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When I sleep at night for the life of me I don't think I dream. Why? Is this bad? There is just darkness when I sleep. I do confess I had trauma in my childhood. Is this the cause? It's not I don't recall dreams , I just don't dream. What are some potential causes for this?

Hello FDR friends. I just published a podcast episode on dreams. Please have a listen and comment. http://villagewisdompodcast.com/vwp062-the-significance-of-dreams/ Thanks in advance for listening

Garden Dreams: Let us live like Kings, not Pawns with control over our domain, health and nutrition. I’m looking forward to the future where the cost of living will dramatically decrease due to continued scientific innovation, automation and hopefully lots of an-caps but the clash between collectivist centralization and decentralized Independence continues to unfold and I would like to share the research and resources I have collected by seeking out other gardeners both online and in my city as well as detoxification techniques to increase the quality and length of your life/health. Your body does not need junk food, it needs nutrients. You don’t have to run away to the wilderness or own vast acres to be able to have a high quality high nutrient dense food. You do however have to seek and to be informed to know your options and take control of your own food and nutrition. There are easy options that are self watering, use no electricity as well as inexpensive options that give you amazing results. I’ve started a small garden indoors and outdoors as well as potted fruit trees and volunteering at an urban garden and nursery. 1. When you decide to grow, you will soon have an abundance of high quality food. By Growing your Greens or Herbs you don’t need that much space and you are starting with the highest quality food for your body which is also the most expensive at the grocery store anyway. Growing your greens such as sprouts which takes a few days or leafy greens in a raised garden bed indoors or outdoors. Edible flowers and Herbs which add high value to your food are also the easiest to grow. Think arugula, cilantro (detox heavy metals) chives(super easy even half rock soil), basil, oregano (anti-cancer), kale, swiss chard, dill, garlic, marigold flowers, spinach, regrow your celery roots, regrow your onion roots, grow garlic etc. Its actually very easy to even grow potted fruit trees indoors in pots such as olives, meyers lemon, limes, apples, cherries and more. 2. Use High Quality WATER! Filter your water because shocker, the chlorine and fluoride from the municipality (tap/city) water has fluoride and chlorine that kills beneficial microbial life in your garden. If you are starting feel free to water your plants by hand, a cup of water per plant, water the roots/dirt not the leaves. Here is an example of an inline filter from Boogie Brew that attaches to a garden hose http://www.boogiebrew.net/water-filter/ 3. High quality food needs high quality minerals and growing mediums. The Square Foot Gardening Method by Mel Bartholomew is the favorite book of John Kohler from Growing your Greens. To this method he advocates adding in “rock dust” and other options that increase the nutrients available to the plants. Raised Garden Beds Square Foot Gardening “OMRI Listed” are your options for organic non-toxic growing medium options 1/3 Compost (fungal dominated and vermicompost (worms)) no animal manure 1/3 Pearlite or Vermiculite 1/3 Coco Coir or Peat Moss +Added minerals such as Azomite Rock dust, lowest prices from www.Rootnaturally.com 4. Make your own compost!! If you enjoy this post, you will eventually be tempted to get a “compost tumbler” and I highly recommend starting off small and productive with a worm bin you can build yourself. Here is a link to the lovely Cali Kim. If you are a juicer or avid organics eater then composting is definitely for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjHxt7kfPWM EASY OPTIONS TO GET STARTED 1. No watering or weeding, set up indoors, easy set-up there are a few options. The Kratsky method has been around and it does not need electricity, just water and nutrients. The health ranger from Naturalnews.com has come out a system that runs about $100 and/or use your 3d printer to make the parts. http://www.naturalnews.com/048727_Food_Rising_grow_box_Health_Ranger_revolution.html http://www.supplysource.com/Starter-Kit_c_66.html 2. Raised Gardening Options a. Using cement blocks, low cost, easy to move around or change in the future b. Build your own raised garden bed, ideally from untreated Cedar wood c. Use these connectors to easily make a raised garden bed without the need for any tools http://www.gardeners.com/buy/in-line-connectors-for-raised-beds/33-247VS.html#q=garden+bed&start=13 d. Cold Weather- there are cold weather crops such as carrots but also build a garden bed with a hoop house and/or a greenhouse or indoors e. “Smart-pot” just unfold and fill with dirt. Easy to set up and uses air pruning of roots but will not last as long as wood or cinderblocks. f. Use nursery pots as the border of your garden 3. Aerogarden- this is initially how I started gardening, very easy grows quickly. If interested sign up on their websites as they will send you discount offers 4. Patio Picker/City Picker – good option to start, gives you “raised garden bed” advantages and also has a feature to “self-water” so that it is more forgiving if you do not water every day. 5. Garden Tower Project. Fits over 50-60 plants in 4 square feet. Will run you about $300 but this is a fabulous option if you have limited space. http://www.gardentowerproject.com/ 6. Potted Fruit Trees, go with potting mix of (quality compost + pearlite + cococoir) or Al's Gritty Mix 5-1-1-1-1 Fruit trees such as meyers lemons and citrus do not like having "wet feet" a good draining mix is essential and Al's Gritty Mix is 5 parts pine bark (aprox $3 at home depot for huge bag, larger pieces better) 1 part vermiculite/Pearlite 1 part cococoir 1 part gypsen 1 part lime Also an easy "gritty mix" is 3-1-1 which is pine bark and cocoir and vermiculite. This gritty mix is also good helping over-watered plants in the ground that are not well draining, add this on top of the dirt at the base of the plant so that the soil can incorporate the draining properties of the mix. 7. Living Forever – looking to link a recent article about life extension technologies including nutrient therapy. It also mentioned membership clubs in London offering these services to their clients. 8. Other resources Fruiting, rare and tropical plants https://www.logees.com/ Employee owned garden company https://www.monstergardens.com/ John Kohler Growing your Greens website for dehydrators and juicers www.discountjuicer.com 9. ASMR sounds of the organic vegetable garden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn9XO6u4suU Please add in any tips, tricks, advice, comments, criticisms. Please feel free to Reuse any and all information you have learned from this article.

In most of this dream I'm simultaenously (or one after another) helping Bill Gates and chavs achieve their goals. A chav is the UK equivalent of an aussie bogan, or US 'white trash/guido/hick'. They are often violent, drug taking, dissociated, predominantly white youths. Of which there were plenty where I grew up (and also where I live now). However to begin with (I think, I'm not 100% sure about the chronology of this dream) I am in the front room of my parent's house where I grew up (haven't lived there since my early twenties). This gang keeps bringing mutilated dead bodies to the room, where I and a medic (although perhaps I AM the medic, I feel like the perspective was unclear. It could even be that I am merely a voyeur watching this on tv and am not actually present..) tend to them. When the bodies come in, around 75-80% have mutilated lower-halves from the waist down, where they have either a huge scaly fish lower half, or a huge scaley cockroach abdomen lower half. There may have been other types but it's always something without legs and the appearance of the least human looking animals i.e. scaly insects and fish. The colour is always a dirty dark orange. They also have bloody faces and other injuries. Sometimes me and the medic discover someone who is still alive (again I get a feeling it's the ones that still have legs that have the best shot) and we immediately tell them when they regain consciousness (or at least he does and I just mentally urge him) to stay quiet and play dead while we plan their escape. They have to pretend to be dead each time the gangs come in. It's like the gang thinks the room is a place to dump dead bodies, while me and the medic treat it more as a medic tent in a war. Either before or after this (I suspect after), the dream cuts to me working with Bill Gates as some kind of personal assistant. He comes accross as very cold and unfeeling, it's a young (early thirties) and physically vital Bill Gates who is slightly more heavyset and taller than IRL, almost like a cross between Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Christopher Reeve's superman and that portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in 'The Social Network' (personality wise). He has the Bill Gates specs. I get the feeling he is desperate and at some point he is in the process of having a boat made to send to a girl he wants. I feel it is an aggressive attempt to 'capture' her as he shows no sign of fondness for her, beyond her being something to 'own', another 'thing' to add to his collection of expensive things. I don't bring up this issue with him. At one point we are in his convertible driving around silicon valley and I feel like he is trying to school me (though looking back this could be my delusion, as he seems to merely be thinking out loud) he says something like: "people think I hire remotely, but I get close and personal, I like to be 'right there', I will travel the 34000 miles" (incidentally - though I'm not sure if I did the maths in the dream - this is the same distance it would take to do a round trip to a place on the other side of the planet, which for where I live would be somewhere like Australia or NZ.) At some point, either after or while I am helping Bill Gates, I am also helping these chavs to achieve their scummy ends. The first one either dies, gets locked up or I stop helping him, the second chav I start helping looks a little like my younger brother (though not extensively), though his name is 'Atta' which is pretty similar to my brothers name. He has beadier eyes than the first chav and looks like the actor Gerard Kearns. He's in his early twenties at the latest. I