December 6, 2024 • 54 mins
In this episode of "And Now, Love," Cynthia Marks welcomes back Dr. Loren Weiner, diving deep into the world of dream interpretation and its profound implications for self-discovery and personal growth. They discuss a young woman's journey to untangle familial expectations from her own aspirations, using her dreams as a guide to uncover hidden truths. Topics explore universal themes such as societal imprints, the weight of inherited trauma, and the courage to forge one's path. With humor and empathy, Loren highlights how dreams can illuminate not only personal struggles but also the collective challenges we face as a society. This thought-provoking discussion will encourage you to embrace your authentic self and reconsider the imprints that shape their lives.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hi, I'm Cynthia Marks.
I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my late husband, Dr.
Bernard Bale.
Welcome again to and Now, Love.
Lauren is back today with dreams.
I feel like each of the podcastswhere we share dreams,
(00:27):
their interpretations, and the waysin which they help us see ourselves
is truly a treasure so far.
I've related toso much of what Lauren has shared, either
in a written kind of wayor in a way that hits
a nerve or sparks an emotion.
(00:47):
And I continue to be curious,and I want to know more.
I hope the same for you.
So let's get started.
Hello. Hello. Hi.
Thank you for having me back.
What's new? New dreams. New dreams.
New dreams.
We have a new patient who was generous
and agreed to have the dream shared,which is always lovely.
(01:10):
Yes. Thank you, patient.
Thank you.
I think that's a lot.
It's. It's huge. It's very gracious. So.
And I think people feelthey got something out of understanding
their own dreamsand want that to be known.
Very generous. Yes. Yes.
So we can jump right into it. Let's.
(01:30):
Okay.
So today I have a young womanin her early twenties.
She came to me feeling lostabout what direction to go in life.
She was intelligent and attractiveand felt
incredibly unsure of where to go.
She felt her parents had always hadbig expectations for her,
(01:51):
and she was now terrifiedthat she would not be able to meet them.
This sounds like a pretty common scenario.
This is a really common scenario.
But a lot of people don't even grasp thatthey can do something about it, perhaps.
Right.
And a lot of people wouldn't
end up, you know,
this is so commonthat they're not going to end up
in a therapist's officebecause they're unsure of where to go.
(02:12):
I think she felt intuitivethat this was a deeper piece for her.
And luckily she had friends who werein treatment and talked about it freely.
And so she could sort of be like,like this is interesting.
I wouldn't mind having somebody help mefigure out me.
Sounds beneficial. Right.
(02:33):
She was the youngest of two sistersand was thought to be
the smart one in the family.
She told me that her parentswere still married
and had a reasonably good relationship,though she felt her father was overly
occupied with his work as an engineerand head of his own company,
and that her mother was oftenlost in the books she was reading
or in the novelshe had been writing for many years.
(02:56):
Her parents
married later in lifeand then had two children back to back
because they were worriedthey wouldn't have enough time otherwise.
She told me that she initiallythat she thought
she and her sister were close,but then as she talked about it,
she realized they didn'thave a lot of interests in common.
And they would see each other
(03:16):
when there was a family dinneror a birthday party or something.
But they didn't do a lot togetheroutside of that,
even though they were, you know,lived 10 minutes from each other.
So they were on the phonea couple of times a week checking in.
Right. Exactly.
They weren't, you know, hanging out,going to parties together.
(03:36):
They were close in age.
You know, they didn't do any of that.
As the treatment progressed,she became more aware
of how separate the is she actually feltfrom the whole family, from her sister
and her parents and how restrictedthe family was emotionally.
You know, it was.
Pretty.
In this isn't to say people didn't laugh.
They didn't have a good time sometimes,but it was just sort of everything
(03:59):
was constricted, you know, therejust wasn't a lot of room emotionally.
She started to become very aware of that.
And did she feel like her sister was moreon the same page with her parents?
So it was sort of the three of them.
And then she.
Felt she was on the same pagewith her parents.
And the sister was actually the onewho had more leeway.
The sister looks much more free now.
(04:21):
Later in treatment, what kind of becomesclear is that that freedom has a cost.
And it isn't just that the sistersomehow managed to be free
in this familywhere nobody else felt that free.
She could express things more, certainly,
but had her own ways of being restricted.
So her parents were serious people.
(04:42):
They were concernedwith the state of the world.
They followed politics closely,they supported the arts,
and they had a circle of friendsthey socialized with.
But overall, she felt thatthey could be hard to connect with.
So it all looked really niceon the surface,
you know, And she came and telling me.
My parents are fine.
Everybody, you know,life is fine, except she felt lost
(05:03):
and that doesn't seemlike a huge thing at her age.
So you have to investigate it. Okay.
But you're coming to me with this feeling.
What is that really about?
What does that mean for you?
And then as you, we dig inand we'll see what it meant.
And we've spoken before.
I think so oftenwe start out if we're fortunate enough
(05:24):
to have an experience like this saying,My family's fine, my parents are fine.
What's going on with me? Me, me?
I mean, it'sI don't touch that part, right?
And I think that's very common.
You get that 60, 75% of the time,you know,
unless somebody'sgot a very specific problem,
(05:44):
it usually takes some time for thatto emerge for people to say, okay,
wait a minute.
But I felt this but I noticed that.
So she had recently graduatedwith a degree in science
and thought she would go to med schoolWhen it came time
to take the cat and apply to school,she felt, you know, she stopped.
She sort of froze and thought.
But I don't know if this is for me,
(06:07):
which I think was a smart thing to do.
She thought she needed to think about it
because she wantedto go to med school for herself
and not because it was her parent'swish for her.
And it could have been med school,it could have been law school,
it could have been whatever wasshe wanted to know it was for her.
So is that
sort of the stimulus for her
(06:28):
really thinking about herselfin a bigger way?
Like, wow,this is I'm at this big crossroads.
Why am I uncomfortable and then startthinking about other aspects of her life?
Yes, that's pretty much how it went.
Is is okay, hold on.
This is really and this wasn'tjust sort of stopping, you know,
she really had a big feeling about this,that she had this sort of nagging sense
(06:51):
that she was going to end up in med schooland be unhappy.
And this is a big commitment.
And and luckily, this is a woman who,you know, smart enough,
she could do many things.
Her thought was,am I going to lock myself into this?
Is this even for me?
Whose path is.
Whose path is this? Which great, right.
(07:12):
That's wonderfulthat she could even ask that question.
That's a nice start.
She is at that age where?
I don't know, I feel like so many of ouryouth are happy.
We're coasting along.We know what we want to do.
We think we might know what we want to dofor the rest of our lives,
and that you get to that placewhere you actually think you get to decide
and that this decisionis going to determine your life.
(07:36):
And I mean, chances are it's not really.
You can always do something different, but
that's an awful lot to faceat that particular age.
I think there's like a 2 to 3 year rangewhere all of a sudden you're
the rest of my lifeis now depending on what I do today.
It is tough.
I mean, I think that's that's just tough,you know, that we have it
(07:59):
sort of set up that way.
And often times for people,they may end up doing something.
Is it their passion? Maybe, maybe not.
I think people get pushed along,pulled along
because there's this pressureand there's a need to solve it.
And part of the dilemma may bethat they can't solve it.
They end up doing something.
(08:19):
It all looks fine, right?
They, you know, join society.
But it may not be that it has anythingto do with who the person really is.
That's what becomes clear,even in cases where the person isn't
under such distress psychologically,you know, this isn't major anxiety.
This isn't major depression.
(08:39):
You know, all of this is just a knowing
that something doesn't feel rightand you don't know how to solve them.
And I think that is incredibly common.
And the reason I want to go over it,you know, these are short dreams,
but the messages, the inthe dreams have such wide
(09:02):
implications for everybody,
and they show us about who we areand where are we really going?
Not just as an individual, but as a group.
How are we going to startto think about ourselves
and how we want peopleto be able to know themselves
so that decisions can be made towards
(09:22):
a truer, better life?
I'll get into the first session.
I have a couple of sessions here.
This is early in treatment.
You know, we're a few couple monthsin, so pretty quickly.
And of course, she's talking aboutthe things that were most important to her
and what brought her in.
You'll sort of see, you know, thatthere was some hesitancy about med school
(09:43):
and we'll see sort of what she decidesor where she goes in this session.
She comes in saying,my week has been good.
I'm still not surewhat I really want to do.
So I feel like maybeI should start studying for the MCAT.
I'm dreading it.
I know I will really need to buckle downand put a study plan together.
That means no fun and a lot of work.
(10:05):
I've talked to some friendswho already went through this,
so I feel lucky that they can tell mewhat worked
and what didn'tin terms of resources and strategy.
I think the bigger thing is justwhether I want to do this or not.
I feel so much pressure from my parentsand I just want to feel like
it's for me too.
I think my dad would have gone to medschool if he could do it all over again.
(10:26):
Of course, he would have done some weirdM.D., Ph.D.
bioengineering programor something in the super nerd category,
but I think he always feltthat he missed his calling that way.
I think
he likes engineering a lotand his mind works that way.
But I need to know that this isn't just mefulfilling his dreams.
So I said, I think there'sstill the basic question to consider.
(10:49):
Do you want to be a doctor?
She said, I think I do.
I can imagine myself doing it. I think.
I mean, does anyone really know
if they're cut out for a professionbefore they get there?
I like people enough.I like to help people.
I'm good at science,so I think it's a good fit.
I just don't knowif I'm in love with the idea.
So I said to her,What aren't you in love with?
(11:12):
She said, I worry that it will eitherbe too much science or that it will be
too much about the business of itand not enough about treating people.
I don't know if the reality ofit will square with
most of what I've seen on TV about it.
I'm embarrassed to say it,
but that's where I gotmost of my ideas about being a doctor.
I think way too many hospital shows,
(11:34):
so it's either emergenciesand saving lives left and right
or seeing how there is not enough helpfor those that really need it.
And struggling with that.
I guess on TVyou can just break all the rules
and give someone $1,000,000 lifesaving surgery for free.
And somehow I know that isn't real life.
And I said, Well, it sounds likeit would be good for you to find
(11:54):
some actual doctors and talk to themand see what they say about it.
And she said, I plan to do that.
I have a few connections with people,
so I want to do thatbefore I really jump into it.
And I said, Well, if you don't domed school, what else appeals to you?
So that I think I could see myselfdoing something
(12:14):
creative,like my mother, she's writing her novel,
but I really do admire her sticking to itand working on it every day.
I don't know that I'm creative enough,but I wish I was.
I would probably end up doing somethingwith science since that's what I'm
good at.
I just wish I was more convincedthat it was the right way to go.
And I feel the pressure of time too.
(12:36):
I don't want to let too much time passor I won't finish
until I'm olderand that doesn't sound good to me.
I just feel a little alone with it.
I would talk to my parents,but I think I know the direction
they want me to goand I don't want to get stuck there.
I don't think my sister struggleswith this type of decision as much.
(12:57):
She gets to be the creative oneshe always has been,
and I think they expected herto have a career in the arts
and the pressure seemed likeit was so much less.
