Rodger Kamenetz: The Hidden Path to the Soul

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0:58time by over 30%. Try it free at maintainx.com. Hey there, podcast listeners. I have exciting news. We're launching a brand new podcast in addition to Super Soul Conversations. It's called Oprah's Masterclass. The Masterclass podcast allows you to hear the greatest life lessons from some of the most respected and renowned actors, musicians, public figures, and athletes in their own words. Listen as Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Ellen DeGeneres, Shaquille O 'Neal, Reba McIntyre, Dwayne Johnson, and Jane Fonda, just to name a few, share what they've learned about life and their own insights into their personal stories and challenges.

1:42I believe that there's something to be learned from every experience and everyone can use their life as a class. Oprah's Masterclass Podcast is available now on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now and listen free. Go to applepodcast.com slash Oprah's Masterclass. I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. What if I told you that in your life, in this one lifetime, you have the opportunity, the privilege, really, to be alive twice?

2:36What would your answer be? I know that a lot of you are thinking, this time I've really gone off the deep end. But what if I told you that that is absolutely true, that I really gained a second life in this one? Well, it's a new world that comes alive every night when you fall into REM, R-E-M, sleep. It's your dream world. And according to my guest who's joining us today, it is likely a far more transformative experience than you have ever considered your dreams to be. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about dream interpretation. Quite the contrary. I'm talking about dream work. author and certified dream therapist, Roger Kamenetz, suggests that if we commit to begin to unlearn, isn't that what you're saying?

3:23Right. Unlearn dream interpretation and that we're willing to commit to the dream work, that there will be a path that will begin to be illuminated that can lead us to our truest, deeper selves, our predicaments in life and deeper the situation of our soul. It's an inside world that can change your world from the inside out. So I just love that. Hi, Roger. Hi, Oprah. How are you? I love the title, The History of Last Night's Dream, Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul. It reads kind of like a dream. So what do you think the dreams say about all of us? I think dreams, each individual person, each individual soul is so different.

4:04And so we're given these dreams to help us out of the predicament that we're in in life. Yeah. and it's like a whole map of the inner life and with these characters dramatizing what's actually happening below the surface that often we're not aware of. What pushes us? What drives us? What stresses us? The answer to all that is in our dreams. Well, I love when you say that we're given our dreams to help us through predicaments in life, and one of the things that you say in the book, you list three gifts of the dream. To discover your pain, or are you blocked, stuck, or lost, is what you ask. to see your soul, the situation of your soul, and to explore its realm.

4:44Right. Yeah. That's what dreams are for. Yes. And we all have this tremendous resource. I mean, the whole world is dreaming every night. Right. And what's happening to those dreams, a lot of them are being left by the wayside. We're missing these gifts that can really help us. Is every dream a gift or is it sometimes just release? I mean, when I was looking at the three categories, I was trying to place my dreams in the three categories. Or sometimes is it just your unconscious mind just sort of relaxing with itself? Or is every dream a gift? I believe every dream is a gift. Okay. So what about all the people out there now who are listening?

5:22That one person who's saying, but I don't even remember my dreams. Right. It's true. It's hard to remember our dreams because the brain changes so much when we wake that we snap into a waking consciousness. and it's very easy to forget the dreams. But to me, it's about valuing our dreams. And as we come to value them, as they become episodes in this inner exploration, boy, do we remember them. And in general, if we don't make an effort to tell our dreams or if we have no one to tell them to or if we have no one to share them with or we don't write them down in a notebook, we're going to be more likely just to forget them.

5:57Absolutely. And then they kind of move away from us. But when we need them, And this happens in moments of crisis. A lot of people tell me, and it happened to me too, that when someone dies in your life and that person appears in a dream, and there's so much a mixture of pain, regret, and also joy to see the person again. I think that that kind of dream demonstrates how powerful dreams are, how important they can be in our lives. How comforting they are sometimes to people when they see their loved one who's gone on come to them so vividly in a dream and they feel like they were really there. Right.

