What Your Dreams Are Telling You- with Theresa Cheung | EP 463

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Hi there, I'm Brian Smith and welcome to Griefed or Growth.

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And whether you're tuning in for the first time you've been walking this path with us for a while, I'm truly grateful that you're here.

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This show is all about helping you navigate the challenges of life with more clarity, purpose, and hope.

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Together we explore our life's biggest questions, who we are, why we're here, what happens when we die, and how do we make the most of our time while we're here.

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Today, I'm thrilled to welcome someone who has spent decades asking and helping others answer these and other profound questions.

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My guest is Teresa Chung.

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She's an internationally renowned author and spiritual thought leader known for her best-selling books on dreams, spirituality, and the paranormal.

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She's been named one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people.

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And you may recognize her from appearances on ITV's This Morning, the BBC, or her own podcast, White Shores.

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In today's episode, we're gonna dive deep into the mysterious and often misunderstood world of dreams.

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Why do some dreams form more real than waking life?

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What can recurring dreams and even nightmares teach us about our deepest fears, our desires, and our spiritual paths?

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Teresa will help us to code the messages that are subconscious and possibly even non-human entities might be trying to communicate through our dreams.

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We're also going to explore her thrilling debut novel, Nightborne.

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It's a chilling tale that blurs a line between waking life and the dream world.

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As we talk about the science, symbolism, and future of dream manipulation, Teresa raises some fascinating and maybe even a little frightening questions about the direction our technology is headed.

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So if you've ever had a dream that haunted you for days, or if you're curious about the deeper spiritual and psychological meaning behind your sleep time stories, this is the episode for you.

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And always, after you listen, I invite you to continue the conversation at my substack at grief2growth.substack.com.

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You'll find an article there about today's episode and conversation with other listeners.

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So with that, I'd like to welcome Teresa Chung to grief2growth.

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Thank you, Brian, for that wonderful introduction.

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And it's my honor to meet you because I have long admired your work.

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And I believe we spoke a few years ago, actually.

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And I'm just in awe of how you've grown your platform and all the healing and hope and comfort you are bringing across the globe.

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Thank you.

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It's absolutely my honor to be on your show.

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Thank you.

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That's very nice to hear.

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I appreciate that very much.

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So, Teresa, I know you've done a lot of work over the years, but I think this is your first novel.

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Tell me what inspired you to write a novel.

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Yeah, I am.

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I always say I jokingly say I'm not a serial killer.

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I'm a serial author.

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I have been extremely blessed to be given the opportunity to publish nonfiction title after nonfiction title in the area.

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I'm best known for dreams, but actually people who follow me know I write about astrology, manifesting rituals, angels, the afterlife, near death experiences.

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There's very few topics that isn't a treason, some book out there about so real, really blessed to be in that opportunity.

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But I have been writing since the late 90s in this area.

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It was my daughter actually who inspired me because she's a bookworm.

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She absolutely passionate about books and but it's all fiction, gothic romances and everything.

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And I've tried to encourage her to read nonfiction and she's just not interested in it, especially because her mum does that.

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I realized that she was, you know, there are many people like that who won't necessarily engage with a nonfiction title.

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It's just not their vibe because fiction is such a huge potential readership.

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And I'm passionate, as you are, about getting this spiritual message across, about dream decoding being a very important part of our lives.

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And I thought, well, why don't I try Dan Brown style, you know, to write a thriller about the dreaming mind so that the novel can be read on two levels.

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On the first level, hopefully it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

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And the reviews coming in, you know, have been that, yeah, it's a page turner.

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It's very fast moving.

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And you want to know what happens to the main character who suddenly wakes up one day and everybody's dreaming about her.

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She's a psychology professor deep into Jungian theory, etc.

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She wants and novel is her journey of finding out why on earth is she the subject of global nightmares, even people who don't know her.

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So you can read it on that level.

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But on another level, it's a subliminal messaging.

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As you read it, you will be getting a crash course in how to recall and understand your dreams and then use them for your personal and spiritual growth.

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So you can read it on two levels.

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So I hope subliminally, fiction readers will also go away knowing more about their dreams.

