FULL MASTERCLASS: The Dangers of "Repressed Special"- A remarkable conversation with Brian Whetten

This is a presentation given at Leading Edge's New York Summit 2026. Bubba vulnerably and generously agreed to make it public.

Dan Lawrence is a former futures trader turned Jungian analyst and writer. This is the remarkable story of his silent childhood, precognitive dreams, work in high-security psychiatric units and a near-death experience in a Malaysian ICU. He did a pretty mind-blowing lecture about dreams for Leading Edge’s Accelerating Wisdom series. He’s someone who let his curiosity guide him from a very young age, and it took him through a traditionally successful path into a world filled with mystery and intuition. Obviously he would never say this, but listening to him speak, particularly towards the end of his story, I was really struck by the fact that this is what a successfully integrated life looks like.

Adam M. Curry is an inventor and tech entrepreneur in San Francisco. He thinks the idea that consciousness and reality may be interconnected is really cool. He was fascinated enough by the idea to organize the Collective Consciousness app project. Technology advances by trying something new, and he’s very excited to explore the horizons of “consciousness technology.” He was the recipient of the MIT Ceres Connection Prize at age 17 for an invention that converted electro-gravitational phenomena into signals that can help forecast seismic events, such as earthquakes. Adam has been featured in the Discovery Channel’s Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and is on the board of the Society for Scientific Exploration. He has worked at the Princeton’s PEAR Lab and Psyleron.

Bill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural evolution. As the founder of the Animas Valley Institute he has spent nearly 45 years guiding thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages.

Leading Edge member Allison Paradise holds degrees in neuroscience from Brown and Harvard. Based in Los Angeles, she’s the founder of The Epicenter. They work with children aged 7-22 on the cultivation and recovery of their intuitive capabilities. She’s a dear friend, and one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met, something I think comes across in our conversation.