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Lucid Dreaming and Cultivating Self-Intimacy with Mr Verdickt
26 Plays1 year ago
What's the easiest way to lucid dream? This is the wrong question, according to hypnotherapist Mr Verdickt. As our culture pushes to make everything a mechanized, step-by-step process, it's harder to connect with our authentic emotions and aspirations. More than just flying or having superpowers, lucid dreaming is a pathway to self-awareness and self-intimacy, and the practice can be an integral part of your personal journey of growth and healing.
Mr Verdickt is a hypnotherapist specialized in lucid dreaming and ancestral African healing. He writes about personal development and well-being, particularly in a performance-driven work culture.
Connect with Mr Verdickt at https://theverdickttherapy.substack.com/.
In this episode:
- Misconceptions and realities about hypnotherapy
- The goals and practice of hypnotherapy
- Understanding truth in our subconscious minds
- An alternative to medication-driven mental health care
- Developing an awareness of your inner self
- Archetypal dreams and recognizing a lucid dream
- Rejecting the notion that everything should be a quick, step-by-step process
- Unlocking self-intimacy
Connect with us at SuenoLabs.com. We're currently looking for contributors and podcast guests!
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Transcript
Introduction to Swen Your Labs
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back. I feel like I need to say that. We got a little bit off of our publication schedule with Fall Break last week, but welcome back to Swen Your Labs, the show where we talk about sleep, memory, and dreams. Some of our episodes recently have been more about mindfulness and focus and daily habits, but today we're really hitting the topic on the nose, talking about sleep and dreams, specifically hypnotherapy.
00:00:27
Speaker
Now, maybe when you hear that word or you think about hypnosis, you think of the Hollywood depiction where somebody is swinging a gold watch on a chain and saying, you're getting sleepy, very sleepy or something like that. But clinical hypnosis is a type of alternative medical therapy that's often used to treat conditions ranging from stress and anxiety to panic attacks, to phobias, to PTSD and a number of other mental health ailments.
Meet Mr. Verdict, Hypnotherapist
00:00:55
Speaker
My guest today is a London-based hypnotherapist who specializes in the topic of lucid dreaming. You may be familiar with him as Mr. Verdict, a fellow writer and podcaster who is committed to extensive study in his field. And I'm excited to hear more about his passion for the work that he does and advice for all of us about the importance of understanding our subconscious through the dream state.
00:01:21
Speaker
Today, I talk with Mr. Verdict, a writer and hypnotherapist specialized in lucid dreaming and ancestral African healing, about his perspective on the psychology of dreams and the importance of exploring our past difficulties and future aspirations as part of our personal growth.
00:01:41
Speaker
I'm Jimmy Leonard. This is Swenio Labs.
00:01:49
Speaker
So Mr. Verdict, welcome to Swenio Labs. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you for the invite. Well, yeah, we're very excited to have you on the show here. And of course, we're going to be talking about a lot of different things today, but I introduced this as saying we're talking about hypnotherapy. So before anything, I am just curious to know a little bit more about your background. How how does someone end up working in the field of hypnotherapy of all things?
00:02:20
Speaker
It's a very good question. So my journey as a therapist started, I think it started really when I was a child, you know, in the family, you always have like different dynamics, you would have children who are a bit more demand in demand and people who are more in in the giving space and more in the space of listening to other. And I've always kind of had this kind of space in my family when I was more the person you can be, give your trust. Even when my friend has, in my friendship, you know it's always been me kind of being more in the listening phase. so
00:02:54
Speaker
But during COVID, like many people, sounds a little bit corny, I think, you know, a lot of people reflect on their life and think, thought about, oh, what can I do in my life? Can I do something special? What is the meaning of my life? I think COVID was a very good test on that because it forces you to go deeper. And before moving to hypnotherapy, what I realized that I wanted to do something, I wanted to have a YouTube channel, actually.
Therapeutic Benefits of Dreams
00:03:21
Speaker
And the YouTube channel was about sleep.
