Tag: INFJ

Seeing Things Differently

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Recently I was talking with someone who suggested that an in-patient group oriented intensive physiotherapy regime postoperative for hip arthroplasty was a good idea / French practice. He was, to understate, more extroverted than I. The idea of being around loads of people “helping” me to recuperate via conviviality just does not work for me. It would be close to torture, feeling unwell and having to interact in a foreign language on a regular basis, with others. No thanks.

This sounds like a showstopper to me. In my mentality I would delay or not proceed at all.

Maybe I am ungrateful or maybe I know myself well.

It is clear in this simple example how we see things differently.

“Jack Sprat he ate no fat; his wife she ate no lean.”

What works for one person does not work for others. According to all the common metrics I am socially isolated. Some might imagine that I need help. Poor Alan.

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They may even imagine that they know what is best for me. Because as every newspaper vendor knows it is always the antisocial loner, who is not well liked, that becomes the heinous murderer. Helping the socially excluded is an anti-murder prophylactic measure, which makes sound societal sense.

Unlike most people I don’t care what the ‘phone companies do with my data, because I don’t generate any. I am not in any target marketing demographic. Daytime TV however is full of adverts aimed at the likes of me. I’ll get my SAGA loyalty card soon, to use until my pre-paid cremation plan kicks in.

The problem with seeing things differently is that it is nigh on impossible to explain or otherwise convey that difference to others, specifically the scale thereof.

I look relatively normal. I can speak “normal” for a short while. But I know from experience that the way I assimilate the world differs radically from others. I am not prone to influencers, whatever they are. I do not swallow hook line and sinker what I might read in the news of whichever flavour / prejudice. As an outsider, I need help to rejoin the fold, the group lunacy. Bless…

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Most people suffer from worry and catastrophising. I can have brutal clarity without dramatic catastrophic thinking. I can envision futures and remain calm.

It is impossible to communicate the lack of ambition / goal to anyone who is beholden to theirs. I am happy to make unilateral decisions based on available information even when I know that information is incomplete.

Once you have attained impermanence, you change as does your orientation towards life.

“This too, shall pass”, is more than just a saying.

People in general have a need to “do” something. There is a need of immediacy. A desire, an urge, to get things “sorted”. I have learned that some things simply cannot be sorted. Some have to be endured. Some need let go of. Some need to calm in emotional temperature and thence to fade away.

It is economical not to intrude, to inflict oneself upon or otherwise interfere in the lives of others. This is a form of harmlessness.

A passive approach of response when needed tends to calm. Though it can also infuriate, humans being as they are.

It is impossible to please everyone.

I see apertures in the web of life, during which things may be possible. When I see them closing, I know that the possibility and probability of things happening drops. Until finally what once might have been possible, no longer is.

One of the aspects of impermanence is the notion of timeliness. Timeliness has a time limit. If things do not occur when they may or might, they do not and cannot. The moment has passed. The “permanent” possibility or opportunity is gone.

Impermanence teaches that complacency is unwise. It is a non-nihilistic implication which many fail to see. There is only a discrete aperture in spacetime for things to occur…

You have only my word for it, that I imagine that I see things differently from others…

I could be talking BS…

You decide…..

Is It Me? – Introversion

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I have been interacting with the medical profession. It has raised a not uncommon question for me. One which had me investigating an Autism diagnosis a decade ago. The question is:

Is it me? Am I too unfiltered, direct and accurate or are people insecure, precious, pompous and defensive? Am I not full enough with bullshit and braggadocio? Do I fail to play the itchy back dog sniffing arses game well enough? Must I always wear a mask in order not to freak people out?

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It seems to me that I unnerve people. I dial back several orders of magnitude already when I interact. It seems the only answer to not causing angst and a feeling of being unsettled is not to interact at all.  To keep my gob shut and wherever possible keep out of public circulation. In general, I have a worse reaction from “men” than from women.

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Am I simply not socially viable in the common socio-political illusion / context. Am I just too weird and feral.

Is it me? Am I the problem?

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson Dreams 03-02-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s sequence of dreams. I made no attempt to rejoin the dreams on waking but this is kind of what happened. I awoke multiple times and can think of no obvious reason, this side of the channel, why BoJo should pop up.

