EP #78- Dream Psychology and The Path Towards Individuation with Steven Kampmann, Founder of The Dreams Course

[Music] And that's the thing about why you get involved in your dream life as a relationship, because the dreams are sending you the truth. They're sending you what's bothering your body, what's bothering your mind and your soul, especially when you get dreams that are repetitive. Because that message is it's sending you the message and you're not getting it. So just keep sending it back again saying you've got to pay attention to this part of who you are. Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. A few months ago I had the opportunity to take a dreams course where I ultimately learned about the value of analyzing our dreams and how our dreams can actually be the bridge between our subconscious and our conscious life. I don't think I recognized it then, but now hindsight 2020 looking back on it, the course came at just a really important time in my life and the process of actually sitting down to write my dreams down and think about how they were informing the decisions I was making at the time really helped me bring peace of mind throughout a lot of the stressors I was experiencing and it kind of felt almost like a therapeutic process for me, which I found to be really fascinating and I had never given that much thought or awareness towards before. In this week I wanted to dedicate the podcast to discussing the takeaways that I had from this dreams course with my teacher, Steven Campman. Steven is an incredible guy and very wise as you'll hear throughout this interview, but I wanted to use this interview as a space for both of us to reflect on my takeaways from the dreams course, how it had impacted me, what it taught me, not only about the way that our dreams can inform the decisions that we make in our lives, but really the importance of respecting yourself, behaving in ways that emulate self-respect and finding how to step into your power. As cliche as that may sound, we talk a little bit about this later in the interview, but I think those were some of the most important things that I had learned beyond just understanding how we can interpret our dreams to better understand ourselves. Steven shares tons of nuggets of wisdom in this interview and he did throughout those past few months earlier this year. I'm really honored to have had the opportunity to speak with him and if you're interested in learning more about the dreams course, we talk about how you can get involved as well. I would highly recommend doing it. It was kind of like, I don't know, I guess looking back now, I guess it felt almost like therapy in a way because it was more than just learning about your dreams. It was really transformative, so I'll save all of this for the interview, but super excited for you guys to listen to this one. Before we get into it, I have a brief message from my sponsor, anchor. Hi, Steven. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Thank you, Stella, for inviting me. I just want to start off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed being a participant of your dreams course. Hence why we're here today. I can't believe that we started it in February, I believe, and it lasted a few months, took us probably till mid-April and now it's June. So some time has definitely passed, but when I reflect on that course, it really came to me. I didn't realize at the time, but looking back now, it couldn't have happened at a better time. To kind of have you as a mentor and having that course as an opportunity to learn about our dreams and dream psychology and how they can enable us to kind of tap into more consciousness. So I'm thrilled to have you here, so excited to kind of share some insights that I gained out of the course and also share with my listeners a little bit about what they can expect from a dreams course like yours. What was kind of great about you is you're the youngest person that has ever done the course. And I thought that you really went through it and flying colors. Hopefully the course is kind of designed for mid-20s to mid-30s, that group, but you've fed right in beautifully. So it was a great experience for me too. Thank you. It was really insightful. And I know we talked a lot about this in the course, especially because it's geared towards maybe a bit of an older audience, but there were definitely a lot of things that you said that really resonated with me and helped me shift my mindset. We had talked about how a lot of the learnings are going to also come back to me in ways that I can't anticipate now. So I'm just looking forward to that aha moment and I don't know five, ten years where I'll look back and think, "Oh yeah, Steve said that." It's just going to hit in a whole different way. So something that I think is really special about it is that it never really leaves you those learnings. But before we get into a more deep dive of the course and dream psychology, can you talk a little bit about how you got interested in dreams and kind of your road to starting this course, what inspired you? I think when I graduated from college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was a perfect candidate for the course. But I was always interested in psychology because I learned that a lot of it from my brother, Bobby, who was familiar with Freudian psychology and then he introduced me to Carl Jung. I found love with Carl Jung, the psychologist, and read everything at a young age about him. I also wanted to, I thought maybe I want to be a writer. But then I realized that 21 or 2, I had nothing to say. So that kind of was discouraging, but