So she's studying theaterand she's good at it.
And I have to admit, I'm jealous.
I want to feel like I could be freelike that.
But I never could do that.
I would get stuck and not be ableto let loose and get into a role.
(13:19):
She seems more free.
And I said, Well, where did she get that?
So I'm not sure exactly,because my mom is creative,
but still seems kind oftightly wound like me and my dad,
My sister is so much more looseand kind of goes with the flow.
She's adventurous and will try anythingand that's not like the rest of us.
Maybe it's like my mom, but it's sort ofjust her
(13:41):
and maybe my parents can live vicariouslythrough her a little.
Maybe in another lifethey would be more like hippies.
So I asked her what she was dreaming about
and she said,this was a hard dream to remember.
I was in a classroom or somewhere inside,
and there were desks or tables around.
I was with someone, I think a woman.
(14:03):
And I think that she needed to changehow she was doing something
and be more like a monkey or an apeinstead than follow the plan.
I think the person was trying to decide
if she wanted to do that or notand seeing the implications of it.
There was a lot more to itthan I could remember
and there might have beenother people around.
(14:24):
I don't really know why I would have
someone needingto be more like a monkey or an ape.
It was weird in the dream.
I don't even know what this was about.
And I said, So what?
What is the plan she's supposed to follow?
And she said, I have no idea.
I said, Soit sounds like if if she's being told
(14:44):
to follow the plan,she wasn't following the plan.
So, you know, what was she doing?
What was happening?
I'm trying to getsome sense of the story here,
so I don't have a sense of that either.
I just feel so hard to know, like
I can't quite think clearlywhen I try to understand.
(15:05):
It seems like it should be simple andI should be able to answer your questions.
So I just, you know, said okay.
And it said, Well,let me ask you a few more.
Let's see what comes.
I said, Why be a monkey or an ape?
What what does that make you think about?
And she said, Well,
I guess the idea was that a monkeywould just do what it was told.
(15:25):
So, you know, we had some more backand forth and sort of trying to
flesh this out.
And and I said, Well, I think you'rethe woman and you're supposed to
just be like your fatherand live out his dream of med school.
So when you start to question it,
you get the message that you better stopand get back to the plan.
Just be a monkey and do it like dad.
(15:48):
I think med schoolmight be the tip of the iceberg given
you get this warning when you just startto question med school.
It's interesting that you came in today
saying you wouldprobably just do med school.
I suppose the pressure was really thereunconscious to get in line.
And she said, now that you say it,it makes sense.
(16:09):
So does that meanI'm not supposed to go to med school
and I said, Well, why don't you first
see how this interpretation feels to you?
Let's start there.
So in a way,she's just looking for something
to give her a stamp of approval on.
Yes or no. Right.
Why don't you just tell mewhat I should do?
(16:31):
But the problem isthat I'm just the parents, right?
Right. So I'll tell you.
You know, I'll solve it for you.
And what you don't have to dothen, is feel what's right for you.
So that'sAnd look, people want this all the time,
and it's very seductive, you know,just how you must know everything, right?
(16:52):
So just tell me the answer
well and truly.
Look, I can't say yet whether she shouldgo to med school or not.
All I know right now is she's telling meshe's supposed to be a monkey fall in line
and do med school like herdad wanted her to.
Now, might she herself be
a good doctor and enjoy it?
(17:14):
Maybe.
But we have to wait for herto weigh in on that.
So obviously, she's got to get to
her true feelings about thisas much as she can, because yet
again, she's venturing into somethingthat is on so many levels and unknown. You
all of a sudden you'rein the emergency room and you're like,
(17:36):
my goodness,this really isn't what I wanted to do.
I mean.
Potentially, right?
So what we're hoping is that,you know, quickly enough and that's like
this is a big ask right quickly enough,because she says, I feel time pressure.
I want to have some understandingabout what this is.
Well, at the very least,we can start here, which is, well,
you're supposed to be a monkeyand you're feeling the pressure
(17:58):
to be a monkey because what you came isyou came to me questioning this.
But you come in this session saying,I know what?
I guess I'm just going to do this.
I'm going to fall in line.
And that's sort of a safety valve, too.
It's like, I'll just work on thiswhile I try and figure myself out.
Absolutely right.
And look, nobody in society is going togo, you're wasting so much time.
You're going to med school.
No, Right.
(18:18):
There's a lot of reward for that.
It's attractive.
But at the moment, what she's saying is.
But it's not for me now.
Will it be eventually?
Maybe, But it's not for me right now.
Right now,if I'm doing it, I'm just a monkey.
And if I'm a monkey, I'm dad.So I'm not me.
And that's the big piece here, right?
If I do this, I am not me.
(18:40):
Okay, then you better keep investigating.
What would you want?
Who are. You?
And obviously, this is where you're going.
This is where we're going. That's right.
So I.
You know,I asked you to sit with this a minute.
You know, I'm not goingto give you the answer right now.
I don't know that I could but sit with it.
Let's see where your mind goes.
(19:02):
Let's see what happens.
So she said,okay, makes me think of last weekend.
Okay, so I want to follow this and seewhere does our mind go.
Right. We have the dream.
We have an interpretationnow where she said I was with Kevin and we
pull into this underground parking lotso we can go up to this theater.
He's driving and I'm in the passenger seatand he rolls down the window
(19:25):
to ask the ticket guy which side we shouldpark on, because it's a big space.
And we could either go to the rightor the left, and I couldn't stop myself.
I'm leaning over the driver outtalking to the guy,
having to sort of shout, trying to say,which, where do we go?
I didn't even realize I was doing it.
And Kevin's upset with meand I really didn't get it at first,
(19:46):
but it was so rudeand it was also totally my dad.
He would have to be in chargeand Kevin felt like I emasculated him.
I felt terrible about it,but it just flowed out of me naturally.
So I think what you're saying makes sense.
Of course, I still want you to tell mewhether I should go to med school or not.
But I get it.
I'm a lot like my dad in waysI'm just starting to see.
(20:09):
So she got it right.
Okay, I want you to tell me, but I get it.
Here I am.
I was totally my dad this weekend,and it got me in trouble.
Fascinating. And Kevin is.
Kevin is a friend of hers, and.
But he's in the driver's seat.
The ticket guy is right here, Right?
You know, this is not so muchthat he's a man, so he should get to talk.
(20:31):
It's the driver's rightnext to a person trying to do this.
Why do you have to lean over and totally
take chargeas though Kevin couldn't do it?
Yeah, but I think her father did thatin the family with everybody.
You know, it's sort of like he'll just.He'll take charge.
I just have to say.
I mean, I can so relate to all of this.
I can only imagine that thousandsof other people can relate to this, too.
(20:55):
It just really strikes chords. Okay, good.
And hopefully what peoplewill start to see, you know,
you might be your father,you might be your mother,
you might be some combination.
But where, you know, her dream just says,yeah, I'm supposed to be a monkey.
You know, they have expectations for me.
They hear I'm trying to do what they wantand I want to be a good daughter.
(21:16):
Yeah, You know,
I want them to be happy and proud of me,and I want to make their dreams come true.
Of course I love them.
But look at me.
Just last weekend, I was my father.
That's the problem, right?
So in in all of their hopes,and let me say,
you can have hopes for your childrenand not destroy their lives.
(21:37):
It's it's that unconsciouslythere was so much pressure on her.
And I think that they had so many thingsthat weren't fulfilled in themselves
that it was sort of all directed this way.
The daughter gets the the unconsciouspiece that wanted to be more free.
Now, as I said, we can talk aboutwhether she was really free,
(22:02):
Right.
Because even then you look free.
But whose wish is it? Yes.
So whether she's confronting it or not,
she may have a similar
set of questions about what she's doing.
Is this really meor was she just her mother,
you know, three days ago trying to writea novel or something like that?
(22:25):
That's exactly it.
And so it's calling on all of usto say, look, it doesn't mean
you have to be in a crisis,but maybe you have to start questioning,
what am I doing?And seeing what it yields.
Is this really what I truly want, youknow, and what do my dreams tell me now?
You know, Right.
That's the harder pieceif you are working with someone.
(22:46):
But I think still, nonetheless, you know,this would be interesting.
Why do I dream aboutI have to be a monkey and fall in line?
Okay, about that.
Where is that coming from? Right?
Why am I dreaming about that?
Right? What? Wow.
So I said to her, You had to be a copy,
and you'rejust supposed to follow the plan.
And I said, You know, look,every baby has to be
(23:07):
a copy of the ancestors that came before.
At least you tell yourself to weighthe consequences of that.
What does that really mean?
And is that the best thing for yourself?
Because there's a piece in the dreamat the end
which says the person was supposedto weigh the implications.
What are the implications of mebeing a monkey or not?
(23:28):
But the pressures therewhen you just get back in line.
So that's important.
We're always being ushered, you know,kind of like a dog herding sheep.
You're always being pulled backwith all of the pressure,
the internal saboteur, get in line,follow your imprint,
do what we want you to door what we need you to do.
(23:49):
That's for everybody.
And there's a certain amount of comfortto that.
It's like, I can feel when I'm in line.
You dismiss your own feelingsabout stepping out of line.
Right?
Right. Or people,you know, they wrestle with them.
well, but this is a good decisionintellectually.
Yes, right. But the heart gets left out.
(24:09):
And my parents, they had this in mindall along.
They know best. Right.
So you can see the dilemma.
It's like there's more stuff to tell usto stay in line than to follow our heart.
Exactly.
And that that's the the big piecethat so important to get across
is because wherever this is showing up,whether you feel lost
or you don't get to feel it,the problem is everybody has an imprint.
(24:32):
And that's what we're all following.
So you want to know where we get ourselvesinto trouble in the world.
We want to know why we are making wars,why we're doing all kinds of things.
We have an imprint and we will repeat
what happened to usin the womb battlefield.
Everything that happens inthe external world is really
(24:52):
a repetition of what happened in the womb.
And I think that's such a big pieceto think about.
Right?
So you're always being askedto follow these plans that were
put on you in the womb
and they don't come with bowsand ribbons and,
you know, the way everybody imaginesnice little baby animals in a meadow
(25:14):
and you're running through it, you know,this isn't what goes on in the womb.
Think of a horror movie.
Think of being chasedby all of these feelings
that have come downthrough generations of pain
and all the war and death and terrorand abuse.
Everything that hasn't been ableto be processed.
(25:37):
Nothing can be solved in the outside world
unless it is solved inside the person.
And we as a group have to solve it insideeach one of us.
Because intellectually we knowwhat's going on.
All deserves a big stop sign.
Stop this, stop the rape, stop the war.
(25:58):
But we can't stop that.
As long as all of thatis raging inside of us.
Right.
All of this right.
Comes out of a discussion about one youngwoman who comes in and says, I'm lost.
Yeah, poor you, you're lost.
And you are every one.
Yes, everyone is lost.
And whether they know it or not,the dreams tell the truth
(26:19):
and your dreams are actually goingto come in and start going.