6:35And they were really there. They are. And it's hard to believe. My mother died when she was 54. I was fairly young. And the first time she came, I said, Mom, you're dead. And she sort of looked at me like, you idiot. Yeah. You know. But then she came again. And it was such a powerful experience. I actually wrote a book about it. The dream was she came in a garden. She was walking with me in a garden. And I saw a bird sing. and I saw a plash in the pond, and I saw a coin fall. And she said, all these three things seem to be separate events, but they're actually connected like a single wave through water.

7:12She said that to you? Yes. Okay. And that's not my mom. Okay. Okay. Okay. But that was showing me a whole realm that is inside that's so profound. And really the word awesome comes to mind. Yes, awesome. Yep. Okay. So how did you get drawn into this sort of inner world? It started, I mean, I think the personal journey has to do with the fact that I've had these dreams. And I think everyone or many people have had a dream that is so meaningful. Yeah. So undeniable. Yeah. Reality is so undeniable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That brings to question, well, what is real? Maybe this is more real. Yeah. What was that dream for you?

7:50Well, for example, the one I told you about my mother, really, it seemed very real to me. And how old were you at the time? I was 30-something, 30-something. And it was like a lightning bolt, really. So how did you interpret? And I know you say that we shouldn't be interpreting them. We should work them because when you work with a dream therapist, then the whole idea is that I take the opportunity of the dream to help you feel into your feelings and to know how you handle certain feelings in your waking life. Well, do we have to have a dream therapist such as yourself? Because most people aren't going to get you, Roger.

8:26they can begin to appreciate their dreams. They begin to feel the feelings in their dreams. But the problem is generally for most people at the beginning, they get their dreams exactly backwards. Really? How so? Well, you may see this figure who's really terrifying. Yes. And he's coming at you and you're so afraid you start running. Actually, he's trying to help you. But if he evokes fear in you, you'll never have the encounter. To see what it really is. Exactly. Okay. So you'll have a reaction. And so all of our dreams mean something. Oh, yeah. I think so. Yes. And is the something that all of our dreams mean related to what is going on with ourselves?

9:09Yes, with the soul, in the sense that we have an outer life. And you were referring to the beginning about the two lives. Yes. We have an outer life, our careers, our ups and downs, our relationships. But we also have an inner life. Yes. You say this in the very beginning. You say, I know there is a conscious mind and an unconscious, but I don't always think about what that implies, that more than half of who I am and what I am is completely unknown to me, except in fragments and glimpses, images and dreams. To receive these gifts, we must learn how to dream, which sounds easy enough, but I mean dreaming with a purpose, learning to use dreaming as a way to depth.

9:51I want to share a dream with you that I had that really was the most profound, life-changing dream. And because it has been life-changing, it'd be interesting to see how you interpret it and how I interpreted it for myself. Okay. So this is the dream. First of all, I love having flying dreams. And I read this whole book trying to see how I can have flying dreams more because I just love flying dreams where you feel the weightlessness of yourself, where you really absolutely feel like you've left your body and you're flying. So this was a flying dream where I really wasn't flying very high. I was skimming the trees.

10:24And every now and then I would dart down closer to the ground and there would be children following me. Beautiful children of all different races and, you know, different parts of the world. I'd never seen such a rainbow of children wearing a rainbow of colors. I thought, oh, there's a rainbow of children wearing a rainbow of colors. To me, all those children represented the world. and also represented the rainbow inside myself. Now, what's interesting is I'm having the dream and interpreting, feeling what the dream means while I'm in the dream. So in the dream, I am flying just above the trees and every now and then darting down close to the ground, and the children were following me and laughing.

11:08And every time I'd get close to the ground with the children, children would look up and they would say, what are you here to teach me? What are you here to teach me? and I would try to get the words or say something to them and they'd say, no, what are you here to teach me? What are you here to teach me? And that continued for, gosh, I don't know how long, but my interpretation of that was when I awakened, I mean, I felt it. And still, I mean, it was years and years and years ago I had that dream. That became the central question for my life. What are you here to teach me in every experience?

