Building Self-Awareness & Empathy Through Dreams: A Chat with/Patrick Laine, Founder of the Dreamigos app.

[00:00:02] Welcome to Dose of Depth Podcast. I'm your host, Deborah Lukovich, and I invite you to explore what's beneath the surface of all sorts of things, including your own life. Through conversation, stories, and education, you'll see what you couldn't see before, find new meaning in old events, and even discover a new sense of purpose out there in the world. Let's get started.

[00:00:29] Hey there, it's Dr. Dub. In this episode of Dose of Depth, I'm excited to chat with Patrick Laine, who describes himself as a scientist and serial entrepreneur. Patrick has a PhD in atmospheric chemistry, and he's the founder of Dremigos, a novel platform for accessing your inner world by exploring dreams.

[00:00:51] Dremigos is a dedicated dream mobile app for dream recording, sharing, interpretation, dream therapy, yoga, and more. All dreams are welcome, whether by night, day, or psychedelic. Before I continue, could you please like this episode, make sure you're subscribed, and later rate it, or leave a comment, or even share it. All that helps get it to more people who could benefit by these conversations.

[00:01:16] I'll also include a link where you can support me as a creator with a $3 to $5 monthly membership. Okay, back to this chat. If you've been following me for a while, you know that the language of your unconscious is the image. And when we're open, the images we need are right in front of us. Sometimes in a spontaneous fantasy, and other times on a movie screen, or even as song lyrics. We can explore them all the same way we do nighttime dreams.

[00:01:46] Patrick says he ended up falling in love with dreams in 2022 when he stepped onto a yoga mat for the first time ever. He was overwhelmed with the realization that the yoga mat was the magic carpet from his childhood recurring dream. I can't wait to dig into that. Patrick's experience inspired Dremigos, the app he founded to expand consciousness as we know it. Of course, I connected with Patrick right away.

[00:02:12] I love that he mentioned C.G. Young on the Dremigos website, reminding us that we are privileged to be on a journey becoming who we truly are. How might your life be different if you believed it was a privilege to become more of you? That's a good journaling question, I think. But how do we become more of who we really are? Even science affirms that most of what we know about ourselves is only the tip of the iceberg, which is a great image itself.

[00:02:41] I'm sure you've seen it. The part of the iceberg we see on top of the water is only 10% of the whole iceberg. The first time I saw that image, it really left an impression on me. That's what we're like. Our patterns of thinking, reacting, behaving, who we're attracted to, our personality quirks, what careers we choose. All these aspects of ourselves are influenced by mysterious unconscious forces. You literally don't know 80% of who you are.

[00:03:09] Every decision you make, you only know about 20% of the real reason. I remember that moment when I felt that. It terrified me. I felt like I could never trust myself again. My clients are used to me saying, whatever's going on, tell yourself you only know about 20% of the story. Especially where there's some emotion happening. There's always something deeper going on that has nothing to do with what's right in front of you. So how do we come to know more of who we are?

[00:03:38] By learning the language of your unconscious, of course. Every moment of every day, your unconscious is trying to get your attention and nudge you to shine a light on something new about yourself. It might be an option you don't see right now. A warning about your health. A nudge toward a romantic encounter that you judge as wrong. It might be a welling up of a desire to walk out of your job. Or a memory about what it feels like to be free and liberated.

[00:04:04] Sure, our unconscious contains some negative aspects like trauma and other unpleasant experiences. Or fear of being authentic. But what's also in your unconscious is your potential. Which is related to the negative stuff. During what C.G. Jung called the individuation journey. Exploring your personal unconscious and wounds is just the beginning.

[00:04:25] At some point, once you've resolved some of those personal issues, the collective unconscious might come sweep you up in an exciting Indiana Jones adventure that changes your perspective about the meaning of your life. That happened to me. Eventually, a new sense of purpose emerges and you begin co-creating with the universe. Or God or the quantum realm, you could call it. You create something that you can't create alone. Something that benefits more than just you.

[00:04:55] This is what Patrick means on his website when he speaks of his personal mission being to increase consciousness collectively. One dreamer at a time. I love it. And I'm excited to be one of the dream experts on the Dreamigos app. So, you could even feel free to pause right now to download it from Google Play or the Apple App Store. Let's get started. So, hey Patrick. Welcome. How is your day going?

[00:05:21] You look like you're in a tropical adventure on vacation. This is my happy place. I come out to the yard every day and I go in the pool. I usually once a day. And yeah, this is my happy place. There's nothing I like more than being out here with my fruit trees. I got four banana trees over there. I could give you a tour of the yard at some point, maybe at the end.

[00:05:49] But a mango tree, a star fruit tree, banana trees, longan, avocado, canistel, which is my favorite, tamarind, and sapote. Oh, my God. That's so cool. Because you're, are you in Miami area, right? Okay. That's what I thought. Well, that's excellent job on self-care.

[00:06:10] I've read something recently that said it was like, you know, treat your physical health and your mental health as though it were a board meeting, right? And so don't allow yourself to skip out on those. And it's, you know, and my workouts over the years have certainly changed. I'm 47 now. My son's 16 and he's got, he does all the heavy lifting and all the stuff I used to do.

[00:06:38] But, but, but yeah, I try to give myself an hour a day to go outside and get sun kissed and get, you know, walk around barefoot in the grass and water my trees. And it's, it's soothing. One of my favorite spiritual teachers, Michael Bernard Beckwith uses the example of you probably wouldn't go the day without brushing your teeth.

[00:07:03] So you should look at your meditative practice, your journaling, your spiritual practice in the same way. So I love that. That's great. I, it is, does become a challenge when you have to travel there, but that's probably a whole different topic. Yeah. So there's a lot going on in your life. You sound like you're good at juggling. So what's it like launching an app in your spare time? Actually building it is not the hard part, right?

[00:07:32] Actually growing it and actually demonstrating and sort of presenting the value and making the value clear to people is the, is the challenge. Growing it. I mean, you know, you just, you get a good developer, which is not always easy, but you get a good developer and you, have a good vision for what you want. And vision is certainly, I'm a visionary.

[00:07:55] So that part is comes naturally to me, but growing it and finding the right people and building theme is, is certainly much easier said than done.