But this isn't right and that isn't right.And that didn't feel right.
And you're a monkeyand you're being your father.
And med school is just going to pleaseyour parents, but keep you a monkey.
And if you start to weighthe implications, you'll be guided back.
Here's the pressure.
(26:39):
So she gets that.
Then she tells me, Well,I had another dream.
Okay, let's see what this one has to say.
I'm talking to someone,maybe a woman or my friend Ian,
and I am explaining to her or himthat she or he can change his path.
I said that it means giving things up,and that's okay.
(27:01):
It's okay to drop all of the plans
made before and start over.
The woman doesn't feel it'sokay to do that.
I think I give her some examplesand say something weird
that it's like dropping a loaf of bread.
So she says, So now I get the first partof the message in the dream,
(27:22):
meaning things can change, right?
So she took our discussion and thenshe applies it to her second dream.
I said, okay,I think I get where I'm going.
And she says, I think it was a womanand I'm not sure why.
I also have a memory of my friendIan being there.
And I said, Well,tell me what comes to mind about Ian.
She said, He's a really nice guy.
(27:42):
I think he feels lost at the moment too.
He's trying to figure out what he wantsto do with his life
and he might go into the family business,
but he's trying to seeif there's something else he'd rather do.
But the money's hard to pass up,so he's giving himself a little time
and he'll have to make a choice, I guess.
Now it's easyto see why I put him in the dream.
(28:03):
So why does the
woman feel it isn't okayto change the plans?
She said So obviously the woman is meand I don't know why.
And from the first dream
now, is it about med schoolor really changing the big plan?
And I said, Well,I would say the big plan.
And I said, Well, why do you givethe example of dropping the loaf of bread?
(28:24):
And she says, I don't know.
That part seems strange.
And I said, Well, you know,I think if we think of bread
as the staff of life,you would change your life
or drop the life you have to getthe one you're supposed to have.
And a very important messagein this dream.
And you put it very clearly, people canchange their paths and change their lives.
(28:49):
That's a great takeaway.
So this is an incredibly hopeful dream
because that's a message for all of us.
Okay. We can change.
You're going to have to say that 150 timesfor us to really have that sink in.
We can actually change.
Now it's work because you can just seein these little hints of dreams
(29:12):
that as a person starts to think aboutwhether she should do med school or not.
Well, being a monkey, get back in line.
This is a,you know, reasonably benign decision.
Yeah.
And how afraid she is of shiftingthat direction.
Can't do it.
The unconscious speaks up pretty quicklyand just says, Now what are you going to
you're going to change yourself.You're going to change the plan.
(29:34):
We had a plan. Yeah, stick with it.
Stick with the pull back in line.That's right.
Don't change the fundamental structureof how this was all set up.
Don't monkey with your imprint.
Don't change anything.
Just keep walking.
But she says, but you can change now.
Yes, we have some,you know, resistance in it.
The woman doesn't feel she could do it.
(29:55):
All of that is fine, and I think she
she gets thatif this is a transparent enough dream.
But the piece I really want to hammer homeis that she's telling herself
she can change.
Okay?
She's now got hope.
And I think she's telling all of usthe world can change.
(30:16):
She doesn't knowthis is just a young woman.
But how interesting in a way, she'shaving dreams that speak to everybody.
We can change.
All right, well, let's get busy. So.
So many of the dreams that we have,or maybe all of them
are not just about ourselvesas individuals.
That's right.
Right, right.
It's a fine message across humanity.
(30:38):
Yes, very much.
Often I'll hear patients dreams.
And I have to say, okay,
I think you're having this dreamfor yourself and for all of us.
Here's what you're saying about humanity.
Here's what you're saying aboutwhere we are going as a group or where
we've been or what we're wrestling with,because it is that universal.
And that does show up in dreams.
And it's okay in her case,in all of our cases, to try another path.
(31:03):
We have to.
In fact, I think that's that's reallywhat comes to us.
You have tootherwise you just know, no offense
to monkeys, you're just a monkey,you know, That's it.
And so this is really critical.
It sounds so. Yeah, this is so nice. Nice.
And we know no big life or death situationhere.
Go to school. Don't.
(31:24):
That's.
That's not really what this is all about.
Are yougoing to get to be yourself or not?
And if you are not yourself,we're going to continue
to have the same mess in the worldthat we've always had
because you have to do it the wayeverybody who came before you did it.
This is where it's gotten us.
So what would be different?
(31:46):
Nothing.
So until people get in touch with who
they really are,then you could change the world.
But has to start here inside all of us.
And your dreams are a great way
to see what you're really busy doing.
And as an individual.
And we we make that change for
(32:09):
our own betterment,whatever that might be,
then we can almost in a tangible way,
bring that out to the world.
This was me,I thought, but this is the real me.
And now I'm doing these thingsbeyond that, being sort of on the surface
like that,is there some amount of that message
(32:30):
that this might sound nutty,that is given to each other unconsciously?
Yes, not nutty at all.
I think we are always in contactunconsciously.
So, yes. One person.
Yeah, it's sort of like youthrow a pebble into a pond, ripples out.
One person starting to say,wait a minute, I'm going to contact me.
(32:53):
What do I really feel about this
that changes the person now, that changesevery relationship that person has,
and it changes the children that come fromthat person, be they male or female
or whatever caretaker rolethat person's in or mentor, right?
There is a new way of thinkingand being that develops.
(33:16):
So I think you'll see thatthis idea continues into the next session.
And she starts with the dreamsthat I had a couple of dreams.
She's into it. Now. She's into it.
In the first dream,she says, I'm working in a lab
and finding out something bad is going on.
So then the idea,which is kind of fuzzy to me,
(33:39):
but it seems like the ideais that everything they're doing
or that the person learned is wrongand should be reversed.
I think I'm just telling people to keepworking there, but reverse everything.
And she said,And then I had a second dream.
I was with some women, maybe my friend
Robyn, and she's driving a silver BMW.
(34:00):
I'm supposed to go with the teamand get in the back seat.
We're doing something illegal.
I think I have four men's shirtsthat need to go to the cleaners
and we do whatever this activity is.
And I think I was supposedto drop the shirts when we did it.
I make a jokethat this is what would happen to me.
(34:20):
I would forget to drop off the shirtsand drive around with them for a while.
But I don't think they're happy with mefor saying that.
I think it had somethingto do with driving fast.
So she said, That's all I could remember.
And I know it's kind of confusing now.
I listen to Dreams all day,so this is hardly confusing to me.
Yeah.
When you really, you know,can get into dreams that are, you know,
(34:43):
three and 4 minutes long and twistsand turns, this is pretty clear.
So I just asked her to tell mewhat came to mind about either dream.
And she said, I don't really know where Iam, but I seem to be working at this lab.
I have no idea what they do there.
But my feeling is it's bad stuffor I really Is that in the dream?
I don't know if I stumble upon itor investigate it,
(35:05):
but I think it's likeI might just realize it.
I also don't know whyI want everyone to still work there,
not quit, but do everything backwards.
I don't know whatthat would even look like,
but it made sense in the dream,as though if that could be done,
then things would be okayor it would reverse the problem, I guess.
(35:27):
And I said, Well, what kind of bad stuff?
And she said, I don't even think I can sayI don't know what it was.
It looks like a standard researchlaboratory.
People lined up workingand I'm one of them.
Maybe it's biological research, I think.
And I said, Well,so what would have to be reversed?
And she said in the dream.
And I said, Well, I'll leave it open.
(35:48):
Whatever comes to mind.
And she says, Well,I don't even know how to explain it,
because obviously reversing theexperiments wouldn't really do anything.
And I said, Well,
what do you feel has to be donedifferently or in an opposite way?
And she said, Well, that opens up a lot,I suppose.
I mean, there is so much around the worldthat I feel needs to be done differently.
(36:09):
How about stop dropping bombs on people,stop polluting the earth to name a few?
There's so much going onall over the world that I feel
should be done differently.
I guess reversing it might work doingthe opposite of what is being done.
And there's some pretty bad stuffin my opinion.
And I said, Well then it sounds likethis is a dream for you and the world.
(36:30):
Everyone has to get ridof what they've learned, meaning
the way humans have been doingthings is wrong.
We've been going the wrong wayand we have to reverse course.
And she said, All right.
So then I also have to think about whereI have to reverse course.
And then she sat for a little while
and I said, Well, what are your thoughtsabout the second dream?
(36:51):
And she said, I felt like
I could understand a little bit morewhy I had this dream.
We've been planninga big birthday weekend for my dad.
We're going to go sailingbecause he loves being out on the water.
And then there's a really great seafoodrestaurant I think he will love.
We're inviting two of his best friendsand their wives, and my cousins
are also going to come,so it would be a great group.
(37:13):
He doesn't know about itand we can't tell him.
We think it should be a surprisebecause if we tell him he's
going to come up with a reasonto back out, he would find some type
of work, commitmentor something to try to get out of it.
And I said, Why?
And she said,
I don't think I fully understand it,but it's like he just can't relax.
He seems like he wants to be social,but maybe
(37:36):
he's actually just shyand kind of hides that.
So groups make him a little uncomfortable.
At least that is my take on it.
But then once he's thereand able to relax, he does fine
and then he'll talk about itfor months afterwards.
I loved it.
it was so much fun.
Why don't we do it more often?
And I just always shake my headbecause we're always trying to drag him
(37:59):
to do those things,but he doesn't want to do it.
Then he loves it.
And I said,So how did you connect it to the dream?
And she said, right.
So he drives a silver BMW.
So that made me think of him.
And I was with my mom and sisterplanning this party.
So it might have been connected to that.
And also.
Now it makes me wonderwhy are we in his car
(38:20):
even though he isn't in the dream?
And I said, Well,who who's driving his car?
Who's Robin?
And she said, A good friend of minefrom childhood.
She's nice,but I kind of let the relationship drop
because she was really rigid
and it was hard to have a good time
with her.Everything had to be so controlled
and she always had to be rightabout everything.
Maybe that's a little like my father.
(38:42):
So I guess I can see now whyshe's driving.
And I said, So what was illegal?
Said, I have no idea what that was.
I don't think it was just driving fast,though.
I know it had something to do with it.
And I said, Well, what team were you on?
She said, I think I had to gowith the team in the car,
but I don't know what that really meant.
I remember the feeling of thinking I hadto go along with what they were planning
(39:06):
and just get into the backseatand go with them.
I think that's where I see all these menshirts that have to go to the cleaners
and it doesn't make sense to melike we're doing something illegal,
but on the way we're goingto drop shirts off at the cleaners.
That sounds insane.
And she said, I might have reallycracked myself up thinking about it, too.
(39:26):
I think my joke is so funny in the dreamthat I'm telling them, I would drive
around with these shirts for so longand not realize it, and I don't know why
I thought that was so hilarious,but it really cracked me up.
They seemed angry with me.
Why am I laughing about this?
Why am I making a joke right now?
