EP74: The Intersection of Art, Spirituality, and Lucid Dreaming

Josh Green is a painter, art educator, and host of the Painter's Dialectic podcast. Painting is his way of exploring the world and dream space to express himself as a human. He has an MFA from Alfred Dusseldorf University and runs the Green Atelier Online Painting School. This episode discusses how dreams and spirituality can guide us through tough times and push us toward self-actualization. Dreaming is a blank canvas to design your life beautifully and creatively.  We talk about the profound impact of lucid dreaming on Josh’s art and life, sharing techniques for creative inspiration and dream control.   

Josh's links
Website
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Painters Dialectic Podcast 

Transcript

Amina: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the dream world podcast. I really appreciate your support So, please take a second to leave a review on spotify or whatever platform you're on As you may know by now, one of my big passions is helping to bridge science spirituality and the arts I think they're all very important parts of society and our evolution And so i'm really honored to have a range of podcast guests that cover these different areas of life and dream work I try to give a good non biased opinion Balance of perspective.

Today's guest is a very talented artist, painter, and educator, Josh Green, who also has his own podcast, and he is an experienced lucid dreamer and traveler of the astral realms. So welcome. I'm really happy to have you here. 

Josh: Hi, Amina. Thank you for having me on. So my, my name is Josh Green. I'm American. I'm from the Gulf coast and I'm an artist and an art educator.

And I work in many different capacities within the art world. I currently live in [00:01:00] New York City. So I have a studio art practice. I'm an oil painter. I also have an online art school called Green Atelier, where I teach classical painting methods. Creative painting methods and I've been making some new art methods because I have a dream of making a Spiritual art school in the future based on alchemy.

I have a podcast That's about art and philosophy. It's called the painters dialectic. I am the painter and on there we do dialectic which is a type of discovering the truth through dialogue and And it's a bit discursive, which is not great for podcasting, but we talk about me and my friend Kenny. We create new philosophies of art on there, original philosophies of art.

And then I talk with a philosopher in London, his name is Dylan Ahn, and we talk about really critical ideas to help liberate the mind, help free the mind. I'm thinking about speaking about expanded states of [00:02:00] consciousness now. We've been doing episodes about meditation practices. Thank you. My spiritual background, I was an atheist for most of my life and did not dream for most of my life.

I had problems with drugs and alcohol. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and I also had problems with mental illness, panic disorder, and anxiety. And I've recovered from those now, thanks to my spiritual practice and art. But um, I practiced meditation since I was 18. I started studying Zen Buddhism when I was about 24.

I went into Zen Buddhism very hard at the Shinryo ji Temple. in, in Italy, and I took a low ordination, a Junkai, so, like a lay monk kind of idea. Zen was profoundly influential in my life, and through painting, I developed intuition, and I kind of opened up all this stuff, and now I'm a mystic, I'm, I'm in [00:03:00] a mystical group that I won't name.

I've, I've had a lot of experiences now. 

Amina: So coming from being an atheist and then discovering, you know, your own journey through spirituality, what does spirituality mean to you? 

Josh: Yeah. I like to try to get away from ideologies. In a way from commonly used terms, because people don't really engage with them.

People don't really think about what it means. The most important thing is your direct experience. So spirituality to me is how we relate to life, how we relate to the world out there. How do we relate to ourselves and how we relate to each other, right? This is a Lucid Dreaming podcast, I consider it maybe lucid living, right?

Actually being awake. Um, learning who you are before you die. How this world works before you pass on, right? That's spirituality, and I think most people start out religious, and that's [00:04:00] habitual to most people, that's how they were raised, but I think people who become spiritual needed it. I needed it.

Amina: Where does the lucid dreaming come in? How did you discover lucid dreaming and how did that play a role in that journey? 

Josh: Yeah, I started having mystical experiences and I wanted to get a better understanding of what was happening to me and I started looking at the spectrum of things and started studying these and Lucid dreaming sounded really interesting.

I haven't had the best relationship with dreaming because I had some strange things happen as a child, which we can talk about, but, um, in relation to dreams, but, um, also drinking really blocks your dream world. It disrupts your sleep. I had trouble just sleeping for a long time, and my mental health was so bad, I had a lot of trouble sleeping.

So, this should be very encouraging for people, because I've gone [00:05:00] from zero to lucid dreaming. So, it's completely possible. It's, it's really a technique. Right? And I started, you know, keeping a dream journal, and every night doing that is probably the biggest hurdle to get over, it's just the discipline of doing that.

And slowly my dreams started becoming more and more vivid, and then I started trying to do more ambitious things, like wake back to bed, and all those, you know, wild techniques. And I started achieving lucidity, and it was absolutely wild. I hadn't had those before. And Yeah, they've been profound. I got into dream yoga because, you know, I practiced Buddhism for a long time, and I didn't want to just do this thing for fun.

I'm, I'm trying to get somewhere. So I had some pretty profound experiences doing that, that have shaped the way I see the world now and the way I make my art. 

Amina: That's awesome. I definitely Let's see, what should we talk about first, because I have a lot of questions. I think we should go into the art first.

[00:06:00] You know, you can use lucid dreaming to get creative inspiration and creative problem solving. So when you're intentionally using your lucid dreams to do that, you can come up with amazing creative things that, you know, you can bring to life in waking. So what is your process like with lucid dreaming and art?

Josh: Yeah, me and my friend Kenny on the podcast are currently laying out. a creative process based on the circadian rhythm. So in, in the theta state, this is kind of confusing when people talk about brain states. You have delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma, all the time. When they talk about being in one of these states, that means one of them is dominant, but they're there all the time.

So theta, when you're in REM sleep, it's highly creative. It's so, I mean, anyone who watches the dreams can see the power of the subconscious mind. You know, these dream landscapes made up of all the different places you've lived. Seamlessly flowing together. And even in a non lucid dream, you're just a [00:07:00] passive observer.

Just floating through this narrative. It shows you that there's a part of your mind that thinks for itself, that has its own will outside of the ones you're aware of. It's taking you somewhere. And when you become lucid in that space, it's kind of a union between the conscious and subconscious minds. and they can interact together.

My, my paintings, I think of myself as a mental realist. I trained in academic realism in, in Italy, and I started noticing that really what I was painting was my perception, and I was a long time meditator during that time, and I started going into my perception, and then I started going in to just my mind.

So, A common theme in my paintings is a black space with these green dots, which represent Eigengrau. That is a visual background of the mind, it's a static. It's kind of a gray from retinal decay. So I represent that, and [00:08:00] that represents the large conscious space. I'm sure you know that. And anyone who gets in there notices that, uh, consciousness is not local.

It's non local. Right? We can meet each other in consciousness. So that represents the unified space of mind. And then all these forms, all these worlds, are projections and constructions within that mind. Right? So that's what my paintings represent. You'll see literal projected images into that space, and physical constructions in that space, and symbols.

