Dream Studies

Ryan D. Hurd speaks with Brian Gilan, a sleep tech professional and founder of Tech for Dreaming. The discussion reviews the current best sleep tracking devices and dream apps as well as the future of dream tech, including the nascent field of "dream engineering." 
 
In this episode, we discuss:

• Brian's recent dark retreat experience and why he went without any tech hooked up
• Why lucid dreaming tech is kinda a cursed field and full of broken promises 
• The best sleep trackers on the market, and the surprising feature that makes them successful
• The promise of AI and machine learning in the fields of sleep optimization and collective dream research
• What's next in dream tech (with some cautious optimism sprinkled in)

Guest: Brian Gilan | Website: Tech For Dreaming 

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so.

In this episode, Ryan D. Hurd talks with psychologist and dream teacher Athena Laz, author of Women Who Dance in the Dark, discussing feminine archetypes of the self, especially the "medial" archetype, a concept originated by Toni Wolff (Carl Jung's analyst and collaborator) describing an intuitive capacity to mediate between the seen and unseen.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Athena's origin story with dreams, starting with bizarre lucid experiences in youth
• The medial archetype: an innate intuitive capacity that helps bridge conflicting perspectives and access collective dream material 
• Practical cultivation of intuition: normalizing intuitive ability, and treating discomfort with curiosity rather than avoidance.
• The "third pathway": how pausing between reaction and response opens space for compassionate, intuitive resolution of conflict.
• The wild woman vs. medial archetype: drawing on Clarissa Pinkola Estés's work, Athena distinguishes the instinctual "wild" nature from the medial's higher, integrative perspective.
• Initiation and the ego: the medial archetype often demands uncomfortable ego dissolution, akin to death/rebirth processes.

Guest: Athena Laz | Website: AthenaLaz.com | Book discussed: Woman who Dance in the Dark

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so.

Host Ryan D. Hurd sits down with researcher Dr. Sheila Pryce Brooks to explore the hidden world of sleep paralysis entities, from the historic Incubus and Succubus of ancient folklore to the Hat Man, the Smoke Entity, and encounters with non-human intelligence that include positive experiences of angels and ancestors too. Drawing on her original PhD research, Brooks offers practical guidance on reclaiming personal power during these harrowing yet potentially transformative experiences.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What sleep paralysis actually feels like: the symptoms as well as the hidden opportunities
• The historical roots of sleep paralysis entities, tracing back nearly 5,000 years to Sumerian legends
• A tour of the entities people encounter, from the Hat Man and Smoke Entity to guardian spirits and benevolent guides
• How intention and inner empowerment shape whether an experience turns terrifying or transcendent
• Ancestral visitations and possible connections to non-human intelligence, UAPs, and alien abduction phenomena
• Why sleep paralysis, near-death experiences, and lucid dreaming may all be overlapping expressions of the same broader phenomenon

Guest: Sheila Pryce Brooks | Substack: Transcend | Website: SheilaPryceBrooks.com

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so. 

Host Ryan D. Hurd sits down with dream researcher and author David L. Kahn to explore the archetypal landscape of lucid dreaming. Drawing from his new book Oneironaut's Odyssey: Discovering Ancient Wisdom Through Lucid Dreams, Kahn shares vivid personal dream accounts featuring sacred geometry, the Tree of Life, underworld journeys, spiritual guides, and ancestral healing.

Trigger warning: the last part of this episode touches on themes of the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and suicide (time stamp 28 minutes+).

In this episode, we discuss:

• The hero's journey as it plays out in dreams, 
• Mentors and guides in lucid dreams,
• Precognitive lucid dreams,
• Ancestral trauma uncovered through dreaming, 
• and practical guidance for cultivating a more lucid life. 

Guest: David L. Kahn  |  Instagram: Boundless_Dream | Amazon: David Kahn's books 

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so. 

Join Ryan Hurd in conversation with Beck Ravenswood, owner of the Serpent’s Key Shoppe and Sanctuary in Hanover, PA. Beck is challenging the 165 year-old state law that makes it a crime to charge money for tarot readings and fortune-telling for gain or lucre.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The 1861 Pennsylvania law: An obscure state law dating back to the Civil War era criminalizes fortune telling, divination, and tarot reading which was originally enacted to target Romani immigrants.
• The police confrontation: In October 2023, Hanover's police chief threatened Beck with arrest, fines up to $2,500 per offense, and up to a year in jail for offering tarot readings at their brick and mortar shop and community center 
• The lawsuit: After failed negotiations with the police department, Beck filed a federal case in August 2024 arguing the law violates First Amendment and 14th Amendment protections.
• Why this matters for you:   Beck's fight has wide-ranging implications for religious freedom in the 21 century, especially given the erosion of the separation of church and state at all levels of governance. 

Guest: Beck Ravenswood | Website: Serpent's Key |   Instagram: The Stitching Witch | TikTok: The Stitching Witch

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so. 

Ryan D. Hurd talks with Dr. Kim Mascaro, a licensed therapist, professor, and author of Dreaming with the Earth-Mind. They discuss sacred activism: the practice of blending spiritual growth, dreamwork, and social and environmental justice. Kim shares how surviving the 2023 Maui wildfires deepened her commitment to ancestral recovery and dreamwork, and the two explore decolonizing dream practices, ancestral European medicine traditions, and their shared experiences visiting Paleolithic caves in Southern France.