And she said, I know thisjoke isn't funny when I tell it to you,
(39:47):
but trust me,it was really funny in the dream.
And she said,I think I was laughing so hard.
I was crying.
And then they were.
Maybe they were just angrywith me for laughing so much.
I'm not sure being silly.
And I said, Well, the main thingyou're telling me
is that having fun for your father
is thought to be illegal.
(40:08):
It's a crime to be happy
and enjoy your anticipatingthat he'll have fun on his birthday.
But First, he has to act like he doesn'twant to go or he's too busy working.
He's not supposed to just go and enjoy.
And of course, you're being askedto get into his car, be him,
and that has to allgo to the cleaners as well.
(40:29):
But the big idea ishappiness is to be illegal.
And here you are actually laughingand having fun in the dream.
Very angry.
Don't do that, she said.
It's interesting because he alwayshas to be forced to have fun.
I always thought of my sisteras the only one who could really let loose
and have fun,like she was the designated fun person
(40:52):
in the familyand the rest of us were the serious ones.
I'd like to think I'm sort ofin the middle of the two camps,
and my father's always tellingboth of us, Go have fun.
But he'll never do it himself.
I'd like to think I'm a fun person,but I carry a lot of guilt about it.
If I'm not studying or working hardat something, then I kind of beat myself
up like I'm lazy or I should alwaysbe doing more, doing better.
(41:16):
I feel like I'm always supposedto be pushing or I'm lazy.
I'll be a disappointment.
Maybe funfeels like something I have to earn versus
something simple that I should beable to have automatically.
I think that
might be part of what made me stopbefore applying to med school.
I normally would have just gone aheadwith it, kept following the path,
(41:36):
but something was making me feel likeI might not enjoy
it, which would normally notbe part of the calculus.
Of course it's hard workand that's what you do.
But something was pulling at meabout this, and I don't know
how to put it into words yet,but it's touching on something she said.
I think I have to think about it.
Why isn't he allowed to enjoy life?
(41:56):
Why does he always have to be so serious?
And that's the end of the session.
And I think unconsciouslyso many of us are right there.
Right there, right there.
I mean, we're not supposed to enjoy.
Not supposed to enjoy.
So that's really big.
What she's saying is, look,the way we've all been going,
everybody is living with an ideathat we have to suffer.
(42:19):
If you get an imprintand you give up your self
to hold this imprint, you're suffering.
Now, you may have completely deniedyou ever did that,
but inherent in there is suffering.
So she's really saying the dream.
everybody, stop what you're doing.
Reverse course, unlearn everything.
(42:40):
Do it the opposite way.
Because what we have been caring,what we have been taught
emotionally is wrong, is just wrong.
You don't have to suffer.
You don't have to be another person.
Taking this imprint does nothingto help your mother or your father.
It does nothing but split your personalpolity and not let you be yourself.
(43:03):
And on we go.
On we go on we go same, same, same.
And she says, All right.
So these simple little dreamshave such big implications.
Stop everything you're doing.
This isn't working.
Reverse course.
It's precious that she said,Please share this.
Did she also know that part ofthat was this universal message?
(43:28):
I mean, what an incredible giftshe's giving if we listen.
It's a beautiful gift.
No, I don't think it feltquite that way to her.
I think she's concerned to do what I do.
I'm trying to please my parents.What bigger.
I'm listening to it and going,wow, what a beautiful dream for the world.
Stop everything you're doing.
Do it the opposite. Reverse. Right.
(43:49):
Stop going to war.
Start looking inside and figuring outhow you're going to learn to love.
And she did speak to that, saying,I don't know,
why do we have all these wars?
What's happening with our climate? Yes.
So I think it got her that way.
I don't know if she realized the dreamhad such wide ranging implications,
but yet it touched her.
It pulled her in that direction.
(44:11):
And that's what told me.
Also, this is a dream for the world.
Here's what she's talking about.
And you hear a lot of those.
I hear a lot of those.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people who, you know,unbeknownst to them most of the time,
have all kinds of commentaryabout the way it isn't going.
Right.
And that isn't justit didn't go right for them.
(44:33):
Right.
These are much bigger ideas about the wayswe are doing bad stuff in the lab.
We're not doing it right.
We keep making it up.
It's deadly.
It's truly deadly.
And if it doesn't actually kill us,it kills off our feelings
and it keeps us from being able to connectto ourselves the way we're supposed to.
(44:59):
And now we run amok.
And how we run amok.
You too.
Disconnected from everythingyou're supposed to be connected to,
Bail would add.
Then it disconnects you from the divine.
He would say that that's all part of this.
And if we can get this ship turned around
and start just going that direction,
looking inside, stop acting out there.
(45:23):
We don't need another war.
It hasn't fixed the worldand I really don't.
I don't want to sound likeI am, you know, just
completely out of touch of why people feelthey need to do this.
It's just that that hasn't worked.
We've had so many wars.
What does it doexcept just buy time until the next war
so more mothers lose their children,more fathers lose their children.
(45:48):
And what do they get?
What did it really change?
Yes, we may get short gainshere, short gains there.
We don't get a big changethat humanity needs.
And this is all we will do.
Which is obviously no more war.
I mean, that would be ideal.
I mean, hasone war stopped us from having more war?
That's the problem. One begets the next.
(46:09):
So and then she brings in this nice otherpiece, which is it's illegal to have fun.
Part ofthat has to do with her, her family.
And am I going to go to med school?
Am I going to be able to enjoythis? Right.
I want to.
I'm missing life has to be all fun.
No, but it doesn't have to be all hardwork.
It doesn't all have to just be suffering.
And we all have a misconceptionthat life is really about suffering.
(46:35):
And even the sister who looks likeshe's free and gets to be out there
what comes later, you don't hear it here.
She you know,she touches on it a little bit.
But what comes later is the sisteris not free and it looks like it.
And wouldn't it be nice? We wish. We wish.
And then the dreams kind of say, no,
She's living out a different partof the parents wishes.
(46:55):
So again, not free.
And the problem is not free to love,not free to love your life,
yourself, what you're doing,and most importantly, each other.
The main goal is to protect
that imprint, to survive,to suffer through, in order
to save everything else except yourself.
(47:20):
In a way.
Yes, it is.
You know,if we can think about it that inside
we're all running this program.
And my job is to save this womanwho is my mother.
So I will take any bit of troubleshe had and I'll hold it.
Now, I'm not me. Right.
I've got to put some of me over herein order to have space for that right now.
(47:40):
What if she has a whole lot of trouble?
Then you have to put a whole lot of youover there, Right?
So, you know,
maybe we get this much of you, but maybewe only get this much of you right now.
How do you build a lifeand make good decisions
if you're not in contactwith your full self?
How can you make the best decision?
How can you be the most loving.
And our full self?
(48:00):
That thingwhich we hopefully can all uncover
will always tell us the truth.
We will know what love is.
We will operate from. Good.
That's the idea.
Yes. That the more you get to knowyourself, the bigger that part can grow.
Right?
You just feel your way through thingsbetter.
(48:22):
It doesn't mean everything is easy, right?
But easier if the idea isn't.
I'm to suffer.
But we've got.
You're carrying all of thishistorical trauma
that's come down the line on both sides,but certainly the part that comes through
the mother gets deposited into the childright at the the the bottom layer.
(48:45):
Then dad's trauma gets sandwichedon top of that.
So we've now got a new being thathas already been hit with so much trauma.
Now If the parents had enough loveto soften that blow, that helps.
Just generally,if we can be thinking about other people
and behaving in a waythat is loving, that helps.
(49:07):
But this baby's alreadystarting from a down
position,so we have to undo all of that Now.
The dreams luckily
come and say, All right, well, here'swhat you've got to do this.
I mean, she said, you know,I just want you to tell me what to do.
Well, her dreams do reverse course.
Whatever you're doing, if you're going tobe your father and probably your mother,
(49:28):
don't undo, undo, undo,
reverse B you use your dreams.
Let's sort through them.
Bring this in, and let's solve the problemwhere it started.
So what happens with this wonderfulyoung woman?
She stays in treatment.
She goes on with her life and figures outwhat she wants to do.
(49:49):
Is she in med school?
She is, I'm protecting her identity a bit.
But yes, she decidedshe decided to separate
from her parents now.
Maybe in ten years. Yeah. I mean,
we'll have to see if she feels that.
That following her dreams.
(50:10):
Did that make sense to her?
I think this was a woman
who ultimately was interestedin trying to solve some of these pieces.
So I'm I'm curious.
It'll be, you know, nice to see whatis she what direction does she take this?
And now she has a lotmore knowledge about herself.
She had to wait a little while.
She didn't go right into school.
(50:30):
She had to give this some timeto attend to herself to figure it out.
But then suddenly, once she couldsort of say, okay, wait a minute.
Yes, that is their wish for me.
But this also feels like a placewhere I can be myself.
Then she didn't dreadgetting prepared for it, Right.
You know, before she was time.
I'm dreading it.
(50:51):
I have to give up, you know,I have to give everything up to study,
which is really saying isI have to give up me to do this.
This is going to be awful.
I don't think anybody thinks studying forthe MCAT is fun,
but I think she knewshe was doing it for her.
Big difference.
And so did her dreams change?
You mean in the sense that they wereshowing her that this was an okay path?
(51:12):
Yes. Yes.
She got some messagesthat she was heading the right way,
but she still continues to dreamfor the world.
I think this is just a personwho tends to do that.
I'm very grateful to her.
I think I am, too. I am, too.
She brought very important messagesfor us to all think about.
(51:33):
That's awesome.
I think there's a lot to think about,either thinking of this as a parent
and what one is going throughwith their own children,
or as an individual who's strugglingwith whatever
they took on because of their parentsfrom both ends of the spectrum.
Right.
And I think very importantly,that feeling of being lost,
(51:54):
I think sometimes we do normalize ittoo much in the sense
that, yes, there is a developmental phasewhere you are figuring out who you are.
But I think there's also a commentarythat too many of us are lost
and we're lost because we're disconnectacted from our feelings selves.
(52:15):
And that's huge.
And that,you know, is part of the big problem.
So had this woman and I'mnot even sure how this would happen
not had this existencethat was very early on dictated
by saving her parentsand therefore saving herself
when it came to going to medschool or not, she might have seen that
(52:40):
red flag and said wait,this doesn't feel like me.
And if it doesn't feel like me,I've got to do something about it.
Because I think a lot of us are just rote.
We just what we don't feel. Yes, right.
If we get disconnected,we don't have access to our feelings.
And it's not that she's a robot,but we don't have access to them
(53:01):
in the way where they can be helpful to usin these critical moments.
We don't recognize.
Let me connect to myself and sort of see,
do I want to do thisor is this dad's wish.
And why am I feeling uncomfortable?
Lauren my gosh.
This is just beyond beyond.
It's amazingly helpful.
And you're coming back and we're going to
(53:24):
you are going to share more dreamswith another patient soon.
Yeah. And I so look forward to it.
It's a crazy helpfulI thank you a million times over.