can only recall what happened with Atta and not the other chav. At one point we have just committed some kid of crime and another chav who was helping us runs away. Immediately Atta transforms into a policeman's uniform (here in the UK that's flourescent yellow clothing and a hat) and begins leaving a trail of evidence framing the absconder for the entire crime by leaving a trail of socks in the path he ran - which frames him for some reason - before transforming back into his classic chav gear. Later we are in the woods under an old railway bridge, similar (perhaps the same) to one I grew up near. Atta is taking a piss under the bridge while I am keeping lookout, while pissing he tells me "you don't like to rise, that's why I like you". When I ask him if he likes to rise himself, he zips up his fly, walks out from under the bridge and says "yeah, I want to get to the top" as he walks past me. As with Bill Gates, he doesn't look at me when talking, but just assumes I am listening (I assume). I get the feeling both Atta and Bill are just getting on with their own thing and don't really need me, while I hang on for snippets. The only time I could see them focusing on me would be if I made a mistake in helping them, at which point they would come down on me like a ton of bricks. At the end of the dream something is burning in the woods at a distance and me and Atta decide to go investigate. I have a vague idea of what the burning is about (perhaps it was in the dream and I forgot), and I encourage the investigation. Looking back just now however, I feel like Atta perhaps knew even more than me about it, judging from the vague, cruel half-smile on his face. ---- Notes: I felt I had no choice throughout the dream. Like I would be lost without helping these people, however immoral they may be. I felt nervous, but also a shaky sense of security, in that at least they are taking 'the bigger risks' and I am 'safer in their shadow'. Bill Gates reminded me a little of my dad when he was younger, and Atta of my brother. I am not in contact with either of them. The dead body situation was the most scary, but again, I don't remember feeling terrified, when surely it would have been be an entirely natural reaction! --- Recent Events: I had this dream the night after I met an FDR member for the first time (first member of FDR I've met) earlier that day. In my old town (which does have a high chav population). We had a good time and some good conversation but I was pretty nervous and left after a few hours in a state of mental exhaustion. In particular I felt sick in a museum we went in that I hadn't visited since I was a child. --- I'd really appreciate any ideas about what this dream could mean. Bit of a math mistake there. It's actually 34000 in kilometres not miles. I may well have believed it was 34000 (17000 each way) miles before I had the dream however.

Anyone care to help me interpret this nightmare I had in childhood? I had it on a regular basis from age 4 to about 6 or 7. It always started with me waking up in my bed in the nursery. My older brother was in the twin bed on the other side of the room, but he was asleep. At the side of the bed there was a large cricket who stood upright like a person. He was about my height. He was sort of a gangster, wore a leather jacket, and was often smoking a cigarette. He would stare at me and be flipping a coin in the air very smugly. On the floor at his feet were about a thousand normal size crickets, and he stood over them. He would give me this pointed look and then bounce away to the hallway. I was so scared, but I followed him because I knew he was nefarious as fuck and wanted to harm my family. My mom was in the hallway, either on the phone or otherwise distracted, and the gangster cricket was on her back. He was looking straight at me in this haughty way. Mom didn't notice at all. I tried to tell her and get her attention, but she couldn't hear me. I would cry and scream, but she just turned away and continued talking on the phone. Sometimes she would wave her hand dismissively and say, "Not now." Then the cricket would jump off her back and leap back into the nursery. He stood in the middle of the room over all the other little crickets for a moment before picking one up. He stuck it between two slices of bread and took a big chomp. At that point I would wake up, covered in sweat, and usually burst into tears. I brought this dream up to my parents over dinner a few years ago. My dad remembered right away and jokingly cursed those damn crickets, but it's interesting that my mom had no recollection of it. Much the way she was in the dream, she was completely oblivious of my fears and needs as a child. In terms of what was going on in my life at that time, my mom had a miscarriage when I was 3. It was really traumatic time in the family, and mom was really sad for the next couple years until she got pregnant with my little brother, who was born when I was 5. There was a fair amount of strife between my parents during that time because mom wanted another child, and dad didn't. He frequently joked about how mom "tricked" him into getting her pregnant. Any ideas about what this dream means? Also, is it fairly "normal" to have recurring nightmares like this? I'd be curious to hear if anyone else had repeated bad dreams as a child, and what they were about.

