The Power of the Imaginal with Stephen Aizenstat

Stephen Aizenstat, PhD, is the founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute, Dream Tending, and the Academy of Imagination. He is coeditor (with Robert Bosnak) of Imagination and Medicine: The Future of Healing in an Age of Neuroscience. He is author of Dream Tending: Awakening to the Healing Power of Dreams and The Imagination Matrix: How to Access the Greatest Power You Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose.

Here he shares many personal stories to illustrate his view that our mental imagery is alive and active.

00:00 Introduction
02:26 Imagination and the paranormal
05:39 Rocks can talk
09:17 Curiosity
12:57 The machine
21:41 Connecting with people
26:39 Embodiment
30:44 The Bollingen tower
38:45 The Goanna lizard
58:35 Conclusion

Edited subtitles for this video are available in Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Swedish, and Spanish.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death.

(Recorded on October 27, 2023)

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Thinking Allowed – conversations on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove. Hello and welcome. I’m Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we will be exploring the power of the imaginal. My guest is Dr. Steven Aizenstat, who is the founder of the Pacifica Graduate Institute.

He is the founder of the discipline of Dream Tending and the Academy of Imagination. For more than 35 years he has explored the power of dreams through depth psychology and has collaborated with many of the greats including Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, Robert Johnson, James Hillman, and native elders worldwide.

He is co-editor with Robert Bosnak of Imagination and Medicine, the Future of Healing in an Age of Neuroscience. He is the author of Dream Tending, Awakening to the Healing Power of Dreams, and most recently, The Imagination Matrix – How to Access the Greatest Power You Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose.

Dr. Aizenstat is in California and now I’ll switch over to the internet video. Welcome, Steven. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. It’s great to be here with you as well. You’ve been focusing on depth psychology, on dreams, and on the imagination for, I guess

It would be fair to say, all of your professional life. That is so very fair to say, yes. Well over 40 years now. Let me begin with one of my bugaboos about depth psychologists, particularly the Jungians, because from my background in parapsychology, I get the impression that Jungians are sometimes

A little schizophrenic around this issue. Jung himself occasionally would talk about the dead actually appearing in his dreams, and he meant deceased spirits in his dreams, and yet many Jungians still maintain there’s nothing at all paranormal about depth psychology. I wonder where you stand on that spectrum.

Not to alienate many of my colleagues, so many who are Jungian analysts or professors at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Jung himself said, you can say a lot about me, but the one thing that I don’t want you to say is that I’m a Jungian. You know, I think at least my experience of

Jung and his work has very little to do with that orientation. He was very involved with the spirits, and of course when the red book comes out after he died, not public during his time, we really get a sense of who he is and what was moving through him, which was very paranormal.

I mean, it’s just outside of the traditional and the concrete, for sure that. When you talk about the power of imagination, I notice in your book that you sort of use the words imagination and imaginal interchangeably, but I know that particularly in the work of Henri Corbin there is a clear distinction, and

I wonder if you also make that distinction. I very much make that distinction. So imagination is one connotation, one way of experiencing, and it’s a much more fixed actuality. Even that idea of active imagination, which is also misinterpreted from Jung, Jung did not mean active imagination like guided imagery.

What he meant was the imagination itself is active on its own behalf, has its own autonomy, its own presence. So the figures and the energetics, the movements of imagination, has a life of its own, truly. When you use the term imaginal, that’s what you’re referring to, I assume.

Yeah, so I’m referring, it’s the adjective, right? It is the ongoing spontaneity, the living actuality of imagination moving through us and moving through all things for that matter, which is what really was the inspiration for this new book, The Imagination Matrix, honestly, was that there is a matrix of imagination

Of which we are a part. So not that the imagination is in me that I have ownership over, it’s something else. It moves me. It has a resonant quality, from psyche to soul, to my direct experience in life. This is the interesting part, I think, of your work.

You could look at a rock or a vase or a book, an inanimate object, and see imagination flowing through it. Oh yes, and I do have a short story, if you’re interested in that, about that, because that happened when I was 12 years old, honestly. My family lived in San Fernando Valley, which

Is right next to Los Angeles, a suburb over the hills. There was an ocean, a beach, but it was again over the hills, and we went over what was called then Topanga Pass to get there, a family beach called Zuma Beach for people that know that place. And it was perfect, right?

Lifeguard stands, like many of them, one after the next, big parking lot area, food stands. It was a civilized beach. And there was a jetty that went out, and that was on the south part of the beach. And the idea was you don’t go across that jetty.

And my parents, my mom and dad, would always say, no, that’s prohibited, you don’t want to go over there, right? And then I thought, okay, I won’t, but I’m 12, my goodness, and I’ve always been curious. So my curiosity, you know, obviously, that autonomous psyche that we were talking about,

That spontaneity touched me. And of course, the tide went out, and without anybody noticing, I walked around. What I discovered was the tide out on that side of the jetty was a big coral rock, beautiful rock. When the tide goes out, that’s what sometimes happens, of course, in beach settings.