You know, when you're in the dream, it doesn't speak English. It speaks through symbols, and emotions, and experiences. That mind is about being, and experiencing. But our waking mind's about doing, and action, and the exterior. Right? So I'm trying to express that in painting. I'm trying to be really literal about my mind and what painting is.

Amina: I love it. That's cool. Do you see things that you paint [00:09:00] when you wake up or do you like paint representations of like the dreams you have? 

Josh: Yeah, so there's kind of a a void space. I don't know if you recognize, there's just a black void. Um, if you have some dream awareness, you'll notice that there's a space before the dreams happen.

And uh, sometimes you do routines in there. I always study in there. Or maybe you start thinking in there and it starts manifesting, but it's a void space. So I try to go to that void and it's a space of potential. And you could bring your intent into that space, and then it becomes, right? It starts becoming something.

And what I get in there, I call it a seed image. And I will either write that down or paint it. And this doesn't have to be in a dream. It can be in a dream. It can also be through willed meditation. So I do, I do both. But you can get to that space. You have that intention. You get the seed. [00:10:00] And then, I don't think it's That's to develop it in there.

I think that's when you start raising up in the circadian rhythm, going back down to alpha and to beta, and they all have their function. You don't want to just have something that's purely from the subconscious. People might not be able to relate to it. You need to take a look at that in beta and go, does this make sense?

to this mind and how can I bring this into reality now? What are the steps I need to take? So I'll get the seed and I'll grow it throughout the day. You can feel little branches, little leaves sprouting. Um, when you're at work and you're bored, you'll, you'll, you'll get a thought, Oh, it grew a little bit.

Let me write that down. And then in beta, that's the actual action. You're actually creating the thing, painting the thing. So I try to use my whole consciousness to create a painting, the whole spectrum. Um, some of the lucid dreams in there, I'm trying to get to what's fundamental about the mind. And some of those experiences will be, will [00:11:00] inspire how I paint, you know, not necessarily what I'm painting, but how I depict things.

I'll change it. 

Amina: I love that. That's a really interesting process of just using all the phases of consciousness to bring it to life. That makes sense. That's really interesting. 

Josh: It's, it's mainly an intention. For me, you're not really having a spiritual practice unless you have what's called bodhicitta.

Which is the beginner's intention, it's the finishing intention. It's the thing that carries you all the way through. And if I had to describe that, it would be a profound compassion. You know, it's really easy for her to be nice to herself, or nice to her family, or the people in her community. But there's people that we exclude, and I think, for me, it's about not excluding that whoever it is, they're in the family.

Whoever it is, you can have compassion for them and send them loving energy and kindness, even if it's from a distance, you [00:12:00] know. But expressing the truth, the unity, that we are all unified. And at the profoundest end, it's traveling so deep into your consciousness that you discover that that's the truth.

That we are unified, that the invisible speaker in me is the same invisible listener in you. That's the ultimate form of love, right, is that realization. So I think when you practice dream yoga, that has to be your intention. And dream yoga is not just something you do at night, it's something you do during the day.

Mindfulness, right? The life you're living now is the most important reality that you can go in, you know, this, this reality, we have to bring what we discover there into this, into this reality, so practicing mindfulness, being aware when you're breathing, being aware of where you are, being aware of who's in front of you, and what you're saying, just basic things like that, and having practicing compassion.

And so when you're going [00:13:00] into dream yoga, it's, the intention isn't to have outlandish experiences that you can brag about. It's not about getting attached to another world to be deluded in. It's about discovering who you really are. We can't look at what we are. It's the only thing we can't see. So we have to express ourselves in these realities through a mirror.

To discover the true nature, discover what we're not, and that lead us back to the source, to our fundamental nature. And so when I practice dream yoga, I'm seeking that. I'm not lucid dreaming every night, but I may induce a lucid dream for a specific purpose, and then I apply that to my waking life. And then once I've done that, I may go back.

Amina: Nice. Yeah, that's really beautifully said. How often do you have lucid dreams and do you write them down? 

Josh: Yeah, it comes, it comes and goes. I live a very chaotic life. I live in New York City. I'm an artist. It's a [00:14:00] mess. I have student loans and high rent. Yeah, so, It comes and goes. There's, there's periods in my life where I need to be more in that reality and you, and you kind of are exchanging energy.

The more you're in that reality, the dream world and in the lucid dreams, you're losing energy in your waking life. And um, I was really disrupting my REM sleep because I'm not a natural lucid dreamer. It takes me a lot of effort and it takes a lot of persistent practice for me to just, become lucid in the dream state.

So I have to be very careful about when I do it, but there'll be a period of months where I'm really on it. I remember every dream I have the night I'm becoming lucid, maybe, um, going beyond lucid and astral projecting or, or whatever. And, uh, and then there's periods of time where I'm just in physical reality and not real.

Just having little faint dreams. So, it's always changing. 

Amina: Yeah, I understand that. I mean, that's totally normal to like, you know, have ebbs and flows [00:15:00] with it and kind of keep the balance between the dream life and the waking life. What is it about it that makes you feel kind of drained? Is it because you're doing like, wake back to bed?

Or, is it just like the conscious effort of becoming lucid? 

Josh: I was trying a lot of different things. Uh, wake back to bed. I don't think it's that healthy. My, my approach, uh, REM sleep is, is, is critical to your health. It's one of the main predictors of your longevity is your quality of REM sleep. A lot of human growth hormone is released during that period of time.

And also REM functions as kind of mental health therapy. So it helps you to remain emotionally balanced throughout the day. So if you're doing wake back to bed and you don't have much dream awareness, then you could be really disrupting your REM sleep. I know a lot of times when I did that, I wouldn't fall back to sleep for the rest of the night.

So, I have no problem investing a few months in just raising my dream awareness through journaling, [00:16:00] and then you just naturally become lucid in the dream. I think that's ideal, and that doesn't seem to harm my health. I don't seem to be losing anything that way. But it's just discipline. Sometimes I put that discipline somewhere else.

Amina: Yeah, makes sense. I love that you've kind of found what works for you. Um, I could definitely see like if you have trouble going back to sleep, you know, wake back to bed is probably not ideal. For me, I kind of wake up naturally in the middle of the night sometimes. So I kind of have like these natural wake back to beds without meaning to but I have no problem falling back asleep, so that makes it easier to be able to do that.

Josh: No, I've, I'm very awake. I've never fallen asleep during a meditation. But I know a lot of people struggle with that. But I'm just awake. So if I If I do wake back to bed, I can't move and I gotta go right back. 

Amina: I'm also curious to hear about some like personal dreams that you've had if you want to share like dreams that have really impacted you or kind of like shaped your life in a way.

Josh: Yeah, [00:17:00] so as far as Really important dreams. Yeah, I think I don't want to get in too much detail about this one, but one of my earlier lucid dreams I was encountering suppressed Issues that were formed as characters in an environment acting themselves out I was in in it acting out and then I remembered My practice, right?

This is practice. I began just detaching from the situation and observing what was happening. I began interacting with the characters and, and trying to speak with them and they're communicating to me about these experiences. And I don't, I don't really want to talk about the experience because they're very personal and hard.