The first part starts on a beach which has sand dunes behind it. There are a number of people on the beach and the weather is clement though not hot and sunny. I hear some vehicles pull up and some shouting. Men darkly clothed and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles are charging the beach firing. I shout to everyone to get into the sea and swim as far out as they can. Bullets are ripping into the water as we get further out to sea. I can see dead on the beach and blood in the sea.

There is a strong tide forcing us up the length of the beach. I encounter Boris who has been swimming there. We are being forced towards a rocky part at the end of the beach. There is no way around the headland, and we are forced to land one the beach. I say to Boris that he must resist the temptation to say who he is and to try not to give the terrorists a piece of his mind. There is an off chance that they won’t recognise him, and we should save that for later should we need it.

I wake up

The next section starts in an underground cave. We are clearly in a hostage situation. The cave is equipped with computers, cameras and much media kit. The terrorists are partially masked and clearly highly organised. The hostages me included are now dressed. Boris and I are at the back of one cave with two young boys. I have suggested to Boris that he keeps a low profile and minimise the risk of being recognised. The terrorists have installed a huge TV, and we can see that there is a media circus on the dunes. There are multiple religious groups amongst the hostages, and we are international.

Boris starts to chat with the young boys. One of them says that he can see daylight coming into the tunnel. Boris suggests that he quietly investigates. Which he does. There is a gap. Something kicks off in the main terrorist room. Sending the boys first we attempt to leave the tunnel. Boris manages to bash his head and although a little dazed we make it out into the sunlight.

I awake.

I am now walking with Boris towards a semi-ruined church. I know that inside there are Buddhists keeping vigil for those held in the hostage taking. Unusually these Buddhists are wearing grey robes and are mostly Western. I knock on the church door and am welcomed in by a Buddhist “priest”. I explain what has happened and who Boris is. The man sits Boris down and tends to a slight wound on his head with some cotton wool and water. The atmosphere in the church is calm and tranquil.

The priest asks Boris for a number to call for people to come and get him. Boris takes the ‘phone and calls for help.

I awake.

I am now sitting in a room with Boris and Carrie. I explain to Boris that, he is like me, a Wood Dragon by birth and that we are contemporaries. I say that if he really wanted to be world king, he should have stuck with Alexander which is more regal than Boris. I ask him if there are any umlauts in the spelling of his name because I may do his numerology.

I say that he is a lot fitter than me. He says that downstairs in a bottle is some fat which he has had sucked out of his body and that accounts for it. I know he is joking. I explain that although we both can see bigger pictures, he as an ENTP is very different from me as an INFJ.

I awake again and wonder what the bloody hell has Johnson been doing to be in and out of my dreams all night.

The Problem with Introverts…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll kick this off with a joke I used to use on my MBTI courses which I gave.

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An Introvert Joke

It’s a rainy day. The reception teacher is getting the kids ready to go home. She struggles for 5 minutes with one child’s boots, tugging them on and getting them laced up.

Just as she’s finished, the I child says, “those aren’t my boots”. The teacher sighs and spends another few minutes undoing them and taking them off.

Just as she’s finished, the child adds, “They’re my brother’s. My mum said I had to wear them today.”

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In the MBTI context I have an INFJ preference. I score very high for introversion and judging but my intuition {N} score is close to the maximum available. That intuition is introverted so largely unseen. That means I have a highly organised orientation which is strictly timed with big picture thinking. If people are late and chaotic I can get unsettled / peeved. People see my warm caring feeling F side but I can easily flip to the more logical T side.

For years I acted out ENTJ because I thought that was what blokes were meant to be.

Over the years many people have expressed an opinion about what I am like, who I am, what I am capable off, what my predilections are. They may have expected some kind of response. Rarely did they get one. I am not keen on arguing the toss. It is a stupid waste of time. Some people learn by testing their ideas out in conversation and may expect a push back. Why should I do their work for them? As an introvert I very rarely offer up information or opinion. If I do it will be in a tiny stepwise manner. If things are joined up in my inner world, I have no need to express it. Viewed from one angle few if any get to see what might be called “me”. One could be mysterious and say that I am like an iceberg with hidden depths and not a lettuce like Liz.