And I sat there and just sat there. I’ll never forget the tide pools were up, they were glimmering in the sunlight, all the coral underneath and the seaweed and the different fish that were there. It was just amazing to me. Then it happened on that rock.

And lo and behold, I heard a voice. I did. The voice was a presence behind me. And it said, did you know, did you know that rocks can talk? And I said, huh? I actually didn’t say anything. I was just like, really frankly, just stunned. Rocks can talk.

And I looked behind me, and there was a 17-year-old surfer, truly, walking back from the beach. And you’re 12, and you look behind, and you see a 17-year-old surfer guy. I mean, it was like a deity, a spirit of some sort, a visitation, for sure. I knew that rocks could talk.

I thought that all my life, but never did I whisper that to anybody. It didn’t work in school, did not work in my family, did not work among my peers. But this presence, rocks could talk. Oh my goodness. It was extraordinary. Of course, then what happened an hour later

As I was transfixed in this complete imaginal realm, I noticed the ocean quickly coming back in. Uh-oh, I’m going to be trapped here. So I quickly ran around the jetty, well, I could, up to my knees in the ocean, and found my mom, my dad, and my family.

And I’ll never forget, my mom said, well, where were you? What were you doing? Now, what am I going to say? Now that I’m on the civilized side of the beach, with the life stands and the food signs and the parking lots and the many, many, many, many families on picnics, you know,

What am I saying? Oh, I was on the other side of the jetty where rocks could talk. I was just meandering, noticing things. So yeah, absolutely. That was the beginning, I think, for me. What a beautiful story. Thank you for that. And now you used the word curiosity. You were curious.

And I know in your present book, The Imagination Matrix, curiosity is a very important starting point. It truly is. Curiosity is the beginning of accessing the curious mind, curiosity of accessing the realms of deep imagination and the beginning place of going on the journey through those realms with what I call soul companions.

Curiosity is so extraordinary and so important, right? We’re born with it. I mean, children, we come into the world naturally curious. It’s part of who we are and really integral to who we’re becoming. The challenge is, oh, you know, around five, then six, then seven comes and we’re trained

Into a much more rational approach into the world. All right, necessarily so, right? Of course, we need those skill sets. We need that capacity to reason and so on and so forth. It’s just at the expense of curiosity, not so helpful because when we’re curious, things will open where they otherwise would not.

When we bring an aesthetic eye, when we bring our curiosity into our life and into the world, imagination opens and creativity opens. Now there are meta studies that suggest that this is the case. When we’re curious, I mean, authentically curious,

It’s not possible to be either anxious and or depressed at the same time. They’re actually reciprocal inhibitors. So in all my clinical work, I’ve found that to be so again and again and again. Crippling anxiety, isolating depression gives way when the curious mind opens. And when that opens, we have access, as I

Shared, to the portals that lead us right into journeying through the realms of deep imagination. It does seem that as we get older, we develop habits and patterns and those habits and patterns stifle curiosity and I guess stifle imagination as well. Yes, and particularly in the world today.

There’s so much screen time, of course. And of course, we know the advantages of technology and artificial intelligence and there are tremendous advantages, right? And they can be really extraordinary tools. Just what we’re doing here and now as a result of some technologies.

And two, though, there is the deadening of imagination sometimes if it’s too much or we’re spending so much time in front of the screen. I cannot tell you the number of families, parents that I now see or when they travel because like you, we travel to numbers of different countries in the world.

And the despair because they see their kids going upstairs or just into another room and they’re just gripped by the machine. And yeah, it’s wondrous. It is. There’s genius behind the creativity that sometimes populate games and other manifestations of social media. Also, there’s something that deadens. We know we’re sitting, right?

We are inside the programmer’s code, truth be told, right? And we are separating just a bit from imagination from the indigenous or autonomous. The imagination that we’re birthed with, that imagination. So yes, I think in the world of today, particularly, what’s being asked is for

Us to find a creative voice and to access imagination. Since you’ve jumped into the realm of technology, I’m going to jump around a little myself. One of the things you’ve done in your book is you’ve reimagined the ancient four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.

And in your schema, which you describe as the source code of imagination, you’ve replaced fire with the machine. And at the same time, you point out the dangers of the mechanical world in which everyone is brought up, at least in Western society, even in remote places like Papua New Guinea.

I see natives with a bone in their nose talking on a cell phone. So it’s everywhere. It is true. It is everywhere. Because I do work with Direct Relief International in Africa. I can go to the furthest place in Africa, truly, where there’s no roads any longer.

I mean, you’re in a village and there is a cell phone. I mean, people are on cell phones. So yeah, the machine is every place. I imagine it in the schema that you described. I call that the four quadrants of imagination.

And that third quadrant, which is machine, really is a metaphor for functionality. And that becomes so helpful when imagination moves through our life. Because in addition to the generative qualities of earth and the imagining psyche, the second quadrant, that third quadrant of functionality of that kind of machine-like quality.

Not to literalize machine, but the body is a machine. I mean, there’s function that happens. And when I work with imagination, particularly this quality of imagination, with physical illness and affliction, really useful to have that sense of mobility included, that sense of machine.