But um, I was able to talk to them and, and learn about that experience and I sent a loving kindness message. And that, that transformed them. And that experience, when I woke up, I felt so good during the day. So I discovered that you can go into the subconscious and improve your mental health. [00:18:00] You know, think of all the money we spend on, I don't, I'm not putting down therapy at all, but just think about it.

And if you have this power within yourself to go in and heal yourself, that's extraordinary power. Another really big one I had was when a more advanced friend of mine came to me in a dream. She came to me and was teaching me. You kind of know the weird mental functions you have in, in the subconscious, right?

So you can engage with your mental processes without any concepts. You can just see how it works. And she was showing me how attention works. And then we moved out of the void space into a home in the neighborhood where I grew up. She was coaching me in this house on the bay. We laid on this table after she did a ritual, and in the dream I started separating from my body, and I could feel the vibrations, and I'm in the astral body [00:19:00] floating through the house.

And then I look out at the bay where I grew up and I start flying at 90 miles an hour. And then the reality just starts exploding upwards. And I'm just standing vertical with my arms out. And I can feel the wind and I can feel the humidity. And everything's 100 percent real. And I can see the wind affecting the water and all the trees on the shore.

And besides that, what was going on internally was just absolute freedom. Like, I am, I am not my body. I'm not even my mind. I'm completely free. And it was so intense that I leaped out of bed. I just sat straight up. It just started yelling like, ah, and my partner was next to me. She's like, what the hell's going on?

You know, I think that's probably the greatest thing about lucid dreaming is the profound sense of freedom that you [00:20:00] can have. 

Amina: Yeah, I love that feeling. It's so hard to explain too, of just knowing that you are outside of your body and Physical reality and you just are in this other world that you can just freely explore it.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing that It's interesting how dreams can really be like our internal therapist, you know And bring us like healing and help us work through things that we didn't even realize. I think that's super powerful Kind of going from the hard stuff to the fun stuff. There's both sides of dream work, you know The shadow element and then the growth and the spiritual stuff.

So You mentioned, like, some out of body experiences and, and near death experiences. I'm curious, from, like, your point of view, how does dreams and OBEs and natural projection relate? 

Josh: It's really mind bending when it starts happening. It can be a little terrifying if you don't know about it. But when I was 16, I drowned in the ocean over a long period of time.

It was terrible. When my body was giving up, all the water [00:21:00] stopped moving. Time had stopped, and I projected out of the body, and it was the most extraordinary feeling. I never realized. The constant stress of just gravity, just the lightness, the freedom from the body is, is unbelievable. You don't realize how much pain you're in all the time until you feel that state.

And I didn't have an astral body. It was just pure light. It was just pure white light. When I was in that light, it's a little hard to remember this so long ago, but I was negotiating with it. There was big things that I wanted to get back and do. I was, did not want to die. I was not done with this life, and I was just absolutely refusing it.

But the sense of peace was incredible, the sense of love and care was incredible, but I just wasn't having it. After a while there, I came back, and I was floating in the water, and a lifeguard had me. But that, I didn't, I didn't know how to handle it at that time. It, it wasn't that good. I became a radically different [00:22:00] person.

I could not relate to many people. And I had many other traumatic things happen to me that year. I was in a very bad car wreck where time stopped. And I witnessed, um, someone die unexpectedly. And, um, I was kind of thrust into existential thought. So, it took me a long time, and I didn't know the reality of that experience.

Was that just like a dream? Was that real? What, what had happened? Later, once I started learning how to, um, do projections, which is really wild, you know, the loud, Sounds like the subway cars are smashing through your room, and you're getting electrocuted. The, the energy flowing through your body is unbelievable, and I peeled, I sat up.

The first one is, I sat halfway up, and it felt 100 percent real, and, oh my god, this is actually happening, but uh, probably the first good one I had, I came out of the body and I felt it pulling me back. I had to get [00:23:00] away from it. So I, I just moved forward and I could not see anything, but I had, I could feel my footsteps on the floor, but I couldn't see anything or hear anything.

And, um, I had to calm my senses. I'm like, all right, I want to see, I want to see, come on. And then I could see the wall in front of me and I wasn't that awake at this time of night, but I thought, okay, if I'm really out. My hand should pass through the wall. And I reach out to touch it, and it looks very, very detailed.

Very intricate. And I can see all the wrinkles and pores on my hand, and all the texture on the wall, and I touch it, and it's rock solid. And I go, oh, I guess I didn't do it. And then I walked back and got back in bed. And I, I tried it again, and it did the same thing happen. And then I realized, oh, this is it!

There's, there's different types, I think. There's astral projections, and then there's etheric projections. I don't know if you've heard of those or not, but I've accidentally done the etheric, and that's really sticky and gooey, and you end up all twisted up. It's not pleasant, but the [00:24:00] astral, I had a really nice one.

At my sister's house, I came out, I didn't really have a body. I was kind of like a, just a point. And I was floating around the room and I float out into the living room. Like, all right, I want to go somewhere this time. I want to be brave enough to not just fly around the room. I want to go someplace. So a portal opens up in the ceiling and I get vacuumed out and I'm going through this portal and I get dropped out in deep space and there's this big black planet and I'm absolutely terrified.

I'm like, I don't know if I can handle this. But I go down to the planet, and I see myself with my family, but we're not in America, we're living in the UK. And we have another sibling. And I'm watching how the family interactions are different because of this other person. And, um, that was it. I just watched that, and that was really interesting, you know?

Amina: That's really cool. So, have you, do you think that's like a parallel version of your life? 

Josh: I don't know, you know, I don't Ultimate 

Amina: reality or [00:25:00] something? 

Josh: The way I think of it is you have a ground consciousness, that void, that's what you really are, and it can pivot. And, I don't know the realities. Of even this reality or any of the other realities we receive, we just start getting information.

Whether that was real or not, who knows, but the information for me was useful, right? It was incredibly 

Amina: real to you because you experienced it. Well, I was affected by it. Yeah. 

Josh: That was real, but I don't know if it's a parallel reality or what. 

Amina: Yeah, it's hard to tell, you know, like there's so many different types of dreams and kind of like you mentioned, we have this level of being just in our subconscious.

And then we have these other levels of, you know, altered consciousness that get deeper and deeper. And, and it actually was reminding me as you were talking about the Israeli lady that I just had on my podcast, she was saying something similar to that about how when she entered this other state, deeper in the astral realm, things.

are solid, like they are here and like it acts differently than you would expect. So I think it's cool to explore these things and you've been, you [00:26:00] know, brave enough to, to see what happens and embrace that. I think that's great. 

Josh: This is my favorite lucid dream, if I can tell you, because it kind of revealed a lot to me.

Um, so I was in just a normal dream, and I'm walking through a field of grass and just blue sky with all these people. And we're just moving in one direction, kind of mindlessly. And I start gaining lucidity in the dream, and I look at the guy next to me and I go, Um, We're in a dream, aren't we? And he's kind of confused looking at me.