00:03:24
Speaker
So I studied a lot of but the science of sleep, how sleep is the benefit of sleep. And it's incredible when you know the benefits that sleep has, you wouldn't dare saying, Oh, I will, I will sleep when I die. You wouldn't dare that, you know, whether you want to lose weight, whether you want to consolidate your emotion, consolidate your memory, have growth, muscle growth, ah hunger. It's, it's crazy how,
00:03:50
Speaker
sleep is so powerful just as a therapeutic old aspect is just amazing. So I studied that and I produced a couple of videos on that. Then I got links to my first passion when I was a child was about dream. And I learned about more to lucid dreaming world. And then we can talk about that later on. um And then it's about how do you work with people in a one-to-one basis or in a group ah ah and getting them closer to the truth. um The truth is something that I really thought deeply during COVID again about everything that happened, but also about a reflection on my name. And it's only when during COVID I was looking for ah the etymology of a couple of things, and especially my name. And I was realizing that verdict actually means in Latin to say the truth.
00:04:40
Speaker
So what it was about how can I find a modality that can help me and have my clients to be closer to the truth. And with dreams, it's one of the best answers. You know, in dreams you cannot really lie. You can say in your day-to-day, oh, I'm not really jealous of this person. Oh, I don't really feel resentment. oh That's not really what I want to do, but in your dreams, you know your subconscious would talk very quickly. So I did a couple of calls about that. But then I wanted to have another type of modality which was a little bit more known and which was also touching to the sense of truth and subconscious mind.
00:05:16
Speaker
but what is the better way of hypnotherapy because, you know, hypnosis in Greek means sleep therapy means, you know, type of care and so and soothing. And then I was like, okay, but hypnotherapy is great because with hypnotherapy, you can work with um behavioral issues. Now you can work with people with PTSD, people who have addictions, people who have phobia. So it was kind of an easier way or safer way ah just to be out there as a lucid dreamer expert and it was a good way to compliment because both of them touch on the subconscious mind and i believe that in order to have access to yourself it's not just through you know
00:05:57
Speaker
conscious but on the conscious level is more like in this involuntary state when you just remember the smell of something or just you remember a type of memory that you have access to really yourself. So hypnotherapy was really the the easiest and the most logical way just to have a practice.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. That's a fantastic overview. I'm curious how often in some of your early studies of sleep, i I know you've done a lot of different academic study of sleep. I'm curious how often in some of the the coursework with sleep is the subject of lucid dreaming addressed. I think that's something that I've run into, you I've heard different people say that in a lot of coursework, they'll talk about some of the the benefits of sleep, but not so much the benefits of dreaming. And I'm wondering if that was your experience as well, or if it was different. No, it is in the UK, you know, ah most of GP in the US, I don't think you call them GP, your main doctor, basically. Your primary care physician, PCP. Exactly. They only live two hours in their whole studies, two hours dedicated to sleep.
00:07:04
Speaker
And I think this is one of the things I was like, but this is a big gap in the market if you want to talk more like in a business term. I was like, but this is crazy. We spend a third of our lives sleeping and doctors only study two hours. And I was wondering but what is wrong and the more you study about like a lot of things related to health in the Western world, you realize that a lot of things are broken, but that was one of the things just two hours. Can you imagine?
00:07:29
Speaker
And you're right, it wasn't really addressed about the benefits of slips, you know, and, you know, when it comes to medicine, it's highly medicated, you've got something, hey, take this, oh, you've got this, take that, or this type of therapy, which is very, again, conscious driven, as opposed to get you access to your subconscious or what your body says. And I was like, but why is that? Why is that? So definitely and not something which is being addressed. And the potential of dreaming, especially in the mental health area, is only discovered now. Whereas whereas my teacher Charlie Morley has been doing that for a couple of years. He worked with people with PTSD and he just launched recently a research that shows that out of all the participants of the study,
00:08:16
Speaker
We all have PTSD, so any kind of symptoms that can just classify them as PTSD. After a couple of lucid dreams and you know the techniques that allow them to be lucid in their dreams, 85% of them do not show any symptoms that can classify them as having PTSD.