And then the fourth quadrant, of course, is universe or cosmos. That other realm of the mysteries, the transcendent. And you put those four qualities together, those four quadrants together, and for me there’s a confluence that happens. And at the various points of confluence, there are portals.

And in those portals, we can travel and journey into the realms of the imagination matrix. Well, the machine is particularly striking to me because I think I see, and I’m pretty sure Jung saw in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul,

That the metaphor of the machine, that the body as a machine, for example, makes people sometimes believe that they’re nothing more than a machine, that they’ve lost their soul completely. But you seem to be suggesting, no, that we are more than the machine and the machine is more than

We think it might be. Well, certainly we’re more than the machine. And you know what, I’ve always discovered through working with so many people, particularly I’m working a lot with folks in tech corporations, from startups to mega corporations. And there is something about the next evolution of technology, it’s always changing.

And yet we have to ask ourselves, where does that next vision come from? Kind of as can be machine generated, but frankly, it comes from inspiration. It comes from another access place. So machines, the next evolution, the innovation in the word forever comes from journey in psyche and our creativity and our

Imagination, the next dream that is about to unfold, right? So I think for me, in my experience to find that co creative process with machine, machine has something to contribute. Machines can do everything but dream. And even now, there’s that sense of machines with AI, having the capacity to dream a little bit

Forward, of course, sci fi has been filled with us over the years. It’s just that there’s something else behind that dream that fuels the machine that offers it the kind of next evolution and possibility. And I think that does come from imagination, human made, nature made, right? Yes, both.

At the same time, your book is quite articulate about the dangers of the high tech world, particularly for young teenagers who they’re dating less. They don’t seem to know how to relate to a human being face to face. Everything is, you know, digital. There is real pain.

There truly is in the world today. I’m going to go back to China in just a month now, you know, and I spend a lot of time lecturing there and lots of places in Asia. And the overwhelm of machine technology and the robbery of spontaneity and creativity

Really shapes our sense of being human and therefore being relational. I mean, just for an example, interesting fact, you know, in China now, in many of the universities, many at the undergraduate level, you take a full year of coursework and one of the mandatory

Courses has to do with what it means to learn how to date, learn how to be present with another person. And you imagine they don’t know they’re caught in machine so much of the time that they’ve forgotten many, many, not everybody, obviously, but many have forgotten what it is to be relational,

How to ask a person out to a date. And we see that. And it’s, you know, it’s not, it’s actual in the sense that birth rates are down. That’s where the crisis is, because people are not responding actually to one another.

Oh, yeah, you can get a lot of stuff from A to Z online. You can watch a lot of sexuality. You can watch a lot of drama, a lot of this and that, but to be in relationship with another

Person and how to do that and to bring the humility of our humanity or the empathetic regard that lives deep inside of us to another person that is lost with too much machine. And now to anchor that here in the United States, I was just at, it was a big workshop

Sponsored by the school district. So I had a wide sweep and invited parents because of cyber addiction, parents so concerned over their kids where they just lose them. They’re just lost in the machine. Family system really suffers. You know, parents get scared and worried.

I was sitting around and they broke everyone up in a small group. I was sitting in one of the small groups listening to parents. Oh, it was more profound, more hurtful, more injurious than I ever imagined. And the despair, the desperation of parents. What do I do? How do I reach my kids?

You know, how do I make contact? I’ve just lost them. And then of course, the fear, the scare is, oh, they’re getting isolated. And when people get isolated and removed from human interaction, there’s that always ever present possibility of moving into depression.

And then depression, of course, has its own path and its own difficulty. So yeah, it’s something. And we need to really figure out ways. And the new book really talks about many different ways that parents can extend themselves to kids and to family members. I’ll never forget.

I was in Zurich at one of the Jungian institutes. I was presenting something along these lines, right? And I was talking about parents and their children. And at this particular event, these were Jungian analysts. So, you know, the age level, the demographic was much older.

I’ll never forget the two women that were in the front row. They must have been in their mid-80s, right? They raised their hands. They stand up. It was fantastic. Wait a minute. Don’t just talk to the young people. I’m lost in my machine, too. I’m getting caught in my cyber addiction.

Please talk with us. So it is. It’s something that we all need to be conscious of. Well, you suggest that the power of imagination is our greatest asset when it comes to, among other things, connectivity. Connecting with other people. How does imagination help us to connect?

You know, I have another story, actually, that… I love your stories. Okay, well, I’ll share this. It has to do, it just flowed from what we were talking about earlier. I was with my wife and our oldest son now with two little kids,

So grandchildren for us, and we went to their place, right? And it was fantastic. It was, you know, now our grandchildren really adore us for a variety of reasons, one of which is we probably get too many treats when we see them like that.

But also, you know, we have them over a lot. So when they see us, they run up and hug and it’s just wonderful. The little girl’s four, the little boy is five and a half. So we go over to his place to watch them.