[00:08:34] Yeah. And then there's yoga in there. And then there's yoga in there too. So I, I have lots of questions, but tell us the story. Yeah. So I was, it all started and I didn't know anything other than it was just a recurring dream. I slept in a bunk bed right next to a window and I was about, this would have been in 1988 or so.

[00:08:57] So I would have been about 10 and, and it was, I would just get on this magic carpet. And this was before Aladdin. I think Aladdin came out in the nineties, but, and I would just fly away to this place. I never could describe. I still can't describe it today, to be honest with you. All the, all the, all I can tell you is there was boulders and I didn't even know what a boulder was. I grew up in New Orleans, South Louisiana. I had no idea what a boulder was.

[00:09:28] And I don't even know if there are boulders. I just, that's the way I described them, quite frankly. I mean, they, they, they were gigantic rocks, but they were perfect rocks. They weren't, they weren't, I don't know. It was nature, but they weren't, they weren't very heterogeneous rocks, which most rocks are, are, you know, very, all kinds of different shapes. These were perfect, pristine rocks that were bigger than your house, bigger than a mansion. And I was this big.

[00:09:58] I was, I was just a, a speck in the whole place. And it has always been a vision of, uh, I can clearly see it if I close my eyes, but describing it is quite challenging. All I can say is that it's full of nature. And I didn't recognize, we talked about at the beginning of this, right? We talked about how I do give myself that time in nature and I love nature and I love, you know, my fruit trees and everything.

[00:10:27] I had no idea that that was a part of me, uh, when I was 10 years old. I didn't, quite frankly, it wasn't until I didn't make the connection until 2022, which was 34 years later. So I lived for 34 years, never telling anyone about that dream, never thinking really about that dream other than in my own kind of in the back of my own head of recognizing something I couldn't describe.

[00:10:57] Uh, and so when I got on a yoga mat in 2022, I was overwhelmed with the realization that that yoga mat was the magic carpet from 1988. And that blew my mind because how in the world could something 34 years, not only 34 years apart, that's one thing, but 34 years apart.

[00:11:21] But then from a dream and to real life, it seems so strange that that could be connected. But I was overwhelmed with that realization. And, and when that happened, I started really taking up an interest in dreams. You see, I grew up, uh, being conditioned, if you will, to stay away from the arts and the soft sciences, if you will.

[00:11:50] I know you're a psychologist, right? I was, I never would have been encouraged to be a psychologist. And quite frankly, I wasn't, I wasn't, uh, courageous enough at that time in my life to follow my intuition to be who I wanted to be or who I thought I wanted to be. And so I followed the path that was laid out for me, which was the path that my parents and teachers laid out and told me, you're good at math and science.

[00:12:15] You're not good at, you're not so good at music and art and history and psychology and those kinds of things. Uh, but, but I quickly realized because I had a music teacher in fourth grade who would slap me with a yardstick and spray me with a water bottle, uh, because I couldn't do the do re mi so far the range. I couldn't, she thought I was, she honestly thought that I was mocking the class and it was a Catholic school. She was a nun.

[00:12:45] And, and I mean, it, it just, it was just the way they, they taught back then. She gave me detention every day. And when she gave me detention, she, I would go into the corner of her office. It was an L shaped office. I can remember it vividly. And I would sit at the piano, but I would not play the piano. I would do my multiplication table and I became really good at math. And, and so my math teacher loved me. My music teacher hated me. That was the beginning in fourth grade of, of you're going to do math and you're going to do science.

[00:13:14] And the rest is kind of, not only are you not going to do it. It's, I didn't even respect it. I didn't, uh, I, I at least have an appreciation for it now as an adult. Uh, but as a kid, I, I didn't even, and as a young person, I didn't have, I didn't even respect the arts. Oh my gosh. There's so much. I have a similar like Catholic school sort of experience.

[00:13:40] Well, first of all, when you started, yes, I'm a depth psychologist now, but my first career was a financial advisor. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh yes. The first part of my life was very masculine oriented, meaning very linear, very achievement oriented. I did have a drive towards independence, wanted to escape my childhood. And that sort of manifested as I connected like money with independence.

[00:14:05] And then my entrepreneurial sort of spirit got in there and it was hard for me to stay interested. I did stick it out in financial planning and became a CFP for, and was in it for eight years, but I was always struggling to make it meaningful. You know, your story also reminds me of, um, CG young. If you haven't read his memories, dreams, reflection, you very much will, you very much will connect with his story.

[00:14:31] So it's his only like autobiography, although it was written by his, his assistant, his lifetime assistant. But, um, he, he talks about as a child identifying personality, number one and number two is what he called it. So he had like this, um, this dual, I think like you, he was encouraged to go into the hard sciences.

[00:14:57] And, but at the same time, he had this connection to nature and he tell, it shares a lot of stories about what he would do in nature, building things with rocks and things like that. And so he first went to, uh, the hard sciences because that's where he received encouragement like you. But at the same time, he was always pulled back. He actually, his research project for his dissertation had to do with, uh, his cousin who was a medium.

[00:15:24] So back in the days when this, at this time, when he was, you know, over a hundred years ago, uh, spiritualism was very popular and seances and things like that. So he had like this, you know, he, I mean, as a child, he just like had these, he was already aware. And Carl Young, of course, is famous for, you know, one of the things is his theory of the transcendent third.

[00:15:49] So that how we're always like trying to manage the tension or hold the tension between two different things. So even as a child, like he was aware of that where you really didn't have an awareness of it, but it's funny, your unconscious, like tucked it, tucked it aside. And there's great meaning in the path that you took, just like there's great meaning in becoming a financial advisor. It's actually how I learned how to take a business idea and create a practice out of it. Or, right. So, so I love your story. It's just very young Ian.

[00:16:18] I think you should, I think you should read that book. Um, so, okay. So then yoga, yoga mat, but what took you to yoga? So there's enough, like I have my own story and I actually had an interview with a yoga teacher about this is that I like, what makes you one day just find yoga? It's so mysterious, right? So how did that happen for you? That's a good question.

[00:16:44] Uh, cause all my life, much like I've been, you know, I told you I have been, uh, had a conception in my head of the soft sciences, right? Well, the same thing about yoga. You know, I always thought yoga was for girls or women, you know, that definitely not for, not for guys. So, uh, and I grew up, I have two brothers, you know, sports family. Uh, yeah, I don't think either one of my brothers, even to this day, even though they're younger than me, I don't believe they've ever tried yoga.

