Dr. Rahul Jandial: What Your Nightmares Are Trying to Tell You & How to Know Which Dreams You Need to Pay Attention to

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which
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Speaker 2 (01:01):
One third of our lives is potentially spent dreaming. Your
waking life is feeding your dream life. That's a solar
flare from your brain in a unique state that you
can't get to during the day. Dual trained brain surgeon
and neuroscientists Doctor Raoul Jandyall the measurements of emotion in
our dreaming brain can reach a top speed our waking

(01:21):
brain can never reach. How are you processing? How are
you metabolizing the most difficult thing in your day?

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Speaker 2 (02:05):
The number one health and wellness podcast Jay Sheety Jay
Shetty see Zy Sheet.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, to number one health
podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one
of you that come back every week to listen, learn
and grow. I'm so excited because we've really been tapping
here On Purpose into things you're fascinated about questions that
you're thinking about, topics, you're exploring themes that you're wondering about,

(02:35):
and this was one of those that I can't wait
to share with you. This has been a theme I've
been fascinated about. We're talking to the expert, the person
who's thinking about it differently, who's open to the idea
of this truly being discovery, all based on curiosity. Doctor
Raoul Johndel is a dual trained brain surgeon and neuroscientist

(02:55):
at City of Hope in Los Angeles. Doctor John Deale
leads the John Deale Lab, which explores the intersection of
neurobiology and cancer. As part of his nonprofit that he founded,
he teaches and performs pediatric neurosurgery in charity hospitals in
South America and Eastern Europe. Today, we're talking about his

(03:15):
newest book out now, This is Why You Dream. Welcome
to the show, Roul John Dale Roll, It's great to
see you.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Pleasure of mind.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, I'm excited to do this.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, I'm really grateful. And like I said to you, honestly,
this is usually when we're doing an interview, I'm like,
all right, I'm gonna you know, I've got certain questions.
I'm going to go with the flow and the amount
of questions we've had from our team, our audience, our community.
It's never happened before. I'm just telling you that. And
so you're going to see me reading out questions from

(03:47):
real people who've sent them in for you to understand
more about dreaming, which I think is probably one of
the most undiscovered, untapped, misunderstood, or completely on on thestudy
areas of our lives. So let's dive straight into it.
And the first question I have for you is does
everyone dream?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I think so. So here's how I describe it. I
would first say, let's bust a major myth that dreaming
and sleep is a time of rest for our brains.
Our brains are not resting while we sleep. Just imagine
somebody lying down and when they're sleeping, the heart is
flickering a little bit of electricity from the EKG that

(04:28):
we put on the surface of their heart. We put
a bunch of stickers on the surface of the scalp,
and there's vibrant electricity while we're sleeping. The electricity our
brain generates while we sleep is as hot as the
electricity our brains are generating now, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is the heart when it's pushing up
the blood, the brain is mopping up glucose. It's burning

(04:50):
hot metabolically, so inside our skull while we're lying down,
even though we don't remember a lot of it, we're
burning hot and we're spark electricity. So people who remember
their dreams and people who don't remember their dreams, that
brain is still sparking hot and generating a lot of electricity.
So I think it's more of memory recall in the morning.
At the same time, we all know about a nightmare,

(05:11):
so we've all had one dream. The question is why
do some people dream more, dream less, or remember their
dreams more remember their dreams less. And that's something I
think is related to the variety of human experience. We
don't hold our waking thoughts to the same rigid contours, right,
so our dreamscape, our dream life is individual between us,
and we remember more when we're younger, we remember less as

(05:34):
we get older, and then in certain diseases, dreams come
to the rescue. And it seems now that at the
end of life, like with my cancer patients, dreams return
and they're filled with reconciliation. You would think in their struggle,
like you know, there would be dark, but they're actually positive.
So those patterns of dreams are there. The brain electricity
is firing while we sleep, and that's the sort of

(05:56):
foundation from which I try to find meaning.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
And dreaming absolutely, I mean, the book is called This
Is Why You Dream? Why do we dream? And why
is it important for us to understand why we dream?
Because I think a lot of people say, yeah, I
dream sometimes sometimes I don't. Who cares? What's the big deal?
But I'm fascinated by it. I know a lot of
people are. So why do we dream? And why is
it important to try to understand why we dream?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
The it's not a big deal. It's completely off for
those people who think it. If they understand one third
of our lives is potentially spent dreaming and the brain
shuts down right, it's just one third, like that can't
be passive and it puts you down right, Like you
get sleep pressure, like I got to sleep well when
I was in training in surgical training. We skip a

(06:39):
night of sleep. What happens when somebody skips a night
of sleep. The next night, they dream harder and earlier.
If I can be so bold, I think sleep is
for the brain. It's not for our thigh muscle, it's
not for our liver. There are some metabolic changes. I'm
not discounting all of it, but the real thing driving
us to sleep is our brain. What does our brain
do just vibrantly when we sleep, it's dream. So that's

(07:02):
like my straight up answer about like that thing that's
not happening on accident, right, that's not a glitch that
didn't last through thirty thousand generations accidentally. And so then
the question becomes if we have this vibrant one third
of our lives that we partially remember sometimes remember sometimes
it's an exciting journey, sometimes an erotic journey. Sometimes it's
a nightmare, like what's that all about? You know? And

(07:25):
the way I've come to understand it is, first, you know,
given respect to people who've tried to come up with
some ideas like it's a threat rehearsal if we're running
from a wooly mammoth and our dreams were better prepared
for during the day, what I would say is maybe,
And when I say maybe, you're likely it's not a
respect for you and your listeners. I don't want to
be that guy that comes in here says yes no
about something as big and magical as dreaming, so threat rehearsal.

(07:48):
Maybe some people think it's a nocturnal therapist because towards
the morning, when we have more of our vivid dreams,
the emotional balance, the valence they call it, tends to
be more positive. Maybe I like to think of it
as something that sparks creativity because of what happens with
the dreaming brain. The dreaming brain looks for looser dots
to connect. It's imaginative by design, logic is dampened down.

(08:11):
So I think it's our creativity engine. And then the
way I put it all together is with something straight
up called use it or lose it that people know
about when we talk about the brain, right, they say, hey,
use it or lose it. We know if we don't
use our biceps, the atrophy, but our day. If you
look at the brain, activation electricity is so narrow. The
brain wants to be efficient, right, because it's an energy hog.

(08:34):
It's only like four or five pounds, but it uses
twenty percent of our blood. So the brain during the
day to navigate the world task on outward. Executive network
logic wants to be efficient driving down the one to
one easily, going on the tube easily, not have to
activate everything to get that done. If we only use
those limited parts of our brain during the day and

(08:55):
didn't have some way to high intensity train them, those
would go derelic we wouldn't use them, and we may
lose them. So I think in the biggest way possible
is that dreaming process. Dreams and dreaming is high intensity
training for our brain. It keeps those corners engaged, It
keeps those neurons firing that might not during the day,

(09:16):
and those are available to us the next day for
a creative process for the next day, or the next year,
or the next generation for an adaptive process. That's my biggest,
most romantic way of thinking about about why we dream
so hard.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, I like them, maybe because I think we've all
had different dreams that you feel you had for different reasons,
And there are some dreams that you did feel well,
Like you said, like you're a nocturnal therapist, this feeling
of like Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'm healing them there, you're working something out.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, you're working something out. I've definitely had dreams where
I feel like, oh my gosh, like this feels like
it's mirroring my reality and I'm either preparing or I'm
dealing with it internally. And I think you're so right
that there's so many different processes and it's hard to
it down to one. Is there a way to start
to label and define or do you think that's unhealthy

(10:07):
when it comes to dreaming?

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Perfect question. So to the maybe, I'll add likely, you know,
not yes and not no when it comes to my dream,
your dream infinitely wild. Okay, but what happens when you
start looking at ten thousand dreams? What happens when you
start So I'm over here, so there is no like
professor of dream science. Right, So now I was like
when they asked me, the publisher asked me, like, can

(10:29):
you put a book together about this? I think we're
vibing about this before we uh, before we went live
with this or recording with this. And it was like
they're like, you wrote this thing about the brain, like
you know, smart drugs, Alzheimer's creativity. Then you wrote this
thing about the mind, like resilience and trauma and belief
and about your own struggles, why don't you put together

(10:50):
something about dreams from a scientific perspective that everybody can read.
And I was like, there's going to be so many gaps,
and they said, then let us know where the gaps are,
say maybe, say likely, and say I wonder, I believe,
And that's what I've tried to do in the book.
But to your question about when I started this process,

(11:11):
when I looked at not your dream, my dream, but
ten thousand dreams, Aristotle was writing about lucid dreaming a
couple hundred years ago, they're still writing about being chased
or falling, and I was like, wait a second, there
are patterns to dream reports, like now they have dream banks.
So the first thing I noticed was nightmares and erotic
dreams are essentially universal. And I say essentially because it's

(11:34):
ninety plus in this world is considered a hundred, right,
because that's just how science works when you look at
questionnaires and surveys, So everybody's at a nightmare, erotic dreams
are almost all the way up there. And then chasing falling,
falling teeth, that seems to be common. And then there
was a dream that was very rarely reported doing math.

(11:57):
I don't like math, so I was like, that's all
good for me. But but you start when you look
at lots of thousands of dreams, like why is that
one so low? Now walk with me over here. Then
you start looking at brain scans and brain electricity and
what happens. What's the difference between the waking brain and
the dreaming brain. Right in a twenty four hour cycle,
we're about two thirds waking brain and one third dreaming brain.

(12:20):
And there are some transition zones that I love, like
I call them liminal states or blurry zones that we
can get into. But that when you see that and
you say, well, what's the difference I started off with like,
they're both burning hot, they're both sparkling electricity, So what's
the difference. So when you go from waking brain to
dreaming brain, what happens is the need to look outward changes, right,

(12:42):
And so the executive network, a collection of structures, not
just one thing, dampens logic and math ability damping. They
don't turn off. Nothing turns off on the brain, otherwise
you know you'd have a stroke. So it dampens the
imagination network and the emotional systems called the limbic structures
are liberated. So if we know now that the dreaming
brain as a measurement, not my opinion, right, we can

(13:05):
talk about opinions, but this is a measurement. If the
dreaming brain has dampened logic and reason and math, liberated emotion,
hyper visual, it kind of makes sense why we don't
see a lot of math, because that part of the
brain that does that is to take in a back
seat while we dream. So I said, okay, even if
that's the only thing I can say in this book,
and some youngster, you know, ten twenty thirty years from now,

(13:27):
it takes more data from dream banks that are more
inclusive and bringing in more people that patterns of how
we dream, you know, and what we dream can be
explained by the brain. Thought to me, that was fascinating.
So dreams are not limitless. Yours is mine is when
you look at a lot of them, nightmares happen universally,
erotic dreams happen essentially universally, and then we find very emotional,

(13:52):
visual movement based dreams.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
That's fascinating. I mean, you don't even think about it
that way, and I think so often it's kind of
it's interesting because it's a microcosm of how we live
our lives, Like we live our lives thinking no one
understands me, no one knows what I'm going through, only
I have this experience. And then all of a sudden,
when you zoom out and you look at the patterns,
you're like, wait a minute, we're all struggling with the
same thing. I was just talking to someone earlier and

(14:17):
we were talking about how we seem to be the
problem solvers in our families, and then you start realizing, how,
wait a minute, we're all trying to solve the same problems.
We're dealing with the same emotions, and those patterns are
so useful in finding so have they basically looked at
dream patterns and then looked at stress patterns and lifestyle patterns?
Like is that what you're measuring them against? Or what

(14:39):
are the patterns being measured against? So if out of
the ten thousand people, nine thousand people dreamt about their
teeth falling out, what then are we measuring in their
life to make sense of that dream?

