November 23, 2022 • 42 mins
Can weed negatively effect your dreams? How important are dreams? Do we actually need to get REM sleep? PLUS a childhood recurring dream I can’t shake away. See what Theresa says!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Genuinely Gigi. I
haven't said this in a long time, but please subscribe,
Please write a review and rate my show. Come on,
I'm only here because of you, guys, and I appreciate
everything you guys have done so far, So keep watching.
Today is a really, really cool episode. It's like, I
think all of you wish you were in my chair
(00:23):
right now. Say you can ask Teresa Chang so many questions.
She is very tapped into spirituality, intuition and things about
the unknown, and we are going to dive deep in
what dreams really mean. I asked Teresa a couple questions.
Because of my cannabis consumption, I do not have ri
em sleep, so I really ask her about that. And
(00:46):
also a childhood recurring dream that I just cannot ever forget.
Let's ask Teresa.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You know her from Shaws of Sunset. You know she
doesn't back.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I have been always able to change the course of
my dream while I'm dreaming. I can change the scenery,
I can tell myself to do things in my dream.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
This is genuinely GG.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We've been having some technical issues and this is our
third attempt at trying to do this and it's actually
working great, but it's at eleven eleven. And I said,
this is our third time doing it and it's at
eleven eleven. That must mean something, and I was being sarcastic,
and Teresa says, yes, it does. Actually, I can explain
that to you. I would love for you to explain that,
(01:34):
because I make fun of all of my girlfriends and
ex boyfriends anytime I would get one of those eleven
eleven text I'm like, oh geez, our brain chooses to
see things at a certain time. Tell me, Teresa, what
does it mean.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I mean you're talking about confirmation biased there. If you
are thinking about something, then you tend to be more
likely to see it. Of course, But you know, Einstein
once said there are two ways of looking at the world,
one as if everything's a miracle, and one of his
nothing is a miracle. So let's take the glass half
full approach and consider it a cosmic sign. Now you know.
God has been often called the master mathematician. The universe
(02:09):
consists of numbers, and in numerology, eleven eleven is really
powerful because it's a repeating number. Number one is all
about new starts and new beginnings and spiritual awakenings. So
if you see it repeating like that, it's like the
Cosmos is sending you a giant wake up call. This
is your moment, this is your time to look within
(02:31):
and find deeper meanings to your life. And of course
we're in twenty twenty two now, which has been an
a year like no other and is predicted.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Didn't we as humans create time. We created the number,
for instance, eleven, and we we assigned it that right.
So I believe in a lot of energy, and I'm
sure a lot of people out there believe in both
sides because ideal, especially being living in LA you definitely
deal with extreme only both sides of the equation. But
(03:02):
I feel like, yes, there's energy. I believe in spirituality.
I believe in the planets. I just start questioning when
people say something like the repetition of numbers, because I'm like, well,
that was man made numbers. We designed that.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So is there relevance, Yes, But that's only if you
come from it of the perspective that you are a
human being having a spiritual experience. I come from it
of the perspective that we are spiritual beings having a
human experience. Therefore, what we create comes from soul. You
know that we're talking about consciousness, the inner world, that
are inner being, the spark of the divine, if you
(03:41):
want to call it that, the part of you that
may be infinite and eternal. Because the whole universe consists
of energy. We saw these recently released shots from NASA
and they're saying, oh, the universe is even deeper than
we thought. We're made of the same particles as those stars.
Absolutely right, that everything is energy. So if you look
at it from that perspective, that's why you can start
(04:03):
seeing signs and coincidences or what Young called synchronicity, And
it's what you put into it. The power of belief.
We're going into manifestation here, which is huge at the moment,
especially online. You know the power of your belief. But
I think there's a lot of misinterpretation about what manifestation is.
It's not positive thinking. Actually, it's not actually about making
(04:27):
all your dreams come true. That is a byproduct. What
manifestation really is is finding gratitude and joy and meaning
right here, right now. It's not me. For example, you know,
obviously you're a huge star and I'm nervous about this interview,
thinking if the interview goes well, I'll be happy in
this moment, just feeling good and loving the fact that
(04:48):
I have the privilege and the opportunity to speak to
you and talk about what I'm passionate about that. And
then if you find joy in every present moment, you
build the momentum. Momentum somehow attracts better things into your life.
That's manifestation. Really, I've gone on a tangent.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But no, you know what, I agree with everything that
you with everything that you just said, accept the part
about coincidences, because I don't believe in coincidences. Now, I'm
an extreme, extreme, extreme logical person, so I'm also the
extreme opposite polar end of some belief systems. But I
(05:30):
do believe that we are all Stardust. I believe that
we all came from Stardust. I believe everything that exists
in our universe that we can understand is Stardust. And
we see how vast it is out there. We know nothing.