[00:17:14] Uh, so, so what brought me to it was earlier in 2022, uh, I got divorced after being married for 15 years. And at that point, uh, that was earlier in 22. And so the yoga trial was towards the end of 22.

[00:17:35] So it was really just about me, uh, being born again and me searching for myself and me trying to find, uh, being open at that point in my life. I was open to, cause for so many years I wasn't open. Right. Uh, so it was really just about being open. And, and I had heard about this place here in Miami and, and, uh, called Casa Vinyasa, but it was really.

[00:18:05] Uh, just to try it. And I wasn't even my yoga mat. I, I borrowed one from the place and showed up. I had no idea what I was doing or what I thought that somebody as inflexible as me could not possibly do yoga. But it was really just, uh, just a search for myself. Cause, uh, that was really, you know, after you go through divorce, you're kind of looking for who you are, not only what you're going to do, but, uh, searching for trying to find yourself again. Right.

[00:18:35] Because through, through the process of being in a relationship that doesn't serve you, you end up losing yourself or at least a part of yourself. At least that's my story. I don't know. That's, uh, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely hard. And it, and it, uh, you know, one thing that like with cold plunging and, and, you know, other things like not that I'm comparing cold plunging to divorce, but, but, you know, cold plunging is hard and intimidating and scary. Right.

[00:19:02] But the more we do scary things, uh, the more comfortable we get to, uh, approach more scary things and more hard things, whether it's starting a business or whether it's, it's, uh, you know, having difficult conversations or whatever the, whatever the thing is in life. Uh, doing hard things gives us the courage and the confidence to be able to do the next hard thing. So, uh, and, and what's hard for one person isn't for another.

[00:19:31] I had one of my clients is, I don't know, part of a group and they, they are supposed to take a question and just ask people in their network, the question. And the question was, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? And I was like, this is going to sound weird, but it really is getting divorced. I've started two businesses. I started a nonprofit. I used to be a fundraiser. So I had to ask people for money. Like I have done all these, what other people would say is like, wow, that's really brave.

[00:19:58] And I'm like, that was nothing compared to choosing myself and ending a relationship. So you're right. And I had to, when it all fell apart and then I started dating again, I had to form a relationship with feeling awkward. It's really funny. Like my memoir is almost done. And I have so many funny stories where I'm like, the hardest thing for me was like, uh, like taking a chance of feeling foolish.

[00:20:22] Cause as like a perfectionist, a recovery control freak, I'm like, I have to be in charge of my persona. So all of, all that fell apart. So still related. Um, you know, I wonder if you've thought about, because in depth psychology, we're addicted with like, what's, what's going on beneath the surface? Like you have an idea of why you're doing this dream app for, for one. So you're like, okay, this is what I want to do.

[00:20:51] But really in reality, you only know about 20% of the story. So I just wonder if you've thought yet about like, all right. I mean, I have ideas on what would make the successful and where I want it to lead. But what if it's just like a little speck on your path that just all of a sudden you get, it takes you to this other place where then you like go someplace else. I don't know if you've thought about that. Of course.

[00:21:15] I mean, you know, so I always say that, that, you know, 90% of, of our work on a daily basis is, uh, you know, is from our conscious. Right. And so, or from our subconscious and we don't, we don't know what that is. Right. And we don't know why we view someone the way we view them when we see them for the first time and we judge them or we, uh, and I don't mean judge in a negative way, but you know, we have perceptions.

[00:21:45] Right. We have thoughts. Right. Within the first two, three seconds, we've made up our mind and kind of, we've developed an opinion on somebody. Right. And that's a person, a place or a thing. And it has to do with our associations. And, and my favorite book in the whole world is called the five levels of attachment by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. It's an amazing read, super easy read. You can finish it in one day on audible, uh, light read, really easy to read.

[00:22:10] And the question is ultimately, are you controlling your knowledge or is your knowledge controlling you? And that ultimately, uh, is the question. I think so many of us and me for so long, I walked around with my knowledge controlling me.

[00:22:27] Uh, you know, you, you, whether it's a relationship or whether it's, whether it's any association you have in life, when you're going into a certain place or a certain building, you have associations with that place or building or places like that. So, uh, and those are attachments. And so then the question is, are you going to allow your preconceived notions of that person, place, or thing to dictate the outcome and impact?

[00:22:54] And, you know, and so, uh, so to your, to your question though, it really, uh, the, the whole purpose is to anyone I think would, okay, if we, if we know that whether it's 80% or 90% of our decisions that we make on a daily basis come from the foundation of our subconscious.

[00:23:12] And we have no idea where that, what that is made up of, then it would seem beneficial and certainly interesting to, to at least scrape off a percent or two of that 80 or 90% to get to know yourself even more and become more aware of, of yourself, of that subconscious, right? However much that is it, whether it's 1% or 3% or 10, it doesn't matter. Uh, and so how do you do that?

[00:23:40] And, and one of the most straightforward ways to do that is through your dream. And, you know, there's a lot of different theories out there on why we dream and, and what dreams mean and, you know, all those things. But ultimately at the end of the day, one thing that we cannot deny is that dreams are not random. And how can we not deny that? Well, because, because if dreams were random, how would you explain recurring dreams? And I myself had this recurring dream that I told you with the magic carpet.

[00:24:08] Like it can't be random. If they were random, then a recurring dream would seem extremely unlikely. So, so, uh, you know, and, and just a couple of days ago, I actually had the, so my best friend passed away four years ago and I never had a dream with him in it at all ever, uh, until two days ago.

[00:24:30] And, and I will tell you when I woke up after that dream, it was, I felt like a million pounds had been lifted off my shoulders for no, for no reason. The dream wasn't even, you know, we didn't, I posted it in the, in the app, but you know, we didn't talk about in the dream. Well, that's your, that's your dream. I've responded to. I didn't even know that was, oh, I didn't, I didn't see your response yet. I would look at that. Yeah.

[00:25:00] But, but yeah, I didn't, I never, I never, we didn't have any conversations in the dream. There was no depth at all. It was just, we were just there and we were just like, I don't know. I, it's hard to describe, but, but that morning when I woke up, it was just complete. Nothing else matters. Nothing matters. Like I was completely free from like, you know, we go through life and we work. And you mentioned the beginning, you asked about what is it like building out? I told you it was hard.