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, that's a great question. And also we tend to
fall into the same traps, right, I think that looking
at brain sigence shows that yes, we're individuals, but what's
driving us and what's holding us is also something we share.
That's why these conversations, that's why a certain book or
a certain song, or certain interaction can kind of liberate you.
And so the way I would explain this is the

(15:11):
dream patterns that they're looking at. And when I say they,
I mean twenty forty years of different studies, I'm trying
to stitch it together. Let me give you a specific one.
There was one survey questionnaire where women going through divorce
when their dreams they were reconciling in their dreams, that
things were breaking up and people were moving on. Those
as a group tended to recover from divorce better. And

(15:35):
so when you just look into you just say, okay,
that's very interesting. Those that were struggling in their dreams
were also ones more likely to have depression longer. And
so what that does to me is that invites a conversation.
So does the dream or the dreaming brain kind of
give a clue to how well you're coping with your

(15:56):
real waking life. Stress, That by itself is powerful one
it knows about it. It ain't some other brain. It's
your brain, it's just in this dreaming mode, so it
knows about it. Your waking life is feeding your dream life.
I mean, six seven, eight hours, how are you processing,
how are you digesting? How are you metabolizing the most

(16:17):
difficult thing in your day? And I think that's where
I love it, is that it's not distinct and that
the dreaming brain can be your shepherd. It can be
the thing that helps you process emotional trauma. And for
people with PTSD, it can actually actually play back flashbacks.
So it's a wild space that leans emotional, leans visual.

(16:39):
Let me give you a second example with my patients
end of life cancer patients dreams are expansive, positive, filled
with reconciliation. As they're asking for surgery and all that.
You would think they're all going to be horrific because
it's dark time stress, right, You would think day stress
is turned into dreaming stress. But the connection is not clear.

(17:02):
And that's where I think there's power in our dream life.
I think, in general, when I look at all the surveys,
dreaming is our shepherd at the end of life. I
think nightmares and erotic dreams cultivate the young mind much
like our minds are cultivating adolescents. Dreams mirror and reflect
what's going on during our life. For example, pregnancy dreams

(17:25):
women who are pregnant, their dreams are very different rolling
over in bed what the babies are gonna be called.
So sometimes waking anxiety and dream anxiety clearly linked. I
gotta give a talk tomorrow. I got a dream showing
up naked. I gotta I gotta exam alarms. Sometimes they're clear,
Sometimes they're your companion. Pregnancy dreams, end of life dreams
sometimes are just jumped. Not everything's gonna make sense right,

(17:47):
Our waking life doesn't make sense. So I think when
you start to look at those categories, the fourth category
being universal dreams, nightmares and erotic dreams and children, then
the one we're left with that the one that now
I spend even more time with, is that hyper emotional,
hyper visual that lingers into the next day. What I

(18:08):
would say is, don't let that one go. That's a
solar flare from your brain in a unique state that
you can't get to during the day. Hyper emotional, hyper liberated.
The measurements of emotion in our dreaming brain can reach
a top speed. Our waking brain can never reach So
for me, when I look at the whole thing, the

(18:29):
hyper emotional, hyper visual with a central image is a
dream that has broken out from your dream life. That
is about you that a therapist can't get to. I mean,
it's your brain conjured it and that's one to reflect on.
What I would say is like, not every time, not everyone,
but in our search for wellness and healing, that's a

(18:52):
free and accessible portal. And when I was working on
this book with the UK publishers, there were like seven
or eight people who are like, we're dreaming more, We're
remembering our dreams more. Some lucid you know, had lucid dreams.
So that's the second thing I would say is that
this can be induced and cultivated. You're not a passenger
with your dream life and what you remember from your

(19:13):
dream life. You can also cultivate that you're not a
passenger at that stage either.

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Let's talk about that a little. So I was gonna

(20:02):
ask you, if you don't remember your dream, if you
don't make the subconscious conscious, does that mean that it
doesn't have an effect? And are you encouraging us to
take time to actually make the subconscious conscious and reflect
on our dreams.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I would say the first question is I can't answer
that fully. The second question is absolutely try to engage
your dream life sleep entry when you go from waking
to dreaming like Salvador Dali did or Christopher Nolan's talking
about inception sleep exit, which we can get into lucid dreaming.
The answer to the question should we engage our dream life? Yes, yes, yes,

(20:38):
I got a lot of science on that. I got
to do it.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Let's dive. Let's let's dive into that. I mean, there's
so many things I want to talk about, but let's
seeing as we've gone there now, let's let's dive into
it now. So let's talk about the process of being
more of a proactive leader in our dreams and not
a passenger in our dreams. What absolutely look right? Because
I would argue that anyone I talked to we're all
passengers in our dreams. We simply go to bed. We

(21:03):
may remember, we may not remember. We show up. It's
like the car Jenny, right, we jumped in the car,
you got to stap for a bit, you got to
the other side. Maybe you remember a tree you sore
along the way, or your mom and dad did something
when you were a kid, but you don't remember most
of it. It doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
You're in the driver's seat of a car you can't control.
It seems that way that one will get to with
lucid dreaming. But how you can affect your dreams, because
we've gotten to the science I believe the irrelevant. Let's
take this first stage. You go from waking to dreaming
right whatever time. That is not every time, not for everyone,
but just the fact that it's possible. That's something called

(21:38):
sleep entry. Okay, with those surface electros on our scalp,
the electricity blends. It's like a liminal state. Like I
used to be a scuba diver, when when you go
from a freshwater river to an ocean, it's not like
there's a crisp line, there's a blurry zone. Similarly, when
we go from waking to dreaming, there's about a ten

(22:00):
to fifteen minute period called sleep entry. Salvador Dali and
some current tech companies in San Francisco, they believe that
during that period you kind of sort of have access
to that divergent creative ideation of dreaming and that they
can extract ideas from there. So much so Thomas Edison
with the light bulb, would like would fall asleep in

(22:20):
a chair and when he'd fall asleep and he'd start
himself awake, he'd write down what he was thinking. That
that was a scene and inception. Right. So I'm just
up bringing the science in, But that's there. Christopher Nolan's
talking about that. Salvador Dolly wrote a book about that.
You know, his stuff is real, like the and so
what that period is the first entry into dream life

(22:41):
that you can still hold on to. And what we're
finding is that people have more interesting ideas, they have
more divergent thinking and creative ideas at that window. Is
that But to be clear your trouble at work, you
got to create a project. Is that going to guarantee it? No,
But it's a habit of respecting that transition liminal zone

(23:02):
as a portal to a state your brain is not
in when you're awake or not in when you're dreaming. Right,
So that's one thing that people can do to cultivate
in that same area. Some people peel and report questionnaires
and surveys, not measurements that what you think about at
that time will be more likely to populate your dream life,

(23:23):
whether you remember or not, and may lead to the
aha moment the next day. Let me give you a
specific example. I'm a cancer surgeon. Cancer eats some blood
vessels and tissues in different ways on challenging cases. I'll
flip the images through. That's the last thing I go
to bed thinking about. And somebody asked me this in London.
They said, well, your dream of surgery. I said, no,
I've never dreamt. I've never dreamt a surgery, but I

(23:44):
have a lot of dreams of scuba diving, navigating mazes,
going through forests, and so what I concluded is my
opinion is that it's a three dimensional space. And I
know I'm working on a three dimensional creative project and
that my dream life is somehow rehearsing that, practicing that
providing me with that maneuver in a complex surgery. And

(24:06):
I say, manah, that was where did that come from?
Sometimes I think it wasn't like in this scenario six,
I will come up with solution four. No, Like things
arise during our waking life, and I think that dreaming
brain builds that. So sleep entry for waking up intentionally
and writing down your thoughts and journaling at that moment,

(24:27):
journaling in general about what you want to dream about.
For me, looking at pictures about a surgery. Those are
specific things as you fall asleep that somebody can try.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Wow, that's fascinating because I think journaling has taken off
so much in culture, and.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
I'm trying to bring some science to it.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
I think the act of journaling straight after waking up,
like immediately. I know for a fact that if I
pick up my phone first thing in the morning, which
I try to avoid to do. But when it does happen,
I forget my dream immediately. Yeah, And I know I
wake up kind of of in a dream state and
then I completely shut it off. Have you found links

(25:04):
between going to sleep with your phone or without your
phone and how that affects our dreams? Or if you
watch a particular show and TV and how does that
affect your dream and what you do in the morning.
Does that have any correlation?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
So that's a great question. The thing you said about
waking up, I'll get to that at sleep Exit because
there's some interesting science there. But when you look at
all these surveys, that's why I open up with, like,
we need more dream banks. We need people who have
a great exposure to social media to start talking about
their dreams. At this point, it doesn't look like they
populate dreams. Let's take a specific example. Erotic dreams tend

(25:38):
to be about a narrow group of people in your
life family, even when you're younger, repellent bosses and celebrities.
So I'm curious to see like right, like So, now
that doesn't mean there's one hundred papers on that, but
those are the spring, that's the sprinkling of information that
I saw, Like, so what becomes familiar to the bosses. Well,
you know people can have like awkward dreams about bosses,

(26:00):
is right, they have sexual dreams about people they actually
are not attracted to. That's a big category in erotic dreams.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
But is there any reasoning to that specifically because being
erotic dreams about people you are not attracted to, Like,
where does that come from?

