Dr. Clare Johnson received her PhD in Lucid Dreaming and the Creative Process. She has been lucid dreaming for over 40 years since the age of 3. She is the past president of the International Study of Sleep and Dreams, is a Yoga Teacher, Mother and an author of more books on lucid dreaming than any other author that I have been able to find.   Over the past 2 years I have been deeply committed to my lucid dream practice. Experiencing the Divine through real experiences, as real as waking life or even more real, has inspired me to dive deeper and deeper into accessing this numinous embodied presence. This eventually led me to discovering the work of Dr. Clare Johnson. Beginning to read her book almost a year ago, inspired lucid dreams 3 nights in a row, which at the time was a record for me. Since working with her through her books, in groups and personally, I have often told people that if I were to be trapped on a desert island, alone, with only one book, it would be her complete book on lucid dreaming. I have discovered through her work an entirely different level of being that has transformed my life in both my waking state and in alternate states of consciousness. I'm not embellishing when I say that what she teaches is the closest thing to magic that I have witnessed.   In this episode we skip all the techniques and common questions regarding lucid dreaming and go deep. Within the first 6 minutes we are speaking about death and dying and through the rest of the dialogue we talk about the gift of nightmares, connecting with the Divine, healing ourselves and others and the great mystery that is this life and how through lucid dreaming we can be privy to insights that are completely closed to us in our waking physical reality.    May this inspire you to have lucid dreams and a more lucid live, what a gift it is.

Zeitgeist with Zack Geist

Dr. Clare Johnson: Numinous Dream Magic

I discovered Jorge Conesa Sevilla from my reading and research around lucid dreaming. He was one of the first authors that I'm aware of to do extensive research into sleep paralysis and speaks about it in his book "Wrestling with Ghosts." Jorge has spent his lifetime in nature and exploring consciousness through spending considerable time in a primal state in the wild, living off the land as well as undergoing long fasts for spiritual insight and biological health.  In this episode we speak about the effects that modern urban and city living is having on the human psyche and we speak about how we can return to nature and dream for healing. Jorge Conesa-Sevilla PhD, has a triple degree in Biology, Philosophy and Psychology which gives him an evidence based perspective on states of being that are ignored and even viewed as uncanny to most of western mainstream science.  Topics of the Dialogue include: Shamanism, lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, vision quests, fasting as a spiritual practice, zazen meditation, and ecopsychology, working close to nature for healing.  Jorge does not often agree to interviews, so this is a special treat! We are speaking about having an in person 5 day nature fast here at the Rainbow Bridge Sanctuary in Hawaii. 

Jorge Conesa Sevilla: Alive & Awake in the Wild World

On this episode I am joined by Luis Rodriguez whom I met at a men's retreat in Mendocino in 2019 with Michael Meade. Luis' bio is far too long and varied to cover fully here, but includes healing from addiction, working to help prisoners cry through their words, becoming the poet laureate of Los Angeles twice, working with gang members and at risk youth, running for green party governor of California and for vice president for the justice party.  Hearing some of Luis' stories at the Michael Meade retreat told a tale that sounded more uncanny than fiction. His wounding was long and deep and the discovering of his gifts came with much suffering as soul gifts tend to do. I wasn't sure exactly where the conversation would go and I had imagined that we may go into more of his stories, however, speaking with Luis evoked a lot of my past to pour into our dialogue. I have been hesitant to post this episode as I don't speak about these things publicly or much at all and I feel a bit embarrassed that I spoke so much. Truth be told I have had a hard time integrating my youth into my story of self and I think that becomes apparent in this dialogue. When asked why I run a podcast, I have different answers that all point to truths, however the main reason is probably for my own healing.  I feel that the world could benefit from hearing the cries from the neighbor's cage, as tears don't often take the same shape. We are all familiar with the cliche "Hurt people hurt people," though in fact, this couldn't be a truer statement. Many hurt people have literally lost their ability to shed tears, have become hard and numb, and I know, for a time I was among those ranks and to some degree, still am. I hope you find this talk healing and that it can open you to a world that you may not be familiar, maybe you can hear some of your story weaved in here somewhere. 

Luis Rodriguez: Cries from the Cages

One of the most well known lucid dreamers and considered one of the pioneers of lucid dreaming in the western world, Robert Waggoner joins me to go "deep" into the world of lucid dreaming. This is not an episode speaking about techniques, but instead, speaking to the potential that becoming aware in dreaming holds for the future of humanity and our shared waking physical reality. Both Zack and Robert uncover that they were both brought to exploring of the dream world by early encounters with dreaming mixed with an anemic view of heaven. Robert shares about what has kept him exploring lucid dreaming all of these years and goes into deep "mystical or shamanic" experiences that have occurred in dreams and waking physical reality that defies our modern worldview.  He also speaks about feeling connected to past lives and to other worlds in the here and now, and a connection with intelligent beings that appear to live lives joined to ours, that can be touched by the intentional closing of our eyelids, and occasionally with our eyes wide open. 