[00:25:29] And, and, you know, we work, we have day jobs, we have families, we have kids, we have, we have, sometimes we have more than one job, right? We have a job as a scientist and a job as a dreamer, right? And it's, it's hard. There's a lot of stress associated with that. A lot of external stress. And if we allow ourselves to get sucked into that, then it can have a serious impact on how we show up every day for the people that matter. Right. And, and, and, and the people that matter, of course, yes, it's our kids and our families. Sure. But it's also ourselves.

[00:25:58] Like, you know, we have to, like you said, like we alluded to at the beginning. I mean, we have to give ourselves that time, whether that means, you know, taking time to ourselves to go meditate or go get a manicure or pedicure or go work out. It doesn't matter. Right. So it's at the end of the day, what I realized was all my greatest wish is that I am able to follow my intuition because for so many years I didn't.

[00:26:28] And I didn't even recognize my intuition, what it was, you recognize how to see it, how to hear it, how to pay attention to it. And so dreams are an amazing pathway towards listening to our intuition.

[00:26:41] And when I can record a dream each night and when I can think about it and when I can get reflection from, from others, whether they're experts or not, when I can get reflection from others to see what their perspectives are, that allows me to see it through another lens. And there's no other, there's no other way to do that. Yeah, I could go to therapy. I could go to talk therapy.

[00:27:07] I could go spend hours and hours and hours at talk therapy, give them all the background. But you're still in the head when you're doing that. Yeah, it's still, exactly. So when you go to sleep and you dream, you let go completely. Your, what is it called? Your executive function in your brain literally shuts down. That's why these crazy things happen in your dream. That's why you can fly. That's why all your teeth fall out. That's why, that's why all these unexplainable things that couldn't make sense in real life.

[00:27:38] You know, I couldn't just start floating from this chair right now. Right. But, but in a dream I could. And so why? That's because our executive function that has been so conditioned over the years has been, has been shut down when we go to sleep. And that's, I mean, that's a true, that's a true gift that we have actually, we get insight into that world. Wow. Yeah. Oh, that's, it's a gold mine. Well, I have a couple of things.

[00:28:03] You know, as you're describing how helpful it is to, you know, to share and get feedback on dreams is, I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Stephen Eisenstadt's book, Dream Tending. He's like, he's like, he was a chancellor of my school, Pacifica Graduate Institute. And he, he has a format, I guess you could say a process for, and he calls it tending dreams. And I love it.

[00:28:29] So like, you know, what's happening in the dream goes community is we have dream tending partners. And because they can ask questions, really asking questions is the most helpful thing. So that reminded me of that. And you might like that because he has, he has also describes a process that he calls a dream council. So it's a way to do active imagination.

[00:28:59] The other thing that your dream that you had with your friends that all the, you just woke up and you're like, no worries. It like implies a kind of reconciliation or affirming feeling or completion or something. And it reminds me of, and it seems like it was like embodied, like it was something that you felt like in the body.

[00:29:22] And it reminds me of a dream that I had that it was at a pivotal time of my sort of falling apart. It's after divorce, after I had some online dating and then I like got swept up in this re this really ironic relationship. But at the beginning of the relationship or about four weeks later, I had an embodied dream. And in the dream, I was in like a state, we were going to go camping in a state park the next day.

[00:29:49] And the night before I was in the bathroom, like a state park bathroom where it was all concrete and metal. And I had already gone to the bathroom. So I had my whole series of toilet dreams before that. So those were done. But I was trying to leave and it was just black. I couldn't see. And I literally was like, could hear myself scraping my feet on the floor and a cement floor and my hands reaching for the door.

[00:30:16] And then in the door, I found the door, but I started falling backwards down a hill. And I fell kind of slowly. And so it was disorienting. And then I stopped. And then I fell more backwards. And in my dream, as I was tumbling backwards, I was aware that the temperature was like a fall temperature. And I could smell freshly fallen leaves from the tree. And it was like I was being sort of cradled.

[00:30:46] And I woke up with this feeling of safety and security that I'd never experienced in my entire life. Like never did I feel that sense. And it stayed with me. And I was able to slip back into it for about four months. And I didn't know the meaning of the dream until later on. I drew it, though, because I was so it was so I was so enamored with an impact that I drew it. And I ended up drawing a pair of hands underneath my falling body.

[00:31:14] So it was like me connecting with an archetypal sort of mother, you could say, where I had not felt that sort of like unconditional love before. Later on. So I tell people, like, sometimes we don't the dream continues to have meaning over time, like years later. And you're like, oh, so now the way that I look at that dream is it was telling me or it was sort of preparing me for the transformative nature of this relationship.

[00:31:43] And I think if I had not had that dream and this is where dreams can actually be acting on you and impacting you, whether you actually work the dream or not, like they do something for you. And I think I probably would have said no at some point to the relationship because it was ridiculous. Like anybody else is like, what are you doing?

[00:32:04] But me being perfectionist, like not wanting to be foolish, I I would not have had that transformative experience that ended to reconciling these, you know, these wounds, these forces that I had that were in opposition, sexuality and spirituality. And so like that dream, like I didn't know. Right.

[00:32:26] But I, in hindsight, I'm positive that if I wouldn't, that that was the purpose of the dream was to say, you're going to be okay, but you're going to go through some shit. So we talked a little bit about recurring dreams. That was not a recurring dream. I have my mercenary dream that was recurring. What would you say, like, what are your favorite types of dreams to explore?

[00:32:46] And whether it was you or somebody else, like, do you have like a story of like, just mind blowing insights, like either somebody that you were helping with their dreams, they're like, oh my God, wow, like a mind blowing insight that they had. Yeah, that usually happens every time, right? Whenever you're working with somebody on their dreams, it's usually, it's only a matter of time.

[00:33:10] It's a matter of if not when they're going to come to this aha moment and say, oh, wow, I never thought of that never ever would have come to even that conclusion or, or I recognize it in that way. But I, you know, I don't have a, I'm a little bit weird in that sense, right? Because in the dream community, right? There are these, okay, for example, we talk about flying, we talk about teeth falling out, we talk about being gay, right?