11:45So after that dream, I started to look at every experience that I had, whether it was a difficult experience or something wonderful happening, I would say inside myself, hmm, what is this here to teach me? What is this here to teach me? Okay, so you tell me what the dream meant. What's your interpretation of that dream, Roger? The thing that's interesting about your dream is I've had a lot of flying dreams. How can I have more? I love the flying dreams. I know. Well, because they're very pleasant. Yeah. But the pleasant part of that is it's also somewhat mental. Yeah. It's actually a lot of, interestingly enough, you mentioned meditation.

12:23A lot of meditators have flying dreams. Really? And the reason is they're flying way above the world in a certain way, and they feel good. Yeah. However, there's something missing. And what the part of your soul that's missing is represented by the children. Oh, yeah? And the work I do usually represents the soul. so it's possible that the dream is showing you a difference between the kind of pleasure the pleasure of flying which is great i i i've had those dreams okay and the encounter with the kids that creates a certain kind of anxiety i think and even concern correct so forth so so i'm i'm suggesting that that that's where i would work with that dream and you might have other dreams with children to work with so you're saying there are layers and layers and layers to it Sure.

13:11And also air dreams, flying dreams tend to be fairly mental. It's a kind of pleasure that the air is associated more with the mind. But when you get down into the water, that's where you're more deeply in feeling, that we call feeling. By feeling, and that's where you go down further. That's where you go down. Into more depth, yeah. Further, okay. Okay, does that make sense? Yes, it does. You say that also dreams can become meditation exactly tailored to our spiritual condition. Right. How so? I had a dream about you, and there was a young boy in your house. I had a dream about a young boy, and I remember holding him up saying, where have you been all this time?

13:59Where have you been? I knew you were here. I know. Yeah. That's part of yourself. That's a part of myself. Right. It's your soul. Usually the dreams, the baby, they come in different ways. And so children and dreams represent parts of it, like the spontaneity, the energy, the beauty of being a child, which you have, the fact that you have children in your dreams means that you're still in touch with all of that. You haven't lost any of that. They're still showing up. And that's what that means to me. But how, how is this, It sounds like that this is interpreting our dreams. How is this not interpreting?

14:32Well, because most interpretation comes from a fearful place. If we're afraid, and mostly fear is a real core layer of feeling. Fear is really underneath a lot of our feelings. So if we interpret our dreams from the place where we're really truly afraid of the things we're afraid to face in ourselves, then that interpretation will relieve us of the dream, and then we can just forget about it. And, you know. Got that. Yeah. Like when you wake up, as soon as you say, that's a good dream, in a way you're interpreting it. isn't Sigmund Freud rolling over in his grave right now listening to you he's spinning he's spinning yeah because he although he's a great pioneer and he he but he had no Sigmund Freud right he went in there naked he went down there into that world of dreams for five years wrote this incredible book but he armed himself with his intellect and his theory and it's a brilliant theory but it's coming from a place of fear he's afraid you know that he's afraid to hear the voices, like there's a woman in one of his dreams who says, you know, can't you see that you're hurting me?

15:32And he opens her mouth to look down her throat like a doctor. She's not saying it for him to, you know, be a doctor. She's saying it for him to feel. That's not a place he could go to. I see. I see. So for, I know, for the listener here who's thinking, and a lot of us have been told for years that if you dream about snakes it means this thing if you dream about that. You're saying none of that's true. Not necessarily. It's about what snakes mean to you. Right. I mean, your daddy might have been a snake handler. In this case, dreaming a snake would mean a totally different thing. Yeah. And also snakes, which are somewhat, snakes are particularly interesting because they have both, they can be both negative, like scary negative poison, but they can also be positive energy, sort of sexual energy.

16:17So they have this sort of duality. It's all what it means to you. Now, this is what's interesting. I have learned that sometimes I can take in subconsciously things that are happening during the day and they end up in my dreams at night. And so if I am going to run across something, if I run across something that I think might be a little disturbing, rather than resisting it and shutting it out, I will try to embrace it so that it doesn't have to come up in my dream later at night. That's interesting. Yeah. You don't want to see it again in your dream. I don't want to see it again. And if I don't want to see it again in my dream, and I think that it might be something that might disturb me later in a dream, I'm a very sensitive individual, Roger.