In this episode, the conversation takes us into:

• Sacred Activism – how it differs from activism rooted in anger or shadow
• The Maui Wildfires – Kim's firsthand account of the 2023 fires on Maui, and how the tragedy reshaped her activism and dreamwork
• Decolonizing Lucid Dreaming – A critique of Western, individualistic approaches to lucid dreaming, and a call to reconnect dreamwork with spiritual depth
• Recovering Indigenous European Medicine Ways – Kim's journey reconnecting with her Italian and Irish ancestry, as well as the deep wisdom of the Paleolithic caves in Southern France
• Dreams as a Path to Collective Healing – Kim and Ryan swap ancestral dreams, illustrating how dreamwork nourishes both individual and collective wellbeing

Guest: Dr. Kim Mascaro | Website: Conscious Chimera | Substack: Conscious Chimera Classroom 

Book: Dreaming with the Earth Mind: Paths to Sacred Activism

Upcoming workshop: Connecting with our Ancestors at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, September 13-18 2026, with Linda Yael Schiller.

Additional Resources:

• Worldwide Indigenous Science Network
• Tzivia Gover's 350 Dreamers global dream-incubation project

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so. 

In this episode, Ryan sits down with London-based lucid dreaming artist Dave Green to explore what he calls "inter-dimensional performance art," an extraordinary practice of creating artwork directly inside his lucid dreams, which he then recreates upon waking. Along the way, they discuss the implications of precognitive dreams for the nature of time, fate and reality, and also solve the mystery of the true ending of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem Kubla Khan.

In this episode: 

• How Dave's professional artistic training and interest in lucid dreaming came together to create a new form of inter-dimensional performance art. 
• What happened when Dave channeled anger while interacting in a lucid dream, leading to deeper questions about emotional expression 
• Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge makes an appearance in Dave's dream, and decisively finishes his famous poem. 
• Can lucid dream drawings predict images sent the following day? Dave teams up with neuroscientist and a skeptic with interesting, and statistically significant, results. 
• Competing theories on the nuts and bolts of precognition in dreams. Is it fate or can we influence the future? 

Guest: Dave Green | Instagram: @davegreen5000 | Website: dave-green.co.uk

Book: Doodles in the Dark: An Artist's Guide to Lucid Dreaming (UK exclusive)
Documentary Short: The Dreaming Pen (World Science Festival)
Featured in: BBC Science Focus, Dreamtime Magazine, Tate Modern
Research: Future dreams of electric sleep: Case study of a possible precognitive lucid dreamer with AI scoring (2025). International Journal of Dream Research 18(2)

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing. More to explore at DreamStudies.org

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so. 

Ryan D. Hurd sits down with medical anthropologist and author Samantha Lee Treasure to explore the fascinating and often misunderstood world of out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Samantha shares how growing up on a reportedly haunted farm in Ontario set her on a lifelong path of researching consciousness beyond the body.

 In this episode:

• How a veridical cherry cheesecake sparked Samantha's career in anthropology
• The surprising variation in OBE content 
• Haunting narratives and astral projection
• How OBEs differ from lucid dreams and why the line can be blurry
• The "astral marketplace" and the wellness world's complicated relationship with OBEs
• Gen Z's reality shifting phenomenon, a new culturally shaped altered state for the streaming generation
• Samantha's ongoing "Future Tokyo" OBE experiences: a consistent, semi-dystopian world she's been visiting since age three

Samantha's new book: Out-of-Body Experiences: Explorations and Encounters with the Astral Plane

Find Samantha online:
Blog: zombiesinpjs.com
Instagram: @astral_anthropology
YouTube: @SamanthaLeeTreasure

In the inaugural episode of the Dream Studies Podcast, host Ryan D. Hurd sits down with dream research expert Nicoline Douwes Isema for a wide-ranging conversation about where the field of dream studies stands today.. and where it's headed.

Topics covered:

• The "democratization of dreaming" — why your dreams belong to you, not an authority figure
• How 100+ years of psychiatry and psychology inadvertently took dream ownership away from everyday people
• The role of AI in dream interpretation: pattern recognition vs. meaning-making, and how to use it wisely
• Wearables, sleep trackers, and cognitive freedom — empowering people through data about their own sleep
• How dream sharing strengthens emotional connection (and yes, sexual intimacy) in relationships
• Team dreaming and collective dream work — dreaming together as a creative problem-solving tool
• Synchronicities: why keeping a dream journal puts rare experiences in perspective
• A "tiny revolution" in how we talk about and relate to our dreams

Guest: Nicoline Isema | thinkinginyoursleep.com | Instagram | LinkedIn 

Resources mentioned:

• International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) 
• Gail Delaney's dream interview method
• The Dream Portal membership community 

About the host: Ryan D. Hurd is a dream researcher, author, and holistic educator. The Dream Studies Podcast explores dreams, consciousness, and the imagination, bridging 21st century science with intuitive ways of knowing.

Original music and art by Eldest Child (c) 2026

Subscribe to get notified when the next episode drops. This a slow publishing project by design, with new episodes every two weeks or so.