I have noted that if you don’t agree or disagree with what someone says they imagine it to be correct, perhaps more correct than it actually is. I could be wrong in this but my intuition can be very reliable. It is not my problem if they have the wrong end of the stick.

People who are fond of bullshitting whether mutual or otherwise, can feel uncomfortable because I don’t play the BS / hype / exaggerate / big up game. Women are less prone to this discomfort than men. Who seem to need ritual sniffing and metaphorical at urinal wall pissing contests. In any case I now have an enlarged prostate. I can be very deadpan and uninterested. There is no uncomfortable silence for me.

It is funny in doctor’s waiting rooms. I do not arse about on my ‘phone, I do not read the magazines and never break the silence in an attempt to have a chat. Someone often breaks. They try to engage. Here I can apologize and explain that I do not speak French well. This nearly always restores the silence. Many are uncomfortable without noise.

In one particular framework my predilection is for dreaming and not (s)talking and I am “in” the place of power and dreaming, the South. I have met a number of people who give courses on dreaming and lucid dreaming in particular. Each of these has been by predilection a (s)talker. Which roughly maps with extroversion. They like techniques like waking in the middle of the night, working with apps and finding their hands to prove that they are in a lucid dream. They interrupt the dream to direct it. In one sense they have talked at an experienced dreamer. They were used to being seen as the expert.

It is possible that they could have learned vast amounts about dreaming from me. But the biggest hindrance to dreaming is talking. They will never know what might have been because I felt no need to big myself up or compare dreaming cock size. I did not need to name drop and show how “in” I was with the dreaming community.

The problem with introverts is that if you talk at them. They will stay schtum and say little or nothing. If you ask, they might just respond, depending on wind direction and the phase of the moon.

It is even worse in my case because I have no need to play the itchy back game because I am no longer in that world. There is currently no need for me to join in…

Renunciation or Self-Sabotage?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

The human ability to kid oneself is well known though for those kidding, difficult to accept. At the moment there are many who deem the slaughter in Gaza justifiable and apt. They do not imagine any karmic consequences because that notion would be very inconvenient. Irrespective of how things are temporarily brought to a close, there will be consequences ongoing.

The normal idea of success in the “West” might be to have a good career, make progress, climb the housing ladder and perhaps have a relationship or marriage and thence to propagate the species. One might like a nice car and pleasant foreign holidays. Perhaps gaining some measure of societal kudos along the way. One would not sulkily throw one’s toys out of the cot; one would comply more or less to the norm. Psychology might point you in this direction.

If for example you are a bodhisattva called Siddartha Gautama, it would be OK to run out on a young wife and child, leave the palace of your father the King and renounce the kingdom to which you are heir. But for normal people this would be wrong.

Viewed from one angle this is an ungrateful act of wanton self-sabotage. Siddhartha shot himself in the foot and abandoned a pleasant life, one which many might aspire to. To the starving, the poor and the unshod this makes no sense. Yet according to legend this subsequently facilitated his teaching and his completion of the career goal of any bodhisattva, namely enlightenment and Buddhahood.

In the post previous I pointed at something that many would not understand. I shelved a high value job at a prestigious space agency. The successful completion of which could have opened the way for senior positions and a way back from the “wilderness”. We would have had plenty of cash.

There were a number of warning omens when we were viewing properties in and near Leiden. Retrospect suggests that the job was a temptation of sorts.

Earlier I walked out of a marriage with a very young child which caused the sale of a house in London now worth £ 1 million. I left a new age group which I gave heart and soul to establish. I “gave” my shares back to a start-up company the vision for which was to a fair extent mine. I quit a then tenured academic job at a top university, something to which many aspired. I had no other job lined up just a few training courses. One of these went pear shaped so I gave them up too. To move from a highly timetabled job into near nothing was a bit of a shock to the system. I resigned from another short lived university teaching post. I cut contact with my aged mother. I forwent relations with family.

None of these were easy. I am not a prince.

One could say that I am simply a loser who could not hack it.

