Welcome to Dreaming Wizard!
My name is Michael Smith. Many folk know me as “Valentine”. You’ll find me as “Morphenius” across the web.
I talk about what feels alive to me at a given time. So my topics & themes change often.
If I had to pick a single underlying theme, though, I’d point at gnosis — the “I can tell for myself” quality.
I talk a lot about psychology, and self-transformation, and spirituality-adjacent stuff. And I also deeply value clarity & truth. I really don’t like the fuzziness I see so often when folk try to blend mysticism and science.
(I have a rant on this I’ll probably write up sometime. Here’s a YouTube version from late 2020. I’d like to do a kinder, clearer, & shorter version though!)
I also care a lot about world models, like economics and ecology. I’d love to see humanity flourish, and I think I see some parts of some paths to a beautiful future.
More concretely, here are some topics I tend to zoom in on:
Memetics. If biology is the study of self-replicating & self-repairing patterns of matter, then memetics is the study of self-replicating & self-repairing patterns of behavior. My guess is, awareness of memetics will be at least as big as literacy for what humanity becomes. This article by David Deutsch is a beautiful introduction.
Psychic structures. People are organized in particular ways inside. How they’re organized determines what reality looks like to them. Pointing out these structures can cause some of them to change. That process can be extremely psychoactive! I love this topic and also think it’s extremely useful. (One specific example is, I often use the Enneagram to point at specific snare traps people can fall into. Here’s a Twitter thread where I briefly name my take on the Enneagram’s core psychic structures.)
Attachment theory. This is kind of a “psychic structures” thing but is big enough to be named separately. It’s my opinion that how we experience reality arises from how we learned to love. Here’s a Twitter thread where I try to give a taste of what I mean. Here’s a slightly more in-depth Facebook post about it.
Math trauma. My Ph.D. is in mathematics education. It’s my opinion that most folk are never taught math. They’re mostly taught computation and obedience, usually in ways that make the true art too painful to find. True math is gorgeous & sacred. Here’s a rant I give in Twitter thread format about this topic.
Western magic. I love Western culture, and I love that it has some semi-hidden influences. One of them shows up as the fantasy genre in fiction, and the popularity of Harry Potter, and the weird way modern spirituality gets tied up with stuff like astrology and numerology. I also think there’s a sane & lovely way of exploring this stuff without getting too confused. I sort of separate out this topic; you can view the magic section’s intro here.
Death. I think it’s important. I don’t see culture orienting to it very clearly. It breaks my heart. I talk about my unusual angle on death in this post on my old blog.
If topics like these ones appeal to you, consider subscribing:
Sometimes — especially in the “magic” section — I’ll reserve some things for paying subscribers. But the lion’s share of what I want to talk about is free. I like writing and I like encouraging discussion.
My income is mostly through tutoring, coaching, and running group programs online. At some point I’ll post an overview of what I offer. In the meantime, if you think you might be interested in working with me and learning what we can do together, fill out an application so I have some context on you and so we can schedule a time to talk. (Ignore that it’s for “MAGE”; I’m in the middle of updating how folk reach out to me!)
I try to be pretty approachable. Please feel free to reach out, comment, bring your thoughts, let me know how my work is landing for you.
Welcome!