17:07You may not know that about me, but I'm very sensitive. I'm feeling you. Yeah. Okay. I'm talking to Roger Kamenetz, author of The History of Last Night's Dream, about how all of our dreams, all of us who are dreaming and dreaming every night, Those dreams are a gift to us if you learn how to work them. But anyway, what I know is I'm so sensitive that I cannot watch television. I've said this for many years. People don't really believe me, but I don't watch television. I'm sort of like the cobbler's children who have no shoes because I do television all day. You know, it's just not interesting to me to watch TV.

17:41And especially late at night. Whatever I watch is going to be somehow it pierces the veil of myself and I end up dreaming about it no matter how hard I try. Whatever I watch or whatever I read before going. So what I learned a long time ago is if I'm just even flipping through a channel, flipping through a channel and see an image on that channel and it's a disturbing image. Right. That image will somehow enter my dream. And then what happens? And cause me to be upset. Like, I don't watch movies where women are, you know, raped, attacked, harmed. I don't watch violence, whatever. That violence will bombard my...

18:23And penetrate through. And penetrate through. All the time. I mean, I'm telling you, if I just see it for a second. So now what I do, if I see an image or something, if I'm riding along and I see an image that's disturbing, what I'll do is I will fully take it in. I will fully take it in, come to a, you know, a conclusion about however I feel about it. I will let myself feel it so that it doesn't have to show up to make me feel it later. Well, does that make sense? Yes. And I think that that is behind the history of interpretation that every human being has this anxiety and fear that they don't want to experience in their dreams.

19:01But I think that the right, the stronger way to go is to face into your fear because then you can go and find out what's underneath it. In other words, the fearful images themselves that appear in your dreams are inviting you to face into your fear and then discover underneath what it is that's causing that fear. Really? What do you think? Oh, yeah. And I know it sounds the opposite of pleasant, and it may be. I don't want to do that in my sleep. Well. I would rather deal with it while I'm awake, Roger. That's what I'd rather do. I mean, if I see an image like, you know, just something really disturbing, I will, instead of flipping through it, I'll go back, I'll take the whole image in, put it into my conscious mind so that I can deal with it, come to a conclusion, deal with it in my waking mind rather than have to deal with it in the dream and go figure it out.

19:55Well, I think that that's mental. And so the issue is how do you feel into your feelings and go through them? Because, you know, basically like, let me give an example of someone else, not you. Is that okay? Yeah. We're cool. So a woman, a client I had whose dad used to beat her up as a child, really sad background. She dreamed that she was interviewing the fire chief in a car who was also her dad. And the car caught on fire. And she crawled over her dad. and her dad burned. Now, her reaction to that dream was guilt. She felt bad. Uh-huh. And I said, he's a fire chief. What does that do? You know, he knows what fire is.

20:38Yes. You don't have to feel guilty anymore about what your dad did to you. Because a lot of times when people are abused, they take the guilt onto themselves. They feel like they've done something wrong that they deserve it. So the dream was really a horrible dream. Not pleasant. Right. But as we worked through it and we got to the other side, it was such a relief to her. She'd been feeling that way all her life. Wow. So a dream can unlock a secret. Were you always a spiritual person? Or did this work lead you to a deeper level of spirituality for yourself? I think that this work has led me to a much deeper level.

21:17I think I've been involved in, you know, religious dialogue with Tibetan Buddhists. And, you know, I wrote a book about that years ago. And so I've been around a lot of great teachers, the Dalai Lama. But I think in terms of... And your teacher, Mark Bregman? Mark Bregman, who's incredible, you know, an amazing teacher who I discovered, you know. So you're saying, for those of you who are just joining us this week, that all of our dreams mean something. And that the dreams are really a pathway to begin to discover the three gifts that they have to offer us. Would you tell our listeners, viewers what those gifts are?

21:55Sure. The first gift is basically to discover your predicament and what's, I mean, you know, what's in opposition to your soul emerging into the world, to your really being who you were meant to be, who you were born to be. And the second is to see that soul as another character, as usually a little boy or a little girl and to understand what, um, how that soul came into the world, what the issue is that you've been sent down here to deal with at the soul level. And then the third piece is this whole realm of, of exploring this inner world that becomes, um, so complex and, and feeling how these archetypes, uh, which come male and female, I call them the book VIPs, very important persons, how they work with you.