00:08:34
Speaker
And he's really not really a pioneer because they had other people um in this field, but this is more and more accepted as something to be investigated. Because whilst you're lucid or whilst you're dreaming, especially when you're in the REM phase, like a rapid movement, your cortex, you know, this part of your brain, which is still ah active when you know, when we're talking about now,
00:08:57
Speaker
is also active. You know, it's what we call in French a paradoxical sleep. So, you know, you're sleeping, but you're still active. But whatever you do, whenever you feel, whenever you integrate within this REM sleep is seven times more stronger than you would do in this conscious phase. And it's why I was thinking, why are we not giving the keys of something like this? And this is very weird because when we are a child,
00:09:25
Speaker
this is why your REM sleep is much higher and decrease all the time. ah But children just have lucid dreams all the time. All the time it is funny because as adults we just find we are desperate to go back to this kind of lucidity and this level of surrender that's I think it's another author called Melinda Powell who wrote this book Surrender. In order to access this level of lucidity you just need to surrender and I really like this concept because All the Western medicine is almost based on being conscious, being pragmatic, being logical, having a goal, having objectives, you know, this kind of like performance-driven as opposed to surrounding and in order to be completely free.
00:10:08
Speaker
I think it's so interesting that you mentioned that because it's obviously very common. I think for parents to hear from their children, you know, Oh, I had a bad dream or come running into mom and dad's room and say, Oh, I had a nightmare. But it's also very common for the reaction for that to be, Oh, it's just a dream. You know almost sort of dismissive of it of like again, like you said that very pragmatic sort of response of oh go ahead and forget about it It's just a dream and you know part of what brought me to being here to in your labs is when I was a child I did a very high dream recall I still do but I I remember getting some of those kinds of responses and and questioning that even as a child of well what do you mean? it's just a dream because for my vantage point that was a
00:10:52
Speaker
a 45-minute experience of this very vivid, very strange, very bizarre, you know, whatever the situation was. and And so I think that there is definitely some evidence of that even in how we talk to children about their dreams of of squashing it a little bit, whereas maybe an alternative would be, well, sit down and tell me about it. You know, what was happening? How did you feel? And really teaching them to connect with some of those emotions instead of teaching them to just pretend that that didn't just happen.
Cultural Views on Dreams
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think I can understand from a parent point of view, um especially if it was a bad dream. I think, yeah, being dismissive can be in some cases, you know, just to to reassure, but it also reflects on our perception of what is being not logical or what is being instantaneous or what is very involuntary. But in some culture, it's not the case. In Latin America, they do use dreams to plan the following day. In the Buddhist culture, they use that to improve their skills you know because one of the main benefits of, not necessarily the main, but one of them is in order to practice and ah specific skills. you know I know that some sports people use lucid dreaming in order to practice during their dreams. In the Buddhist tradition, they use that in a very crazy and funky way when they
00:12:09
Speaker
apparently managed to all get together, you know, and practice something together was all they all are lucid, which is very, very funny. And this is what Charlie told me ah and his experience with his Buddhist friends. So yeah, I think there is this idea of dismissing stuff.
00:12:26
Speaker
But we also, and I think it would be potentially one of another article I'll be writing is about this whole work movement. You know, work means being awake, you know, being awake about all injustice, level of discrimination. I think it was part of what Martin Luther King said, being aware of all those systemic issues. And we do have with the work is a tendency to deny the truth. This whole concept of lucid dreaming, I think,
00:12:55
Speaker
And the Buddhist tradition is really well distilled and encapsulated. For them, it's the more lucid you are in your dream, the more aware you are, and the more you're aware you are, the more kinder you are in your day-to-day life. So this missing stuff can have a lot of impact. The dreams are something you take and something that you analyze, but it's true that maybe in our our practice, you know, in the Western world, we don't really put dreams and and subconscious in the right place.
00:13:28
Speaker
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00:13:46
Speaker
Mr. Verder, he talked about hypnotherapy at the beginning, and i I want to give some color to that, to someone who's maybe unfamiliar with it. What happens in a hypnotherapy session? What is it?