Dear Dream Analyzers, I usually don't reflect on my dreams for very long. I would often have reoccurring nightmares as a child. I had a very disturbing dream two nights ago, and instead of forgetting it, I decided to examine it more closely. A significant portion of the audio content contains a book review (plot spoilers are minimal in case you are worried), which may have contributed to the dream as I had just finished the book before falling asleep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNBs1i-sMdA Any and all of your comments, thoughts, feelings or suggestions are welcome. I am new to dream analysis and self-knowledge. Thanks!

Hey, I apologize for the late notice. If anyone wants to join our group dream analysis we will be having the first ever call on Skype in exactly one hour (4pm EST). If you'd like to join or just listen afterwards, send me a reply/pm request. Thanks!

So last week I had an interesting dream, and it was recommended to me that maybe I should post it here, since some members have experience in dream interpreting. First, I was sitting outside of my house with my sister. I knew it was my house, but the backyard looked different (it's normally a cornfield with trees in the back; here it was a boggy heath, with a steep hill and a chain-link fence at the top). It was dusk, and it was cold. In the distance, I thought I could hear a man yelling, either in shock or in pain. My sister and I looked out to find the source; I looked over the hill in my back yard, and on the other side of the fence I could see houses lined up one next to the other, packed together like they are in cities. I could see INTO the houses, as if the back opened up like a doll house. There was a group of 3 or 4 young men watching something on a TV, and they were yelling and making noise, as well as screaming coming from the screen (probably a scary movie). A police officer came in through the door, telling the men that they needed to be quiet, there were noise complaints. The men pushed the police officer out of the house and slammed the door in his face. Then, I was there in the house (which felt like it was still MY house, even though it was a different place) with the men, and I could now see that they were my partner, and two of my best friends from high school. Let's call them Joe and Jay. An old woman from next door came over, carrying a plate of brownies. She said there was pot in them. We were nervous, because we had just thrown the police officer out of the house. We were eating the brownies, when my mother came home from work. I ran to hide the brownies in my room, while my mom was telling me that she was very tired from work and didn't feel well, so she was going to lie down. I went back downstairs, where Joe, Jay and my partner were waiting. I was talking to Joe and Jay, and I felt awkward and uncomfortable (lately in real life, I've been feeling a big disconnect with these friends because of their political views and views on feminism, as well as a feeling that they no longer trust my partner, who was friends with them even longer than I have been). I decided that I was going to go for a drive, and my partner decided to tag along. Joe stayed in the house, and Jay walked to the sidewalk with us. I don't remember what he said, but I remember him saying something that made me feel slightly hopeful. My surroundings were eerie; I was in a city that was lined wall-to-wall with concrete houses, whose front doors opened to staircases leading to the sidewalk. The street had two one-way lanes separated by a concrete barrier. Both sides of each street were lined bumper-to-bumper with cars, but there was absolutely no one else around except me and my friends. It was completely silent, there was no motion, and I couldn't see the sky or any spaces in between the houses. I started driving around with my partner, just talking. Soon, I got a phone call from Joe. He was calling to see if I was alright, since I decided to drive after taking drugs. I realized this, and I also realized that I was alone in the car; my partner had disappeared suddenly. I told my friend that I was coming home right now. After I hung up the phone, I noticed a car following me. It was nondescript, the color of concrete, and I couldn't see anything through the windows. I turned down a street, sure that it was the one leading to my house, but it was a dead end; the sides were lined with parked cars and concrete walls; on the other side of the far wall, I could see black water. I stopped and tried turning around, but the car following me kept going, crushing my car against the wall in a slow, inexorable manner. At that point, I realized it was a dream and tried to press the gas pedals and push myself out of the way, but it only crunched my car even more against the other car. Then, I tried to give myself a gun and shoot the other car, but I woke up before I could. I'm not sure if it means anything, but I don't normally have dreams this vivid, and I'm wondering if there was at least something concerning my two friends Joe and Jay, since I've been feeling like I am losing their friendship lately.