One could say that these were acts of stepwise renunciation. The integral over micro-renunciations has a similar effect to sudden departure.

 Or one could call deem them all the INFJ door slam, a fault in my character.

What is it that seeks success? It is the self and not the Soul. In this logic renunciation is indeed an act of self-sabotage. The ambitions of the self are stymied in stepwise succession. I know that I can live without any of these accoutrements. If you like I have physical plane proof by experience. I am not bound by the fear of missing out on a normal successful life.

I could be kidding myself. Trying to find an excuse for my squandering of opportunity. Or maybe I have simply thrown my toys out of my cot because things did not go my way.

Nobody else has experienced these things like I did. Nobody else has felt the tearing, the ripping. I am alone in my moccasins which I may not loan to another.

People might have opinions.

I cannot return to the trajectory my life was once on. Any attempt has gone badly awry. The dramatic might say that I am not meant to. Or one could argue that it is the karma of wanton squandering. I made the bed and now I must sleep in it.

There remains one question concerning what if anything I do with the remainder of earthly sojourn.

Hmnn…

Talking – Effective Personality Disorder – INFJ Dream 27-11-2024

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This dream is from between 3 and 5 AM this morning. This is out of the blue.

The dream starts in the front room of my old house in Brixton. I am initially sitting on the coir carpet. It then shifts to a meeting room with psychological professionals discussing a case. I am to assist. One turns to the others and says about me, “I know that he is not a qualified professional, but he has an uncanny knack of putting people at their ease and getting them to talk freely. He is utterly nonjudgmental and very empathic.”

The scene changes and I am in a single bedded hospital ward. On the bed dressed in a hospital gown is a young man with wavy blonde hair which needs a trim. I say, “hi” and he replies. I go over and sit on the bed. I introduce myself. Implicit is that he has just survived a suicide attempt and is recovering. He is in a bad way. I ask how he is and what medication they had already tried. He says, “Xanax but it did not work very well!” I ask if they have a tentative diagnosis and he says, “effective personality disorder.” I already knew this in the dream.

The next day the staff wheel his bed down to the swimming pool. They are using water to help him walk again. I am dressed in my speedo swimming trunks. I lift him off the bed in my arms and walk into the water until such time that he can float. I let him float off my arms. He is smiling and very happy. We walk a few widths of the pool in the water and then I help him out of the pool. The healthcare assistants dry him and help him change into a new gown. I lift him back onto the bed.

The next day the scene is repeated but I also help him to swim a few lengths of breaststroke.

He asks me how I can make him relax. I say that we INFJs have tremendous and sometimes painful depths of empathy. We can feel the suffering of other beings and sometimes tune into it. We want that suffering to cease.

Dream ends.

A passing thought after the dream was, “is this pointing at helping others again”. A while back I started the process of joining Samaritans but was unsure of the other people seeking to join

Life Divergences and the Wrong End of the Stick

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I have recently had a several months stint on LinkedIn. Because I am an “old fart” I went to university way back when it was much less common in the UK. My class size was of the order of 30. It was hard to get in. There was an in-department tea / snack room which served buttered toast. After a 9 AM chemistry lecture you could get coffee and toast and marmalade. We knew each other quite well and there was a lot of fraternisation between staff and students. Back then there was a lot of booze. It would be frowned upon today, Jurassic behaviours.

It is safe to conclude that when taking the integral of life time earnings of most of my university peer group, based on their LinkedIn profiles, I am at the bottom of the earnings table and I am not going to earn any more. I was the baby of the class being born end of August, but somehow also a social lynch pin. 4 out of 30 came from my school. Most of my peers have been successful whereas my “career” ended in 2007. I did some small “A” level science tutoring for a number of years. I retired around five years ago. Often it is the years 40-65 when people earn the most. I did not.

It could be said that I am a failure and that I failed.

I worked for over a decade as an academic at a top London university. Many of that peer group and people whom I once taught have had and are having way more success than me. There are big cheeses.