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I don't know. I think it's now we're getting into opinion.
I think it's a power dynamic play and I think
intimacy can be both collaborative and also a power dynamic
in some mix of it. All right, but that's just
that's an expiration. But erotic dreams, since we're there and
we'll get back to sleep exit is they're interesting. We
all get them. They come before we've done the erotic act,

(26:36):
even if we haven't seen it. So it's it's almost
like an instruction, if you will, an inheritance of thinking,
not just risk taking or mental health, but we inherit
those dreams. Even to people who never go on to
have sex, they still have erotic dreams, almost like a
playbook that's meant for a mind to activate our brain
and bodies for the act to pro create. That's the

(26:57):
big topic. The specific thing is across cultures, different over generations,
the percentages are surprisingly similar ninety plus. The other surprising
thing is that eighty to ninety percent in these reports,
infidelity cheating is common erotic dreams, whether you're in a
healthy relationship, whether you're lying about in a healthy relationship

(27:21):
and covening somebody else, or whether you're in a bad relationship.
It's almost like almost like a semi built in thing.
And I think that's how I've learned to think about
erotic dreams is that's just desire. It's like a flare
of desire. It interestingly tends to be toward a narrow group,
but the acts tend to be wild.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
There's a few points that you made in the book
that fascinated me. Seeing as we're on the topic of
erotic dreams. I was sharing it with the team earlier.
So there's three things here, but let's go one by one.
So erotic dreams are not fueled by masturbation or pornography.
Walk me through that.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
That's what some reports a decade ago mentioned that might
be changing. But what's interesting to me there is it's
not what we do during the day that shows up
in our erotic dreams. It's actually what we fantasize about
secretly during our day that's more likely to show up

(28:15):
in erotic dreams. And scientifically, to me, I think that
makes a lot of sense because the dreaming process is
the imagination network liberated, So it makes sense that what
you imagine in your dream life is more connected to
the fantasy you're having while you're awake. It doesn't matter
the sexual act the sexual person. That what brings someone

(28:39):
to climax, the thoughts they have during that process with
their lover, without their level. It's the internal thinking of
desire during the day that tends to find itself in
erotic dreams. And to me, that's consistent if you think
about the dreaming brain as something that has the liberated

(29:02):
imagination network. It's an imaginative process. Right your eyes are closed,
that movie you're making for yourself, So whatever you're thinking
about during the day, you know that's the movie you're
making at night.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
So then getting back to what you're saying earlier, if
someone's in a happy relationship, but you're saying it's still
common for them to cheat in their dreams.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
That's a separate pattern.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's a pattern that you've seen. So is
that an argument then that that doesn't may be happy
in the relationship, but then they're okay fantasizing.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
I can't answer that. No, No, I love the question.
That's a deep question. What I would say to you
is from there what people ask us if you have dreams,
tend to have more bisexuality. So does that mean you
have your bisexual you just haven't figured that out or
you're not sharing that with somebody during the day. I
can't answer that, But I think as we bring in
more reports from dream banks and bring in more cultures,

(29:50):
more backgrounds, more genders, and more diverse sort of perspectives
on sexuality, we'll get insights into that. But that's a
very individual thing. So as a a whole, there's a
lot of cheating in erotic dreams. As a whole, what
shows up in our erotic dreams is what we imagine
and then it leaves it to the person. That's why
I open with like, you know, people have asked me like,

(30:12):
if you dream of your ex, does that mean you
really want them? I was like, well, if you're just
seriously thinking to still thinking if you're hung up on
them during the day, you're dream about your ex, that
means one thing. But if you're like, no, I've really
moved on and the lover pops up in your dream,
I think that's just a solar flare of desire. I
wouldn't make much of that.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I think that's the hard part, right. I think what
we don't know is how seriously to take some of these,
to take a dream or not, because I feel like
a lot of people exactly like you just said, you
have a dream about something, you're thinking, oh God, maybe
I need that, maybe I don't. And is that a
lack of self awareness? Is it because the dream is
not clear? Like? How do we how have you thought

(30:51):
about that as you've reflected on dreaming, How do we
get better at knowing whether to take a dream seriously
or not? Because I feel like that would help solve
so much a conundrum or dilemmas that's created by dreams.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, it's a big question. It's a big question. It's
a big question.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
I'd thought.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, my opinion about it is that one, dreams should
not be neglected. Okay, nightmares if they pop up and
they arrive out of the blue, they shouldn't be neglected.
I think dreams that are flashbacks after PTSD obviously should
not be neglected. So there's some dreams that have an
easier rule to follow if you will. But then what

(31:29):
about those other dreams that you're bringing up right, like
intensely emotional to linger with you during the day, and
you're wondering like, wait a second, is that an insight
to myself that I don't even have yet about myself?
Should I discuss this with a therapist? Should I discuss
this with my lover? And I think the way I've
started to reflect on my dreams a bit more is

(31:52):
that when they are hyper emotional, it's an invitation to
look at your life differently. I feel like I'm doing well,
I'm high achieving, I'm doing this. I'm not. You know,
you feel like, no, it's fine, I'm dealing with a
broken relationship. But if you start having nightmares, or if
you have emotional dreams that are filled with fright or regret,

(32:14):
I'm not saying that that there's never an automatic link,
right other than showing up naked at a podium or
I'm not going off, But the one that's powerful haunts
you doesn't make sense. That's an invitation to think about
something and back to our original conversation. To me, that's
a life well examined is paying attention to the emotional,

(32:37):
powerful dreams that you have that linger with you. The
dream is symbolic to get to your answer in the
most specific way. The dream is a metaphor. The dream
is symbolism because from the dreaming brain and you've hyper visual,
hyper emotional. It's not going to spell it out for you.
It's going to be metaphorical. It's going to be symbolic.

(32:57):
Specific example, Vietnam veterans who had PTSD got better, they
start going through divorce, they're not and they're struggling. They're
not dreaming of divorce, they're dreaming of war again. So
the experiences you're having, they're an invitation to reflect. The
meaning is metaphorical and symbolic, all based on how the
dreaming brain is built, and it's personal. It's hard to

(33:21):
say a bridge or a light bulb in your life
at this moment is going to be the same meaning
for me at this at this moment in life, or
my life ten years from now, not just former versions
of myself. So I'm not here to refute anything, but
it's a very personal process. Your brain made it. It's
hyper it's an emotion to a hyper emotional state. It

(33:42):
could mean nothing, it could mean something. But what I'm
here to say is take a look at it. Yeah,
it's not just static.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
No, I think that's I completely agree with you. I
think it's a great point, and I feel like it's
really interesting because it then goes back to the idea
that humans are meaning makers and that way story and
if you're looking at a me a lot on that man,
then you're trying to figure out and if you have
a if you have a negativity bias in your conscious mind,

(34:11):
I wonder how much like I'll give an example. I
was talking to someone the other day and they were
saying that they'd been dreaming about bears, and so I
started googling what that means, and I was gonna ask you,
and I was googling about it. It was really interesting
because in a conscious state, a big bear feels scary
and it feels like death, and it feels like run away.

(34:32):
And that's how they saw a bear in their dream.
But then when you look at the dream, spiritual version,
whatever you call it, the interpret Sorry, when you look
at dream interpretation, the interpretation of that was bears represent
strength and they represent courage, and they have the symbol
and the now goo. So it's it depends.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, it depends on which brain conjured up which image. Yeah,
you work in the circus, bear means one thing, you know,
your hunter, bear means one thing you know. In culture,
bear means something else. So I like that. But just
to go back to something that you know, I've been
I've been moving around and people have asked me stuff.
The question you just asked is something special about are

(35:14):
we meaning makers? And now this is gonna take me
a little time to open up on this. But but
what's what's interesting, and again I don't have all the
answer this conversation, is that in the dreaming brain, even
though the logic and reason areas are dampened, specifically the
dorsal ladder prefrontal cortex, it's right behind our sort of

(35:35):
horns in the prefrontal cortex that pushed our brains forward,
there's another area called the medial prefrontal cortext that's preserved.
It stays throbbing, it's actually liberated a little bit. And
you know what that one does. It does something we
only figured out when we accidentally injure it or somebody
has a stroke in that area. It stitches the story

(35:57):
of our life together. Right, And so what's happening this
is this is this is cool. What's happening is your
emotions and your vision centers and your movement centers are
just firing up stuff linked directly and directly to the
stuff you feted during the day, the stuff your life feted, right,
your life, your memory plus the imagination and then the

(36:20):
media prefrontal cortex is they're putting a story to it. Dreams,
often not always are stories. They have a narrative component.
They're emotional, they're visual, they have a narrative component. Our
brains want to make a cohesive story. I know that
for a lot of reasons, and the dreaming brain is
something that also preserves that. And some have even extended

(36:44):
that say like, well maybe that's why we can you know,
we get movies that have jumps of ideas, people go
from one place to the other, like our dreaming. The
way we dream prepares us for the way we appreciate art. Right,
so we can let that go this way on this
on this side some of my patients with certain complications
and certain tumors and different things, they'll wake up and

(37:06):
they won't feel certain parts of their body and they'll
develop something called neglect, or they'll develop something what it's
called confabulation. It's a fancy word for lying. When the
body signals are disconjugate, they don't make sense. The brain,
the mind will make up a story to make it
all fit. And some patients have actually tried to throw

(37:29):
a leg they don't feel off the bed and they say, oh,
that was a stranger. And so you see things with
the injured brain and the healing brain that there's a
drive within us sometimes will even lie to ourselves and
others to create a consistent or a story that makes
sense to ourselves meaning. And I think if you look
at that at the brain level, and you look at

(37:50):
that at the dreaming level, what I try to tell
people my first book is look at that at the
life level. Like our maturation isn't done just with adolescens.
R work has to continue to cultivate your brain and
your mind and your life. So when you get through
a struggle and you get through it, that prepares you
for the next one. If you're in a struggle. Now,

(38:10):
that's just overwhelming, like something difficult, so hard. Don't worry
because you're cultivating that stress, stress for the next one.
And I think all of those pieces not measurements, but
my opinion that we are meeting makers. We are storytellers
in the moments of our lives, in our dreaming brain,
in our life in general, and the area where stories
and emotions are the wildest with our dreams. And that's

(38:34):
where I think why we dream is something bigger than
just threat rehearsal. I think it's something powerful when we
wake up. And that clarity is because are some consciousness
had its run?

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Are people having when you look at the data, are
people having the same dream again and again and again
or are they having different dreams every night?

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Well that's a good question. So there are recurrent dreams.
It's a specific example. The only thing I can say
with certainty is dreams come our brain. We do these
exotics brain surgeries where we wake people up to map
the surface of their brain. You don't feel. You wouldn't
know if I touched your brain if the situation ever rose,
which it won't. But like the brain doesn't feel, the
brain feels through its nerves, so we can dissect the

(39:15):
brain in somebody while they're talking. The point there is
is not to scare anybody. That's a therapeutic process. But
when we tickle and map the brain, they'll say, oh,
I remember this nightmare from when I was a kid.
You can activate a recurrent nightmare in a patient by
tickling the surface of the brain. So dreams come from
the brain. There are recurrent dreams. There are that's individual.