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And actually, again, the feedback I'm getting not only is the shocking cover.

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For some reason, people find it very shocking and disturbing.

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It's visceral reaction to it.

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You either love it or hate it.

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People see that are actually waking up the next morning and having more dream recall on their mind, which is what I want.

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And the same for the people who read it.

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I want people who read this book to wake up following morning or the mornings after with wild and wonderful dreams and gratitude for them on their mind.

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Wow.

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So when it comes to dreams, you know, there's there's different thoughts of dreams.

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Some people think it's just our subconscious reorganizing things.

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And but obviously, you think dreams are much more than that.

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So what would you describe dreams as being?

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What are they here to tell us?

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They hold up a mirror to your current mindset and what it is attracting into your life, both positive and negative.

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That's what they are.

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They kind of like offer you almost like an Akashic record, a snapshot of your current mindset.

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And that is so important because in our waking lives, many of us don't really know what we truly deep down at our core at a soul level think or feel.

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But dreams, they don't lie.

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They are your best friend.

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And often think dreams happen to them.

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They don't dreams are created by you for you.

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And they're all about you.

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And that can be both liberating and terrifying because often in our dreams, we come up close and personal with our deepest, darkest fears of the unknown of of the mystery of life itself.

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And that's why so many I believe 95% of our dreams are anxiety themed for that reason, because a lot of us during the day don't want to confront that.

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We distract ourselves with the noise and the bustle and the busyness of life and the distractions are waking lives are outside in.

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But at night, when we fall asleep and dream, the material world is paralyzed, logic and reason disappear.

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And what we are left with is the part of our brain that is pure intuition, pure creativity, but also pure compassion and empathy.

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And connect into that almost like when we recharge our phone.

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I believe the reason we sleep is to dream because we need to go back and reconnect with where our soul currently is to get a snapshot of where we currently are and what our current mindset, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, our words, what they are attracting into our lives.

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A lot of people get scared about that and think dreams.

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Oh, my goodness.

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If I dream something awful, it's going to happen.

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Well, potentially, dreams do showcase a potential future if you don't course correct a certain mindset.

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But it's so liberating because dreams also show if you wake up with a dream and you feel really unpleasant and you didn't like what you felt or saw.

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This is a wonderful transformative gift because it's your opportunity to take some time out, meditate, reflect on what you're thinking, feeling, doing and saying, and think about what it is attracting.

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And if you don't like what that dream showed you, it could potentially attract.

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You have the choice and the power to change the potential future you might be attracting in your dreams.

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Interesting.

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That's a really interesting way to look at it because I know, as you said, a lot of people will have a dream of something, a future of that, and they think this is bad.

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I'm bringing this into my life, but you're saying it's an opportunity to course correct.

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That's correct.

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But also dreams speak in this bizarre, weird, dark, symbolic language.

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Dreaming mind is a frustrated artist.

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You know, how artists and poets, they don't actually say literally what they mean.

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As the art critic, the poetry analyst have to read it and then go beneath the surface.

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A great work of art will not be just the picture.

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It will be what it stirs inside you and the meanings that you dig deep beneath it.

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Exactly the same as a poem.

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We all had poetry analysis at school.

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Some of us were better at it than others.

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First time you read the poem, you think, I do not understand a word of this.

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But then the teacher would come in and tell you about symbols, about metaphors, about association, about figurative language, about pathetic fallacy, when nature mirrors the mood of a character.

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And then you would suddenly get a eureka moment.

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And I get what the poet's trying to express here.

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It's wonderful.

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It's the language of visionaries.

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And even if you don't think you're creative or artistic or poetic in your waking life, in your dream state, you are.

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You are the ultimate visionary, the ultimate poet, the ultimate artist.

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We all have night vision.

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And it breaks my heart that people don't understand that about dreams.

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There's so much fear and misunderstanding about them, just as there is about the afterlife.

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My role is to try and remove that fear, translate it into excitement, because they are really powerful self-help tools for your personal and spiritual growth.

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If you know how to work with them.

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Yeah.