Inside a Hypnotherapy Session
00:13:59
Speaker
So hypnotherapy, in an hypnotherapy session, in mind, I do spend some time just to get to know the person of this thing. They just don't come and do the whole techniques and putting someone in hypnotherapy, in hypnosis. So it's there is a very big part part of understanding what drives the person to that state. And generally, people who have come to hypnotherapy, have done therapy, have done traditional therapy, and it's almost like the last resort.
00:14:29
Speaker
But once you kind of understand the root cause of the pattern, the idea is to put some on hypnosis. So it is a very relaxing stage, really. ah Every time when people get out of hypnosis, they're like, oh, can I stay a bit longer or something? It's very relaxing because their breathing is so slow, um the body's super calm, and they are being much more aware of some of the instruction or some of the the phrase that has been and being given by hypnotherapist. So it's a very altered state of consciousness when you are even more aware of what you hear and what you feel. You know, in when yeah in our day to day, you know, we're constantly being, you know, on WhatsApp, on Facebook, on online. So you never kind of connect with your body or with your breathing. And just this, it is already super powerful.
00:15:22
Speaker
But what is different is the person, the hypnotherapist, will really guide the person through the subconscious. So it's not about having a blackout or being in a state where the person will be manipulated because whoever is in under hypnosis can just get out of hypnosis and leave.
00:15:39
Speaker
So the person has still have a full control of who they are and what they are. So they are not manipulating. And I think it's one of the misbelief that we've got about hypnotherapies, you know, oh, go to bed, go to sleep, and you're going to do give me your password. It's not like this. You are willing to go. Sure. That's often how it's depicted in movies and television. and You know, it's almost like a form of mind control. yeah Exactly. That's not in real life. Not not what's going on. and But the thing is what people don't realize is we go into state of hypnosis every day. like you know Whenever you wake up, so the hypnopompic state, so when you're a little bit groggy and you you hear stuff and you're not too sure if you are in between dreams and reality, you are in a state of hypnosis at that very moment.
00:16:26
Speaker
when before going to bed same thing you know when you start dozing off a little bit it is ah almost like a state of hypnosis when you are in front of the screen and when you are watching a movies and you are kind of this is very important this is why this is why advertiser spend millions, you know, when you're watching movies with your with with your family, because at that moment, your your subconscious is much more aware. So I've worked in media for a couple of years. And I know, you know, what we're trying to do is raising a awareness, changing the perception of your brand. So, you know, and you understand why if this is a billion industry, because, you know, this is where you can really get your message across. So people don't realize that we are under hypnosis on a different different part of the days.
00:17:12
Speaker
So yeah, people have a good time, let's say, and I think depending on the quality of deep love therapies is about how they're going to guide them, you know, to the right door, to the right question, to be able to them to visualize exactly what they need to see in order to overcome.
00:17:27
Speaker
Dislimiting beliefs or to read to leave again a traumatic experience in the best condition. ah So this is what i called a passive. Subconscious state you know you work with someone and the reason why i like it is dreaming is because the person is more in an active subconscious state you know they are completely.
00:17:47
Speaker
Are aware that they are dreaming and as a result of this they can do whatever they want you know when i am having a lucid dream you know i love to use my super power so i can just throw fireballs or what can just fly or can just duplicate myself. um but When someone is having a lucid dream and when is used in a theoretical way i can be extremely powerful you know you can just say the word that you always wanted to say to someone who passed away. You can really. um see yourself as a child and being you know and still being eu yourself as an adult and relieve this this moment you know and asking the protection that you wish you had so yeah you had like some very powerful stories you know from a lucid dream point of view my mom had one so we had a dog called duchess rest in peace duchess if you can hear us um she was you know for some people you know having a dog
00:18:42
Speaker
passed away is not like a big deal, but for some people and it is a big thing. It is part, someone was part of the family. She was 19, almost 20 years old. She had spent a lot of time with us. And when she passed away for two years, she she was depressed. She was really depressed. So, but one day, one night she had a lucid dream and she dream about the dog and the dog was with my grandfather and my grandfather said, no, everything is fine. You can now sleep correctly. You can sleep well. Now she is okay.