(39:39):
There are common dreams across people falling, being chased, teeth
falling out. There are universal dreams, so you start to
see all these patterns. A recurrent dream is a loop
of electricity in that part of your brain that pops
up again and again. It must be because if we
take a little faint pen and tickle it and you
have that dream again, that's that's built into the electrical

(40:00):
flows of your brain. So we have to step back
a little bit when you ask those questions because there
are so many different dream types and dream experiences. I
don't want to give a single answer. But recurrent dreams
are loops of electricity that happen over and over again.
We can actually activate that and then universal dreams common
dreams and rare dreams. Is how I conceptualize it.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
What does someone do if they have a recurrent dream
that they don't want to have?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Any big question? Okay, so let's look at that. So
now we got the foundation waking brain, dreaming brain, hyper imaginative,
hyper emotional. You're cooking up, you're creating the events of
your dreamscape. And I found this to be very powerful
that nightmares since we imagined them. The treatment for nightmares

(40:45):
is something called imagery rehearsal therapy. Now I'm not a therapist.
I mean I take care of a lot of cancer patients.
I'm more than ten thousand in my life, So there's
there's a cultivation that I have benefited from from them
trusting me. So I think I have some sense of
understanding of human nature. But therapy, when you try to

(41:08):
help somebody through conversation talk therapy, right, that's great. It
seems to be effective. That's out there. What they're finding
is imagery rehearsal therapy. It's a new thing where imagine
what you want to be, imagine something you don't want
to have. And when I read that, I was like,
I don't know if I can sink my teeth in
that until I started reading about nightmares and learning about
nightmares and across all different sciences that if you practice

(41:32):
before you go to bed, going back a bit to
your saying that we can actually feed our dreams. If
you practice a new script for the ending of your nightmares,
you can rescript your nightmares through something called imagery rehearsal therapy.
People can look it up and not every time, not
for everyone, but just the fact that nightmares can be

(41:53):
rescripted is powerful. That you think you're out of control,
but you can feed your dreams, you can steer your dreams,
and lucid dreaming as the prime example of that, and
that therapy can guide you to a better conclusion in
your dream. I love that as a scientist because it's
the imagination network. You've imagined this nightmare, and it's powerful

(42:15):
to think now you can actually imagine a different kind
of ending for this nightmare. To me, that's all scientifically consistent,
and to me, that's why I think it's powerful to
look at dreaming as more magical, more fascinating, that it
is being driven by certain brain processes. Right, so you
don't wake up and say, ah, that's a glitch that's static. No,

(42:37):
there's something drove that. Learn about the engine behind it,
and then reflect about the meaning about it.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, for sure, I mean I can relate to that.
I feel like there have been parts of my life
where I've been able to code the emotion and feeling
and script that I wake up with by what I
put into the code before I go to bed. And
so at one point in my life when I was
trying to wake up early and I didn't enjoy it,

(43:05):
and my reaction to waking up early in the morning
would be, Oh, I'm so tired. I just want to
stay in bed. I just you know, And I wanted
to wake up early. I believed that was a worthy
pursuit and a habit to invest in, and so I
would before I went to bed, I would say to myself,
I am waking up energized, happy and healthy. And so

(43:27):
even that rescripting in the evening, I found I would
wake up and I would be saying that to myself
when I woke up, and there was this direct link
between a script that I didn't have it written in
the morning. I didn't have it there, but that repetition
would carry over in the morning and I found whenever
I used it, it worked, and whenever I don't use it,
I can still wake up and feel, oh God, why

(43:48):
am I waking up so early? And so I've sensed
moments of that, or I've had experiences of that and
that coding or that imagery rehearsal therapy that you mentioned.
I would love for our audience to practice a community
to try it out and see how it shows up
in your life, because I think what we don't realize
is you're subconsciously rehearsing anyway.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Oh yeah, right, whatever you do, the work is going on,
you're doing it, work with it.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Yeah, whatever you're watching, reading seeing that is imagery rehearsal.
It's just not therapy and it's not conscious. But we're
doing imagery rehearsal throughout the day and before we go
to bed.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
And it adds a big question here. So when you
when you say something like that, it ties into positive thinking,
wish fulfillment, all these these nebulous terms that I think
some people really embrace. Other people poo poo, and they
say that can't be true. Or I say something in
the middle that through studying about dreams and dreaming, I've

(44:44):
learned about, Like, what's the biology of how what you
just described about. I think about something before I go
to bed, and it helps me wake up, and I'm
you know, I'm feeling it more. I'm thinking about it
more in the right way, Like that's just out there right.
That feels like there's like a kite flight and flying
above our head. What I'm trying to get people to
understand is the dreams, if they can be defined, are thoughts, emotions,

(45:07):
and activities that are actually happening at the brain level.
That's what's sparkling all that electricity. If I'm running in
a dream, the motor strip that moves my legs, the
neurons they are firing, the signals just aren't getting through.
So then what that does is it opens up a
whole new world of athletes practicing the shot in their mind,

(45:29):
positive reinforcement, going to bed, and rescripting your dreams right journaling.
Like people are like, okay, so there's brain activity that's
leading to this mind that I want to get my
mind to lean a certain way, and the brain activities
driving that. And so the people say, well, how that happened.
I would give you the example of placebo and So

(45:52):
when you believe a medicine is going to help you,
even if I tell you, look, that's there's nothing active
in it. That's just like sugar. That's just something that
has no capacity to change by the pill itself the
physiology of your body. But belief is enough to make
people feel less pain. And I can give you a

(46:13):
scientific explanation about how that happens. Belief you're armed with neurotransmitters,
that electricity that we're measuring, the chemicals that are floating around.
Think of the brain as like one hundred billion microscopic jellyfish,
and is there's like electric storms and waves of neurotransmitters
flying around in there. When you believe, the pharmacy of

(46:33):
your mind is actually releasing chemicals and things that generates
different electricity, that alleviates pain, that prepares your brain and
mind for rescripting the nightmare, that makes positive, gives you
the scientific basis possibly for positive reinforcement. Positive relationships like
these are actually not just emotions, but they're working at

(46:56):
the level of the brain. That's powerful.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Yeah, I love that. I loved that description. And as
you were saying that, I was thinking about this. It's
all coming back to an intentionality of programming, a like
what I'm hearing from you is just this idea of
get active, get involved, be conscious, be aware. I was
thinking about. I remember during the pandemic, I probably hadn't

(47:23):
up until the pandemic, I probably hadn't watched TV or
played video games for like ten years, like consistently at all.
And I think the pandemic kind of you know, had
had time and we were indoors and all the rest
of it. And so I started watching TV. I remember
one of the shows I was watching, which I really
enjoyed watching, was Ozark, and I can I remember watching

(47:44):
Ozark every day for thirty days in a row, and
it's not even the scariest show. And while I was watching,
I probably didn't feel anything. And somehow I felt that
I had dreamed every night that my house was being
broken into like that that was an experience that I
was having and I connected to because it's someone who
didn't have nightmares as an adult and as someone who

(48:05):
didn't watch that much TV. Those are the only two
changes that I'd at least not is.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Or if we get back to that, it's symbolic. Maybe
is the stress of the pandemic. I mean, so it's
never going to be pinned down exactly. But you're right.
The paying attention to the patterns of your dreams more
than just a dream unless it's higher emotional. But the
pattern of dreams, I think is an important thing to do.

(48:30):
And how does our waking life feed our dream life?
What I would tell you is when color television arrived,
the magazines the dream reports show a bump in people
having color color dreams, like there were more black and
white dreams when TV was black white, And I was like, wait,
but the world is in color. And what I'm saying
to you is that's why this topic is so fresh

(48:51):
because it doesn't all make sense. The science gives some insight,
and the exploration reveals there's so many things we don't understand.
The take home is it's not a it's not a
passive process. It's not something that is coming from the
gods or omens. It's your brain giving you thoughts, emotions, dreams,

(49:13):
and potentially insights that you can't have access to with
your waking brain. And to me, that's a special portal.
And how people cultivate that, I think it's up to them.
I'm here to let people know that there's a rigorous
science behind the brain biology, brain chemistry, brain electricity that
drives dreaming.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, I mean that bump in color television. I can't
imagine when we have enoughdates to look at the social
media bump, right, because to me, it's bizarre to feel
that I'm exposed you to show social media pornography. Being
on the online world doesn't lead to specific or certain.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Dreams, especially with the hours that people putting in, right, Yeah, exactly,
So that would be the next wave. And my hope
is that somebody listening to this, you know, as I mentioned,
I'm fifty one, I've got three sons eighteen ninety teen,
twenty two in college. Like, my hope is somebody walks
away and says, oh wait, some of the stuff about
dreams can be explained by the brain. Because imagine in
twenty thirty years how much more data will have through

(50:12):
people with online dream banks, and how much more will
know about neuroscience. Imagine the connections that somebody's sitting here
playing different roles than us can make. And so it's
more of a it's an inception. I want people to
be ignited that dreams can some parts of dreams can
be made sense of.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yeah, I want to dive back into nightmares because as
a child, I grew up having a lot of nightmares.
I don't I remember one of them very vividly, even
till today. I don't dream about it anymore, but I
remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling horrified.
And you talk about in the book how children have
the most nightmares, like it's common children have five times
as many nightmares as adults. You say, even the gentlest

(50:53):
childhood is no protection against nightmares. And I think that's
really unnerving for parents when their kids having nightmares. I
have friends who have kids who tell me like, oh God,
she just doesn't sleep, she has nightmares, And it's like
you're trying to figure it out. And I mean, you're
a father, so it's interesting to hear how you may
have felt about that. I'm sure a lot of us
listening right now are thinking, God, I definitely had nightmares

(51:15):
as a kid. When you're having that as a kid,
it can be so unnerving. It can be so difficult,
even more than as an adult, because you really feel powerless.
What have been some Have there been any therapies or
remedies that have helped, But then you go on to
say that nightmares are needed. So walk me through there.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
All right. So when I was thinking about this book,
I was rolling around in La going to different spots
and sort of just bouncing around people, you know, regular
people at Dodger Stadium, and often I got the question, like,
all right, you're going to talk about dreams and dreaming.
You need to have a new take on it. But
clearly nightmares can't be good for you, right, There's no
use for nightmares. And I thought I got to take
this one head on in chapter two. And so when

(51:55):
I look at that, I would ask people to think
of nightmares based on age, and we do that in
the hospital and medicine and surgery and science where they're
sort of age related. Pediatric and adult is what I
would say. We've talked about adults, flashbacks, nightmares. If they
y paid attention to them, they could be a warning
flair for some mental health issues. You get them more
in depression. You know, we've left that how to explain

(52:17):
nightmares and kids is an exploration, it's a conversation. I
think it's fresh. And I looked at a bunch of
pieces that helped me sort of come up with an idea,
a story, if you will. So if you look at
the first thing about nightmares that struck me is you
have to say, hey, Johnny, that was only a nightmare.