Robert Waggoner: A Blink Away from Heaven

"What is a caretaker of the cosmos?" One of the first questions posed to author Gary Lachman in this episode of Zeitgeist with Zack Geist. Among his 20+ books, Gary wrote ‘The Caretakers of the Cosmos: Living Responsibly in an Unfinished World.’ and joins Zack to explore the author's central tenet: that humans are entrusted with a daunting task of repairing creation itself. The theory positions us as mediators between dual realms, one of time & space versus our spiritual world that enfold one another. Each person's accountability is then two-fold, to care for our material world while simultaneously exploring the inner realm of pure spirit/imagination.Join Zack and Gary in exploring the lofty question, "Why are we here?"

Gary Lachman: Caretakers of the Cosmos

In this episode I speak with the author and teacher on Lucid Dreaming, Charlie Morley. Charlie is a practitioner of Tibetan Dream Yoga and works with his his dreams for spiritual insight and healing. We speak about many topics related to dreaming and lucid dreaming, healing from trauma and practices during waking life that can help a dreamer become lucid in their dreams.  Charlie also gives us a sneak peak into his Lucid Dream Summit with guest teachers like Dr. Clare Johnson and Robert Waggoner, prolific lucid dreamers and shares lucid dream research that is at the cutting edge of this pioneering practice. Lucid dreaming is a vast open vista to states of consciousness that can help heal and transform humans and the living earth.  

Charlie Morley: Dreaming as a Spiritual Practice

Dr Ed Tick is a psychologist specializing in treating sufferers with PTSD and has worked with combat veterans since the 1970s. He discovered through his work that the most profound healing from the symptoms of PTSD were to be had through dream work and more specifically through the ancient Greek practice of Asklepion Dream Incubation. To my surprise, modern medicine in the west as it is known today is rooted in Asklepion sanctuaries where cures were sought in both the waking world by working with the laws of nature as well as the mythic world of dreams where the patient explored the numinous through radical ritual and dreams inviting the Asklepios to help them heal. This healing could occur through insight in how to work with the natural world to improve either physical or mental illness or could happen in the dream and carry over to waking life. You may be shocked as I was to discover that there were hundreds of these Asklepion temples and that the healing miracles which occurred there were etched into the walls. Even our modern "Hippocratic Oath" which our Medical Doctors take today, was an oath to the healing power between the physician and the God Asklepios.It is my hope that you become more connected to the dream reality and the numinous beings and healing that await you there. 

Dr Ed Tick: Dream Physicians of Ancient Greece

In this episode, Zack Geist and Bayo Akomolafe engage in a dancing of words around the constantly changing issues of these queer times of Spring 2020. Akin to flies they find themselves tangled in the spider's web, a sensation both uncomfortable and familiar, they attempt to feel their way towards something just out of reach. Energized by the exhausted common narrative Zack and Bayo explore the realm that is inhabited by the invisibles as though they may have been listening all along. They invite you to join them on the edge of where fact and fiction breed and birth the myths that shape the lens of our times. Bayo Akomolafe is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action, activism and social change. He is an international speaker, poet and activist for a radical paradigm shift in consciousness and current ways of living. His readings of ‘knowledge’, ‘development’, ‘progress’ and ‘truth’ as Eurocentric metanarratives led him and his wife, Ej to develop the first International Workshop on Alternative Research Paradigms and Indigenous Knowledge Promotion (WARP, 2011). Bayo is a member of the advisory board of the Real Economy Lab (UK). In 2014, and was awarded for Global Excellence Award [Civil Society] by Future Shapers (California). He is the Chief Curator for The Emergence Network (A Post-Activist Project) [www.emergencenetwork.org], and host of the online writing course, ‘We will dance with Mountains: Writing as a Tool for Emergence’. He hopes to inspire a diffractive network of sharing – a slowing down, an ethics of entanglement, an activism of inquiry, a ‘politics of surprise’…one that does not treat the crisis of our times as exterior to ‘us’ or the ‘solutions’ that conventional activism offers as discrete or separate from the problems that we seek to nullify. Bayo has authored two books, We Will Tell Our Own Story! and These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home.

Bayo Akomolofe: Our Entangled Mess

Tricia Eastman is a medicine woman who works with the plant medicine Iboga. Tricia has spent time with the medicine people of Gabon Africa and the Bwiti Shamans in initiation through this extremely powerful and deeply healing medicine. Having lead thousands of healing journeys in the West, Tricia helps explorers of consciousness open up to the medicine and integrate the profound insights that are shared through the experience.  Zack and Tricia speak about Iboga's potential for helping heal addiction of all kinds and how through this healing expanding our states of being and our understanding around God and the sacred. Zack speaks about how it was through Iboga that he moved from white knuckling sobriety towards an understanding of what the root cause of his addictions were and what they were masking that Iboga helped reveal to him. Iboga is a messenger that cannot be ignored, you can't "do it wrong" if you have the right intention, Iboga will show you the truth about yourself. We also talk about lucid dreaming and explore whether the state of Iboga takes you to a similar world to that of a highly lucid state in dreams. 

