March 4, 2026 • 29 mins
What if your dreams aren’t random at all but a built-in system for emotional reset, memory sorting, and future rehearsal? We kick off season two by moving dreams from “weird night stories” to a reliable toolkit for self-awareness, drawing on neuroscience and Jungian-informed coaching to make sense of vivid scenes, recurring figures, and those “epic” marathons that leave you buzzing.
We unpack why so many people default to external meanings, and how that habit misses the point. Instead, we show how to listen inward: pick one charged character, ask what voice of you it holds, and trace it to real tensions in your day. Along the way, we share a raw personal account of a childhood nightmare that resurfaced in college, revealing how “template dreams” return when the same core emotions rise again. That story opens the door to five dream functions you can work with right away: rehash your day’s emotional weight, rehearse future challenges, recalibrate your emotional capacity, resolve problems when defenses drop, and reveal the dynamics of your personality.
You’ll hear simple recall methods that actually help, and how paying attention can flood you with rich dream material. We address overwhelm too, showing how to trim a sprawling dream into a focused, useful thread. From flying and falling motifs to the shift in themes across life stages, we connect symbols to development without forcing one-size-fits-all meanings. The takeaway is practical and hopeful: even if you don’t remember every detail, your night mind is on your side. When you engage with it, you get more bandwidth, clearer patterns, and better choices the next day.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves big questions, and leave a quick review so more curious minds can find us. What recurring dream keeps tapping your shoulder—and what might it be training you for?
You can connect with the cohosts through their respective websites:
AFCCounselors.com (Dr. Shalley) / https://www.inyourdreams.coach/contact (Dr. Kelley)
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SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
Season two, episode one.
SPEAKER_02 (00:06):
Hey Jim, it's good to see you, man.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
Good to see you.
Better to see you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:11):
Welcome to Therapy Dreams.
What's the name of this show?
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
DC D.
I don't know.
Therapy Coaching and Dreams.
What's the C?
Coaching.
Coaching and Dreams, that'strue.
SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
Welcome to the second season of Therapy
Coaching in Dreams.
I'm your co-host, Steve Kelly.
I'm here with Jim Shaley.
And we're digging a littledeeper into some of the things
that we do both for a living butalso for enjoyment as we try and
enhance self-awareness and liveour life in hopefully more
(00:50):
fulfilling ways and bring thatto others.
And that's part of what thispodcast is all about.
This season is going to focus alittle bit more on the dream
portion of the journey and givesme an opportunity to talk a
little bit about some of thethings that I use in my
practice.
But Jim, in our conversationsover the course of our
(01:12):
friendship, we have had so manytimes where we've shared dreams
with each other and tried topick them apart and offer
suggestions of what they mightmean in our life's journey.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
No, I love the fact that you've uh actually embraced
that whole other side of ourdiscussions because you're much
more well-versed than I am whenit comes to dreams.
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
So your insight, though, once we get to that
portion of the dream where itgives us insight as to who we
are, your insight intopersonality and relationships
and the ways in which we takewhat's inside and project it
outward onto others and to othercircumstances is so helpful in
(01:53):
taking the work of dreams andapplying it to our life.
So I'm glad we're going to havethis discussion over the course
of the next several weeks.
(02:19):
I have clients that come to mewith very different needs and
interests when they come.
Some come because their dreamsare troubling to them.
They are specifically comingbecause they know that that's an
area of interest.
(02:42):
And got stuck in trying tounderstand what it might mean.
So they've talked to a spouse,they've talked to a friend, and
none of what that discussionleads to is fulfilling or
satisfying for how theyunderstand the dream.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
And so Do you often ask that do you often ask them
first what they feel about thedream or not?
Aaron Powell Almost always.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
Uh because I want to honor the work that somebody
does to apply it to their ownlife.
And if something that they'vedone has been useful, I I can
build on that, but I don't wantto deny it.
If it brought about greaterself-awareness, if it gave them
direction, great.
You've been doing work on it.
If they want to go deeper withit, then I try and provide them
(03:25):
with some tools that can helpthem to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
Aaron Powell Do they have a bias as far as if they
dream about a certain person,they say want to believe it's
about that person?
Or I mean how do they navigatethat?
SPEAKER_02 (03:36):
Aaron Ross Powell I would say generally speaking, in
our culture, that's always thedefault.
Our culture externalizes dreamwork in overt ways.
And I think that ranges from anatural tendency that if I see
my high school friend in adream, I think somehow I'm
supposed to contact my highschool friend and make sure
(03:58):
everything's okay.
To the sometimes theover-spiritualizing bias of the
religious culture that somehowthinks that every dream is
prophetic about something that'sabout to happen and I have to
step in and do something.
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
The guy who thinks it's about contacting somebody
from high school, you mightfollow through with that.
The guy from high school goes,What are you calling me for?
I haven't talked to you in 40years.
What are you doing?
What are you stirring up insideof me anyway?
SPEAKER_02 (04:33):
Well, I I have had individuals come to me and say
that they had this dream andthey called up somebody that
they hadn't talked to in a long,long time and asked, Are you
okay?
Are you still alive?
Because they had a dream thatthey passed away and they
assumed that this was theiradmonition to somehow help them
avert a disaster.
(04:54):
And so they might come and say,So what was that all about?
And so it's fun to then try andunpack for them other ways by
which to look at a dream.
SPEAKER_00 (05:03):
Got it.
SPEAKER_02 (05:04):
Um I will also have people who come that are
intrigued by dream work, butdon't remember many of their
dreams, and they simply want totalk about their anxiety, their
depression, their relationshipconflict, their family issues,
pretty normal life things thatare taking place and are
(05:27):
intrigued at the notion of dreamwork principles to be used
regardless of whether they'reremembering their dreams every
night.
And that happens quite often.
