Before you begin listening, take some time to read this page and gather these items.
As the album plays, read along with each track as you listen and don't skip ahead. Throughout the process, there will be chapters where you're told to stop and set up the next environment before continuing. Headphones are recommended, and a room that can go completely dark is ideal.
There are many ways to approach shadow work. This is the method that worked best for me while I was working on the album.
Above all, don't feel pressured to have to get it all "right." Just enjoy the album.
In Dreams is a story about accepting, nurturing, and integrating your inner child. This process is sometimes referred to as shadow work, a term coined by Carl Jung. Our inner child is the repressed part of our psyche that is usually vying for our attention, but we refuse to acknowledge it. It's also referred to as the shadow, which, if left segregated from the self, is projected onto others.
The shadow is our emotional blind spot. It's where we keep all our traumas and the truths we are unwilling to admit to ourselves. It's also where our capacity for cruelty comes from. A child who is ignored and shown hate will grow up to do the same. One way of understanding the shadow is to look at any atrocity committed by humans and realize that you probably would've done the same. Another way is to notice what you hate in others and realize that those are the qualities you cannot face within yourself. When you refuse to look at the shadow, it doesn't just go away. It balloons, and eventually gets projected onto the people around you. This is why Jung believed the shadow should be understood and integrated, not destroyed. It is a vital part of the psyche and can be a powerful tool for understanding ourselves and becoming free from our conditioning.
Once you've peeled away all the layers, you get to your true self. I cannot personally speak about this since I've yet to get there. But if you do, please, write me an email.
There are 4 chapters: Avoidance, Confrontation, Integration, and Rebirth. Each portrays a different stage of integrating your shadow. This album took me about 3 years to complete because Jocelyn and I were living each stage as it was being made. Every song was a whole journey that we took together.
The dream being narrated throughout the album is a collection of dreams I had during this period in my life while I was doing shadow work. As you will understand by the end of the album, there is no end to this process. I like to think of it as a spiral: from a 2D perspective, it looks like a circle, but when viewed in 3D, you see that it's spiraling downward, reaching new levels of depth and understanding each time it makes a round. I wrote all of this in an attempt to sum up the album, but Jung already did that in two sentences.
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung
Set up your toys and play.
Be a child. No rules. No obligations.
Let yourself remember what it was like to be free before you had it locked away.
She laid in her bed, eyes closed, waiting for the moment when she would stop remembering. She could never catch that moment between being awake and falling asleep. She did it every day, and yet, it was impossible for her to pinpoint exactly when or how it happened. She just knew that one moment she was here, and the next, in another world, full of memories of old, disguised as something new. Images started to flood her mind that seemed random, and almost chaotic in nature, but she couldn't help but feel some sort of correlation between them. Everything she thought, felt, or had seen that day got jumbled into one giant painting, not to mention everything she had experienced throughout her life. It all melded into one incoherent message that seemed impossible to decode. And yet, she would experience it every day, by the thousands. And as soon as she would awake, it began to slip through her fingers like liquid gold. But not this time.
"So I get home and my whole family is in the living room, hanging out. And there's also this little girl there who looks kinda familiar and I can tell that she's super anxious, but I don't want to deal with anything. So I go straight to bed and as I'm about to fall asleep, I hear a knock on my door and it's the little girl.
I can tell she just wants some attention, but I don't wanna give it to her. So I ignore her and pretty soon she starts crying. So I open the door and I start yelling at her, which obviously doesn't work. So then, we go into the living room and I'm trying to find someone to take care of her, but no one cares. No one can ever hear or see me and at this point I feel like I'm losing my mind. So I run outside and I close my eyes and I start to breathe. And when I open my eyes, I'm in the sky, and I'm flying."
"How did I get here?" she thought. "Is this really how I imagined my life to be?" All she had were questions with no answers, or so she thought. Deep down, she knew the answer, but finding it would mean she would have to say goodbye to whoever she had become. She hated who she was, but it was comfortable. The fear of losing herself was disguised with anxiety, depression, and anger. It was better for her to hide from herself, than to face it head on. But the truth was, more than the fear of losing herself was the fear of finding the truth, because it might be too much to bear. Some stones are better left unturned.
How did I get?
Stuck in a worn out place
And telling myself
That I'm not lost
Try to hide it
Using the weight of things
To worry myself
And then back off
Who am I then?
Someone too scared
To look and then
Lose my ground
What do I get?
Living the way I do
To bury myself
And not get found
What if you walk right in?
What if I never get this back?
What if you see right in?
And then I see where the feelings at
How would you hold me then?
What would you do to bring me back?
What if the good things end?
I think I'm afraid of that
I'm not trying to make it clear
I'm just trying to make it here
I'm not trying to make it clear
I'm just trying to make it here
It was unbearable. The crushing feeling of guilt and anxiety made her feel like she weighed a thousand tons. She had two options, to plunge into the depths of her own mind, or to run. She chose the latter, and it was absolutely blissful. She felt as if she was flying through the clouds. Not a care in the world. The world around her started to exude color. It was as though everything was breathing, vibrating with life. She never wanted to leave this place. In a weird way, it felt like she had been here before. But this was temporary. It hadn't been earned yet. It was as if the universe was giving her a glimpse of what life could be like. She made the mistake of thinking it was permanent. And when it started to dissipate, she fell into a deeper and darker hole than before. A much more dangerous one this time.