22:41They work with you as teachers in your dreams in such a gentle and just powerful way that you can learn a lot just from the way they work with you. But you know, we all have dreams about getting lost or getting nowhere, running around in circles. And though, you know, these are all seemingly, you know, trivial experiences, you believe that all of these dreams have something to teach us about clues about not only who we are, but also why we're here. Sure, absolutely. Let me give you an example, if I could. I had a dream that a lot of people have in different fields. In my version, I teach, I'm a professor at LSU, so the dream is I walk into a classroom, I don't know what subject I'm supposed to teach.

23:27And so, you know, I figure, okay, I'll throw out a few lines of, you know, and see what they say and then I'll get an idea of what I'm supposed to be doing there. The students turn their heads. They ignore me. They walk out of the classroom. That's the dream. Now, most people say, oh, that's an anxiety dream. Yeah, I would think that. Actors have dreams like that where they don't know their lines or what play they're in. You know what mine is? It's so funny. It's interesting how you say that everybody, I didn't know that everybody fits whatever their chosen and field is. Mine is I'm doing, I'm reading the news with Walter Cronkite.

24:04I am reading the news with Walter Cronkite and my script is completely out of order. Right. And I'm always on the wrong page. Right. And Walter is sitting there and he cannot believe that I can't get the fricking script in order. And I can't either because here is my, I'm sitting with Walter Cronkite. Right. He's the big daddy. He's the father. Yeah. He's the big daddy. Really. And And your anxiety is really a feeling of inadequacy when you're with him. Not measuring up. And of all the times in the world for my script to be out of order, and why didn't I put the script in order before? It's not about the script.

24:37It's about your feeling. It's done on purpose to get you to feel more deeply into that feeling and recognize that you probably have that feeling a lot in your life. And so the script is just a ruse. It's kind of a trick to get you to have that feeling in connection to whatever Walter represents. So he's clearly an archetypal guy. Right. I had one with Stevie Wonder once performing on the floor where I couldn't get the words. Right. And I was having a lot of anxiety at the time. I was away from home and feeling really disconnected. And then every night I would have the same dream. And the closer I got to home, the more lines I could remember.

25:14But you're saying that's not anxiety. I certainly thought it was. It is anxiety. By the end, I was singing with Stevie Wonder on the stage. It is anxiety. Okay. but underneath it is a feeling of inadequacy. In the summer months, our home can get very warm. We've been in the market for a new ceiling fan, and I found the perfect one on Wayfair. I wanted a fan that is super functional while also being incredibly chic, and my new fan by Mercer 41 checks all the boxes. I searched far and wide, and Wayfair had the best deal and could deliver to me most efficiently. If there is anything at all that you need to spruce up your home, I promise you, Wayfair has it.

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27:18Well, isn't that what anxiety is? Isn't that what everything is? Isn't that the key question for almost all of us all the time? Am I good enough? I don't mean it that way. I think at the soul level, we feel inadequate in relation to the divine. We all feel inadequate. We need to feel, it's hard to believe that there could be such a connection to someone as worthless as oneself. You lost me there, Roger. At the soul level, we feel lost in relation to the divine. I thought at the soul level, we all recognize that we come from the divine. At the soul level, not at our ego level, but at our soul level, we realize that we come from the greater soul.

28:05At the soul consciousness level, presence level, we recognize that we are part of the greater presence, the greater. That's a belief that many people have. I don't believe that. I feel that. Well, when you feel it, you're not feeling inadequate. That is true. Right. That's my point. But when you're feeling inadequate, you probably aren't really feeling the connection. Okay, then. Okay. I'm going to agree with you. I'm going to, yes. Oh, good. Okay. I'm feeling a little inadequate there. No. So I agree with you, Roger, that when we are feeling disconnected, alienated, things aren't going well in our lives.