Parents, they ran up to see us and give us an embrace also. But for another reason, that’s meant that they had the night off, right? They could go out to dinner and spend quality time with one another. They were happy to see us. So we were with the children, the grandkids,

And we were really having a great experience. And then I noticed, I looked over to my wife, she did, and they weren’t there anymore. They’d gone into their bedroom, both on the screen watching, I think it was a Spider-Man for the little boy who is absolutely now transfixed in that mode.

And the little girl, she was watching something, not Wonder Woman exactly, but something very similar to them. And they were gone. And then my wife had the idea, you know what? And she said, I said, well, what’s that? Well, let’s do something more interactive, more relational with what’s going on.

Just right to your question, right? So we pushed the chairs and the one sofa back, and we invited the kids out. But she said, you know, I know it’s almost Halloween, which was a year ago, right? So almost Halloween yet again. And she said, why don’t you get your costumes?

And of course, they had their costumes, right? Spider-Man with the mask and the whole thing and her with her with Wonder Woman. And they just loved it. They got their costumes on. They were really excited. They came out and we said, hey, you know, I know you’re watching so much online.

Why don’t we interact and engage and create theater? So we actually spent the next hour almost. And it was high energetic as they were running around, interacting with us in their costumes. The action figures of the screen became embodied, actual. And we were then into relationship and conversation and this and that.

And oh, my goodness, we had the next, we did that for about, well, we couldn’t stop them really. The energy went way up high. And then, though, when that wave kind of calmed just a bit, we were in incredible conversation with them. I mean, beautiful conversation.

And in the book, I offer like five or six different ways of engaging the family. I mean, everybody’s with avatars now, right? There’s avatars, online identities, transfixed with action figures. How do we bring that into the conversation in a family or in a marriage or in a partnership or with colleagues?

How does that come forward and facilitate relationship and conversation? We need to awaken imagination and then allow imagination to be embodied. Those figures embodied, right? I’ll tell you something, one last thing. Forever, I’ve been a therapist, you know, for a long time. I don’t see people individually as much anymore,

But I work with so many groups and so on, and therefore still on occasion work individually. But you ask a person, anybody in the helping professions, whether it be a therapist, social worker, when you’re with a person, the first thing you ask is, hey, you know, what brings you here?

One version of that or another. Very simple. What brings you here? If you ask a 12-year-old or 14-year-old, what brings you here? There’s this pause, right? I’m anticipating they’re going to tell me what the problem was and what the crisis is and, you know, what the circumstances are. There’s a complete pause.

I know this is going to sound pretty peculiar, but it’s just what’s so. There’s a pause because when you ask what brings you here, they don’t know which you you’re talking about. Me? Who am I? I’m not a singular ego. I am multiple selves, right? I’m an online identity. I’m an avatar.

I got all kinds of things going on. I don’t know which me you’re talking about, which you you’re referring to. It is a different world and we need to figure out the ways of hosting the many selves, the many figures of imagination and direct experience. I’m inclined to think that the superhero

Archetypes that appear in popular movies now and comic books that I watched or read as a child, they’re very powerful. I tend to think that they are calling us to discover something deeper and more powerful within ourselves, but what you’re suggesting is it has to come off the screen.

It has to be embodied. I think that’s true. You know, when I work with dream and or imagination, it’s one thing to have the figures come forward and we can look at them. And if we follow the action hero, there’s a scenario that goes on with that usually,

And it ends with some kind of conflict, some kind of domination, and it is a bit distant. When I’m working with a dream, I listen to the figures. I listen to the story. I listen to the imagination express itself. And yes, I associate. I really get curious about, hey, the relevance

Of this dream or this imagery in relation to the last 24 to 36 hours in relation to what’s the circumstances of life triggering from your development, from your history. Yes, I do. And I get interested in the amplificatory possibility. What archetypal motifs from myth and story and legend are being played out

In the collective psyche and presenting themselves here and now in the way of dream? And two, for me, what’s most important is to experience the images as alive, living with presence and pulse, embodied images with a life of their own, with stories to share

On behalf of themselves so that I’m not so quick to interpret or analyze. That’s that old tradition, going back to the Jungian fantasy. He did, of course, he was a master at that, as were the women and the men that followed in the tradition.

And two, he started to move into a different direction. He allowed the figures to come forward and be present. And he would sculpt them and draw them and allow them to have their own voice, their own creative response. And I think we need to do that too.

And I want to just say not because of an abstract idea. It’s because when I’m able to do that for myself or support others in doing the same, we host figures that are alive with breath, part of our inner family, our inner community, and get to know them. I say, befriend them.

And when I get to know them and befriend them, I’m in the world not just with this one ego alone, but I’m in the world among a community of others that I’ve taken the time to cultivate relationship with. Makes a big difference, right? I was just offering a big lecture the other night.

I could do it. I can write my lecture out. I’ve done it 100 times. I can go with my expertise and experience and go through the lecture and read it and get through it and mobilize and do all like that. That’s one way of operating.

The newer way is, look, first take the time, which I do. I take the time to consult with the others who are part of that inner community, just as important as our outer communities. The inner community. I feel their support, their presence.