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And you mentioned something earlier about percentage of dreams that are anxiety-laden.

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And so I'm glad to find I'm not the only one, because my dreams are, they're all about me being lost.

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I'm usually, I'm like, I'm in a place.

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I don't know.

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I'm trying to get somewhere.

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I don't know where I'm going.

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I don't know what time I'm supposed to be there.

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I love that about you, because you have to be lost before you find yourself.

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And your dreaming mind is showing you all these scenarios and wanting you to rejoice in being lost, as hard as that may be, because that's what life is all about.

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If we all know all the answers and we found the, you know, the destination, our journey on earth is over.

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Yeah, yeah.

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The journey on earth is, I'm sure you know, it's an earth school.

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It's constantly being lost.

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And in that losing, opening your mind to a new perspective and finding a new direction to head down, it's all about the journey life.

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And people always think we've got to have the answers.

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It's all got to be neatly tied up.

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And that's why I go back to the poetry analogy again.

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Poetry doesn't make sense.

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And that's the whole point of it.

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Your dream is supposed to make sense.

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Yeah.

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They really aren't.

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They're supposed to make you fall in love with the questions and to ask better questions next time.

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You know, not necessarily to constantly get so obsessed with answers.

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And oh, that's all sorted, because answers actually, if you look at brain research, when people are given answers, their brain kind of quietens down.

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But when they're given a question, all the brain lights up in a way that it doesn't when you get an answer or one that satisfies you.

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So please, if you're listening, just fall in love with those words.

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What if, make those mantra and get comfortable with life being a question mark, because an analogy often uses, we know why a woman cries in pain when she gives birth to a child.

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So we're not that overly concerned unless in cases.

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So we kind of like a bit nonchalant, aren't we?

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Because we know it's just part of the process.

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Imagine we knew that about everything in life, the reason for the suffering.

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Wouldn't we just walk on by?

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Wouldn't activate our compassion?

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Our empathy and empathy and compassion are also why we're here on this earth, not only to be curious and open-minded and loving, but also to have empathy and compassion.

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I would not want to live in a world where everybody was nonchalant because we knew why all bad things happened.

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What a horrible world to live in.

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Yeah, that's a really interesting point, because I was just listening to a podcast earlier this week, it was Dr. Bernardo Castro, and he was talking about, whenever we're presented with a problem, let's say, we always look for the human minds let's find an answer to it.

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We've got to solve it.

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And the older I get, the more I realize it's like, we're not going to have all the answers while we're here.

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There's some things that are just, they're paradoxes.

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They're never going to make sense, I don't think.

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Yeah, but it's like life is experimental.

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I mean, I work with scientists and you're a scientist, learned a lot from their approach.

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They don't think of experiments that don't give the results they hope for as failure.

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They just see another learning experience.

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Informs them moving forward.

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And everyone, we've all faced heartache, disappointment, setbacks.

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You can just start thinking of this is just more wisdom.

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This is just helping me evolve.

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Everything, lesson or a blessing, is helping me evolve.

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It's a wonderfully liberating way to live.

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And I think that is spiritual awakening when you get to that process.

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And dream work, one of the reasons I'm so passionate about promoting it is dream work is the first step, because when you start writing down your dreams and thinking about the meanings and the questions and the emotions they trigger and the insights, you are starting to discover that life is an ongoing learning adventure.

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You have night school and you have day school.

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Fall in love with that learning process.

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You are really awakening spiritually when you don't even realize it.

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Every dream decoded is a kind of a mini spiritual awakening.

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Because it helps you understand yourself better.

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I think a lot of problems in life are people not really understanding what they're all about.

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You know, I think the journey to self-awareness is the first starting point for personal and spiritual growth.

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And that self-awareness will hopefully in time, you'll find compassion for yourself.

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You'll understand with your self-awareness why you messed up, why things didn't work out, why that person was right for you, why you lost someone, why all these things happened.

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So you've got your self-awareness, then hopefully self-compassion and then the holy grail, self-belief.

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That you believe that things happen to you for a reason and a purpose and a higher meaning that you may not understand right now, but you will one day.

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And I think self-belief is where we've all got work to do for various reasons.