Like you said, we are now seeing new photos from
NASA that's just showing our galaxy to be less than
(05:53):
a microscopic spec in this vast I don't even know
what to call it. Whatever it is, right, it's I
think sometimes in my opinion, I believe that some people
or groups of people choose certain routes that are easier
for them to live by or to die by, like
(06:14):
religion for instance, organized forms of belief, cults, anything that
allows someone to think this is easier for me to live.
I have an excuse, I have a justification. I don't
think that there is any anything other than science to
(06:36):
prove that we are energy, that we are a startusts.
It's been proven by science. So it's not like if
you believe that you know what if I would say,
if you don't believe that, there's something very wrong with you, right,
your perspective has been a little off if you don't
realize that because the science says that we have a
(06:56):
Bible and that says God all that, and then we
have science that shows something very different. So to each
their own in their form of a belief, but nothing
can be denied about energy. We all feel energy. It's
how we explain love, It's how we explain so many
things that we experience on a second to second moment
(07:19):
by moment of our lives that we don't realize it's energy.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
You're a philosopher and a scientist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
How have you been able to do that? You're researching
and you are teaching. How does that go for? How
does it work? How does it look? To learn from you?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
To learn from me? Is I hope after people read
my books, So listen to me rambling somewhere. I do
a lot of media about dreams and spirituality and the
importance of looking within that people go away being more
self reliant and self loving, because for me, that's the
start of spiritual growth. I mean, too many people come
to spirituality having a terrible lack of understanding of who
(07:59):
they really are and really knows respect for themselves, and
they're trying to get their identity from a belief set.
Because I don't actually prescribe any religion or fixed set
of beliefs. What I prescribe is looking within and understanding yourself,
because self knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom. If
you don't understand yourself, if you can't help yourself, if
(08:21):
you can't love yourself, how on earth do you think
you can be a force for positive change. So anyone listening,
please change yourself before changing the world too. Much problems
in the world are people who are really wounded deep
within trying to heal that wound externally from stuff, from relationships,
from money, from popularity, from how they look and what
(08:45):
others say about them, the fulfilling the expectations of others.
Too many people are trying to find healing and wholeness
outside in. And what I'm trying to promote and I
have done for the last twenty five thirty years since
I started writing, it's inside out. That's how you start.
And that's where dream work is so important because I've
(09:05):
done a lot of media about spirituality, but the media
is quite reluctant to talk about spirituality understandably, or the
afterlife if it exists. They will, however, talk to me
about dreams because whoever you are, whether you're skeptic or not,
you still dream. Now that's an ultimate mystery. Science doesn't
know really why we dream those incredible stories and plots
(09:29):
that are revealed to us night after night after night.
What is going on? And what I try to say
is that by decoding and understanding the meaning of those dreams,
you start to understand who you are. Because dreams really
are your nocturnal intuition talking to you in symbols, which
is up to you to decode, so you become a
(09:51):
detective of your own life. You start to fall in
love with yourself. We've had a dream, you wake up
and you start reflecting, what did that mean? So many
people just bash around in their life not reflecting on
the deeper meaning of why they're doing things right. And
that's why dream work is so healing, and research has
shown that it is. You know, it's used for people
(10:13):
healing some trauma, for veterans starting to do some dream
work can be very very powerful personal growth tool.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I was reading about you, Teresa, and again there's just
so much written about you, and you have written so much,
and I've identified and I agree, and I see likewise
with you on so many of these things. And like
you just brought up dreams. This is the one area
(10:41):
that I was very interested to really be able to
talk to you about because I my whole life, I
was a very very vivid dreamer. I could my dreams.
I still to this day can remember almost every dream
I've ever had. I feel I have been always able
to change the course of my dream. While I'm dreaming,
(11:02):
I can change the scenery, I can tell myself to
do things in my dream where it got sort of
in the way of my sleeping. It became a sort
of insomnia. I was unable to sleep. My dreams were
interfering with my life. I don't know why. I just
(11:23):
couldn't sleep. I mean, for many, many years I was
taking sleeping medications. It's easy for doctors to just obviously
give the Western version of the remedy. Just pop a pill,
You'll go right to sleep. I started getting more I
don't know. My dreams just started becoming more intense and
(11:44):
out of my grip at this point, so the only
thing that I sort of came upon was cannabis. And
cannabis I didn't come upon it for my sleep or anything.
