Ayla El-Moussa - The Power of Dreams and the Subconscious

Mar 31, 2025

Ayla El-Moussa is a surreal artist renowned for her unique blend of photography and painting, with a focus on dreams and the subconscious. In this engaging conversation, she discusses the influence of her environment on creativity and the complexities of dreams, including lucid dreaming and recurring themes. Ayla shares her passion for books and films, reflecting on the art of adaptation, and tackles the role of gender in the art world. Through her personal anecdotes, she reveals how her family and experiences shape her artistic identity while advocating for authenticity in the evolving art landscape.

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ADVICE

Read Before Watching

Ayla El-Moussa's mom insisted she read the book before watching the movie adaptation.
She recalls enjoying Harry Potter books but finding the movie adaptations poorly executed compared to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

ANECDOTE

Rewatchable Classics and Lost Potential

DeeZe and Redbeard discuss favorite rewatchable films, citing Pulp Fiction, Glorious Bastards, and The Dark Knight.
Redbeard expresses sadness over Heath Ledger's untimely death, lamenting the loss of further Joker portrayals by the actor.

ANECDOTE

Phantom Thread on Repeat

Ayla El-Moussa prefers listening to movies while working in her studio instead of music.
She reveals Phantom Thread as her most-watched film, praising its cinematography, costumes, and intriguing storyline.

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In the 12th episode of Season five, we are joined by the wonderful artist and our good friend Ayla El-Moussa. Ayla is known for her surreal art that combines photography and painting while focusing on the human form, nature, balance and subconscious.

We dive into Ayla’s artistic influences, the power of dreams and the subconscious, her love of all things books and movies, the little book of sex questions, and so much more.

We're excited to announce that the rest of Season Five is now powered by Towns! Built on Base and running on River, Towns is a decentralized and permissionless group chat app that allows anyone to create & own digital town squares on their own rules. Available on web and iOS with full end-to-end encryption, users can join or create feature-rich Towns with native on-chain gating, paid memberships and more with tons of exciting features & rewards coming soon.

We'll also be doing a little collabing with our friends at SHILLR in a joint Town for our communities so make sure to tap in to get access to some Towns exclusive giveaways, rewards and more. Head to https://www.towns.com/ for more.

02:05 Intro
04:19 Fear of flying
10:35 How has moving across the country changed your art?
20:28 Dreams, subconscious, and lucid dreaming
27:48 Recurring dreams and deja vu
36:17 Love of Books and Movies
51:16 How has Ayla’s family influenced her art?
01:07:13 The Role of Gender in Art
01:14:33 Artistic evolution, The NFT boom of 2021, and building long-term value alongside patrons
01:31:28 The Little Book of Sex Questions
01:42:04 Exploring the Future of Sex Robots
01:49:07 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Projects

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As always, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Andy, Deeze, and guests may be invested in companies or tokens talked about on this podcast.