Latest / The You Project / #1870 Lucid Dreaming - Charlie Morley

Transcript

#1870 Lucid Dreaming - Charlie Morley · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome back. It's been three days
0:04
Speaker 1: since I've sat in this chair. Melissa. I feel like
0:06
Speaker 1: I've been on because you make me do so much work,
0:09
Speaker 1: and last week I recorded fourteen That's right. It's essentially
0:12
Speaker 1: slave labor here everyone. She is a tyrant. I know
0:15
Speaker 1: you think she's all bloody Mary Poppins and love and
0:17
Speaker 1: light and Jesus and unicorns. It's a fucking ruse. She's
0:21
Speaker 1: a beast. She works me tirelessly and I had two
0:25
Speaker 1: days off. I was in Brisbane and you'd think when
0:28
Speaker 1: you go to Brisbane. Sorry, Melissa, I'll come to you. You
0:30
Speaker 1: think when you would go to Brisbane you might get
0:33
Speaker 1: sunshine and my torrential rain for two days. But enough
0:38
Speaker 1: about me. Shout out to all of our friends and
0:42
Speaker 1: listeners and relatives who are doing it hard at the
0:45
Speaker 1: moment in the middle of the floods. Love and hugs
0:48
Speaker 1: to you. It's terrible what's going on, but hopefully there's
0:52
Speaker 1: an end to it. So Melissa, Hi, Hello, how did
0:55
Speaker 1: your date with doctor Alex go?
0:57
Speaker 2: Well?
0:57
Speaker 1: Doctor Alex and I and those of you who know
1:00
Speaker 1: Dr Alex Koeman is a neurosurgeon. He's been on the
1:03
Speaker 1: show a bunch, and he and I went on a
1:05
Speaker 1: date to the Brisbane Entertainment Center. Not really a date,
1:09
Speaker 1: just two dudes hanging out watching Professor Brian Cox talk
1:12
Speaker 1: about astronomy and cosmology in the fucking universe. And it's
1:16
Speaker 1: fair to say Melissa and Charlie who will say lo
1:19
Speaker 1: to in a moment, I was the dumbest person in
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Speaker 1: the room. I know, fuck all about the universe, fuck
1:25
Speaker 1: all about black holes. And if I'm being honest, I
1:28
Speaker 1: probably came away more confused than in life.
1:32
Speaker 2: Were you just wanting then, not in your head pretending
1:34
Speaker 2: that you understood what was happening.
1:36
Speaker 1: I just had my shoulders shrugged. I had this emoji
1:40
Speaker 1: for two hours. You know everyone the hands in the air,
1:43
Speaker 1: shoulder shrugging. That was essentially I was the human form
1:46
Speaker 1: of that. Charlie Morley speaking of big deals, Charlie Morley
1:50
Speaker 1: is a big deal, high mate, Yeah, very good. Do
1:55
Speaker 1: you know obviously British show. I guess you know who
1:58
Speaker 1: Professor Brian Cox is.
2:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a big deal here. Well it's a big
2:02
Speaker 2: deal everywhere, isn't he But yeah, he's very proud of him.
2:04
Speaker 1: He's a gun. I was sitting around, and I was thinking,
2:07
Speaker 1: apart from the stuff that he shares, which is I
2:10
Speaker 1: was going to say literally mind blowing, it's not. It's
2:12
Speaker 1: metaphorically mind blowing, because if it was literally mind blowing,
2:15
Speaker 1: that'd be a fucking messy event. But I was sitting
2:19
Speaker 1: around thinking, how do thousands and how does a dude
2:22
Speaker 1: from the other side of the world in Brisbane get
2:26
Speaker 1: I think it was three and a half or four
2:28
Speaker 1: thousand people, and that's not the biggest And he did
2:30
Speaker 1: in another one earlier in the day. Thousands of people
2:34
Speaker 1: show up. You know you're going okay when you can
2:35
Speaker 1: do that.
2:36
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he's smashing it. Yeah, And you know he's
2:40
Speaker 2: used to this stage stuff because he was in a
2:42
Speaker 2: moderately successful band, British like pop band, which is nice.
2:47
Speaker 2: He was like keyboard player. I can't remember the band was,
2:49
Speaker 2: but I swear a keyboard player. And then no one
2:51
Speaker 2: hears from him for like two decades. He comes back.
2:54
Speaker 2: He's a bloody PhD doctor and has got this amazing
2:57
Speaker 2: way of describing fucking black holes. And it's like, wait,
3:00
Speaker 2: I thought you were the guy playing background keys on
3:03
Speaker 2: that pop number.
3:04
Speaker 1: That's right. I think they had two hits I use
3:08
Speaker 1: that term reservedly, but too Yeah, and that's right, And
3:12
Speaker 1: he comes back a couple of decades later as a
3:14
Speaker 1: professor of particle physics and quantum this and that.
3:19
Speaker 2: But jokes aside, I do think that is one of
3:21
Speaker 2: his I do think there's ways so good because he
3:24
Speaker 2: knows how to work a crowd. You know, he's got
3:26
Speaker 2: stage presence, like in the clothes he wears. You know,
3:28
Speaker 2: he never seem in a suit. He's always kind of
3:30
Speaker 2: dressed normally. And he's got a way of connecting. And
3:33
Speaker 2: also he seems really I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,
3:36
Speaker 2: but he seems like he makes one feel like the
3:40
Speaker 2: most intelligent person in the room. He doesn't feel like
3:42
Speaker 2: he kind of makes you feel stupid. You tell me,
3:45
Speaker 2: how was it when you were around him?
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Speaker 1: Well, I am stupid, so no it was. Look honestly
3:53
Speaker 1: for me, it's not my area at all. So but
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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the the night. I learned some stuff,
4:01
Speaker 1: but a lot of it was high level. But you're right,
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Speaker 1: he has a way like he's very this is not
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Speaker 1: the right word, but it's kind of this what he's
4:10
Speaker 1: kind of got this gentle nature, like this very calm
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Speaker 1: very regulated. You know, there's no massive peaks and troughs,
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Speaker 1: and he's not theatrical, but he has a presence and
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Speaker 1: I mean literally is walking up and back on a
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Speaker 1: bloody one hundred foot stage in this enormous arena, and
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Speaker 1: he looked right at home. And what's that dude's name.
4:33
Speaker 1: There's a comedian is it Robin Ince or something?
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Speaker 2: Oh, who works with Ricky gervaslot, you have an open
4:39
Speaker 2: for Ricky?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so he he shares the mage with it. Yeah,
4:43
Speaker 1: oh yes, So they bounce off each other. So he
4:47
Speaker 1: comes out every I don't know, twenty or thirty minutes
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Speaker 1: and goes, who's fucking confused? We're all like me, who
4:55
Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on me? So what's funny and
4:58
Speaker 1: quite clever I think is that Brian comes out and
5:01
Speaker 1: talks about all this high level cosmology and science and
5:04
Speaker 1: research and you know stuff, and then he comes out
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Speaker 1: as almost to release the pressure, like the elephant in
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Speaker 1: the room, to talk about you know, if you don't
5:15
Speaker 1: know exactly what's going on, that's all right, you're probably
5:17
Speaker 1: in the majority anyway, Enough about.
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Speaker 2: Him, And yet he's also super clever, Yes, that guy
5:22
Speaker 2: right in super clever.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can tell that there's there are a
5:28
Speaker 1: lot of comedians. There are a few that aren't, but
5:31
Speaker 1: a lot of comedians are actually highly intelligent because they
5:35
Speaker 1: have to understand human behavior and psychology and read rooms
5:39
Speaker 1: and be situationally aware and socially aware. And you know
5:44
Speaker 1: it takes to make to stand up there and look
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Speaker 1: that goofy and clumsy and funny. Takes a high level
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Speaker 1: of it. It's not what most people would think normal
5:54
Speaker 1: like intellect, but there is a bit of intellect in it,
5:57
Speaker 1: but there is a whole lot of intelligence that goes
6:00
Speaker 1: into making that look as seamless and as normal and
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Speaker 1: as comfortable as they do. I mean, you get on
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Speaker 1: stage a lot and you present a lot, as do
6:10
Speaker 1: I my job when I'm not doing this as corporate speaking,
6:14
Speaker 1: how much because you know your stuff, right, you're a
6:18
Speaker 1: obviously you've got a deep level of knowledge, vast experience,
6:21
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, all that stuff. But then you've got
6:23
Speaker 1: to get up there and share that with a group
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Speaker 1: and not be boring and be relatable and give them
6:29
Speaker 1: ideas and thoughts and strategies that they can implement starting
6:33
Speaker 1: tomorrow or today, and then be able to read the
6:36
Speaker 1: room a bit and create connection and engagement and don't
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Speaker 1: fuck up. What's the mix between, Like, even if you
6:45
Speaker 1: are a teacher, you're still on a level performing right totally.
6:50
Speaker 2: I always tell people the best training ever did was
6:52
Speaker 2: my acting training. That's the best training. More than the
6:54
Speaker 2: seven years living in the Buddhist center, training with these
6:57
Speaker 2: tibatan larmers and stuff.