At that time. I have an autoimmune disease, and I'm
on methotruxa, which is a form of chemotherapy, so I
was sort of fighting the side effects and the inflammatory
(12:06):
helped that it was giving for my autoimmune And then
I noticed I'm sleeping like a baby at night. And
then I noticed the more I was consuming of cannabis,
I'm now not dreaming anymore. So I am at a
point where I don't dream.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
We're going to take a quick break. But when we
come back, I.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Go to dream dictionary to like the many ones I've
written or whatever, and look for meanings and whatever. But
dreams are a series. They're like Netflix. I mean, Sandman
is on at the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
On Netflix, they go on dream top Rakin, Yes it is.
I'm a researcher, just as you, Theresa. I researched the
hell out of everything. Everything so I realized after reading
was that cannabis shuts off your rem a. I am
(13:00):
part of sleep. What I really wanted to talk to
you about was what are dreams? Do we need to
have them? By not having it, am I creating a
stress factor in my life? I have seen research that
says science can't prove the benefits of dreams, but I
just I don't know. I just can't seem to believe that.
(13:23):
So Teresa, can you tell us a little bit about
what our dreams?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Thank you so much for sharing all this. There's so
much I want to say to you. For First of all, obviously,
the priority is your health at the moment, getting a
good night's sleep. You're a mom, You've got a busy life,
so I am all for a good night's sleep. And
if your dreams bordering on nightmares, it sound like and
your lucid dreaming was starting to interfere with your sleep.
This is probably a good thing that you're going through
(13:48):
a period. I mean, we all go through a period
of our lives and we don't recall our dreams as much,
So just don't panic about it. But I think what
our dreams dreams are your intuition talking to you, your creativity,
your inner world, the part of you that wants to
know the deeper meaning in life. Now you talked about
(14:10):
the science. Yes, there is science to show that dreams
don't matter, but there's also science to show that dreams
are very good for your holistic well being. Indeed, when
people are deprived of REM sleep, as you're suggesting that
you may be now, they do report higher anxiety during
the day. So just watch out for that rem sleep.
We need all the stages of sleep. You do actually dream,
(14:32):
You are actually dreaming, you're just not recalling it because
you do dream in the other stages of sleep, just
not as much. Rem stage sleep is the one you
dream the most. You can have, you know, you know,
misty dreams in the other stages but rem sleep is
where it all happens, and it's also the source of
infinite creativity. Rem sleep. If you think of the number
(14:53):
of inventions, novels, works of art, literature, movies, even Google,
you know, was inspired by a vision in a dream.
So you're kind of like starving yourself of an incredible
resource of creativity. What I'd love you to do, and
I hope this conversation helps, is to not have this
(15:14):
attitude that your dreams are keeping you awake because your
dreams are reflecting your anxiety about them back to you.
If you just sort of say I love my dreams,
you say you can influence your dreams, So why are
they keeping you awake? If you can influence your dreams.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And I actually have to say I loved my dreams
and they were not nightmares. I had so much control
over my dreams that when I noticed that it was
getting you know, tense or aggressive or violent in my dream,
I was able to stop the dream and turn it
into something else. I felt like my brain was never
(15:51):
shutting off. I was fully in my sleep.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Our brains, it's a myth that we sleep. We are
switched on twenty four, so we are infinite and we
are eternal, So that's just something. Don't worry about you.
I know you want to shut off. Our body shuts down,
and most of our brain does, but there's a part
of our brain that's always alert, always watching. It's that
you know, we are twenty four to seven switched on,
(16:15):
and don't fear that. It's actually incredible potential there for
you to dip into. And the fact that you were
having so many dreams, they were like screaming at you.
Notice me, You're inner world, Notice me. Find the deeper
meaning to your life. Right now is the time. It's
not out there. It's not out there what you want.
(16:37):
It's within me. It's all within me. Other people are
not going to complete me. My career is not going
to These things all help. These are learning experiences. I
mean these material things we are either lessons or blessed things.
And you, I think the reason we're here on this
planet is to learn and grow. So there ought to
help you evolve. But the true magic and potential for
(16:58):
you is with in. And if you do have this
ability to lucid dream, that's quite rare and incredible treasure.
It writ down those dreams, brainstorm all those symbols. They're
trying to tell you something about what the next step
in your life should be. They're also very cathartic. They're
trying to get reared of past trauma for you. They're
(17:19):
trying to help and heal you. Nightmares and anxiety images.
I know you said you don't have nightmares, but disturbing
images and dreams are actually very healing because you get
to meet your shadow, you know, and when you go
in the dream world, you meet all aspects of yourself
symbolically represented it. And sometimes that's quite alarming to see
(17:40):
just how rich and complex and how many aspects of
our personality are out there. That's quite alarming. But what
you can do in the dream state is actually get
comfortable with all of you, both your toxic potential and
your positive potential, because we've got both. There is night
and there is day. Every person is a mix of
(18:01):
dangerous impulses and more positive, healing impulses. But it's when
you're awake and you're conscious and your reason, your logic takeover.