Thank you for having me.
And thank you againto all the patients that are,
you know, willing to share their dreamsand and share these kinds of messages.
(53:46):
And thank you for having me back.
Yes. Giant gifts all the way around.
Thank you.
Listeners and watcherscome back again soon.
And as always,we love to know what you think.
Bye for now.
Hi, I'm Cynthia Marks.
I head up the HolisticPsychoanalysis Foundation
established by my late husband, Dr.
Bernard Bale.
Welcome again to and Now, Love.
Lauren is back today with dreams.
I feel like each of the podcastswhere we share dreams,
(00:27):
their interpretations, and the waysin which they help us see ourselves
is truly a treasure so far.
I've related toso much of what Lauren has shared, either
in a written kind of wayor in a way that hits
a nerve or sparks an emotion.
(00:47):
And I continue to be curious,and I want to know more.
I hope the same for you.
So let's get started.
Hello. Hello. Hi.
Thank you for having me back.
What's new? New dreams. New dreams.
New dreams.
We have a new patient who was generous
and agreed to have the dream shared,which is always lovely.
(01:10):
Yes. Thank you, patient.
Thank you.
I think that's a lot.
It's. It's huge. It's very gracious. So.
And I think people feelthey got something out of understanding
their own dreamsand want that to be known.
Very generous. Yes. Yes.
So we can jump right into it. Let's.
(01:30):
Okay.
So today I have a young womanin her early twenties.
She came to me feeling lostabout what direction to go in life.
She was intelligent and attractiveand felt
incredibly unsure of where to go.
She felt her parents had always hadbig expectations for her,
(01:51):
and she was now terrifiedthat she would not be able to meet them.
This sounds like a pretty common scenario.
This is a really common scenario.
But a lot of people don't even grasp thatthey can do something about it, perhaps.
Right.
And a lot of people wouldn't
end up, you know,
this is so commonthat they're not going to end up
in a therapist's officebecause they're unsure of where to go.
(02:12):
I think she felt intuitivethat this was a deeper piece for her.
And luckily she had friends who werein treatment and talked about it freely.
And so she could sort of be like,like this is interesting.
I wouldn't mind having somebody help mefigure out me.
Sounds beneficial. Right.
(02:33):
She was the youngest of two sistersand was thought to be
the smart one in the family.
She told me that her parentswere still married
and had a reasonably good relationship,though she felt her father was overly
occupied with his work as an engineerand head of his own company,
and that her mother was oftenlost in the books she was reading
or in the novelshe had been writing for many years.
(02:56):
Her parents
married later in lifeand then had two children back to back
because they were worriedthey wouldn't have enough time otherwise.
She told me that she initiallythat she thought
she and her sister were close,but then as she talked about it,
she realized they didn'thave a lot of interests in common.
And they would see each other
(03:16):
when there was a family dinneror a birthday party or something.
But they didn't do a lot togetheroutside of that,
even though they were, you know,lived 10 minutes from each other.
So they were on the phonea couple of times a week checking in.
Right. Exactly.
They weren't, you know, hanging out,going to parties together.
(03:36):
They were close in age.
You know, they didn't do any of that.
As the treatment progressed,she became more aware
of how separate the is she actually feltfrom the whole family, from her sister
and her parents and how restrictedthe family was emotionally.
You know, it was.
Pretty.
In this isn't to say people didn't laugh.
They didn't have a good time sometimes,but it was just sort of everything
(03:59):
was constricted, you know, therejust wasn't a lot of room emotionally.
She started to become very aware of that.
And did she feel like her sister was moreon the same page with her parents?
So it was sort of the three of them.
And then she.
Felt she was on the same pagewith her parents.
And the sister was actually the onewho had more leeway.
The sister looks much more free now.
(04:21):
Later in treatment, what kind of becomesclear is that that freedom has a cost.
And it isn't just that the sistersomehow managed to be free
in this familywhere nobody else felt that free.
She could express things more, certainly,
but had her own ways of being restricted.
So her parents were serious people.
(04:42):
They were concernedwith the state of the world.
They followed politics closely,they supported the arts,
and they had a circle of friendsthey socialized with.
But overall, she felt thatthey could be hard to connect with.
So it all looked really niceon the surface,
you know, And she came and telling me.
My parents are fine.
Everybody, you know,life is fine, except she felt lost
(05:03):
and that doesn't seemlike a huge thing at her age.
So you have to investigate it. Okay.
But you're coming to me with this feeling.
What is that really about?
What does that mean for you?
And then as you, we dig inand we'll see what it meant.
And we've spoken before.
I think so oftenwe start out if we're fortunate enough
(05:24):
to have an experience like this saying,My family's fine, my parents are fine.
What's going on with me? Me, me?
I mean, it'sI don't touch that part, right?
And I think that's very common.
You get that 60, 75% of the time,you know,
unless somebody'sgot a very specific problem,
(05:44):
it usually takes some time for thatto emerge for people to say, okay,
wait a minute.
But I felt this but I noticed that.
So she had recently graduatedwith a degree in science
and thought she would go to med schoolWhen it came time
to take the cat and apply to school,she felt, you know, she stopped.
She sort of froze and thought.
But I don't know if this is for me,
(06:07):
which I think was a smart thing to do.
She thought she needed to think about it
because she wantedto go to med school for herself
and not because it was her parent'swish for her.
And it could have been med school,it could have been law school,
it could have been whatever wasshe wanted to know it was for her.
So is that
sort of the stimulus for her
(06:28):
really thinking about herselfin a bigger way?
Like, wow,this is I'm at this big crossroads.
Why am I uncomfortable and then startthinking about other aspects of her life?
Yes, that's pretty much how it went.
Is is okay, hold on.
This is really and this wasn'tjust sort of stopping, you know,
she really had a big feeling about this,that she had this sort of nagging sense
(06:51):
that she was going to end up in med schooland be unhappy.
And this is a big commitment.
And and luckily, this is a woman who,you know, smart enough,
she could do many things.
Her thought was,am I going to lock myself into this?
Is this even for me?
Whose path is.
Whose path is this? Which great, right.
(07:12):
That's wonderfulthat she could even ask that question.
That's a nice start.
She is at that age where?
I don't know, I feel like so many of ouryouth are happy.
We're coasting along.We know what we want to do.
We think we might know what we want to dofor the rest of our lives,
and that you get to that placewhere you actually think you get to decide
and that this decisionis going to determine your life.
(07:36):
And I mean, chances are it's not really.
You can always do something different, but
that's an awful lot to faceat that particular age.
I think there's like a 2 to 3 year rangewhere all of a sudden you're
the rest of my lifeis now depending on what I do today.
It is tough.
I mean, I think that's that's just tough,you know, that we have it
(07:59):
sort of set up that way.
And often times for people,they may end up doing something.
Is it their passion? Maybe, maybe not.
I think people get pushed along,pulled along
because there's this pressureand there's a need to solve it.
And part of the dilemma may bethat they can't solve it.
They end up doing something.
(08:19):
It all looks fine, right?
They, you know, join society.
But it may not be that it has anythingto do with who the person really is.
That's what becomes clear,even in cases where the person isn't
under such distress psychologically,you know, this isn't major anxiety.
This isn't major depression.
(08:39):
You know, all of this is just a knowing
that something doesn't feel rightand you don't know how to solve them.
And I think that is incredibly common.
And the reason I want to go over it,you know, these are short dreams,
but the messages, the inthe dreams have such wide
(09:02):
implications for everybody,
and they show us about who we areand where are we really going?
Not just as an individual, but as a group.
How are we going to startto think about ourselves
and how we want peopleto be able to know themselves
so that decisions can be made towards
(09:22):
a truer, better life?
I'll get into the first session.
I have a couple of sessions here.
This is early in treatment.
You know, we're a few couple monthsin, so pretty quickly.
And of course, she's talking aboutthe things that were most important to her
and what brought her in.
You'll sort of see, you know, thatthere was some hesitancy about med school
(09:43):
and we'll see sort of what she decidesor where she goes in this session.
She comes in saying,my week has been good.
I'm still not surewhat I really want to do.
So I feel like maybeI should start studying for the MCAT.
I'm dreading it.
I know I will really need to buckle downand put a study plan together.
That means no fun and a lot of work.
(10:05):
I've talked to some friendswho already went through this,
so I feel lucky that they can tell mewhat worked
and what didn'tin terms of resources and strategy.
I think the bigger thing is justwhether I want to do this or not.
I feel so much pressure from my parentsand I just want to feel like
it's for me too.
I think my dad would have gone to medschool if he could do it all over again.
(10:26):
Of course, he would have done some weirdM.D., Ph.D.
bioengineering programor something in the super nerd category,
but I think he always feltthat he missed his calling that way.
I think
he likes engineering a lotand his mind works that way.
But I need to know that this isn't just mefulfilling his dreams.
So I said, I think there'sstill the basic question to consider.
(10:49):
Do you want to be a doctor?
She said, I think I do.
I can imagine myself doing it. I think.
I mean, does anyone really know
if they're cut out for a professionbefore they get there?
I like people enough.I like to help people.
I'm good at science,so I think it's a good fit.
I just don't knowif I'm in love with the idea.
So I said to her,What aren't you in love with?
(11:12):
She said, I worry that it will eitherbe too much science or that it will be
too much about the business of itand not enough about treating people.
I don't know if the reality ofit will square with
most of what I've seen on TV about it.
I'm embarrassed to say it,
but that's where I gotmost of my ideas about being a doctor.
I think way too many hospital shows,
(11:34):
so it's either emergenciesand saving lives left and right
or seeing how there is not enough helpfor those that really need it.
And struggling with that.
I guess on TVyou can just break all the rules
and give someone $1,000,000 lifesaving surgery for free.
And somehow I know that isn't real life.
And I said, Well, it sounds likeit would be good for you to find
(11:54):
some actual doctors and talk to themand see what they say about it.
And she said, I plan to do that.
I have a few connections with people,
so I want to do thatbefore I really jump into it.
And I said, Well, if you don't domed school, what else appeals to you?
So that I think I could see myselfdoing something
(12:14):
creative,like my mother, she's writing her novel,
but I really do admire her sticking to itand working on it every day.
I don't know that I'm creative enough,but I wish I was.
I would probably end up doing somethingwith science since that's what I'm
good at.
I just wish I was more convincedthat it was the right way to go.
And I feel the pressure of time too.
(12:36):
I don't want to let too much time passor I won't finish
until I'm olderand that doesn't sound good to me.
I just feel a little alone with it.
I would talk to my parents,but I think I know the direction
they want me to goand I don't want to get stuck there.
I don't think my sister struggleswith this type of decision as much.
(12:57):
She gets to be the creative oneshe always has been,
and I think they expected herto have a career in the arts
and the pressure seemed likeit was so much less.
So she's studying theaterand she's good at it.
And I have to admit, I'm jealous.
I want to feel like I could be freelike that.
But I never could do that.
I would get stuck and not be ableto let loose and get into a role.
(13:19):
She seems more free.