I would like to share a few videos that motivate and inspire me. Please share some of yours.Be Obsessed with Improvementhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJAkLB1moGUHunger (MOTIVATION)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNC26Rh4AE4Write Your Own Scripthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EUzZsRWqggRay Lewishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbIWvNZBlHMPlaylisthttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUHovnYY1WJXfR6RjT9ut48wIQ4eswEcC

Hey there! So its my first post on this beautiful board. So i thought I'd make it a good one! I've been so inspired by some of Stef's recent podcasts about lofty ambitions and reaching one's full potential that i thought I'd ask.. What are everyone's ambitions? What are everyones goals / dreams? What is everyone striving toward? This can be anything you like (obviously). What i mean by that is it doesn't just have to be a job or abstraction (e.g world peace). It could be anything. Any situation, Any Goal, Any hopes or dream that your aspiring to with the help of philosophy. I'l start. I wan't to make music full time. I want to make music that as Stef puts it "Lights the electricity in peoples spines!". I've been writing for 15 years so I think I'm well on my way I want a life entirely surrounded by people i love and admire & who love and admire me. Shoot.

Hello all-- I hope this message finds you all well. This is my first serious post on this forum, the topic is an effort to externalize events that have been very close to my heart, as well as my lifelong effort in search for truth in spite of the plethora of "blinders" that have been installed on the chariot of my mind for the sake of my father's emotional comfort. To start my name is Matthew, aged 22, African American. I have lived in Columbus Ohio all of my life, and currently a struggling (REALLY struggling) musician. I play the violin, forte in avant-garde music and deconstruction. I mention this because it's indicative of how my mind works: to harness logic to render a given subject down to it's purest expression, or to unveil its objective Truth. I believe that it is this drive that led me into the many religious traditions I've learned about and practiced, as well as my final leaving of the concept of creator all together. Like most, I was raised in a Christian household. If my father was not reprimanding me as a small child, he spoke of his religious philosophy ad nauseum. I naturally was extremely inquisitive, and the first occupation I wanted to be was a scientist-- I really LOVE to learn. I learned very early not to question the words of my father, not for any threat of violence ( though that did occur) but because I really seemed to cause harm to him personally when I ever questioned him, and he would disassociate himself from me for some time. I would rather a beating than to be alone. I remember one time I asked him if I could have a dog (I was around 3), and he said "maybe". I was ELATED, he didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either, so "maybe" in my head was obviously more positive than "no", so if I was a good boy, "maybe" I could sway the verdict to "yes!" someday. Time passed, and he said nothing of it-- maybe he forgot? I reminded him, asking again. "Maybe" in his light tone again, but I was a bit more skeptical this time. I kept asking, and got the same answer; now "maybe" was getting pretty annoying, and I started to just want a straight answer. One day I asked him again, and he said "maybe" where I quickly responded "so maybe means no right? Every time you say maybe I don't get anything." I'll never forget the look on his face, he was genuinely shocked speechless, probably because I didn't talk very much at time and the information I had gathered from my observations were pretty concise for a 3 year old. My mom was present at the time and instantly started cracking up, bellowing "He really gotcha there Mark, whatcha gonna say to that?". I saw him lower his head and narrow his eyes(tense) with unmistakable disdain, avoiding eye contact with me. I made the silent choice then to never do that again, I never wanted to hurt my Dad. Needless to say, he stopped talking to me for some time which was really painful to me, especially since I was alone for most of the day anyway. Later on, Dad would speak to me about religion A LOT. Not only did he believe in his doctrine, but believed he had performed many miracles himself! As a kid this captured my imagination, and really inspired me to study religion with all I had --"Maybe" then I could control my universe as well? He spoke on glossolalia (tongues), prophecy, hinted on Revelations, and the spiritual sight (the seeing of demons and angels) along with all the usual indoctrination. This particular instance of which I am about describe I'm sure has sealed my fate, and realization of my own "atheism" (for lack of better words). Around the age of 9 or 10, My Father would randomly take me to the side to solidify my "belief". Shortly after this series of lectures I under immense emotional