You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 101. Group Chat FINAL.mp3
Stephanie Winn: Growing up, I was not interested in history, that I've become more interested in history as a person in more the midlife phase. Because I have so much more life experience to draw from, and I see patterns unfold, and I wonder about the origins of things. History is much more relevant to me in my late 30s than it was as a teenager. I have more context for it. And I think there's something similar when it comes to a person's process of having any interest in grappling with the notions of good and evil.
Benjamin the Dream Wizard: You must be some kind of therapist.

Stephanie Winn: All right, here I am today again, reconnecting with some old friends from the podcast as part of my ongoing project of reuniting with people I've had the pleasure of speaking with before. Today we have Benjamin the Dream Lizard, Kim Oh, and Matt Osborne. Want to welcome each of you back and have you refresh people's memories or let them know perhaps for the first time when we've spoken before and what it was about starting with Benjamin.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Okay. I actually wrote it down because if anyone who's watched my episodes knows, I can't remember anything. So it was a number 15, episode 15, Benjamin the Dream Wizard, Dream Work and Edges of the Unknown. And it's good to be back. I do dream interpretation videos on YouTube. I publish works of historical dream literature, which is my own masterclass in how to do this well and properly. And I like to play video games. I also stream Monday through Friday about five to 8 PM. So that's, that's enough about me.

Stephanie Winn: All right. Thanks, Ben. Kim?

Kim O: Hi, I'm Kimmo and I was on episode 80 from Shame to Resilience, Healing the Inner Child. It's a really cool episode because Stephanie was able to allow me to share my experiences to why I stopped master's training and counseling and became a relational soul coach instead. And so I enjoy coaching people. I create books and workbooks and I recently did a detransition, or I've worked with a detransitioner to create children's books about inner resilience. And I'm also on the Wu side, so I welcome anything Wu and spiritual.

Stephanie Winn: And Kim, for those who have been listening to more recent episodes, people might have heard of you through Nicholas Blooms, the detransitioner who might have been the first person to create a graphic novel about his experiences of detransition. And so you two have a really meaningful relationship. He spoke very glowingly about you in that episode, and I know you helped him with his graphic novel and just his healing process over the last few years. So it's great to have you back. And Matt?

Matt Osborne: Hi, Stephanie. I was in episode 39, The Myth of the Magical Child. My name is Matt Osborne, and I am an historian living in Alabama. And I am primarily a military historian, but as a result of all this gender woo stuff, I have become an historian of ideas and an historian of religion. Because as we've discussed, what we have, what we're living through right now is a kind of spiritual crisis. And even though I am personally a nonbeliever, being a nonbeliever makes me acutely aware of the crisis that we live in in the world in terms of something missing, that spiritual absence is being filled up by whatever we can find. And gender is one of those things.

Stephanie Winn: Matt, I think that's a great segue into what we're hoping to dive into today. So let's just go there. We all have somewhat different orientations when it comes to spirituality, Matt being the most atheist, the most skeptical of the group, Kim, perhaps being the most New Age woo woo, and you know, myself and Benjamin may be falling somewhere in between. But one thing that we all agree on and perhaps have different perspectives on is that it does feel like there's a spiritual crisis happening, that there's perhaps a void in our modern lives that is part of what's driving this attraction to magical beliefs in the youth that happen to be quite, quite dangerous ones. So, Matt, what are your thoughts on that?

Matt Osborne: You have to go back to that word modernity. You're living in the modern world, right? And as the world has become increasingly modern, our old ways of thinking don't seem to explain the world anymore. So we increasingly set them aside. But that doesn't mean that we become more logical. We don't become Spock-like. We don't become Vulcans. What actually happens is that the space that was filled up with the spiritual constructs before gets filled up with something. And the swing has been away from institutional religion to intuitional religion since the 19th century. And there is a yearning as well, a spiritual yearning, to unite everyone, to bring peace to the world. That's a serious urge on our part. It becomes more urgent with time because our methods of war become ever more destructive. So what has happened in the modern era is that you have ersatz religion. That's the word that philosopher Eric Vogelin used. That's substitute religion, things filling in the space. And it's remarkable how we've actually captured that. in the science and the social science in the 20th century, like the cargo cults. Remember the cargo cults are these Micronesians. They're watching the airplanes land. They're watching the people talking on the radios in the Second World War. And they're like, all this cargo, all this wonderful cargo. So they start making radios out of coconut shells and things. And they start trying to imitate what they've been watching in order to bring the cargo to the island. And these are the cargo cults. Well, it turns out that sort of way that we assemble new religious ideas out of old ones and out of present day material that. And so what has happened, I think, is that to a degree, the phrase born in the wrong body. really marks it as a belief, right? And it has filled in the space where there was something missing that was there before that supported people through the trials of becoming an adult, especially, because those teenagers, that's the worst time, right? And so the structures and systems of inculcating adult values into people, they went by the wayside. We haven't replaced them. So, the spiritual crisis of the 21st century is built up layer upon layer upon layer. of generations in which the old ways have been cast out or have been deprecated. And we've been sort of importing new ideas.

Stephanie Winn: That phrase born in the wrong body. I think you're right. And a lot of us in the gender critical community have talked about this, how that is a spiritual belief embedded in a sort of statement as if it's a statement of fact. And it reminds me of something I learned from Derek Jensen a long time ago. I started reading Derek Jensen when I was really young, so it's kind of cool to get to talk to him recently when he interviewed me. And there was this recording I had of a book talk that he gave a long time ago where he explained that he laid out his fundamental premises at the beginning of the book because he thinks that this is basically the right thing to do to be transparent about his sort of first principles that he's operating from. And he said, if you can slide your premises by people, that's the first tool of propaganda, which sort of reminds me of discussion that we had in my last group conversation about informed consent and what patients have a right to know if they're seeing therapy or excuse me, seeing a therapist about that therapist presuppositions. So this phrase born in the wrong body itself feels like propaganda according to the definition that Derek Jensen laid out all those years ago in the book talk, because it's sliding a premise by. Premise, one can be born in the wrong body. And then second premise, some people are, right? And then it follows from there that if this, if and when this occurs, what needs to happen is that the body needs to be modified and that will solve the problem, right? That's a lot of presupposition. Kim, what do you think about that?

Kim O: Well, and I think you have a very susceptible generation now. And why is this generation so susceptible? And as I've sat and reflected upon that, especially I come from a generation and grew up on a farm. Things were not easy. OK. And back in my generation, parents did not even acknowledge our existence, pretty much, our feelings or anything like that. And now we've swung the pendulum so far the other way that children are being raised so coddled, I guess I will say. with this experience that it's not okay to experience hurt, pain, discomfort. And life, puberty, is highly uncomfortable. So you have this captive audience that is not accustomed to anything really being hard. And so this propaganda of born in the wrong body, of course, that's going to make sense to them. First off, there is no religion, like you said, crisis of spirituality. And It's highly uncomfortable. The emotions are very extreme. I mean, you know, we talk about in psychology, Eric Erickson said the ages between I think it's 12 and 18 is identity confusion. So why not throw that at this this generation? And I feel like they're really going to grab onto that. I mean, it it's like fertile ground.

Stephanie Winn: I just thought of something that I've never thought of before. So you're going to help me workshop this idea in real time. But Kim, when you talk about the… lack of challenge in our comfortable modern lives. And that's not to say that people don't face incredible hardship, but it is to say that a lot of the hardships of the past don't apply anymore. Like, for example, we all have the ability to regulate the temperature in our home, the lighting. We have an endless supply of entertainment, even if we don't have access to the highest quality food choices or the best quality education or even the safest neighborhoods. There are a lot of just environmental things that we can control now, for one. and instant gratification. You know, most kids don't have to go hungry, which I think most people would agree is a good thing. And yet hunger, famine, you know, periodic, you know, fasting against your will used to be just part of the human experience for everyone. Right. So there's something to be said for the comfort of modern luxury and the lack of hardship. Again, not to say that there aren't many other types of hardships, including as you were saying, Kim, like emotional neglect from parents who are busy and overworked and distracted. But what this brought to mind for me is actually the idea, and bear with me here, that dissociation and embodiment operate together in a way. Because we often talk about them in opposition to each other, like that dissociation bad, embodiment good, embodiment as the antidote for dissociation. But If we were to think about, like, how would I as a therapist talk to a client about their dissociation? Well, part of what I would do is I would explain the circumstances under, well, explore with them the circumstances under which their dissociation developed as a helpful coping mechanism, right, to transcend pain, hunger, cold, fear. trauma in a nutshell or or hardship that we we can dissociate the problem is when you get stuck there permanently. And the the idea is that with healing you're able to come back into your body when it's safe you're able to recognize when it's safe and to create safety in your life and then come back there doesn't mean there's not going to be a situation again where it might be helpful to dissociate. And actually, this was an ongoing issue when I worked with first responders. I used to do a vicarious trauma support group, and we explored this a lot. Like, yeah, it really helps you to dissociate when you're on a 12-hour shift as an ER nurse. But the problem isn't so much that you're dissociating at work, the problem is that you're having a hard time coming back into your body during your free time and, you know, feeling what makes you happy and doing things that nourish you on the weekends. But if we think about dissociation and embodiment and how they might have worked during times of greater hardship, the conditions under which our ancestors evolved, and the role that spirituality played. One of the, you know, there are a few common themes in all different kind of spiritual religious practices, and some of those include things that include an element of sort of willful dissociation. So I'm thinking, you know, rhythmic chanting and dancing that induces some sort of hypnotic state, fasting, meditating, things that are designed to transcend the body, transcend pain and suffering deliberately. as part of accessing a higher consciousness, feeling a connection with God, or, you know, something like that. And in those types of traditional practices, I am also imagining, speculating here, that embodiment is sort of the yin to the yang of dissociation, right? That through doing something intensive, like a Native American sweat lodge, where, you know, a person is sort of transcending the sensations of overwhelm that are happening in their body, that there's a re-embodiment that comes after that. And I'm just sort of thinking of this out loud, but I wonder if the problem with today's youth isn't necessarily so much just pure disassociation or disembodiment. We know that that's an element because they're spending so much time online. They're not, you know, getting out and working with their hands. and their environments, their bodies. But I wonder if maybe part of the dilemma of where something feels lacking in our in our spiritual experience is that we're not experiencing both of those experiences working in tandem together, disassociation and embodiment. What do you guys think about