I’m now up on the stage at the podium offering a lecture and I’m not alone. I’m with these other figures and I’m always surprised because imagination is filled with surprise, the stories that come through. So yeah, I start reading and my preparation is important always, but I’ll start moving

Through the lecture and it doesn’t take but a paragraph and I’m off the page. I’m just in the spontaneity of what’s moving through at that point in time. Really hosting the others that are present with me. What you’re suggesting, if I hear you correctly, Steven, is that the terms that we’ve heard

For decades, psychoanalysis or the Jungian analyst, it’s a misnomer. Well, for me, I had to speak for myself not to alienate any of my dear Jungian friends. I’m just about to go back to Zurich and observe 150th birthday. It’s like, yeah, no, there is a way of being,

Quote, Jungian-oriented and another way of being Jungian-oriented. Okay, another story’s got to come here. I was about 10 years ago, I was invited to Zurich to a gathering of analysts for a big conference. I’m not a Jungian analyst, but very familiar because Pacifica, there’s many faculty that are Jungian-oriented and that psychological tradition

Is a big part of that institution that I founded all those years ago. One of the events, for a selected number of people, we were invited to go to Bullingham. Bullingham is outside of Zurich and that’s the place where Jung’s tower is. So it’s a big tower made of stone, no electricity, right?

No heat. It’s just that tower, right? Water nearby, that’s it. We were invited over and the rule was nobody can go into the tower. Not okay because it is a private place. He built it. Marie-Louise von Franz back in that original group all those centuries ago had a place too.

But at this place, he would go during the summertime and then the families and the next generations of family would visit the place. It was a retreat space for him and there he would really reflect and be outside of the professional work and have the time, the protection,

The permission, the support of the natural place, natural landscape and allow spontaneity to come. All right, make this story go forward here. I’m there and I’m with about 30 other people and because we couldn’t go up into the tower, they opened the doors of the very first little circular tower.

Just think that archetypal classical medieval tower. That’s the tower and the circular stone. I remember no electricity to take a candle and that’s the way you get up, right? But we weren’t allowed up. So they opened the doors and we could see the first level. We could just have a peek in.

Everybody leaves and I, of course, not of course, but I was befriended one of the family members who as a little boy had the privilege of being there and spending some summer days there. He said, Steve, hey, stay back. I go, okay. Yeah, just stay. Let’s just have fun.

I mean, now he was older, noted figure in the community, et cetera, et cetera. I said, okay, I’ll do that. But under one condition because my direction is not helpful. We were so far away from Zurich. I had no idea where the heck we were. It was like in another landscape.

As long as you take me home back to Zurich, I’ll stay. He says, sure, I’ll do that for you. I said, okay, I’ll stay. Well, the people that were catering the event, they had left. He then picks up with both hands, two bottles of champagne, hands me one. He keeps one.

He said, come on, let’s go. I go, go where? Oh, we’re going to go up those stairs to the top of the tower. That was my favorite place when I was a kid. I said, oh, no, no, no, I can’t do that. That was really a commitment we made. We signed a paper.

We’re not supposed to do that. It’s fine. This is my place. It’s okay. Come with me. I said, okay. I did not take one sip of champagne at all. I was just like a little bit. What happens is we go up the spiral staircase holding the candles.

And then the level right before the top, I notice the full moon was out. The light, the radiant light was reflecting off of the lake, Lake Zurich there, right? And who was on the wall from floor to ceiling, side to side in this room was the painting of Philemon.

Philemon is the image that Jung used on the front of his book, the Red Book. This wasn’t that picture. This was like his original expression of Philemon with actually a different depiction of different notation underneath as well. But it was luminous, numinous. It was extraordinary. I just sat. I heard him upstairs.

I said, come on, come on. I must have said, okay, fine, fine. I’ll be there in a minute. That one minute, like the rock at Zuma Beach. Now I’m in a different place with a different space. And I noticed, I have to say, with all the lectures I’ve listened to,

All the books that I’ve read, all these distinguished Jungian analysts that I’ve been privileged truly to know and be part of their world, I probably experienced and feel more with the actuality of the Jungian orientation sitting there for almost 30 minutes, allowing the numinosity

And the luminous quality of that figure of Philemon to spread the room. I really got it. I mean, I really got it. The living embodied presence. And then I got Huyen Hao as a live, numinous presence. This was such a guide in his life, so much so that he didn’t talk about it

But brought it into that incredible work he was doing after hours in the Red Book for years. He was working that way in the spontaneity of imagination, in the matrix of imagination, allowing these figures to come forward and present themselves on their own behalf. What a wonderful story, Stephen. Thank you for that.