(52:39):
It's only with nightmares that we tell our kids that's
only a nightmare. So as a conversation, does that mean
Johnny was blurring dreaming brain thoughts and waking brain thoughts
until that moment. So that's a power. I'm not saying
I have the answer. I'm just I'm leaving that with
your audience. There's one nightmares do that. By definition, nightmares

(53:01):
wake you up and they see your memory. Okay, just
like our kids learn to walk and talk, our mind
is being cultivated. So they have these families that signed
all the kids up to be woken up and talk
about their dreams for like twenty years in a row.
They're called longitudinal kids. When they start talking, their dreams
are like a table, you know, a sweater. Then they

(53:22):
get more imaginative, and what happens is five ' sixt'
seven nightmares arrive. What else is arriving? They're developing visuospatial skills,
and they're also developing this thing called theory of mind.
People can look up these terms that children at some
point developed the ability to look at somebody and say

(53:44):
that smile. I don't think they mean well, mind reading,
reading the other person's intention, right. That arrives theory of
mind at the same time as nightmares. So my biggest
way to conceptualize that is nightmares arrive in children to
help them develop a sense of self versus other help them,

(54:05):
not a sense of identity, but that my thoughts and
my experiences are mine, My waking life and dream life
are separate, and that I need to think of myself
as different from my uncles and aunts and other people
around me. And I think that's the function of nightmares
and children. You may have had them a lot, but
they arrive and then very few of them lead to

(54:27):
nightmare disorder, like it doesn't ruin there the next day.
So it's almost sort of like whereas an adults, nightmare
disorder means the residue is lingering with you. So when
you look at the patterns children learn to work, we'll
walk and talk. Nightmares arrive around four or five, six, and
most of them go away. Erotic dreams around like eleven, twelve, thirteen,
and persist in some way. Adolescences arise around fifteen sixteen.

(54:49):
But these are cognitive changes. The brain looks about the same.
It's not like a new low pops up. These are
cognitive changes that are happening. So I think nightmares cultivate
them mind, mind and children. They arrive and fade things
that happen that universally and science aren't accidental. And it's
the it's the dream we've always had that all of

(55:09):
us have had as a nightmare.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Yeah, that's super fascinating to me, super fascinating.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
It's an exploration.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Yeah, and it's it is such a it's so interesting
how we're so addicted to certainty and conclusiveness.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, it's kind of stifling. Yeah, it's very rigidity to it, right,
do this, don't do this, this will save you, this
won't say no. But the dreaming process leaves it open, like, yeah,
we're just beginning to understand it's personal. Keep digging, keep exploring,
fail better. I think that's what that all shows us.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
What why? I feel like what the conversation we're having
exposes a weakness that we have across so many areas
of our life, which is that we're uncomfortable with uncertainty. Yeah,
and we constantly feel discomfort when we can't control. And
I think dreams are like the ultimate version of that.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Dreams are like, hey, just to remind you you need uncertainty. Yeah, yeah,
Let me dig into that a little bit. I have
some ideas about that, like when we fall asleep and dream.
The executive networks dampen. Let me reverse a bit. Most
of the day is something we call task on. It's
outward and the brain the executive network. Reason logic is
paying attention. Of course, food scarcity, right, Willie mammitz. It

(56:29):
makes sense those who are best at paying attention outward,
navigating the world and using as little amount of calories
and brain energy. That seems like that would be a
natural adaptation. Well, what I would tell people is when
we're not tasked on, the brain doesn't rev down like
your computer like goes and then you have to hit
the keyboard to pop it up. No, it creates a

(56:50):
mental life of its own, right, that's the imagination network.
So during the day we're mostly executive network outward. But
if there's nothing to do with mind wandering or things
are safe, we turn back into our own head. Dreaming
is the example of that, but just suffused with like uncertainty,
and so the question becomes the day is so focused

(57:13):
on thinking, calculating. Adrenaline is up. Adrenaline finds the signal
in the noise. They've done studies where they change that,
and then the dreaming brain is kind of the opposite.
Adrenaline comes down. You're looking for looser patterns, divergent thinking,
designing a car, not fixing an engine. To me, to me,

(57:37):
the uncertainty that the dreaming brain goes through. That's our
genius built in. We don't We actually don't want to
become too rigid in our habits. It might be okay
today going on the freeware, going on the tube, as
we mentioned, but that's not the process your brain needs
to be in to be the most adaptive for heartache,

(57:57):
for falling in love, for a kid, getting sick, for
the uncertainty the environment will give us, and the uncertainty
we almost want to engage in love affairs and adventures.
I think that's the balance. Get things done, Try not
to be too rigid, try to be open minded and
appreciate that your dreaming brain is gonna take you there,
whether you want it or not. That's the love story

(58:20):
of uncertainty and creativity.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Yeah, and it's I'm gonna flip flop because we talked
about uncertainty and creativity, but I want to go into
lucid dreaming and this idea of wanting some control in
the uncertainty. But before we get there, I wanted to
go back to sleep exit because I don't think we
talked about sleep entry, but we didn't finish sleep exit.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
And that works because sleep exit that dampened executive network,
that damp and adrenaline that looks for the signal and noise.
It seems to come back on. And if an alarm
goes off, we know it comes back on. Like you
could be dreaming and sleeping you smell smoke. The executive
network is the boss. It will pop back on and dominate.

(59:01):
And so if you do grab your phone in the morning,
I check emails too quickly or jump on Instagram, like,
your brain will go to that forward task on feature
and the residue or the lingering feelings of your dream
life will necessarily be put in the backseat. And so
if you do want to remember your dreams more as

(59:21):
you wake up, if you have the luxury of a
bed and time and not an alarm. That's a critical
windows sleep exit to sort of hold onto your dream
thoughts and your dream experiences. It's an imperfect process, but
I can tell you people who have tried, they get
better at it. And again, it's free, it's accessible, it's
from your own brain. I think it's one of those

(59:43):
habits that I've incorporated my life for the last five
ten five ten years.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
I get what exactly.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
So what I do is if I have the luxury,
because I do now I didn't for a long time.
I mean, the phone calls and pages are going off
in the middle of the night, and now it's more
like if I wake up in the morning, I try
to linger, I try not to move. And there's different
types of yoga. The people have been talking about a
lot of stuff like this for centuries and millennia, and
I'm just adding some scientific pieces that support it. But

(01:00:10):
that I'm trying to not have my executive network kick in.
I'll keep my eyes closed. I'll run through some thoughts.
So that's interesting, hold none that Whishould I do that?
Like I have my sleep exit thinking or moments if
you will, and then I'll reach over and I'll go
to my notes app. It's write on the home screen,
and I'll write a few things down. When I have ideas,

(01:00:32):
I mean i'd say a great majority have come from them.
They're almost all bad ideas, but that is the idea generator.
If I've had a good idea, it's been during that time.
It's rarely. It's rarely, like at two o'clock on a
triple espresso. Right. That's important because we have to get
things done. But the dreaming process, sleep entries we talked about,
and sleep exit I think are interesting portals where there

(01:00:52):
are sort of blurry liminal states that we have a
different type of thinking without it being just like wildly psychedelic.
You know, it's measured, but it's a fresh perspective. It's
a different take on the things that are important in
your life at that moment.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yeah, I mean, even the language of sleep entry and
sleep exit is so powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Well, I got to you know, but this calls hypnogogic
and hypnopopic. So the first thing I'm out there is like,
stop using these words that suck, right, like a terrible Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I'm so glad. Yeah, even hearing you say I've I've
never heard the word sleep entry and sleep exit before. Yes,
and personally really like that language because I think we
don't think about it like that. And it's so funny
how we we enter buildings, we leave buildings, we enter spaces,
we leave spaces, and sleep is kind of like that.

(01:01:39):
And we are talking about evening routines and morning routines,
but this was almost a bit more intimate to both
sides of that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
It's the essential routine. I'll just sleep entry and sleep exit.
What I love about it is that I can put
stickers on your scalp our scalps and record the electricity
and be like, look the waves you are measurably, not
just by report like, hey, I'm feeling different. I get that.
I trust that that's individual. But the brain waves during

(01:02:11):
sleep entry and sleep exit have a pattern. They overlap
in a way that never happens while you're awake or
while you're dreaming. All right, So that's why I want
people to walk away like it's not just his thing.
He's looking at the fact that he can measure that
this is a different space right now. Yeah, yeah, No,
that doesn't mean it's powerful or not. That's for you

(01:02:33):
to figure out. But we can measure sleep entry and
sleep exit, and it looks different on a twenty four
cycle of brain waves. And how long does it lost
was different for different people, and people seem to cultivate it.
But Salvador Dali's written about it said, you know, anywhere
from two to twelve minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
That's how long you have.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah, but it's it's personal, but it's real as for
everybody to figure out for themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
You know, by like the two to twelve minutes, it
gives us a gauge sure as to how long do
you not let you executive brain turn on in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
And because there's science, there's tech companies coming up with
a little you know, your iPhone or Apple watch is
tracking your stages of sleep and when people are in
that sleep entry, it'll buzz them to wake up, like
Dolly tried, and they'll and that that's their way of
write down what you're thinking now as sort of the
tech approach to creativity. It's interesting, right, how does.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
I mean talking about the tech approach again? Another tangent
because aspect I'm like completely obliterated any form of structure,
but it's it's great. Where do you see the cross
section of AI and dreams, like where can it be useful?
Where will it be helpful with this? Where will it not?
Will it help us ask better questions? Is it going

(01:03:42):
to help us take better notes? Is it going to
help us?

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
I don't know. I'm not a computer scientist, but I'll
tell you two things. They're making programs that add noise
because sometimes the patterns and algorithms of computers become so
rigid like our daily thinking, that they can't handle the
insertion of new data. And that's sort of mirrors what's
going on like that's it's called overfitted. The computer process
and algorithm design is too tight, too efficient, and that

(01:04:09):
learning from dreaming, they find that the computer system is
more adaptive when they add in noise. Where artificial intelligence
fits in, I'm not sure, but tech is all over it.
They're tracking the data from smartphones and certain people you're volunteering.
They'll play certain songs and you'll have people watch commercials
and see if they dream about it more and then

(01:04:30):
buy that product more. Like that space is here, so
if somebody's listening, like, that's a massive space, and I
just think I would remind people that we're not completely
shut off when we dream, we wake up to alarms
and smoke, and that we should be careful about in
that vulnerable, precious, remarkable, a unique state that somebody's not
just taking marketing advantage of it. And I think that's

(01:04:52):
where AI will extract data, figure out what's the right buzz,
the right sound, and just to riff on this a
little bit, like one hundred years ago, they were like,
people are sleep and they put their hand in like
a bucket of water, see if they had more dreams
about water. In the modern version, they're going to be
taking your data and trying to fine tune like the song,
the scent and the picture to put, you know, to

(01:05:12):
throw at you to try to get you to buy stuff.
So I'm a bit like dystopian about that because I
don't want you know I'm private, especially in my dream life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Yeah, absolutely no, it's I mean, I feel like some
of my favorite movies have been about dreams. You mentioned
Inception even I mean this isn't about dreams, but still
in that in that space of Vanilla Sky, Yeah, with
Tom Cruise and Cameron DearS. That movie, if you're not
seeing it, it's probably one of my favorites. And just
how that memory bank or some sort of like subconscious

(01:05:41):
bank is created and held. And it's fascinating thinking about that.
There's a few more things roll that I want to
go over with you from the book, which I think
are so interesting for people. I want to talk to
you about. Before we get into lucid dreaming. I want
to talk to you a bit about how dreams can
predict the future. And I think a lot of people
worry that their dreams, their thoughts can create reality subconsciously.