And I said, Well, where did she get that?
So I'm not sure exactly,because my mom is creative,
but still seems kind oftightly wound like me and my dad,
My sister is so much more looseand kind of goes with the flow.
She's adventurous and will try anythingand that's not like the rest of us.
Maybe it's like my mom, but it's sort ofjust her
(13:41):
and maybe my parents can live vicariouslythrough her a little.
Maybe in another lifethey would be more like hippies.
So I asked her what she was dreaming about
and she said,this was a hard dream to remember.
I was in a classroom or somewhere inside,
and there were desks or tables around.
I was with someone, I think a woman.
(14:03):
And I think that she needed to changehow she was doing something
and be more like a monkey or an apeinstead than follow the plan.
I think the person was trying to decide
if she wanted to do that or notand seeing the implications of it.
There was a lot more to itthan I could remember
and there might have beenother people around.
(14:24):
I don't really know why I would have
someone needingto be more like a monkey or an ape.
It was weird in the dream.
I don't even know what this was about.
And I said, So what?
What is the plan she's supposed to follow?
And she said, I have no idea.
I said, Soit sounds like if if she's being told
(14:44):
to follow the plan,she wasn't following the plan.
So, you know, what was she doing?
What was happening?
I'm trying to getsome sense of the story here,
so I don't have a sense of that either.
I just feel so hard to know, like
I can't quite think clearlywhen I try to understand.
(15:05):
It seems like it should be simple andI should be able to answer your questions.
So I just, you know, said okay.
And it said, Well,let me ask you a few more.
Let's see what comes.
I said, Why be a monkey or an ape?
What what does that make you think about?
And she said, Well,
I guess the idea was that a monkeywould just do what it was told.
(15:25):
So, you know, we had some more backand forth and sort of trying to
flesh this out.
And and I said, Well, I think you'rethe woman and you're supposed to
just be like your fatherand live out his dream of med school.
So when you start to question it,
you get the message that you better stopand get back to the plan.
Just be a monkey and do it like dad.
(15:48):
I think med schoolmight be the tip of the iceberg given
you get this warning when you just startto question med school.
It's interesting that you came in today
saying you wouldprobably just do med school.
I suppose the pressure was really thereunconscious to get in line.
And she said, now that you say it,it makes sense.
(16:09):
So does that meanI'm not supposed to go to med school
and I said, Well, why don't you first
see how this interpretation feels to you?
Let's start there.
So in a way,she's just looking for something
to give her a stamp of approval on.
Yes or no. Right.
Why don't you just tell mewhat I should do?
(16:31):
But the problem isthat I'm just the parents, right?
Right. So I'll tell you.
You know, I'll solve it for you.
And what you don't have to dothen, is feel what's right for you.
So that'sAnd look, people want this all the time,
and it's very seductive, you know,just how you must know everything, right?
(16:52):
So just tell me the answer
well and truly.
Look, I can't say yet whether she shouldgo to med school or not.
All I know right now is she's telling meshe's supposed to be a monkey fall in line
and do med school like herdad wanted her to.
Now, might she herself be
a good doctor and enjoy it?
(17:14):
Maybe.
But we have to wait for herto weigh in on that.
So obviously, she's got to get to
her true feelings about thisas much as she can, because yet
again, she's venturing into somethingthat is on so many levels and unknown. You
all of a sudden you'rein the emergency room and you're like,
(17:36):
my goodness,this really isn't what I wanted to do.
I mean.
Potentially, right?
So what we're hoping is that,you know, quickly enough and that's like
this is a big ask right quickly enough,because she says, I feel time pressure.
I want to have some understandingabout what this is.
Well, at the very least,we can start here, which is, well,
you're supposed to be a monkeyand you're feeling the pressure
(17:58):
to be a monkey because what you came isyou came to me questioning this.
But you come in this session saying,I know what?
I guess I'm just going to do this.
I'm going to fall in line.
And that's sort of a safety valve, too.
It's like, I'll just work on thiswhile I try and figure myself out.
Absolutely right.
And look, nobody in society is going togo, you're wasting so much time.
You're going to med school.
No, Right.
(18:18):
There's a lot of reward for that.
It's attractive.
But at the moment, what she's saying is.
But it's not for me now.
Will it be eventually?
Maybe, But it's not for me right now.
Right now,if I'm doing it, I'm just a monkey.
And if I'm a monkey, I'm dad.So I'm not me.
And that's the big piece here, right?
If I do this, I am not me.
(18:40):
Okay, then you better keep investigating.
What would you want?
Who are. You?
And obviously, this is where you're going.
This is where we're going. That's right.
So I.
You know,I asked you to sit with this a minute.
You know, I'm not goingto give you the answer right now.
I don't know that I could but sit with it.
Let's see where your mind goes.
(19:02):
Let's see what happens.
So she said,okay, makes me think of last weekend.
Okay, so I want to follow this and seewhere does our mind go.
Right. We have the dream.
We have an interpretationnow where she said I was with Kevin and we
pull into this underground parking lotso we can go up to this theater.
He's driving and I'm in the passenger seatand he rolls down the window
(19:25):
to ask the ticket guy which side we shouldpark on, because it's a big space.
And we could either go to the rightor the left, and I couldn't stop myself.
I'm leaning over the driver outtalking to the guy,
having to sort of shout, trying to say,which, where do we go?
I didn't even realize I was doing it.
And Kevin's upset with meand I really didn't get it at first,
(19:46):
but it was so rudeand it was also totally my dad.
He would have to be in chargeand Kevin felt like I emasculated him.
I felt terrible about it,but it just flowed out of me naturally.
So I think what you're saying makes sense.
Of course, I still want you to tell mewhether I should go to med school or not.
But I get it.
I'm a lot like my dad in waysI'm just starting to see.
(20:09):
So she got it right.
Okay, I want you to tell me, but I get it.
Here I am.
I was totally my dad this weekend,and it got me in trouble.
Fascinating. And Kevin is.
Kevin is a friend of hers, and.
But he's in the driver's seat.
The ticket guy is right here, Right?
You know, this is not so muchthat he's a man, so he should get to talk.
(20:31):
It's the driver's rightnext to a person trying to do this.
Why do you have to lean over and totally
take chargeas though Kevin couldn't do it?
Yeah, but I think her father did thatin the family with everybody.
You know, it's sort of like he'll just.He'll take charge.
I just have to say.
I mean, I can so relate to all of this.
I can only imagine that thousandsof other people can relate to this, too.
(20:55):
It just really strikes chords. Okay, good.
And hopefully what peoplewill start to see, you know,
you might be your father,you might be your mother,
you might be some combination.
But where, you know, her dream just says,yeah, I'm supposed to be a monkey.
You know, they have expectations for me.
They hear I'm trying to do what they wantand I want to be a good daughter.
(21:16):
Yeah, You know,
I want them to be happy and proud of me,and I want to make their dreams come true.
Of course I love them.
But look at me.
Just last weekend, I was my father.
That's the problem, right?
So in in all of their hopes,and let me say,
you can have hopes for your childrenand not destroy their lives.
(21:37):
It's it's that unconsciouslythere was so much pressure on her.
And I think that they had so many thingsthat weren't fulfilled in themselves
that it was sort of all directed this way.
The daughter gets the the unconsciouspiece that wanted to be more free.
Now, as I said, we can talk aboutwhether she was really free,
(22:02):
Right.
Because even then you look free.
But whose wish is it? Yes.
So whether she's confronting it or not,
she may have a similar
set of questions about what she's doing.
Is this really meor was she just her mother,
you know, three days ago trying to writea novel or something like that?
(22:25):
That's exactly it.
And so it's calling on all of usto say, look, it doesn't mean
you have to be in a crisis,but maybe you have to start questioning,
what am I doing?And seeing what it yields.
Is this really what I truly want, youknow, and what do my dreams tell me now?
You know, Right.
That's the harder pieceif you are working with someone.
(22:46):
But I think still, nonetheless, you know,this would be interesting.
Why do I dream aboutI have to be a monkey and fall in line?
Okay, about that.
Where is that coming from? Right?
Why am I dreaming about that?
Right? What? Wow.
So I said to her, You had to be a copy,
and you'rejust supposed to follow the plan.
And I said, You know, look,every baby has to be
(23:07):
a copy of the ancestors that came before.
At least you tell yourself to weighthe consequences of that.
What does that really mean?
And is that the best thing for yourself?
Because there's a piece in the dreamat the end
which says the person was supposedto weigh the implications.
What are the implications of mebeing a monkey or not?
(23:28):
But the pressures therewhen you just get back in line.
So that's important.
We're always being ushered, you know,kind of like a dog herding sheep.
You're always being pulled backwith all of the pressure,
the internal saboteur, get in line,follow your imprint,
do what we want you to door what we need you to do.
(23:49):
That's for everybody.
And there's a certain amount of comfortto that.
It's like, I can feel when I'm in line.
You dismiss your own feelingsabout stepping out of line.
Right?
Right. Or people,you know, they wrestle with them.
well, but this is a good decisionintellectually.
Yes, right. But the heart gets left out.
(24:09):
And my parents, they had this in mindall along.
They know best. Right.
So you can see the dilemma.
It's like there's more stuff to tell usto stay in line than to follow our heart.
Exactly.
And that that's the the big piecethat so important to get across
is because wherever this is showing up,whether you feel lost
or you don't get to feel it,the problem is everybody has an imprint.
(24:32):
And that's what we're all following.
So you want to know where we get ourselvesinto trouble in the world.
We want to know why we are making wars,why we're doing all kinds of things.
We have an imprint and we will repeat
what happened to usin the womb battlefield.
Everything that happens inthe external world is really
(24:52):
a repetition of what happened in the womb.
And I think that's such a big pieceto think about.
Right?
So you're always being askedto follow these plans that were
put on you in the womb
and they don't come with bowsand ribbons and,
you know, the way everybody imaginesnice little baby animals in a meadow
(25:14):
and you're running through it, you know,this isn't what goes on in the womb.
Think of a horror movie.
Think of being chasedby all of these feelings
that have come downthrough generations of pain
and all the war and death and terrorand abuse.
Everything that hasn't been ableto be processed.
(25:37):
Nothing can be solved in the outside world
unless it is solved inside the person.
And we as a group have to solve it insideeach one of us.
Because intellectually we knowwhat's going on.
All deserves a big stop sign.
Stop this, stop the rape, stop the war.
(25:58):
But we can't stop that.
As long as all of thatis raging inside of us.
Right.
All of this right.
Comes out of a discussion about one youngwoman who comes in and says, I'm lost.
Yeah, poor you, you're lost.
And you are every one.
Yes, everyone is lost.
And whether they know it or not,the dreams tell the truth
(26:19):
and your dreams are actually goingto come in and start going.
But this isn't right and that isn't right.And that didn't feel right.
And you're a monkeyand you're being your father.
And med school is just going to pleaseyour parents, but keep you a monkey.
And if you start to weighthe implications, you'll be guided back.
Here's the pressure.