It also suggests to me that some of the deepest truths are beyond words completely. Yes, I think. For me, that’s been the case always. And certainly, you know, when dream comes, whether it’s a waking dream, a dream that is happening for us when our eyes are open,

Like walking down a street and then something different appears, you know, the landscape shines in a different way. We all know it. We know the experience. Or walking in a naturescape, right? And instead of going with an agenda or an idea or counting calories

Or exercising to get this distance going to whatever it is that we’re doing or working out a problem, I mean, all important and helpful. They are, truly. But there’s other occasions when the curious mind opens, right? And we’re in that dreamlike space, eyes open, waking dream,

And we hear the songs of the birds because we’re in a different place. We’re not in our busy mind or we hear the wind through the leaves. And we know there’s something different happening. We’re in a different rhythm, right? You imagine what it’s like then to evoke curiosity

And follow the song that we hear of the bird and go in that direction. Or the music of the wind through the trees and go there. Or noticing something and just following. Following curiosity, we are inside the waking dream, right? Very different way of being in presence.

And in the dream time also, when our eyes are closed, figures are coming and I’m not reading about it. I’m not learning about it. I’m not bringing my rational mind to it. I’m allowing the spontaneity of imagination to captivate my interest, my curiosity. I think my favorite story from your book

Is the one about the guano lizard in Australia. And I wonder if you would share that with our viewers. It’s so funny to share that. Now that I’m traveling and talking about the book, many people find that is a very famous one. Certainly, I’d be happy to share it.

What, the short, the medium, or the robust version of the story? The robust version would be fine. All right, it happens years ago. And I was on sabbatical from Pacifica and from my dream work. And decided to go to Australia. Actually, this is the robust version that I don’t share with everybody.

But with you being here, yes. We were actually going someplace else. We’re going to go to New Guinea, which you brought up earlier. And we had planned the trip to, well, I planned it early because I was so excited about going to that part of the world, right?

So I did a lot of preparation for the trip. And then everything was planned about a month before. And my wife got pregnant. My wife didn’t get pregnant. We got pregnant, which was the one that was pregnant. And our fantasy was, well, we’re going to go to New Guinea

And then we’re going to end up in Bali. And in Bali, we’re going to then, well, that didn’t happen the way we planned. Of course, we got inspired by the idea. And so she is pregnant. We go to the travel doctor and say, hey, we’re just about,

We’re going to get clearance, but we’re going to go to New Guinea and do this thing. He said, oh, no, you’re not because I’m the mature therapist, right? And I, you know, even a bit individuated because I’ve done so much work on myself. Well, I threw a tantrum. That was great.

And he just said, goodbye. He’s seen many like me. Why don’t you take some time and we’ll see in a couple of days. And a couple of days later, I come back, takes the map on the wall, draws a big line and said, this half of the world you can go to,

This half you can’t go to. I said, okay, okay, okay. So we end up going the other direction and we end up ultimately in Australia. Now my wife, two months, three months pregnant. And we’re there. And on the sabbaticals, a three-month sabbatical. So we ended in Australia.

So she’s about five or six months pregnant. And we’re told in Australia, you know, be careful because they’re crocodiles. And I know you like oceans. You shared that almost five times now. So I know you like oceans. I say, yeah, well, be careful because here the salty crocodiles of the ocean,

They’re dangerous and they really are. And you can get hurt, even killed. So just avoid that. They have big signs actually around different spaces where you can’t go into the ocean. So I said, okay. And then we said, yes, we went up the coast.

We heard, we went on a little nature walk and they said, no, be careful because, you know, there are things if you’re going to walk just with your family to be conscious of, and particularly if you bump against a guano lizard, you just, there’s certain things you

Need to do, which is just not approach them and not get overly aggressive. And above all, just don’t stand up and stretch your arms because they’re going to think it’s a tree and they’re going to climb up, right? All these kinds of things.

So we get to this place and then we see something emerge out of the river that we’re next to, this big wide river. And it was reptilian. Of course, we don’t know, truthfully. It’s reptilian. Crocodiles are reptilian. And this thing was big. So who knows?

It could have been a salty or freshwater croc. They say freshwater crocs are okay. They’re not going to kill you, but they will bite. Well, how am I going to tell the difference between a freshwater croc and a saltwater? They’ll know. And even for that matter, guano lizard, I

Don’t know, except it comes out of the water. And then it’s clear it’s a guano, big guano lizard. And my daughter sees it first. She’s about six years old then and about five years old. And she yells, guano, guano lizard. And we go, oh, so I’m, you know, the father of

This family and the dad, you know, the parent. I said, okay, let’s get all of our stuff and we need to get out of here. So we packed up really quickly and there’s a little shaking in the group.

And we walked all the way up the river over this hill and found another spot to settle, which we do. We settle. All the food comes back out again, pick the basket open, suddenly indeed, my daughter looks back, yells again, guana, guana is back. We go, oh no. All right.

Now, because I was raised in the human potentials movement, right? I was raised with humanistic psychology. I was raised in the time of Robert Bly and the men’s movement back in those days. And it was, I mean, I was young during that, but I was in it.

And there was a book that he wrote called Iron John. And, you know, you’re supposed to really assert yourself and all that kind of stuff. So I did what any legitimate Iron John figure, action figure would do.

I got up a big branch and started slamming it on the floor and stomping my feet. I’m protecting my family. Get away, get away, you guano, get away. You’re not going to touch one. And of course, then I do everything that you’re not supposed to do. I hold the branch up.