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: that definitely had some thoughts. When you were speaking about that, I also thought of what athletes would call being in the zone or flow state, where you're almost watching yourself perform perfect actions, in a sense. It makes me think of the idea of our bodies are capable of a lot of different things, and those things are in essence, neutral. They can be used for good or ill, you know, we can punch or we can pat, that kind of thing. But also this idea of dissociating, it can be in a flow state, it can be as a result of trauma and you got to get out of there in your head, otherwise you're just intense suffering. So I think there's definitely something to that. I had a bunch of other notes too, but I was working backwards in some ways. You mentioned the idea of what I call smuggled or hidden presuppositions that are in things. And one of these, as you were saying, is the idea that being born in the wrong body implies existence of a soul, that it can be mismatched. You know, it's a very strange thing for materialists to say, well, you have a soul that's in the wrong body. I don't think they would accept that, even though they're asserting that it is a hidden layer. But where I was going with that is other smuggled premises that come in. The idea that pain is abnormal, the pain is to be cured, the pain is to be avoided. No, it is in a lot of ways. Obviously, if you're bleeding and you're cut, it's painful and that's a sign something's wrong and you need to fix it. But there's other kinds of pain that are to be endured, because there's nothing you can do about it. You lean into it and say, this is going to suck for a minute and I'm going to get through it. What are you going to do? Human condition, time needs to pass, et cetera, death of a loved one, any other, any disappointment or physical recovery. sometimes there's a kernel of truth in things like, yes, very often pain is a warning sign. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's absolutely normal and it's normal to hurt. And as, as Kim, as you were saying, the idea that, you know, identity confusion in, in, you know, the abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation being completely normal. You go from, I'm just a kid to now my body is changing. I feel weird, growing pains, social circumstances, changing hormones, kick in. I have all these new feelings. A lot of kids today are being told, wow, you're broken. That's not normal in a way that needs to be fixed. Instead of this is normal, you're going to get through this. Yeah, it's going to be a struggle here. Let us culturally help you through it. Let us number one, assure you that it is normal and show you, I don't know, whatever rituals or as we way back all the way back to the beginning. what kind of spirituality or spiritual perspective or faith system you need to have to get through this successfully and adapt and become a healthy, productive adult.

Stephanie Winn: As you were speaking, Benjamin, it occurred to me when you were talking about the sort of smuggled premise that pain is abnormal or that it necessarily means something is wrong. I thought about the difference between acute and chronic pain, just like there's a difference between acute and chronic other conditions. And with acute pain, it usually is a sign that something is injured and needs attention. With chronic pain, it's often because the nervous system has adjusted to there being pain. And so it starts misfiring. I've heard really good things, by the way, about pain reprocessing therapy for anyone who has that issue. But I also saw a connection between that and what I was saying about dissociation and embodiment and the role that those played in previous rituals. Because if you think about, again, that example of the Native American sweat lodge, What's the modern corollary of this? It's doing a sauna and a cold plunge, which is full of health benefits. And when we play with the temperature regulation of our body, we create more robustness in terms of ability to tolerate sensation of temperature and sensation of pain. So the rituals of dissociation and embodiment that used to be part of certain spiritual traditions are things that actually help the nervous system reset its perceptions of pain and pleasure. If you're looking for a simple way to take better care of yourself, check out Organifi. I start every day with a glass of their original green juice powder mixed with water. It contains moringa, ashwagandha, chlorella, spirulina, matcha, wheatgrass, beets, turmeric, mint, lemon, and coconut water. 100% organic with no added sugar. It's the best tasting superfood supplement I've ever tried. It's super easy to make, and it makes me feel good. Organifi also makes several other delicious and nutritious superfood blends, such as red juice, immune support, protein powders, a golden milk mix, and even superfood hot cocoa. Check out the collection at Organifi.com slash Sumtherapist. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Sumtherapist. And use code Sumtherapist to take 20% off your order.

Kim O: I just can't help but mention Ayurvedics. I've also studied Ayurvedics for my own health as being a sensitive possible indigo child. But she's teasing Matt there. Yes, I'm teasing Matt. Yeah, my body is extremely sensitive, so I call myself a tri-superfeeler. My body's extremely sensitive, I'm emotionally sensitive, and I'm a sensation seeker. So I've got all three. when I hear people talk about or different, you know, people like, do the cold plunge, it's so healthy for you. Not for me. That is not healthy for me. And so, you know, we really have to tune into our own bodies to, to know, because I'm also with Ayurvedics, I'm a Vata, and my body is cold already. And so some of these things people don't know about, if you're a Pitta, yeah, the cold plunge might be actually great and maybe even CAFA, but not for Avada. And it's, I don't know, that's going off on a tangent, but I just felt like mentioning that just because I coach a lot of people who are sensitive and they listen to other gurus that tell them to do this or do that. And I immediately have to first align them. with what is right for them because they're actually damaging themselves more or stressing themselves out more or creating even more problems for their nervous system.

Stephanie Winn: And without needing to get into the specifics of explaining these terms from Ayurveda, I think the general theme is that we each have an individual constitution. And, you know, like my fiance can fast easily. I cannot function until I've eaten in the morning. And if I miss a meal, you do not want to be around me. It's just another one of those sort of constitutional differences. But I think the sort of broader point that these rituals might have been more baked into society at one point in time. And what what have we lost that that is leaving this void

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: I did want to hear, Matt, we were talking a little bit before, but you'd said you were told you were an indigo child. And I'm like, I'm not entirely certain I know what that is. You started to explain. I don't know if we want to get into what does that look like as a concept. And then we can talk about whether it's applicable or real in the spiritual or physical sense.

Kim O: It might be applicable because I From my sense is that there might be a lot of I think there's a lot of addicts out there that are sensitives because they don't know what to do with their sensitivity. So they're suppressing it with drug addiction and or possibly trans because they're extra sensitive is just how I'll describe it.

Stephanie Winn: Well I know Matt has a much different perspective on this and we did talk about it in our episode The Myth of the Magical Child and so I don't know if that Like, I think if you want to share, Matt, I'm happy for you to share that if you think it's relevant to this conversation.