It's what you choose to do with that potential within
you that makes the woman, that makes the man, that
is true in strength, that is true courage, what part
of you you choose to feed, and dreams are giving
you a snapshot of the whole of mirrors that is
(18:24):
within you. All these symbols and metaphors in your dreams
that you encounter. Nothing is trivial in a dream. And
the fact that the universe was sending you so many
dreams and you were so aware of them when you
woke up, my goodness, that is a blessing. I'm jealous
because I'm a dream author.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I don't know, you know what. Maybe it's because my mind.
I'm just I feel I'm turned on mentally all day long,
and I get so envious of those people in TV
shows or in real life where they just say, I
just hands such a good sleep, And then I'm thinking,
oh my god, I just sub through five hours of
an action movie that I you know, I had to
(19:04):
mentally control the whole narrative of it. I'm exhausted.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Helping you switch off. It won't necessarily be in sleep,
because you are obviously highly creative, and you know there's
your soul has a lot to say to you. So
that's not that chat is not going to stop. But
if you wanted to find some inner piece of meditation, mindfulness.
You know, we hear a lot about that. Meditation is
very simple. It's just simply paying attention to your breath,
calming down that way. That's the way you'll get a break.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yes, I mean, for now, it's a very leafy green
that helps me instead of medization. It's been working for
an array of things for me. But you know, can
I ask some for you? They're probably quite immedial questions,
but I'm sure for the listeners out there, it's it's
very basic questions, like what does it mean when you're
(19:55):
falling in a dream?
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Oh, it's the number one reported dream actually, because you know,
there's dream chart, because I work with sleep and dream research,
there is actually a dream chart, you know, and they
chart the top one hundred or chop ten and number
one is usually in the top ten. Falling is sorry.
Falling is usually in the top ten. And it basically
means that you're feeling a bit unsupported and it's time
that you're sort of heading in a direction and you
(20:18):
need to course correct. Unless you are enjoying falling in
your dream, because feelings are a big indicator of the
meaning of the dream, then it just means just go
with the flow. However, if you're panicking when you're falling,
it suggests that in your waking life something needs to
course correct. You are heading in the wrong direction, so
just pay attention to your current circumstances. Dreams. People make
(20:41):
the mistake of thinking that dreams are about the distant past.
You know, they're very current. Dreams are about what's happening
right now. The power of now. It's all about what's
happening right now in your life. Sometimes they use symbols
from your past to get that message across because it
will resonate with you. But it's about what's happening in
your life right now. And also another dream interpretation tip,
(21:04):
which is really important. People get hung up on interpreting
one big dream that they've had and they go to
dream dictionary to like the many ones I've written or
whatever and look for meanings and whatever. But dreams are
a series. They're like Netflix. I mean, Sandman is on
at the moment, number one on Netflix. There's all dream
(21:25):
you know, I love it. I mean, I couldn't be
happier that, you know, the Lord of the King of dreams.
You know, the Sandman is number one. You know, it's
all about set, all about the power of dreams. Away
people have these questions, there are a series so what
you need. That's why keeping a dream journal is important,
because you write down one dream, and then the dream
the next night will comment on, enhance it. It's like
(21:46):
a long running series that never stops, really, and you
need to look at your dreams in hindsight over a
period of time, because what you will see then is
that your dreaming mind is like a voiceover a commentary.
But again it speaks in this very difficult to understand
symbolic language. Now, back in ancient times we had a
(22:08):
more a better understanding to think in metaphors and symbols,
like the moon is intuition, the sun is warmth.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We were primitive. Yes, we've become.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
A bit more superficial though as well. We look very
much on the surface level, and dreams are always what
lies beneath, look beneath the meaning. And what I hope
that anybody who does work with me whatever, is that
by the end they are actually looking at their waking
life as a dream as well to interpret and look
(22:37):
beneath the meaning. You know that they actually in their
waking reality that if this was in a dream. What
would it mean?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's all quite therapeutic. It's very therapeutic. What about people,
I mean, my producer here, Ryan, my mother, There's lots
of people. I hear say all the time. I don't dream.
I never have dreams, and I know that that that's
everyone's dreams. You just don't remember. Why do some people
have the inability to remember their dreams?