So a person has plateaued intheir ability to dig deeper in a
particular area of their lifeand they feel stuck and will
(05:48):
reach out to me and will, ifthey have a dream, we'll use
that as a starting point.
But if they don't, I just talkabout dream work theory, would
say that this particular issuemaybe, and then describe what it
might indicate in their journey,and how a lot of the principles
that you obtain or or practicein dream work can be used even
(06:14):
if you don't remember a dream.
So we spent we spent a season,first season of this podcast
talking about personality theoryand specifically a Jungian
approach.
And Jung was huge on dreams.
I mean, that was a reallyimportant part of his life work.
(06:34):
And so it's this great marriage.
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
He may have been dreaming his whole life.
Who knows?
I think that's true.
If you uh see his big red book,it's uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:44):
Yep.
I I have a copy of that and havea tough time getting through it.
He never quite comes out of thedream.
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
Boy, he doesn't.
He wrote.
Man, did he write?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
Yeah, he did.
He did.
So anyway, uh people come for avariety of reasons, and I'll
have some clients that everytime we meet, they'll have one
or two dreams that they want totalk about.
And I have other clients thatmay go a couple months before a
dream comes to their attentionto add to the discussion, to add
(07:18):
to the coaching.
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Do they notice that when they pay attention to their
dreams, they tend to dream moreor they remember them more, or
is there any connection betweenthe work and actually dreaming
more about it, or at leastremembering more?
Does it ever have thatadvantage?
SPEAKER_02 (07:35):
Absolutely.
I think it's a surprise to mostpeople who don't pay attention
to their dreams that everyonedreams every night.
SPEAKER_01 (07:43):
Aaron Powell No, I think it's fascinating when
people say, Yeah, I don't Idon't dream.
I go, well, I don't think that'strue, but you know.
SPEAKER_02 (07:50):
Yeah, that is, I think, the conclusion for many
people.
They don't say I don't remembermy dreams.
They just say I don't dream.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (07:58):
And the correction of that is a surprise to some
because on average, everyonedreams somewhere in the
neighborhood of an hour and ahalf every night.
And it's interesting forsomebody who chooses to work on
dreams and actually practiceremembering, because there are
some things you can do toenhance remembering your dreams,
(08:21):
that there comes a point in timewhere you have too much dream
material and you have to pickand choose what it is you're
going to work on, because it canbe overwhelming.
Like I can go times when I mightrecord as many as six dreams in
a night, and I usually dictatethem so that I and then there's
a translator that puts it intowritten form.
(08:43):
I use Apple products, and so Itheir notes is a great way to
dictate, and then I have it outin written form.
Um but I don't I don't have timethat later that day to do it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:54):
I was gonna say I was gonna say, yeah, that's all
you get done.
SPEAKER_02 (08:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:59):
So you So then you would you'd quit sleeping so you
wouldn't dream anymore, so youcould actually get something
done.
SPEAKER_02 (09:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So even sometimes I'll havesomebody that will come and
they'll have what I call an epicdream, this dream that just goes
on and on and has multiplescenes and so many characters.
And it can be overwhelming tosay, so where do we even begin
with this?
And in in moments like that, mysuggestion is, well, let's just
(09:31):
start with a character.
Pick a character that seemssignificant to you, that's in
the dream.
Doesn't have to be somebody youknow.
It could be a a character thathas no recognizable facial
characteristics just tell mewhat was going on with that
character, and we'll spend timelooking at whether the character
(09:54):
was male, female, orandrogynous.
Is this a masculine voice ofyours?
Is this a feminine voice ofyours?
If it is, what part of you isgoing through this portion of
the plot line in the dream?
And what's going on in your lifethat might have some connections
to what it is that thischaracter is either doing or
saying or acting out?
(10:15):
So we try and whittle it down tosomething that's manageable for
the time that we have.
Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01 (10:22):
Yep.
So I'd I'd love to.
Do you uh pay a lot of attentionto dreams that seem to be more
pronounced, or they they youremember more vividly than other
ones or not?
SPEAKER_02 (10:36):
I go with whatever the energy is for the person
who's talking about them.
Aaron Powell Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
Because sometimes sometimes if you're if you dream
and then you wake up, you'remore likely to remember that
dream.
Is that fair or not?
Aaron Ross Powell Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (10:49):
Because most periods of dreaming during sleep are
right before you wake up.
So that's why that is often thecase.
The exception to that is that atnight when you're falling
asleep, sometimes you go throughan REM rapid eye movement dream
phase before you go into deepsleep.
So sometimes right after youfall asleep, you might have a
(11:12):
dream that awakens you, afrightening dream, a nightmare
of sort.
But as the evening progresses,as the night progresses, usually
the dream period is part of thesleep cycle right before you
wake up.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
So can I ask you a personal question?
Of course.
So what about dreams intrigueyou so that you have made such
an emphasis in your own lifeabout them?
Is there a reason for that, oris it just it just was
fascinating, interesting foryou, or what what motivated that
that direction?
SPEAKER_02 (11:47):
It probably goes back to childhood that then came
back in college.
I was in college, I think it wasmy sophomore year, and I had a
dream that I hadn't had inyears, probably over a maybe
over a decade.
And it was a childhood dreamthat happened over and over
(12:09):
again.
And when the dream occurred, itwas so unsettling, kind of drew
up some memories from the past,that I felt like I needed to go
see somebody about it.
I'll tell you what the dreamwas.
As a child, I would have thisdream where I had like a godlike
view over what was taking place.
Always took place in the housethat I lived in at that moment
(12:33):
when I had the dreams.
And I could see a car pull up infront of the house and park on
the curb in front of the house.
And a man would get out and Iwould run and tell my mom, Mom,
he's here, he's here.
And my mom would always respond,okay, go and hide.
And the only thing that would bedifferent in the dream would be
(12:56):
where I would hide in the house.
