Becoming the Dreamcatcher, Part 2: Total Recall: “Removing the Implant and Remembering Who We Are.”

Butterfly Mondays | July 7, 2025
Theme: Becoming the Dreamcatcher, Part 2: Total Recall: “Removing the Implant and Remembering Who We Are.” What if the dream we are living isn’t ours?
Healing Station Zoom: 6:00 PM EST
🔗 Join Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88324556318?pwd=QlNsT3lLWnc0alo3K09nN0JoaFNxQT09 What if our entire life were a script written by someone else? In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character discovers that his identity, dreams, and memories were all programmed. In the film, a man finds out that his entire memory has been fabricated. The life he believed in was never really his. Is it that different from what trauma does to us? When will we realize that we have been “shamuized”?
This week’s Butterfly Mondays focuses on Total Recall, not just the sci-fi classic with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but also the sacred practice of reclaiming our true identity. That moment of realization becomes our call to wake up and to remove the implanted program. We will take this metaphor even deeper. What if the pain we carry isn’t our whole truth? What if our trauma has implanted limitations on our joy, our purpose, and our dreams? It’s time for Total Recall, the sacred act of calling back our authentic selves.
Together in Healing and Transformation, we will:
Examine how trauma can write false stories into our memory
Examine the sacred metaphor of faith, which is our REM—the dream state of belief, where transformation begins, and the necessity of paralyzing fear and doubt to dream again.
Learn how to reclaim our memory, identity, and destiny.
When we’ve been hurt, rejected, or programmed by a world that doesn’t affirm our wholeness, we forget who we are. We forget our purpose. We forget our joy. We forget that we were meant to fly. Becoming the Dreamcatcher involves not only catching the dreams that call us forward but also removing the implants, false beliefs, internalized shame, and generational trauma that hold us back.
REM Is to Dream as Belief Is to Affirmation
“To dream, we must sleep. To transform, we must believe.”
Throughout history, the mystery of dreams has fascinated the human soul. We have long wondered why we dream, what our dreams mean, and how they relate to our subconscious desires, fears, and potential. Whether through ancient prophecy or modern psychology, dreams have always served as portals, gateways into another realm that exists beneath our waking consciousness.
However, there is one universal truth within the science of dreaming:
We can only dream in REM.
The Sleep Cycle: Where Dreams Are Born
The human sleep cycle unfolds in five stages, but only one produces dreams vivid enough to remember:
Stage 1: Light Sleep – A brief transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep.
Stage 2: Deeper Relaxation – Heart rate slows, body temperature drops.
Stage 3 & 4: Deep Sleep – The body restores and repairs itself.
Stage 5: REM Sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) – The brain becomes electrically active, similar to wakefulness. Most vivid dreams occur here.
REM sleep is also when something powerful occurs: the body becomes temporarily paralyzed. This paralysis is a safety mechanism to prevent us from acting out our dreams.
So the paradox is apparent:
We can only dream freely when our body is still. REM sleep is dream-time… and stillness is the gateway.
Freud, Jung, and Cayce: Dreaming as Revelation
• Sigmund Freud believed that dreams were expressions of repressed desires and unresolved childhood conflicts. For Freud, dreams were coded messages from the unconscious, symbols to be deciphered like puzzles.
• Carl Jung took it deeper. He believed that dreams were communications from the collective unconscious, utilizing universal archetypes to reveal truths about the self and the soul. He saw dreams as a bridge between the ego and the spirit.
• Edgar Cayce, the mystic, described dreams as spiritual transmissions and soul-guided messages from higher realms designed to offer healing, insight, and even glimpses of the future.
From therapists to prophets, dreams have always been the whispers of our transformation.
The 5 Stages of Living: From Existence to Affirmation
Let us now explore a parallel structure, the five stages of waking life. Just as dreams only happen in REM, our affirmations only take root in the final stage: Faith.
Survival – Living in constant alertness, disconnected from joy.
Stability – Achieving routine and safety, but still lacking vision.
Awareness – Beginning to understand that we all have been implanted with a programmed memory, and there is more to life than surviving a traumatic narrative.
Belief – Entertaining the idea that transformation and healing are possible.
Faith (Our REM) – The soul stills. Doubt paralyzes. We begin to affirm what we now believe.
Just as REM sleep requires the paralysis of the body, faith involves the paralysis of fear and doubt.
We cannot both believe and fear simultaneously.
We cannot both affirm and deny.
We cannot both elevate and self-sabotage.
Faith is our REM.
It is the state in which our deepest dreams of healing, joy, purpose, and Love become active and real. It is where belief transforms into living affirmations.
From Dream Paralysis to Dream Activation
Most of us want to embrace abundance while holding onto a scarcity mindset. We try to affirm love while still clinging to heartbreak. We aim to affirm healing while still performing for the Wizzo. However, the Dreamcatcher must enter REM. To become a Dreamcatcher, we need to choose stillness, trust, and let the paralysis of old fears make space for the movement of new beliefs.