28:42What we're disconnected from is the greater soul or God. Right. And we feel, how could something so omnipotent love me? Right. Yeah. How could I be of value in a world of such greatness? Each soul is different, so it really would depend. Some people truly don't feel that even at that level. The child, the little child that they see, doesn't have the ability to feel that. Or they might feel disconnected. Like in my work, I found out that my boy was an orphan. And so that boy did not feel he was taken care of. What do you mean? In your work, you found out that that boy was an orphan? Well, after a series of dreams where I was lost and wandering, I ended up in an orphanage, which terrified me.

29:28Your boy, you mean yourself. My boy. Yeah, my soul. Your soul. Yeah. And you're saying that when you dream about a child or children, it really is representative of your soul. Yes, can be, yeah. Yes, and so that's what you're talking about. Right. You're saying my boy. Right, and that's my boy. And I also have a girl, but I have a boy. Okay. It's both genders. It's not gender specific necessarily. But the point is that to get to that point, you have to get past the opposition. There's a party that wants to take you away from your soul, from the boy, from the child. From the boy, from the child.

30:05Is your soul always a child? And why is it a child? In this work, it appears that way. Yeah. It appears as a child. And I think partly because the children carry the feeling of the connection. Children are closer to the feeling of that connection. Absolutely. You talk about during REM sleep that we also are able to disconnect from our sense of identity and the ego. True. Yes. And that's so fascinating that the dreams open up this free imaginative realm where so much can happen. There's no time or space. There's no before or after. Everything's so lucid in there. The dead and the living can appear in our dreams at the same time.

30:46We've like abolished ordinary time and space. Okay. So here's a question for you. When the dead and the living appear in our dreams, are they appearing or are they just our dreams? You told us the last time about that profound dream that you had of your mother. Right. And when I said, was your mother really there? Right. This is after your mother passed when she was 54 and you were 30, something. Right. You said, yes, my mother was there. And lots of people who are listening to us right now or watching us, however, have had these dreams where someone has died and they feel like, They were there.

31:21So my question is, when you're dreaming, are the people there or is it a dream? Or is it a manifestation of spirit somehow? I don't know. I just know how it feels. Oh, okay. That's a really good answer. And it really feels real. I think people have those experiences. It's almost shocking how powerful that encounter is. So tell us again about your mother. Your mother died. Did she come to visit you the same night she died? No, she didn't. It was a few months later. And she showed up and you said, hey, you're dead. Yeah, the first time. I said, hey, you're dead. And she kind of looked at me like you idiot.

31:58Yeah. But then she later appeared and gave me this message that basically that there was a realm of experience where things are connected, where everything is one, even though in our everyday life it doesn't feel that way at all. It's so chaotic. And what did you do, the three things you did? Oh, well, we were in a garden and we saw a bird was singing, a coin fell, and there was a splash in a fountain. And she said all of these things that appear like separate events are actually a single motion of a single wave through water. They were all one. How was the bird singing? One. How was it? I mean, how was the bird singing the same as the coin dropping and the, how?

32:40Right. It boggles the mind. I don't claim to understand it at the material level, the waking level, but yet it seemed to me pointing to the idea that even though we don't see all the hidden connections between events, they're actually there. Earlier you were talking about the opposition, which is a prevalent character in our dreams. What does the opposition represent in waking life? It can be obligation, duty. I had one client who dreamed he wanted to. He was a professor, but he wanted to be an artist. He saw a little girl on the beach with a drawing. He loved her. He was really attracted to her.

33:19And then a fellow in a business suit came across and said, come with me, I want to show you a new building. And he goes off with the guy and leaves the little girl behind. So the opposition appeared as the man in the business suit. And when I asked him about it, he said, well, yeah, if someone asked me to look at a new building when I visited their campus, I would do it. So he was more drawn to him than to stay with a little girl who really was part of who he is more deeply. He was losing his soul, literally leaving her behind on the beach. Suppose we're having these dreams, you know, because I know everybody's just thinking about their own dreams.

33:56And what Roger is saying in this book, The History of Last Night's Dream, is that all of our dreams are there to be a gift to us. And what we should do is embrace them. So let's just say, first of all, you need to read the book. to fully understand all that we're talking about here today. But everybody's going to go to bed tonight, and they're going to have a dream. What is the first thing we should do to try to remember that dream? It'd be good to write your dream down as soon as you have it and read it over and think and feel the images without interpreting it. And you should write it down because there have been times where I didn't do this because I thought, oh, I'll remember that because that was so strong.