I did have dreams every night. So instead of keeping an empty journal, I was able to fill the journal with my dreams. And when I say, "I dreamt every night," I was dreaming, you know, three or four dreams every night. Which is very common if your external life isn't really happening, then your internal life tends to be where the action is. And so I got interested. I started to write them in journal and then I did a little bit of therapy. When in therapy, I met a woman who thought I would be a good psychologist so that I've got a master's degree and I wrote a, my master's, you know, the paper. You have to write was on dreams, a method of recording dreams. Then I worked in a state hospital and then I did a few other things. And then I did some theater and then for the next 25 years I was in show business. Which was kind of a strange connection, but the reason I got interested in show business was I worked with a guy named Bill Dean, who did group psychodromo with families. And I was so amazed and impressed by the power of psychodromo that led me to be interested in drama. And so I started to get involved in drama and did a play or two at the University of Vermont. And then I met a guy and we became friends and we did a comedy show and then we took the comedy show on the road. And then we auditioned, we did a summer of taking risks, which I suggest is a wonderful thing to do. You pick out five or six risks that are really, you know, kind of challenging. And one of them was to go to Second City in Chicago. Second City is the place that a lot of the people in Saturday night live come from. And we went and auditioned in Chicago as one of the risks and we got in. Oh my God. And we had to move from Vermont to Chicago in like two weeks we did. And for the next four years, including Canada, spent my time doing 1500 stage performances with the likes of Marty Short and Eugene Levy and all sorts of wonderful performers like that. And then we all went to LA and we had careers in LA for 20 years. I wrote 30 movies and was on a TV show. And then when my had my family and I didn't like the education, I approached a man I met in Maine where we have a home, who's a headmaster at a school. And I said, would you ever hire someone like me to teach at your school and I could bring my kids to be taught there? Or sort of like that notion it takes a village to properly bring up your children. And he said, well, maybe. And I months later I called him again, we had been writing and I said, look, will you take me for next year? And he said, yes, but off to pay you the least amount of money, but your kids can come for free. So off we go to boarding school and off my wife and I were in the comfortable house in the palisades, California in LA. And now we're in a dormitory in New Jersey. Our kids are going to school and there are other dormitories. And there we spent the next 12 years. And I was given the opportunity to teach a course on psychology and dreams. And I went, oh yeah. So I came full circle back to my dream life and created a course called the DreamS course. And that's how it began. And then when we retired, I kind of evolved it over the last two years. And that's when you discovered it and went through it. So that's a short shortage way of saying how I got to this place. But dreams have always been very significant throughout my entire life. And I have journals and journals of dreams. Well, I don't know how the headmaster or principal could ever say no to have someone like you come and teach at that school. Just given your life, it's just, you know, you've done a lot. But I give him a lot of credit for that. And I'm sure you feel the same way. There have been moments in my life. And this will, if it hasn't happened to you, will. Where someone takes a risk on you. You know, you don't have the perfect resume, your new, or your different. And to his credit, he stayed open. He didn't shut down. And I really respected that. And then we came and my wife, Judith, created a video program they didn't have. We made movies with the kids. It was an absolute, tremendous experience. And our kids got a lot out of it. And so it all worked out. But it comes back to, as it always does, someone taking a chance on you, even at my age at that point that was older. And that was the only reason to turn me down. But he didn't. He didn't. Yeah. And you never know who's going to take that chance as well, which is an exciting thing to think about. But you'd mentioned that you dreamt a lot. And you were able to just fill tons of journals with dreams. So I want to talk a little bit more about why we dream. And what is the value of writing down our dreams in a dream journal? Because I know at the beginning of our course, you had encouraged me to kind of get in that habit and get in that practice. And prior to the course, I would dream, but I would barely remember then. We talked a little bit about some practices that you can do to kind of get more in the habit of writing down your dreams, like helping you to remember them. But can you share a little bit more about why we dream and how to get into that habit of recording our dreams? Like, what value does that provide? Let me just start with the value of dreams. You dream about six years of your life. And to not pay any attention to that fact is kind of insane. The second thing is dreams are the bridge from your unconscious life to your conscious life. It's a communication within your inner life and your outer life, which also seems so important. But given our culture, our culture doesn't value dreams in that sense. We're always in a rush. We're trying to get somewhere we don't have