[00:33:35] I've never in my life had a teeth falling out dream, even though you either? No, I did. You did. But for me, I learned, like when I had that dream, and it was recurring, and it was during the rockiest part of my marriage, actually, I later on, I came to understand it that it wasn't, it wasn't that my life was falling apart, because I'm like, duh, I already know my life is falling apart.

[00:34:00] And Robert Johnson, I love Robert Johnson and his book, Inner Work, because he says a dream, if you think it's obvious what the meaning is, you're wrong. A dream is always supposed to bring a new insight, not an old insight. So I'm like, for me, it was telling me I have to let go. I have to let my teeth fall out. I have to embrace falling apart. So yes, I've had that one. Well, most people have, but I've never, I've never had that one.

[00:34:29] And even the flying one, aside from the magic carpet, which you're on our carpet. So but most people that I talked to about flying, they're literally flying. They are the plane. There's no carpet. There's no nothing. They're flying. I've never flown. I've never floated. I've never flown. I've never. So so many. Yeah, I've been chased. Right. But so many of the common dream types never I don't resonate with.

[00:34:56] And so I don't I don't really have a favorite type because my dreams most, quite frankly, the most common type of mine are just dreams that make absolutely no sense. They come completely off the wall, make no sense. So I guess my favorite type is the ones that I wake up in the morning and say, where in the hell did I come from? Right. Because the ones where I'm doing something normal, I guess, aren't quite as fun, I guess. Oh, so.

[00:35:24] But but yeah, I mean, the best story I have, I think, for. You know, well, I'll tell you, too. So one of them is a developer who the first day I ever met him, I met him through a mutual friend and and he he wanted to tell me about his dream. And he said he said that when he was younger, he had hepatitis A and he was bedridden and he never remembers his dreams. He's not the type of person to remember his dreams.

[00:35:53] But at that point, 20 years old, he was bedridden and he had this dream that he would never forget. And he saw in his dream the silhouette of a woman. He couldn't see her face, only saw the silhouette. But he had a girlfriend at the time, but he knew it wasn't his girlfriend. And he knew that that woman, that silhouette was the woman that he was supposed to be with. That was his partner for life. He was going to marry her. He just knew.

[00:36:21] And it wasn't until about a year later that he recovered from hepatitis and his cousin wanted to take him out to a dance club. And so they went out to a dance club and they get to the dance floor and she wanted to introduce him to her friend. And he didn't want anything to do with it. But but, you know, he didn't have much choice. So she drags him out to the dance floor and she points off, says, oh, look, here she comes.

[00:36:47] And he turns around and it is the exact silhouette that he saw in his dream from a year prior. And he never remembers his dream, but that one he remembers. So he knew as soon as he saw this exact image that he saw in his dream. And that's not even the craziest part. The craziest part about the whole story is they've now been married for 33 years. So he tells me this story and I'm just blown away. That was the first since then I've heard of others.

[00:37:12] Apparently, he's not alone in having a dream about, you know, kind of forecasting your future partner before you've ever met them. You meet them in a dream first blows my mind how that can be possible. I mean, just absolutely. Another guy I talked to, he he he was at like a concert or something. And and he saw the woman that he saw. He recognized her. He only recognized her because of his dream. And he went and talked to her and said, hey, you're so and so.

[00:37:41] And and I don't remember the details of the story, but the bottom line is they ended up together and and they got married and they've been together for a long time. And it's only because he he never would have gone to talk to her had he not seen her in his dream before seeing her in real life. So it blows my mind how that can be possible. Well, that just makes me that just makes me go right to, you know, quantum physics. That's what because in the quantum realm, time and space are collapsed. Yeah.

[00:38:09] I mean, that I mean, that's the only explanation. Yeah, there's no it's real, man. Of course, it's real. No, but it doesn't make sense in the in the not to the mind. Yeah, no, exactly. No, no way. No, because well, because we know the mind, the mind, you know, is defensive in nature and it wants to protect the status quo, which is helpful sometimes, you know, so the mind isn't bad. The ego is not bad.

[00:38:36] But it's like in a society where we really didn't learn how to develop this other part of ourselves that that part of the brain, you could say, or the feminine unconscious, which is really where creativity is and in the conscious and in the feminine unconscious. And so now it's just about like saying, hey, mind, you really had to carry more than your burden. That's how I work with my clients. Like, you know, ego, whatever for me, it's an inner lawyer character. Like, you know what?

[00:39:06] Thank you. Thank you. Like, I know that you have worked so hard and over time to protect me, but now I'm ready to grow. And so you can let me go. I've got Deb, Dr. Deb. I've got a framework. I've got this, but I need to allow some things to come up. And then when I'm ready, mind, you come back in because you're going to help me articulate what the insight is in a way that I can then integrate it into my life.

[00:39:33] So it's like, you know, it's like developing a new relationship with the mind. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I never thought about it in that exact way. But it's certainly, yeah, we're conditioned from the get go. As soon as we're born, we start to get conditioned, right? And so some people make it a little longer than others in terms of conditioning. And obviously, we all know, we all accept the fact that our most formative years are,

[00:40:01] you know, up until we're about seven years old. We all have begun. Science has demonstrated that those are the most formative years because everything at that point matters. When you're 25 or 35 or 45, the days kind of start to blend together. But to answer your question, the one, as far as a client goes or as far as somebody I've worked with about their dreams, it was a cat dream.

[00:40:31] And this lady, her mom was definitely afraid of cats. Still to this day, is definitely afraid of cats. You can't have a cat in the house. Won't go visit you if you have a cat. Just definitely afraid of cats for whatever reason. And so she grew up understanding that cats were bad. Like, we don't mess with cats. Dangerous. Exactly. That's how she was conditioned. And now she has multiple cats and I think even dogs and whatever.

[00:41:00] But her mom won't come to visit her because she has cats, right? She's like, Mom, it's okay. Like, cats are, they literally, they're not going to hurt you. It's just cats. But anyway, long story short, our consultation essentially took her cat dream and was able to make sense of her relationship with her mom based on the dream of the cats.

[00:41:29] And so she ended up improving her relationship with her mom because she, that dream basically told her that it was possible to repair that relationship and to have the relationship that she wanted to have with her mom. Because up until that point in her life, she didn't have the relationship with the mom that she wanted. It was, it was just kind of bare.

