just lineup.
	Think of all the people who knew what the hell was going on at these P. Diddy parties, right?
	For decades, right?
	Lie.
	Lying.
	Lying, lying, lying.
	Cover up, cover up, cover up.
	Lying, lying, lying.
	So, I mean, there's a lot of them out there.
	It is kind of a battle.
	It's a spiritual battle, right?
	It's a psychological battle.
	It's a moral battle.
	But if your first question was, well, why don't you love me?
	Then you're still trying to understand your mother.
	And I think the dream is saying, there's nothing down there.
	You can go back as many times as you want.
	There's nothing down there.
	And that is terrifying.
	And that terror should have you treasure the people in your life who you connect with and stop trying to jump down an endless hole to reach the bottom.
	Yeah, after this conversation, I do not feel any curiosity about her.
	Yeah, I mean, my dad died like four years ago, and I never knew what happened to him as a child.
	You know, he was in boarding school when he was younger, and boarding schools can be pretty rough, and I don't know what else could have happened.
	I'm sure terrible things happened to him, no question.
	But I was never going to find them out.
	There's nothing down there that is accessible to me, right?
	I mean, it's a gold bar dropped in the ocean.
	Right?
	Like, 40 years ago.
	Is it there?
	Yeah, I guess.
	But it's functionally inaccessible.
	Like, it's there, somewhere.
	It didn't just vanish into another dimension.
	But it's completely, it's like, it's under, like, half a mile of silt in some unknown location.
	Right?
	So it's functionally inaccessible.
	It's like the Voyager spaceship that went out the solar system some years ago.
	Like, do they know where it is?
	Yep.
	Can they touch it?
	Nope.
	It's functionally inaccessible.
	So the terrible secrets that forged people's cold hearts, the terrible histories that destroyed the capacity to genuinely feel for others, it's all there.
	It happened objectively, and if we had the magic time-traveling drone, we could see it, but it is functionally inaccessible to us.
	We'll never know it.
	And I try not to I try not to puzzle out things that are impossible to puzzle out.
	I don't bring people to the stand who I know are pathological liars.
	That's just making a mockery of justice.
	All you need to know about your parents is how cruel they are, how cruel they were, and how cruel they continue to be.
	And that's all you need to know.
	There's no other answers.
	Because the only answers are locked in their own history.
	And they will never tell you the truth.
	Because if you go to people who are cruel and you say, I need the truth from you, you're giving them power over you, which they will inevitably misuse.
	It literally is like going to the guy who wants to torture you and saying, well, it really hurts when you do this.
	I really need you to not do this.
	He's like, oh, well, that's what I'll do.
	That's what I mean, like it's inaccessible.
	If I went to my mother, I'm pretty sure she's still alive, but if I went to my mother with a desperate need to find out X, Y, and Z about her past, her childhood, her decisions, her choices, I would then be in a position of needing something from my mother.
	Which I know from how badly that went when I was a kid and needed love or affection or security or whatever it is, or 10 pennies to buy some lunch, right?
	Just couldn't get it.
	So this is why it's functionally inaccessible.
	The only way you can get the truth from people is to be vulnerable, but cruel people will always abuse your vulnerability, so you'll never get the truth from them.
	There's nothing down there, I'm telling you.
	Well, I'm telling you like I think the dream is telling you, if that makes sense.
	Mm-hmm.
	And I've taken the lid off empty people and seen how aggressive they get, and I'm really scared to ever do that again.
	Oh, yeah.
	It is a pit of hell.
	It's like a flaming pit of hell.
	And this is why the NPCs have such powers that everyone knows if you take that robot mask off, it's a feral mask behind and very, very, very aggressive.
	Yeah, and the thing that makes it all the worse is...
	It doesn't even...
	Anyone who is in...
	There's no one in doubt.
	Anyone who knows already knows and no one's going to be convinced by the display of that aggression.
	Well, they'll just be scared of unmasking anyone else, right?
	Yeah, it doesn't...
	You see the meme, like that NPC mask and underneath is that snarling face.
	That's a real thing.
	That's a meme that matters because it makes sense.
	So, yeah, how do you think we did?
	Uh...
	I found it pretty frustrating.
	I'm not sure exactly what the disconnect was while I was fogging you.
	Well, no, so you were trying to get me down into the empty room, right?
	Yeah, that could make sense.
	Maybe I've just found myself agreeing too much and then not having anything to add.
	No, I don't know.
	It wasn't the agreement stuff.
	It's what I was saying.
	Well, you'll listen back to it when you listen to it, right?
	But you'll listen back, and you'll hear that sort of disconnect at the beginning, is that you were taking me to a place of emptiness, and I just had to fight that, right?
	Because either I empty out or you fill up.
	And I think you filled up a little.
	Definitely.
	All right.
	Okay, good.
	Melissa, I really, really appreciate that.
	It's really nice to do a dream.
	I haven't done them for a while, and this is a fantastic dream.
	And, you know, I just really do want to say how proud I am to know you and just what an amazing thing you're doing in your family line and with your daughter and all of that.
	It's beautiful, and I can't tell you how much I truly admire and respect what it is that you're doing.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Stay in touch, man.
	All the best.

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