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Speaker 1: That was great.
6:59
Speaker 2: But the most important part is the acting training because
7:02
Speaker 2: it's howpen to communicate an idea and I love it.
7:05
Speaker 2: Going on stage. I have this weird thing where I'm nervous.
7:08
Speaker 2: I might have nerves in my body before I go
7:10
Speaker 2: on stage, but the moment I step on stage, I
7:13
Speaker 2: just feel at home. I feel like there could be
7:16
Speaker 2: one person or a thousand people. I feel like I'm
7:18
Speaker 2: speaking to someone in my living room. So weirdly, I
7:21
Speaker 2: sometimes you get nerves before I go on, but once
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Speaker 2: I'm on stage, it just feels like that's the place
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Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be. And also, when you're sharing lucid
7:27
Speaker 2: dreaming stuff for a lot of time, if it's maybe
7:30
Speaker 2: a little bit like the science talks you went to,
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Speaker 2: you get this moment of sharing a truth, a fact
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Speaker 2: that many people have never heard before. So you're seeing
7:39
Speaker 2: the revelation of truth live and you see people's faces
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Speaker 2: light up and you see they're kind of inner child
7:44
Speaker 2: come out as they're like, fuck, you can be aware
7:48
Speaker 2: in your dreams while you're still asleep, and you can
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Speaker 2: choose what to do. Oh my god, that's so cool.
7:52
Speaker 2: And to witness that, you know, it's it's such a
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Speaker 2: kind of privilege, and it's so fun. You know, it's
7:58
Speaker 2: never old. People say, oh, you know, be doing fifteen
8:00
Speaker 2: years to get bored of teaching the same stuff, And
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Speaker 2: I'm like, well, it's always changing. But even in an
8:05
Speaker 2: introductory talk where it's basically the same stuff I've been
8:08
Speaker 2: doing fifteen years, it's never the same talk because it's
8:11
Speaker 2: never the same audience. If you're doing the same talk,
8:14
Speaker 2: you're doing it wrong, do you know what I mean?
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Speaker 2: It should be always you're feeding off the audience. And
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Speaker 2: I always find the person the audience who I'm scared of,
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Speaker 2: the person who reminds me of my dad, or the
8:23
Speaker 2: person who makes me think they're going to think this
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Speaker 2: is bullshit. I deliver everything to them. First five minutes.
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Speaker 2: I'm delivering it to them because I think if I can.
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Speaker 2: If I can get them one side, everyone else in
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Speaker 2: the room is with me.
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Speaker 1: Have you ever had I did a gig. I don't
8:37
Speaker 1: know when it was, but lots of times like that,
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Speaker 1: you would have had the same thing where you're getting
8:42
Speaker 1: a sense from somebody that they fucking hate this and
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Speaker 1: they hate you, and they're only there. They're only There's
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Speaker 1: usually a dude, they're only there because their missus dragged
8:50
Speaker 1: them along under suffering. And I'm like, fuck, why is
8:53
Speaker 1: this guy here? You're fucking up my vibe? Right, I
8:57
Speaker 1: had that not too long ago, and this guy just
9:00
Speaker 1: arms crossed like his energy. I thought, this is how
9:05
Speaker 1: dumb I am. I thought he I thought he was
9:07
Speaker 1: hating me, right, And I thought anyway, at the end,
9:11
Speaker 1: sure enough, he's standing and there's a few people wanting
9:14
Speaker 1: to talk to me. He's standing in the line wanting
9:16
Speaker 1: to talk to me. I'm like, all right, batten down
9:18
Speaker 1: the hatches, harps. Here he goes, fucking I'm gonna I'm
9:21
Speaker 1: gonna cop it. And then he comes up and he
9:23
Speaker 1: shakes my hand. And he's a little bit vision impaired, right,
9:27
Speaker 1: so he couldn't so I misread this whole thing. Was
9:30
Speaker 1: he couldn't actually see me. And he goes, that was amazing.
9:34
Speaker 1: He goes that, where else can I hear you? I'm like,
9:36
Speaker 1: fucking hell, what do I know? I'm a moron. I'm
9:38
Speaker 1: doing a PhD in self awareness and I've got fucking
9:41
Speaker 1: nun but.
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Speaker 2: Ray I love that. I know we want to get
9:45
Speaker 2: to the lucid dreaming stuff, but I've just got a
9:47
Speaker 2: story to share. I think like that, and it's maybe
9:50
Speaker 2: he it's got some lucid dream in it. So I'm
9:52
Speaker 2: doing this bit where I'm teaching a work shore about
9:54
Speaker 2: the Buddhist cent zone. This is about like, are you
9:57
Speaker 2: about twelve or thirteen years I'd only just started teach you.
10:00
Speaker 2: I know that. So in a couple of years in
10:02
Speaker 2: I was twenty five years old or you know that
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Speaker 2: kind of age. And the lucid dreaming bit I knew
10:07
Speaker 2: quite well. But the BUDDHISTI bit where I had to
10:09
Speaker 2: talk about t betan Buddhism, I always felt a little
10:11
Speaker 2: bit insecure about it. You know, I wasn't quite sure
10:13
Speaker 2: that I knew what I was talking about.
10:14
Speaker 1: Well, you know Buddhist. You know Buddhist done say fuck right,
10:17
Speaker 1: So you're making a mistake already.
10:20
Speaker 2: Damn it. Oh God, Sorry Buddha.
10:25
Speaker 1: Sorry Buddha, that's the name of the episode.
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Speaker 2: Me.
10:28
Speaker 1: Sorry, Buddha.
10:30
Speaker 2: Someone recently asked me to sum up Buddhism in as
10:34
Speaker 2: short a phrase I could, and I said, don't be
10:36
Speaker 2: a dick, be kind to people, and train your mind.
10:39
Speaker 2: That's Buddhism. I love that anyway. So I'm doing this bit.
10:43
Speaker 2: I'm giving a talk about all the complex of bet
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Speaker 2: and BUDDHISTI stuff, and there's this woman in the back row.
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Speaker 2: So she's quite far away, and my you know, my
10:51
Speaker 2: eyesight isn't that good. But she's in the back row,
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Speaker 2: and every time I say anything relevant or like I
10:55
Speaker 2: make a joke or I do the kind of punchlines
10:57
Speaker 2: to whatever I'm talking about, she kind of scowls. Her
11:00
Speaker 2: face kind of drops, she scowls at me, and I'm like,
11:02
Speaker 2: what the fuck? You know, what's up with her? And
11:04
Speaker 2: every time I say something else she scowls. And then
11:06
Speaker 2: I started to create this whole story in my mind.
11:08
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I bet she's some like really advanced
11:10
Speaker 2: Buddhist and she knows that I don't know what I'm
11:12
Speaker 2: talking about. Maybe she knows my teacher and she's been
11:15
Speaker 2: sent here to spy on me. I mean, my mind,
11:17
Speaker 2: just racing, racing, racing, doesn't matter that the other you know,
11:20
Speaker 2: twenty people in the room were all nodding and liking it,
11:22
Speaker 2: but that one person who seemed to be scowling just
11:25
Speaker 2: like you. The break comes. She makes a bee line
11:28
Speaker 2: over to me, and I'm thinking, oh God, here it comes.
11:30
Speaker 2: She's gonna tell me she hated it as soon as
11:32
Speaker 2: she comes close. I used to work with with people
11:36
Speaker 2: who had strokes in hospital as part of this voluntary
11:39
Speaker 2: As soon as she came close, I knew it. There's
11:41
Speaker 2: a very certain look to the face when someone's had
11:43
Speaker 2: a right hemisphere stroke, where it drops and droops. And
11:46
Speaker 2: she broke into this lopsided smile. It was a smile,
11:51
Speaker 2: not a grimace. And she told me how much she
11:52
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. The reason she was doing what I thought
11:55
Speaker 2: was the grimace every time I made a salient point,
11:57
Speaker 2: because she was smiling, not grimacing. Dude, I mean another
12:02
Speaker 2: quote from Buddha. With our minds we make the world.
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Speaker 2: I had created a whole world based on my own insecurity,
12:08
Speaker 2: thinking this woman was hating what I was talking about.
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Speaker 2: In fact, she'd had a stroke and was smiling, not scowling.
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Speaker 2: You know, that stayed in my mind for ten years.
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Speaker 2: Could we never know? That? We never know?
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Speaker 1: It is so true, mate, like the way that we
12:20
Speaker 1: are constantly, unintentionally and unknowingly creating our own world or
12:27
Speaker 1: our own version of the world. And part of you know,
12:32
Speaker 1: for me, one of the fascinations is, you know, sitting
12:37
Speaker 1: with four other people at a table in a conversation
12:39
Speaker 1: and then having a moment where you go, although we're
12:42
Speaker 1: in the same conversation and we're at the same table
12:44
Speaker 1: in the same time, none of us are having the
12:46
Speaker 1: same experience, right, none of us are in the same reality.