Matt Osborne: But also, let me just tell you how I have applied it, because there is some application is that in 1987, there was a harmonic convergence. Maybe you folks will remember the harmonic convergence. And I went to the Carmonic Convergence. My mother took me because my mother was into alternative spirituality and her friends were having this event. So I went with her and one of the women who was there who claimed to be a Native American woman, I don't know. I don't know. She might have been Elizabeth Warren for all I know. Seriously, in Alabama, something like 30 percent of white residents claim to have a Native American ancestor. It's always a Cherokee princess, which is not a thing that existed. Right. So I don't know. She told me that I was an indigo child. She could see that I was an indigo child. Well, what's that? I had no idea. And at the time, it was a very low boil, new age concept, and it was It reached mainstream sometime after that, and the concept has changed a little bit over the years. One of the ways that it was changed is that it got picked up by people who were objecting to the medicalization of children in the early part of the century. You may remember that every kid who couldn't sit down in class got rid of it. So ADHD, ADD, that whole period of time that sort of feels like a preview of what's going on with gender now in some ways, the indigo child got discursively used in order to object to the medicalization of gifted children and so on. And I think that Kim is right, that actually a lot of these kids are especially sensitive and gifted kids. who end up appalled at what they're expected to be in the world as a young adult. I mean, you get a smartphone stuck in your hand and then suddenly you've got infinite access to pornography. And if you are a sensitive boy, you don't want that. That's what being a man is. Of course, you're going to reject that. So there are ways in which we talk about, for example, pornography. We don't think enough of what are the kids reacting to when they haven't got a sense of themselves yet, when they haven't even been through puberty and they're encountering it. That's shaping their little minds negatively, but it's just one of those forces that's out there. Indigo Child… I'm not an Indigo Child. For a minute, I was practicing synesthesia because I read that I was supposed to have psychic powers or see auras or something, so I started… I started like squinting and trying to, you know, see things. It was very amusing. I was a kid. I could do that as a kid. Eventually I grew up and I got over it. Per your question, you're probably wondering how I wound up on the other side of it. I was already sort of becoming a skeptic at that age. But skepticism really happened to me, as she was saying, as Stephanie was just saying, in one of those dissociative moments. I was in a mosh pit. I was rocking out to Fear Factory in a mosh pit and I had a sudden realization that this was like church, that I was having that dissociative state that you're talking about, that it's like when I am feeling religious. And I said, wow, that's what that is. And I actually, I felt, and I had been sort of mentally tortured with questions over religious identity for a while, and it all just, it fell away in an instant. It was a liberatory moment. So that's how I came to be a full-fledged skeptic. When I say that I am a skeptic, that doesn't mean that I am opposed to Kim Oh. It doesn't mean that I'm opposed to Ayurveda. I am more interested in knowing, Kim, you may tell me that you had a conversion moment. I'm just going to pull a number out of the air. You say that. Maybe in 2010, you had this experience. OK, my question as a historian is what has changed about you since that experience? How are you different and how are you the same? Those are the two historian questions. And when I read something like Nicholas Bloom's book, what I'm reading for is the primary source, history. What has changed? What has stayed the same? So there's my answer. It may not be the answer you wanted, but that's as much of an answer as I can give you.

Stephanie Winn: Well, Matt, you put some excellent questions on the table for Kim. But if I can just barge in here, I think it's interesting the meaning that you derived from your experience in the mosh pit and how having what felt sort of like a semi-religious experience in the context of punk rock, for you, that sort of refuted the ideology around the religion. But I think the experience you had in the mosh pit, sort of this experience of unity where You're moving in harmony and time with other people. It's again, one of those elements that we need as human beings that we've typically gotten from religious and spiritual rituals throughout time. Kelly McGonigal talks about this in her book, The Joy of Movement, that she loves. She's a big fan of group exercise, and she writes about the benefits of just moving in synchronicity with other people and the joy and sort of, you know, sublime transcendent state. that that can induce. And that's also for me been one of the most important parts of spirituality in my life. I think maybe it had to do with the fact that my mom, for her crisis of faith, she went from being religious to being atheist, agnostic, and Unitarian. But for her, the music that she learned to perform As part of her religious upbringing was the thing that she held on to most dearly. And for me, when I went through a phase of being really interested in Eastern spirituality in my early adulthood, it was the music and dance and ritual component of things that I held most dear. and a lot of the controlling social dynamics that I needed to reject, the mind control especially. And it was, you know, I held on to the music and dance part of Eastern spirituality for many years even after the rest of it fell away. And I think it wasn't because there was anything inherently especially spiritually powerful necessarily about those particular traditions so much as that I happened to encounter a set of spiritual traditions that happened to be rooted in Eastern spirituality that gave me access to something that is kind of eternal to the human experience. And, you know, I also could have maybe experienced that if I had gone to my ancestral homelands in Ireland and Wales and, you know, gotten to participate in maybe the pagan or Celtic or Druidic traditions of my ancestors there. I'm especially thinking of this because I just started watching Outlander. So I just saw a little example of the Druidic ritual creating a mystical time travel experience last night. And I also just want to bookmark, Matt, before I pass the mic to Kim, that you mentioned a very important point about how sensitive boys must feel when they're exposed to porn. And I definitely feel like we should circle back on that later.

Kim O: And girls, I was exposed to it and devastated by it. But of course, I came from a religious framework as well. You know, it was evil. So it was more fearful for me. That was my exposure. But then I also felt really bad that I was exposed to something that I hadn't experienced personally first, because it was just, you know, it lacks any sensuality. you know, emotional intimacy connection, which is what I was longing for. I think to these kids, religion doesn't make sense to them. And I get that because of the culture we have now. Like even my son wasn't raised with religion and he said something, you know, again, I'm talking, I was raised more Christian, but I know a lot of religions have this idea of Right and wrong and sinning and, you know, judgment. And my son who wasn't raised with any of it thinks it's ridiculous. Like, how could you even think such a ridiculous thing? And I actually agree with him now, you know, like for today's kids to grasp something like that. Unless you've experienced, you know, some trauma and you feel very alone, you know, a religious cult could grab you because that sense of community, true community, and we all know that that's a big draw in the trans community as well. When you become trans, suddenly you're special. You have all these people around you that feel the same way you do. I guess we're still tribal. I guess we still need that community feel and social media doesn't really cut it, you know, because it's not really, really not touching, not touching one another. But I wasn't quite sure if you had a specific question for me specifically, Matt.

Matt Osborne: I didn't so much have a specific question for you so much as I wanted to know. What has changed about you having this belief? What is the same as before since you have this belief? In other words, how has it changed and not changed you? Benjamin could probably also talk about how people are changed or not changed by dreams. That would be interesting.

Stephanie Winn: But before we do, there's so much that's already been brought up. that I want to make sure we circle back on.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: I do have some things to say on the idea. So before we start recording, we mentioned the idea of the substitution hypothesis as proposed by Peter Boghossian, and I did mention that if you look that up online, you'll find it's like a mathematical term or something. I like that phrasing, and that's fine if the same phrase has two different definitions in the context, but the broad strokes of that is that humans cannot avoid believing something. We need orienting principles to guide us in the world, to choose one action over another, to pursue one goal and not, you know, to decide what's right and wrong, good or bad, just in general. So no matter what, no matter what, a human being is going to believe something. And so it's a kind of wrap this all in together. I didn't want to harp on the idea of, or retread old ground with the indigo child thing, but mostly because I love And I'm fascinated by the concept of explanatory frameworks. This is one that I hadn't heard before. What is that concept? It's conceptual bubbles in a way that wrap up a certain experience and say, this is what it is, this is how it works, and even sometimes says, this is good or bad, or this is how it should play out. So I think a lot of the current, as Kim was saying, spiritual, and as Matt said before, the idea of a spiritual crisis we're going through is that, okay, my brain goes a million directions at once, but I tend to kind of try and bring it all back together. I was also mentioning the idea that I don't think there's a final apocalypse coming for the human race. Now, maybe when the sun explodes, since how many billion years, that's fine. But the idea that an apocalypse is an ending. It's an ending and then a new beginning. We go through cycles of day and night and sleep to tie that into it. Little mini apocalypse. We end one career and begin another. We end our single life and begin a new life as a married couple, say. Lots of beginnings and endings. door closes, window opens, all that good stuff. So there's, I was going somewhere with this. That's why I wrote it down. Oh, okay. So part of that cycle is kids come into the world and they view, well, literally view what's going on around them with the eyes of a child. They know nothing. They're being told what to understand in some ways or not, which is sometimes worse given no explanatory framework. And then their job in some ways, or the, the, the eternal struggle is every new generation has to look at what came before and say, this is good. I want to continue it, or this is not good. We should change it. And. That's kind of kids' jobs. And so if there's an established order, those people who will live in the world and assume the mantle of responsibility for maintaining it have to choose whether or not to do so. And that can be what we've lost, I think, in modern times, to go back to that concept, is kind of a unity of understanding, of explanatory framework. And in some ways that used to be very explicitly Christian. Not always, and it's culturally dependent. I mean, in America, we'd say explicitly or predominantly Christian. And the As that declines and the necessity of people to believe something, they start adopting other beliefs. So there's a proliferation of testing different things to see how they work. And I go back to a lot to, you know, say Jordan Peterson's work this week, we draw our own, in a way, maps of meaning. And we have to decide whether or not to resurrect our father from the underworld or leave him there because it's better he died. we had an abusive father, we don't want to carry that tradition forward. We leave that part of him dead and do not reify or what's the word I use for it, you know, endorse and carry forward that tradition. I'm sure I made a clear point in there somewhere, but I think I ran out of words.

