In the first half of the show, criminal profiler Pat Brown discussed profiling techniques, and a variety of serial killer and murder cases. She first got interested in profiling when a man she was renting a room to turned out to be a murder suspect. More profilers are needed to look at cases, especially when they are fresh, she noted. A serial killer is defined as someone who kills at least three times with some down time in between murders, she explained, adding that there are more serial killers than one would imagine-- probably 4 or 5 in any major city.
Such killers tend to have a disdainful attitude toward society, and are motivated to kill because of the enjoyment they get from the power and control, she detailed. In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer's cannibalism, his control went on even after his victims were dead, Brown suggested. Not all serial killers are men-- occasionally mothers kill their children, such as with the case of Marybeth Tinning, who successively murdered all nine of her children because she liked the attention she got surrounding their deaths. Brown cautioned especially needy single people to not be too gullible or get involved too quickly when an attractive new person suddenly comes into their life. It can turn out to be a 'Black Widow'-type situation, in which the person is after their money, or in the case of a molester, after their children.
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In the latter half of the program, Robert Moss, the pioneer of Active Dreaming, talked about whether we can we really "hack" into dreams like in the new movie Inception, and the concept of "shared dreaming." While Inception has created a buzz around lucid or shared dreaming, it depicts its usage for espionage and negative purposes. Though such psychic intrusions are possible, Moss said, his focus has been on the positive qualities of dreaming, such as practiced in the shamanic tradition. "Dreaming is not fundamentally about sleep, it's fundamentally about waking up...You don't have to go to sleep in order to dream," he declared.
He has developed techniques for people to became active, conscious participants in their dreams, and enter shared dreams together, such as through shamanic drumming, which helps the mind screen out distractions. He also cited the hypnagogic state (between dreaming and waking) as a hotbed for creativity. Moss gave examples of how it can be helpful to consciously face dream adversaries, which can lead to powerful resolutions or transformations. In terms of dream analysis, he stressed the importance of examining one's first feelings upon waking from a specific dream.