34:34And then you don't. You lose it. So an everyday life sort of takes over. When we write things down, don't we sort of overwrite them with overwrite the images as you're writing it down? And isn't the imagery more important than anything? That's what I got from. Right. The images are important and the feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went over your dream last week. I slowed it down to ask you what you were feeling at each point. So if you can do that for yourself and just ask yourself, what am I feeling? Do I ever feel this in waking life? How does that correspond to some feelings I have when I'm awake?

35:04That's very helpful too, I think. In this dream with the children, the children were saying to me, what are you here to teach me? What are you here to teach me? Should we be asking that of each of our dreams, though? What are you here to teach me? Because every dream is here to further enhance and be a gift to us. Is it not? First of all, that's such a profound question, which came to you in a dream. Yes. What are you here to teach me? It's a question I can ask of you. You can ask it of me. And what I learned from that dream is what I was saying last week, is that I learned to ask that of everything.

35:37That is the most important question you can ask of everything and every experience. What are you here to teach me? And it's a question that comes from the soul. Yes. If asked at a deep enough level, and those kids are asking that. So I think that that's a tremendous question. Yes, and you know I had that dream. Okay, so it's been 10 years now since I was on trial. And I remember having had that dream before really helped me get through that trial because through every aspect of the trial, I would say, all right, now what is this here to teach me? I'm obviously here because I needed to learn this, and what is this here to teach me?

36:11What is this here to teach me? Well, the kids, children in general in dreams are more vulnerable, they're more open, their feelings are more direct, and so getting to know them and be with them and then ultimately to be them is part of the journey in dreams. Was that dream with your mother? Yes, ma 'am. Was that the most transformative dream you've ever encountered? No, not at all. Not at all? No, in fact, I think the most important dream is probably one of the dreams that I have in the book where I'm an orphan, but my father comes to visit me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when he leaves, I weep because I realize that he is my father and I missed him.

36:48And so that longing for the father is really an important feeling. You know, the separation that we feel from the Father, from God, from the divine is painful. But we can say that to actually feel it in a dream. So truly, that was a transformative experience. How old were you when that happened? I was, it was just before I wrote the book. So I was in my 50s. Wow. Yeah. Well, I'm talking to Roger Kemen. It's author of The History of Last Night's Dream. So back to our listener, viewer, who is going to now write down their dream. Right. How do they then begin to do the work of allowing whatever that dream is from tonight?

37:40Because people are going to have some very vivid ones after listening to all this. Whatever that dream is, how do they begin to do the work to allow that dream to lead them to the path to the soul? Try to know what the feelings are, that the dreams are waking. To go to the feelings. to try to remember the feelings and see how they connect to your waking life. If you're having the same dream over and over and over again, is that because that dream is trying to tell you something or teach you something? It can be. For instance, the dream I had where I think I'm the teacher, the way I got at it, I mean, the way I changed was Mark said, how do you know you're the teacher when you walk in?

38:17I said, well, of course I'm the teacher. I've been teaching for 25 years. He said, well, how do you know? Does anyone say you're the teacher? I said, no. But you know who you are. You know your own self in a dream. Well, but in the dream, you can behave differently. Yeah, I know that. So he said, I want you to do homework and imagine. This is Mark, your dream teacher. Mark Bregman. Yeah, imagine that you're not a teacher. So I worked on that and it was really hard because as I tried to imagine myself as a vulnerable student, all this stuff came in like, what did I work all these years for? And why did I learn so much?

38:49And now I'm a student, you know? So I had to struggle with that. And I did. And then I finally had a dream over where I walked in and I sat down with the students and then the teacher came in. So that was a real shift inside me. Wow. Wow. Hey guys, it's Drew Afualo from the comment section. Listen, it's time to stop settling for hair products that just don't work, baby. With all the prestige brands at Sephora, upgrading your routine is easy. If your hair needs repair, they've got the K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask. If you're trying to level up your wash day, the Kerastase Elixir All-Time Hair Oil leaves your hair looking ridiculously shiny without feeling heavy.