(01:06:06):
Somewhere we feel that like I know people who have illnesses,
or like, oh I manifested this, like I made this happen,
or like I have a disease and oh my god,
I saw this coming, or you know that kind of
feeling warning dream Yeah, warning dreams. And that almost feels
a bit worrying as well, because often when you have
that warning, you know, constantly replaying and thinking about it

(01:06:27):
while you're awake and while you're asleep. Can dreams predict
the future, especially when it comes to health.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
In one specific way, dreams can absolutely predict the future
of your health, and we'll get into that that's Parkinson's,
but in general for cancer, for other diseases. It's hard
to tease out whether my patients had the diagnosis and
then sort of reverse thought like I think I had
a dream about that. I'm not judging them. I'm just

(01:06:54):
totally open minded. But I can't grip the data on that.
But if you do have a dream about disease, statistically
you're not more likely to have that disease. They've been
looking at these surveys, so it might just reveal a
certain anxiety you're having again symbolic. You might be struggling
with something and then have a disease based dream. So

(01:07:17):
as long as we remember that most of the time
they're symbolic and not literal, I think that's important. There
are plenty of reports and surveys where breast cancer patents
are said like I had a dream, I felt the
lump in these sort of things, I respect that, I
respect their whole journey, So I want to put that
out there. The one specific way that dreams can predict

(01:07:39):
the future. I need to unpack this one for a
little bit, because this was mind blowing when I when
I learned about it. There's something called rem behavior disorder,
which I'm relabeling dream and act. My behavior. Uh yeah,
my world, my world. The words are they confuse, you know,
dream and act my behavior. Middle aged men fifties acting

(01:08:02):
out their dream, usually protecting their bed partner. They come
in the bed partners maybe has an injury. Those men
ninety four percent of the time. And that's essentially in medicine,
it's universal. Fifteen years later will develop Parkinson's. I think
you know. So that is the one example, and it's

(01:08:26):
if it's the only example for every neuroscientists out there,
Every scientist out there hear me with this that the
first warning flare of the brain's deterioration with Parkinson's is
a change in dreams fifteen years ago. I'll just leave
it at that. For all the rigorous people out there saying, hey,
they're talking about stuff like I'm questioning whether you know

(01:08:47):
the science can really show this. Look up REM behavior
disorder cap all caps RAM behavior disorder, which I call
dream and acting behavior. It's in scientific American. This isn't
like one paper I'm digging up, like this is thing.
This is stuff that that's coming out. REM behavior disorder
predicts Parkinson's fifteen years later. And what I would say

(01:09:08):
to the researchers out there, is that an opportunity for
us to start with medicine earlier. I mean, it just
says so much. But outside of that one and all
you need is one unicorn for unicorns to be real.
I haven't found any evidence that dreams predict the future.
I mean, they definitely don't give you lottery numbers and
stuff like that, but at a more grounded level, they
don't actually predict what's going to happen to you, but

(01:09:31):
what happens to you maybe because of what the dream
is symbolically mentioning you're going through a difficult time, or
you lose your job. You have a dream about losing
your job, So I can see where those connections would form.
I just don't have any, so I'll leave it as
a maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
It's so interesting how again, it goes back to this
idea of when you get a diagnosis or something happens,
you then go back to finding that point Like it's
almost like you've been dating someone and you knew they
were wrong, and then when they break up with you,
I knew it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
You go and you replay it all.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Yeah, yeah, you replaying it, like and then you now
you see all the red flags do and again, there's
nothing wrong with it, but it's that feeling of I
remember and I know, but we're not always good at
trusting our gut in that moment, you know what I'm saying,
Like there's there's not a feeling of it's almost like again,
and I'm not discounting anyone's experience, but I find even

(01:10:22):
I do it where you're living your life and then
something happens and you go, I knew it. I knew it.
There was a part of you that sensed it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
I call that hunch and instinct. Yeah, and I think
we we connect if I may, yeah, please in the
moment as we navigate uncertainty, and because we're not just
reflexive creatures, right, there's this thing called counterfactual thinking, like
I can run out if this happens, then that I
can play scenarios out and you know what does that
The imagination network, the same thing that's liberating and dreaming.

(01:10:53):
We create a mental workspace what if this happens, What
if this happens? What if this doesn't happen? As we
navigate the uncertainty, So it's not just you know, pull
back from a hot frying pan or you know, pull
back from a scorching rock if you're a lizard, right,
those are reflexes. We have the ability to choose. And
I think when you look at what you're saying about
hunch and instinct and how we kind of nuse something

(01:11:15):
and we should have maybe paid more attention to it,
I think that for me, that's in the rear view.
When you're in the moment and things are imperfect, as
they often are, I believe that you are trying to
create the outcome out of that imperfect situation, and when
it doesn't arise or it doesn't arrive for you, so
we do look back and say, hey, you know, maybe

(01:11:37):
we should have done things differently. That is the cost
of the freedom of choice that we have right now
what to do, whether to grab this glass or not.
And just like heartache is the cost of exposing yourself
to falling in love, you know, And I'm familiar with that,
So I think I think people should look at that
as like, that's that's what makes life exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Yeah, you see any connection between alcohol and dreams.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Well, it's a big question. So this is a notable
thing that I left out of the book. I have
patients waking up from anesthesia. I'm floating above disassociative states
like psychedelic experiences, ambient dreams, fent no dreams, alcohol suppresses dreams.
People who smoke weed, marijuana users in the morning, they
don't remember their dreams. Well, I couldn't find it. It
definitely affects dreaming. To me, that says two things. Dreams

(01:12:25):
are coming from the brain. You take drugs and your
dreams change. They're biological. And the second thing is I
couldn't find a way to say antidepressants make this change
your dreams. You know, coke and meth makes this change.
And alcohol and alcohol if I just couldn't find something
to wrap it aroun. Yeah, And I tried because I
was like, that's going to be one of the chapters,

(01:12:47):
and I just I didn't find a clear link except
for one. Galantamine is this drug we give patients with dementia.
It works on a seat of colin. It's one of
the less famous neurotransferers. We have a lot, they do
a lot. It's not dopamine does this. It's not that
linear as we're seeing now and liberating people now. Is
galantamine and so those people they take it and they're like,

(01:13:10):
oh my gosh, I'm becoming aware. I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming.
That's lucid dreaming. You double that dose. They have more
lucid dreaming. And the world of science that dose dependent
escalation is as close as you get to you know,
cause and effect. So drugs definitely affect the brain. I
just couldn't put them into Knie categories because people are

(01:13:31):
anti depressants at this type of dream. People are on
to cope the next day they had a different type
of dream. So that is a mixed bag, and alcohol
is part of that. It's you know, it's a chemical.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
Do you think we'll ever get closer to understanding the
links more deeply as the memory banks dream branks?

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
I hope so. I hope so. And I think that's
an interesting question. The things that I'm looking at are
what we're available to me everywhere, from Aristotle a few
thousand years ago to stuff happening now to questionnaires from
twenty years ago. It's, of course necessarily it's imperfect, but
I think as people are more honest, and that's the
liberated to fill the dream banks in with this stuff,

(01:14:10):
somebody after me is going to take that and say ooh,
I think alcohol does this and antidepressants do this. I
think it's I think it's quite possible. But just as like,
just to let everybody know, I'm working with what's out
there and trying to connect the dots between the gaps
of like from you know, philosophy to brain science to YouTube,
you know, ambient dreams. Like I'm really trying to bring

(01:14:32):
it together from every corner that I could.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
You know, look at how much do we dream in
events in reality versus completely fantasy based events, Like how
much of our dreams are replaying like you were saying
that the veterans, for example, they dream about the war
it's like a real event that happened in their life there,
So that's a flashback. Yeah it's a flashback.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Yeah so but when they dream about it when they're
getting divorced, that's a symbolic dream representing something.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
What's going to breakdown of dreams of flashbacks versus fantasy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
I think PTSD flashbacks are clearly replay of a bad
experience in your dreamscape, the imaginative component of dreams. When
you look at these surveys, it's a complete mixed bag.
But what I will tell you is that I'm trying
to just add the information here to your question, which

(01:15:28):
is a good one. But how much of our dream
life is a replay versus just completely cooked up by
the imagination network? I get that that's a good question.
And what I would say is, in flashbacks, it's a replay.
If your dream is falling, that's not a replay, but

(01:15:50):
indicative something. And then there's most stuff is in between.
It's highly visual, highly creative, jumping from social situations to
visual situations. You know, you're on the top of a building,
you're an awkward situation, you're finding with something. There are
these jumps, a little bit movie like, but it's not
a hallucination. And this is the best I because I

(01:16:11):
wanted to be able to answer this question like two
years ago when I was thinking of this, and this
is with a gem that I found. When you hallucinate,
just bear with me. It's a purple elephant in this room.
The landscape is reality, the element is inserted in it.
In dreaming, the whole thing is imagined. And so I

(01:16:33):
would say the entire process of dreaming leans heavily imaginative.
That's the best to answer I can.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
Yeah, that's good answer. Yeah, No, it's interesting to me
because I yeah, I always wonder, like I'm like, we
always do we have a dream in a space we've
been in and seen.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
In and even all of it, you think all of it.
I mean that's so you have memory of places you've
been and then you can imagine, and dreaming has access
to both that and if I may the dreaming memory,
like when you go up, you get up to go
to the bathroom, sometimes you can slip back into a dream,
so it's not random. And so I always wonder, is

(01:17:11):
there's like access to memory our dreaming mind can have
that are waking mind does not have access to Like
people with this is fascinating, like this a little bit
heavier on the size part, Like people who have memory issues,
like they've had a trauma and they can't remember if
they played Tetris or a video game. They'll see pictures

(01:17:33):
of it in their dreams but can't tell you about
it when you ask them during the day, I said, no,
I never played a Tetris game, but I had one
in my dream. And they're basically playing Tetris is being
played in front of them, So there's something going on
where the dreaming mind has a memory system. I think
I don't have evidence for this, but there are little
dots like that, like slipping back into a dream, getting