[00:42:01] So to be able to, you know, that's to talk about mind blowing, right? But to be able to take a dream about cats and then allow that or see the impact that that can have on your life and translate that to your relationship with your mom is just, just goes to show you. And it's not something you can do even for me. I mean, I have trouble doing it on my own. You know, I need somebody like you to, to help me reflect on my dream because when I try to do it on my own, I get out, I get in my own way. It's hard. Absolutely.

[00:42:31] Well, you know what this, that story reminds me of C something CJ Young says about our parental complexes, which often, um, whatever the parents don't aren't conscious of in themselves. Um, there, it will be, uh, absorbed by a, particularly the child and the family who's particularly sensitive and they will live the unlived life of the parents.

[00:42:59] And so the cat, and this, this is such a fascinating one because the fear, so the, the fear of the mom isn't really about cats. It's about something else. What do cats symbolize for her? And then her fear, because she didn't really resolve that then, you know, her daughter ended up overcompensating the other way. Like she loves animals. She's like the complete opposite, but it's not about the animals. It's sort of about, I don't know.

[00:43:24] There's so many places you could go with that because animals really in dreams really can symbolize our instincts, our natural instincts. And, you know, many people, their instincts are squashed out of them if they grow up in very rigid circumstances. And then, then they, at some point either unleash or if they're so repressed, somebody else in their family ends up unleashing that in a destructive way and they become the black sheep or whatever. That is powerful. I mean, wow. What an honor, huh?

[00:43:54] To be part of that for your client. You know, I didn't, I never realized, I never realized that dreams can be genetic in certain types of dreams, like in terms of nightmares. Like if you have, there's science now that shows that if you have nightmares or certain type of nightmares, you are more prone to pass that on to your kids. Right.

[00:44:19] And that's, you know, the way I interpret that is because it kind of makes sense. It's just not something I've ever thought about that could be, you know, we don't talk about gene, you know, dreams as being genetic. We talk about a lot of other things being genetic. But, but yeah, in terms of, in terms of dreams and, and what they represent, like you just mentioned, the cats, it's not about the cats, it's not about the animals, it's about the other thing.

[00:44:45] So it makes sense from that respect, how it could be genetic, because if that thing doesn't get resolved and doesn't get the attention it needs, then it's going to manifest in, in another way. Yeah. Well, Carl Jung, you know, over a hundred years ago said, just like there's a bio, our biological DNA sort of contains the whole history of evolution in our current DNA.

[00:45:09] It's the same for a psychic DNA in our psychic, our psychological DNA contains the whole history of humanity's psychological experience of being human. So, yeah, so, you know, sometimes the meaning, dreams can help you discover, like the purpose of your life sometimes is to answer a question that your ancestry wasn't able to answer or to heal a wound your ancestry wasn't.

[00:45:38] So, yeah, so there's definitely like a physiological part of it, because now we know memories are stored in the body and now science is proving all this. But also, you know, from a depth psychology perspective, that's why things can show up in dreams that you have no personal experience with, not even in your family. Like there have been people who have had dreams that like a foreign language, like they were speaking a foreign language and like, what is that?

[00:46:05] And now you're getting to the archetypal realm that we can tap into. So, so over the course of working with my clients after when they get to the part where they have developed relationships with their dysfunction, their complexes, their characters, all that sort of thing. Often like then what's next is that there's this doorway that they'll either get snatched by the archetypal forces and they'll get swept up in something crazy or they can walk through it.

[00:46:35] And then that's where the sort of sense of like, oh, there's something more important to my life as part of the collective than just my personal relationship with my mother. So, so tell, let's talk more about your amigos. Um, oh, I guess just tell me, I mean, a couple of things, I'll just throw a couple of things out. And cause I want part of the purpose of our conversation is to encourage people and to encourage them to help us grow this and improve it and form this big community of consciousness

[00:47:04] raising dream tending partners. So, um, you know, whatever you want to share about your vision, how do you want people to experience the app? I have a little experience now, like responding to other people's dreams, you know, who is the app perfect for like dreamigos is perfect for people who, um, and then what's the maybe different ways to use it. Because I think one of the important things for people to realize is that the, its first

[00:47:31] basic, uh, function is just to serve as a place for you to put your dreams. You don't have to share them with people. I think that's like something we have to point out because automatically people might think like, oh, I'm putting my dream out there and you're not, it's just a place to like have a sacred space really where you, where you have these dreams and then you have the energy of the community, but you don't have to share with the community. And then, um, so different ways to use it.

[00:47:57] And then, you know, like where it's at right now, what are your goals? What's the timeline for like the new version and how, how it's going. So whatever you want to share. So, so yeah, the, the, the, the, the, first of all, dreamigos comes from the word dream and amigos. So, uh, it also could be a dream. I go with an S on the end.

[00:48:23] Uh, but the dream and amigos coming together really came from taking two different languages. It doesn't matter that it's English and Spanish, but two different languages, two different cultures and bring it together because dreams are a universal language. That's really how the, that's how the brand came to be as far as who it's for right now. It's, it's, you mentioned it, it's a dream diary. It's for a digital digitally recording your dreams.

[00:48:46] And that can either be by taking pictures of your journal pages and uploading those or by typing it in or by recording it verbally. And then that gets translated to a text with voice to text now. Now, and then of course, after you record it, you can save it, uh, privately. No one ever sees it. And then, or you can share it to a dream line. If you want reflection, if you want to get other people's perspective, uh, and you want

[00:49:15] to share it for whatever reason, if it's too private, uh, certainly there have been some dreams of mine that I've, that I've saved and not, not publish to the dream line. Uh, and you can always go back to that's the, the, the biggest advantages. Number one is just recording. And, and, and a lot of times, you know, you don't, you may not remember the whole dream. And even for myself, I'll have dreams that are too murky one morning to, to, to save to publish to what we call a dream line, which is just a feed of dreams because it does this to discombobulated.

[00:49:45] Well, I can just save it for myself and maybe throughout the day, things will come up and things will happen that bring clarity. Oh, this is what happened in the dream. Right. But, but in any event, even if that doesn't happen, the, the more that we record something, even if it's just one word about the dream, uh, the more likely we are to remember next time. And so the more we, the more we think about dreams, the more we read other people's dreams, the more we talk about dreams, the more likely we are to remember our own dreams.