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Childhood trauma, what's happened to us, a lot of us lack self-belief.

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But I think that's where we need to get in life is self-belief.

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Even if I'm messing up or getting it wrong, I still believe in my soul, my soul's journey and it doesn't matter because I'm learning.

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And in some ways, with my novel at the beginning, I'm not a fiction writer.

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I'm fully aware of that, opening myself up for criticism, but I'm not doing it for that reason.

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I'm doing it because I believe in my message about mainstreaming dream work and this is just me trying in another way.

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He launched a new radio show with UK health radio as well, weekly live show, which is terrifying.

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You know, people calling in to decode their dreams live and have special guests and stuff.

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Again, that may not work out.

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My novel may not work out, but I don't see any of them anymore as disappointments if they don't.

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I just feel that something I'm passionate about and I will learn and grow through them.

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And I'm sure you found that in your life when things don't work out or whatever.

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Somehow, other doors open and other connections form and it's following that invisible thread that you're supposed to be on.

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Yeah, because dream, every time you have a dream, you're reminded that there's more to you than your body because the mysterious world where you go in the dreams, it feels so real, doesn't it?

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And it is real because it's you in another state of consciousness.

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Yeah, you know, it's weird.

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Every once in a while, I'll have a dream and I'll become lucid in my dream and I'll just become fascinated by, I've created all this and I can feel the sunshine on my skin and I can feel that brick wall and it's really a strange feeling when that happens.

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You're reconnecting with the sacred part of you, your soul.

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And it's sad actually when people do become lucid.

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A lot of the first response is fear and panic and the dream collapses.

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The more meditation you do during the day and the more during the day that when things trigger you, you learn to stay calm, take deep breaths, do meditation.

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The more likely you are in the dream state when you suddenly become aware you're dreaming to stay calm too and keep the dream alive.

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And it's a very, very powerful thing, lucid dreaming.

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And I would encourage anyone who does wake up in their dream, not wake up, become conscious in their dream.

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They know that they're dreaming to actually say, well, I want to know, I want to see myself happy and fulfilled.

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I want to see myself doing what I want to do with my life.

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That is so powerful because the brain doesn't know the difference between the sleeping, the dreaming and the waking state.

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And if it sees that happening in the dreaming state, it will believe it's real.

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And again, going to self-belief.

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So when you wake up, you have experienced it in the dream state.

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A part of your brain is taking it as fact.

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And that's tremendous power because we talk about manifesting the power of positive belief to attract into your life what you want.

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So if you've dreamt something, you really can do it.

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That sounds very Disney cliche.

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If you could dream it, you could do it, but you can because a part of you, your deep core, unconscious part of you has seen it happen.

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Now believes fully in it being possible for you.

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You believe something's, truly believe something's possible from you from the deepest level outside.

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It's so much more likely to happen.

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It's so much more powerful to dream you can do something than to do your affirmations and your visualizations.

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That's outside in.

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Dream is inside out.

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Yeah, you mentioned earlier that a lot of times people think that dreams happen to them and you're saying that we create our dreams.

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So is there a way that we can work on creating the dreams that we want?

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Yes, first of all, make your life an open-minded curious one.

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Do meditation that because meditation taps into the intuitive and creative and dreaming part of your brain.

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Meditation is key and it doesn't have to be hours.

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I often speak to people who meditate for hours and I think who's got time for that?

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Just a couple of minutes a day where you go into that observer role, meditation really is stepping outside of yourself and noticing but not identifying with your thoughts.

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And we can all do that and we do actually do it in the dream state because dreaming really is meditating when you're asleep because you're going into an observer role and you're seeing symbolic reenactment of your current mindset.

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So do that more during the day, read more poetry in the day, practice the dreaming state that the language that the dreaming mind loves, read more fiction, listen to music that gives you goosebumps, all these things which immediately connect to the dreaming part of your mind.

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Do more of that during the day and above all start believing in the possibility of your dreams and that dreams matter because if you don't believe in that or you're still conditioned with the old-fashioned and it is very old-fashioned view that dreams are random firings of the brain.