strain and fear of damnation decided to be baptized. Back then he was still much taller than me, and I remember him casting a shadow over my face as he laid out his huge, bulky fists in front of me. "Choose" he would say in a deep voice "Choose, your fate, choose your master, life or death, good or bad, God... or Satan." The air was tense, I felt the fate of being held in the balance. My father's eyes were indifferent, though I knew what choice he'd rather me take. Naturally I chose "God", and he'd smile and walk away-- phew! This happened a few more times (didn't I just save my soul yesterday?), until he took me aside to the living room to introduce me to the point of SUBMISSION. The television was off, the lights dimmed (or they seemed to be). That familiar sense of tension was in the air, Father paced back and forth in front the broken fireplace. He spoke in a low, grave tone and started to elucidate the virtue of unconditional surrender, it's eternal imperative of a "true" christian for a couple hours. As usual, I simply did not possess the attention span to follow everything he said, and I started to feel quite frustrated and scared-- was I missing something? This is cosmic knowledge here and my flesh is simply too weak to withstand the divine logos! He asked me finally, "Imagine you are before the Lord, Christ at his right hand-- how would you greet him?" I smiled and bent my knees-- "NO. You need to be on your face." or something to that effect. It took awhile, but I finally got groveling down. Father smiled and left, leaving me completely overwhelmed, but relieved. I want to express my journey to atheism because I have an annoying need to share my true thoughts, but the journey is simply too long to put in a single post. I would love to see what you guys on here think about this so far, if there are any thoughts you would like to add. Thank you

Dream I am standing in a single teachers room in school (in my school teachers didn't have single rooms, there was one big room for all of them) with the teacher whose features I cannot make out. There is another pupil in the room whose features I can't make out either, but I believe him to be a former classmate from school called Lennart. The three of us are standing like a triangle with the teacher and Lennart facing each other while I face through the gap between them towards the blackboard (in Germany it is green), which is at the other side of the room. Both the teacher and Lennart look at me with only their upper bodies slightly rotated into my direction. I am in this teachers room because I have to do a project for school and in the dream I believe I need to borrow a camera for it. In my minds eye I see the photo which is still to be taken: it shows my head and face and down until just the shoulder. It only shows the right shoulder, the left is not in the rectangle. The head is just a bit rotated, so it's not a perfect frontal photo. The photo slowly fades in my minds eye and becomes a drawn picture and then an oil painting. I ask the teacher, where the cameras are because I think that I have to have a photo taken of myself for the project. He replies by saying that the cameras are in another school in the area and that I have to borrow them from there. Featureless Lennart asks me, why I want to borrow a camera. He says, that I don't even need to take a photo and paint a painting, we only need to think of a look with the theme “Sumpf” (german for swamp) in mind. I see the word “Sumpf” written on the blackboard on the other side of the class. I look at myself and discover that I am suddenly in evening clothes: elegant black leather shoes, grey and close-fitting formal trousers, a beige or white baroque shirt with quillings along the button row, and a black jacket (the top part of a suit). In the dream I think, this appearance would suit me. After Lennart has told me about the project I feel a bit dumb for not knowing this and also a bit “huffy”, like he has insulted me. I want to leave and go through the gap between the teacher and Lennart towards the exit. Before I reach it I wake up. Me and my general situation I am the oldest (21) of four brothers (in total). For conveniences sake let us call them brother A to D with me being A, my youngest brother D (14). Brother C is about to turn 15 and Brother B is 18 years old. For half a year now I have been studying a bachelors degree in a business study program here in Germany and at the same time I am an employee at a tourism firm - this sort of program is called a dual study program: working and studying while getting paid for it (though not much). Before I started this program I was enrolled at another University in another city with the program “Philosophy & Economics,” which I canceled after one semester. After I did that I had half a year of “orienting” myself again and finding out what I want to do. I was also depressed as I felt I was a failure for canceling the program. I also had an extremely uncertain future which gave me great concern. It was in this phase that I discovered libertarianism and the philosophy of