[00:50:12] So even for people who don't remember their dreams, the app is cool because it allows you to, uh, to look at other people's dreams. And science tells us that I can learn as much about myself by looking at your dream and thinking about what it means for me as I can, I'm looking at my own dream and thinking about what it is, what it means for me. So this is why this is the, uh, the feature within the app called if this were my dream, right?

[00:50:39] Because, because we want you to start thinking about it in order for you to get the most out of it from a self-awareness perspective. Uh, so I'm thinking about what would this dream mean to me if it were mine? And sometimes that brings up uncomfortable things. Sometimes that's not exactly the most fun to think about. Uh, but you're in control. You're in control of what you want to look at, what you want to get out of it.

[00:51:05] The biggest thing that aside from, of course, recording the dreams, uh, triggering your own brain to become aware of dreams so that you remember them more in the future. Uh, the whole thing is really a self-awareness project to make you more aware of yourself. Because I feel like here, especially in the U S uh, we, we have a society that walks around blind and walks around, uh, you know, just unaware of ourselves, you know, whether it's

[00:51:32] road rage or whether it's, whether it's, uh, anger or getting angry at other people. Right. It's, it's, it's always told my kids, if you go to school and somebody's angry at you and somebody starts yelling at you, it has nothing to do with you. Right. It has to do with them because something in their life is bothering them. So let's show up with a little more empathy. Yeah. Uh, and, and that's what, that's what this tool does. This tool allows you to become more self-aware.

[00:51:59] It allows you to, uh, through the perspective, seeing the perspective of others to gain a little bit more empathy. What else does science tell us? Science tells us that when I share a dream with you, my level of, of empathy for you go up just because you listened to my dream. And it also says that your level of empathy for me goes up because I was willing to share it with you. Right. So, so, wow, wait a minute.

[00:52:25] You're telling me that there can be a platform where you can become more self-aware, learn more about yourself. Who doesn't want to learn more about themselves? Uh, and also increase empathy across the collective. I mean, what's, you know, what's not to love. Oh, oh, I love all of this. Oh my gosh. We just did a commercial for it. I never even heard you say all that stuff before. Well, you know what, what it reminds me of, and this is why even in depth psychology is

[00:52:54] my framework, but I'm like, um, if the neuroscience perspective works better for you, I'll bring that in. If the spiritual perspective works better for you, I'll bring that in. They're all meet in the middle at the same point in same intersection. So, you know, it's why, like, for example, you don't have to believe in past lives to benefit by an active imagination session where you're imagining having a past life regression experience. Yeah. I mean, I received a major aha about my mother wounds through that.

[00:53:24] And it's really just active imagination. And it does kind of come down to associations, right? It's like, it's like our mind wants to protect us. And so to get someplace new, we have to go, okay, yes, I'm looking at that paint, that picture on the wall and it's blue and it's green and it's leaves. But what does that make me think about? Or what emotion does that conjure up? And you just keep going, you don't follow the associations from there, but you go back to the image.

[00:53:53] And so like, I'm on a little email list for like, I could pick a tarot card and I'm like, I don't need to believe anything. It really is when I read it, I'm like, oh, that just stood out to me. That's my unconscious saying there's something in that word. That's why it popped out to you. So now you need to journal about like, what are my associations with that? What is going on in my life? So it's really fun. And I like what you're saying is you're like, you through the experience, people are building

[00:54:18] the capacity to come into deeper relationship with themselves and learn the language of their unconscious. So I love it. Okay. So, oh, so besides downloading it and trying it out, which I already asked people to do in the, um, in the intro, they could like pause right now and go to Google play or go to the Apple app store and download your amigos and get in there. I'll be one of the first people to respond to your dream if you want.

[00:54:47] Um, how can people help? So what are, what's our goal? We're all working on a goal right now because this is new and it doesn't get big by accident. It gets big because we engage people in helping us achieve our goal. Yeah. The best thing, the best thing you can do is share your dreams, start, become open enough to share your dreams, to record your dreams and then share them and talk about them. Talk about them with your kids. Talk about them with, with your partner.

[00:55:14] Talk about them with your parents, whoever, whoever it is, your friends. And the more you talk about them, the more you will notice the impact it has, positive impact it has on your relationship. You know, a quick story about my own daughter. I realized as she was sharing her dreams with me, I recognized that she was processing just through her dreams, just through listening to her dreams.

[00:55:40] I recognized that she was processing the death of a childhood friendship. See, we moved to Miami in 2019. Before that, we lived in Houston. So she left a lot of friends behind and now she's 18. But at that time, you know, she was 13, very impressionable and seventh grade. And, and so she, over time, and this was just a year ago or so, but over time, she, you

[00:56:06] know, started to process that, you know, she now had a different group of friends and, and the, she had no more, add the desire or the, the urge to go back to Houston and, and keep that friend group together. So just in recognizing that she was processing the death of a childhood friendship of a relationship, uh, allowed me to show up in a more empathetic way for her because she was sharing her dreams with me.

[00:56:34] And to this day, I've never told her that that's what she was processing. It's not my, uh, you know, I don't, I don't tell her that, but, but I recognized it. And of course, that's my perspective on it, right? It could be different for her. Uh, and I was able to show up better for her because she's sharing her dreams with me. Right. So it's, um, it, it can really impact your relationship. So that's the number one thing you can do is, is, is, is, you know, record your dreams, share

[00:57:01] them, talk about them, normalize dream sharing, talking about them with other people in your life and watch the impact that it has for you. Yeah. Well, you didn't dismiss her. How many parents would be like, oh, that's just a dream or, you know, that's just a nightmare. And I always tell my clients that no matter what's in the dream, it's for your benefit. Your unconscious is never going to try to harm you.

[00:57:26] So even if there are like scary figures or whatever it is in the end, it's to benefit you. And so that usually relieves my clients, especially when they're having disturbing dreams. But yeah, I mean, you were just like, okay, this is an experience. I'm validating your experience and, you know, let's just wonder about the meaning of the experience. Oh, that's such a beautiful story. I love it. But so, okay.

[00:57:52] Did we, oh, talk about monthly dream circles? Yeah. So we want to, eventually we'll get to having them more frequently, but right now monthly and I believe yours is next, right? April 30th. So typically they tend to be towards the end of the month and it's not supposed to be any one specific flavor, right?