(01:17:54):
up to go to the bathroom. People with amnesia being
able to feed their dreams. Can't identify like on a
map or you know, a dissection. But there's something unique
going on with a dreaming memory and dreaming mind. And
that's why it's so inspiring for me. Like you know, I,
you know, I use drills and take off pieces of

(01:18:15):
skull and I dissect with him. I'm like, I'm not
that guy, right. Most people would think, I think that's
why it's powerful, like brain surgeons talking about the dreaming mind,
and but that's what it's done for me. My man
is like fifty one years in ten thousand patients operate
in like ten countries, suns, you know, wild love, affair, heartbreak,

(01:18:39):
all of it, intense emotions, relationship with my partner for
thirty years, like all of it. And you start to
think like I think I'm getting a sense, and then
you then putting this book together, it's it's almost like
a rebirth. There's too much of a statement, but like,
oh wait a second, there's a dreaming mind memory system.
Wait a second, Parkinson's The first flare is a change

(01:19:01):
in dreaming pattern. So just when I thought, like, you know,
I think I'm figuring this out, you know, I'm excited
to have the lens with which I approached the world reset.
And that's what dreaming has done for me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Let's talk about lucid dreaming. We've been talking about. We've
been kind of like peppering it in the whole time.
First of all, let's just define and a lot of
the questions I ask are very simplified. And the reason
for that is because I think a lot of these
terms ideas are out there and most people don't even know.
And I think, as you're simplifying language from a very
scientific point of view, my goal is to try and

(01:19:37):
simplify topics that we all hear about, and you might
even hear around a conversation and you're sitting there going,
I don't even know what that means. I don't know
if anyone knows what that means, but we're all pretending
to know. So it's like, what is lucid dreaming? How
common is it? And then how do we do it?

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
So let's go do lucid dreaming. Here's the way I
explained it to you first, a little bit of a
story about it. When I was constructing this book, it's
lucid dreaming. Oh no, I don't want to cover there
can't be any science for it. Two out of nine
chapters aren't lucid. And so again that's it's refreshing for me.
And the most rigorous science on dreaming is about lucid dreaming.

(01:20:13):
So we talked earlier about the waking brain and the
dreaming brain. Now we know that there's a sleep entry
and there's a sleep exit in the middle of dreaming.
In the middle of the night, some people become aware, Hey,
I'm actually dreaming, and they become aware of the dream.
And somebody might say, well, why is that unusual? Well,

(01:20:35):
most dreams are in the rear view. You wake up
and you say, oh, whoa, that was a dream, because
but like I had a visual at a vibrant one
last night, but I was and only when I woke
up I was like, Okay, that was only a dream.
But when the dream was happening, I was fully inhabiting
the dream. That was the dream was happening in my
mind right and at the neuronal electrochemical level. So sleep entry,

(01:20:59):
sleep exit. Lucid dreaming is the return of awareness allowing
people to know that they are actually in a dream
while dreaming, Okay, not in the rear view like I
had this morning. And so that's a big statement. And
what I would say is there's proof for it. Lucid

(01:21:19):
dreaming can be proven by this experiment that they did
and have been doing. That's the thing about studies and
experiments for your listeners. If somebody breaks into something new
and it's real, you'll see an explosion of data in
the scientific literature for that. And in the seventies somebody said,
wait a second, you're a lucid dreamer. You're telling me
you can become aware while you're in a dream while

(01:21:44):
the dream is happening. And so they did a couple
of things. They trained the person that rapid eye movement,
which is like skittish eye movements when we sleep and dream.
They said, if you're in a lucid dream and consciousness
has returned, can can you communicate with me, like with
your eyeballs through like a Morse code? And people should
look this up. They left, right, left, right. They train

(01:22:06):
these eye pattern movements. At the same time, they put
the electrodes on the surf of the scalp because a
guy like me will be like, he's just woke up, right, Well,
I need to know more than that. And they prove
by the electricity that the person is truly asleep, so
you can't fake being asleep across a glass. This person
at a certain time in the middle of the night,

(01:22:28):
proving they're asleep, starts to communicate with their eyeballs, and
it still shows you're asleep, communicating with the outside world
when you're asleep. That's powerful. That's lucid dreaming. Am I
a lucid dreamer?

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
Have I had one or two? Yes? Did people working
on this book start two? Yes? Can it be induced? Yes?
And so lucid dreaming is powerful because again it's a
liminal state, right, It's a bit of awareness, it's a
bit of waking consciousness that has bubbled up during dreaming consciousness.
And so nothing is rigid sleep entry. You don't go

(01:23:04):
from wake to sleep in a second. It's not a
hard line. So there are all these overlapping, blurry states
and lucid dreaming is that Two more points about that,
when you put those patients, not patients, participants into brain scanners.
That executive network I've been talking about logic and stuff
is dampened. They show more blood flow that area, not

(01:23:24):
as much as when you're awake, but the blood flow
to the frontal cortext that does reason and logic and
awareness is halfway. So you know exactly right. And so
if everybody's been a lucid dreamer and telling people of
work and people are shaking you off like you're out
of your head, tell them no, there's there's the left
right eye movement proof. There's brain scan proof. Galantamine, that

(01:23:48):
drug that makes lucid dreamers have more or have people
start to lose ad dream There's a lot of scientific
evidence for that. And the last thing is, so can
we learn to lucid dream? And that dream I had
was a trippy one. I was in the pandemic and
I was teaching the boys to say, we got this boat,
I just like we had. I had to get them outdoors.

(01:24:08):
You can't have three dogs and puppies in the house
and in a pandemic. And I thought, this is luxury
I have. We're by the water here in California. It
was like I'm turning the helm hard, but I'm going
horizontal like on a giant like river pouring off in
a waterfall. And it was just like I'm trying so
hard just to stand still, and you know, I just

(01:24:28):
remember the whole thing like this my right arm. And
this was during the construction of this book, and I
thought to myself, that's interesting. It's very visual. I know
I'm in a dream. I mean, those are unique experiences
for me. Again, as a brain surgeon, they usually would
not even explore these areas. But when I see the
brain scan showing you're halfway between sleep and wake, when

(01:24:50):
I see that drugs bringing loose to dreaming, I love
pulling those two worlds together for people, you know. So
I'm fascinating now with fascinating now with lucid dreaming. And
I think people who about a third of people do it,
like when you, thirty to forty percent report it sometimes
more sometimes less athletes tend to have it, more gamers
tend to have more visuospatial creative people tend to have

(01:25:11):
more lucid dreams. And there are some techniques that are
out there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
I was gonna ask you if someone's a beginner, Yeah,
and they want to try it. After watching this, they're
going to get the book and they're like, all right,
I want to play with it. What are the first
three things someone should do?

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
First thing they should do is look up mild lucid
dreaming mild techniques. So there's a lot of techniques written
about since antiquity, people cultivated spirituality with that this massive
topic faith. Yeah, so mild technique and what it is
is waking up a bit earlier than you should you
plan to or should, and then trying to hold onto
consciousness and waking life as you drift into sort of

(01:25:47):
back into sleep. The technique is described in the book
and you can look it up online. But I want
people to know why I mentioned that technique after four
or five is because there is a study when they
took a bunch of people and they said, okay, we're
going to teach you the left right left right morse code.
You practice this technique, then we're going to get you

(01:26:07):
in the sleep lab. It's not my experiment or it's
not my investigation. We're going to get you in the
sleep lab. Okay, now, prove to us with your eyeball
movements that you're actually lucid dreaming. Everything before that was
a survey like, yeah, I did it, and I'm locid
dreaming more. I believe people, but you know, I like
that extra bit of proof. So the mild technique is
proven with the left right left right Morse code technique

(01:26:29):
that clearly shows you are asleep based on your brain
electricity and you are using eye patterns so much so
this is a banger. They started doing a little bit
of math two plus two and they have code, and
somebody says to me, I think I was in Paris,
and I said, wait a second. You said the dreaming
brain doesn't do bath. I said, yeah, but I also
showed you the brain scans that show a bit of

(01:26:50):
awareness and has come back, as does the bit of
ability to do math. So I love seeing those pieces
come in consistently.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
That's brilliant. Brother. From audio, You've done, you know, tons
of research, tons of reading, looking at studies. I feel
one of the biggest things that I'm taking away from
this is often the questions we're asking about our dreams
are the wrong questions. We're asking, like what does this mean?
Is this? You know? Is this real? Like? You know,

(01:27:19):
what should I do with this? What would you say
are the best questions we should ask when we've woken
up after dreaming? What should we be looking for? Point
us in the right direction, because I feel maybe we're
wasting time and energy and effort in a different direction.

Speaker 2 (01:27:35):
So I would say, when I'll tell you my approach again.
That's that's a massive topic you've you've just asked of me.
Is one. There are dreams that clearly reflect your waking anxiety,
showing up late, longoing lone doesn't go off showing up
naked at a podium because you're worried about public speaking.

(01:27:56):
So some don't require you to spend much time on them.
Number two, there are universal dreams, nightmares, and erotic dreams.
We've talked about that a little bit. Number three, their
dreams are just static. You know, let's not hold dreaming
thought and emotions to what we wouldn't waking thought. There's
a lot of stuff we do with them today we
don't even hold on to right. Similarly, the fourth our

(01:28:18):
genre dreams, pregnancy dreams. Massive lifetime events are happening, Massive
lifetime events are happening, and you're dreaming. That's consistent the
ones that I would say to people are to focus
on are the ones that are hyper hyper emotional and
they linger into the next day. You can try to
cultivate it with the morning technique. We talked about a

(01:28:38):
slower rise, not switching to email and Instagram too quickly.
But the hyper emotional dream is one to reflect upon.
Here's why. The emotional systems of your brain called limbic structures.
The brain has the reptilian brain inside our throat sort
of back there. That's instinct. It makes you take a

(01:29:00):
breath when you're underwater. Above it developed the emotional brain
much like what my dog has. You know, they have intuition,
they have instinct. That's called the limbic system. And people
can look this up and there's there's circuits in there
like the Pepe circuit, and it's a fascinating it's a
fascinating part of the brain. And then on top of

(01:29:20):
it is a giant frontal cortex. The frontal cortex has
is integrated with all those they're all intertwined. There is
no dopamine. There's a reward pathway that jumps from the
reptilian to the emotional to but to get things done,
our advantage and the thing that blossomed our foreheads forward
was logic and reason, the executive and the CEO. So

(01:29:42):
I believe that limbic system, those emotional systems are dampened
during the day for productivity, a conventional productivity, not creativity.
And what's happening with your dreams is the roles are
reversed and the emotional systems can achieve a top speed
that you're waking life can't. So if you have emotions, thoughts,
and experiences from a hyper emotional, hyper liberate brain, that's