Sometimes it'd be in a closet,sometimes it was under the bed,
sometimes I'd be under thecovers and try and lay as flat
as I could to look like a sheetor a blanket or something.
And somehow after that wouldhappen.
SPEAKER_01 (13:09):
Has that been your motivation to stay thin?
That's exactly right.
Anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (13:15):
You're so good at this, Jim.
You get right to the heart ofsomething.
I'd love there to be a littlebit of mystery for the listener,
so we don't get right to theconclusion.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
I'm so sorry.
I jumped right there.
SPEAKER_02 (13:26):
I'm so sorry.
It's hard not to when you knowas much as you do.
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
That's absolutely true.
Good lord, my brain's full ofstuff.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
I would watch as the man would come to the front
door, he'd walk right in, and itwouldn't matter where I had
hidden myself, he would walkstraight to where I was, and he
had in his hand an electric cowprod, and he would shock me, and
I would wake up out of bed in apanic.
That was my childhood dream.
(14:00):
Well, I don't remember theincident, but I remember being
told of the incident that on, Ithink it was a Saturday, my dad
had gone to the office for somereason.
My mom was alone with my oldersister and myself, just the two
of us, and my mom.
She received a phone call, butnobody said anything.
(14:21):
But somehow she knew that it wasthis construction worker from a
project that was in the propertynext door that had acted in some
way toward her in a creepyfashion.
She immediately called my dad.
My dad says, make sure the doorsare locked, I'll be home as fast
as I can.
And my mom saw this guy pull upin a car in front of the house.
(14:47):
And she gathered my sister andI.
I was preschool.
I was a kind of a toddler.
And we hid under a table in theguest bedroom.
And I had this vague memory ofmy mom having us huddled and
saying, uh, just be quiet, justbe quiet, kids.
And him trying the front doorand not getting in and walking
(15:09):
around the house and looking inthe windows, and I could see his
shadow at the window of theguest bedroom.
Eventually he leaves, my dadshows up.
I think they file a policereport, but they never talk to
us about it again.
That was as a toddler.
When I'm a grade school kid, I'mhaving this dream again and
again, and then eventually itdisappears.
(15:30):
It's a long way to get to thefact that in college the dream
comes back.
And it was very unsettling.
And I thought, I've got toprobably see a counselor.
I'd never seen a counselorbefore.
And I go to the schoolcounselor, and I walk in,
introduce myself, intrigued byhis office, all the books,
(15:52):
stacks of paper on his desk.
I sit down, and he asks me whatbrings me in.
And I describe to him much ofwhat I just said to you.
His response was, okay, let'smeet together for several times,
and we'll work on trying to helpyou not remember your dreams.
(16:20):
And I looked at him and Ithought, huh, I don't know much
about therapy, but but thatdoesn't seem like the right
solution here.
So I, you know, I'm kind of apeacemaker.
I said, huh, okay.
Let me I'll call back about myschedule.
(16:43):
And I left in my head thinking,I'm never coming back to this
guy again.
Geez, that's funny.
So apparently you don't rememberthis, but some time passed, not
much time, but I actually toldyou about didn't give you all
the details, but said that Iwent to a therapist and about a
(17:07):
dream and I'm never going back.
And you put me in contact withyour brother.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
Oh, is that right?
SPEAKER_02 (17:14):
Yeah.
And that was the start.
I had never met him, and thatwas the start of a conversation
about dreams with your brother,who had been on a significant
journey by that time with hisown dreams.
And the literature that he sentme and the authors he encouraged
me to read spanned the next, oh,I don't know, 40 years of
(17:37):
digging into it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
If I knew that, I forgot that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
So that's I think have you told me that dream
before?
I don't know if I have.
I I'm not sure I have.
It's it sounds familiar, but Idon't know specifically.
But that's interesting.
So cool.
So that kind of put me on thejourney.
So do you get really you'regonna leave the audience kind of
hanging?
What what what does this did youfigure out what the dream meant?
(18:06):
You were traumatized by yourmother, by your mother when you
were a toddler?
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
Well, I I you already gave away the punchline.
It's been about my weight lossall of these years.
I gained a few pounds in collegeand it came back to me.
So yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
So yeah, I'll jump to somethingthat we might come back to later
on in this season.
(18:35):
And it's this conviction that Ihave that we all have certain
template dreams, dreams that ifwe pay attention to them, will
appear again and again, maybeslightly different form, but
they are enigmatic.
They are they are the way bywhich we address a specific
(18:57):
emotion in our life.
So dreams are in part emotionalregulation.
And we'll get into that a littlebit more later.
But the way by which theyregulate our emotions is that we
play out some of those emotionsat night so that we can store in
long-term memory factual piecesthat are not as emotionally
(19:20):
laden, and we can use them astools for addressing things in
the future.
Because part of what we'velearned from neuroscience is
that dreams in part rehash whathas been.
Excuse me.
But one of the reasons we rehashwhat has been is that we are
rehearsing for future issuesthat we need to survive.
(19:43):
Far more essential centuries agowhen we would face far more
threats during our day, but westill face very emotional
threats during our day.
And those things that we haveexperienced in the past get
replayed rarely in identicalfashion, but the emotional
weight is what's significant.
(20:06):
So the fear that I experiencedas a child when I was getting
frightened again of somethingthat I didn't understand, of
something that was coming intomy life that was bigger than I
knew what to do with, a templatedream comes back and plays out a
(20:26):
scenario again that allows me towrestle with that emotion at
night to try and dissipate theemotional weight so that I have
emotional capacity the next day.
So what we face every day, wedon't have time to address all
of the emotional weight of agiven day.
An example would be I have anear head-on accident in an
(20:49):
intersection, and nothinghappens, but I don't have time
to process it because I'm latefor an appointment.