Stephanie Winn: So I want to bring together a few concepts that have been brought up. So one is that we all need at least a few first principles to operate on, some grounding principles about the nature of life and the world, ourselves and others. And there's a natural inclination, even from a young age, to orient oneself in time and space in relation to others through some basic understanding. On the other, Kimmy brought up this idea that young people don't understand the point of religion. And I guess what this sort of circles back to for me is something I see as analogous to a conversation I've had with Matt. So I explained to Matt, who's a historian, that growing up I was not interested in history and that I've become more interested in history as a person in more the midlife phase. Because I have so much more life experience to draw from, and I see patterns unfold, and I wonder about the origins of things. History is much more relevant to me in my late 30s than it was as a teenager. I have more context for it. And I think there's something similar when it comes to a person's process of having any interest in grappling with the notions of good and evil. I think that for many young people, there is a phase, at least sort of an early phase of spirituality, in maybe late adolescence, early adulthood, where some of us are compelled to grapple with big picture existential questions and what is the nature of good and evil. As I've said, I went through a highly spiritually oriented phase between around age 18 and 24 or so, which paradoxically is also when psychosis is going to start to show up in those who are predisposed to it, for what that's worth. So I think there are people who, like me, you know, and there is a genetic vulnerability to psychosis in my family, and I felt like You know, I was kind of pushing the boundaries of sanity in my early adulthood, and I made it out okay. So I think there are some of us who are more maybe sensitive, more spiritually inclined, go through a phase of spirituality early. Some have life experiences, like Kim pointed out, trauma, that can highlight the need to understand what makes people do bad things. Are there such things as people who are evil at heart? Do we all have a mix of good and evil? How does that operate? But I also think that for a lot of people, it's life experience and sort of the gradual progression and unfolding over time that eventually sends some people to a phase of looking for deeper meaning and grappling with their understanding of the world, the universe, other people, the nature of good and evil. And I've definitely gone through phases in my own life, phases in my 30s that I could not have been even psychologically capable of grappling with in my teens or 20s. of wrapping my mind around the nature of good and evil. And I think when we're at that point as an individual in our lives, just like I've reached points where I'm interested in history and you couldn't have made me interested in history before because those questions only arise in the context of that life experience. I think there are similar things where there are certain questions that only arise in the context of life experience where you want to grapple with your maps of meaning and good and evil. And so I think this is where partly people get lost and confused where, you know, let's parents in their 40s who have a strong sense of religion or spirituality. And for them, it's very meaningful. It's very orienting to the challenges of daily life. And they're trying to share that with their 8 and 14 year old kids. And yeah, there's no connection there because the life experience hasn't happened. And if they're growing up in the religion, then there's not also a sense of what's the need for this.

Kim O: I would include in there personality. So life experience and personality. I tend to be a bit of a personality expert. So my life experience included four siblings and I was the sensitive one. So I was the one to get back at like, why did I gravitate towards some spirituality? when you're so different and you're so sensitive and you're the only one having these various experiences and then you have parents who are ill-equipped to build self-esteem in any of us children. They just weren't equipped. They were children of alcoholics and they weren't equipped to give us affection or encouragement. So I mean, I just felt as a child that I felt very alone and different and something's wrong with me because I wasn't like the rest of my siblings. And so as as you get older. you know, and the Christianity went away, spirituality, Buddhism actually opened the door for me to make sense of and actually learning about Elaine Aron's psychology work with the highly sensitive person was gigantic for me because for once I realized, oh, okay, I'm different. But that just opened the door to spiritual teachings and concepts that the reason why I do it is I'm too sensitive to not, okay? Where my boyfriend, who is a total thinking type, he's an INTJ, he's an architect, he does not need spirituality or faith at all. And he doesn't worry, he's not a worrier. It's like I see such a difference between the two of us. But me, I have to have meaning. I have to because I have so many feelings. I feel so much. I feel so intensely. And I channel people from the other side. I didn't ask to channel people from the other side. I've had mystical experiences here on Earth, literally, that we could talk about. And, you know, why do I have them? I think because I'm I'm a vessel that came in Just more connected to the other side is all I came in to be more sensitive like we're not all architects we're not all this or that. And so I believe there is a percentage of us that come in being more sensitive because. We want to evolve. We want to evolve consciously as a planet. I mean, that's a belief system that I have. And so we needed people like myself to make people more aware. I mean, if more sensitives were in charge when corporations were being developed, we never ever would have polluted things in order to make products, you know, things like that. And now we're here to kind of awaken society to let them know, you know, like there was a time that I literally my body was I was taking on the pain of Mother Earth and what we were doing to her. And then I learned how to witness that aspect of me not identify. And so that's just kind of a big thing that I help people do to witness their feelings, witness, I think a word you might use is dissociation. I don't really care for that word, but to witness all aspects of us rather than identify with those aspects of us. And then it can flow through. But I don't know if that gives some perspective as to a person who feels so deeply and intensely that I have to have spirituality in order to exist on this planet. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to. I would not want to be here.

Stephanie Winn: Whether you're a longtime or first-time listener of the podcast, Odds are you're just as concerned as I am about the gender ideology crisis that's affecting today's youth. What you may not be as aware of is another insidious practice occurring in med school classrooms, practitioners' offices, and hospitals alike. The discriminatory practices that focus on race instead of qualifications of healthcare providers. These universities, associations, and sometimes even states are breaking federal laws in their racially discriminatory practices. And one group is holding them accountable. Do no harm. DoNoHarm's membership-based organization is fighting so that patients get the best quality service and so that today's med students succeed as tomorrow's medical providers. If you're a medical provider, I encourage you to join DoNoHarm today. Learn more and sign up at donoharmmedicine.org slash sometherapist. That's donoharmmedicine.org slash sometherapist. So Kim, you were just talking about your own experience of being someone with a highly sensitive nervous system and an invalidating environment. And that sort of was the setup for you to have your own crisis of belonging and identity and spirituality and ultimately find the healing path that you found that has been healing for you and healing for other people whose lives you touch. And when you were describing your childhood environment, first of all, I related, which I'm sure is not a surprise to most people. And also what I what I connected that to is that for those in the psychology field, they've probably heard this expression that the combination of a highly sensitive nervous system and an invalidating environment for many people is the recipe for developing borderline personality disorder. And so for me, I noticed that I had those tendencies and a lot of shame around those tendencies, and I worked really hard not to become that way. And I don't know if you've grappled with that as well, Kim, but I think there's an important question about how do people with highly sensitive nervous systems and invalidating environments find the most successful and healthy paths for themselves? And I think that there's something here about this younger generation that we're worried about too, because the kids who are identifying as trans, a lot of them are the same profile, the highly sensitive nervous system and the invalidating environment. Now that doesn't mean for the parents and the detransitioners who are listening that this is necessarily you or your kid that we're describing but it is a common scenario and we do see that a lot of the kids who are being misdiagnosed with gender dysphoria and who are being treated as if their magical gender soul being trapped in the wrong body is the biggest crisis and that if we just fix that by permanently altering their physiology that all their other mental health stuff will just fall away because that's the root cause or so the gender industrial complex wants us to believe. I think these kids fit this profile, too. And a lot of them do have at least some tendencies toward borderline personality disorder. We know about cases like Prisha Mosley, who's been very open on social media and very vulnerable with people. By the way, congratulations, Prisha, on her pregnancy. We're really hoping for a healthy, happy pregnancy for mom and baby. But for Patricia, I'm sure, you know, for every one detransitioner who comes forth bravely saying, this is my story and subjecting themselves to the public eye, there are probably hundreds more people with really similar stories. So I just wonder how many of these kids that we're worried about have that combination, highly sensitive neurosystem, invalidating environment, developing borderline personality disorder. One of the features of borderline personality disorder is an unstable sense of identity. But the moment the trans thing comes into the identity picture, mental health professionals just latch onto that rather than seeing the core problem, which is the unstable sense of identity.

Matt Osborne: Well, let me just interject here that when I talk about how this acts as a faith formation, that what you're referring to right there is an example of the thing, that you have therapists, doctors, clinicians, people who would seem to be very sensible, who would seem to understand the intricacies of mental health in a very vulnerable person. But here comes along comes this panacea, this explanation, this way of sort of dismissing the entire case in one fell swoop. We're going to solve everything with gender. And they act almost salvific about it. They're saving the trans kid. So there's a way in which they have sort of fallen into thinking of themselves, almost conceiving themselves as a priesthood. These professions, I just want to point that out.