12:50
Speaker 1: We're just in the same location. And then when you
12:53
Speaker 1: separate location and moment in time and situation and circumstance
12:57
Speaker 1: and environment and table and chairs to the individual experience
13:02
Speaker 1: of each of those you know, amazing creatures sitting at
13:06
Speaker 1: that table in that time, it's like, oh wow, this
13:10
Speaker 1: because you start to see another world, you know, that
13:14
Speaker 1: the non physical, which is I mean that's for me
13:17
Speaker 1: and obviously for you, that's the shit. You know, that's
13:19
Speaker 1: where it happens. Now before I start questioning you like
13:24
Speaker 1: a bloody boring interviewer, tell us give us the Charlie
13:27
Speaker 1: Morley story. Did you when you were three go have
13:30
Speaker 1: an epiphany? I want to be the Dalai Lama? What
13:32
Speaker 1: did you?
13:33
Speaker 2: Give us?
13:33
Speaker 1: A bit of backstory before we get into your areas
13:36
Speaker 1: of expertise.
13:37
Speaker 2: I was quite young, actually I remember, and this is
13:39
Speaker 2: I thought it might be in a false memory, but
13:41
Speaker 2: my dad confirmed it for few years ago when I
13:43
Speaker 2: was eleven, So if my twelfth birthday, I asked my
13:47
Speaker 2: dad for this thing called a Nova Dreamer, which is
13:49
Speaker 2: like this electronic sleep mask that you strapped to your
13:51
Speaker 2: face and it flashes red lights that come into your
13:54
Speaker 2: eyes while you're dreaming, and it's supposed to give you
13:57
Speaker 2: lucid dreams. And I do remember this. With the Sunday
14:00
Speaker 2: Times newspaper, there was like this gadget magazine, you know,
14:04
Speaker 2: Male Order Gadget, and it was in there, and I
14:06
Speaker 2: remember saying to my dad, Oh, this, this mask can
14:09
Speaker 2: give you those dreams I have, you know, those dreams
14:11
Speaker 2: where I know I'm dreaming and I can control it,
14:13
Speaker 2: and this mask will give you more. So that we
14:16
Speaker 2: know happened. Then I don't know what happened. I go
14:19
Speaker 2: back to being an eleven year old, and I never
14:21
Speaker 2: got the novera dreamer. But then when I'm about sixteen, fifteen, sixteen,
14:24
Speaker 2: I started getting interested, as many young people do at
14:27
Speaker 2: that age, you know, the mind and psychedelics, and I
14:29
Speaker 2: was smoking loads of weed and like aliens and meditation,
14:33
Speaker 2: but meditating seemed a bit boring and hard. But then
14:36
Speaker 2: lucid dreaming. I was like, oh, yeah, that thing I
14:38
Speaker 2: used to do as a kid. Because you can train yourself.
14:41
Speaker 2: So I read loads of books and kind of taught
14:43
Speaker 2: myself how to do it again properly. I could train
14:47
Speaker 2: myself to wake up in the dream. So I'm still
14:48
Speaker 2: physically asleep, but in my mind I've kind of become conscious,
14:52
Speaker 2: And then I could choose whatever I wanted to do
14:54
Speaker 2: in the dream. So of course, at fifteen, you know
14:55
Speaker 2: what I did. I would just like loads of sex
14:57
Speaker 2: and skateboarding. I'd be like, you know, this is show
15:00
Speaker 2: age now, like pamarr Anderson come to me. Then Pammy
15:02
Speaker 2: would appear in full Baywatch, you know, late nineties Baywatch form,
15:07
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, I do what I wasn't doing
15:09
Speaker 2: a lot of in the waking state. But also I
15:12
Speaker 2: did do lots of skateboarding, and weirdly, you're like this
15:14
Speaker 2: because the sports science fit they have now proven that
15:17
Speaker 2: if you practice sports or athletic discipline in the lucid dream,
15:20
Speaker 2: you're actually training the neural pathways and you can have
15:22
Speaker 2: improved performance in the waking state. So I did get
15:25
Speaker 2: pretty good at skateboarding. The other thing not so much.
15:28
Speaker 2: But skateboarding I get into like that, just kind of
15:35
Speaker 2: hedonistic stuff. Then then it gets a bit heavy. The
15:39
Speaker 2: drugs reached a peak and I had this full on
15:41
Speaker 2: like I had a drugs overdose, had this full on
15:43
Speaker 2: near death experience the Tunnel of Light, and then I
15:46
Speaker 2: had these really bad nightmares after that. You know, people
15:49
Speaker 2: always have NDEs and then you see angels and stuff.
15:51
Speaker 2: I didn't. I was like proper traumatic, and I had
15:53
Speaker 2: these terrible nightmares. But I used lucid dreaming this for
15:57
Speaker 2: like the first time, not for set skateboarding, but to
16:01
Speaker 2: cure the nightmares. I finally like there was always this
16:03
Speaker 2: little this dwarf guy. I know it sounds a bit funny,
16:06
Speaker 2: but this dwarf would appear and the dwarf represented death,
16:10
Speaker 2: like and if he appeared the dream, he'd just look
16:12
Speaker 2: at me like that nothing scary in that he'd just
16:14
Speaker 2: appear and look at me, and that meant I was
16:16
Speaker 2: still in the near death experience. I was still in
16:18
Speaker 2: the drugs overdose. I hadn't I hadn't come out of
16:20
Speaker 2: it kind of thing. And this happened, you know, for months,
16:23
Speaker 2: like four or five months, I was having these nightmares,
16:26
Speaker 2: and I'd been reading in these Lucid dreaming books. So
16:28
Speaker 2: you could use Lucid dreaming to cure nightmares. But what
16:30
Speaker 2: you had to do was not wake up from the nightmare.
16:33
Speaker 2: You had to intentionally stay there. And all it said
16:36
Speaker 2: was kind of face your fears, and I was like,
16:37
Speaker 2: what does that mean? So on kind of the fourth
16:41
Speaker 2: or fifth attempt, I did manage to stay lucid in
16:43
Speaker 2: the dream, but sorry become lucid. The dwarf guy appeared,
16:46
Speaker 2: and this time I turned him and I went, I
16:48
Speaker 2: know he's supposed to hug them and show them love
16:50
Speaker 2: and stuff, but I was, you know, I didn't know that.
16:52
Speaker 2: Then I went, Okay, I fucking get it. I get it.
16:55
Speaker 2: But what I meant by I get it was like,
16:56
Speaker 2: I get it, this is a nightmare, this is trauma.
17:00
Speaker 2: I understand that this is a dream. I'm not really
17:02
Speaker 2: back there. And the moment I said it, the dwarf,
17:05
Speaker 2: who was obviously the kind of representation of the trauma,
17:08
Speaker 2: his face changed and he went oh, and then like
17:11
Speaker 2: a magician, he went like he didn't say it, but
17:14
Speaker 2: he did the action of like tuda like that. And
17:17
Speaker 2: then behind him were these theater curtains, red velvet theater
17:20
Speaker 2: curtains that suddenly appeared and they opened, and behind them
17:24
Speaker 2: was my seventeen year old's vision of paradise, Wow, which
17:28
Speaker 2: was a big skate ramp, you know when there's really
17:31
Speaker 2: big skateboard ramps, and on the top of the ramp
17:33
Speaker 2: with these girls in bikinis smoking splits, spoken joints.
17:37
Speaker 1: And then I woke up and cheering you on as
17:41
Speaker 1: you did in nine hundred.
17:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all of that. So my vision, well, I
17:44
Speaker 2: now realized, was a vision of paradise. Now at the
17:46
Speaker 2: time I didn't know. I just knew the nightmare stopped,
17:49
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. I had
17:50
Speaker 2: that lucid dream the nightmare stop. Now, like six years
17:53
Speaker 2: of working with military veterans and stuff, it's so obvious
17:56
Speaker 2: I had PTSD and that PTSD was manifesting recurring nightmare,
18:00
Speaker 2: and by using lucid dreaming and by facing the fear,
18:03
Speaker 2: by intentionally staying in the dream doing something empowering, I
18:07
Speaker 2: was able to transform the trauma into a symbolic vision
18:10
Speaker 2: of healing, which I know is a bit silly the
18:12
Speaker 2: girls and bikinis and stuff, but still, that was a
18:14
Speaker 2: seventeen year old symbolic vision of healing and whatever it was,
18:18
Speaker 2: So yeah, then I really got into it. They ended
18:20
Speaker 2: up living in a Buddhist center and trading with these
18:22
Speaker 2: Buddhist guys and writing books and all that, and the
18:24
Speaker 2: rest is history.
18:26
Speaker 1: So interesting. So many people have these revelations and these
18:30
Speaker 1: light bulb moments and these awakenings out of trauma, and
18:33
Speaker 1: there's not I guess a lot, not a lot more
18:36
Speaker 1: traumatic than a near death experience. Tell me a little bit,
18:41
Speaker 1: like I want to hear your I don't know, just
18:44
Speaker 1: your take on the intersection, the overlap, the connection of psychology, physiology,
18:53
Speaker 1: spirituality and emotion. Like there's this synthesis, this exchange. It's
18:58
Speaker 1: like all it's all interconnected. And so for you you
19:03
Speaker 1: were having I mean, there was psychological stuff, emotional stuff,
19:06
Speaker 1: physiological stuff, and a spiritual awakening or something whatever you
19:11
Speaker 1: might want to call it. But in our culture in
19:15
Speaker 1: Australia anyway, I'm sure in the UK all of those
19:18
Speaker 1: things almost get treated or spoken about in different channels
19:22
Speaker 1: or in isolation. But nothing's really nothing's really separate on
19:29
Speaker 1: an experiential level for.