And the level of reality is really high. I can see the pores in his face. I can see the wrinkles in my hand. And I'm looking for something that's off, right? And the proportion of my hand was just a little bit off. And I go, Oh, this is a dream, isn't it? And then I remembered my practice, and I wanted to see if I could collapse the dream space.

So I will it to collapse. And then everything does. And all that's left is the people walking in this blank void. [00:27:00] And at that time, you know, there's different types of knowing in the subconscious. You can have this direct insight. And I directly go, this is what I really am. This is, this is the real me. I'm a space of simulation.

Right? I'm like this, this egg that simulates it, like I have this little glass ball, and it's completely clear, but wherever you go, it absorbs everything around it, right? That's kind of like what I am. And now, in my waking life, trying to bring that into it, I don't think of myself centered in the body. but unified with the whole space, right?

That whole egg of space that, that simulates, right? As far as I can see, that's me. The objects outside of me are me. The people in my environment are me. The body is just the point of view. 

Amina: I love that. It's interesting how we're able to have these different vantage points and these deep dream experiences.

When you said you were an atheist, what does that mean to you? Cause I know that there's like such a spectrum of what that [00:28:00] means. And like, when you considered yourself an atheist, like how did you make sense of like some of these experiences, this other worldly stuff? 

Josh: And when I was, when I was an atheist, I was blocked out of these spaces.

I wasn't lucid dreaming then. And because of. Events I saw, I didn't know how there could be a God when such horrible things could happen to people. When people could die for what appeared to be no good reason and die a very painful death. And I had been, you know, around, a lot of my friends were addicted to drugs.

And, and mentally ill, and I was around a lot of poverty, and, and suffering, like how, how can this be allowed? You know, what could justify this suffering? And then as I gained more experiences, the world became a scarier and scarier place and a more meaningless and meaningless place. And I got to the point where I was kind of living in a nightmare.

I was having panic disorder, very delusional, I was having trouble going outside. I had to have, um, an oximeter in my bag to make sure I [00:29:00] wasn't suffocating, you know, because I was in such intense fear. And so I was naturally doing these reality checks on myself throughout the day. Am I delusional right now?

Is this, is this a fact? The big turning point was I started writing about some of these traumatic experiences and I realized that they were actually profoundly meaningful. Those were some of the most meaningful events of my life and of their lives. And unfortunately, you know, this suffering in the world, this may sound kind of dumb, but it can be a kind of a cruel gift that no family member or loved one can give us, because it helps us not to be complacent in this life.

It helps us to realize that we need to do something. We need to evolve. for each other. We need to solve this problem. And I had to solve my suffering. And I think as soon as you have capacity to help another person, you should start so you don't. Develop an egocentric practice. You know, if you're able to go [00:30:00] through something like alcoholism, you should help others.

If you're able to overcome panic disorder, you should help others. If you've had traumatic experiences that you survived, people really need that wisdom and really need your care. I think lucid dreams can be a really beautiful thing to teach people because you can show them their power and their freedom and that there is something in them that is eternal.

Amina: As crazy as it may sound, like there is a healing gift behind suffering, you know, and there's always Something positive that can, you know, grow out of it. If you're, you know, willing to make, make that change. Like I was saying earlier, there's nightmares and there's scary things and we can't run from those things.

We have to confront the things within us that are, you know, bothering us. And yeah, our dreams will definitely reward us for it. 

Josh: It's tricky because once you start having these experiences, you can fall out. You can start. Becoming really proud of yourself, and feeling like you're very special, or maybe that you're even better than other people.

And then [00:31:00] you're falling back into the delusion of separateness, right? You're going far away from the unity, and you may start harming yourself and others because of that belief. So I think that it's important not to get too attached to these things, but to use them. in service. And I think you're doing that well, showing people that this is a real thing, that these, this is an experience that happens and that you can have these experiences and you can radically alter your mental health and your life.

And have some freedom and joy, even if you are in hard circumstances. 

Amina: Yeah, thanks. I mean, that's what I try to do. I try to empower people with like the knowledge and like motivation to just explore for themselves. And you know, there's a lot of misconceptions and fear online about lucid dreaming. So just working through that.

And this is an open space. You can talk about dreams. You're not alone in these experiences. Because a lot of people are also haunted by their dreams as well. They run from them. They don't want to [00:32:00] confront them. And I think it's just such a new area of science that there's a lot of people that are skeptical about it.

And then you have the whole religious thing and all these different forces kind of coming together and all these different opinions. And I think it really just boils down to like finding your own journey and exploring for yourself. 

Josh: Yeah. I think the ultimate value of art is the same thing as life. The same thing as lucid dreaming is self realization through self expression.

You can't look at the thing that's looking. The only way you can get to know yourself is through expressing yourself through many, many different situations. And when we're not living lucidly, that means we're living robotically. We fall into, we very easily, we fall into habituated mindsets. You know, listener, think about your morning.

How different is it from the last morning? Or the morning before that? How far into your day before you break your routine? Or is it the whole day? How really different are [00:33:00] your years? If we're here to know ourselves, through self expression and you're doing the same thing every day, then how are you discovering new things about yourself?

And if you're just reacting to the situations you're in and what's happening to you, then you're not really there. I think you have to be proactive. You have to have that distance from your experience and consider, how do I want to react? Is this reaction beneficial for me and this other person? Is an expression of the unity and love that is the truth, right?

And the more awareness you're able to bring into your life, the more healing it is for you and others. And if we want to live in a more peaceful world, We have to find peace within ourselves. Every, every single person has to find peace within themselves for there to be peace and unity. We have to find that within ourselves.

Um, so art is a really beautiful way to engage with aspects of your mind outside of the normal. Say you [00:34:00] can't go on vacation. You can't get these new experiences. Just get some crayons and some printer paper and start working. It doesn't have to be anything good, just set a time aside in your day to play.

To not be critical. To not be a robot. To just have fun. To connect with the materials. To connect with these other aspects of your mind. To connect with your deeper nature. And just be joyful. Feel the color. You know, where does the color take you in your mind? Where does it take you in your emotion? Where does the line take you?

Where does the shape take you? And you can slowly invest in art over time and discover yourselves. You could try a still life painting. You could try a sculpture. You could try making a video or writing a poem. All of these create new environments for you to explore and express yourself. And I think if you do this, you'll find you'll become a more joyful, a more empathetic person, and you'll have something of your own to share.

Amina: You know, when we're [00:35:00] dreaming, we don't have like the logical chatter of our waking life. You know, our brain is more loose and creative, so to speak. So there's a lot of cool things that can come from that. I have a lot of like little screenshots in my head of like cool dream ideas that I want to. Turn into art because I had a cool dream the other day that was like this pretty like lake scene and there was like some ducks on it and it was all kind of like watercolor themes.

And it was just once liminal snapshot, like how I was like half awake and in like the reflection of the water, it said something along the lines of, don't take my dreams away. My dreams deserve patience. And I don't know why it said that, but I just like remembered that and I just thought it was really beautiful and I'm like.