Stephanie Winn: Well, it becomes a part of other people's identity, too. So the identity crisis at the core is the people who truly have a crisis of identity, maybe borderline personality disorder, and who think that they're the opposite sex, which is about as confused as you can be about your identity. But then it ripples outward and it sucks other people in. So it confuses the therapist about what their role is, what their identity should be. And it turns all these people who should have their own unique identities based on their interests and values into having this identity around being a so-called ally. and forgetting their principles.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: I think a lot of what we're dealing with, unfortunately, you know, as much as I say, you know, everything old is new again, and there's nothing new under the sun in some ways, but we are dealing with very much corrupted institutions right now. And what I mean by that is that, you know, there's, as you said, there's the idea of these folks becoming a priesthood of a kind, and they're preaching a specific ideology. And in the sense of the gender issues, it is specifically the, you know, priesthood of queer theory, in a way, you know, that, and then that all stems back to earlier political movements and, you know, wrapped up in even, even within, say, specifically religious circles or there's a liberation theology like the the idea is to instantiate a heaven on earth through through reformation of society and in some ways they even have the concept of you know the we will craft the perfect socialist man using scientific socialism and, and, and it'll all be very, you know, it'll, it'll be the final utopian blending of science and spirituality in that, in that sense. But, you know, what I mean by corrupted institutions is that we, they are promoting a very, I wrote down the, you know, trained to in a specific explanatory system. Here's what's actually happening and here's how you go forward in light of that, those foundational presuppositions, as we were saying. And those, so we've got now a current general, and this has been going on for a long time, but at least the last 20, 30 years. So now they're producing therapists and doctors who say, yes, the answer is very specific because we operate from a specifically, you know, gender theory or queer theory framework. And what we're seeing coming down the pipeline is, you know, a whole lot of messed up kids, not just mentally, but physically. And, you know, Nikola Tesla-style man-made horrors beyond my comprehension. I don't know how we ever got to this point where you're going to tell a 13-year-old girl to remove her breasts or a 17-year-old boy that, you know, The solution to his problems is to remove his penis. I'm horrified and angry. And I would like to see at the very minimum legal consequences. I would go further personally, but that is a terms of service violation. So we're not going to say those words out loud. That's how angry I am.

Kim O: From my perspective, I believe what could help, and again from the spiritual type of perspective, is You know, if we look at our life here from a soul perspective versus the earthly perspective. So as a sensitive, I cannot look at this life from an earthly perspective because it's just, I mean, are you kidding me? It's filled with too much pain and suffering. people die, animals are killed, you know, all those things that were just a torture to me as a kid. And even as an adult, a young child getting cancer, whatever, you know, all the atrocities that happen across our globe. An earthly perspective, if you hinge your life on that and To me, it wouldn't be worth living. Now, if I hinge it on a soul perspective, where I'm actually a spirit that incarnated into this body and felt like having this experience with this body, this go around, then I'm like, Oh, it's an experience. So it kind of lightens it. And it helped me as a sensitive. I mean, that's kind of a foundational belief. If we go back to sort of having the crisis of spirituality or not having some sort of belief to hang on to, that's kind of a foundational belief that helps me be here and actually enjoy this experience for this lifetime. and to kind of throw something really crazy at everyone is I also have a sneaking suspicion that people who come in children who come in feeling like they're the opposite sex I believe they were the opposite sex in their last lifetime because you come in with with that residual spiritual residue on you And so, I mean, it's a thought. Do I think that it has to be that? No, but I definitely think that there's something to that because there's such a strong pull for some of these children, even when they're very little. But I also believe that the solution isn't, well, let's, you know, get the scalpel out and fix you. It's like, no, why don't you express yourself however you want? There's no proper way to be a boy or be a girl. That's what's crazy about this whole thing. I think you're alluding to that too, Benjamin. Like there's no proper way to be any sex.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: For sure. And I mean, I definitely lead into the Jungian perspective of we both have masculine and feminine within us. I feel like I have a strong feminine side for whatever that's worth. Again, the balance of the yin and yang, you know, and as Jung would say, you know, you have to Balance those within you and you have to confronting the shadow all that stuff together and look inside and say what parts of me exist, how do they express themselves and It's okay to just be a little more masculine a little more feminine It's my my what I think is the healthiest resolution to the trans question is stop Giving kids surgery and putting them on dangerous chemicals. I think that's that has to be first and foremost and Accept the idea that it's okay for a man to be feminine. You're still a man You're just a feminine man, and maybe you're gay and maybe you're not there's I've spoken to some folks and you know and throughout my life who they come across as like I wonder is he gay and then you meet his wife and it's like no, he's just kind of He's just kind of that way. That's just him. That's just how he rolls. And there's nothing wrong with it. And he very well could have been gay. It doesn't matter to me. It's like, it doesn't matter to me how you dress. You want to wear lipstick and makeup in a dress. God bless. I'm happy for him. A libertarian in that sense. If you get to a certain point in your life as an adult and you want to have body modification surgery, I don't recommend it. That's your choice. But for me, the biggest problem is what's what we as a society, as they say, we live in a society, what we're allowing to be done to children. I can't. get behind that, you know, and I'm definitely not of the libertarian stripe where, you know, children are just mini adults and they have all the same, right? No, they don't. Children cannot consent. They cannot consent to tattoos, surgeries, sex, none of that. We don't let them vote. Below a certain age, we don't let them drive. We mentioned this before, too, the idea of a changing perception of children over time. And I think the pendulum swung too far in the other direction. Instead, children have started to be seen and not heard, and they're just malformed adults that just need to have some sense beaten into them. That was very, very old school. We've gone way too far. Children know if they're trans when they're four years old. No, they don't. I'm not hearing that, and I'm not allowing it to happen in my presence, certainly. Anyway.

Stephanie Winn: So, Benjamin, you just sort of wittingly or unwittingly listed some of the topics of debate within the gender-critical community. And at any given point, I feel like there's all this factioning happening within the gender critics, and I try to stay out of it. I do have my personal beliefs that I am comfortable expressing. Just to rehash a couple of those, I agree with you on the first half of what you said. I disagree on the idea that it's ever a doctor's job to harm someone. you know, do what you want to yourself, sure, within the realm of what you can do without harming yourself. But if you need to go to a medical professional to have something done that's going to shorten your lifespan and increase your risk of disease, should a licensed medical professional be able to do that? I don't think so. And as far as men masquerading as women, there are social norms for a reason. And we do know that a lot of the men who enjoy doing that, there's a high comorbidity rate with narcissistic personality disorder. And, you know, if these are heterosexual males, you know, there's there's a reason why women have a spidey sense. Women get the ick we have, you know, because wolves in sheep clothing are a danger and they're more of a danger when you're a sheep than when you're a wolf. But we don't have to rehash all that. That's just like articulating some of the places where gender critics tend to disagree. You know, they should men be allowed to dress however they want, given the social implications of that. Yes or no. I mean, that's up for debate. Should doctors be free to, you know, do these things to adults under the so-called informed consent model, given the complications and the risk of regret? Again, it's one of those things that gender critics debate. We all agree on child protection, for sure. But we don't have to go over that today. Let's pivot because there are several other important things we wanted to get to. And you guys had mentioned astral projection and dreams. So I happen to have pretty crazy dreams myself. I don't know how much of it in my imagination versus the high doses of melatonin that I take for my long COVID. But Kim, you had said that you experienced astral projection in dreams and wanted to explore this with Benjamin. And then we have our skeptic, Matt, to keep us in check with regard to any ideas that get too goofy. So what were your thoughts on that, Kim?

Kim O: Well, yeah, I'll just kind of explain a little bit of what happened to me. And then I'm curious your thoughts, Benjamin and Matt and Stephanie. So it was the astral projection that I definitely remember as an adult. My life was highly stressful and, you know, I wasn't fully recovered from trauma as a child. And so I do believe there's, I don't know, I don't know why, but your spirit kind of wants to escape. Almost like, can I take a mini vacation from this earth experience?

Stephanie Winn: Didn't you just specify why? You're like, I was under a lot of stress when this happened.

Kim O: Yeah. So anyway, I wasn't asleep and my body does have a heart condition. And this was, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago now. And so I was, I don't know, I would say I was half asleep and half not, but more awake, but I felt I was laid there and I felt my spirit lift up out of my body. I don't know how else to describe that, but my spirit lifted up out of my body. And then I went on a journey and I was at my hometown that I grew up in. So it wasn't, you know, dreams kind of be erratic. This wasn't at all. So anyway, my spirit lifted up out of my body and I was back in my home that I grew up in. And I mean, it was so real. And I'm looking out the window that I stared out for hours and hours, second floor. And I'm flying, but it's not Superman flying. You just are moving and moving quite quickly. And I moved down the driveway and I met different people from childhood. And it's almost like I was on a journey of my life, but it was slightly different. And, you know, and then I would fly and things. It's kind of like in the movies where you see yourself flying, you're flying very quickly. So I think I'm flying through time and I'm flying to these locations that had a significant impact on me. I remember I went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and literally flew, you know, there's this, the antlers. I flew through the antlers and I, and I flew to different experiences. I flew to an experience where I was swimming with my family and kind of relived the sort of a traumatic experience in my childhood, but it was slightly different. I had an interchange with an ex-husband, which was fascinating. And then at one point, I remember thinking, Did I die? And what was so fascinating about this is I wasn't worried or anything like that. I had no pain. I'm like, is this death? Is this what dying is like? And I passed another woman. I can still kind of see her to this day. And we spoke telepathically to each other. And she She heard me say, did I die? And she said, no, you're like me. And we just kept going. It's not, it wasn't a problem. You know, it just kept going. And the whole experience lasted about an hour because I remember when I had laid on the couch and when I woke up and I, wrote it down immediately because I knew I was going to forget, you know, because we forget. But that was an actual projection as adult. I know as a younger kid, there were times when, again, I think because of stress, I would want to leave my body. And I do believe children leave their body when they experience traumas, abuse, because it's too much for them to take. And that's why there's lapses in memory as well, at least that's my perspective on it. So I would try to leave my body a lot as a kid. But ever since that astral projection, I was kind of like, I don't know if I want to go to the astral plane anymore. So I haven't really dabbled in that anymore. And I have conversations with my spirit, literally. I'm like, spirit, this body and mind needs you. Let's all stay together. We're committed during this lifetime. So anyway, that's kind of my astral projection. And it's very different than dreams or even the mystical experiences I've had. I do fly in my dreams, but it's different than the astral projection flying. So, there you go, Benjamin.