time. My dreams are so vivid. And I want to make a side point here. I never intended to be a screenwriter or be a performer. I had no interest in any of that. I had much more interest in athletics and that kind of thing. But because of my dream life, I give it full credit of turning me into a creative person. Because the dreams themselves are so creative. Their imagery is so creative that after recording them for a year and a year out, it's like outsmosis. You just become a more creative person. And I always give thanks to my dream life for allowing me to become a more creative person. So those are some of the just simple reasons. Now, the way to get into your dreams is to buy, go to Barnes & Noble, get to the section of the journals, stare at them, see which one calls out to you, pick it, buy it, make it beautiful, make it a hard bound book, come back, put it by the side of your bed with a pen. And as you get into bed, you go dream life. I've been ignoring you. But now I'm not. Look what I've done. I've gone out and bought your book. I've got a brand new pen. I'm ready to get up in the middle of the night and write you down. I want a relationship with you. And if you do this sincerely and maybe read a book about dreams and bring consciousness to your dream life, surely they will-- after a certain amount of time, they will begin to appear. You're dreaming about four or five dreams a night. And the way that works is, in the beginning, it's a very short period of time called REM, Rapid Eye Movement. But by the end of the night, about an hour and a half right before you wake up is REM, which is why we tend to remember the dreams when we're waking up, because that's the longest period during the night. And that's when you must write them down as quickly as you can, because they'll evaporate. If you get out of bed and get into a shower and come back, they may be gone. Yeah. And that's why I kept my dream journal right next to my bed on my desk. And the first thing I did when I woke up in the morning was I would capture my dreams. I want to get back to this point about dreams being the connection between our inner and our outer world. There's definitely something to be said about how we're dreaming, especially a lot in times of turmoil or distress in our lives or when things are happening a lot. I found that the dreams that were the most vivid to me, that I remembered the most vividly, and that really made an impact on me, were the ones that were directly related to things I was subconsciously stressing about day in and day out. And they were so powerful, these images that I was dreaming at the time. And it's interesting, because it felt like I had some kind of psychic power to be-- and I wasn't lucid dreaming. I wasn't controlling them. But the dreams that I was having at that time were telling me about things that were going to happen. I swear to God. And it was crazy. And I don't know if it was the practice of me writing them down and making a conscious effort to remember them, or if it was the act of me speaking with you to actually interpret them and give more thought to the value of dreams. But when people are experiencing that, how can they use the imagery that they're dreaming of to take meaningful action in their lives? Right. I think it's a great question. And I've really tried to simplify that down by a very simple fact. Don't get caught up in the symbols and the details of a dream, particularly. I mean, when you write it down, that's important. But even more important is to figure out, take time out and go, how does this green making me feel? And if it's bringing anxiety, you're being chased, you're being something that's wrong. You're in the wrong place. You're late. For you know, I've had hundreds of dreams where I'm late for exams. It's like, and I get to the exam place and I realize I haven't prepared for the entire semester. And now I'm taking an exam. Well, when I wake up, I go, OK, that's anxiety. And that's what I'm interested in is the emotional content of a dream. I don't want to get caught up in my course. We don't get caught up in the intellectual part of analization. I think even youngy and psychologist, I think, do too much about. It turns into kind of a symbol game. And it all is conversation from the left side of your brain. Dreams are actually coming from your right side of your brain, from the unconscious part of who we are, the emotional part of who we are. And that's what intrigues me. So after I go, how did that make me feel? Then the next question right after is, where am I feeling that way now in my actual life? And if you can pinpoint that, and you know you've had a severe anxiety dream, you first bring awareness to, I'm feeling a lot of anxiety about work. I'm feeling about a lot of anxiety about this relationship I'm in. And then you think about that. And then you start asking yourself empowered questions of what can I do with that anxiety? Do I need to, I had a dreamer yesterday who had the short of it is, was meant to go into business with someone and they were meant to be 50/50 partners. But my dreamer was doing all the work. And she was feeling frustrated and the dreams were showing frustration. So in our conversation, I said, you know, you're doing all the work because you're thinking you have to do it all in order to be whatever the reasons are. But you need to confront her and be balanced. You need to say, I'm not going to do this. She did this today. And the woman apologized and then paid for a massage, a massage and a facial. And apologized to her profusely. So here she took the anxiety and frustration she was feeling in her dreams. Did something