Maybe I should like honor that dream by, you know, making some art with that concept. So I'm going to use that quote that my dream just told me. 

Josh: Definitely. You definitely should do that. I think going back and forth helps you to build a relationship with your whole mind. Helps you to unify. [00:36:00] The subconscious is a really wonderful part of yourself.

It regulates your whole body, your hormones, your digestion, your heart rate. It's taking care of you all the time. It's giving you mental health therapy every night. It's telling you where your fears are through these monsters, through these nightmares. It's telling you what you need help with, right? And it sends you little messages throughout the day, like what you just said.

That little message in the pun. It's important. And when you bring that into the conscious and you respect it and you make this art, and you're thinking about it, you're becoming a loving couple within yourself. You know, in the esoteric tradition, the waking mind is the man and the subconscious is the woman.

And the ultimate goal is the chemical wedding between the two. And that's one way to begin developing that relationship. 

Amina: Yeah. Beautiful. Because if you want to wake up your dreams and whatever dream [00:37:00] goals you have, or even just remembering your dreams, it's about opening up that dialogue between you and your subconscious.

And if you honor it. Whether it's through art or through writing your dreams down or talking about your dreams, but honoring that part of yourself means not just keeping it bottled up and, you know, not confronting what your dreams have to say or writing them off. And even if you don't understand your dreams, you can still write them down.

You can still, you know, draw them out or think about them. I like to find like the dreams that feel powerful to me and that have emotional, like a emotional content to them. I like to find one thing. That I do to take action into the dream. And I find that that kind of like my subconscious recognizes when I do that, you know, and I formed a practice of doing this over time.

Josh: I know you're building a community, right? 

Amina: Yeah. You know, I, I'm just kind of taking it day by day, but my goal is to just. You know, keep making content. I funnel people to Discord and people in there share experiences with each other. Sometimes I do like [00:38:00] live group chats. I used to be on Clubhouse a lot, but I'm kind of shifting gears, um, just to try other platforms.

But yeah, I really, I love teaching Lucid Dreaming. So I'm trying to kind of like make a career out of it and Just go down this path, but I do it cause I love doing it. And I love teaching lucid dreaming. 

Josh: Do you have like a big vision for where you're going? 

Amina: I have a lot of visions, actually. You know, it starts with the podcast, but it's so much bigger than that.

Eventually I want to have like a big piece of land where I can do different types of retreats. Like meditation retreats, dream retreats, psychedelic healing retreats, just different things, you know, just different types of healing retreats for different occasions, like summer camp for kids and, you know, teach them how to dream or whatever it is, you know, I know that it's a possibility of something that I can do.

And then the podcast and the dream stuff, it all connects with that. 

Josh: Yeah, there are places like Omega Institute and big institutions where people can come and make [00:39:00] retreats. there. You don't have to have all the land immediately. Um, That's 

Amina: true. Yeah. I mean, I've definitely like, I've worked on some events.

I'll look into it. I haven't heard about Omega Institute, but I did do a dream retreat, um, with one of my friends that does dream work as well. And we like rented out a house and things like that. So I know it's possible. That was just my end goal. And then I also like worked with like a farm and did a festival there.

So like, I've been, you know, collaborating with different people that want to throw on events for different things and somehow mixing and dream work in there. You know, like when I did the festival, I did like a workshop on dreams. 

Josh: And you're a very advanced lucid dreamer. So I think you're, you're spiritual.

How do you. conceive of your spiritual practice. Is lucid dreaming spiritual for you? Are you, are you just exploring and news? Are you an adventurer or a pioneer? All of the above. 

Amina: Yeah. I mean, I I've had some deep spiritual experiences through my lucid dreams. I was always spiritual, but it definitely took it.

To a whole nother [00:40:00] level, like I've had some profound lucid dreams and talking to dream characters and them telling me just things about life and the universe and just about how it works and, you know, them giving me all this knowledge that I feel like is just beyond me. And. I've had interesting, you know, dreams of just being out of my body and exploring these different realms.

And I just feel like I explore these other dimensions all the time and like it feels so normal to me. But it's a huge part of my spiritual practice because it's like I know it's all connected to the work that I'm doing. And like my ability to lucid dream, I feel like it's connected to my purpose in life.

Spirituality, like there's a big part of lucid dreaming for me for that, but I also use it for for fun stuff, or sometimes to like practice working on things that I'm working on or getting ideas for projects that I'm doing. And so it just depends like when I'm going through a tough time, that's when the spirituality kicks in for me.

My dreams have healed me through some really tough things as well. So I felt that, you know, like when you were sharing earlier about how I woke up from a dream just feeling better and like [00:41:00] released and like. Healed from something that I didn't think I could overcome. So my dreams have done that for me.

And it's been through, you know, I've asked specifically, you know, for spirit guides in my dreams. And I've found beings that help me. And they say that they protect me through lifetimes. 

Josh: Yeah, I've had a very intense dream period. That was kind of the focus of my life was doing that and then I've been very intensely into the physical and, and my practice.

I think it might be time to go back now, ramp back up with all this, like, nice, Summer, springtime energy and summertime energy. Are you, are you intuitive at all? Do you get, do you get, um, psychic messages? 

Amina: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think so. Yeah. 

Josh: So I want to go back exploring for me. I was just kind of picking apart my consciousness for the past couple of months and dreams.

And I, I see that I have these, um, kind of conceptual blocks. Like sometimes I can't move through the wall. Sometimes I can't see because of, [00:42:00] I guess, beliefs. Yeah. And I've heard people say you have to practice overcoming those beliefs if you can break down the wall. That's a huge accomplishment. And so with all your experience, maybe you could advise me on like a bigger perspective that I'm missing out on.

Amina: Yeah, I mean, It happens to me sometimes too, especially with not being able to see. I don't know if this is what you mean, but sometimes in a dream, I had this period really specifically that I had to overcome where like I would become lucid, but I couldn't see, and I could feel things, but like my dream eyes were just blind basically.

And it was kind of on this period where I would get nervous and think that the dream was fading and it would cause me to like wake up and just lose dream stability. Yeah, it just really takes practice to like focus on the dream and focus on your other senses that you do have within the dream. If I'm getting like resistance from the dream, like, let's say I'm trying to go through a wall or do a dream task and it's just not working, which does happen.

Sometimes one big factor that comes [00:43:00] into play is like your confidence in something. So if you're like, Oh, I can't fly or I can't do this. Um, and you start to get frustrated and doubt yourself in the dream. I've noticed that that like makes it harder for me. So sometimes I just. Take a step back in the dream and redirect try something else or try to go a different way You know if I can't go through the wall I'll just turn around and use a different door or something else and sometimes that redirect of my mind helps me Do the dream task in a different way and there are always times where the dream just has a mind of its own and I don't Have good dream control, but if you're having like a special specific thing that you're struggling with, you know, such as your eyes or a wall or something, you know, that's part of dream yoga is working with that one thing that's troubling you and kind of like troubleshooting it to see what else could work, you know, so like, if your attempt to just go through the wall is not working, try to like think out of the box and get creative.