19:30
Speaker 2: Us, completely completely, you know, the search for consciousness. Like
19:35
Speaker 2: I read something an article or easy The headline was
19:38
Speaker 2: why did consciousness appear on Earth? And I was like,
19:42
Speaker 2: you think consciousness is limited to Earth? It's like, the
19:44
Speaker 2: reason we can't find consciousness is because consciousness is the
19:47
Speaker 2: base of all being. It's like we're not gonna be
19:50
Speaker 2: able to find it because it is the isness. You know,
19:53
Speaker 2: this is my crazy belief anyway. So this idea that
19:57
Speaker 2: like the brain and consciousness separate, you know, this idea
20:01
Speaker 2: that the idea that consciousness lives in the brain is
20:05
Speaker 2: so fundamentally reductionist. It's like people who who's you know,
20:09
Speaker 2: if music is playing from a radio and then I
20:13
Speaker 2: switched the radio off, it would be childish for me
20:16
Speaker 2: to say, oh, that means that the people playing the
20:18
Speaker 2: music were inside the radio, or but I can prove
20:21
Speaker 2: it because look, if I smash the radio, the music stops.
20:24
Speaker 2: If you smash the radio and the music stops, it
20:26
Speaker 2: doesn't mean the band, this tiny little band playing violin
20:29
Speaker 2: or inside the radio, like we're not children. It means
20:32
Speaker 2: the radio was a transmitter of something that made the
20:36
Speaker 2: sound of the music. It's like that we're still at
20:38
Speaker 2: this level, like the kind of this reductionist view of
20:41
Speaker 2: brain and conscience is still held widely by many, many
20:44
Speaker 2: people in the scientific community, let alone the wider community.
20:50
Speaker 2: So that's my views on consciousness and the brain. As
20:53
Speaker 2: far as lucid dreaming, and this might be quite a
20:55
Speaker 2: cool way to kind of, you know, get into some
20:57
Speaker 2: of the lucy dreaming stuff when you look at how
21:00
Speaker 2: healing works in lucid dreaming, so there's the ability to
21:04
Speaker 2: less of that psychological healing, but there is actually we
21:06
Speaker 2: can go more woo woo into kind of physical healing
21:08
Speaker 2: if you like. The kind of scientific view of how
21:11
Speaker 2: psychological healing is occurring in the lucid dream is that
21:14
Speaker 2: once you get lucid, the prefrontal cortex becomes activated, and
21:18
Speaker 2: the prefrontal cortex isn't usually activated when you dream. That's
21:21
Speaker 2: why you can dream your other people and dream of
21:23
Speaker 2: dreaming your child if you're an adult, stuff, because your
21:25
Speaker 2: sense of self, which seems to be linked to activation
21:27
Speaker 2: of the prefrontal cortex, is greatly diminished once you've become lucid.
21:31
Speaker 2: It makes complete sense the prefrontal cortex switches on because
21:34
Speaker 2: you go, oh, I am having a lucid dream. My
21:36
Speaker 2: sense of agency is allowing me to direct the dream, right.
21:39
Speaker 2: And then they got this dude to fall asleep in
21:41
Speaker 2: a brain scanner in Heidelberg University in twenty twelve and
21:44
Speaker 2: they proved that that, yes, it is the prefrontal cortex
21:46
Speaker 2: lighting up. They then discovered that once the prefrontal cortex
21:50
Speaker 2: lights up, neuroplasticity becomes engaged. Now, neuroplastisity isn't engaged in
21:55
Speaker 2: non lucid dreams because it requires this kind of prefrontal
21:58
Speaker 2: activation of intention to down these pathways. But once you
22:01
Speaker 2: become lucid, if in your lucid dream you choose to
22:05
Speaker 2: practice martial arts training, for example, we've got studies that
22:08
Speaker 2: show you get better at it in the waking state,
22:10
Speaker 2: and we know that because I was in one of
22:12
Speaker 2: these studies. Twenty five of us involved eighty one point
22:15
Speaker 2: three percent of people who got lucid and trained a
22:18
Speaker 2: specific kick sequence that we were told to do, got
22:21
Speaker 2: better at that kick sequence in the waking state. Now,
22:24
Speaker 2: I was one of the nineteen percent who didn't get
22:26
Speaker 2: any better, which is kind of embarrassing because I did
22:27
Speaker 2: get lucid and I did do the kick sequence, but
22:29
Speaker 2: who knows didn't work for me on that time, And
22:32
Speaker 2: they're kind of So the sign of the explanation of
22:35
Speaker 2: how healing is occurring in lucid dreaming is that once
22:38
Speaker 2: you become lucid, if you integrate a trauma or face
22:41
Speaker 2: a fear, or work with a phobia in the lucid
22:43
Speaker 2: dream because neural pathways are being laid down at that time,
22:47
Speaker 2: it leads to the neurological change, not just psychological change.
22:50
Speaker 2: We can then be activated in the waking state. Right,
22:52
Speaker 2: So that's their kind of description. But if you ask
22:55
Speaker 2: the Buddhists why is healing to occurring in lucid dreaming,
22:59
Speaker 2: they would completely different kind of explanation. They say that
23:04
Speaker 2: in the lucid dream state, you have seven times the
23:06
Speaker 2: power of mind. So once you become lucid, your mental
23:10
Speaker 2: capacity or mental power is is like seven hundred percent
23:13
Speaker 2: more powerful. So that's why if you do a healing
23:16
Speaker 2: in the lucid dream, it's so powerful, Or that's why
23:18
Speaker 2: if you face a fear in the lucid dream, it's
23:20
Speaker 2: so powerful. Now could it be that they've actually come
23:22
Speaker 2: to exactly the same conclusion they've seen that it's a
23:26
Speaker 2: dependent requirement of prefrontal cortex activation that allow which comes
23:31
Speaker 2: with lucidity, that allows these neural pathways to be laid down.
23:34
Speaker 2: But they described it as, Oh, you just have seven
23:36
Speaker 2: hundred percent more power. Could it be there explaining exactly
23:40
Speaker 2: the same thing and it leads to exactly the same result,
23:42
Speaker 2: which is that lucid dreaming is a great way to
23:44
Speaker 2: treat trauma. But they're just describing in different not even
23:47
Speaker 2: different languages, but just different ways of explaining exactly the
23:50
Speaker 2: same phenomena. I mean, this is well known, right, This
23:53
Speaker 2: is like Ken Wilber's theory of the integral philosophy, that
23:57
Speaker 2: everyone's kind of talking the same language. But I think
24:00
Speaker 2: sometimes that can get really lost in the noise of like, oh, yeah,
24:03
Speaker 2: your God is my God, and this well maybe not,
24:07
Speaker 2: maybe not, we don't know that for sure, but maybe
24:09
Speaker 2: we could say your body is my body. Now you
24:12
Speaker 2: have the same physiological makeup as I do. And whether
24:15
Speaker 2: we call it chakras or GLAMs or points of awareness
24:17
Speaker 2: or whatever, there are certain things you can do to
24:20
Speaker 2: your body and I can do to my body which
24:21
Speaker 2: will have the same results. Maybe it's something more more
24:25
Speaker 2: body based.
24:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, super duper interesting. Okay, So here's my chicken and
24:29
Speaker 1: egg moment. We've been exploring the chicken. Let's go back
24:32
Speaker 1: to the egg for a moment, the metaphoric egg. What
24:35
Speaker 1: is lucent dreaming because some people have never heard some
24:38
Speaker 1: of my listeners have never heard that term, or they
24:41
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, so we can't. I probably
24:43
Speaker 1: should have started there, but just give us your I.
24:46
Speaker 2: Should have started there problem.
24:47
Speaker 1: That's all right, give us your definition.
24:51
Speaker 2: Well, my definition and the kind of you know, accepted
24:53
Speaker 2: scientific definition is a dream in which you are actively
24:56
Speaker 2: aware of the fact you're dreaming as the dream is happening.
25:00
Speaker 2: So elucid dream is a dream where you have the
25:02
Speaker 2: aha moment of self reflective awareness within the rem rapid
25:07
Speaker 2: eie movement dreaming sleep stay. So basically you're not half
25:09
Speaker 2: awake half asleep. You sound asleep dreaming away, but as
25:14
Speaker 2: you are dreaming, part of the brain reactivates, allowing you
25:17
Speaker 2: to have the experience of knowing you're dreaming as you're dreaming.
25:20
Speaker 2: Once that happens, you can then direct the dreamer will
25:24
Speaker 2: Why are we so what?
25:27
Speaker 1: Why are we so shit at sleeping, Charlie? Why does
25:30
Speaker 1: so many people talk to me about like we're fucking
25:33
Speaker 1: terrible at it? Every second person I know doesn't sleep well.
25:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's genetics or luck or whatever,
25:40
Speaker 1: but I sleep like I can have a fucking skinny
25:43
Speaker 1: latte as I'm going to bed and I still sleep
25:45
Speaker 1: like a champion. But why do so many people struggle?
25:48
Speaker 1: Is it physiological, psychological, emotional, something else?
25:53
Speaker 2: There's so I mean, I just just literally wrote a
25:55
Speaker 2: whole book about this. But let me think of one
25:58
Speaker 2: of the core reasons that might be the most interesting
26:01
Speaker 2: thing to explore here if you haven't come across it.
26:05
Speaker 2: There is a big argument to say that the reason
26:07
Speaker 2: we have such poor sleep is due to the overactivation
26:11
Speaker 2: of the sympathetic nervous system, crucially due to our breath rate.
26:18
Speaker 2: So in twenty twenty, the average breath rate of Americans,
26:21
Speaker 2: but I'm sure we can say if Europeans and other
26:23
Speaker 2: people around the world was fifteen to twenty breaths a minute.
26:27
Speaker 2: That's seen as a normal breath rate. That is incredibly
26:31
Speaker 2: fricking fast. When I was born in the eighties, the
26:35
Speaker 2: average American breath rate was seven point eight breaths a minute.
26:39
Speaker 2: Our grandparents back in the nineteen thirties, the average American
26:42
Speaker 2: breath rate was four point eight breaths a minute. We
26:45
Speaker 2: are breathing seventy five percent faster than our grandparents were.
26:50
Speaker 2: If you get a chart that shows the increase in
26:52
Speaker 2: breath rate from the nineteen thirties to twenty twenty, and
26:56
Speaker 2: you place another graph next to it showing the increase
26:59
Speaker 2: of anxiety, depression, and autonomic nervous system disorders of the body,
27:05
Speaker 2: which can be certain forms of diabetes, linked to certain
27:08
Speaker 2: forms of obesity, definitely linked to anxiety and nervous conditions.
27:14
Speaker 2: They go up at the same rate. So there's a
27:16
Speaker 2: very strong argument to say that one of the reasons
27:19
Speaker 2: we can't sleep is because we're breathing so fricking fast
27:22
Speaker 2: for like twenty hours a day, for fifteen hours a
27:25
Speaker 2: day that by the time we get to bed, we've
27:28
Speaker 2: been in this accelerated pedal on by breathing so fast
27:32
Speaker 2: that we can't take the accelerator pedal off. Any Time
27:35
Speaker 2: you breathe at more than ten breaths a minute, you're
27:38
Speaker 2: in mild sympathetic dominance. If you're breathing over fifteen breaths
27:42
Speaker 2: a minute, you're in severe sympathetic dominance. So no wonder
27:45
Speaker 2: when we try and go to sleep at night, we
27:46
Speaker 2: can't get to sleep because we've had the accelerator pedal
27:49
Speaker 2: of the fight or flight on all day. So one
27:51
Speaker 2: of the things that I do in the workshops with
27:53
Speaker 2: people with like really severe sleeping problems, Like a lot
27:55
Speaker 2: of the veterans who are averaging like three hours sleep
27:57
Speaker 2: a night, they've got all many of them have clinical PTSD.
28:02
Speaker 2: We get them to slow their breathing down. We get
28:04
Speaker 2: them to breathe at five breaths a minute, which is
28:06
Speaker 2: about seventy five percent slower than usual. And if you
28:09
Speaker 2: get someone to breathe at five breaths a minute for
28:11
Speaker 2: like twenty minutes before they go to bed, then you
28:13
Speaker 2: put the brake pedal on the nervous system. So when
28:16
Speaker 2: they get into bed, they don't need to try to
28:18
Speaker 2: fall asleep. Sleep will happen naturally because sleep is a
28:21
Speaker 2: natural phenomena that will occur, and that will occur in
28:24
Speaker 2: the absence of stresses that plent it from occur. And
28:27
Speaker 2: the major stressor is breathing too fast. So anyone listening
28:31
Speaker 2: and say, give yourself twenty minutes a day of breathing
28:34
Speaker 2: really freaking slowly. Well, it's actually a normal way to breathe,
28:37
Speaker 2: but it will feel really freaking slowly.
28:39
Speaker 1: Do you think that breathing is the problem or the
28:41
Speaker 1: symptom seems like the symptom of the problem. But I
28:44
Speaker 1: guess it doesn't matter.
28:46
Speaker 2: It doesn't is that we're so stress and anxiously. Yeah?
28:49
Speaker 1: Is the anxiety is the sympathetic nervous system over activation
28:53
Speaker 1: stimulation that causes the rapid respiration. But either way, if
28:58
Speaker 1: you want to on you yeah, yeah. If you control
29:01
Speaker 1: the breathing, then you control the nervous system, so it
29:04
Speaker 1: probably does.
29:05
Speaker 2: The brain has the lungs on speed dial. The quickest
29:07
Speaker 2: way to change your neurological state is through your breath
29:11
Speaker 2: over the visual cortex. So you can have someone visually
29:14
Speaker 2: watching a horror movie. If you get their breathing for
29:17
Speaker 2: at least seven minutes, it keeps in at about five
29:19
Speaker 2: six minutes. If their breathing rate is one of deep relaxations,
29:22
Speaker 2: like five breaths a minute. The brain will prioritize the
29:25
Speaker 2: messages from the lungs over the visual cortex. So even
29:28
Speaker 2: if you're watching a horror movie, the brain will go, well,
29:31
Speaker 2: the eyes are telling me it's pretty scary out there.
29:34
Speaker 2: The lungs are telling me everything's fine. So I'm going
29:36
Speaker 2: to go with the lungs because I trust the lungs
29:38
Speaker 2: above everything else. I've got the fastest rate of communication
29:42
Speaker 2: between the lungs. Yeah, I'm going to go for the lungs,
29:45
Speaker 2: so it prioritizes the messages from the lungs.
29:47
Speaker 1: That's super smart. The brain has got the lungs on speed.
29:51
Speaker 1: Doll everyone that yeah is great. I love that saying.
29:54
Speaker 1: And you know what else I love. I have never
29:56
Speaker 1: and I've win only a thousand episodes in I've never
30:00
Speaker 1: heard anyone talk about the acceleration or the the you know,
30:07
Speaker 1: the increasing of breath rate over the last decades. I
30:12
Speaker 1: did not know that.
30:13
Speaker 2: I don't know how and anyone listening, because often a
30:16
Speaker 2: lot of people listen and they can't find the research.
30:19
Speaker 2: Email me at dream yoga at live dot com and
30:23
Speaker 2: I will send you the very boring studies from University
30:26
Speaker 2: of Buffalo, New York State, going back to the nineteen twenties.
30:30
Speaker 2: They're all obviously, you know, photocopies, but it's hard to
30:33
Speaker 2: find that research. But it's in a very obscure book
30:35
Speaker 2: by one of the guys who invented the Boutiqo method
30:38
Speaker 2: of breathing. But it is all there. And even back
30:41
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety, breath rate was still as low as
30:44
Speaker 2: twelve breaths a minute, ten to twelve. So you know,
30:47
Speaker 2: something's happened. Something's happened to make us breathe really fast,
30:50
Speaker 2: and it's obvious what's happened.
30:51
Speaker 1: Right now, we definitely don't have enough time to go through.
30:54
Speaker 1: I so want to get you back again another time
30:57
Speaker 1: if you're up for that in a month or two.
30:58
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, mate, But so is your most
31:05
Speaker 1: recent book wake Up to Sleep? Is that your most
31:07
Speaker 1: recent one?
31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one based in the World with veterans.
31:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, we'll talk about that in a moment. I
31:13
Speaker 1: want to something that you said on something that I watched,
31:16
Speaker 1: because I was going to say I'm an avid researcher,
31:22
Speaker 1: which is total bullshit. Sometimes I turn up. Sometimes I
31:25
Speaker 1: turn it. Don't tell anyone, Charlie. Sometimes I turn up
31:27
Speaker 1: to a podcast and I've read about nine lines or
31:31
Speaker 1: one paragraph. It depends on that. I started reading about
31:34
Speaker 1: you and this is fucking fascinating. Then I listened to
31:37
Speaker 1: a podcast. Then I'll watch some YouTube and I'm like, yeah,
31:40
Speaker 1: this is cool, but I don't think we can fit
31:42
Speaker 1: him into one show. But anyway, here's something that blew
31:45
Speaker 1: my socks, my metaphoric socks. Of sixty eight percent, men
31:49
Speaker 1: are sixty eight percent less likely to die of heart
31:53
Speaker 1: disease if they regularly regularly nap. Unpack that grasshopper.
32:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're actually even more impressive studies. But I
32:04
Speaker 2: put that one because it's Harvard, and everyone takes the
32:07
Speaker 2: word of Harvard, and that's good because they have good
32:09
Speaker 2: research grants. Yeah, women it was like thirty something. Sorry
32:12
Speaker 2: for all people average out about thirty something, but men
32:15
Speaker 2: specifically it was like sixty eight percent. So this was
32:17
Speaker 2: habitual nappers. So this is people nappingly three or four
32:20
Speaker 2: times a week for between twenty minutes to an hour
32:23
Speaker 2: with napping to keep napping with zero contraindications. From a
32:28
Speaker 2: medical point of view, naps need to apply two golden
32:31
Speaker 2: rules one hour or less and the nap needs to
32:34
Speaker 2: finish six hours before your intended bedtime. One hour or
32:38
Speaker 2: less thing because once you get over an hour, especially
32:41
Speaker 2: once you start approach ninety minutes, you're gonna then drop
32:44
Speaker 2: into deep sleep, which is going to affect your circadian
32:46
Speaker 2: rhythms and make it maybe difficult to sleep at night,
32:48
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. So twenty minutes to an hour, and
32:50
Speaker 2: the reason you don't want it to be within six
32:54
Speaker 2: hours of your intended bedtime is a thing called sleep pressure,
32:57
Speaker 2: which is basically the kind of subjective experience of tiredness.
33:00
Speaker 2: Certain chemical that builds up in the brain takes about
33:01
Speaker 2: six hours to build up, which is interestingly why you
33:04
Speaker 2: often feel six hours after you woke up in the
33:06
Speaker 2: morning a little dip, because that's how long it takes
33:08
Speaker 2: sleep forsure to build that. So habitual nappers twenty minutes
33:12
Speaker 2: to an hour three to four times a week, massive
33:15
Speaker 2: drop in heart disease. They did a similar study in
33:19
Speaker 2: Switzerland where they got randomly selected members of the population.
33:24
Speaker 2: It was like three or four thousand people. It's a
33:26
Speaker 2: big study, and again they found direct impact linking nap
33:30
Speaker 2: frequency to longevity. Even people who had one nap a
33:33
Speaker 2: week lived longer than those who did not, But people
33:36
Speaker 2: who were getting like three or four naps a week,
33:39
Speaker 2: so kind of habitual nappers, they lived longer. And they
33:42
Speaker 2: said they were living longer not only because of what
33:44
Speaker 2: Harvard said with the reduction heart disease, which is the
33:46
Speaker 2: biggest killer in the Western world, but also reduction strokes,
33:50
Speaker 2: so really good for strokes and really good for heart disease.
33:53
Speaker 1: Very amazing. How did the work with the veterans with
33:59
Speaker 1: PTSD about.
34:01
Speaker 2: That was really interesting. That came about because a guy
34:04
Speaker 2: called Keith McKenzie, who was a parachute regiment veteran. He
34:08
Speaker 2: turned up at this Lucid dreaming retreat. I was doing
34:10
Speaker 2: a place called Holy Isle, which is like a full on,
34:12
Speaker 2: like you know, Buddhist Lucid dreaming retreat, right, and this
34:15
Speaker 2: veteran turns up and he's got serious nightmares. He's the
34:19
Speaker 2: first veteran I've ever met. You know, I don't really
34:20
Speaker 2: know any a part of my grandparents, I guess. And yeah,
34:25
Speaker 2: in the four day retreat he had this big breakthrough
34:27
Speaker 2: in his nightmare stopped and then he wrote this kind
34:30
Speaker 2: of testimonial thing, saying I colled more of my nightmares
34:34
Speaker 2: in four days than four years of therapy, and that
34:36
Speaker 2: ended up on my website for years and stuff like that.
34:39
Speaker 2: But he kind of dropped off the scene. Then a
34:41
Speaker 2: few years later he comes back to me, emails me
34:43
Speaker 2: and says, oh, I become a mindfulness teacher specializing in
34:46
Speaker 2: teaching meditation to veterans and military people with PTSD, and
34:51
Speaker 2: now I'm running these retreats. Will you come and teach
34:53
Speaker 2: the lucid dreaming that you taught me on the retreat?
34:56
Speaker 2: And I wasn't really that sure about it, you know, veterans.
34:58
Speaker 2: I knew it was very difficul to get into the
35:01
Speaker 2: veterans scene. If you're not a veteran, you know, there
35:03
Speaker 2: are big trust issues. Definitely think you're a therapist or
35:06
Speaker 2: a doctor. But he made the point. He was like, yeah,
35:08
Speaker 2: but Charlie, you're not a therapist, you're not a doctor,
35:12
Speaker 2: and you're not a veteran either, but you're coming in
35:15
Speaker 2: as my guest, you know. So he kind of brought
35:17
Speaker 2: me into this scene. Anyway. We did these workshops and
35:21
Speaker 2: these retreats, and it seemed to work for other veterans. Too,
35:25
Speaker 2: but it didn't work for all of them. The lucid
35:27
Speaker 2: dreaming worked for some of them, maybe like five out
35:29
Speaker 2: the twenty on the retreat, and the other fifteen they
35:32
Speaker 2: seem to really benefit from the other stuff that he
35:34
Speaker 2: was offering on the retreat, which was breath work, deeprelaxation, yoga, nidra,
35:39
Speaker 2: physical yoga, and mindfulness practices. And I remember at that
35:43
Speaker 2: time thinking, oh, if I could find a way of
35:46
Speaker 2: training myself getting teacher qualifications in the aforementioned breath work, yoga, nidra,
35:52
Speaker 2: deep relaxation, and mindfulness to add to the lucid dreaming,
35:55
Speaker 2: then I would have some a very powerful offering. So
35:58
Speaker 2: I spent the next five years basically doing that. I
36:00
Speaker 2: went to America and got this research grant and study
36:03
Speaker 2: with all the breath people over there, this kind of
36:06
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill Fellowship thing. It's this kind of grant, and
36:09
Speaker 2: then yeah, did the teacher training, and then started writing
36:12
Speaker 2: the book. And then now it's been about seven years later,
36:16
Speaker 2: and the work with the veterans is, yeah, maybe, like
36:20
Speaker 2: I don't know, a solid quarter of the work I do,
36:22
Speaker 2: maybe even half of the work that I do. We
36:24
Speaker 2: never charge veterans. I always make sure the funding comes
36:27
Speaker 2: from other sources, so the veterans will never pay for
36:30
Speaker 2: the teachings. They'll never kind of have to pay for
36:32
Speaker 2: a workshop. And we did a scientific study about a
36:36
Speaker 2: year ago which got absolutely audacious results, results that were
36:40
Speaker 2: so outrageous the scientists thought there was a problem with
36:44
Speaker 2: the data collection. So we did this about a year ago.
36:48
Speaker 2: We had fifty five people, all of whom had PTSD.
36:51
Speaker 2: So to get onto this study with ions Institute of
36:54
Speaker 2: Petics Science is this big scientific organization in America, you
36:56
Speaker 2: had to have PTSD, so one hundred percent PTSD in
36:59
Speaker 2: the group. We check their PTSD scores, which is a
37:02
Speaker 2: way of kind of finding the level of someone's PTSD.
37:05
Speaker 2: Before then, we had one week where I had to
37:07
Speaker 2: teach them lucid dreaming and they had to try and
37:10
Speaker 2: have a lucid dream, and in the lucid dream engage
37:12
Speaker 2: a healing what do we call it healing aspiration or
37:16
Speaker 2: something basically had to face their fear or walk fearlessly
37:19
Speaker 2: towards the nightmare or transform the nightmare, you know, something
37:22
Speaker 2: kind of healing in the lucid dream. Then the end
37:24
Speaker 2: of the week, we took their PTSD scores again. Now,
37:26
Speaker 2: a lot of them had a lucid dream in that week,
37:28
Speaker 2: like seventy percent, which is really high you would not expect,
37:32
Speaker 2: especially with PTSD. I thought, maybe we just need to
37:34
Speaker 2: help them get asleep for the week. But they did
37:36
Speaker 2: manage to get lucid a lot of them. And by
37:39
Speaker 2: the end of the week, when we check PTSD scores again,
37:42
Speaker 2: the average PTSD score had dropped so low it was
37:45
Speaker 2: beneath the PTSD threshold and in fact, thirty of the
37:49
Speaker 2: fifty five people no longer classified as having PTSD. So
37:54
Speaker 2: they assume there's a data collection problem, so they double
37:56
Speaker 2: checked the data. Then they're like, Charlie, we need to
37:58
Speaker 2: triple check because this isn't making sense. So they triple
38:02
Speaker 2: check and think, Okay, we think the data sound but
38:05
Speaker 2: we think it might be they didn't. They thought it
38:08
Speaker 2: might have been a kind of a group thing that
38:10
Speaker 2: because we were a group all gathered together for a week,
38:12
Speaker 2: because I was there kind of geeing them up and
38:14
Speaker 2: be like, come on, you can do it, you can
38:16
Speaker 2: do it, that it wasn't going to last, and that
38:18
Speaker 2: their PTSD school would rise within a week. So they
38:20
Speaker 2: wanted to do a one month follow up study. When
38:22
Speaker 2: they did the one month follow up study, the PTSD
38:24
Speaker 2: school was actually one point below what it was before,
38:27
Speaker 2: So they then had to conclude that, yeah, I mean,
38:30
Speaker 2: we knew that lucid dreaming was one of the most
38:32
Speaker 2: powerful modalities for working with PTSD nightmares, of course, because
38:36
Speaker 2: if you in the nightmare you can transform it. What
38:38
Speaker 2: hadn't been done was actually looking at PTSD scores in
38:41
Speaker 2: the waking state. You have such a powerful integration in
38:44
Speaker 2: a dream that had actually changed your trauma triggers in
38:47
Speaker 2: the daytime, and we proved it did. And that research
38:52
Speaker 2: will be coming out soon in the Journal of Trauma
38:55
Speaker 2: and Psychology or something I can't remember, but email me
38:58
Speaker 2: and I can send that anyone who's introd and crucially,
39:01
Speaker 2: in January twenty twenty three, we are running the same study,
39:05
Speaker 2: this time not just fifty people, but one hundred people.