I’m standing up and the guana leaps up. You know what? We’ve got to get out of here. This is not my assertion and my sense of self and my strength. That is not working. So now we didn’t pack up carefully. We threw whatever we could into the into the picnic basket.

Then we just started walking and we walked quickly. And we walked right towards the car. You know, it was over a trail, another trail and right directly to the car. We’re walking and we’re breathing and I’m feeling okay. The family is rescued. My daughter looks back. Dad, guana, guana is back.

Guana is chasing us. Guana, listen. Two things happen. We do make it back safely to the car. We do. And I then go, whoa, this is big. We go back and there’s a sleep that happens for me and the dream comes. And in the dream, there is guana back and I’m being chased.

And I need to go through this thing in the dream. And then I think I make it. Everything is safe only at the very last step. Boom, there’s a shot that’s right through my head. And I go and wake up like scared and terrified.

I went to Australia because I wanted to meet, you know, elders of the dream time. That was my desire, my wish. And I really did. And I tried everything to meet and particularly Bill Nidji, who I wanted to meet, who is an elder of the dream time.

And I think before we left, I’m sure before we left, I saw National Geographic or something, did a big spread on them, you know, and so it was kind of idealized for me. And I’d worked so much in dream and I had such a

Felt sense of the value of this quality of work. I tried everything to meet this man, you know, I went as a university professor. That was like, didn’t work. That was ridiculous. I then thought, okay, well, I just went to the museum. I’ll say that I’m like part of the museum.

And of course, I was laughed at. That didn’t work. Last thing they want to see is another university professor, another person from the museum, another archaeologist. I tried that one too, that didn’t work. Finally, I surrendered. Let go, I’m in Darwin.

And there was a woman that was the owner of an Aboriginal painting shop. And the paintings, Aboriginal painting is stunning. I have a number of them in my office here. So she said, yeah, she asked me, but what I was doing here in Australia, what was going on?

I shared the whole story with her. And she just looked at me and noticed, and her husband was Aboriginal and a painter and really part of the culture. And she said, you know what, you’re okay. I never say this to anybody, but I think it’s going to be okay.

I’m going to share with you how you’re going to meet him, this elder. It’s going to be different than what you think. Everything you tried is ridiculous. She didn’t use the word ridiculous, but stupid, something close to that. Yeah.

And she said, hey, on the third Saturday of the month, go to this place. Of course, we’re in the outback, right? There are no paved roads. I’m with my oldest son, who was, I think, 12 at the time.

And we get into the car and we go and it’s like down these dirt roads and then take the first right at this and the second. So we followed and finally we land like an hour later, I think just by the grace of who was looking out for us.

At this place, what it was, was one little teeny shop, not a shop really, just a building. And it was with, and there were a lot of post office boxes. So it was, I guess, a mini post office. And then next to that was a fried chicken kind of stand

Where you can buy fried chicken and this and that. And I said, well, I guess this is where she met. There’s nothing else out here. So we just parked. I got some chicken. We just sat, sure enough, just like she said, around

In clock time, around one or two p.m., out of the bush, out of the bush comes this group, a clan of Aboriginal folks. One of which I recognized from the movie that I saw and it was obvious, it was Bill, Bill Nijing, right?

And of course I don’t speak, it’s like, okay, now what? And I wasn’t with a musical instrument. That’s a really wonderful way of making contact when I’m in that kind of situation. But I didn’t have music. But I did have, I’m okay with touch and story.

So I just sat and I must have sat and had my chicken. They all had their chicken, whatever was in the, I just sat next to him, right? In a very gracious, respectful way. And our arms started rubbing, chicken oil to chicken oil. And he asked, what brings you here?

What brings you here? And I went, whoa. And then how that happens when you’re in situations like that, I’m not in my rational mind. I just share a story about a dream and my great-grandfather and how important he’s been. I just, he goes, oh, you’re okay, you’re okay. And he said, dream?

He was asking me, dream? And I shared the dream that I had the light before. That’s what I was thinking about. He said, ah, dream. Okay. Then he said, go to this place. In Aboriginal culture, like in so many Native cultures, it’s not analysis. It’s not interpretation.

No, the dream is really offered back. It’s responded to by the place, by the landscape. And Gwana Dreaming was a place in that landscape, right? So what did I do? But with his permission and with his direction and support, my son and I got in the car and started going.

We got there to the place that he told us about. There was a park ranger. They’re wonderful. They’re protectors, these park rangers, because it was in Hornum Land, which is sacred Aboriginal territory. Nobody other than Aboriginals are allowed back. Even the park ranger was not allowed back.

He said, well, what brings you here? We are here to protect this place. I said, well, I just was in the conversation with Bill Niji. He said, you were talking with Bill Niji, and he said it was okay. I’d never been back there, but believe me,

If he said it was okay, please go. So I felt okay. I mean, really, I was just in my humility and my gratitude about all this. I was just so open-hearted and thankful. So we traveled back to the Gwana Dreaming. It was a big rock formation.