about it? Didn't wait. Didn't just-- but made a call. the following day and now and said to her, by the way, I'm not going to do a more and two other people are involved. I've done my share when I see other people willing to engage. It didn't turn off the other woman. She actually got respected. And one of my big themes, especially for women in the course is, you must be very aware when you're not feeling respected. Whether it's in a workplace, a relationship and where you have to do everything, where you have to keep proving you're worthy, where you're not, it's your fault that the relationship, no, nonsense. The people that I have in the course need to have the attitude, I'm worth it. You have to earn me because knowing me, you're lucky. And when you get that kind of attitude and start treating yourself with a self-respect, that kind of dream she had, of course, will disappear the next day. She won't have it because she's dealing something with it. That was a big theme that we touched upon really around stepping into your power and knowing your worth. And I think those terms are kind of thrown around in the world of psychology or therapy, like step into your power, know your worth. And it's kind of hard to identify actions to take when people say that. Like, what does it mean to actually step into my power and know myself worth? And what I loved about this course was that we can use our dreams as a way to do that. We can use it as a signal, especially around the point you mentioned, to take action. I had had dreams that had made me feel a certain way. And we talked about it. And then I realized, I need to take action. I don't want to wait around and deal with the agony of going back and forth in my head. Should I do this? Should I not? Should I reach out to this person? Should I not? That was wasting my time and my energy. And it was not really respecting myself. And so I think, to your point, something you had encouraged me to do was just to just do what I was feeling to do. I think something that was so beneficial was like just going for something, just doing something. And having the confidence to do that, because that's how you fully are able to step into your power. When you just make that conscious decision to act with the intention and behind it. I think that the course is really about awareness. In this case, let's say in that dream of anxiety, coupled with action equals empowerment. Without action, it's useless. It doesn't mean anything. You have to, and that's the thing about why you get involved in your dream life as a relationship. Because the dreams are sending you the truth. So it just keeps sending it back again, saying you've got to pay attention to this part of who you are. There's a wonderful book. I can't remember the name of the author, but I've done a lot of reading about dreams and all the different things they can mean. And he had these dreams of recurring dreams that his neck was on fire. And he ignored it, ignored it, and kept coming back and finally went to a doctor. And it's it works out. He had lymph cancer in his neck. No, those who are his nodes were on fire. They were cancerous. And because he went to the doctor, they're able to get it in time. And he was fine. You know, I got treatment and was okay. And he went on to then go to other to do research on this of how dreams are one of the functions of dreams is to let us know our body needs. And so to ignore that in just in terms of health and wellness, just on that level, forget the emotional. The fact that dreams are able to communicate to you problems within your internal body. And then you're able to pick that up and then do something with it by seeing a doctor. That's pretty great. That's I feel like in an extreme example as well. And it so clearly paints that picture. You had made a really profound comment during our course because I was taking notes during the whole time. Because there were a lot of things that you were saying that were so wise that I didn't want to forget. And something that I jotted down was you would mention that the body experiences everything in the present and the mind is in the past and the future. And so when the mind is not, you know, in the present with us, when the mind is either in the future or in the past, the body suffers. And I think it speaks beautifully to what you just commented on. But can you speak a little bit more to what, you know, the meaning of that quote. That quote was one of the ones that really turned my head around because I never thought about it. And the body is, it turns out, is your best friend. Everything in your body right now is working toward health. There's no negatives. It is trying its best to do everything it can to keep you well and healthy. The mind is the devil. The mind is not so such that way because the mind, if it's addicted to anxiety, brings anxiety to the mind and then crosses it from the left brain over into the right brain. And the body now experience complete survival problem. You know, like we're under attack by bears. They don't, the body doesn't know, it just knows it got signals of fear. So when you see people with anxiety, have a lot of anxiety and they don't deal with it in any way, their body is suffering and that's why you often find that people were very anxious so also bring with them a lot of physical problems. Because their bodies are under full attack all the time. And finally, the, finally, you know, your immunity system just can't handle it's an overload. For myself, I used anxiety most of my life to do show business and do other stuff and family and everything. But I've had a lot of that and that ended up being one