00:19:11
Speaker
and the dog was looking at her and then they fade away and and she she woke up and she was fine since then. So again, we ignore the power of our dreams that they can have. They're not just dreams, as you were saying. They are messages of a subconscious. They are visualization of what we can achieve. So we shouldn't deny them. Definitely not. Sure. And I think, you know, if someone's listening to this and they've had therapy experiences before, they probably recognize that some of this is is already fairly common in most mainstream therapy practices where you might do some sort of role play. Imagine you're talking to that child and you know, the child is actually younger you you know, what would you say to him or what would you say to her? Or maybe you have an activity where you you write a letter to somebody and express where you weren't able to say and and so that I think this is really an extension of some of those things. But perhaps what's different is the immersiveness of it and the the full
00:20:06
Speaker
connection where you don't necessarily think I'm in a room right now sitting in a chair and I'm pretending to talk to somebody because in a dream state, you are talking to them. And you know, I i personally have had experiences where I've dreamt about somebody who's passed away and I'm able to have a conversation with them.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it's not a it's not a moment where I'm questioning reality, you know, I don't necessarily wake up and I'm confused about whether they're alive or dead. You know, that's not what we're talking about here. But it is that that cathartic sort of moment of I i' maybe wanted to say, but in the busyness of my day, I haven't really had a chance to to process that emotion or engage with that emotion. And then it's just an opportunity to really think about what am I feeling? What is the thing that I wanted to get off my chest? What's the thing that I maybe needed to hear that I can now hear from this person? And I think your example with your mom is probably one that many people can relate to if they've had that experience. And I think it's beyond the feeling. I think it's about a true connection.
00:21:07
Speaker
During the day, we all wear like a mask, you know, I'm the busy person or I'm the clever one or I'm the funny one. And as you said, you know, you might not just have the chance or the time, but also the ah authenticity to be yourself at the right moment. And you might just miss this opportunity. You might have the time, but you might not be fully honest with yourself. And what I like to think is in our dream, we are what we dream. Do you see what I mean? This is what sometimes, oh, this is my dream to do. This is my dream to be this.
00:21:36
Speaker
but we are what we dream in. When you dream that you are, I mean, I've had dreams when I was a dragon, so doesn't mean that I am a dragon, but do you know what I mean is, whatever you really feel, whatever you are connected with this sense of true self without all those masks, all those ah sad, then yeah, you can really accept and access this. And I think this is what makes dreams immersive. And really, it's about this exchange that you really experience and you also are, I'm not going to see in control of your dream because no one is in control of it.
00:22:04
Speaker
but you have the opportunity to use your imagination as much as you want. There is a little bit more like no limitation in a dream, especially when you realize, oh crap, I am lucid. This is a dream.
00:22:17
Speaker
When it happens to me, the first thing I do is I'm gonna fly and I start flying. So it it gives you this this freedom that you will not have in your day-to-day life, in your conscious life because of the limitation, the physical limitation, the social limitation, your own belief limitation. So it's more than the feeling is the true connection with what with the energy that connects all of us because we all are, sounds very corny, but we all are energy, you know, and I think more and more people realize that.
00:22:47
Speaker
You know, just the brain, you know, discount, you know, what's
Dreams and Self-Understanding
00:22:50
Speaker
completely wrong. I think therefore I am. No, we are more than feelings and we are more than thought. You know, we are the lineage of people. You know, you've got your ancestors, I've got my ancestors, but you know, they've got their beliefs and a lot of things are still living within us. You know, our skin, our body holds a lot of memories, not just ours, but it's really to connect to that. And I think dreams is one of those window that you can really access that sampling.