You couldn’t miss it because it looked exactly as they do in Australia. The rock formations are named because of their appearances, just like a big Gwana lizard. And I was present there. But you know what? I didn’t hear an interpretation, and I didn’t hear an analysis.

I didn’t get, quote, meaning in that way. Something else was happening because I had a profound and elemental somatic response. It was like the spirits of other worlds were present here. Which they were, right? And I had such a deep feeling, and I just went, whoa. And I left just with that experience.

All right. Now we fast forward three to four years. And actually, before that, what happens is that we get to our home place three or four months later, and in our bed, our little boy, our child was born. And he was one of those little ones. The first child was in the crib.

The second child was da, da, da, da, da. This child, this time, third child, just sleep in our bed. And he was a little crawler, a little wiggle worm in the bed, as many people know. And he would always crawl up on my head, for goodness knows what reason. I was tolerant.

I was loving, of course, right? I’m going to care for this little one. I was in love with him. And I would just be present and just kind of slightly push. Well, four weeks of this, and all of a sudden, you get less tolerant and less patient because you’re not sleeping.

So I then gently took my legs and my feet and kind of pushed them to the back of the bed. And then one morning, my wife wakes up, because he always found himself on my head again. My wife says, go on to the back. She was right. That’s his totem animal.

He has that same determination. I mean, his work in business and in his intelligence is just like that as life goes on. You know, you see the story backwards. It’s just amazing who he is. Then for me, five years after that, and this is what occurs, is I’m at the United Nations.

And I’m in The Hague, actually. Not in New York, but at The Hague. And it was a gathering of world leaders. And Gorbachev, at that point, was kind of reigning over the activities. Worry Strong from Canada was there. And there were two people from all the countries,

Not many countries, about 60, 70 world leaders and diplomats and people that were working in ecological preservation, conservation were there. And we were there for four nights, five days, with one intention to design the finishings of what was called the Earth Charter International, right? And this was a set of principles,

Nine, 10, 12, 14 elemental principles that can be integrated internationally in charters and soft law. And I’ll never forget, it was that last moment, the last day, everybody had worked 24-7. I mean, all this expertise. I was the youngest by far there. I was there representing that psychological orientation

Because a student at Pacifica who was in one of my classes had worked with the secretary general of the UN and wanted me and the tradition to be presented. So that’s why I got there, right? Really naive and not as experienced at all.

But there I was at the podium in the last day when Gorbachev stood up and he said, I have something to say to all of us after all that work and all that energy. I mean, the months and months and months of preparation just to get there, it contributes something, right?

He said, I’m sorry to say, I pronounced this gathering a failure. We have not accomplished what we set out to accomplish. Oh, the gasp in the room was palpable, the despair. Really something. And then at that moment, not knowing what I was going to say, I had closing remarks already figured out, right?

But that wasn’t going to work any longer. I felt it. I felt it again. I felt what I first felt at Zuma Beach on that rock. I felt it here now, right? At the podium, it was that Guana dreaming. The spirit was present and I just, I didn’t have my rational mind

And just what came out of my mouth is, whoa, perhaps we’re gathered here and we’re asking ourselves the wrong question. We’re asking what can we do to save the planet? Perhaps the question we’re going, we’re needing to ask or we can ask is what is the planet asking of us?

What is the planet asking of us? Different, animated world. And I have to share with you, this is very vulnerable, what I’m about to do and transparent. This morning, not having a clue you were going to ask this question by the way. This morning, in the process that I go

To such great detail in the book to describe, I’m in every morning. So I’m in the journey, in the dig experience that I call it, whatever each of us calls that experience. As we travel, we journey in those realms of imagination. A similar voice came through because people ask me always,

What are you writing this book for? What do you hope to accomplish? You know, and I have all my made up answers, right? Oh, because of this, because of that. But really at this stage, there’s nothing about fortune that really matters all that much to me. That’s not what I’m in it for.

I’ve had a career, I’m okay. We’re comfortable. It’s not about fame. I’ve been there, done that. Don’t really, I mean, yeah, it’s wonderful. And it’s not really what the motivation is. And then it just opened, you know, here now. It’s the same question, the same response. Chukwana was back again.

What happened at that rock at Zuma Beach is back again, right? Here to offer the work on behalf of we, and I in service of the world, the awakening story. Because in the imagination, at the end of the day, the matrix is a story where the stories live, right?

And the awakening story that moves through each of us individually, I think, is what’s asked now. That we can contribute that back into what we’re experiencing with the challenges. And we all know the challenges, the obvious, of the world of today. So it happened just literally hours ago.

So I’m appreciating you for inviting this story to come forward. So I have a tear coming down. And I’m without words, Stephen. What a wonderful sharing of your heart, of your soul, and of the power within each of us to reach a little deeper, to dig.

I like that term that you use, to dig. Yeah, well, thank you for that. Appreciate that. Thank you so much for being with me, Stephen. It’s been an honor and a joy. It’s for me as well, truly. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us.

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