Well, the adrenaline pumped, theendocrine system kicked in, all
kinds of things were happeninginside that had an emotional
weight to it, but my day's beenso busy.
At night, if I don't have enoughdream opportunity to process the
(21:13):
emotional weight, the next dayI'm gonna be emotionally
exhausted.
I'm gonna be inattentive.
I I might say to somebody, I'msorry, you can't bring that to
me now.
I don't have the bandwidth forit.
And it's actually true.
I don't because I haven'trecalibrated my emotions.
So what I was facing, myestimation, is some things that
(21:35):
were happening during mysophomore year in college that
felt a little overwhelming and Ididn't understand them.
And that lack of understanding,like being a little kid where a
mom tells you to do this, itreplays a template dream for me
so that that emotion can beprocessed at night.
So dreams do this work for usevery night, whether we pay
attention to them or not.
(21:56):
But if we pay attention to them,we have the Ability to partner
with the dreams and raiseself-awareness and become far
more emotionally mindful andattentive to our personality
style and how we deal withthings and move through those
phases or chapters or moments inour life with greater clarity
(22:20):
and greater freedom because weunderstand them better.
But if we don't pay attention tothem, dreams are still going to
do their work.
They're just fighting againstour lack of self-awareness.
But every night they're going torehash things that have taken
place.
They're going to rehearse forsomething that may come up.
They're going to recalibrate ouremotions so we have the capacity
(22:41):
for the next day.
They're going to resolveproblems because our defenses go
down and we can see issues froma new perspective.
And if we pay attention, theywill reveal to us parts of
ourselves that we're not payingattention to.
So that's great.
That's what neuroscience isteaching us.
And that's why I think it's soimportant to consider dreams and
(23:05):
invite ourselves into a new wayof seeing them and a new way of
seeing ourselves.
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
So it's fascinating in the sense that the dreams are
trying to help us processperhaps events that we haven't
fully processed.
And then you end up trying toprocess the dream to make sense
out of what the dream is about.
So you're you're like doubleprocessing in that sense.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (23:29):
Absolutely.
The the first four of thefunction of dreams, again, are
going to happen whether we payattention to it or not.
The rehashing, the rehearsingfor the future.
It generalizes what I've learnedand it plays out scenarios that
I've never considered as a wayto prepare me for what might
(23:51):
happen in my world.
It triggers the endocrinesystem.
It causes me to make choices anddecisions.
It takes what I've learned andtries to generalize it to other
events.
Again, whether I remember it ornot, it's making neural
connections all of the timeduring that dream phase of
(24:12):
sleep.
It recalibrates to give meemotional capacity for the next
day.
I love the resolve side of itbecause so many fields of
science and understanding havehad major breakthroughs by
individuals who have had a dreamthat kind of broke open a new
way to think about things.
(24:33):
And all of us, probably whetherwe've realized it or not, have
awakened with a freshperspective on a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
Well, yeah, it's kind of like people say, Let me
sleep on it.
SPEAKER_02 (24:43):
Yep.
Yep.
Literally, that's what dreamshelp us do is to resolve
problems.
Because at night the defensemechanisms go down.
Our our executive functionportion of the brain tells us
what is not possible.
It tells us what gravity does.
It tells us what's going tohappen in social dynamics based
on our defenses and ourexperiences.
SPEAKER_01 (25:05):
Well, like an executive does.
Executive tries to dictate yourlife.
So the executive function triesto dictate our lives.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:13):
And when the executive drops off the playing
field, the other employees havefun.
That's why in the dream we cansometimes fly.
We can play basketball muchbetter than we can in real life.
We can do all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01 (25:36):
I mean, I had so many dreams where I could I
would jump in an airplane, Icould, I took off, I fly all
around, and I could land thatsucker.
I used to have that all thetime.
Yeah.
unknown (25:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
I mean, and then some some would say the dream
you have uh uh developmentallywhen you're falling, it's it's
an a way to balance your ego.
You're getting too full ofyourself.
And so that's one of theinterpretations of that is that
you fall to kind of bring bringbalance to this the ego that's
developing too much.
Because typically you have thosedreams in adolescence or as you
(26:09):
young adulthood.
So that flying dream is alwayscool because I would always wake
up thinking, man, I can fly anairplane.
Oh no, no, you can't.
SPEAKER_02 (26:21):
But in the dream world reality, there is
something very real that'staking place inwardly that
relates to that sense of theability to fly.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
Yeah, and a sense of incredible freedom.
Like I remember as I was doingit thinking, wow, this is this
is amazing.
And the period of time that Iwas having that, I was in
graduate school and I was in my20s, and so yeah, I think you
are full of what life's gonna beand it what are the
possibilities.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:51):
It is interesting to consider how dreams shift as we
develop over time and age.
We become concerned about adifferent set of things, and so
our dreams shift in accordancewith that.
Well, that's my hope for thisfirst episode was just to
introduce what the function ofdreams have come to be known to
(27:15):
us from the neuroscienceperspective as well as the
psychology side, and to tie inhow this fits as we move into
the next several episodes.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (27:26):
I mean, it is fascinating to think that a
third of your life you yousleep.
Right.
And so to just common sensewould suggest there's gotta be
something happening there thatis worthwhile for you we humans
to take a look at.
And you're right.
It'll it'll be it'll be great.
That was a great description ofof moving forward in this area.
So I look forward to it.
SPEAKER_02 (27:46):
Yeah.
Me too.
I'm glad we're digging in, and II appreciate you bouncing back
and forth with me on this.
I think that you said there'sgot to be something there.
The scientific understanding ofthe development of who we are as
humans, you can't find much inwho we are that is senseless or
(28:10):
wasted.
If it has stayed with humanityconsistently for so many
generations, centuries,millennia, it it says that
there's something there thatit's doing.
Let's try and understand it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:25):
Well, yeah.
And how many people have writtenbooks or horror movies based
upon their dreams?