of the causes for me to experience Parkinson's, which I've had for five years and which I'm fighting very well by dealing with some of that. But there's a penalty to pay if your mind is filled with fear. You don't get away with it because your body is there to help you. So a lot of the course is about changing the programs that we feed our bodies to be much more positive parts of ourselves and to take some of the stress and anxiety out knowing perfectly well that if we don't, you know, we're asking for trouble. This brings me to another quote you had actually mentioned in our course is that, you know, our thoughts are only fuel when you react to them and when you identify with them. And so these feelings of fear can come up because you have that programming, that history and your brain. And the brain has these stories that you create and then these stories store those feelings. Can you speak a little bit more to that analogy that you drew with me and how we can start to kind of de-identify with the thoughts that we have? As we become aware of our own programmed minds, brains, and what they're bringing fear and the stories that they bring with fear so that, you know, you have an asituation happen at 10 and now you're in a situation similar at 30 and you're reacting the same way because the brain is telling you the story of what happened at 10. So I'm sure this is going to be the same way and therefore you get scared because of blah, blah. The only way you can change those programming is by becoming aware of when the fear and the mind is working on you and to not reacting right away. Realizing that you have a choice at that moment to listen to fear and react or take time out and say, wait a minute, I don't want to be in a fear place. And when you able to take the moment out and not react right away, that is empowerment because then you're given a choice. Most of the people we know are just reacting to anxiety, reacting to anxiety. They don't know why, they're just feeling it and they don't know that they're empowered actually if they want to be to go, no. So let me give an example. I give names to all my voices. And to also clarify, reacting is kind of the opposite of taking action, like what we were talking about before. It's really through non-reactivity, you're able to more confidently step into your power and take action. You look at the different voices in your mind. Like my voice is I have anxious Andy, Angriale, Bobby Braveheart, competitive competitive Charlie, Frugel, Fanny, insecure Andy, Jellis Jimmy, Lazy Larry, my mighty muse, negative netty, and obligation, Randy resistant, Wally, Waryward, Stevie, sexy boys, Stephen, spirit cowboy, two stressed out Steve, sensitive Steve, Judd the jugger, is it the impatient, fearful Freddie and funny Frankie? Those are a lot of voices. I have a lot of voices. And I will that as you know, I memorize, I memorize in the last 10 years, I've picked out quotes that I memorized. You did too. I had you do the same thing that with the idea that if I tell these say these quotes, which I've memorized and recite them every day and I have for 11 years, biosmosis to start changing the programming. That's what it's there. I'm picking out quotes that are inspiring. I gave you quotes that were from females that were strong female quotes to strengthen the animus, the male component in you to give it the power. So it's empowered to make decisions. And if you just keep saying them, they over time they get powerful. So one of my voices when I was taking a walk one night, Larry Lazy, and I have a big leg, my wife Judith says Larry Lazy, I have a lot of Larry Lazy. Larry Lazy says to me, Stephen, let's not go up the hill. Let's go back and watch the game. And I turn to Larry and I call him Larry. Larry, you know, listen to me clearly. I'm out here to get exercise. And not only are we going to walk the hill, but because of your attitude, we're going to run it. And I run up the hill, and by the time I get to the top, guess what? Larry's going. Why? Because the voice that said, no, and not reacting to Larry, the reacting voice would have said, you're right, turn around. I went, Larry, uh-uh, uh-uh, this is good for me. We're going up the hill. And that's what kind of happens is you get to know your voices, the positive and the negative. And when they come, your orchestra leader, your conductor, stops and is the person who says, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't bring your nonsense to me. I don't want to be in that space. Well, I'm not going to listen to you today. Get back in your cage. And this is the process that the course is trying to introduce you to, to the power of understanding your own mind and learning how to reprogram it in a very dynamic way that allows you to react to any situation in ways that you've never been able to do before. It's like having a calmness when you're meeting those voices. Because I know for me, like, and if I have a voice of self-doubt, I start to feel really like bad about myself and stressed. And so, then I, when those voices arise, it's really easy to feed into them to your point. And so I think this non- reactivity is about finding the power in yourself to recognize that the voice is there, but not get freaked out that it is present. And knowing that it's not, you know, it doesn't, it's not, you don't identify that. You're the conductor. It's just a voice in the orchestra. So you're, you get to say, that's too much tuba. That's too much drum. It's like mindfulness. Like when you see a thought come in, you don't attach onto it. You just recognize and you let it pass. So I think that's a really beautiful parallel