Speaker 4 (23:05):
I know many people like that. They often write to
me saying, I love what you do, and I love
what you're saying, but I can't remember my dreams. I
don't dream.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You're right.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Research shows we dream at least five or six times
a night, but you're not recalling it now. The number
one reason is your attitude towards dreams.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
It's like if you're thinking dreams are trivia or they
mean nothing, and you've been taught from school age onwards
they're random misfirings of the brain. Of course you're you
know your dreaming mind is going to be depressed. It's
not going to want to speak to someone who doesn't
want to hear what it has to say. So first
of all, change your attitude towards dreams. Then immerse yourself
in dream literature. What or if you love movies, watch
(23:43):
something like Inception. You know that that twenty ten movie
which just made dreaming cool, watch movies about dreams. Sandman,
as I say, is so current, it's on right now.
And to actually sort of like start thinking in this
dream language. That is the number one thing. Number two.
Alarm clocks are the enemy of dream recall because when
(24:03):
you wake up, the first two or three minutes are
crucial for recall because you're still in an unconscious state
where your intuition, your imagination, your creativity are unleashed. But
when you wake up, your brain goes from that SETA,
those deep steep sleep stages through to SETA, through to
the more awake stages where consciousness, reason and logic rule
(24:25):
and your gentle dreaming mind cannot compete with the waking state.
So as you wake up, just transition a bit slowly,
stay in the same position that you woke up in
that you mirror the state that you're sleeping in, and
keep your eyes closed because then your your waking mind
will saying, hey, I'm still dreaming. That is a really
(24:45):
good tip. Just two minutes is the optimum time for
dream recall.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I'd love to hear from Ryan. Yeah, you're going to
give it a try. Ryan, You're going to go it
a shot. Ryan's going to give it a shot. And
we're going to hear back from him. And when I
we when I do have dream because yes, my rem
dreaming no longer exists anymore, but I do have, like
you said, a little bit hazy dreaming throughout the night
(25:10):
that I can, you know, since the cannabis. But there's
often times I will wake up that one moment between
REM your final REM and you're waking up consciousness, there's
this moment where I'm aware of that in between, and
it's a little bit out of body in that one
(25:32):
split of a second, and I often go into a
cry that's almost like a and then it stops, it goes.
It's almost like I can't even I don't cry. I'm
not a cry you could trust me. Nothing really makes
me cry, So I don't. And I'm a logical person,
so I try to understand what is happening to me
(25:55):
in that Why am I so hyper aware of my mind?
And through these sleep and ram and transitioning periods, I.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Think your soul is urging you to cry, because not
all tears are unevil create tears are wonderfully healing as well.
To release and to let go. Yes, it's important that
you release and let go. And that twilight stages, I say,
is is absolutely beautiful because you kind of get a
glimpse of infinite possibility, the mystery of who you are
(26:29):
in those moments. It's it's utterly beautiful and it should
give fill you with joy, really, and maybe it is
tears of joy that you're realizing that this isn't all
there is, this stuff, this world is not all there is.
There's something more infinite about me, and this is exciting.
So maybe it's it's a kind of an awakening. I
(26:51):
hope so. But I do also I don't like that
you're not having all stages of sleep. I know it's
important for you right now, but I do hope that
that does course correct and that you start dreaming and
loving your dreams again, because you know they could be
a source of a great novel for you, or of
screenplay or a song or a project. It's all in
(27:13):
there in the dreaming state. And I could quote invention book,
I mean Frankenstein, the first sci fi novel a dream
Salvador Dardi's art a dream, many of Stephen King's greatest
work dream.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yes it is, we're going to take a quick break,
but when we come back.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
But maybe you need it. Maybe it's all part of
your journey that you needed all these shocks, these challenges,
these setbacks, these problems because the growth potential. Maybe this
is the path you need to be that you can
ultimately actually be a real force of inspiration to others.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm not afraid of the dreams. It just happens to
be working together that I am consuming the cannabis for
my body, and also I don't need insomnia pills anymore
because it's allowing me to sleep, and it just so
happens to shut off the rem part of my sleep
(28:14):
and dream process. But to be quite honest, when I
compare it to what my life would be like without
the cannabis, I would choose missing out on that. You know,
first sixty to ninety minutes of round, you take naps.
I don't. I can't. I cannot nap. For me, A
nap is the deepest sleep I ever experienced. Therefore I
(28:35):
could never really come out of it. It feels like
the worst jet lag homa I ever have saying yeah,
I can't, so I absolutely cannot nap. I'm up by
four forty five five am every morning, I'm down by
about eleven pm. Every night I go into a deep
sleep until again four forty five five and I'm up
in go, Go go. You know, I've always had I
(28:59):
love my dreams, and a lot of people never understood
when I would say, I really love it because I
can control them. And when you learn how to control
your dream it's something very spectacular. But as a child,
obviously I didn't have this ability or understanding, and I
would have this one recurring dream which I really wanted
to ask you about, when I was very problematic. I
(29:25):
know this is our first time meeting for all those
people out there who have known me for a long
time with the TV world, I was a bit of
a troublemaker always my whole life growing up, and so
for that, I was in therapy from a very very
young age. It's very typical of parents to always, you know,
just throw the kid into therapy without healing themselves, but
(29:47):
I was in therapy from a very young age, about
ten to eleven. I mean I started doing drugs when
I was eleven and a half. So that goes that
when I was about thirteen, I had been got kicked
out of so much schools, but I had this therapist.