00:23:13
Speaker
Mr Verdict, we've talked about lucid dreaming a few times and i I think perhaps we need to pause and maybe somebody who has not had the experience of a lucid dream. How do we describe it to them? I think that, you know, you've mentioned a few things like, oh, I fly or I use superpowers and and maybe somebody's thinking, you know, okay, time out. How do you do that? How do you, how do you fly? So, so maybe from your experience, from your vantage point,
00:23:37
Speaker
What is it like when that switch flips and you realize that you're in a lucid state, but still asleep? Yeah, I think it's I can answer for me is the first time when I had a it wasn't really a lucid dream, but I was I realized that I was um capable of doing more than just sleeping and having you know nice images. I think I was 19, and I was in this dream, and someone told me, oh, you killed this person. like um but I don't even know this person. What the hell is going on? You're going to go to jail for the rest of your life. i' not but This is a bit too much. What's going on here? Yeah, I'm going to jail. Then I was in jail. Then you know the garden was laughing at me. I'm like, but I knew you. Something was off. It was like, it's too much. i mean
00:24:26
Speaker
What is going on? And then the guy said, I don't know why you questioning that this decision. You are going to stay here for the rest of your life. And I was like, but that is too much. so It must be a dream.
00:24:37
Speaker
And then the guardian said, noise no, it's not a dream. You're going to stay here for the rest of your life. And I told him, watch me. I'm going to wake up in one second. And I woke up and I'm like, whoa, that is super powerful. I was able to do, you know, something really powerful. But to be honest, I was a little bit lucky because when I was a kid, I, my favorite movie was nightmare on M street. So, you know, again, this leaking back to, you know, what you can do in your dream, you got super power and stuff like this.
00:25:03
Speaker
But when I realized it was a dream, I don't know how to describe it. I don't think there are words, but you just feel it. You just know it. But there are techniques that allow people just to recognize a specific type of dreams. you know We all heard of the dream of someone going naked to high school or to miss a train. And I think part of the learning on lucid dreaming is to its it's about recognizing patterns you know and having a dream journal.
00:25:29
Speaker
or have i dreamt about the same things over and over again and when you process that consciously not that everything conscious is bad you know when you process consciously or when i dream about me being at university and someone telling me that haven't passed my exam it must be a it must be a dream and the more you repeat yourself the more you're conscious about that in consciously.
00:25:50
Speaker
the easier it is to say, hey, I said, it is is a dream. It cannot be. And it's about really have been about having this lucidity you know about what can well what what do you feel when you are lucid. But I cannot describe how I feel. It just it just happened you know it just it just happened. And I think it's maybe part of the problem. The more I speak with people about lucid dreaming, the more you've got ah the the mindset of understanding capturing, having a process, what are the techniques? But it's the opposite, it's about surrendering, you let it go. and But we are not taught those kind of things, we are taught to process, to do x, y, and things. um So I wrote an article about that, and it was exactly about the problem of capitalism is how do you make people more profitable, not necessarily in touch with who they are. So I don't know how to answer your question better than that.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, that that's good. And I i think that is a a good way to frame it is it's it's not so much of, of trying to obsess over, you know, what can I control in this situation, but it's, it's more the freedom, it's as you said, is the opposite of of recognizing that, that I can make choices and that i maybe I'm inhibited from making and in other situations in my life.
00:27:10
Speaker
I think you bring up a really good point. There certainly are archetypal dreams that many people have. You know you mentioned you know being naked in front of the classmates or or taking a test at school. I think it's often very applicable to somebody's own life based on your experiences. So for me, I've shared this example before.
00:27:30
Speaker
I did a lot of community theater and acting when I was growing up. I did musical theater. And so I will often have dreams that involve me being on stage or performing or doing something like that because that was a big part of my life growing up. But then I recognized that in my adult life, very rarely am I performing on stage because that's just not something that I'm really doing so much anymore. And so for me, that's a really easy example where if I I have a dream that involves some kind of performance or auditorium or stage, I can recognize, wait a second, this is not where I normally am. So could this, and it just becomes a question, you know, could this be a dream? And then that's oftentimes where you look around and realize, okay,
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have any sort of logical reason why I'm here. And that, you know, becomes the cue of, okay, perhaps this is not something in my waking life. Perhaps it is a dream. It's the same thing when you realize, you know, when you are in a very other toxic situation, at up is is this real?