There are a number of possible explanations for why I quit at the age of 42. They include burn out, the so-called INFJ door slam, some mental health problems, or the renunciation of a way of life. I was very unhappy that my colleagues were talking about getting rid of people to improve the REF rating. Nice! I figured I could handle going better than others. The decision was quick and nobody anticipated it. I don’t recall having any discussions. I did not have a leaving party because I hate that kind of thing. I handed over my responsibilities and just left. Not many, very few, said goodbye. I thought at the time that it was handled poorly. British people can be awkward and scientists are not renowned for their interpersonal skills. I don’t believe anyone from there addressed the subject with me, certainly not meaningfully.

I was not anticipating what was to unfold in terms of meditations and chanting. My life certainly diverged from where it had been heading. There were consequences which I had not anticipated in terms of my employability.

If you meditate at least once daily for two decades you are likely to differ markedly in terms of psyche and mind from those who do not. If you don’t see someone for over a decade they may try to shoehorn their perception of you into their old version. They may be unable to conceive of what you are like now. They will not know “the point before mind”.

I have no ambition, no drive, no goals, no targets. I am not overly fussed about what happens to me. I am not interested in kudos. There is no driver for me to invent. I doubt that anything I might write is sellable, certainly not profitable. So, there is no point in me trying to publish for money. In one sense I am waiting until my time is up. The likelihood is that my time will be used gardening, doing DIY, strolling and a bit of blogging here and there. I will be a carer from time to time.

I am out of touch with the modern way of life. I have not made a social ‘phone call in near a decade. I have near zero social email use. Just as I am out of touch with modern life, the outer world is out of touch with me.  Only a few people know any of my email addresses and only one person has my ‘phone number. The hospital has it too.

Life is uncomplicated by connectivity.

When you watch the news, it is often a loner who is not popular who turns out to be the perpetrator of some killing or other. People are prejudiced about people like me. They may even pity me and feel sad. That is getting the wrong end of the stick by a country mile. People transfer their obsession with social contact onto me. I am quite happy not to have any. I can go days without speaking to anyone.

I certainly did not add a great deal to UK plc. I once co-founded a company which put dinner on the table for about fifty households. In principle I could have done more. But I did not.

It could be said that I was perhaps fated to do a “Reggie Perrin” only I never came back to work.

I do not know what fate has in store for me, if anything. It is very unlikely to have a wider impact or significance. This could be argued to be a waste. Or simply it is what it is.

Being a four cancer couple already sets us apart statistically. Colon cancer and basal cell carcinomas for me, myeloma and breast for her. She start posts operative radiotherapy next week. I get a “chimney sweep” colonoscopy next year. I am on prostate cancer watch because of slightly elevated PSA. No signs of any lesions in the MRI.

It is pretty clear what the next month is about. The important bit, that is.

I speculate that were I to meet any of the people from my peer groupings it would take quite a while for the penny to drop concerning just how far my life and beingness has diverged from theirs. And they would almost certainly get entirely the wrong end of the stick in any attempt at communication beyond the basic CV style “life fact” exchange. I’ll wager I could understand their lives better than they could understand mine. I came from “there”. I do not think that they could get it nor do I believe that I could convey. They would have to experience over a fair time interval to even begin.

I could be wrong…

I am divergent…

Grizzly Adams – Twitter and LinkedIn

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I have lived to a large extent in a vacuum of social interaction for a number of years. It was perhaps foretold by my like of “The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”. As a teenager I really enjoyed the programme and the lifestyle idea, living in an isolated cabin in nature.  My extroverted parents kept bloody talking whilst I was watching the programmes and often commented about isolation leading inevitably to cabin fever. Although adjunct to society we do not really participate and cannot be said to be socially integrated. We are immersed in nature at the very edge of a village.

Because I have arthritis sooner or later, I will be unable to manage our 2 acres. So, I joined LinkedIn with a view to seeing if I could get some science editing work to help pay for assistance in the garden. That has not proved possible / easy. As a result of this LinkedIn exposure, I delved into the venture capital start-up world to which I once pertained a quarter century ago. It was interesting for me to track down people I did my first degree with and to see what they are / have been up to. When taking the integral over my life I have perhaps been among the least financially successful of all my peers. We live below minimum wage. This is not a usual outcome for a high technology start-up co-founder and an ex-academic from a world top ten university.