(01:30:06):
the one to reflect on within your life. And I've
given a few specific examples and the process of reflecting
what it means, it's individual to you. If you are
having nightmares and you don't have them and you think
your day, wait, my day's fine, I'm having a lot
of nightmares when I don't, let that be a warning

(01:30:28):
sign to reflect more upon yourself. If you're struggling with
a relationship and you have dreams of falling or hyper
emotional dreams of being chased, you know that's your relationship
symbolically finding itself into your dreams. If you are at
the end of life and you're having a lot of

(01:30:51):
dreams about reconciliation. Those are that's the dreaming process coming
to your rescue. The end of life dreams serve a
different fundunction. I think they bring a solace And there's
evidence coming out now that even when our heart is stopped,
the last thing a brain does is haves one massive

(01:31:12):
dream in the last minute or two, potentially experiencing the
universal feature of near death experiences. So know that a
hyper emotional dream comes from a hyper emotional state that's
individual to your brain and that no one can give you,
no one has access to. And maybe it's your responsibility
to turn over that feeling in those thoughts and it

(01:31:34):
just to pause for a minute and take all the
information coming at you, take all the stuff you've gone through,
and actually step aside for a little bit and say, hey,
what was that solar flare from my mind? And if
it's useful to you, great, If the process helps you
remember those more, great, But if you just have that
five to ten minutes during your morning where you just

(01:31:56):
remember that you were not resting the night before, there
was something wild and vibrant going on and you got
a glimpse of it. What it means is up to you,
but definitely don't neglect.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
It well, said doctor Raoul John Deel. The book is
called This Is Why You Dream. If you don't have
your copy already, make sure you grab it. We dove
into some of the themes, some of the topics. There's
so much more inside this book that I believe you're
going to love and appreciate so that you can dream better,
dream bigger, and dream more beautifully as well, which is

(01:32:27):
what I wish for each and every one of you, rowld.
Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you
want to share that is on your heart and mind
intuitively that you believe is important for our community.

Speaker 2 (01:32:37):
I think there's too much judgment going on in the
ways that people approach life. And some people think they've
got it all figured out, and some people on the
other end saying I've got nothing figured out. And I
got to tell you, listens, I've been into that entire range,
and I would say a couple of things. I would say,

(01:32:57):
I think the dreaming brain and mind is a genius
built in that gives us resilience and resilience. I want
to leave people with a brand new definition of it,
a psychological definition that there's systemic resilience and processive resilience.
Systemic resilience is is what you bring to the fight,

(01:33:19):
and processive resilience is what the fight brings out in you.
So wherever you're at, you're equipped with your dreaming brain
as your ally. And I think to me, that gives
me a source of strength, that there's this process cultivating me,
protecting me, preparing me for the next day. That's not
one side. That's that's rule speaking emotionally. Right on the

(01:33:42):
other side, when you sit here and you say that's
brain surgeon is trying to rock this stuff about the
brain and mind and all that. I'll leave you with
something I did not know in neuroscience. Right I got
a lab, a PhD in neuroscience or a brain surgeon.
You start to think you're like the expert at it.
But there are things in exploring dreams and dreaming that

(01:34:04):
I was surprised, like, how did I not know that?
Because it would have changed all the ways I would
have acted through my life. I would have been more open,
more exploratory, more willing to accept other people's experiences because
it doesn't all have to make sense even to the
uber expert. So I leave people with something to search
online called paradoxical kinesis p r A d o xicl canisis.

(01:34:29):
It's called I can't explain why you move that way.
That's my street translation for that medical term. But what
it is is those same patients that have dream and
act and behavior the care act out their dreams and
later on their Parkinson's develops and their brains with her.
The strangest thing is when the parkinson sets in and
their voices are stifled and their movements are rigid. When

(01:34:53):
they act out their dreams, their voices are big and
their movements are fluid. The dreaming mind, somehow can access
the body in a better way, in a more fluid way,
in a more in tune way than the waking mind can.
And that that's what I like to leave people with, Like,

(01:35:14):
I'm excited about this. I hope you guys are too.

Speaker 1 (01:35:16):
So, Raoul, you talk about how naps lasting sixty to
ninety minutes can boost learning and create a problem solving
by forty percent. Why is this And when's the best
time to take a nap?

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
The napping thing is big these days, and people are
finding it's not work harder, work longer, and all that,
but try to work with the different states of mind
and brain that you have and napping if you get
to sixty or ninety minutes. People have done surveys and
ask people to nap with puzzles and they find entering
the dream state or the sleeping state, which again, as
we've talked about, is imaginative, is divergent thinking that they

(01:35:50):
solve problems better, they have more solutions to riddles. And
the big point there for people is there's a utility
to napping. You're not lazy because you app and if
you can do it in a way that doesn't disrupt
your sleep later on in the day, I think that's
another you know, in the world of hacks, I think
that's the hack that we've all got built in.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
Can you dream in that sixty to ninety minutes? Yeah,
And have those dreams shown to be any different?

Speaker 2 (01:36:15):
I can't answer that. There isn't dat on. Have those
shown dreams shown to be any different? But I would
say one condition is narcolepsi, where people fall asleep suddenly
and there's information coming out from them. They suddenly fall
asleep and then they wake up and they enter a
dream state. But that's a whole space. That's opening up
the utility of naps, and it doesn't have to be
every day, it doesn't have to be rigid, and if

(01:36:37):
you have a big event or a big project coming up,
I think personally, what I've tried is just shutting your
eyes in a quiet space and allowing that mental work space,
allowing yourself not to be tasked on and drift inwards
in your thoughts. Whether you actually fall technically sleep or not,
to me, that's been advantageous.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
Yes, absolutely, I agree with that, and I know many
athletes who do that as well before a big game,
before a big performance. You're not necessarily falling asleep, but
I like it. You're an off mode definitely. And also,
last question I want to ask you was the question
that Helena mentioned. So a lot of people when they're
in sleep entry, they feel like they're falling. Why does

(01:37:17):
that exist? Why do people have that experience?

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
I don't know if I have an answer for that,
and I've seen the reports, but I couldn't tie any
signs to that. But sleep entry, falling asleep, it is
a time where activation of the movement centers is pronounced
and falling is actually a movement it's not you think, oh,
running is a movement, falling something that happens to you know,

(01:37:40):
But the activation of the brain when people fall it
has to do with the motor strip as well motor sensory,
so during that transition there may be a link there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Yeah, it's even interesting language like falling asleep, like I
guess you're falling onto your bed, but the idea of
falling is just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
I find entering.

Speaker 1 (01:37:59):
Yeah, I find language really fascinating. And when I look
at like falling to sleep, like that doesn't make any
sense to me beyond falling onto a bed, which doesn't
necessarily create a RESTful, peaceful feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
Take that back two thousand years and we memorize it
by heart, and that's when we thought the heart was
a center. So absolutely language shapes the direction of our mind.
I mean the power of words and people finding handwriting
is it activates more part of the brains than typing.
And so definitely the communication and storytelling and building meaning,

(01:38:33):
there's something there. I'll explore that hopefully in the years ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
Yeah, I think sleep entery and exits brilliant language though.
That has really stayed with me, and it's making me
think even more intentionally and insightfully around those intimate moments
just before waking up, especially those two to twelve minutes
that you said before you go to bed and after
you wake up, because evening and morning routines make sense,
but there's an even more special time there that could

(01:38:59):
be managed.

Speaker 2 (01:39:00):
Yeah, that morning time for me sleep exit is definitely
something I put to you. So a lot of the
ideas in this book. I'd read something, I'd be flipping
through a bunch of papers, I'm like, what does this mean?
What does this mean? And then it would be in
the morning, I'd oh, maybe that, maybe that. Yeah, not
a guarantee, but definitely a space to explore.

Speaker 1 (01:39:16):
Yeah, amazing roll. So we end every episode of On
Purpose with a fast five final five. These are questions
that have to be answered in one word to one
sentence maximum, and these are your final five. So the
first question is what is the best dreaming advice you've
ever heard or received?

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
Or try to remember them more?

Speaker 1 (01:39:34):
Okay, second question, what is the worst dreaming advice you've
ever heard or received?

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Dreams are meaningless?

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
Question Number three a dream you wish you'd have more often?

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Falling in love? The first time.

Speaker 1 (01:39:47):
Question number four, A dream that you wish people would
have more often?

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Reconciliation dreams, dreams of forgiveness, dreams of letting go.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
And are those ones that we can train ourselves to have.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
I don't know, but those are the ones that some
people report toward the end of life. And I just
wonder if we had that more in the middle of
our life, we'd be you know, we would have we
would have less regrets, and we'd be less you know,
encumbered by the fuss of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Why do you why is there any study to show
why people having it later on in life? No?

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
Wow, that's yeah, And I can tell you that from
my own experience with cancer patients. Yeah, they're called genre dreams,
end of life dreams. And again, our last act might
be a massive dream, and it tends to be positive,
not always for near death experiences. To me, I call
that a dreaming coming to our rescue.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
Yeah, could you imagine that You're so right? If you
could have that earlier on.

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
Like all that beat, all that fuss. You know, it's
a great answer, you know, I wish I could to
let it go earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Yeah, fifth and final question. We asked this to every
guest who's ever been on the show. If you could
create one law that everyone in the world had to follow,
what would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:40:58):
Before you speak or act, do your best to imagine
yourself in that person's shoes.

Speaker 1 (01:41:03):
Great answer, Doctor L. Johndale. The book is called This
Is Why You Dream. Thank you so much for joining
us today. If you don't already, make sure you follow
doctor Raoul Johndale on Instagram across social media. Grab a
copy of the book. We'll put the link in the
comments and the caption section. And I'm so grateful for
your time and energy today. I've learned so much. You've

(01:41:24):
completely transformed my way of thinking about dreams. Honestly through
your book in this interview, I think I knew nothing
about dreams before we met. I had really poor ideas
and maybe some limited beliefs, and speaking to you today
has just opened up a whole new area of growth
for me that I don't even think I was thinking about.

(01:41:45):
So I love the idea that I'm walking away with
some simple yet clear tools to actually start implementing from
tonight and tomorrow. So I'm really excited about this dream journey,
and I hope everyone who's listening and watching when you
read the book. I hope you're going to go on
a dream journey with me too. Love to see you
tag me and doctor roll in some of the experiments,
some of the tests that you're carrying out in your

(01:42:06):
own life. Thank you so much, pleasure, Thank you so
much for listening to this conversation. If you enjoyed it,
you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort
is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking
your hidden potential. If you know you want to be
more and achieve more this year, go check it out

(01:42:26):
right now.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months,
and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.
There's no sense of meaning and purpose. You sort of
expected it, and you would have been disappointed if it
didn't happen.

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