00:28:32
Speaker
This is this kind of moment that you might have in your dream too and being like questioning it. And this is also one of the technique that you can apply in your awake state. you know Is it true? Is it a real? Because yesterday, like crazy stuff in London, you see sometimes things. that crazy I was this guy dressed as a shark as a shark I was like is this real is this real because I can be dreaming if I recognize when I you know when my brain is more weird how can I be Mr. Verdict needs to realize that he's not dreaming at this stage you know
00:29:06
Speaker
And this is really about training your brain a little bit without being too obsessive about the technique because technique doesn't make the it makes you happy. It doesn't then't set you free. There is no technique that sets you free. And this is the problem with personal development we've got nowadays is everything should be, there is a recipe for everything, you know, oh how to be happy, how to sleep in three seconds, how to have music during five minutes. but This is is completely wrong, you know but it's not a criticism that I've got about personal development. I don't think we are developing people. we are There is no way to develop. you know It's like this whole concept of you've got underdeveloped countries and developed countries, but you know we see it in the Western world. We've never seen so many people are unhappy or society rate or people being so confused.
00:29:55
Speaker
So we're doing develop to this. Is it about developing people or is it about people being in connection? you know We don't talk about, we just talk about this level of improvement, as I mentioned at the beginning, goals, strategy. But we don't need that to be happy. We don't need that to be free, especially. We just need this level of intimacy.
00:30:16
Speaker
that I just published another article recently which is called No Pride, No Shame, and No Intimacy? question more And it was a difficult article because I took some sociology and philosophical concept. um One of them came from René Girard, who is one of the guys who is the mastermind of social media.
00:30:39
Speaker
where he explained the mimetic desire that you never want something by yourself, you always want it because someone else want it. And just because someone has it, you want you would do more efforts to have it. And um so that's just create like all the things we see on social media. But one of the other thing was, because we share everything on social media more and more and more, you know, your burnout, your drama, your separation, whether it's on LinkedIn or on Instagram.
00:31:07
Speaker
And I find it difficult to have a conclusion about what I was trying to say, but I think the main problem we've got is we don't have access to, it's not that we don't have access, it's that we are somehow being attacked with our intimacy, the intimacy.
00:31:26
Speaker
is really this personal space that we've got between us and o ourselves, between us and the divine between us and our um human condition. But more and more, it is being attacked as something that shouldn't exist. Whereas it's only when we've got access to our own intimacy and not sharing anything on social media that we can be free. And when we can be free, we can be more lucid. So, you know, a lot of things are connected about dreams, but also the our perception about development and the personal development, whereas a lot of things for me are wrong. you know so I mean, you're starting to get into it a little bit, but I'm i'm wondering if there are um maybe other things you've seen in your work that
00:32:10
Speaker
speak to some of the psychological benefits of this self intimacy. I mean, you mentioned the example of positive impact for people with PTSD. um I wonder if if there may be other areas where you've seen having this awareness can really help someone make a lot of strides. I think I'm going to potentially contradict myself. But I think there is a point on that.
00:32:34
Speaker
So cultivating our own intimacy I think is the first step to be totally free. This is what I believe. And the more you we are not allowed to cultivate intimacy because you know data is being shared or because you know, we we feel the belief or the need to share everything, the less we are able to be free. This is my view. One of the concepts or beliefs in the personal development is to think that because we are so inner to ourselves, and this is why there is a difference between intimacy and being, not introvert, but being self-centered, I will call that. There is a difference.
00:33:17
Speaker
When you are self-centered or when you have this kind of intimacy that the personal development um guru will preach, it's more about just me, myself, my thought, my feeling and just being in this kind of lotus position where everything is self-centered.
00:33:35
Speaker
Intimacy is not that. Intimacy is there is a relationship aspect. You are intimate with yourself, but also with the divine, with your human condition and most of the time with someone. So there is the relationship aspect, which is not in the other type of intimacy, which sometimes is being mixed, which is about just being self-centered. So the idea is that when you are intimate with someone or with yourself, there is this kind of, I need to go.