Stephanie Winn: And just to clarify for listeners, because you know there's going to be at least a few, you weren't on any drugs, right?

Kim O: Oh, no. I'm sensitive. Okay. I'm sensitive. I can't do caffeine. Literally. Alcohol.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. Just saying, because there's always going to be that person that's like, how much acid did she drop? You know?

Kim O: No, this girl does not need any drugs whatsoever. Okay.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: I mean, this goes back to, during a brief break a minute ago, we were talking about the idea of dreams being analyzed in light of altered states of consciousness and how it's been understood historically. My little amateur historian track down the history of understanding what dreams are. That's the books I write, edit and recreate historical dream literature. So there's a lot of different ways to understand this kind of stuff. I'll preface this by saying I am a fredulous skeptic is how I have a very high openness, but also a very high level of proof. And also I try to stay in my wheelhouse. So if someone comes to me and says, I think I had a prophetic dream, can you tell me if this dream is prophetic or not? I can't. That's not something I'm capable of doing. My method, what I do is purely psychological, but I leave. I've had friends tell me they have had prophetic dreams and I believe them. They said, I dreamt it and it happened a week later. And I'm like, I don't think you're lying to me. I don't know what to do with that. So there's, and this goes back to the broader concept we've been talking about two explanatory frameworks, which can be spiritual, religious or scientific. If we look at, but maybe broadly to at least two possibilities for the idea of an out of body experience or, or astral travel, one is it is a purely psychological phenomenon and you're not lying, but your interpretation of it is I left my body when that's what it felt like, but it wasn't. That's one way to look at it.

Kim O: I forgot to mention, this is important, I felt my body drop back in, my spirit drop back into my body. Those were very key things in this experience. Feeling my spirit lift up and out and feeling it drop in, very strong.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Yeah. And you know, and that's what I was saying is that I don't disbelieve you, but also I couldn't tell you whether what you're, whether your understanding of it is accurate or not. In terms of that, like if someone were to ask me, Ben, do you have any way of knowing for sure that she's describing a purely psychological or an actual spiritual experience? I don't, I can't tell the difference. That's outside of my ability to do so. But I think either one, is, what am I trying to say? It's harmless either way. I don't think it's doing, I don't think it's wrong or bad to have that belief, whether it's true or not. And it's, you know, so I wouldn't push back and say, you shouldn't believe that you shake my finger at it, but this goes back to, and there's a chicken and the egg situation going on here too, with dreams. It's like, animals dream. So humans in our evolution dreamed before we were able to reflect on ourselves as humans and say, Oh, I had a very interesting experience. Let me make sense of it. We were already trying to put together what the hell is happening. So dreams for a long time in pre, you know, prehistory, well, how do we know if it's prehistory, but from analyzing, say, you know, tribal or native customs and traditions and shamans and whatnot. This dog wants back in my lap. They used to consider dreams as the soul leaving the body to go and wander a field. And some people came back with experiences saying, I know what's over that Hill, even though we haven't been there yet. And damn it, if they weren't right, you know, or they predict the outcome of a battle the next day and it happens, or we do a needle. confirmation bias, who knows, but it was very wrapped up in the traditional beliefs that the soul could leave the body and that that is what dreams were. And I honestly, can I tell you that's not true? I can't, I cannot. All I can say is that that is an experience people report and if it has meaning for them and it gives them purpose or if it helps them in their life in some way, I think it's, you know, at least harmless to beneficial on that side of things. So that's a long ramble on that. I don't know if I addressed your point or not.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I haven't had any experience quite like Kim's, but I definitely have really, really vivid and extremely detailed dreams, like to the point that I keep forgetting to ask you. I mean, I sometimes wake up feeling like I just came out of like a four-hour sci-fi movie, you know, like where a whole vivid world was created in there. And I've also had encounters, what feel like encounters with other beings. You know, there's usually people in my dreams. There's almost always just people around. you know, for the longest time I was having these recurring tidal wave dreams. And there were always other people, whether they were like strangers a little further down the beach or like friends I was on an adventure with, that would vary. But there's usually people, but occasionally there's like a, I feel like a soul that I am interacting with. And I remember this one being that I felt like I communed with psychologically on, you know, I mean, you could say like on the astral plane, but it was in a dream. where and and he told me his name it was like some really weird sounding Native American name I never heard before with many syllables and I googled it and and like I came up with a country in some part of the world that that like sounded kind of like his last name but I've definitely had those encounters where you're like that was just so vivid that I don't know what happened. I've also had these kind of like visions of just patterns and incredibly intricate things that I'm seeing that I'm just like, wow, that is so beautiful or, you know. I feel like I have the full range in my dreams.

Kim O: Have you heard of Teal Swan? Yeah. She gets visions, what you were just describing, and she paints them just intricate, detailed, colorful. And I think she, she offers a message with them, but it sounded like that. Like maybe there's some message coming through for you. I wish I could paint.

Stephanie Winn: I have a really hard time taking what's in my brain and turning it into something visual. I feel like I'm good at taking what's in my brain and turning it into something verbal, but visual, no connection there.

Matt Osborne: I don't think you're crazy. I think you had an experience. Now, like Benjamin says, I can't prove or disprove, I can't falsify that experience. It's an experience beyond my ability to confirm or deny. So the historian in me immediately asks, you know, first of all, what, what was the condition that you were so upset about your life when this happened? That would, I would want to know if I was writing the history. And then the next questions are, you know, what, What have you done differently? What has been different about your life since you had that experience? And what has been the same? What has changed? What has not changed? Because that's where history is defined in that liminal space between change and unchanging. And I say this having, for example, read into the history of Islam, right? I don't have to believe in Muhammad to study the believers in Muhammad. So you're a believer, Kim, you had an experience. Tell me, upon waking, what was different? What was the same after?

Kim O: I'm a seeker of truth. So for me, I believe that my experiences reveal more of a truth that the higher realms want me to see or know so that I could step fully into being the coach that I am today that helps people evolve. So, you know, it's hard to put into words and answer your question exactly the way you frame it, because I believe all my experiences continue to move me more fully into me and understanding myself so that I could be free. So I started making positive choices. in relationships and for my life in general, because I stood firmer and firmer into aligning with who I am. And so each of these experiences did that, and I felt like they were showing me my spiritual gifts too because you know shortly after that I had some very magical experiences where I'm seeing gold flecks of light like pouring out of my hand and some psychic stuff that I don't think we want to go off on that tangent. But it helped me realize, wow, I have some things, some gifts here I can tune into. And so I would say, now when I coach people, I call it intuitive hits that I get. Now, if I'm coaching someone who's atheist, which I love, I love coaching all varieties of people, I can adapt. But if you're woo, yeah, we'll go to the woo place. But if you're not, that's fine, too. And I still get intuitive hits that guide me while I'm coaching someone as to, you know, that's important. I also feel things in my body. So I'll get very strong sensations in my body. that have me, that I've learned to interpret, that have me pause a bit more and focus more on whatever that topic was that created that sensation. I do it here because I get this deep, deep emotional sensation.

Stephanie Winn: You're pointing to sort of your upper chest for those who are just listening.

Kim O: Yeah. Or even the back of my throat. That seems to be a common one that I'll feel too. And it really guides me in coaching. But I don't tell I don't have to tell someone that that's happening. But it guides me with the proper questions to ask someone and lead them. And invariably, it always leads to this, you know, sort of aha for them. So that's how that's how I grew historically from these experiences.

Stephanie Winn: I want to relate a couple of my own experiences, one that that you just mentioned. I described earlier how I'm not a very visual person, much more auditory. That being said, when I'm working with clients, I get images in my mind. And I communicate those visions in an auditory way, like I'll see a symbol of something come up. And it's, I've just learned to trust my gut because it's almost always meaningful for the person, including times I would have never guessed, like it doesn't have that symbolism for me, but I'll get a metaphor. And then I'm just, it's uncanny how suitable it is for that person. And there's another trippy experience I have that I want to know what you guys think of this, okay? Amongst the things that happened in my rich dream world, people who are big in the public eye, like I'm not big on celebrities or anything like that, but people who are taking up a lot of space in the collective consciousness appear in my dreams. So in my dreams I've met Elon Musk, most recently, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. I've met all four of them in my dreams and all four I felt their energy. Do you know what I mean? Like, it felt like this is this person and their vibe. Like, I actually feel like I know Elon Musk really well because I've had, I would, like, three or four dreams in the last year where I was, like, closely associated with him. So I want to know, what do you guys think about that?