[00:58:14] It's supposed to be a safe place and a place that, you know, different hosts have different approaches on how they want to have the dream circle. But everyone so far, the ones that we've done, everyone gets something out of it, right? And it's not, you don't, not everyone comes and shares a dream. You don't, you can come to the dream circle without sharing. You don't need to share the dream. Just be open-minded, listen to others and bring your perspective to the table.

[00:58:44] And, and that's, that makes for a, a productive dream circle. Awesome. Oh, and they can learn about when those are by following you or Droomigos on Instagram. That's right. And it's mostly not, it's mostly not me on Instagram managing our Instagram account. It's Andrea. It's the Droomigos like team, team. We'll say it's the team. Follow the Droomigos account on, on Instagram as well as TikTok. Okay.

[00:59:13] And you can follow me because I'm part of the Droomigos team. So you can find out for me too. Is there anything we missed? Is there anything that, you know, a parting thought or something you, I don't know, feel like you need to say still today? I mean, you know, we could spend all day talking about dreams. That's part of the, uh, the challenge when it comes to dreams is where do you, uh, where do you draw the line? Right. Because, uh, and, and you'll have people, right.

[00:59:42] You have people in your life who tell you, you know, I mentioned sharing your dreams, right. Uh, you will have people in your life that tell you get out of the dream world. Right. You have people in your life that tell you they don't want to hear about your dream. Oh, it's just a dream. You know, stop thinking that will happen. Right. But then, but then, you know, who got to talk to about your dreams, right? So you're going to find out through the process of, of you have this crazy dream. First thing you do, write it down or record it somehow.

[01:00:10] Uh, prefer using the app is the best way because you can just go voice to text right there. I love the voice to text. Very rarely do I type it or, or take a picture. I'll just voice to text it. That's super easy. And it comes out in my authentic voice. Sometimes a lot of times we speak things in a different way than the way that we would write them. And, uh, I, I find it very taxing to write out the dream. Uh, I, I, I'm a writer. I'm a writer. You're a writer. Yeah.

[01:00:35] I'm much prefer to, I much prefer to speak it verbally, but, but in any event, you can, you can do whatever works for you, whatever works for you. Yeah. We have all the options and, but the bottom line is you will find your tribe. You'll find your people who, who are able to listen to your dreams and able to reflect and give you that, that feedback. And if it's too private and too secretive, I still highly, highly recommend record it just for you. Uh, because you can go back for me personally.

[01:01:05] When I, I notice, I don't know if this is a thing, actually you, you're more of an expert. You're the expert, not me. But when I have dreams, typically they'll follow the same theme for about a week. So I'll go through, it'll be a completely different dream. It won't have, they won't be related at all. I could be in a bowling alley on one and a beach in another, right? Completely different. But, but the theme, the core theme as we dive in is the same. And it's like, geez, I didn't realize these could all be the same.

[01:01:33] And you can only tell that really, if you zoom out. And if you have a recording database where you can go and look to see, wow, look that week, they all, all the recurring theme was the same, even though the contents were completely different. So that's something that for me personally, I noticed. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I started my journaling for just in general in February of 2013.

[01:01:59] And my, my journal now is like 2,300 pages, but I did dreams. Working with dreams were a huge, huge part of my midlife unraveling and reconstruction. And, and from time to time, and the great thing about typing it is that it's easy to go back and search for themes. So I would say, oh my God, I've just had another dream about like being on the toilet in the front yard. Oh, I had that other dream.

[01:02:28] I was in the toilet in a, in a, in a bathroom, public bathroom without a stall. Like what is the toilet thing going on? And toilet dreams are a phase of, you know, individuation. So then I could go back and search and I would, I'm a weirdo. I'm a nerd about this. I go copy and paste all those dreams and the dates. And I could see that during this time period, the metaphor that was at work, you know, had to do with releasing, you know, releasing something that was toxic or whatever it was,

[01:02:56] or during a, during a month long period, my ex-husband showed up in my dream 10 times. And I was like, oh, okay, what's going on here? So I'm glad that you. I heard that that's, I heard that that's good though. I heard that when you dream about your ex, it, it means that you're processing it. So there's actually, I'll have to send it to you, but I'll try to find it. But there's actually a study where they did that, where they looked at divorced couples

[01:03:22] and they looked at, at the ones that, the ones that had dreams about their ex and the ones that didn't have dreams about their ex and attract them for like five years, 10 years into the future. And the ones that had dreams about their ex were much better off and hadn't had dealt with the trauma because they, you know, so that's why, that's how they came to the conclusion that it was a process. Well, that makes sense because even the thought of like having a dream about like somebody you

[01:03:49] aren't into anymore, you're, you're at least you're, uh, allowing, you're allowing it instead of repressing it. Right. So if it's showing up and so that, that actually makes sense. Um, so, well, thank you so much for this conversation. And I feel more excited every day to be asked to be part of the team and I'm having fun responding to dreams and I really have my own personal goals about getting people on the app.

[01:04:19] And, um, yeah, because, well, I'm just super curious about other people's dreams. So I love it. I, I will tell you that when I record a dream, I, I look forward to your feedback on my dream. I go and I, I go and I check it and I'm like, all right, what did she say about this? I find my, I find myself wanting to check it because I'm curious what, what Deb will say about that dream.

[01:04:45] Oh, I keep doing what you're doing because I know I'm not the only one. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Well, now I'm just going to read my little outro. So listeners, viewers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Patrick Lane, founder of Dermigos, a novel platform for accessing your inner world by exploring dreams privately or in community. I hope you've been enticed to give it a try. There's no downside at all. It's free.

[01:05:11] You can get it on Google play and the Apple app store, and I hope to see you there. One more thing. If you enjoyed our chat or you enjoy my podcast regardless all the time, or some of the time, please like and subscribe and share. And I would love to have you consider supporting me as a creator as well. Cause I do this all on my own and I'll include the link for that as well. So until next time.

[01:05:38] I'm your host, Debra Lukovic, and you were listening to dose of depth podcast to get updates on new episodes, my writing and how I teach my clients to get to know that deeper part of themselves. Go to DebraLukovic.com. Oh, and if you're not ready for a coach, learn what my clients know in my book, Your Soul is Talking. Are you listening? Five Steps to Uncovering Your Hidden Purpose. You can check it out on my website or get it on Amazon.