Breathe in
Watching, waiting
Gone in
Breathe in
I get where it
Begins
And everything around us
Glows
Fast as I am lifting
Weightless to the touch
Haven't had this feeling for ages
It's so much
Laugh like that in the air
I watch it turn gold
Practice disappearing
Don't tell them when to stop
How have I ever wondered if
Earth is all we've got
I found God in the air
I watch it turn gold
Breathe in
Watching, breaking
Within
And everything around us
Slows
Silver webs and magnified
Orchards in the dark
Pry open the body to
Eat the orange heart
Laugh like that in the air
I watch it turn gold
Shadows of my finger tips
Going where they're not
Reeling in my body
With sweetness I forgot
I found God in the air
I watch it turn gold
"So I'm flying and enjoying myself but I'm also terrified because like, what if I fall? As soon as I have that thought, I start to see these hands coming up from the ground. They look really decrepit and terrifying. They start pulling me down and as I'm getting pulled down I realize, those are my hands.
I'm on the ground now and it's pitch black. I start walking around when I see that little girl again. She looks terrified, like someone's trying to get her. I start getting closer to her and I get down on one knee. I'm trying to calm her down but it's not working. I finally reach my hand out to her, when all of a sudden, this giant figure appears out of the darkness, and drags her off."
Turn off the lights, light your candle, and sit in front of the mirror.
Avoidance has consequences. Sometimes it's better to face yourself.
She could hear a voice. A voice that had been tucked away, long forgotten. The voice wasn't mad or disappointed. It just was. And now, it wanted her attention. The voice had thrown many pebbles her way over time. Those pebbles had turned into rocks, and soon, it was going to be a boulder.
Hold the weight in automatic
Buried in between
Call me with the broken pieces
All out in this dream
Craving for the perfect picture
Life in evergreen
Soil me into something deeper
Instant fantasy
Am I disillusioned on a bend I'm
Seeping through the seams
Over to me unawarely
Through the fog you'll see
Cutting through a deviation
While I'm on my knees
Wake me from my slumber take me
To your fantasy
The most bitter fruit
Takes the most to chew
All of the faces will break and will melt into
Me and you
"What if she's right? What if this is it?" She imagined herself lost and left with nothing. It was absolutely terrifying. And as terrifying as it was, she was even more scared of what she might be hiding from herself. The load had gotten too big to carry. She felt as though she was going to implode. And the part that hurt the most was that she had done it to herself. She was responsible for the mess. All the years of pretending that everything was ok, pushing down the emotions, lashing out at other people, and worst of all, lashing out at herself. This was the culmination of all of it. And it was time to make a choice.
What if it's how she always said?
The revenant voices in my head
What is it got to do with them?
What have I got to do instead?
Picture myself with nothing left
It doesn't sink in that I'm there yet
A pretty bad way to lose all this
What if I can't go through with it?
Can't go in there yet
I can't go in my head
Can't go in there yet
I can't go in my head
Heaviest stone is on my chest
I did it myself cause I know best
I try to stay down and not get free
Try to keep you away from me
Picture myself with nothing left
It doesn't sink in that I'm there yet
A pretty bad way to lose all this
What if I can't go through with it?
Can't go in there yet
I can't go in my head
Can't go in there yet
I can't go in my head
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
When I didn't
Quite know the cost
I played along
I thought that was best
To just go on
To prove you wrong
To make enough
From what was left
If it's all drawn out
And nothings left
I pretty much have to say to you
All I have is one big mess
As long as I try to keep it from you
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's all in my mind
It's time.
Blow out the candle.
"I see that thing take her down into the basement of this house. So now I'm freaking out but I follow them anyway. It's so dark in this room, like I can't even begin to describe it. But there's this little light at the end of the room, so I walk up to it and the little girl is in this cage. And that figure is standing next to it…"
"And it's me. And I look at the little girl, and I realize, she's also me. So I run over to the cage and let her out, and give her this huge hug. And we're both sitting in this basement, that has all of this light now, and we're both crying. And I realize that, she just wanted my attention all along. And that's the last thing I remember."
The dust had settled. She stood there, in the dark, both alone and whole again. It was as if she had found a missing piece of herself. All the wretched things she had done to herself, all the lies she had told herself, it all led to this moment. She could finally forgive herself for all of those things, and move on.
I got a life back
That I thought I
Wouldn't need
But you and I
We go right back
To before I
Had to leave
I was sad, too sad to see
What I had, I had done to me
Watch the fires burning out
Things that we had lied about
I was never glad to be
I often had to be for me
Watch you cry about
Things that I had lied about
I really haven't been
Letting the outside in
None of my old friends
No one is calling
To put this lightly, I
Think that it might be
None of that old fix
I'm going all in
Don't take this lightly, I
Think that it might be
Time
Time
To make
Make you a part of me
Part that no one else can see
Time
Time
I will make
Make you a part of me
Part that no one else can see
I got a life back
That I thought I
Wouldn't need
But you and I
We go right back
To before I
Had to leave
I got a life back
That I thought I
Wouldn't need
You are free. No rules. No obligations. Let yourself be.
Much like a spiral, this process never ends. It continues forever, reaching new depths of understanding each time the cycle is completed.
Free from the chains of her past, she emerged from the darkness. Everything looked different. Even the air smelled different. As she stood there, basking in all the glory, she realized that even though they might drift apart from time to time, this part will always be with her. Much like a lightbulb that's been covered in dirt, the light was never gone, she just needed to wipe away the dirt.
Waves of
Air start to break on you
Old things
Melt into space as you
Step out
Light hits the haze
And you fall
Into the lightless
Suspended figures
Returning faces
Bring back what's in them
And you wonder still
Should her
Mind start to break at the
Thought of
Go on and look into the eyes
What I recognize as mine
Until I found you
You held the pieces
Of someone bound to you
You stayed right with her
And you always will
If you have a need for cover
I can be the perfect other
If you have a need for cover
I can be your perfect other
If you have a need for cover
I can be the perfect other
If you have a need for cover
I can be your perfect other