39:07
Speaker 2: Because the results were so good, we got funding to
39:09
Speaker 2: do it again. So if you have clinical PTSD, if
39:14
Speaker 2: you know someone who is currently working with PTSD, and
39:16
Speaker 2: if they are free for a week in January and
39:19
Speaker 2: want to join us in this study, then we hope
39:22
Speaker 2: to get similar results. This is a blind controlled study,
39:26
Speaker 2: so fifty of the one hundred people will not be
39:28
Speaker 2: on the study. They'll have to spend the week I
39:30
Speaker 2: don't know, just not trying not to lose a dream
39:32
Speaker 2: for a week, which I thought was I was like, wait,
39:36
Speaker 2: so there's going to be fifty people who've got PTSD
39:38
Speaker 2: and we're going to say, oh, sorry dude, but you
39:40
Speaker 2: don't get the program. That's bullshit. So I said I
39:43
Speaker 2: would only do it if the fifty people who are
39:45
Speaker 2: the control group get exactly the same workshop one month later.
39:48
Speaker 2: We won't be collecting the data, but we'll make sure
39:50
Speaker 2: that everyone who applies, you know, gets the workshop, whether
39:54
Speaker 2: you're part of the test group or not.
39:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the downside of rigorous research. You've got to
40:00
Speaker 1: have a control that don't get the magic pill. Yeah.
40:04
Speaker 1: I know this question is like me saying to you,
40:08
Speaker 1: can you just quickly explain the Bible in three sentences
40:11
Speaker 1: or whatever? But could you just so anyone who's listening going,
40:15
Speaker 1: I want to lucid dream. I know that there's not
40:19
Speaker 1: a one minute kind of tutorial on how to, but
40:23
Speaker 1: people who including me, like, I'm I want to I
40:27
Speaker 1: want to go, I want to do it. I want
40:29
Speaker 1: to I want to try how do I go from
40:32
Speaker 1: I've got no idea to now I'm lucid dreaming. What
40:35
Speaker 1: what's the pathway?
40:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously it's a long pathway and books
40:40
Speaker 2: about this and blah blah blah. But I've also got
40:41
Speaker 2: something called the four d's, which I always use on
40:43
Speaker 2: podcast is. In a few minutes, I can sum this
40:45
Speaker 2: all up for you. Yea. The first D dream recall
40:49
Speaker 2: you train yourself to remember your dreams. First thing you
40:52
Speaker 2: need to know. Everybody dreams. When people say I don't dream, well,
40:55
Speaker 2: that means I don't remember my dreams. There's no way
40:58
Speaker 2: to stop the human brain from dreaming because it is
41:00
Speaker 2: so closely linked to our survival mechanism. So everyone's dreaming
41:03
Speaker 2: every night, so whether you remember or not, so first
41:05
Speaker 2: thing to know as you are dreaming. Second, try and remember.
41:09
Speaker 2: You know, people say, oh, I say you know, when
41:12
Speaker 2: did you last try and remember your dreams? And they're like, oh,
41:14
Speaker 2: but I didn't think I dreamt, so of course I
41:16
Speaker 2: haven't tried to remember. So essentially, tonight, sit on your
41:19
Speaker 2: bed and before you go to sleep, tell yourself tonight,
41:22
Speaker 2: I'm going to remember my dream. Set a really strong intention.
41:25
Speaker 2: We're going I go one step further. As you're falling
41:27
Speaker 2: asleep tonight, and you pass through what's called the hypnagogic state,
41:30
Speaker 2: which is a natural state of hypnosis where we know
41:33
Speaker 2: the brain goes into exactly the same state. It's clinical hypnosis,
41:36
Speaker 2: deep ouf in theater, very suggestible state. Be reciting over
41:40
Speaker 2: and over again as you fall asleep tonight, tonight, I
41:43
Speaker 2: remember my dreams. I have excellent dream recall. So you're
41:47
Speaker 2: basically doing a self hypnosis technique as you fall asleep.
41:49
Speaker 2: If you want to do it the BUDDHISTI way, you'll
41:51
Speaker 2: do it twenty one times and all this kind of stuff.
41:53
Speaker 2: But whatever, fall asleep few minutes saying over and over again, tonight,
41:56
Speaker 2: I remember my dreams. I have excellent dream recallond D
42:01
Speaker 2: dream diaries write down your dreams in some way. We're
42:03
Speaker 2: not writing down our dreams to interpret them. If you're
42:06
Speaker 2: into that, that's great, fine, beautiful, but that is not
42:09
Speaker 2: what we're using it for lucid dreaming. The reason we
42:12
Speaker 2: write down our dreams for lucid dreaming is to solidify
42:14
Speaker 2: the memory of an unconscious process into the conscious mind.
42:19
Speaker 2: So by writing it down, we're taking something which is
42:21
Speaker 2: usually unconscious and downloading it consciously into the page. This
42:25
Speaker 2: helps us remember it, and we want to remember our
42:28
Speaker 2: dreams because elucid dream is based on knowing your dreams
42:32
Speaker 2: so well that you know your dreams when you're in them.
42:35
Speaker 2: So let's say after a week of writing down your dreams,
42:38
Speaker 2: at the end of the week, you flick through your
42:40
Speaker 2: dream diary or put it on your phone, whatever, and
42:42
Speaker 2: you start to see patterns. You might be like, oh, yeah, look,
42:44
Speaker 2: I always dream about being back in school, or I
42:47
Speaker 2: always have that dream about that you know, the bully
42:50
Speaker 2: from school, or I always dream about being naked and public,
42:53
Speaker 2: whatever it is. You might see these patterns emerging, and
42:55
Speaker 2: that moves us to our third d dream signs. So
42:58
Speaker 2: a dream sign is any part of the dream that
43:00
Speaker 2: can indicate to you that you're dreaming. So if you're
43:03
Speaker 2: dreaming you're just at work and the office and stuff
43:05
Speaker 2: like that, probably no dream signs. But if you're dreaming
43:08
Speaker 2: of your dead grandma, or you're dreaming you're in a
43:10
Speaker 2: country you don't live, or you're dreaming you're in the
43:12
Speaker 2: ancient pyramids or something, then those are dream signs things
43:15
Speaker 2: that can indicate the dream. So by writing down your dreams.
43:18
Speaker 2: You start to spot your dream signs. You start to see, oh,
43:21
Speaker 2: I always dream about that, dream about that, dream about that.
43:23
Speaker 2: Then before bed you make triggers. You tell yourself, well,
43:27
Speaker 2: if tonight I dream sorry, If tonight, between now and breakfast,
43:32
Speaker 2: I find myself naked in public, then I must be dreaming.
43:35
Speaker 2: Or if now, between now and breakfast I see my
43:38
Speaker 2: dead grandma, I've got to be dreaming. It sounds too
43:40
Speaker 2: simple to be true, but it uses a brain called
43:42
Speaker 2: prospective memory. Part of the brain that deals with prospective memory,
43:46
Speaker 2: and that's really deeply embedded into our brain because it's
43:49
Speaker 2: a survival part of memory. You know, if we could
43:51
Speaker 2: remember that the next time I see that apple, I
43:54
Speaker 2: will eat it because it help me survive through the winter.
43:58
Speaker 2: And the next time I see that mushroom, I won't
44:00
Speaker 2: eat it because it poisoned my mate and killed him.
44:02
Speaker 2: We were more likely to survive. So prospective memory is
44:05
Speaker 2: so deeply embedded in the brain it can be activated
44:08
Speaker 2: during sleep. So you basically use that part of the brain.
44:11
Speaker 2: Little brain hack. You tell yourself the next time I
44:13
Speaker 2: see this, I will know that I'm dreaming, And that's
44:16
Speaker 2: your third d And then The final one is dream planning. Basically,
44:20
Speaker 2: decide what you want to do if you want to
44:23
Speaker 2: have a lucid dream tonight. The best way of going
44:25
Speaker 2: about it is not really the first three d's. It's
44:27
Speaker 2: going to sleep thinking Wow, imagine if tonight I could
44:32
Speaker 2: cure my PTSD. Or imagine if tonight I could meet
44:35
Speaker 2: my inner child and integrate my child to trauma. Or
44:38
Speaker 2: imagine if tonight I could do my spiritual practice in
44:41
Speaker 2: the dream. Or imagine if tonight I could practice my
44:43
Speaker 2: martial arts to get the edge on the fight I've
44:45
Speaker 2: got tomorrow. You know, if you've got a really good
44:48
Speaker 2: reason to have a lucid dream, the why is more
44:50
Speaker 2: important than the how. So have a really good reason, why,
44:54
Speaker 2: what would you do break? If you've got lucid tonight,
44:57
Speaker 2: all the things you do, will it be calling for
45:00
Speaker 2: Patty or doing your spiritual practice?