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I would like to you to go and look at the latest sleep and dream research which shows that dream recall is a sign of a very, very creative and active brain and it's a sign of holistic well-being.

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So you want to look at that research and even some sleep scientists are now saying the reason we fall asleep is not to rest because when we are asleep our body moves and our brain is active dreaming.

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It's not to rest, it's actually to dream.

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They don't know why we dream but dreams seem to be fundamental for concentration, for memory, for emotional well-being.

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Yeah, they've done Even if you can't remember your dreams you are dreaming five or six times at night you're just not recalling it.

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Yeah, I know there are some people that say that they don't dream but that's just not true because if you don't dream you're actually go insane.

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No, we are dreaming beings.

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I mean if you don't drink brain scans show that every night at least five or six times we dream.

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You've just got into the habit of not recalling them.

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The inner housekeeping is happening every night but your dreaming mind that recalls not happening because your dreaming mind is a bit despondent because you so for many decades dismissed your dreams as being important or not taking them seriously it's very hard for them to break through that mindset barrier.

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So you've got to release that.

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I mean it's a bit like a friend who constantly texts you and you never text back.

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After a while that friend's going to get a bit like well they're not interested.

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You could think if you personify your dreaming mind like that.

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Think of it like someone who's trying to talk to you every night a therapist who's offering you golden precious wisdom but you're just not noticing it or paying attention to it.

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After a while it's going to kind of like get despondent.

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Actually reassure your dreaming mind that it matters that you're taking it seriously and listening to this interview because we're focusing on dream work may well do the trick.

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I really hope everyone who listens to this interview wakes up with a dream on their mind simply because for whatever time this interview runs we've been talking about dreams.

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So where your attention goes in the day is where your energy flows and what shows up in your dreams at night.

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So pay attention to what you're doing in the day.

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Before you go to sleep at night tell yourself I'm going to have a wonderful dream.

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Take me away dreaming mind.

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Beam me up and I'll remember it in the morning.

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Then in the morning don't immediately jump out of bed.

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Ideally I'd love you to wake naturally because alarm clocks are the enemy of dream recall because the transition from dreaming to waking is too sudden.

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You enjoy those liminal states those power inagogic states and it's only one or two minutes.

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Love people to train themselves to wake up naturally because your dream recall will just flower.

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And when you wake up ideally naturally stay still for one or two minutes is all it takes.

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Check in with your heart and your gut because intuitive memories from your dreams are often buried there.

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And just see what images and keywords surface and as soon as one does sit up and just write them down.

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Now in the morning we're all busy.

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We can't write a novel because sometimes dreams are so incredibly detailed.

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You know you can understand why they've inspired novels like Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Stephen King's novels, Dan Brown.

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You can understand why you know dreams have formed the basis for many great works of literature.

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In fact actually if you are a writer and have a creative block just write down your latest dream.

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You will immediately connect to the part of your brain that's intuitive and creative.

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So just write down a few key words like I don't know whatever you dreamt about window, road, dog, I know whatever that's enough.

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Those three symbols are enough and then leave it and then later in the day start doing some free association around those symbols and see where you can apply it to your waking life.

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But don't just do it for one dream.

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I often tell people don't start decoding your dream until you've got at least 20.

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You need to use the benefit of hindsight with dream work.

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That's a really neglected thing that people don't do with their dream work.

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They get hung up on one particularly vivid colorful dream that starts out and just obsess about that.

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But your dreaming mind is working on your behalf every single night.

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It's like a long-running TV series that you've got to tune into every night and if you miss an episode that's sad because you might miss a key part of the plot.

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So put a Monday in your dream is, write them down and gather harvest as I say in one of my titles.

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Harvest at least 20 dreams then start doing your dream decoding.

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See if you can detect patterns and themes.

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Also see how your dreaming mind has been like a poetic voiceover to your waking life and you will see it's parallel you.

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You will see the journey of your soul commenting on your waking life.

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You will see it because people are very skeptical about their dream work and have come to me and saying this is all nonsense.

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It's imagination.

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I always say the same.