There's a lot of things you can do in a dream to make something happen or get a different result. And then sometimes once you kind of unlock that creative solution, then like, You might find [00:44:00] it easier later on to, to do those things. Like a lot of people have trouble with like flying and stuff. And then once they get the hang of it, they're like, Oh, okay.

You know, I am stable and confident now that I can fly around or whatever it is. So yeah, I like to start with the small stuff. Like I would practice kind of making things bigger or smaller or changing colors of things in a dream and just doing little shape shifting things. And then I would move on to like bigger things, um, like shifting dream environments and things like that, which is not necessarily harder.

It's just different people kind of have different experiences of what they find easy to do in a dream. 

Josh: And it seems to change throughout the year and what's going on in your life. Right? 

Amina: Yes. Like I was 

Josh: able to collapse. Some environments and some days they can't go through a wall. 

Amina: Exactly. Yeah. It's crazy.

And I even noticed like the things that I get, sometimes my mind gets complacent in a dream. It's like, I have this reality check that I always do where I pull my finger and I've been talking about this for years. It stretches like rubber and that's how I know that I'm in a dream. But like a few [00:45:00] times recently when I've gotten lucid, It hasn't worked in the dream like it'll just be normal like this and I'll doubt myself and be like, am I dreaming or not?

Like my normal reality check isn't doing what it normally does in the dream. And so I have to shift my practice, try new reality checks or state tests and do different things to test my dream state because I was starting to get maybe less mindful with it. And so my dream, my dreaming mind would just like overlook it.

And this can apply to any sign, you know, if you notice something's off and then you're like, Oh, is it a dream or, oh, no, maybe that's just normal. And then it turns out that you wake up and you're like, that's not normal at all. How did I not realize I was dreaming? So it just kind of takes that like adapting to your brain, because even the most experienced lucid dreamers, we still have to, you know, update our practice to match our life and adjust what works for us and what doesn't work for us.

Cause sometimes like our brain will kind of play tricks on us and get a little complacent. 

Josh: Are you able to raise the quality of your consciousness? Cause sometimes it [00:46:00] gets stuck. In kind of a sleepy mind. Does that happen to you? 

Amina: Like while dreaming, or what do you mean? 

Josh: Uh, the worst is during, um, projections.

When I'm projected out of the body, I'm just so tired that I'm, it's kind of worthless. It's kind of wasted. You know? Do you know what I mean? Like, your level of consciousness is so low that you're not, you're not really utilizing it. Yeah. 

Amina: Yeah, that happens to me, and it's hard, kind of hard for me to control.

Sometimes it's like, I don't know if I'm just, Not really remembering it or not really fully having the grasp of what I did in, in those explorations because when I'm too tired, I just can't connect and bring those experiences back to waking. So it's definitely like a delicate balance. That's why it's important to you know, have your rest and have your normal sleep and then have intentional like attempts to go into the dream world and do these things so then you don't feel like burnt out consciously, which a lot of people do experience.

Me personally though, like I don't get tired of lucid dreaming like I haven't yet at [00:47:00] least, but I do sleep a lot and I have a very regular and peaceful sleep schedule so I can't say that the That is like a universal experience. 

Josh: Do you just naturally become lucid each night? 

Amina: Um, not each night, maybe like three to four times a week.

Sometimes it's, usually it's spontaneous, but I have a very, like, I'm pretty deep into this stuff. Like I have a practice that I do religiously with my dream journaling and, you know, my setting intentions and drink herbal dream teas. I do state tests and mindfulness throughout the day. That's the biggest thing for me.

Most of my lucid dreams are. Because of my reality mindfulness moments, and that mindfulness carries over into my dream space because I do it so effectively, essentially, I don't want to say consistency, because it's about quality over quantity. So I do have a lot of spontaneous lucid dreams. But I would say that a lot of them are induced because I do actively try.

And I'm always talking about dreaming. And, 

Josh: you know, because of my past, I'm a little careful with supplements and drugs and things. Do [00:48:00] those feel like a crutch to you? Do they feel like they may block you from advancing or is that really useful for you? 

Amina: So for me, like I Don't depend on it at all I always tell people to be careful with that and build your own practice first and get comfortable with your own lucid dreams And I don't overdo it.

Like I have a bunch of different dream supplements that I Rarely even used just once in a while for like experimentation I'll drink mugwort and blue lotus tea, which is just like an herbal tea and it I don't feel like it has a huge Impact on my dreams, but I don't drink a lot of it. Um, it just helps me relax and I do have vivid dreams Anyways, so I don't know how much that plays a role I have also explored, like, Galantamine, which gave me the most vivid dreams.

Like, when I took Galantamine, I was exhausted. Like, I remembered so many dreams throughout the night, and I was lucid, but, like, it was just constant brain chatter. Like, I felt like I was overwhelmed. So, you know, I don't do it that often, but I, I've done it for just, [00:49:00] To experiment and to be able to tell people like, Oh yeah, you know, this is what my experience was like, but I never, ever tell people to like, Oh, you need this to lucid dream.

You shouldn't have that mindset because it's a limiting belief. You don't need any supplements to lucid dream where we can all do it naturally, as you know, but it can be fun to explore. And if you do have a background with like addiction or things like that, and you're worried about yourself doing that, then, you know, maybe it's not for you, everybody's.

Even like over the counter stuff like B6 has had like a lot of effectiveness in dream recall, getting people who haven't dreamed in 10 years to start remembering dreams and you know, that's just a normal supplement. So there's other things you can try. You don't have to get like, you know, galantamine or, you know, all the fancy dreamy stuff, even some foods.

People say it can affect their dreams. So really anything you put in your body is going to affect you in some way So i'm more about personal exploration. I never try to like depend on it I don't even like talking about dream herbs and supplements that much because I know that I have a lot of like beginner People and I [00:50:00] don't want them to think like oh if I take this pill i'll lose a dream for sure Like I always every time talk about supplements.

I say like if you're a beginner Build your own practice first. This is a supplement, like, it's an addition. It's a thing you can explore with. 

Josh: Yeah, it's just journaling. It's so simple, but it's very effective. Do you bring any of the insights from your dreams into your life? How has it changed the way you live?

Amina: Yeah, a lot. It just kind of changes the way I see the world. The way that I just show up in the world, you know, my dreams have made me more loving and compassionate overall. My dreams have helped me show up better for people that, you know, I've had conflict with and things like that, that my dreams have kind of pointed me towards, they have an impact on me, both positive ones and negative ones.

So I take the lessons that I learned in my dream, like I've heard like very deep, inspiring things from dream characters that have like given me You know, what I needed at that time in my life, you know, to move forward. And, you know, I'll make content about it too. If I hear something cool in a dream where I discover [00:51:00] something or a dream character teaches me how to do something, I'll make a video about it.