Kim O: Of course, I would think it's awesome and that I believe that that you're tuning into their energy. For some reason, your spirit wanted that knowledge on the earth plane.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: There's layers to the whole concept of the collective unconscious and the collective consciousness in a way, you know, there's the zeitgeist, the spirit of the ages, what we, the struggles that are common to people as they change over time. There's, there's a layer of, of what's common to the human experience itself. We all interact with the world because of how we're physically composed. We drown in water, but we need to drink it. I mean, these are, human considerations. We all have different conceptual relationship to water, say, and that can show up in dreams. But we've also got other layers that I'm not certain don't exist, going back to this kind of credulous skeptic side of things. We're also connected psychically, that we can receive communications in an astral form from another traveler, from observing or becoming aware of a situation happening around us in a dream. And that's, you know, part of the history of dreams is that certain barriers are said to lower in, in that state of consciousness that allows us to be uniquely receptive. So that's entirely possible, but it's going somewhere too. Oh, so I, again, I strapped that line between the, the scientific and the spooky woo, because I don't know how I do what I do. And you mentioned, you know, a symbol will pop into your mind and you, you don't even understand, but you share it anyway, because you've learned to trust that, okay, this, this is probably something useful. And if it isn't, I try. Whatever, you know, as I call it myself, rattling a lot of doorknobs, they all come open. I ask questions. Did you see something over there? Nothing? Moving on. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But I'm going to ask and that's how we get where we're going. Well, for me, I don't know where my exploding brain suggestions of ways to look at things come from. I consider it, you know, as much as I'm bringing the rudiments and, and experience in psychology and kind of understanding how humans behave and a lot of the theories, that's one side of things. And you got to have that too, you know, it, But the other side of it is there's some magic shit going on up in here, which is like, I don't understand it. I don't know where my intuitions come from. I cannot cause them to happen and just make myself receptive to it. If it comes, I share it, you know, and having that, the openness to it and the willingness to share the willingness to be wrong, you know, it's yeah. So there's, there's, there is a, an element of what I do with the dream interpretation that I think is quite literally magic in a, in a sense. You know, I don't just call myself a wizard. I think I actually am, which, you know, I'm psychotic. Who knows? But it's working for me. I'm having fun with it. So I'll just be the crazy man if that's if that's what it is. But it also I get results. So go ahead.

Stephanie Winn: I'm a believer that a little bit of grandiosity can be a healthy thing as long as it's balanced by other qualities. I mean, and maybe that's just me justifying my own grandiosity. But, you know, grandiosity has to reach a certain level and it has to be pervasive. toxic, not balanced by their qualities before it's a problem. And I think without a little bit of grandiosity, a little bit of a sense of magic about yourself, it's hard to create. And the world is a beautiful place because people create things and take chances that that whatever is occurring to their imagination might be worth something to someone. I just have this big letdown every time I wake up from one of these dreams where I'm really buddy-buddy with Elon Musk because I'm like, oh, I can't just actually call him. He doesn't know who I am actually. Oh, I'm tagging him on Twitter. I'm tagging him on Twitter and nothing is happening. Come on, Elon. We had a three-hour discussion last night.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: What's, what's the old joke? I'm not a narcissist. I'm really that good. I love it. Matt, I don't know if you had some comments. So you're observing me and Kim talking about the, the, the supernatural side of things and the nature of intuition and, and the magic of, of following things or trusting things you don't understand. I don't know if there's something in there that, uh,

Matt Osborne: Actually, you wanted to mediate in terms of that. Actually, let me just say that history is made by the intersections of people right in motion. And one of the ways that we're always in motion, Tara Isabella Burton writes that we are all in a pilgrimage that we cannot get out of. To your point earlier, we are all in this pilgrimage. Awake and asleep. We're on this pilgrimage. So it doesn't shock me in the least that people have intensely spiritual dreams. I have had my own vivid dreams, right?

Stephanie Winn: Can we hear about them, Matt?

Matt Osborne: Well, they're not so entertaining anymore since I've been on CPAP therapy. But I've had vivid dreams, especially as a youth. you know, that would take me to completely different worlds sometimes. And like you're saying, sometimes a dream would seem to last all night, which I'm told by dream science, from what I've read, that this is an illusion of the mind that we don't actually have good timekeeping while we're in phase four of sleep. I don't know.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Um, It's kind of a time dilation and contraction thing. Right. When we're dreaming that we, you know, it could feel like it lasted for centuries. We were trapped in the bottom.

Stephanie Winn: And it was literally a five minute dream. Doesn't it make it that much trippier? The fact that we know that we're only actually dreaming for a few minutes, that so much is happening. It's like that movie. What's that movie about the dreams? Guys, help me out here. Is it Inception? Yeah. Like the time dilation happens at every level in Inception.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Each layer they went down, it gets more and more protracted, I guess, or dilated.

Stephanie Winn: Oh, did you guys ever see Waking Life? Kim, have you seen Waking Life? Oh, Kim, when you were talking about your astral projection experience, it reminded me of Waking Life. I won't spoil it for you because I think you should watch it, even though it's an older film, but definitely worth seeing. Matt, Benjamin, have you guys seen that one?

Matt Osborne: No, I have not.

Stephanie Winn: Okay, so I'll just say it's it's a beautiful film. If you can handle the animation style, it's like animation style that everything's wavy because it's meant to make you feel like you're in this kind of dreamlike state. And it's sort of bridges that realm between dreaming in the astral plane and what happens when we die and all of that kind of stuff.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Very cool. You know, speaking of that, one of my, one of my favorite movies from way back when, and I, there's some movies I only watched once because it was way too intense. I don't watch it more than once. What Dreams May Come, the Robin Williams movie where each, you know, and that's the other thing too, is like Kim, you're talking about the idea of you lean more into the, into the spiritual side of things. And I do too. I mean, I leave an open mind on that in terms of what I'm able to deliver. as a certainty to others. I do dream interpretation in a specific way, but I personal belief, I think we are what is Yoda said, you know, luminous beings, we are not this crude matter or crude flesh. I think we are something else having an experience in the material world. I think whatever, I think there is likely something after death, what it is, I don't know. I've gone, I've gone more from a atheist to an agnostic now to kind of a Deist in a way. I mean, there's just more my eyes get open to how much magic there is in the world I'm like, this is some this spooky wall around us and I don't know what to what to make of it and I you know, but I think it's very likely that we do have a soul that is within the body, or at least the way I put it is that whatever we really are intersects with the material plane at a point, and that point is us. And the material plane is bigger than us, and the soul is bigger than that point of intersection. And in that sense, What is it? This actually way circles back to the idea of materialist versus spiritualist. I mean, if you're a materialist and you think this life, this experience is all we have, you're going to be desperate to make it a utopia. And if you think there's something more you're going to accept or more likely to accept, it's all. broken, flawed place. It can never be made perfect, certainly not by human hands as we did not create it to begin with, whatever did. So there's a different approach from those foundational kind of presuppositions. The world broken can't be fixed or it's only broken because humans are broken. If we fix that, we can fix everything else.

Stephanie Winn: I love sleep. Sound sleep is a crucial foundation of good mental and physical health, from mood and concentration to metabolism and cellular repair. And I sleep very well thanks to my Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover. My side of the bed is programmed to be warm when I get in and cool down to a neutral temperature in the middle of the night so I don't wake up overheated like I used to. How would you customize your bed temperature? Visit 8sleep.com and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take up to $200 off your purchase. Even if they're already running another sale, this code will get you an additional $50 off. 8sleep currently ships not only within the USA, but also to Canada, the UK, select countries in the European Union, and Australia. Thanks for considering purchases that support the show. I just thought of something I want to know your thoughts on guys so you know how in dreams you can't ever look at a screen and see a solid number like if you look at a clock it'll be moving around or if you try to read something the text is like changing. I saw someone point out recently that we've had phones as a big part of our daily life for you know a decade plus now. Why do phones never appear in our dreams? And I don't know if any of you have had the experience of phones, computers, smartwatches, anything like that appearing in your dreams, but I don't think I have. I don't think any of those have appeared in my dreams, even though they're such a big part of my daily life. And so I think there's it'd be interesting to speculate why. And then also something I don't know about, but I bet is a thing, is how does the amount of screen exposure that we're getting affect our ability to dream? And for young people, I mean, we know, for example, that dreams tend to dissipate pretty closely upon awakening. That's why some people think they don't dream. It's not that they don't dream, it's that they don't remember them the moment they wake up. For me, I usually wake up with some impression of my dreams. But if you focus on the dream after waking up, if you write it down or talk about it, you're more likely to remember it. If you reach for your phone and stare at a screen, you're not. So we already know that young people who are reaching for a screen first thing in the morning rather than reaching for like a journal are already decreasing their chances of remembering their dreams. I wonder what the blue light exposure before bed and the delayed sleep weight cycles and things like that of excessive screen use are doing to young people's abilities to dream. And if people If there is an impact there, then I wonder if that's affecting their ability to integrate psychological experiences, which is an important part of becoming resilient, right, is the ability to integrate psychological experiences. We know that's one of the functions of dreams. And the ability to have some somewhat of an innate sense of spirituality, because I think anyone who experiences and remembers dreams no matter where you are spiritually, how you identify, there's like a spiritual dimension to the experience of having a dream that feels inherently valid, even if you're just conceptualizing it as neurons firing in your brain and nothing more. There's like a fulfillment that comes out of it, just like there's fulfillment that comes out of watching a fantasy movie or, you know, reading a fiction novel of something that could never happen. So this capacity of the imagination, I feel like is really limited. And I'll draw a bridge between that and an observation that, you know, even with my stepkids just noticing how their attitude sometimes is like, what are we supposed to do? I'm bored. Can I have screen time? You know, it's this, you know, the fact that screens are available at all I think sometimes gets in the way of just being here and your mind wandering and healthy boredom that allows you to come up with an idea that you wouldn't have come up with if you hadn't just sat out the window or sat and stared out the window for the last five minutes. You know what I mean? So as we're sort of piecing together, what is the spiritual dimension of the crisis that young people are in? I actually wonder if an altered dream pattern might be part of it.