I mean, that's pretty common.
People wake up and startled andthey put it put it on paper, and
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:36):
Yeah.
Uh maybe we'll talk about acouple of those movies in a
future episode, but for now,this is probably a good place to
stop.
Jim, as always, it's great to bewith you.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Great to be with you too, Dee.
SPEAKER_02 (28:45):
Thanks.
Thanks, man.
That's it for this episode ofTherapy, Coaching, and Dreams.
If you're enjoying the podcast,we'd love for you to follow,
rate, or share it with someonewho might appreciate it as well.
Thanks for being here, and untilnext time, keep growing, stay
(29:06):
curious, and take good care ofyourself.
Yeah, now it's good stuff.
Season two, episode one.
SPEAKER_02 (00:06):
Hey Jim, it's good to see you, man.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
Good to see you.
Better to see you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:11):
Welcome to Therapy Dreams.
What's the name of this show?
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
DC D.
I don't know.
Therapy Coaching and Dreams.
What's the C?
Coaching.
Coaching and Dreams, that'strue.
SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
Welcome to the second season of Therapy
Coaching in Dreams.
I'm your co-host, Steve Kelly.
I'm here with Jim Shaley.
And we're digging a littledeeper into some of the things
that we do both for a living butalso for enjoyment as we try and
enhance self-awareness and liveour life in hopefully more
(00:50):
fulfilling ways and bring thatto others.
And that's part of what thispodcast is all about.
This season is going to focus alittle bit more on the dream
portion of the journey and givesme an opportunity to talk a
little bit about some of thethings that I use in my
practice.
But Jim, in our conversationsover the course of our
(01:12):
friendship, we have had so manytimes where we've shared dreams
with each other and tried topick them apart and offer
suggestions of what they mightmean in our life's journey.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
No, I love the fact that you've uh actually embraced
that whole other side of ourdiscussions because you're much
more well-versed than I am whenit comes to dreams.
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
So your insight, though, once we get to that
portion of the dream where itgives us insight as to who we
are, your insight intopersonality and relationships
and the ways in which we takewhat's inside and project it
outward onto others and to othercircumstances is so helpful in
(01:53):
taking the work of dreams andapplying it to our life.
So I'm glad we're going to havethis discussion over the course
of the next several weeks.
(02:19):
I have clients that come to mewith very different needs and
interests when they come.
Some come because their dreamsare troubling to them.
They are specifically comingbecause they know that that's an
area of interest.
(02:42):
And got stuck in trying tounderstand what it might mean.
So they've talked to a spouse,they've talked to a friend, and
none of what that discussionleads to is fulfilling or
satisfying for how theyunderstand the dream.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
And so Do you often ask that do you often ask them
first what they feel about thedream or not?
Aaron Powell Almost always.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
Uh because I want to honor the work that somebody
does to apply it to their ownlife.
And if something that they'vedone has been useful, I I can
build on that, but I don't wantto deny it.
If it brought about greaterself-awareness, if it gave them
direction, great.
You've been doing work on it.
If they want to go deeper withit, then I try and provide them
(03:25):
with some tools that can helpthem to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
Aaron Powell Do they have a bias as far as if they
dream about a certain person,they say want to believe it's
about that person?
Or I mean how do they navigatethat?
SPEAKER_02 (03:36):
Aaron Ross Powell I would say generally speaking, in
our culture, that's always thedefault.
Our culture externalizes dreamwork in overt ways.
And I think that ranges from anatural tendency that if I see
my high school friend in adream, I think somehow I'm
supposed to contact my highschool friend and make sure
(03:58):
everything's okay.
To the sometimes theover-spiritualizing bias of the
religious culture that somehowthinks that every dream is
prophetic about something that'sabout to happen and I have to
step in and do something.
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
The guy who thinks it's about contacting somebody
from high school, you mightfollow through with that.
The guy from high school goes,What are you calling me for?
I haven't talked to you in 40years.
What are you doing?
What are you stirring up insideof me anyway?
SPEAKER_02 (04:33):
Well, I I have had individuals come to me and say
that they had this dream andthey called up somebody that
they hadn't talked to in a long,long time and asked, Are you
okay?
Are you still alive?
Because they had a dream thatthey passed away and they
assumed that this was theiradmonition to somehow help them
avert a disaster.
(04:54):
And so they might come and say,So what was that all about?
And so it's fun to then try andunpack for them other ways by
which to look at a dream.
SPEAKER_00 (05:03):
Got it.
SPEAKER_02 (05:04):
Um I will also have people who come that are
intrigued by dream work, butdon't remember many of their
dreams, and they simply want totalk about their anxiety, their
depression, their relationshipconflict, their family issues,
pretty normal life things thatare taking place and are
(05:27):
intrigued at the notion of dreamwork principles to be used
regardless of whether they'reremembering their dreams every
night.
And that happens quite often.
So a person has plateaued intheir ability to dig deeper in a
particular area of their lifeand they feel stuck and will
(05:48):
reach out to me and will, ifthey have a dream, we'll use
that as a starting point.
But if they don't, I just talkabout dream work theory, would
say that this particular issuemaybe, and then describe what it
might indicate in their journey,and how a lot of the principles
that you obtain or or practicein dream work can be used even
(06:14):
if you don't remember a dream.
So we spent we spent a season,first season of this podcast
talking about personality theoryand specifically a Jungian
approach.
And Jung was huge on dreams.
I mean, that was a reallyimportant part of his life work.
(06:34):
And so it's this great marriage.
SPEAKER_01 (06:37):
He may have been dreaming his whole life.
Who knows?
I think that's true.
If you uh see his big red book,it's uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:44):
Yep.
I I have a copy of that and havea tough time getting through it.
He never quite comes out of thedream.
SPEAKER_01 (06:53):
Boy, he doesn't.