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Come back to me when you've had 20 dreams sign and date them I mean because I need the date and give me a few key events in your waking life that have gone on at the same time.

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We then have a conversation and in all cases they've gone away with a totally radically transformed view about their dreams and how their dreams are trying to point out areas in their waking life or mindsets that are no longer serving them and that's why dreams are anxiety ones or areas in their life that are really precious and important and true to their values that they are neglecting in their waking life because their ego logic and reason and the material world is too noisy or the intuitive creative part of you to say scream to you as it tries to in the day it does try to.

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This matters for your heart your heart for your soul's journey but you're not paying attention to what truly matters so it has to resort to the dream state when the material world is quiet and down.

00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:23.680
Yeah thank you that's that's interesting so we've been talking about dreams and we talk about you know a lot of mine at least for anxiety field but there's also what we call nightmares.

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What purpose do nightmares serve?

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Well nightmares are just extreme dreams people think they're different they're basically when your dreaming mind has reached a point where it has sent you the rainbows and the unicorns and thing and the being late for an appointment or forgetting your lines on stage or being chased or being late it sends you these dreams night after night but you're not you're not paying attention to them so what it will do it will use tough love and resort to shock tactics because one thing is guaranteed with a nightmare you are going to reflect on it.

00:27:57.680 --> 00:27:58.299
Oh wow yeah.

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Yeah you are going and that's all your dreaming mind wants it wants that connection with you it's crying out to be embraced and to be loved it's it's your soul calling you and sometimes it will use vampires or serial killers or scenes of execution or violence or cheating or things that you would never contemplate doing in your waking life it will do that for one purpose and one purpose only to get your attention go away and reflect on where you currently are with your mindset that's all it wants.

00:28:32.279 --> 00:28:34.289
Okay that makes sense thank you.

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Yeah that's that's that's pretty wild because well another thing I'm going to ask you about is you know in the when we in our dreams some of us believe we're actually leaving our bodies we're visiting the astral planes etc and we have sometimes we have dream visits with our loved ones who have passed over but every once in a while someone will have a dream about their loved ones passed over that's a negative dream or it's a nightmare how would we talk about that?

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That is difficult because afterlife dreams when they're positive are very healing for the grief they remind you that death ends a life and not a relationship.