00:34:06
Speaker
with someone else. I need to reach for the alterity, which the personal development doesn't preach that. And I think this is where you can truly heal yourself either with a therapist, with your family, with your ancestors, with nature. When there is this intimacy with those level, this is where you can find true healing, whether it's for PTSD, whether it's for insomnia, which is an area that really fascinates me. whether it's about your phobia. It's not just about my fears equal to something rational. So what is it connected to? And where do you build this intimacy to really toit go beyond this limiting belief? And this is why the ah therapeutical alliance that you will have with your with your client is super important because it's in this space that the client can really explore
00:34:52
Speaker
and feeling unjudged and really extract themselves from social um media, but also from social eyes, you know, it's just why it's so important to cultivate the relationship aspect of the intimacy, not the singular aspect of me, myself and my thoughts. It's really just thinking about how everything is connected. And it's not even so much just looking for the quick solution to the problem, and which I i think it will talk about a few times here, you know, as often the bent we have in our modern culture is the five minute fix to everything.
00:35:24
Speaker
but it's really understanding how is everything connected and going all the way back. um So you mentioned a few times some of your articles. So I wanted to talk about that. So where can somebody find more about your writings and your research on these topics?
Resources and Self-Exploration
00:35:39
Speaker
So they can find me on Substack. So I think a lot of people are going to this platform and my platform on my channel is called a Verdict Therapy.
00:35:49
Speaker
and that's steptack dot com where This is why I produce on a monthly basis an article where I do a lot of research either about mental health or about her human condition or about relationship at work because I think work is still very important and it's a very good laboratory for human experience. you know I wrote an article called You Do Not Wear Yellow in the Office. It's everything but about yellow, trust me. So yeah, I just invite people to read it. It's very good content. Well, slightly biased, but you know. Did you want to mention your YouTube channel as well?
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, my YouTube channel is the same thing. so It's u two um it's ah the verdict therapy and it's on YouTube. I'm planning to have more content and better content like you know the interview that we are doing. so Thank you, Jimmy, for that. The main message I would say that I would like people to yeah to get maybe from this interview is um just building the intimacy between themselves and the Divine or themselves and their dreams, just building that, just thinking about intimacy as this relationship concept. concept um that this This is, I think, where true healing can happen.
00:36:59
Speaker
I wonder if just ah as a note to end on, if, if somebody's thinking, I, I'm so far from this, I'm so far from self understanding and intimacy and lucid dreaming. And, and I, I haven't done any of this. What advice would we give to somebody who's maybe at square one and just has no experience with this at all? Another way to say that is what's a good first step?
00:37:25
Speaker
There is never a first step I would believe, because we then go to this process-minded. Step one, you need to be aware. Step two, you need to read this kind of book. The first question I would ask this person, if someone, why would you like to achieve to what dreams mean for you? I think it's always important to go with what the person brings. And some people are just fine with the way they are. And one technique or one modality is not a solution for everything, nothing explains.
00:37:58
Speaker
or cures or heal everything, there is always going to be different type of technique I try to learn more about kinesiology and biodynamic where the body is more involved. ah For some people, it's super powerful for others, it doesn't speak to them. For some people, you know, when they go into epnothertherap hypnosis, it doesn't speak to them. So it's really about going with what is the right thing for them. but Sometimes people just didn't need about some breathing.
00:38:25
Speaker
And you know when when I speak with my clients, I always try to understand exactly what their needs are, because sometimes people just see the technique as, oh, I've heard about lucid dreaming. It's so cool. I want to do it.
00:38:36
Speaker
but why do you want to do it? And some people don't really don't have an idea. and i and um And I believe that, you know, as a healer or as a therapist, my role is not just to sell the service, it's to use a service for someone's need. Yeah, it's a good call out for me too, even just to not approach everything as a three step process, but but to really start with the person and start with the why. I think very well spoken on that. Mr. Verdict, thank you so much for joining us on Swinio Labs.
00:39:05
Speaker
Thank you, too. It was very pleasurable and very nice to speak to you, Jimmy.
00:39:12
Speaker
when your labs is a show about sleep memory and dreams for more content visit our blog at swnynoabbs dot com and connect with us to learn more about how you can share your story related to brain health and the daily habits that help us to rest and live better
00:39:30
Speaker
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