as well. And everything we've been talking about, the value of dreams, why we dream, I think it can, it really culminates nicely into individuation, which is something we really emphasize during the course. So can you talk a little bit about more what individuation is, how dreams guide us towards individuation, and why it's so important to find that individuated path, especially as a young adult. Individuals, becoming individuation is an individual's unique journey to the highest self they have within them, whether you call that God or the higher self in you, whatever. It's the journey for you to become authentic, to you being your authentic true self and not a victim of societies and other peoples' opinions. You're following your actual what Joseph Campbell called following your bliss. You're following what your inner drive is telling you to be over the pressures that come from society of what you're meant to be and what friends are doing, and instead are following who you are, and realizing that as you follow the path and discover who you really are, which is part of the course, you realize then the closer you get to that self, the more you also are discovering what your purpose here on the planet is. I mean, you want to, you basically want to, you want to get to a point where you're being paid for something you would do for free. You know, because you're connected to a path that is authentic you, it's yourself. And when you're connected to yourself, all the doors open in ways you can't imagine now. And the problem with our lives are we're so outward driven. We're out driven by social media. We're out driven by the pressures of job and society. And from my point of view, for your generation that's growing up right now and in my entire life, which is a long one, this is the most chaotic time I've ever been through. And so for young people to try to look out there and make sense of it all is really challenging. So the course is about bringing you inside. Who is Stella? What drive Stella? And how does you get to follow that which is within you to where it leads you to where you who you are and what you need to do? That is a much more safe harbor to me than being just out in the middle of the world trying to figure out the craziness that's going on there. So, so, individuation is Stella's unique path and individuation is Stephen. My path has been my path began to, you know, again, unfortunately when my my my father passed away at 16, didn't pass way. He was in a car accident. And at that point, I was kind of thrown out into the cosmos to try to figure it out. And that path has led to moving to Vermont. It's led to doing psychology is led to comedy. It's led to writing scripts. It's led to being a teacher. And all those things have been my bliss. They've gave me joy. They brought me fulfillment. They weren't other people's dreams of me. They were my own. And I chose to follow them. And that is the most important thing is learning how to follow your inner truth as opposed to surrendering to the truth of others. How can we try to block out that noise? Because it's really difficult, especially at someone like my age, when there's a lot of comparison going on. Obviously, there, you know, there's that famous quote, "comparison" is the thief of joy. And that's true. Because I find when I'm comparing myself to others, I'm not celebrating my accomplishments. And not validating them. And that's not great. And I think it's really difficult to to kind of block out that noise and to trust that you're on the right path, to trust that you are in the right step along your journey. So what advice would you give to younger people in particular to block out that noise? You ask the best questions. You can't be 23 or wherever the hell you are. I'm not 23 actually. There's no way that you can be 22 with a question. You ask, they're just way too good. I don't think you're meant to block everything out. You're young and you're going to make mistakes. And I think the way it is you go, I'm young. I need to get experience. There's going to be some good moments. There's going to be some bad moments. I'm going to fall in love that I'm going to realize as a jerk. Someone will fall in love with me and I'll think I'll be with them for a while, then I'm trying to get out of it. Work is great until I get fired. I've been fired a number of times. You need to get experience, but have an attitude like don't react to every second. It's just experience that you need. You need to get out there and have it and not try to control. So you have a perfect life in your 20s. My 20s were the hardest, most difficult, but ultimately the foundation of everything else that was to follow. But I took a beating. I had my ass seriously kicked in my 20s for a variety of reasons, including I didn't know what I was going to do. I was married. I had a child at 19. And all my friends were getting into Harvard and earning money on Wall Street. and I compared myself and I go, "Wait a minute, I was the leader." This was, I was the leader. the star. How did this happen? This isn't meant my fate. And then that lesson was said, well, maybe your fate is something that's nothing to do with them. Maybe I've got to follow my own way. So number one, if you're young, don't get hung up in the particular, know that you need experience, and you're going to make mistakes and so what? Just learn from them that every opportunity you come into is just a learning mode. It's just pure learning. And if you try to hide in a bubble, that's not going to work. You need to get out there and realize it's tough going, but that tough going may lead you to say, well, that's kind