freedom. I had always LOVED philosophy, but felt it was a pastime and didn't take it as serious as now (in discussions with friends, family and in school I always was the devils advocate and knew how to extract principles and turn them against themselves). When I discovered the freedom philosophy it was as if for the first time I was anchored in reality. It made me feel like real truth was indeed possible. Over the following summer I delved into all I could find until I found Freedomain Radio and Stef by chance on iTunes. Ever since that day I have been hungrily devouring his podcasts in every free minute (travel to work/university, in lunch break, when I am alone etc) and in chronological order. I am now at 630. My immediate situation After I cancelled the P&E study program (it was in another city) I moved back into the flat of my family. Right now I share a room with my youngest brother, but have set my sights on moving out as soon as possible to put some space me and my parents and achieve some clarity concerning my relationship with and to them. I am looking for a flat together with brother B (18 years old). On the one hand this is because living together in a shared flat is just plain cheaper. On the other hand my brother and I are thinking about founding a company or start some kind of business. He too loves philosophy but is not yet as far and as clear in his moral and philosophical sentiments or thoughts as I am (that's what I think at least). My conflicts Our parents never hit us with regularity. It did happen though and every single one of us has been hit at least once by out parents. They themselves justify their actions by claiming, that in those situations everything went haywire and they did not know how to help themselves/ how to handle the situation - in other words: they felt overwhelmed. In a conversation about those incidents with both of them I said, that these incidents are something I think about regularly and that make me feel like they are a chasm in our relationship. These incidents are severe breaches of fundamental trust, especially when perpetrated against children. They themselves have said, that they never wanted to hit their children. My mother became aggressive as I talked about the hitting. I have explained to her that I might have some emotional or psychological problems/scars because of these incidents. She did not want to accept that even in the slightest in that particular moment (her brother has accused my grandmother of having pushed him to study law; my mother maintains that this idea is ridiculous - so indeed she has a bad template for dealing with accusations of responsibility and guilt). Still both my father and my mother agreed when I told them I wanted to go see a therapist/psychologist so that I can find out, which of my (emotional) reactions are justified and which might be exaggerated. Another conflict with my parents, though unadressed in our conversations, is that brother D is attending "confirmation classes". This is preparation for the ritual of spiritual adolescence in protestant faith. I myself have also attended these classes when I was younger, but never really believed in it. Shortly before quitting my last study program last year I also officially renounced my adherence to the church by deregistering for church taxes. I consider myself a strong atheist for the same reasons that Stef has brought forward (no evidence, contradictory concept). Obviously my stance doesn't fit with my brother going to church, but I have not talked about this with my parents, although (or because) the confirmation is in two months. The strangest thing about this issue is that my parents never go to church except for singing christmas songs on Christmas eve. My mother is religious in an extremely weak sense, meaning that Christian values or the bible have had no influence whatsoever on her decisions in everyday life. The only time thing she does in that direction is seeking consolation when somebody dies. My father doesn't even go to church on Christmas eve...

I've just listened to an old video of Stefan's analysis of the Jesus Bunny Dream and I thought I would share one of my recent dreams to see if anyone had any thoughts on it. My most recent violent dream involved Bert and Ernie from Seaseme Street. They were in bed together and they started to make out. Ernie said something like "I love your chin". He kissed Bert's chin. But suddenly Ernie began to bite Bert's chin. At first it was fine but then it became violent. Bert started to scream in pain. Ernie finally lifted his head away from Bert's to reveal that his chin was now missing. Then Ernie said something similiar about Bert's nose and repeated the process of biting the nose off. Bert was screaming the whole time but did nothing else. The dream ended around here although I remember Ernie's face was changing a little during all of this, into what I don't know. I've had somewhat similar dreams involving torture, but this one stuck out because it was the most recent and it involved Seseme Street characters since usually the characters are human.