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If it's negative I would suggest that this actually is more going into the symbolic category of dreams rather than afterlife one you've got to look at the symbolism what your departed loved one is saying about an aspect of your own personality this is more about your personal growth than in my humble opinion it's not actually but your dreaming mind is resorting to using the avatar of a departed love one to say look what's going on in your mindset so think about what that departed don't think about them I know that's hard who they are but what keyword do you associate with them and how are you expressing that in your daily life go away and work on that it's all about Jung it is very Jungian it's about projection and integration and all that which is a very very deep psychology but if it's unpleasant because I believe the afterlife is always elevating and empowering and if you get an afterlife visit from a departed love one it should raise you up if on the other hand it drags you down this is time to look at what's going on in your own mindset this isn't about the departed love one they have become a symbol just like for example a rainbow is a symbol of hope or a snake is often a symbol of transformation you've got to think what has my departed love one what symbol have they become and what does it say about my current mindset that is a symbolic dream it's not in any way saying that your loved one is unhappy it is just your dreaming mind using their disguise to tell you something important for your personal growth the more positive afterlife dreams are spiritual experiences I believe dreams are a powerful afterlife sign and there is research into that you know from the University of Northampton here in the UK to show that afterlife dreams in I think it was over 90% of cases really helped the grief journey when all forms of other grief therapy didn't yeah you know I think I can see how that would be true I know that a lot of times when people the thing that people seem to cherish more than anything when they have a departed love one is that dream visit you know people say I want the dream visit I want them to come to me in my dreams but if they don't please don't despair they are coming to you in other ways they are coming to you in memories during the day they are coming through potentially afterlife signs or synchronicities or that song you hear on the radio that you know they have chosen it's you know it's their choice they have chosen not to do the dreams for whatever reason I don't know but they will be alive around and within you in other ways so please be like a failure or it's disappointing or they don't want to talk to me absolutely not they've just decided a better way to reach you is through signs through the people you meet through words you over here through music that gives you goosebumps then they're alive through a sudden memory you have when they jump into your mind for no reason these are very subtle afterlife dreams just as dreams nocturnal dreams are subtle signs as well so many ways and they also may not do it because they think you know that I'm alive you know that I haven't gone that my consciousness lives on you know that and I'm not going to pamper you you've got to get on with your precious life learn what you've got to learn and you know death is just a heartbeat away time doesn't exist on the other side from all my research with medians and I'm sure you that time doesn't exist it's an illusion and they're busy learning and growing because the learning doesn't stop on the other side they've got things to do yeah well you know and I appreciate that because that's why I try to encourage my clients to understand it's like the dream visit is nice but it's not the be all and end all of you know they come to us in many different ways and there may be reasons you may be a person that doesn't recall their dreams so they may have come to you and you don't remember or they probably have been there maybe they've been knocking away for night on night and you're just not missing right yeah that is maybe then that you haven't recalled that I haven't thought about that before that's beautiful Brian thank you and I also tell people be careful what you wish for with that revealing I have clients that they just want to have that dream visit and then I have one just recently that had the dream visit and got very frightened because it was it was so real that it was it scared them so switch fear to excitement I'm sure you told that that this is this is you've got when you feel fear it's where your growth is go where your fear is because it's where it's a signal that there's growth on the yeah that's an excellent point yeah this is phenomenon and called the this man phenomena I guess I hadn't heard of that before tell me about that fired my novel really it was I think it was 2008 where a marketing company put up a very sort of generic image online of a male and said so many people are dreaming of this person have you met this man and of course in our dreams we've all met strangers and the the sketch was so generic what it caught on it became a phenomenon that thousands of people were across the globe were dreaming of this man and there was a website set up but it actually turned out to be a marketing hoax it showed the power of suggestion and subliminal flashes but also it tapped into the appearance of a mysterious stranger in our dreams I mean all of us have had dreams with our people in it we don't know who they are you know but oh absolutely yeah and who are they because they're all they're all aspects of our own personality side our inner child expressed again symbolically but the dreaming mind and its cleverness makes them feel so real so that that actually did inspire Nightborne really because I was thinking you know imagine if you're you're a psychology professor and you're deep into Jung and the idea of projection and the power you know dream work is used in Jungian psychology Freudian dream analysis and suddenly you wake up and your pupils are saying I've dreamt about you and then strangers are saying oh my god you I saw you in my dream last night and then it starts to escalate what is going on why have you become an archetype of the stranger in people's dreams and what power have you got over people's minds then because if you're moonlighting in people's dreams you have tremendous power yeah that's right and can you trust yourself with that power that you become the most famous and the most dreamt about person on the planet you've kind of got people at a soul level and I just thought oh this is a gift I kind of thinking this is a movie come on Netflix I live near Netflix actually I can see Netflix I live close by well it would be a great way to mainstream dream work and capture people about the potential power of dream hacking and subliminal flashes when you see an image in prints and then it shows up in your dreams I think that's