He wrote.
Man, did he write?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
Yeah, he did.
He did.
So anyway, uh people come for avariety of reasons, and I'll
have some clients that everytime we meet, they'll have one
or two dreams that they want totalk about.
And I have other clients thatmay go a couple months before a
dream comes to their attentionto add to the discussion, to add
(07:18):
to the coaching.
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Do they notice that when they pay attention to their
dreams, they tend to dream moreor they remember them more, or
is there any connection betweenthe work and actually dreaming
more about it, or at leastremembering more?
Does it ever have thatadvantage?
SPEAKER_02 (07:35):
Absolutely.
I think it's a surprise to mostpeople who don't pay attention
to their dreams that everyonedreams every night.
SPEAKER_01 (07:43):
Aaron Powell No, I think it's fascinating when
people say, Yeah, I don't Idon't dream.
I go, well, I don't think that'strue, but you know.
SPEAKER_02 (07:50):
Yeah, that is, I think, the conclusion for many
people.
They don't say I don't remembermy dreams.
They just say I don't dream.
SPEAKER_01 (07:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (07:58):
And the correction of that is a surprise to some
because on average, everyonedreams somewhere in the
neighborhood of an hour and ahalf every night.
And it's interesting forsomebody who chooses to work on
dreams and actually practiceremembering, because there are
some things you can do toenhance remembering your dreams,
(08:21):
that there comes a point in timewhere you have too much dream
material and you have to pickand choose what it is you're
going to work on, because it canbe overwhelming.
Like I can go times when I mightrecord as many as six dreams in
a night, and I usually dictatethem so that I and then there's
a translator that puts it intowritten form.
(08:43):
I use Apple products, and so Itheir notes is a great way to
dictate, and then I have it outin written form.
Um but I don't I don't have timethat later that day to do it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:54):
I was gonna say I was gonna say, yeah, that's all
you get done.
SPEAKER_02 (08:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:59):
So you So then you would you'd quit sleeping so you
wouldn't dream anymore, so youcould actually get something
done.
SPEAKER_02 (09:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So even sometimes I'll havesomebody that will come and
they'll have what I call an epicdream, this dream that just goes
on and on and has multiplescenes and so many characters.
And it can be overwhelming tosay, so where do we even begin
with this?
And in in moments like that, mysuggestion is, well, let's just
(09:31):
start with a character.
Pick a character that seemssignificant to you, that's in
the dream.
Doesn't have to be somebody youknow.
It could be a a character thathas no recognizable facial
characteristics just tell mewhat was going on with that
character, and we'll spend timelooking at whether the character
(09:54):
was male, female, orandrogynous.
Is this a masculine voice ofyours?
Is this a feminine voice ofyours?
If it is, what part of you isgoing through this portion of
the plot line in the dream?
And what's going on in your lifethat might have some connections
to what it is that thischaracter is either doing or
saying or acting out?
(10:15):
So we try and whittle it down tosomething that's manageable for
the time that we have.
Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01 (10:22):
Yep.
So I'd I'd love to.
Do you uh pay a lot of attentionto dreams that seem to be more
pronounced, or they they youremember more vividly than other
ones or not?
SPEAKER_02 (10:36):
I go with whatever the energy is for the person
who's talking about them.
Aaron Powell Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
Because sometimes sometimes if you're if you dream
and then you wake up, you'remore likely to remember that
dream.
Is that fair or not?
Aaron Ross Powell Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (10:49):
Because most periods of dreaming during sleep are
right before you wake up.
So that's why that is often thecase.
The exception to that is that atnight when you're falling
asleep, sometimes you go throughan REM rapid eye movement dream
phase before you go into deepsleep.
So sometimes right after youfall asleep, you might have a
(11:12):
dream that awakens you, afrightening dream, a nightmare
of sort.
But as the evening progresses,as the night progresses, usually
the dream period is part of thesleep cycle right before you
wake up.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
So can I ask you a personal question?
Of course.
So what about dreams intrigueyou so that you have made such
an emphasis in your own lifeabout them?
Is there a reason for that, oris it just it just was
fascinating, interesting foryou, or what what motivated that
that direction?
SPEAKER_02 (11:47):
It probably goes back to childhood that then came
back in college.
I was in college, I think it wasmy sophomore year, and I had a
dream that I hadn't had inyears, probably over a maybe
over a decade.
And it was a childhood dreamthat happened over and over
(12:09):
again.
And when the dream occurred, itwas so unsettling, kind of drew
up some memories from the past,that I felt like I needed to go
see somebody about it.
I'll tell you what the dreamwas.
As a child, I would have thisdream where I had like a godlike
view over what was taking place.
Always took place in the housethat I lived in at that moment
(12:33):
when I had the dreams.
And I could see a car pull up infront of the house and park on
the curb in front of the house.
And a man would get out and Iwould run and tell my mom, Mom,
he's here, he's here.
And my mom would always respond,okay, go and hide.
And the only thing that would bedifferent in the dream would be
(12:56):
where I would hide in the house.
Sometimes it'd be in a closet,sometimes it was under the bed,
sometimes I'd be under thecovers and try and lay as flat
as I could to look like a sheetor a blanket or something.
And somehow after that wouldhappen.
SPEAKER_01 (13:09):
Has that been your motivation to stay thin?
That's exactly right.
Anyway.
SPEAKER_02 (13:15):
You're so good at this, Jim.
You get right to the heart ofsomething.
I'd love there to be a littlebit of mystery for the listener,
so we don't get right to theconclusion.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
I'm so sorry.
I jumped right there.
SPEAKER_02 (13:26):
I'm so sorry.
It's hard not to when you knowas much as you do.
SPEAKER_01 (13:33):
That's absolutely true.