I wanted to share a short dream I had and my analysis of it. I would like to get any input you might have on it, and hopefully encourage others to do dream analysis, since it's something I'm finding increasingly important in my own self therapy. The dream I'm titling: Political Prisoner I'm meeting a woman who's just getting out of prison. I'm with someone else when I meet her and bring her back to her personal library. The library is dingy, dark and full of cobwebs with very tall ceilings, almost like a warehouse. A man is there sitting at a computer who is very happy to see her. He is her fiancè, a large hairy manly man w/ dark hair and blue eyes, and I identify with him. (At this point I like this couple very much). She explains to me that she has been researching something very important here in the library with her partner (the manly man) who was an anonymous celebrity hacker years ago. This research somehow led to her incarceration in a way she doesn't explain and I get the sense that she was a political prisoner. They both look very dedicated as she continues to explain that they are nearly finished with their research, at which point they are going to get married, reveal his true identity and share their research with the world. I'm filled with optimism and wake up. I think that this is an interesting dream because I can already see at least two very different interpretations. The library seems to be a sort of ancient unconscious part of myself, and research in that area would seem to me to be self work, therapy, etc. I am myself a large hairy guy who works as a programmer so it's no wonder I'd identify with the fiancè. And the hacker revealing his real name is (I think) me using my actual name on the internet now, on the boards, on YouTube, wherever, which was something I felt very ambivalent about. But the role of the political prisoner woman I'm less sure about. What is a political prisoner except someone who is punished / attacked for telling the truth? And to be a prisoner in my own unconscious smacks verily of suppression / repression. But why a woman? What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now? And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library? Why is the purpose of the research never revealed? Why is the purpose of the research never revealed? I have a little bit of an amorphous goal in my own self therapy (and psychoanalysis). I ultimately want to be happy, less susceptible to anxieties / depression and have a stronger sense of self, my goals and how to achieve them. It can be difficult often to follow thru on goals (if I can feel confident I want to do them in the first place). I grew up not caring about what I would be when I got older. My older sister said I should be a firefighter so I just said to myself "ok, whatever, I'll be a firefighter". I rarely did my homework (unless I could finish it in class). For a lot of my youth I was very cynical, nihilistic and aimless. I had no real goals. A big goal I have is to have good goals. What is this repressed feminine part in my own life that would be coming up now? The one thing I could get myself interested in spending lots of time learning about was web development (and programming/scripting in particular). I worked my ass off to learn it well and a couple years ago I landed a great job with those skills. The other reason I got the job is that I was just really honest about how I am and what my limitations are (that is, after listening to Stef's podcasts on doing job interviews well). This trend toward being more genuine, connected, me, is something that happens more and more. And recently I had a little episode I'm not going to go into here where I was tempted to withdraw, to hide myself and wait it out. I had prepared for this sort of thing in therapy so instead I decided not to hide or compromise on my values even a tiny bit. I was taught in many ways not to reach out, be myself, to challenge others. I was myself a kind of political prisoner at home and at school, rejected for not conforming to the culture. But why a woman? What the feminine represents for me here is (I think) Jung's anima, a completeness of a yin and yang. That's why the couple is getting married and why there is a lot of optimism I feel. Also the feminine symbolizes (at least for me) compassion for myself, self care, and (as Jung says) it animates me. I do psychoanalysis with a Jungian psychoanalyst. A woman in fact who I greatly appreciate working with. And why is the symbolism for my unconscious a library? I think that the reason I imagined a library is that it's a collection of knowledge and stories. It has things I can take with me (i.e. books) back to my everyday life and place back at a later point. It's collected a lot of cobwebs in there because I really don't like reading in real life, but also because it's something that's been long neglected. And so for me accessing this library involves dreaming more and reflecting on my dreams, taking things with me and coming back to them later. And toward that goal I've recently been going back through old dreams I had and coming to new understandings about the symbols within and of my life in general. Something that I like that my therapist suggested was to ritualize my dreams in some way so that the symbolism sinks in more, and so toward that end, here's a picture I drew of a previous dream that I like.