And sometimes somebody, you know, people will comment like, Oh, wow, I was having that same problem. I'll try this, you know? So just sharing my experiences so that other people can have ideas. And sometimes you'd be surprised how your experience can help somebody, even if it's something that may not seem like a big deal to you.

My dream characters will like teach me. How to do new things in a lucid dream. So then I'll be like, Oh, that's a fun thing. I'll, I'll share it with people and see if anybody else wants to try. 

Josh: Get into the characters. That's what I've learned. 

Amina: I love talking to dream characters, but also another thing too, is like, that I'm trying to try to like, talk to like the dream itself, like talk to my subconscious as like the dream void.

I don't know. Yeah. Like, you know, you can do that too. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of people do that and you can, Command things to the dream itself, even if there's no one around, like, you know, dream clarity. I want to talk to my subconscious. Let me, I don't know, whatever it is you're trying to work on within yourself.

So I'm gonna, [00:52:00] that's my next dream goal, I guess. 

Josh: That's smart. That, that's, that's good. That's what I was looking for right there. That, that little idea. That's, it takes a while to like, get really creative and, and figure out how to move forward. Um, do you remember Sarah Finn? You had her on. She's, she's really extraordinary.

She, her, the level of reality and the intricacy of the dreams and, and the relationship she has with these characters, just absolutely unbelievable. 

Amina: Yeah. 

Josh: Do you have any consistent dream spaces or people? 

Amina: I have like a couple locations, you know, persistent realms, as you might call them, one of which I created consciously, which is like my farm dream.

And like a couple of dreams that I've had, I'm always like, go back to it. And it's always pretty much how I left it. And I'll like add to it kind of like playing the Sims, like I just 

Josh: make it how 

Amina: I want it to look. Yeah, it's so fun. So it's like my little dream coming to life. And then another [00:53:00] one that I visited in a dream.

It's like this. City in like another planet. It doesn't even look like Earth. It's one of those like Eco industrial cities. I always go back there and I have interesting dream characters there some of which are repetitive before the most part It's the environments that are consistent. The dream characters will show up for me in different forms But I'll know I'll have a feeling of knowing that they are a certain part of me or a certain Character from a different dream that connects sometimes Yeah, I love exploring with that idea that like parts of our dreams are Existing regardless of us being there to dream them like they're just you know, their own independent world that's happening Despite us being there.

Josh: I was in one lucid dream and it was kind of like a party and there's all these people there talking to each other and Conversations when they're great and then I see someone I kind of recognize And I'm like, don't I know you? Your name, I, I won't say his name, but I think it was my sister's [00:54:00] ex. And, um, he was a really sweet guy, but he looked older and a lot different.

Like, is that you? He's like, yeah, it's me. I'm like, what are you doing here? And we had a long talk about our lives and stuff. We started talking about dreaming. He's like, message me, you know, when you, when you wake up. Message me this happened. I reach out to him on Facebook. I haven't talked to him for about eight years, ten years, something like that.

I sent him a really creepy message. Hey man, I saw you in the dream space last night. He doesn't respond for a few days, but when he does respond, he's like, I just started taking dream supplements. I wanted to get deeper into the dreams. Like, this is absolutely crazy. And I'm like, I know you told me all that you told me you're having problems dreaming.

You wanted to get deeper into the dream. He told you that 

Amina: in the dream? 

Josh: Yeah, he told me that in the, that's why he wanted me to remind him. He said, tell me that this happened because I want to know that I did it. So I told him. That is interesting. And he was really freaked out. But like, you meet a lot of people, don't you?

You have, you have things like that? [00:55:00] 

Amina: Oh yeah, all the time. And that just supports this theory that I have, which is even if our conscious mind is not aware of it, our subconscious is doing things in the dream space, meeting people, talking to people, going on these adventures. Like you were saying earlier, how much is our conscious mind linked up with this conscious version of our unconscious version of ourselves?

So the fact that he was trying in waking life starting to get interested in dreams His dreaming self was already doing these explorations. He just wasn't aware of it yet And that's super cool. It definitely sounds like a shared dream experience And I was just talking about this because I just had a tiktok video that's going off about shared dreaming And I was talking to Robert Wagner on my podcast, and he shared a similar dream where, like, he was lucid, and his friend was there.

And he was like, Hey, you're in my dream. Like, let's do this. Let's fly around, whatever. And he noticed in the dream that her eyes were like, going back and forth, like she was in REM sleep. So he was like, Oh, maybe she's not really like, she wasn't really there. She was kind of like zombied out. 

Josh: [00:56:00] And 

Amina: he was like, Hey, wake up, you're in my dream, this and this, and she wasn't getting through to him.

And so he in the dream, he gets his fingers and like jabs it through her eyes. Like remember this not like in like a bad way, but that sounds bad, but I don't know for some reason in the dream He was like, oh, maybe this will get you to wake up So he like jabbed her in the eyes and then whatever nothing happened.

He woke up. He was like, okay, whatever Um, and then like a couple weeks later he like, you know messages her they're like in the same town and he's like Hey, let's get lunch. Whatever He didn't tell her about the dream, I guess, but then as soon as she goes up to him, she, they meet each other in waking life and she grabs her fingers and like puts it on his eyes like this.

And he's like, why did you do that? Like, what made you do that? And she's like, I don't know. I just really felt this desire inside of me to do that. I don't know why. And then he told her about the dream. And. That's interesting to me because something in her conscious mind still had that memory of being in that dream or [00:57:00] received it somehow.

But if we're not lucid and we're not fully presently and aware, whether it's lucid living or lucid dreaming, you're not going to have the memory. It's not going to carry over from the other dimension. It takes work to bring information through dimensions and it takes mindfulness and it takes commitment and effort.

So. But I think it's cool that she still, without realizing it, brought that, you know, it seeped through a little bit. 

Josh: Do you ever psychically send things? Instead of going there, mind to mind, do you ever just send them something? 

Amina: Yeah, so, I have a couple experiments that I've been doing with some of my lucid dreamer friends.

Um, and this is the video that I just posted about. I have a friend who is really good at, um, dream telepathy and astral projection and she's very in tune with that part of herself. So we had this little experiment that we've been doing for a couple of months now, you know on and off depending and we're in different time zones and everything.

The goal was to have like keywords for each other and we would try to telepathically send it to each other at night as we're falling asleep. And if I would become lucid I would go look [00:58:00] for her like that was my specific dream task for like a whole month was like if you see her go find her and tell her what your word is in the dream and she had the same thing.

And in addition to trying to find each other in the dream, I would just kind of Try to mentally send it out, send the word out to her, but the result was interesting because, so my word for her was sushi. And so then, you know, I kept thinking about that, projecting the image, whatever. So she told me one day, after like a month of trying this, she was like, Hey, like I had a dream about you and I became lucid and I, Couldn't find you in the dream, but I remembered trying to get your word.