Good lord, my brain's full ofstuff.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
I would watch as the man would come to the front
door, he'd walk right in, and itwouldn't matter where I had
hidden myself, he would walkstraight to where I was, and he
had in his hand an electric cowprod, and he would shock me, and
I would wake up out of bed in apanic.
That was my childhood dream.
(14:00):
Well, I don't remember theincident, but I remember being
told of the incident that on, Ithink it was a Saturday, my dad
had gone to the office for somereason.
My mom was alone with my oldersister and myself, just the two
of us, and my mom.
She received a phone call, butnobody said anything.
(14:21):
But somehow she knew that it wasthis construction worker from a
project that was in the propertynext door that had acted in some
way toward her in a creepyfashion.
She immediately called my dad.
My dad says, make sure the doorsare locked, I'll be home as fast
as I can.
And my mom saw this guy pull upin a car in front of the house.
(14:47):
And she gathered my sister andI.
I was preschool.
I was a kind of a toddler.
And we hid under a table in theguest bedroom.
And I had this vague memory ofmy mom having us huddled and
saying, uh, just be quiet, justbe quiet, kids.
And him trying the front doorand not getting in and walking
(15:09):
around the house and looking inthe windows, and I could see his
shadow at the window of theguest bedroom.
Eventually he leaves, my dadshows up.
I think they file a policereport, but they never talk to
us about it again.
That was as a toddler.
When I'm a grade school kid, I'mhaving this dream again and
again, and then eventually itdisappears.
(15:30):
It's a long way to get to thefact that in college the dream
comes back.
And it was very unsettling.
And I thought, I've got toprobably see a counselor.
I'd never seen a counselorbefore.
And I go to the schoolcounselor, and I walk in,
introduce myself, intrigued byhis office, all the books,
(15:52):
stacks of paper on his desk.
I sit down, and he asks me whatbrings me in.
And I describe to him much ofwhat I just said to you.
His response was, okay, let'smeet together for several times,
and we'll work on trying to helpyou not remember your dreams.
(16:20):
And I looked at him and Ithought, huh, I don't know much
about therapy, but but thatdoesn't seem like the right
solution here.
So I, you know, I'm kind of apeacemaker.
I said, huh, okay.
Let me I'll call back about myschedule.
(16:43):
And I left in my head thinking,I'm never coming back to this
guy again.
Geez, that's funny.
So apparently you don't rememberthis, but some time passed, not
much time, but I actually toldyou about didn't give you all
the details, but said that Iwent to a therapist and about a
(17:07):
dream and I'm never going back.
And you put me in contact withyour brother.
SPEAKER_00 (17:13):
Oh, is that right?
SPEAKER_02 (17:14):
Yeah.
And that was the start.
I had never met him, and thatwas the start of a conversation
about dreams with your brother,who had been on a significant
journey by that time with hisown dreams.
And the literature that he sentme and the authors he encouraged
me to read spanned the next, oh,I don't know, 40 years of
(17:37):
digging into it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
If I knew that, I forgot that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
So that's I think have you told me that dream
before?
I don't know if I have.
I I'm not sure I have.
It's it sounds familiar, but Idon't know specifically.
But that's interesting.
So cool.
So that kind of put me on thejourney.
So do you get really you'regonna leave the audience kind of
hanging?
What what what does this did youfigure out what the dream meant?
(18:06):
You were traumatized by yourmother, by your mother when you
were a toddler?
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
Well, I I you already gave away the punchline.
It's been about my weight lossall of these years.
I gained a few pounds in collegeand it came back to me.
So yeah.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
So yeah, I'll jump to somethingthat we might come back to later
on in this season.
(18:35):
And it's this conviction that Ihave that we all have certain
template dreams, dreams that ifwe pay attention to them, will
appear again and again, maybeslightly different form, but
they are enigmatic.
They are they are the way bywhich we address a specific
(18:57):
emotion in our life.
So dreams are in part emotionalregulation.
And we'll get into that a littlebit more later.
But the way by which theyregulate our emotions is that we
play out some of those emotionsat night so that we can store in
long-term memory factual piecesthat are not as emotionally
(19:20):
laden, and we can use them astools for addressing things in
the future.
Because part of what we'velearned from neuroscience is
that dreams in part rehash whathas been.
Excuse me.
But one of the reasons we rehashwhat has been is that we are
rehearsing for future issuesthat we need to survive.
(19:43):
Far more essential centuries agowhen we would face far more
threats during our day, but westill face very emotional
threats during our day.
And those things that we haveexperienced in the past get
replayed rarely in identicalfashion, but the emotional
weight is what's significant.
(20:06):
So the fear that I experiencedas a child when I was getting
frightened again of somethingthat I didn't understand, of
something that was coming intomy life that was bigger than I
knew what to do with, a templatedream comes back and plays out a
(20:26):
scenario again that allows me towrestle with that emotion at
night to try and dissipate theemotional weight so that I have
emotional capacity the next day.
So what we face every day, wedon't have time to address all
of the emotional weight of agiven day.
An example would be I have anear head-on accident in an
(20:49):
intersection, and nothinghappens, but I don't have time
to process it because I'm latefor an appointment.
Well, the adrenaline pumped, theendocrine system kicked in, all
kinds of things were happeninginside that had an emotional
weight to it, but my day's beenso busy.
At night, if I don't have enoughdream opportunity to process the
(21:13):
emotional weight, the next dayI'm gonna be emotionally
exhausted.
I'm gonna be inattentive.
I I might say to somebody, I'msorry, you can't bring that to
me now.
I don't have the bandwidth forit.
And it's actually true.
I don't because I haven'trecalibrated my emotions.
So what I was facing, myestimation, is some things that
(21:35):
were happening during mysophomore year in college that
felt a little overwhelming and Ididn't understand them.
And that lack of understanding,like being a little kid where a
mom tells you to do this, itreplays a template dream for me
so that that emotion can beprocessed at night.