We do not have to act to prove that we are dreaming. We have to believe enough to stay still in the cocoon, and from that stillness… the butterfly emerges.
Total Recall: Removing the Implant
“Your whole life is just a dream they gave you to keep you from dreaming.” — Total Recall (1990)
Imagine waking up one day and realizing that everything you believed about yourself—your limitations, fears, and failures—was never truly yours to own. It was an implant, and you begin to understand that “Shamu is Me” and your beliefs are part of a program. A survival script is installed to maintain the status quo, but also to keep you in character with your assigned role.
In the film Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character lives a comfortable, seemingly normal life until he discovers it’s all been artificially implanted. His memories, identity, relationships, and even his dreams are designed to distract him from knowing his true self. When he finally removes the implant, he embarks on a risky but vital journey to find his real identity, purpose, and destiny. As Butterfly Journeyers, we too must awaken to this possibility: that many of our inner stories — “I am not good enough,” “I always mess things up,” “Love hurts,” “Dreams do not come true for people like me” — may not be entirely accurate. They could be trauma implants, created from moments of pain, oppression, abandonment, loss, or betrayal.
The Implant of Past Trauma
Childhood wounds, generational stories, and systemic conditioning are the emotional and psychological implants that embed themselves in our subconscious. They shape what we believe we deserve, what we see as possible, and how we judge our worth. Trauma distorts memory and rewrites our identity through the lens of what we have endured.
So Step 1 of becoming a Dreamcatcher is this:
Total Recall: Initiate the removal of the implant.
This doesn’t mean forgetting the past, but refusing to let it define you. It involves challenging the voices in your head that were never truly yours. It means understanding that the person you were programmed to become is not the butterfly you were born to be.
The Wizard, the Wizzo, and the Illusion of Who We Are
Like the travelers on the Yellow Brick Road in WizOz, we must challenge the false stories that tell us healing, power, or transformation come from some external savior—the Wizzo, the system, the applause, the job title, or the “perfect” version of ourselves. The truth is: they gave you a dream to keep you from dreaming. They gave you a “safe identity” to keep you from your radical one. They gave you a survival mask to disconnect you from your sacred face.
Total Recall is the Inner Engineering that Happens in Our Cocoons
Healing is the moment we look in the mirror and question what we have accepted as fact.
• Did someone implant the idea that we are unlovable?
• That we are not creative?
• That healing is for other people?
• That our bodies must be punished to be worthy?
• That success will only come through suffering?
Transformation and Healing begins with removing the implant.
What remains will be a blank canvas waiting for us to paint a new, divine picture. The journey to joy and the real I-N-I. This journey will not be programmed by trauma, but rooted in divine identity.
Real-Life Application: What It Means for Us
We see this every day in our communities:
• A child told they are a “problem” who grows into an adult afraid to speak their truth.
• A returning citizen internalizing that they are only what their past says they are.
• A survivor of heartbreak who now avoids vulnerability and calls it “strength.”
However, these are not truths. They are implants, and the healing process requires extraction.
What if this narrative is Not Ours?
“What story are we telling ourselves about who we are… and who gave it to us?”
Write a list of 3 beliefs we hold about ourselves that we have never questioned.
Now ask: Where did I learn this? Whose voice is this? What happens if I let it go?
Exercise 1: Intentional Dreamcatching as Daily Practice
Living the Ritual of Transformation One Thread at a Time
To become a dreamcatcher is not to wait for the dream; it is to live in a way that is ready to receive the dream.
Just as ancient weavers understood that each thread is important, every intention we hold during our day becomes a sacred strand in the web of our growth. This is the essence of intentional transformation. Our healing is not a single event—it is a rhythm, a ritual, a daily practice that we nurture with awareness and Love.
We are becoming the “Social Architects” who will design our healing and transformation.
Let’s affirm and manifest our divine cocoons together. #WeAreTheButterflyEffect
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Scoring & Reflection of the Quiz (0–10 Scale)
Total possible score: 150 (15 questions × 10 points)
After totaling your responses, locate your category below:
120–150: Dreamwalker
You’re living from your divine center. The old implants are dissolving, and your dreams are rooted in faith, joy, and authentic transformation. You’re not just dreaming; you’re catching, building, and becoming your dreams.
90–119: Awakening Dreamer
You’re deconstructing the old programming and catching glimpses of your new vision. Keep affirming what’s true and lovingly releasing what no longer belongs to your spirit. You’re in the space where faith is rewriting the story.
60–89: Sleepwalking in the Program
Old implants still dominate much of your inner narrative. You may feel torn between survival scripts and sacred visions. This is the perfect time to enter your cocoon, rewrite your affirmations, and nurture belief in your next butterfly.
Below 60: Living the Implant
You’ve probably absorbed beliefs that were never truly yours. Don’t lose hope; this isn’t the end, but a new beginning. You are deserving of new dreams, sacred Love, and divine transformation. Let’s start again, together.