a really untapped area of mind control that we need to be careful about just imagine we all start dreaming of the same things or subliminal messages get inputted into our dreams now this was explored by Christopher Nolan of course in the movie Inception I was just thinking of Inception yeah yeah of course it is Christopher Nolan interestingly he does not use a mobile phone stays away from that distraction and is a vivid lucid dreamer it plots come to him in his dreams and you can see that all his movies so creative so rich and powerful dream symbolism but again you know if anyone was convinced about the power of the dreaming mind theory of relativity everyone the inspiration from it came to Einstein in a dream because when he was awake logic and reason stopped him making creative connections but in the dreaming state as I said logic and reason don't exist you suspend disbelief and when you are in that state you can make wild connections and leaps of faith you simply can't do when you're awake because your logic and reason won't let you yeah I heard I think it's true that when when Einstein was stuck on a problem he would go take a nap yes yes and actually napping is a great way for dream recall because it's fascinating when you nap it's like the body knows you're not going to go into the deep stages the non-dreaming stages of sleep you're not going to go there so what it does this person wants to be restored so I'm going to give them what they really need which is a dream so you go in that light stage of sleep immediately which is REM which is where most not all but most dreaming occurs and that's why you feel energized after a nap it's not because you slept or rest it's because you've dreamt on it and the same when you go to sleep at night people say oh a problem will be better in the morning it often is after a good night's sleep it's not the sleep it's the dreaming yeah the work's been going on behind the scenes whether you recall or not so if you do wake up in the morning with a solution for a problem or you just feel a bit lighter and better it's the dreaming that's what it all that work all that intuition creativity empathy and compassion working on your behalf trying to help you evolve it happens people every night dreams happen yeah as you were saying I was thinking you know sometimes when I'm meditating I will I guess I wouldn't really call it dreaming but I'll start to I guess it is kind of dreaming you know even though I'm not really asleep meditation like actually is dreaming with your awake it's the same like when you you get lost in a work of fiction that's dreaming with eyes wide open it is meditation is a way to dream you're absolutely right because again you go into this observational stance where you get an overview of your thoughts feelings actions and words but you don't identify with it think of every dream actually when you write it down as a kind of a meditation in the morning you're rising above you're getting a snapshot so yes meditation is dreaming in my humble opinion but conscious dreaming it's a kind of almost lucid dream when you're awake yeah that's a really good point but Teresa I know you have to go so I want to honor your time but tell us a little bit more about the book and where people can find it it's out now right it is out now and thank you so much because I'm most well known for my many many many many many non-fiction titles I'm very blessed and privileged I never take that for granted to write book after book in this area and more coming out this next year I had that six books coming out this year I'm very blessed but all my non-fiction publishers Harper, Hachette the ones that I work with I said to them I want to write a novel and I thought that they would maybe help me but they put me in a box not in life you get that when you struggle to be different people don't like it exactly and they just raised their eyebrows and went no way so very kindly an independent publisher took pity on me and this independent publisher I'm very grateful too they have been sending authors to my podcast over the years so we had a report and they said let's take a leap of faith in you so they very kindly allowed me to be different it's interesting actually because Nightborne is actually about being different because the lead character Professor Alice Sinclair who is a psychology professor she has different colored eyes and she hides that behind a pair of blue lenses so it's all about you know when you feel different or you're outside the box and learning how powerful actually being different is and being true to who you are at a soul level because dreams again are so honest they never lie to you they want you to know who you truly are and to love the messy the ugly the good the bad all of it because all of it is the bigger picture the tapestry of you that you need to just understand and have compassion for and see it as part of your soul's evolution so the book's about that and it's out there in the world and you know you're an author when you put books out it's like a baby isn't it you have to just let it fly and it finds its readers I mean the people who have read it have been like oh my god this is wild but I'm remembering my dreams thank you so I hope it's people who are meant to read it I think that with every book that a book will find its way to who needs to read it when they're open to it I truly believe that actually that's why I actually struggle with I'm much happier talking to you about dreams than pushing a product I've always struggled with that throughout my writing career my public hate me for it I often tell people that my dream dictionary which is my Harper Collins one you know my public say will you stop saying that because I say to people actually the best dream dictionary is the one you write yourself because your association becomes before the archetypal in the commons and just stop saying that but I do I very much believe the books will appear when you're ready and I love the fact that my books have appeared in dentist surgeries or left on the tube and people have contacted me like that I love that they are like symbols so I hope Nightborne will appear in the lives of people who are ready to really who are ready to dare to dream to dream so big well I think it's great that you're doing that crossover to reach the fictional because I'm the opposite of your daughter I don't read fiction I only read non-fiction so this will be this will be the exception for me when I get okay well brace yourself it's weird it's dark but please love it everyone well Teresa again thank you so much for being here it's been a pleasure I'd love to have you back I'd love that thank you Brian I'm privileged to talk to you thank you all right and people can reach you it's TeresaChung.com right it is I'm on Instagram as well at the TeresaChung all right cool that'll the links will be in the in the show notes all right well enjoy the rest of your day Teresa sweet dreams everyone bye