So I got my phone out in the dream and I texted you. So she's texting me in the dream. And she says that I asked you for your word in the dream. And you sent me back this image in the dream. She sends me this picture. Okay. Look at this and tell me that doesn't look like sushi like come on. Yeah, that's how 

Josh: it is.

Amina: What's interesting here is like sometimes structurally we'll be able to pass on this image but the way that our brains translate the [00:59:00] information and like Translates it into a word or like labels the symbols can vary from person to person. It's like broken telephone through dimensions So yeah, yeah like you kind of got the message of what I was sending you like what are the odds out of all of the things that She could have dreamt about she dreamt about You Something that looks like sushi is cake instead of fish.

Josh: Yeah, I've been, I've been, uh, trying that. I have a few friends, all of them have different levels of intuitive ability. You know, some people with zero, some people you would call them clairvoyant. I think everyone gets it at some level. Like you said, that lady poked him in the face with the two fingers. I think as long as it's beneficial, The subconscious will give it to them in some way, and it'll come out, and they might not be consciously aware of it.

I think you can also send, like, healing, loving energy with the clairvoyant people, or whatever clairsense they have. They might just get it during the day, because they're that in tune with their [01:00:00] subconscious. They'll see it in the space, or they'll hear it. I had one friend I sent something to, and it was a dream with both of us in it, and we were talking.

And then some people will get absolutely zero. So I think you can just, just send a person something, and they'll receive it at whatever level that their relationship is with their subconscious. 

Amina: Yeah, exactly. 100%. Um, I think there's a lot of like individual factors that come into play when we're trying to send information to someone like telepathically or through a dream.

I do think like we all have this ability, you know, and it's something that can be strengthened and the more that you work on it, the stronger it gets. And, um, I think that we're evolving in that way. And I also think that our con, our subconscious mind, you know, um, our higher self, whatever you call it, is more aware of these things.

And sometimes it protects us. Like if we're not ready to do things and remember things and confront our dreams, it, we purposefully give ourselves [01:01:00] amnesia sometimes when we wake up and that's why maybe you don't remember all these night travels that you do or these shared dreams you have with your friends because sometimes your subconscious.

Purposefully makes you not remember and I fully believe that because sometimes I felt Literally like how you were saying earlier like watching your brain work in a way I've kind of been consciously aware of myself waking up and i've noticed my brain like filing memories of dreams and Purposefully forgetting some and i'm like 

Josh: i'm 

Amina: watching myself make myself forget dreams, which is so weird, but I'm watching myself do this process of like, Oh, this one, I want to remember this one.

No, this one here, but this one there, you know, and like doing all of this, like checks and balances right before I wake up. And it's so weird to like watch your brain do that and not have like the words to explain it. 

Josh: That's such abstract stuff. It's just, do you ever, do you ever like in the void space? Do you learn, do you practice things that you're learning or something like that?

Amina: Yeah, sometimes. A lot of times I'll [01:02:00] use it, like, to just kind of play around and, like, make weird things. Like, I'll try to, like, create something out of it. It feels like VR art, kind of. Um, just like painting in, in out of nothingness. 

Josh: Yeah, I had, I think it was yesterday or the day before, I was having a dream.

I was in the void, and I was thinking, but the thoughts were just becoming Images and like flying through space, like just going out. It's, it's just incredible how abstract it is. You know, you could never describe what's happening in words. It's so, it's so strange. And when you wake up, it makes no sense to you.

But when you're there, 100 percent got it. But when you're out, listen. 

Amina: It's like a different language almost. Like, our words can't even describe it. It's like a different way of like moving through the world. And it's like, you're having this dialogue that's open and creative. And it's like, Projecting outward into the dream, but then sometimes, yeah, like you said, it makes no sense because it just, it [01:03:00] doesn't translate the same.

Josh: I have, I have persistent places that I meditate to, that I do in my imagination that have been very useful. Do you ever, do you ever daydream? Do you ever do anything with your imagination during the day? 

Amina: Oh, yeah all the time. Yeah. Um, I feel like that connects to my dream life a lot Like i'll kind of literally daydream about dreams I want to have or like plan out things from my dream life just during my waking life um And then i've also been getting into meditation too where it's like that's a time for me to just try to Clear my mind and calm myself of all of that.

But yeah, i'm like always daydreaming 

Josh: I found that I can kind of hack in the imagination that I can imagine Like, I'll create a symbol, and I'll go back to that symbol repeatedly for, it's now been years, that one symbol. And it becomes more and more potent to the point that I can really affect the change in my mind when I imagine that symbol.

Have you ever tried anything like that? [01:04:00] 

Amina: That's interesting, like, how, can you give me an example? 

Josh: My most useful one is, um, uh, sometimes I'm in environments that are not safe, where I don't feel safe. So, I imagine automatically, I imagine a white flame around my body, and every time I've imagined that, people have kind of left me alone, and I just feel safe.

The stress goes away, and probably I am safe because I'm not like, look scared, but that has really helped. Um, I have imagined masks. That I'll put on when I need to be a certain person or I have imagined spaces that I'll go to and Characters there that I merge with and then I'll feel that energy through my body.

It'll be very positive Is that helpful? 

Amina: Yeah. Yeah for sure. It's like channeling that you know, what whatever energy you need at that time Yeah, that's really cool. I do that too. I have like For me, it's also just like these certain thoughts or affirmations that I draw on when I need to, and I [01:05:00] also use those in a dream when I'm like in a bad dream or a scary dream or something, I draw upon those like same things that I tell myself.

And also like those Dreams that I've had that have been like so powerful and healing for me, where I've had like certain spirit guides, like pull me through things. I always remember them. And I always think about them. Like when I need to, in my waking life, like I draw upon whatever lesson that they gave me, or just remembering that I have like this support system on the spiritual side.

So yeah, I, I definitely feel like drawing upon those energies is like really powerful. 

Josh: I think that's a really good tool for, for people. And now, now for me, a real experience is an experience that affects me. I can jump into the imagination during my day, do that. And it affects me in the real world. It affects how I act.

What an extraordinary gift. And it's nothing, it doesn't cost anything and you can train it over time. 

Amina: And I appreciate you for coming [01:06:00] on here and just being so vulnerable and sharing things with me. 

Josh: Thank you for making this space. And I've definitely benefited from your. Podcast, what's your training like if I wanted to take a session with you?

Amina: Oh, yeah, so I have an online course That's 10 weeks and it's mostly just like videos and articles and studies and stuff like that But you know I also just do one on one things with people and just talk to people like I literally just like making friends that Like dreams so I have like a discord group if you want to join and i'm always like chatting with people on there And for all the listeners that made it this far to the end as always.

I love you so much so much. Thank you for listening. Please support by leaving a review on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google, or whatever platform you're on. It only takes a couple seconds, but it has a huge, huge impact and be sure to follow on social media, share with your friends. If you want to learn more, check out the dreamworldpodcast.

com. I also have an online course that you can get for less than [01:07:00] 15. I will personally help you learn how to lucid dream and I will make it my mission. So be sure to check us out and sweet dreams. 

Transcribed by https: otter. ai