45:03
Speaker 1: It would be what would I do? Oh? I think
45:08
Speaker 1: I'd like to heal some of my fucking injuries that
45:11
Speaker 1: come out of forty years of lifting heavy things. I
45:14
Speaker 1: think I might start to open the healing gate and
45:16
Speaker 1: see what I.
45:17
Speaker 2: Call mate healing. Lucid dreaming is serious. They don't know
45:21
Speaker 2: how it works. And they just say it's the placebo.
45:23
Speaker 2: But anyone who says just before the placebo does not
45:26
Speaker 2: understand how powerful the placebo is. Right, Well, so whatever
45:30
Speaker 2: it is you have, Yeah, people have reported healing I've done,
45:33
Speaker 2: like torn scapular What else did I do? Not my
45:40
Speaker 2: nose or ears? I had an ear infection and did
45:42
Speaker 2: this healing in the lucy dream and then I woke
45:44
Speaker 2: up and all this ear wax was coming out of
45:45
Speaker 2: my ear. I mean, it's a bit gross, but it
45:48
Speaker 2: showed that what I did in the lu room led
45:49
Speaker 2: to a physical response. I mean it's matrix style.
45:52
Speaker 3: Dude.
45:52
Speaker 2: When you get into this, you're like, I don't know
45:54
Speaker 2: how it works.
45:55
Speaker 1: But it works, and that's one of the beauty. So
45:58
Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of Harvard, we had professor Jeffrey Reddicker
46:02
Speaker 1: from Harvard Medical School and he's a fucking genius. By
46:06
Speaker 1: the way, go and have a coffee with him. I
46:08
Speaker 1: wish I lived over there. He he specializes in placebo
46:14
Speaker 1: and no cibo kind of treatment. Dude, you would love him.
46:18
Speaker 2: You would love with him.
46:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've done one with him. I'll check that out.
46:24
Speaker 2: Listen to that.
46:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's brilliant. He's brilliant, and he was a he
46:27
Speaker 1: was a you know, staunch evidence based scientist place ebos
46:32
Speaker 1: it's not a thing, it's not a thing. And all
46:34
Speaker 1: he kept getting for some reason, people sending him kind
46:37
Speaker 1: of these stories about cases of people who had literally
46:41
Speaker 1: incurable things that got cured and not one or two.
46:43
Speaker 1: But so he kind of went, you know what. I
46:46
Speaker 1: think he spent a decade knocking them back or ignoring it,
46:49
Speaker 1: and when I'm going to look at five cases or something,
46:52
Speaker 1: and all of them proved to be completely legit, and
46:55
Speaker 1: then he went, fuck this, and now he's now that's
46:58
Speaker 1: kind of the forefront of his research. I think the
47:00
Speaker 1: thing is that we still don't you know, there's a
47:05
Speaker 1: couple of things. One, we don't obviously understand the potential
47:07
Speaker 1: of the mind and the body to heal itself via
47:10
Speaker 1: you know, via the mind. But also, you know, we
47:15
Speaker 1: live in you kind of straddle both. You straddle the
47:21
Speaker 1: evidence based scientific and so do I to an extent,
47:25
Speaker 1: you know, but also the spiritual and the philosophical and
47:28
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the problems with science and scientists,
47:32
Speaker 1: and I mean this in a loving way because I
47:34
Speaker 1: am one, but is that if we can't explain it.
47:39
Speaker 1: We think it's not true, whereas I just go, I
47:43
Speaker 1: believe it. I don't know how it works, but I'm
47:45
Speaker 1: okay with that, Just like I can pick up my
47:48
Speaker 1: iPhone and know that if you gave me your phone
47:50
Speaker 1: number when we finish this, I can ring you when
47:53
Speaker 1: we can chat again. And I don't know how the
47:56
Speaker 1: fuck that works, but I just know that that thing
47:59
Speaker 1: has the capacity to allow me to do this other
48:03
Speaker 1: amazing thing. Just like I don't know how self healing works.
48:08
Speaker 1: I don't understand the mechanisms. Neither does anyone, Otherwise there'd
48:12
Speaker 1: be more on it. But you know that I think
48:15
Speaker 1: we get our doubt and our which is not to
48:18
Speaker 1: say we be should be naiven, gullible, But I one
48:21
Speaker 1: hundred percent believe that there.
48:23
Speaker 3: Is a huge capacity for self healing mind, body, emotion,
48:29
Speaker 3: spirit that we don't understand, and because we don't understand.
48:34
Speaker 1: It, it scares us, and so we call it bullshit.
48:38
Speaker 1: Whereas I would rather just go, look, I don't know,
48:40
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I personally think you know
48:44
Speaker 1: this is possible. I don't know why or how, but
48:48
Speaker 1: I don't I don't need to understand it for it
48:51
Speaker 1: to be fucking real. Just because I don't understand it
48:54
Speaker 1: I'm a dickhead, doesn't mean that, oh with Craig Harper
48:57
Speaker 1: or Charlie Morley doesn't understand the mechanism of thing. It
49:00
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we can't believe in it or that
49:03
Speaker 1: we can't you know. I mean literally, faith is believing
49:06
Speaker 1: in shit you can't prove. And so many people live
49:09
Speaker 1: a faith based life because if you have evidence, now
49:13
Speaker 1: you'd have knowledge, which makes your need for faith redundant.
49:17
Speaker 2: You know, dude, one d per agree with what you're saying.
49:20
Speaker 2: Have you come across a Dr David Hamilton? No, of
49:24
Speaker 2: course that guy is a mate. Am on him, be
49:25
Speaker 2: so good on your podcast. Scottish guy, he used to
49:28
Speaker 2: make drugs. He used to work for Glatzo smith Kline.
49:30
Speaker 2: He was the guy who was like a chemical biology
49:31
Speaker 2: of chemical I can't remember what it's PhD is. But
49:36
Speaker 2: he used to make drugs right and the reason he
49:38
Speaker 2: quit was because he was seeing the Percebo effect getting
49:41
Speaker 2: what usually gets maybe thirty percent forty percent. There was
49:44
Speaker 2: one trial they were doing on cancer drugs where it
49:46
Speaker 2: hit over fifty percent in favor of the pacebo and
49:48
Speaker 2: he was looking at the side effects as cancer drug
49:51
Speaker 2: and was like, if you can get fifty percent of
49:54
Speaker 2: people with the same amount of healing with no side effects,
49:56
Speaker 2: what am I doing making these drugs? And he left
49:59
Speaker 2: and he dedicated his life so write in these books
50:02
Speaker 2: describing how the Peraceibo effect works. And he's got a
50:05
Speaker 2: great way of like, I think you just get on
50:08
Speaker 2: with him. He's a he's a fun guy. He's got
50:09
Speaker 2: a great sense of humor, and he's got a really
50:13
Speaker 2: good way of explaining how kind of placebo healing works.
50:16
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to drop your name, dude, and I'll
50:19
Speaker 1: just go to Charlie and I best is And he
50:21
Speaker 1: said to hit you up to them. Great, Melissa, you've
50:25
Speaker 1: already written that down. Yes, I'll have, fortunately for me
50:30
Speaker 1: and sadly for you. You're really fucking brilliant and you
50:33
Speaker 1: have to come back. But so Charlie's book most recently,
50:37
Speaker 1: he's got a bunch of books he's written for and
50:38
Speaker 1: they've been published all over the world and multiple languages.
50:42
Speaker 1: But his most recent one is Wake Up to Sleep,
50:45
Speaker 1: So go my ten of those. His website is Charlie
50:49
Speaker 1: Morley One Word Charlie L I. E. Morley l e
50:52
Speaker 1: y dot com. Go and check that out. What else
50:55
Speaker 1: do you want to plug or promote?
50:57
Speaker 2: Mate, just Instagram and staff Instagram, Facebook, Come make friends
51:02
Speaker 2: with me. Oh something launched today. I mean this is
51:04
Speaker 2: mainly people who work with me before, but the Lucid
51:07
Speaker 2: Dream Facilitator training, So training others if you're a therapist
51:11
Speaker 2: or a coach who wants to learn how to teach
51:14
Speaker 2: Lucier dreaming into your clients. And that's something that literally
51:17
Speaker 2: just launched today. So that'll be new on my website too. Yeah.
51:20
Speaker 1: Your thanks for being on the you stay there, will
51:22
Speaker 1: say goodbye affair, but mate, thanks so much for being
51:25
Speaker 1: part of the silliness that is the Youth Project.
51:27
Speaker 2: Oh it's been a pleasure, mate, thanks so much.
51:30
Speaker 1: Thanks Melissa, thank you both.
51:31
Speaker 2: I've got to go take a nap now.
51:32
Speaker 1: I think just generally feel the benefits. I might do
51:38
Speaker 1: the same. Thanks everyone, love you Bye,