Her name is Wendy Fisher, and I will never ever
forget this bitch. She told me that I was going
(30:10):
to be dead or in jail for life by the
time I was eighteen. If I just was now this
is my therapist to mind you, and I'm thirteen years old,
I'm hearing this, I'm thinking, geez, because at this point
she's saying I need to come to therapy two to
three times per week. So she's like, if you don't,
and you keep continuing. But she was also a dream analyzer.
(30:30):
She always would analyze dreams and she did a lot
of therapy by asking me my dreams, and because my
dreams were so clear and vivid, it helped a lot.
But she was such a pos you know what I mean.
So now everything that she has told me, I second
guess was this true or was she just an asshole,
you know, telling me random things thinking I have problems.
(30:54):
But this one dream that I had a recurring dream,
I was maybe I don't know, eight, nine, ten years old,
and I would have it for years, I was being
kidnapped by three men, and one of the men is
carrying me over his shoulders and they're running down a
path and I am also chasing them as well. So
(31:17):
I'm on the guy's shoulder and I'm chasing them, and
there's a peal of an orange. My father when I
was younger, I used to peel oranges in like a flower,
kind of a one long ring, like a spring. And
there was this orange peel and it was coming and
it was wrapping around my body and it was making
me stuck that I couldn't go save myself. So this
(31:40):
dream kept coming up all the time, all the time,
and now as an adult, through fucking thirty million years
of therapy, I haven't understanding. I had a lot of
issues with my father as a child. I was never
really enough for him. I come from an academic family,
so my dad didn't even come to my graduation. He
(32:03):
said I had a four point oh gpa, I should
have had a four point two. And I was like,
you know, eleven years old at that time. So I
understand that orange peel perhaps was representing my father, but
I didn't understand the me chasing me, you know, at
such a young age, is my Is this my subconscious
(32:25):
mind telling me that I'm trying to save myself? What
was what was this? What was this dream? If you could,
I'll do my best.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And first of all, though, thank you for inviting me on.
Given the background, I didn't know that you'd had a
difficult experience with a previous dream analyze a therapist, So
this is incredible. Thank you, Thank you for that. And
you know that therapist makes me very very disturbed saying
(32:54):
things like that to a young child, because by asking
you to share your dream, what she's doing is she's
really getting an intimate understanding of your psychology. And that's
why I always treat when people share dreams and when
your friends do anyone listening, If people share their dreams
with you, like you just have, it's a really sacred
moment because you're getting a glimpse of their soul. This
(33:18):
is really really sacred. And I'm so sorry that that
was that trust. Thank you that that little child had
was abused. That dream is all about your relation, because
everything in a dream is an aspect of yourself. As
I say, it's a hall of mirrors. It is about
your relationship to the masculine met the men in your life,
but also the masculine tendencies within you, your desire to
(33:41):
be assertive. It's all about that tussle and trying to
understand what. I'm a woman, but I need to be assertive.
How do I do that? I've not had proper role models.
The kidnap scenario is something happening against your will, that
the men in your life are imposing things on you,
or taking new places or doing things to you that
you are not in line with. And yes, you are
(34:02):
trying to save yourself, but at that time you're such
a young child. What I would suggest is that if
you get a time today, dream to go back and
revisit that dream.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I've tried so many times. I as with the ability
to understand and actually view my dreams as I'm dreaming.
I have tried so many times to revisit it. I
can't seem to grasp it. I can't seem to grasp it,
but not in the.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Dream state when you're awake daydreaming, or to write it
down the dream and actually change the plot. It sounds
really simple, but rewriting your dreams and changing the plot
to how you ended it so in that scenario, I'd
like you to kick ass. I'd like you to not
be kidnapped. I'd like you to not have the orange
(34:48):
peel after you. I'd like you to be wonder woman
in it and just escape. Just rewrite it or rethink it,
and your brain will take note. It will be very
healing healing that but your dreaming mind, then, what it
was trying to do. It was trying to warn you.