Tricia Eastman: Iboga, Medicine of the Dream World

Jennifer Dumpert is an "oneironaut", an explorer of dream consciousness, who has spent many decades working with the liminal dream space. Liminal Dreaming is the space that we often don't pay attention to and hence barrel through it from waking consciousness all the way to REM sleep. Jennifer teaches us that there is a whole world available in these spaces, a world full of insight, creativity and healing, and the same very real dimension where Salvadore Dali and Thomas Edison would use to create works of art and genius. Nicola Tesla would often inquire with his assistant to whether he was dreaming or not because he was so often in this liminal dream space. Zack explores with Jennifer some of the possibilities available to us in the Liminal Dream space and how it can help us with nightmares, creativity, healing and becoming comfortable with the unknown and even death. You'll become acquainted to the "Bardo" state referred to by the Tibetan Holy men and referred to by different names by other mystics. Jennifer is the author of the book "Liminal Dreaming" and teaches workshops at many transformational festivals. She has been known to say that one when cultivates liminal dream states, one can open themselves up to psychedelic experiences without any of the negative consequences that can be associated with those medicines. There is a world alive within us all that begs to be witnessed and explored in her depth and beauty. 

Jennifer Dumpert: Surfing the Edges of Consciousness

This episode was recorded at the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic when uncertainty regarding the CARES act was even greater than it is now. Student Loans had been put in 6 month disaster forbearance with interest rates dropped to 0% on Direct Student Loans. The tax deadlines had been extended to July and memorandums to stop evictions had been rumored.  Now nearly 8 weeks have passed and we are only beginning to see and feel the economic implications of Covid19, with middle income citizens having some of the fears that the lower income citizens suffer with as a way of life.  In this episode Derek Tennant and Zack speak about debt, capitalism, gift economy, student loans and taxes. Derek is an enrolled IRS agent and has worked for many years with Lynn Twist's work, "The Soul of Money." Derek works helping tax payers pay less to the IRS and offers his services 100% in the Spirit of the Gift. 

Derek Tennant: The Economics of Covid19

In this episode Zack Geist holds a dialogue with depth psychologist and founder of the Jung Society of Utah and the Jung Platform Machiel Klerk. Zack and Machiel speak about the COVID19 virus and its effects on the the psyche both individually and collectively. They also dive into the realm of dream work, Jungian depth psychology, lucid dreaming, shamanic and ecstatic practices and how to integrate those experiences and share meaning with others.  Zack and Machiel talk about a course that begins April 2nd featuring mythologist and elder Michael Meade, and depth psychologists James Hollis and Robert Bosnak where they will be exploring the Corona Virus both mythically and psychologically.  If you'd like to participate in the Corona workshop with Michael Meade, James Hollis and Robert Bosnak, you can find it here at this link: https://www.jungplatform.com/partner/EcstaticDance

Machiel Klerk: COVID19 Depth Psychology, Dreams and Ecstatic Healing

Ben Sessa is a medical doctor and child psychiatrist who specializes in treating PTSD arising from incidents of childhood trauma. In this episodes Zack and Madeleine speak about how the medicine MDMA may essentially be psychiatry’s antibiotic when taken in the medicine’s pure form, in a therepuetic setting, with proper intention and integration with a trained professional over a 12 week cycle. Zack shares of his healing journey that was catalyzed by this “miracle” medicine that he first discovered through one of Ben Sessa’s Ted Talks. Ben Sessa is one of the founders of the world’s first legal and licensed psychedelic therapy clinics located in the UK, which opens its doors in 2020.

Ben Sessa MD: MDMA for Healing Childhood Trauma

Yaygon, better known as the prolific electronic music producer Kalya Scintilla and founder of Merkaba Music, join Zack and Madeleine alongside his partner and founder of SoulVoice Sacred Art, EveOak, to discuss their new album Gian Code and the intention that went into this work of art. Drawing from the wisdom of the ancestors and achieving ecstatic states through connection to the divine in an effort to heal our world.Gian Code invites the listener to feel deeply, to come alive to the fact that we are all connected and that there is no separation.

Kalya Scintilla: Music as Medicine

In the Yakut language, OLOX means life, and their mission is just this, to serve life and bridge the ancient wisdom with the troubles facing today by surrendering to the Ecstatic through music and dance, and connecting to nature through Ecstatic states of being.Zarina was born in a small village of 800 people in Yakut Siberia, the coldest place on earth where it gets -94 degrees in the winter. She was born and raised in a Shamanic culture and was initiated to share her music and culture with the world by her Tungus Shaman.Shamanism originated in her part of the world and still lives on today. In this episode Zarina and Andreas speak to tapping into the Shamanic in our nature and that a portal to the Ecstatic and Divine is always alive within us all, when we remember and understand how to look.

OLOX: Nurturing the Shaman Within

A bold attempt to impregnate life with greater meaning and sacredness through a sea of resonant voices. Through this technology we aim to create a virtual field using dialogue and inquiry to harbinger greater compassion and understanding among our earthly kin. We aim to create a virtual bridge of consciousness away from loneliness into a greater sense of feeling at home in the world.

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Zeitgeist with Zack Geist

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