39:32Also, Sephora makes it super convenient with free shipping and same-day delivery. Shop hair at Sephora and give your hair the upgrade it's been waiting for. Your line just went down. The scramble starts. Clipboards, binders, phone calls. Every minute down costs money. And most unplanned breakdowns are preventable. Maintain X helps you catch the failure before it happens with easy-to-manage preventative maintenance and work orders that can be created and assigned in seconds. No binders, no Excel, no scramble. Companies on Maintain X have cut unplanned downtime by over 30%. Try it free at maintainx.com.

40:13As you were just saying that, I was thinking, maybe I wasn't flying above the children. Maybe I was one of the children. maybe you're supposed to land among them. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Well, you say when you die in your dream that it's the ultimate alchemy. What does that mean? Well, as we separate from the old conditioned self that is not faithful to the soul, to what we're meant to be, we can have dreams of dying. And it's such a scary experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then this fear we were talking about that everyone has, you get to experience it and work through it, and then you never quite feel as afraid again.

40:50You don't feel the same kind of fear. And what is this fear that everyone has? Oh, I think it's just a primal feeling underneath all our feelings. It's normal. Everyone has it. It's just so basic to being a human being. Can our dreams help us to release these fears? It can help us experience them directly instead of projecting out into the world, which makes it really hard to know what's going on. Right. You know, if I'm, you know, let's say I'm afraid of you. And so I project from that place of fear onto you all kinds of stuff. She's judging me. She doesn't like this or that, whatever. You would do this after you've had the dream.

41:32Yeah. Right? Yeah. Write the dream down. Right. Look at what that really means. Right. Try to find somebody like yourself or wherever the mark to help you. Right. Right. And so you're not saying do it within the, because I try to do it while I'm dreaming the dream. Right. That's a lot of people who are, have powerful intellects and are used to doing that can do that. Well, thank you so much for describing me as one of those people. Right. No, but no, I am in the dream trying to interpret the dream while I'm having the dream. It doesn't surprise me because you like flying above the trees. It's a high above thing.

42:07And so you were taking the dream from the top down. No, and I can be in the dream and say, oh, I'm dreaming. Right. But that protects you a little bit from the actual primal feeling. There you go. Going all the way. Primal feeling. So are you saying that when I'm in the dream and I can tell that I'm in the dream and I'm interpreting the dream while I'm in the dream, then I'm really not deep enough in it? You could spoil it. I could spoil it. Yeah. And I have. I've spoiled it. I've spoiled it and woke myself up because I'm talking to myself too much. Well, I think there are things you don't like to feel.

42:39Not just you, Oprah. I mean, everybody. Well, let's get personal here, Roger. Well, we have been personal. I'm telling you my dreams. You're telling me yours. They're things I don't like to feel. Every human being has things they don't like to feel, like being scared. Yeah, okay. Or being terrified or being hurt or being abandoned. I mean, we all have these terrible, you know, these are terrible things to feel. Right. We don't want to feel them. well this has just been a joy talking to you we got a minute 27 seconds so i have to ask you what is the single most important aspect of the dream work that we can consider before we um doze off tonight can we control or have some influence on as to what we might want to dream i don't think we should i think dreams are the last they're like leave them alone they're natural so let's let them be natural let's not try to interfere with them don't control we control everything in our lives, let's leave one area where we don't control, and that's our dreams.

43:40All right. It's been a joy. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, too. The book is called The History of Last Night's Dream, Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul. Love it. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

44:33molecular repair hair mask. If you're trying to level up your wash day, the Kerastase Elixir all-time hair oil leaves your hair looking ridiculously shiny without feeling heavy. Also, Sephora makes it super convenient with free shipping and same-day delivery. Shop hair at Sephora and give your hair the upgrade it's been waiting for. Your line just went down. The scramble starts. Clipboards, binders, phone calls. Every minute down costs money and most unplanned breakdowns are preventable maintain x helps you catch the failure before it happens with easy to manage preventative maintenance and work orders that can be created and assigned in seconds no binders no excel no scramble companies on maintain x have cut unplanned downtime by over 30 try it free at maintain x.com