It was trying to tell you that as you go
through life, the men in your life are going to
be disruptive.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And I grew up to become very alpha. I grew
up a very alpha independent woman. I mean, I got
a sperm donor to have a son. That's how much
I have this opposition to men. And I'm not even
a lesbian, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I love deck.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah, as you say, programming you had as a child,
you see. And I think the reason all these dreams
are coming back through because men are Okay, most men
aren't like that, some wonderful men out there, and it's
allowing that masculine energy to come into your life.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
A Dreamlind trying to help you.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
That is that is the past. Let it go. It's gone.
It's you know, every moment you recreate who you are.
You don't need to be defined by all these past
versions of yourself. But you, you are right now, totally new.
Every morning when you wake up, are born and new.
I mean, there's a wonderful tribe called the Parah who
believes that actually, if you sleep too long, you become
(36:07):
a different person the next morning. And they call themselves
a different name, and it's called the napping tribe. They
only nap because they don't like to sleep too long,
because they fear that they you know, they want to
retain their identity. It's fascinating culture. I mean a lot
of it's to do with fear of being bitten by snake.
But they are actually one of the most happiest tribes
(36:28):
on earth. They're known to be, and could it be
because of their attitude towards sleep being something deeply sacred
and that if you sleep for too long, you wake
up a brand new person because your cells recalibrate, You've dreamed,
you've gone to your you know, the soul heaven wherever.
So I mean it let all that go rewrite that dream.
(36:50):
But my goodness, as a child, to have that vivid
dream you were already having your own back then, looking
out for yourself. Your unconsciou was already was trying to
warn you and help you. But maybe you needed Maybe
it's all part of your journey that you needed all
these shocks, these challenges, these setbacks, these problems because the
(37:14):
growth potential, maybe this is the path you need to
be that you can ultimately actually be a real force
of inspiration to others. There are many people listening to
you who will have had many of the issues that
you've gone through. You know, and you don't talk at
it in a superficial way. You've been there. You're actually
(37:34):
very similar. Actually, twenty nineteen, I did Under the Skin
with Russell Brand and he was having a very similar
description of his dreams because he'd been really to Helen
back and he was talking about how it is nightmares
and whatever, and this is very interesting. And I remember
saying to him at the time that this was so
(37:58):
powerful what he was saying on air, because it would
really help people understand that their dreams are not attacking them.
Their dreams are not to fit.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Your dreams are trying to heal you.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
They're trying to cathartically release all that's been dragging you down,
and they're trying to point you in the only way
they know how, through symbols and metaphors and shocking things
in the right direction, and of course kidnap, death, murder,
all these things. You're more likely to remember it when
you wake up. If you're constantly dreaming of skipping through
(38:29):
a field. It's not that's life, isn't it. Because life
is about the journey and not the destination. And that's
why we love all these epic things like Harry Potter
what or Lord of the Rings or all these things.
It's the journey that we love. You know, say the
Lord of the Rings was set in the Shire. We
(38:51):
don't get so bored. We need that journey to Mordoor.
And you're on your journey to more door. You will survive,
and you've got to believe that you will.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Thank you. You're so sweet. You're very, very inspirational and motivational.
I really enjoy your perspective. It's not just entertaining, but
it's also knowledgeable because I do believe in these things
that you're talking about. So maybe some for some people
(39:22):
it's just entertaining conversation, but for me, it's really both
because it's so true and the entertaining part to it
is because of the unknown aspect. It's so unknown and
so real that there's this little bit of fear that's
a bit of a turn on. You know, what is
out there? What are our dreams? So being able to
(39:42):
dive in and really understand more and learn more. You've
provided that for us by writing all these books. Belahadid
has posted about your Dreams book Your Dreams from a
to Z book, So I encourage everyone to just go
out there and get one of to research on books.
If you're into dreams and want to learn more, pick
up her books on dreams. You have so many books
(40:06):
about so many different understandings of intuition, consciousness, spirituality. So
I encourage everyone to go pick up at least one
of your books, if not all of them, and learn
a little bit more about yourself, because it all starts
with ourselves and what we manifest. That is the power
(40:27):
of intention. Thank you so much for being here, Teresa.
Where could people find you if they're looking for you?
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I'm just mesmerized by your story and all that you're
saying and your energy. You are going to inspire so
many people. I can feel that in the future for you.