(26:39):
So she gets that.
Then she tells me, Well,I had another dream.
Okay, let's see what this one has to say.
I'm talking to someone,maybe a woman or my friend Ian,
and I am explaining to her or himthat she or he can change his path.
I said that it means giving things up,and that's okay.
(27:01):
It's okay to drop all of the plans
made before and start over.
The woman doesn't feel it'sokay to do that.
I think I give her some examplesand say something weird
that it's like dropping a loaf of bread.
So she says, So now I get the first partof the message in the dream,
(27:22):
meaning things can change, right?
So she took our discussion and thenshe applies it to her second dream.
I said, okay,I think I get where I'm going.
And she says, I think it was a womanand I'm not sure why.
I also have a memory of my friendIan being there.
And I said, Well,tell me what comes to mind about Ian.
She said, He's a really nice guy.
(27:42):
I think he feels lost at the moment too.
He's trying to figure out what he wantsto do with his life
and he might go into the family business,
but he's trying to seeif there's something else he'd rather do.
But the money's hard to pass up,so he's giving himself a little time
and he'll have to make a choice, I guess.
Now it's easyto see why I put him in the dream.
(28:03):
So why does the
woman feel it isn't okayto change the plans?
She said So obviously the woman is meand I don't know why.
And from the first dream
now, is it about med schoolor really changing the big plan?
And I said, Well,I would say the big plan.
And I said, Well, why do you givethe example of dropping the loaf of bread?
(28:24):
And she says, I don't know.
That part seems strange.
And I said, Well, you know,I think if we think of bread
as the staff of life,you would change your life
or drop the life you have to getthe one you're supposed to have.
And a very important messagein this dream.
And you put it very clearly, people canchange their paths and change their lives.
(28:49):
That's a great takeaway.
So this is an incredibly hopeful dream
because that's a message for all of us.
Okay. We can change.
You're going to have to say that 150 timesfor us to really have that sink in.
We can actually change.
Now it's work because you can just seein these little hints of dreams
(29:12):
that as a person starts to think aboutwhether she should do med school or not.
Well, being a monkey, get back in line.
This is a,you know, reasonably benign decision.
Yeah.
And how afraid she is of shiftingthat direction.
Can't do it.
The unconscious speaks up pretty quicklyand just says, Now what are you going to
you're going to change yourself.You're going to change the plan.
(29:34):
We had a plan. Yeah, stick with it.
Stick with the pull back in line.That's right.
Don't change the fundamental structureof how this was all set up.
Don't monkey with your imprint.
Don't change anything.
Just keep walking.
But she says, but you can change now.
Yes, we have some,you know, resistance in it.
The woman doesn't feel she could do it.
(29:55):
All of that is fine, and I think she
she gets thatif this is a transparent enough dream.
But the piece I really want to hammer homeis that she's telling herself
she can change.
Okay?
She's now got hope.
And I think she's telling all of usthe world can change.
(30:16):
She doesn't knowthis is just a young woman.
But how interesting in a way, she'shaving dreams that speak to everybody.
We can change.
All right, well, let's get busy. So.
So many of the dreams that we have,or maybe all of them
are not just about ourselvesas individuals.
That's right.
Right, right.
It's a fine message across humanity.
(30:38):
Yes, very much.
Often I'll hear patients dreams.
And I have to say, okay,
I think you're having this dreamfor yourself and for all of us.
Here's what you're saying about humanity.
Here's what you're saying aboutwhere we are going as a group or where
we've been or what we're wrestling with,because it is that universal.
And that does show up in dreams.
And it's okay in her case,in all of our cases, to try another path.
(31:03):
We have to.
In fact, I think that's that's reallywhat comes to us.
You have tootherwise you just know, no offense
to monkeys, you're just a monkey,you know, That's it.
And so this is really critical.
It sounds so. Yeah, this is so nice. Nice.
And we know no big life or death situationhere.
Go to school. Don't.
(31:24):
That's.
That's not really what this is all about.
Are yougoing to get to be yourself or not?
And if you are not yourself,we're going to continue
to have the same mess in the worldthat we've always had
because you have to do it the wayeverybody who came before you did it.
This is where it's gotten us.
So what would be different?
(31:46):
Nothing.
So until people get in touch with who
they really are,then you could change the world.
But has to start here inside all of us.
And your dreams are a great way
to see what you're really busy doing.
And as an individual.
And we we make that change for
(32:09):
our own betterment,whatever that might be,
then we can almost in a tangible way,
bring that out to the world.
This was me,I thought, but this is the real me.
And now I'm doing these thingsbeyond that, being sort of on the surface
like that,is there some amount of that message
(32:30):
that this might sound nutty,that is given to each other unconsciously?
Yes, not nutty at all.
I think we are always in contactunconsciously.
So, yes. One person.
Yeah, it's sort of like youthrow a pebble into a pond, ripples out.
One person starting to say,wait a minute, I'm going to contact me.
(32:53):
What do I really feel about this
that changes the person now, that changesevery relationship that person has,
and it changes the children that come fromthat person, be they male or female
or whatever caretaker rolethat person's in or mentor, right?
There is a new way of thinkingand being that develops.
(33:16):
So I think you'll see thatthis idea continues into the next session.
And she starts with the dreamsthat I had a couple of dreams.
She's into it. Now. She's into it.
In the first dream,she says, I'm working in a lab
and finding out something bad is going on.
So then the idea,which is kind of fuzzy to me,
(33:39):
but it seems like the ideais that everything they're doing
or that the person learned is wrongand should be reversed.
I think I'm just telling people to keepworking there, but reverse everything.
And she said,And then I had a second dream.
I was with some women, maybe my friend
Robyn, and she's driving a silver BMW.
(34:00):
I'm supposed to go with the teamand get in the back seat.
We're doing something illegal.
I think I have four men's shirtsthat need to go to the cleaners
and we do whatever this activity is.
And I think I was supposedto drop the shirts when we did it.
I make a jokethat this is what would happen to me.
(34:20):
I would forget to drop off the shirtsand drive around with them for a while.
But I don't think they're happy with mefor saying that.
I think it had somethingto do with driving fast.
So she said, That's all I could remember.
And I know it's kind of confusing now.
I listen to Dreams all day,so this is hardly confusing to me.
Yeah.
When you really, you know,can get into dreams that are, you know,
(34:43):
three and 4 minutes long and twistsand turns, this is pretty clear.
So I just asked her to tell mewhat came to mind about either dream.
And she said, I don't really know where Iam, but I seem to be working at this lab.
I have no idea what they do there.
But my feeling is it's bad stuffor I really Is that in the dream?
I don't know if I stumble upon itor investigate it,
(35:05):
but I think it's likeI might just realize it.
I also don't know whyI want everyone to still work there,
not quit, but do everything backwards.
I don't know whatthat would even look like,
but it made sense in the dream,as though if that could be done,
then things would be okayor it would reverse the problem, I guess.
(35:27):
And I said, Well, what kind of bad stuff?
And she said, I don't even think I can sayI don't know what it was.
It looks like a standard researchlaboratory.
People lined up workingand I'm one of them.
Maybe it's biological research, I think.
And I said, Well,so what would have to be reversed?
And she said in the dream.
And I said, Well, I'll leave it open.
(35:48):
Whatever comes to mind.
And she says, Well,I don't even know how to explain it,
because obviously reversing theexperiments wouldn't really do anything.
And I said, Well,
what do you feel has to be donedifferently or in an opposite way?
And she said, Well, that opens up a lot,I suppose.
I mean, there is so much around the worldthat I feel needs to be done differently.
(36:09):
How about stop dropping bombs on people,stop polluting the earth to name a few?
There's so much going onall over the world that I feel
should be done differently.
I guess reversing it might work doingthe opposite of what is being done.
And there's some pretty bad stuffin my opinion.
And I said, Well then it sounds likethis is a dream for you and the world.
(36:30):
Everyone has to get ridof what they've learned, meaning
the way humans have been doingthings is wrong.
We've been going the wrong wayand we have to reverse course.
And she said, All right.
So then I also have to think about whereI have to reverse course.
And then she sat for a little while
and I said, Well, what are your thoughtsabout the second dream?
(36:51):
And she said, I felt like
I could understand a little bit morewhy I had this dream.
We've been planninga big birthday weekend for my dad.
We're going to go sailingbecause he loves being out on the water.
And then there's a really great seafoodrestaurant I think he will love.
We're inviting two of his best friendsand their wives, and my cousins
are also going to come,so it would be a great group.
(37:13):
He doesn't know about itand we can't tell him.
We think it should be a surprisebecause if we tell him he's
going to come up with a reasonto back out, he would find some type
of work, commitmentor something to try to get out of it.
And I said, Why?
And she said,
I don't think I fully understand it,but it's like he just can't relax.
He seems like he wants to be social,but maybe
(37:36):
he's actually just shyand kind of hides that.
So groups make him a little uncomfortable.
At least that is my take on it.
But then once he's thereand able to relax, he does fine
and then he'll talk about itfor months afterwards.
I loved it.
it was so much fun.
Why don't we do it more often?
And I just always shake my headbecause we're always trying to drag him
(37:59):
to do those things,but he doesn't want to do it.
Then he loves it.
And I said,So how did you connect it to the dream?
And she said, right.
So he drives a silver BMW.
So that made me think of him.
And I was with my mom and sisterplanning this party.
So it might have been connected to that.
And also.
Now it makes me wonderwhy are we in his car
(38:20):
even though he isn't in the dream?
And I said, Well,who who's driving his car?
Who's Robin?
And she said, A good friend of minefrom childhood.
She's nice,but I kind of let the relationship drop
because she was really rigid
and it was hard to have a good time
with her.Everything had to be so controlled
and she always had to be rightabout everything.
Maybe that's a little like my father.
(38:42):
So I guess I can see now whyshe's driving.
And I said, So what was illegal?
Said, I have no idea what that was.
I don't think it was just driving fast,though.
I know it had something to do with it.
And I said, Well, what team were you on?
She said, I think I had to gowith the team in the car,
but I don't know what that really meant.
I remember the feeling of thinking I hadto go along with what they were planning
(39:06):
and just get into the backseatand go with them.
I think that's where I see all these menshirts that have to go to the cleaners
and it doesn't make sense to melike we're doing something illegal,
but on the way we're goingto drop shirts off at the cleaners.
That sounds insane.
And she said, I might have reallycracked myself up thinking about it, too.
(39:26):
I think my joke is so funny in the dreamthat I'm telling them, I would drive
around with these shirts for so longand not realize it, and I don't know why
I thought that was so hilarious,but it really cracked me up.
They seemed angry with me.
Why am I laughing about this?
Why am I making a joke right now?
And she said, I know thisjoke isn't funny when I tell it to you,
(39:47):
but trust me,it was really funny in the dream.
And she said,I think I was laughing so hard.
I was crying.
And then they were.
Maybe they were just angrywith me for laughing so much.
I'm not sure being silly.
And I said, Well, the main thingyou're telling me
is that having fun for your father
is thought to be illegal.