What I see is that the tendency to hype and spin has not gone. It has gotten worse. Many of my invitations to join my network have been ignored. People whose lives I helped change can’t be arsed with me anymore, my leper’s bell can be heard across continents, it seems. Some of these people are very “successful” now. I know that I have helped many people over the years. It seems they have forgotten or are embarrassed by me now. I am not resentful I have perhaps always given more that I have taken. It was never done transactionally.

By following the likes of people I knew, I have had exposure to a Jewish / Israeli perspective on some things. I found this interesting and had been unaware of some of the depth of feeling.

Obviously, LinkedIn has a sales / public relations purpose. It is not for deep spiritual insight. It could be said to be for people “on the make”.

Has anyone every studied if LinkedIn is worth the money time and effort? Or is LinkedIn yet another part of our modern FOMO addiction?

Twitter has some gems but it also has a lot of shite. There is darkness, hate and some light. I am amazed at how very polarised the world is now. I was trying to sum it up.

People it seems can be gullible, adamant and evangelical.

They may actually believe some of the stuff they soap box about. Conspiracy theories can be way out there. Deep thought and balance seems missing. OK not everyone likes Twitter/X or whatever. Not every “omniscient” being needs to spout off about their agenda. But it is a sample of our world today. I sense that the younger people are underrepresented. It does not fill me with optimism about where humanity is heading.

In a strange way I find both of these medias “intrusive” the world “out there” is somehow leaking in to they world here. The more I see they less I sense a belonging to that world. I don’t fit in, perhaps I never have.

My working hypothesis is that there is not really much more for me to do “out there”.  I am done, used up. I have had a dream recently suggesting that this self-image may be wrong and that my opinion of self needs a polish, a glow up. But true paths can and may be filled with emptiness as opposed to societal detritus.

It seems likely that in the upcoming weeks I will pull the plug on LinkedIn and now that my research on Twitter is nearly over, I will stop using that too.

I have one observation Twitter live feed is way better before the USA gets out of bed. Reiteration differs from fact. Boring.

Dreaming and Intuition are they linked?

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In terms of MBTI, I have a clear INFJ preference. I have very high scores for N intuition and J judging. This means that I am a bit of time freak, I like to be early and get things done well before any deadline. It has come as a shock to some that I am very introverted.

My dominant function is introverted intuition, which means that few get to see what goes on internally. Occasionally people are very surprised at what pops out. I have some skill in envisioning, so called big picture thinking, but pictures are generally 2d so that description is limited.

Intuition comes in various degrees from knowing the next number in a number sequence puzzle to having a profound insight into the psyche or soul of others based on little “evidence”. The first case of intuition here is an extension of logic. The second is an unexplainable knowing.

 Intuition can be re-written inner-tuition.

Where a kind of learning happens as if by magic. If I cannot solve a problem, I leave it to my background processors intentionally and then a few days later a solution or a new way of thinking comes into mind, ta-da!

Dreaming, passive dreaming at night, does not come from outside. So, we could call this internal process, intuition, particularly if insights arrive in a dream. Dreaming is a subset of intuition.  

I personally trust my intuition and dreams more than what is said in overt and verbal conversation or even text. If there is divergence, I trust my inner-tuition over what is presented or spun. Being introverted I don’t let on.

In esoteric psychology some dreams can be termed “dramatizations of the soul” in which the soul is trying to assist the mundane being. You can’t get more inner inner-tuition than that.

Statistically INFJ is the least common personality type. If you know one hundred people then only one of them is INFJ. {Of course, INFJs cluster in certain professions}. Many of us report problems fitting in with society and the square peg in a round hole is a depiction of the INFJ. There are lots of different visualisations of INFJ because INFJs often like metaphor and allegory.

Because INFJs are interested in things like psychology, then it follows that many may have an interest in passive nocturnal and active lucid dreaming.

Some dreams are internal dialogue and daily angst carried into sleep. I’ll suggest that at certain depths dreaming is a form of inner-tuition or intuition. There are similarities to heightened meditative states and conscious nocturnal dreaming.

The trick is learning how to remember your dreams and transfer them into the so-called waking “reality” of life quotidian.

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