So dreams do this work for usevery night, whether we pay
attention to them or not.
(21:56):
But if we pay attention to them,we have the Ability to partner
with the dreams and raiseself-awareness and become far
more emotionally mindful andattentive to our personality
style and how we deal withthings and move through those
phases or chapters or moments inour life with greater clarity
(22:20):
and greater freedom because weunderstand them better.
But if we don't pay attention tothem, dreams are still going to
do their work.
They're just fighting againstour lack of self-awareness.
But every night they're going torehash things that have taken
place.
They're going to rehearse forsomething that may come up.
They're going to recalibrate ouremotions so we have the capacity
(22:41):
for the next day.
They're going to resolveproblems because our defenses go
down and we can see issues froma new perspective.
And if we pay attention, theywill reveal to us parts of
ourselves that we're not payingattention to.
So that's great.
That's what neuroscience isteaching us.
And that's why I think it's soimportant to consider dreams and
(23:05):
invite ourselves into a new wayof seeing them and a new way of
seeing ourselves.
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
So it's fascinating in the sense that the dreams are
trying to help us processperhaps events that we haven't
fully processed.
And then you end up trying toprocess the dream to make sense
out of what the dream is about.
So you're you're like doubleprocessing in that sense.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (23:29):
Absolutely.
The the first four of thefunction of dreams, again, are
going to happen whether we payattention to it or not.
The rehashing, the rehearsingfor the future.
It generalizes what I've learnedand it plays out scenarios that
I've never considered as a wayto prepare me for what might
(23:51):
happen in my world.
It triggers the endocrinesystem.
It causes me to make choices anddecisions.
It takes what I've learned andtries to generalize it to other
events.
Again, whether I remember it ornot, it's making neural
connections all of the timeduring that dream phase of
(24:12):
sleep.
It recalibrates to give meemotional capacity for the next
day.
I love the resolve side of itbecause so many fields of
science and understanding havehad major breakthroughs by
individuals who have had a dreamthat kind of broke open a new
way to think about things.
(24:33):
And all of us, probably whetherwe've realized it or not, have
awakened with a freshperspective on a problem.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
Well, yeah, it's kind of like people say, Let me
sleep on it.
SPEAKER_02 (24:43):
Yep.
Yep.
Literally, that's what dreamshelp us do is to resolve
problems.
Because at night the defensemechanisms go down.
Our our executive functionportion of the brain tells us
what is not possible.
It tells us what gravity does.
It tells us what's going tohappen in social dynamics based
on our defenses and ourexperiences.
SPEAKER_01 (25:05):
Well, like an executive does.
Executive tries to dictate yourlife.
So the executive function triesto dictate our lives.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (25:13):
And when the executive drops off the playing
field, the other employees havefun.
That's why in the dream we cansometimes fly.
We can play basketball muchbetter than we can in real life.
We can do all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01 (25:36):
I mean, I had so many dreams where I could I
would jump in an airplane, Icould, I took off, I fly all
around, and I could land thatsucker.
I used to have that all thetime.
Yeah.
unknown (25:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
I mean, and then some some would say the dream
you have uh uh developmentallywhen you're falling, it's it's
an a way to balance your ego.
You're getting too full ofyourself.
And so that's one of theinterpretations of that is that
you fall to kind of bring bringbalance to this the ego that's
developing too much.
Because typically you have thosedreams in adolescence or as you
(26:09):
young adulthood.
So that flying dream is alwayscool because I would always wake
up thinking, man, I can fly anairplane.
Oh no, no, you can't.
SPEAKER_02 (26:21):
But in the dream world reality, there is
something very real that'staking place inwardly that
relates to that sense of theability to fly.
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
Yeah, and a sense of incredible freedom.
Like I remember as I was doingit thinking, wow, this is this
is amazing.
And the period of time that Iwas having that, I was in
graduate school and I was in my20s, and so yeah, I think you
are full of what life's gonna beand it what are the
possibilities.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:51):
It is interesting to consider how dreams shift as we
develop over time and age.
We become concerned about adifferent set of things, and so
our dreams shift in accordancewith that.
Well, that's my hope for thisfirst episode was just to
introduce what the function ofdreams have come to be known to
(27:15):
us from the neuroscienceperspective as well as the
psychology side, and to tie inhow this fits as we move into
the next several episodes.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01 (27:26):
I mean, it is fascinating to think that a
third of your life you yousleep.
Right.
And so to just common sensewould suggest there's gotta be
something happening there thatis worthwhile for you we humans
to take a look at.
And you're right.
It'll it'll be it'll be great.
That was a great description ofof moving forward in this area.
So I look forward to it.
SPEAKER_02 (27:46):
Yeah.
Me too.
I'm glad we're digging in, and II appreciate you bouncing back
and forth with me on this.
I think that you said there'sgot to be something there.
The scientific understanding ofthe development of who we are as
humans, you can't find much inwho we are that is senseless or
(28:10):
wasted.
If it has stayed with humanityconsistently for so many
generations, centuries,millennia, it it says that
there's something there thatit's doing.
Let's try and understand it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:25):
Well, yeah.
And how many people have writtenbooks or horror movies based
upon their dreams?
I mean, that's pretty common.
People wake up and startled andthey put it put it on paper, and
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:36):
Yeah.
Uh maybe we'll talk about acouple of those movies in a
future episode, but for now,this is probably a good place to
stop.
Jim, as always, it's great to bewith you.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Great to be with you too, Dee.
SPEAKER_02 (28:45):
Thanks.
Thanks, man.
That's it for this episode ofTherapy, Coaching, and Dreams.
If you're enjoying the podcast,we'd love for you to follow,
rate, or share it with someonewho might appreciate it as well.
Thanks for being here, and untilnext time, keep growing, stay
(29:06):
curious, and take good care ofyourself.
Yeah, now it's good stuff.
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