(40:08):
It's a crime to be happy
and enjoy your anticipatingthat he'll have fun on his birthday.
But First, he has to act like he doesn'twant to go or he's too busy working.
He's not supposed to just go and enjoy.
And of course, you're being askedto get into his car, be him,
and that has to allgo to the cleaners as well.
(40:29):
But the big idea ishappiness is to be illegal.
And here you are actually laughingand having fun in the dream.
Very angry.
Don't do that, she said.
It's interesting because he alwayshas to be forced to have fun.
I always thought of my sisteras the only one who could really let loose
and have fun,like she was the designated fun person
(40:52):
in the familyand the rest of us were the serious ones.
I'd like to think I'm sort ofin the middle of the two camps,
and my father's always tellingboth of us, Go have fun.
But he'll never do it himself.
I'd like to think I'm a fun person,but I carry a lot of guilt about it.
If I'm not studying or working hardat something, then I kind of beat myself
up like I'm lazy or I should alwaysbe doing more, doing better.
(41:16):
I feel like I'm always supposedto be pushing or I'm lazy.
I'll be a disappointment.
Maybe funfeels like something I have to earn versus
something simple that I should beable to have automatically.
I think that
might be part of what made me stopbefore applying to med school.
I normally would have just gone aheadwith it, kept following the path,
(41:36):
but something was making me feel likeI might not enjoy
it, which would normally notbe part of the calculus.
Of course it's hard workand that's what you do.
But something was pulling at meabout this, and I don't know
how to put it into words yet,but it's touching on something she said.
I think I have to think about it.
Why isn't he allowed to enjoy life?
(41:56):
Why does he always have to be so serious?
And that's the end of the session.
And I think unconsciouslyso many of us are right there.
Right there, right there.
I mean, we're not supposed to enjoy.
Not supposed to enjoy.
So that's really big.
What she's saying is, look,the way we've all been going,
everybody is living with an ideathat we have to suffer.
(42:19):
If you get an imprintand you give up your self
to hold this imprint, you're suffering.
Now, you may have completely deniedyou ever did that,
but inherent in there is suffering.
So she's really saying the dream.
everybody, stop what you're doing.
Reverse course, unlearn everything.
(42:40):
Do it the opposite way.
Because what we have been caring,what we have been taught
emotionally is wrong, is just wrong.
You don't have to suffer.
You don't have to be another person.
Taking this imprint does nothingto help your mother or your father.
It does nothing but split your personalpolity and not let you be yourself.
(43:03):
And on we go.
On we go on we go same, same, same.
And she says, All right.
So these simple little dreamshave such big implications.
Stop everything you're doing.
This isn't working.
Reverse course.
It's precious that she said,Please share this.
Did she also know that part ofthat was this universal message?
(43:28):
I mean, what an incredible giftshe's giving if we listen.
It's a beautiful gift.
No, I don't think it feltquite that way to her.
I think she's concerned to do what I do.
I'm trying to please my parents.What bigger.
I'm listening to it and going,wow, what a beautiful dream for the world.
Stop everything you're doing.
Do it the opposite. Reverse. Right.
(43:49):
Stop going to war.
Start looking inside and figuring outhow you're going to learn to love.
And she did speak to that, saying,I don't know,
why do we have all these wars?
What's happening with our climate? Yes.
So I think it got her that way.
I don't know if she realized the dreamhad such wide ranging implications,
but yet it touched her.
It pulled her in that direction.
(44:11):
And that's what told me.
Also, this is a dream for the world.
Here's what she's talking about.
And you hear a lot of those.
I hear a lot of those.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people who, you know,unbeknownst to them most of the time,
have all kinds of commentaryabout the way it isn't going.
Right.
And that isn't justit didn't go right for them.
(44:33):
Right.
These are much bigger ideas about the wayswe are doing bad stuff in the lab.
We're not doing it right.
We keep making it up.
It's deadly.
It's truly deadly.
And if it doesn't actually kill us,it kills off our feelings
and it keeps us from being able to connectto ourselves the way we're supposed to.
(44:59):
And now we run amok.
And how we run amok.
You too.
Disconnected from everythingyou're supposed to be connected to,
Bail would add.
Then it disconnects you from the divine.
He would say that that's all part of this.
And if we can get this ship turned around
and start just going that direction,
looking inside, stop acting out there.
(45:23):
We don't need another war.
It hasn't fixed the worldand I really don't.
I don't want to sound likeI am, you know, just
completely out of touch of why people feelthey need to do this.
It's just that that hasn't worked.
We've had so many wars.
What does it doexcept just buy time until the next war
so more mothers lose their children,more fathers lose their children.
(45:48):
And what do they get?
What did it really change?
Yes, we may get short gainshere, short gains there.
We don't get a big changethat humanity needs.
And this is all we will do.
Which is obviously no more war.
I mean, that would be ideal.
I mean, hasone war stopped us from having more war?
That's the problem. One begets the next.
(46:09):
So and then she brings in this nice otherpiece, which is it's illegal to have fun.
Part ofthat has to do with her, her family.
And am I going to go to med school?
Am I going to be able to enjoythis? Right.
I want to.
I'm missing life has to be all fun.
No, but it doesn't have to be all hardwork.
It doesn't all have to just be suffering.
And we all have a misconceptionthat life is really about suffering.
(46:35):
And even the sister who looks likeshe's free and gets to be out there
what comes later, you don't hear it here.
She you know,she touches on it a little bit.
But what comes later is the sisteris not free and it looks like it.
And wouldn't it be nice? We wish. We wish.
And then the dreams kind of say, no,
She's living out a different partof the parents wishes.
(46:55):
So again, not free.
And the problem is not free to love,not free to love your life,
yourself, what you're doing,and most importantly, each other.
The main goal is to protect
that imprint, to survive,to suffer through, in order
to save everything else except yourself.
(47:20):
In a way.
Yes, it is.
You know,if we can think about it that inside
we're all running this program.
And my job is to save this womanwho is my mother.
So I will take any bit of troubleshe had and I'll hold it.
Now, I'm not me. Right.
I've got to put some of me over herein order to have space for that right now.
(47:40):
What if she has a whole lot of trouble?
Then you have to put a whole lot of youover there, Right?
So, you know,
maybe we get this much of you, but maybewe only get this much of you right now.
How do you build a lifeand make good decisions
if you're not in contactwith your full self?
How can you make the best decision?
How can you be the most loving.
And our full self?
(48:00):
That thingwhich we hopefully can all uncover
will always tell us the truth.
We will know what love is.
We will operate from. Good.
That's the idea.
Yes. That the more you get to knowyourself, the bigger that part can grow.
Right?
You just feel your way through thingsbetter.
(48:22):
It doesn't mean everything is easy, right?
But easier if the idea isn't.
I'm to suffer.
But we've got.
You're carrying all of thishistorical trauma
that's come down the line on both sides,but certainly the part that comes through
the mother gets deposited into the childright at the the the bottom layer.
(48:45):
Then dad's trauma gets sandwichedon top of that.
So we've now got a new being thathas already been hit with so much trauma.
Now If the parents had enough loveto soften that blow, that helps.
Just generally,if we can be thinking about other people
and behaving in a waythat is loving, that helps.
(49:07):
But this baby's alreadystarting from a down
position,so we have to undo all of that Now.
The dreams luckily
come and say, All right, well, here'swhat you've got to do this.
I mean, she said, you know,I just want you to tell me what to do.
Well, her dreams do reverse course.
Whatever you're doing, if you're going tobe your father and probably your mother,
(49:28):
don't undo, undo, undo,
reverse B you use your dreams.
Let's sort through them.
Bring this in, and let's solve the problemwhere it started.
So what happens with this wonderfulyoung woman?
She stays in treatment.
She goes on with her life and figures outwhat she wants to do.
(49:49):
Is she in med school?
She is, I'm protecting her identity a bit.
But yes, she decidedshe decided to separate
from her parents now.
Maybe in ten years. Yeah. I mean,
we'll have to see if she feels that.
That following her dreams.
(50:10):
Did that make sense to her?
I think this was a woman
who ultimately was interestedin trying to solve some of these pieces.
So I'm I'm curious.
It'll be, you know, nice to see whatis she what direction does she take this?
And now she has a lotmore knowledge about herself.
She had to wait a little while.
She didn't go right into school.
(50:30):
She had to give this some timeto attend to herself to figure it out.
But then suddenly, once she couldsort of say, okay, wait a minute.
Yes, that is their wish for me.
But this also feels like a placewhere I can be myself.
Then she didn't dreadgetting prepared for it, Right.
You know, before she was time.
I'm dreading it.
(50:51):
I have to give up, you know,I have to give everything up to study,
which is really saying isI have to give up me to do this.
This is going to be awful.
I don't think anybody thinks studying forthe MCAT is fun,
but I think she knewshe was doing it for her.
Big difference.
And so did her dreams change?
You mean in the sense that they wereshowing her that this was an okay path?
(51:12):
Yes. Yes.
She got some messagesthat she was heading the right way,
but she still continues to dreamfor the world.
I think this is just a personwho tends to do that.
I'm very grateful to her.
I think I am, too. I am, too.
She brought very important messagesfor us to all think about.
(51:33):
That's awesome.
I think there's a lot to think about,either thinking of this as a parent
and what one is going throughwith their own children,
or as an individual who's strugglingwith whatever
they took on because of their parentsfrom both ends of the spectrum.
Right.
And I think very importantly,that feeling of being lost,
(51:54):
I think sometimes we do normalize ittoo much in the sense
that, yes, there is a developmental phasewhere you are figuring out who you are.
But I think there's also a commentarythat too many of us are lost
and we're lost because we're disconnectacted from our feelings selves.
(52:15):
And that's huge.
And that,you know, is part of the big problem.
So had this woman and I'mnot even sure how this would happen
not had this existencethat was very early on dictated
by saving her parentsand therefore saving herself
when it came to going to medschool or not, she might have seen that
(52:40):
red flag and said wait,this doesn't feel like me.
And if it doesn't feel like me,I've got to do something about it.
Because I think a lot of us are just rote.
We just what we don't feel. Yes, right.
If we get disconnected,we don't have access to our feelings.
And it's not that she's a robot,but we don't have access to them
(53:01):
in the way where they can be helpful to usin these critical moments.
We don't recognize.
Let me connect to myself and sort of see,
do I want to do thisor is this dad's wish.
And why am I feeling uncomfortable?
Lauren my gosh.
This is just beyond beyond.
It's amazingly helpful.
And you're coming back and we're going to
(53:24):
you are going to share more dreamswith another patient soon.
Yeah. And I so look forward to it.
It's a crazy helpfulI thank you a million times over.
Thank you for having me.
And thank you againto all the patients that are,
you know, willing to share their dreamsand and share these kinds of messages.
(53:46):
And thank you for having me back.
Yes. Giant gifts all the way around.
Thank you.
Listeners and watcherscome back again soon.
And as always,we love to know what you think.
Bye for now.
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