Matt Osborne: And furthermore, what anxieties are they taking from the waking life with the screen added to it, right, into the dream world? I'm wondering, because even if you're not dreaming about your phone, the anxieties and pressures and things that you have in your waking life will come with you into your sleep. We all have experienced that. And I'm wondering just how well do the kids dream now? All of a sudden, you've got me thinking.

Stephanie Winn: I will say for what it's worth, in terms of good news, that my nine-year-old stepson plans his dreams. He rehearses what he will do in his dreams with his stuffed animal. He and his little panda bear will lay there in bed having a little mental dialogue about what they're going to do tonight. And it's usually involves like some kind of like war fighting battle. He's like into that kind of stuff. And then they do it. And so he's he's a little nine year old lucid dreamer for what that's worth. Even though I just said that, you know, he and his brother are like, I'm bored. Can I have screen time? What am I supposed to be doing right now? Like, even though there's that there's also like Oh, wow. You know, this kid's on track. And I think it actually makes him a better athlete because he is an athletic kid. And the fact that he's rehearsing these physical maneuvers in his head at night can only strengthen those neural pathways.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: As far as I understand, there does seem to be some constitutional difference between individuals who can or cannot lose a dream. or who can or cannot dream program. And yeah, Kim, I think you were talking about that, like the, what is, was it the Ayurvedic that speaks to the body's constitution? Does that explanatory system have something to say about why we have different kinds of dreams? I'm like, that's a book I need to write at some point.

Kim O: I'm not aware of streaming connected to Ayurvedics, but I was going to mention that I've looked at myself and I felt my spirit telling me to really don't turn off the phone a lot. It's hard when you want to have somewhat of a YouTube presence and do cool interviews and listen to cool interviews. But I felt my spirit say, it's just like this constant receiving of information, receiving of this opinion, that opinion. And I almost want to say lazy brain, it creates lazy brain, lazy imagination, and it doesn't allow you to just let your mind, I would say, connect with your spirit, connect with divinity, connect with magic, connect with imagination, it robs you of that. And I know that personally, that that's happened to me and I miss it. So I'm being more intentional about turning it off. And it's hard because I like to be intellectually stimulated. And I feel like my spirit's been telling me, I have the intellectual stimulation for you. So there's, I have my own war of turn it off. Don't listen right now. I know that podcast sounds amazing, but just take a break. And, you know, self-control, ego does not like self-control. I have this whole teaching I do on ego and think about children, think about teenagers. There is lack of self-control and then you give them the screen. You know, I'm having trouble with self-control and my own screen. I think it's just a disaster. And it is affecting, I think, their ability to probably dream, and it's affecting their, they have more anxiety. It's too much information.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Psychology knows you can't- Unfettered access to the internet, too. Yeah. Some total of human knowledge at their fingertips, and good and bad.

Stephanie Winn: It's so important to just let your mind wander again, just bringing it back to the kids without giving away too much about them. The 11-year-old asked me to help him write a song, and I thought that would mean that we were sitting at the piano just experimenting and exploring. And it turned out what that meant was sitting at the computer typing into a program that allowed you to write, you know, musical notation. And he actually wanted that to be the creative process, like entering some of the musical notation there and then letting the computer play it. And I really had to talk him down. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Put the screen away. We're just going to sit at the piano and explore. And he's like, well, how am I going to remember if I come up with something I like? I'm like. I'll help you remember it. We don't need to worry about that. But it's like an ongoing topic of conversation in our house that when you're in a creative process, whether you're writing a poem or a song or whatever it is, you need that blank page, you need that instrument. And we're in the habit when we're looking at a screen of letting that screen tell us what to think. So it just changes what's going on. in our brains. And if this is what's happening in a household and in a family system that generally values creating a really enriched environment for kids, getting them outside and stuff like that, you know, for more working class families who are more burnt out or don't have those resources or don't have those intentions, I imagine that it's a lot tougher of an environment for those kids to grow up in psychologically. So in our last few minutes together, I want to kind of go around and give everyone a chance to share their last few burning thoughts and just get them out of your system. And then we'll go around and do the whole where can people find you thing. So last burning thoughts, Benjamin.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: It's been a great experience to connect with some minds that are stimulating intellectually and unique personalities, but also folks who are also connected to a desire to improve the world by understanding what's happening around them right now, the times we're in, the challenges we're facing. You care, you know, you got to acknowledge there's a problem in order to do something about it. So, and I spent a lot of time alone and that's how I prefer it. But it's also nice occasionally to actually have interactions with people that are like, you know, okay, I'm not alone in terms of wishing well for the world and trying to make that happen in my own way. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie Winn: Any last burning thoughts, Kim?

Kim O: Yes. I would love to share one of my favorite quotes by Lao Tzu. Life has 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. And just ponder that, adults. And teach it to your children. Life is filled with both joy and sorrow. And we can hold both. We are resilient within. We can handle both. So you might be in a joy right now. Great. Enjoy it. You might be in a sorrow. It's not going to last. That is life.

Stephanie Winn: And so… Thanks, Kim. Matt, burning thoughts?

Matt Osborne: This has been a fun time, actually. I wasn't sure how it was going to be, and I've enjoyed myself.

Stephanie Winn: Sorry we didn't get into UFOs.

Matt Osborne: Oh, don't worry about it. Maybe next time we can talk about flying saucers. But I am reminded, actually, Kim, And I would like to echo you by remembering the words of Rumi, Jalaluddin Rumi, who wrote. I saw death drinking from a cup of sorrows. I cried out. It tastes sweet, does it not? So death or you'll ruin my business. No one would pay for sorrow if they knew it was just love's confusing joy. So thanks a lot. This has been great.

Stephanie Winn: I feel like I need to like read that one a few times. That's deep.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: That's a meditation.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. All right. Now we'll do the where can people find you and plug whatever you want to plug, starting with Benjamin.

Benjamin the Dream Wizard: Well, yeah. Once again, thanks for having me. I am Benjamin the Dream Wizard. And of course, you can find my books and audio versions of the Dream Interpretation podcast I do at BenjaminTheDreamWizard.com, also on YouTube at Benjamin The Dream Wizard. Latest book is The Fabric of Dreams. These are historical reproductions to preserve them in a modern form. But a lot of, oh, actually, I got a shout out from Stix Hexenhammer recently, who received a literary haul and said he would vouch for my editorial skills. And I had a verklempt moment of feeling very, very honored by that. So that's probably enough shilling out of me. Thank you.

Kim O: Well, I call myself a relational soul coach. So I do coaching. Um, but I also write a lot. And so if you go to my link tree, you can see all the different writings. I do workbooks to aid in your transformation and in your healing. And, um, you can find pretty much everything at my link tree. which is HeartWorkU. That's heart work and the letter U. That's also my YouTube channel. And right now I typically just do one minute shorts that are power packed. So one minute short a day, you will be inspired and encouraged and empowered. Thanks, Ken and Matt.

Stephanie Winn: Where can people find you?

Matt Osborne: Well, you can find me writing about gender issues at thedistancemag.com. And you can find me writing about conflict history and military history at polemology.net. And you can find me writing about flying saucers and everything else at osborneinc.com.

Stephanie Winn: So you do have three blogs. I'm not losing my mind.

Matt Osborne: I ended up with three different substacks. That's just how life worked out. I didn't mean for it to end up that way.

Stephanie Winn: Well, thank you all for all that you do and for joining me today. It's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit sometherapist.com or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at sometherapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to my producers, Eric and Amber Beals at Different Mix, and to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.