of not what I want to do. I don't want to be with a kind of relationship like that. I want this, this and that. I want to be doing jobs that are impactful to other people like you were saying about your recent assignment. It has to do with something that affects health of more than people. It feels purposeful. Well, if you start stating them after these experiences, you're stirring it now narrow your path that you're realizing who you are and where you need to be. So don't get discouraged. I do think taking a course like this helps because it says, especially for someone like you, that there's so much coming your way and the more that you're aware of the kind of things you and I've talked about, the course will resonate for you to help you get through trouble times. You won't overreact. You just go, I'm okay. It was a bad experience. I don't need to be tarnished by it. I just need to say, don't do that again. So what can people expect out of taking your course? How long do you leave the course for where can they find more information and what do you want people to get out of taking a course like the dreams course? I think what they can get out of it is bring a way more awareness into their lives, build a relationship with their dreams, build a bridge to their unconscious, realize that the unconscious is working for you. It's sending you messages through dreams. The first thing is not build a relationship with those outside of you. Build a relationship with yourself. Build a relationship with your dreams. Build a relationship with your inner voices. Learn to know who you are. Come to accept who you are and empower yourself because once you know who you are, then you start acting in those ways. You demand respect. From others, you don't become a people pleaser. You become a person who is going to please who Stella is or who Steven is. That's your first. What do I need? What do I need to go? So I think the course helps is a bit of an aid, a guide. I do think the course also will resonate for years. If you go to the dreamscourse.org, you can find out about me. And also you can directly send me an email to seesmoke, which is S-E-A-S-M-O-K-E-A-T-O-P-T-Online.net. What I do is, and I want to say something about this, what I do is an interview with you. You and I did it. It's about an hour long and it's a really good discussion. If you are dreaming, then we discuss one of your dreams. And then at that point, we discuss whether you want to continue on. And maybe you say, what is this cost, which I'll tell you, but more importantly, what am I doing with it? One of the reasons that the course also is meaningful for me is I don't see money. Everything that you give, which would be $50 for an interview in $350 now for the course, which is 8 to 10 weeks. Every dime goes to helping people with Parkinson's up in Maine where I live in the summer, especially for people that don't have the money or the ability to get out of their homes. And this wonderful woman named Europa Haggerman goes to their homes and works with people with Parkinson's. So when you take the course, you're also donating to something that means is meaningful to me. Yeah, and you recently did a really great episode on your podcast with your son talking about the dreams course. So I would highly encourage everyone who's listening today to go there also and check out Steven's episode talking about the dreams course and definitely reach out to him if you have any questions. You know, I, I really, as I said earlier, I really gained a lot out of it and it's something that I'm going to take with me in all aspects of my life. And just so grateful to have had that opportunity to be your student and to have you guide me through the ups and downs of of these past few months. So I'm eternally grateful to you, Steven. And also, you know, for having you on the podcast, one question that I have to ask you that I ask every guest that comes on to the show is what is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? My dog Greta. I love my dog. I love my dog. She makes me laugh. She makes me smile. She gets me up in the morning. She's funny. She's beautiful. I tell her how to be one of the great things that as I got an older is it's I don't care about being loved as much as I care about loving something and loving something like like that, like a pet or a person opens my heart. And so, you know, if it's a goldfish, a person, a dog, a cat, but the ability to remind yourself to keep loving is a powerful force. I want to say one thing about you too that I got in from this interview, your understanding of the course is remarkable. And through your questions and stuff like that and the experience we have. And the truth of matter is why I love teaching the course is that I'm a teacher of the course, but I'm a student. And I've also learned a lot from you. You give me energy. And the course evolved because of my student so what I learned from them. So it's not a one way street. It's a it's a it's a back and forth. And so I learned a lot in our experience together and I'm thankful to you. Thank you, Stephen. I hope I was able to kind of impart some of my limited wisdom being on this planet for 22 years. But I totally agree. I think there's always opportunities to learn from people, all ages and all walks of life. And so I'm happy I was able to kind of do the same or something similar for you. So with that, you know, thank you again. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Stella. Thank you for listening and remember to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins and find things that bring you endorphins every day. See you next time.