I'm not a psychic, but I just feel that you're
going through all this.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That's my dream is to do that, like public speaking
is like one of my dreams, to just be able
to talk to people.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
All these things are a waiting. I feel it because
you will be real. Really you know you have that
ability to do that. And as I say, you're dreaming,
mine knows that already. Now. If you're dreaming about all
these things and you can influence your dreams, your intuition,
your unconscious already believes who you can be, the next
(41:20):
step is just for you to believe absolutely. If the
mind can believe it, the body can achieve it.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And I'm going to have to fly to Windsor, England
and give you a hug because your main new best friend, Teresa,
oh than lots of love and thank you so much,
Thank you so much for being here, you guys. Her
name is Teresa Chang. Her last name is about C
H E U N G Teresa with an AH. Thank
you so much Teresa for being here, and I cannot
(41:46):
wait to dive deep into your bags.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Thank you, thank you so much, and it's anything else
can do for you, Hesitate.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
We'd love to have you back again.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Thanks for listening to Genuinely Gigi. Download new episodes every
week and if you haven't already, subscribe and be sure
to leave.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Us a rating and review.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
And while you're at it, check out some of the
other great shows available on Strawhut Media.
Straw Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Genuinely Gigi. I
haven't said this in a long time, but please subscribe,
Please write a review and rate my show. Come on,
I'm only here because of you, guys, and I appreciate
everything you guys have done so far, So keep watching.
Today is a really, really cool episode. It's like, I
think all of you wish you were in my chair
(00:23):
right now. Say you can ask Teresa Chang so many questions.
She is very tapped into spirituality, intuition and things about
the unknown, and we are going to dive deep in
what dreams really mean. I asked Teresa a couple questions.
Because of my cannabis consumption, I do not have ri
em sleep, so I really ask her about that. And
(00:46):
also a childhood recurring dream that I just cannot ever forget.
Let's ask Teresa.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You know her from Shaws of Sunset. You know she
doesn't back.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I have been always able to change the course of
my dream while I'm dreaming. I can change the scenery,
I can tell myself to do things in my dream.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
This is genuinely GG.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We've been having some technical issues and this is our
third attempt at trying to do this and it's actually
working great, but it's at eleven eleven. And I said,
this is our third time doing it and it's at
eleven eleven. That must mean something, and I was being sarcastic,
and Teresa says, yes, it does. Actually, I can explain
that to you. I would love for you to explain that,
(01:34):
because I make fun of all of my girlfriends and
ex boyfriends anytime I would get one of those eleven
eleven text I'm like, oh geez, our brain chooses to
see things at a certain time. Tell me, Teresa, what
does it mean.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
I mean you're talking about confirmation biased there. If you
are thinking about something, then you tend to be more
likely to see it. Of course, But you know, Einstein
once said there are two ways of looking at the world,
one as if everything's a miracle, and one of his
nothing is a miracle. So let's take the glass half
full approach and consider it a cosmic sign. Now you know.
God has been often called the master mathematician. The universe
(02:09):
consists of numbers, and in numerology, eleven eleven is really
powerful because it's a repeating number. Number one is all
about new starts and new beginnings and spiritual awakenings. So
if you see it repeating like that, it's like the
Cosmos is sending you a giant wake up call. This
is your moment, this is your time to look within
(02:31):
and find deeper meanings to your life. And of course
we're in twenty twenty two now, which has been an
a year like no other and is predicted.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Didn't we as humans create time. We created the number,
for instance, eleven, and we we assigned it that right.
So I believe in a lot of energy, and I'm
sure a lot of people out there believe in both
sides because ideal, especially being living in LA you definitely
deal with extreme only both sides of the equation. But
(03:02):
I feel like, yes, there's energy. I believe in spirituality.
I believe in the planets. I just start questioning when
people say something like the repetition of numbers, because I'm like, well,
that was man made numbers. We designed that.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So is there relevance, Yes, But that's only if you
come from it of the perspective that you are a
human being having a spiritual experience. I come from it
of the perspective that we are spiritual beings having a
human experience. Therefore, what we create comes from soul. You
know that we're talking about consciousness, the inner world, that
are inner being, the spark of the divine, if you
(03:41):
want to call it that, the part of you that
may be infinite and eternal. Because the whole universe consists
of energy. We saw these recently released shots from NASA
and they're saying, oh, the universe is even deeper than
we thought. We're made of the same particles as those stars.
Absolutely right, that everything is energy. So if you look
at it from that perspective, that's why you can start
(04:03):
seeing signs and coincidences or what Young called synchronicity, And
it's what you put into it. The power of belief.
We're going into manifestation here, which is huge at the moment,
especially online. You know the power of your belief. But
I think there's a lot of misinterpretation about what manifestation is.
It's not positive thinking. Actually, it's not actually about making
(04:27):
all your dreams come true. That is a byproduct. What
manifestation really is is finding gratitude and joy and meaning
right here, right now. It's not me. For example, you know,
obviously you're a huge star and I'm nervous about this interview,
thinking if the interview goes well, I'll be happy in
this moment, just feeling good and loving the fact that
(04:48):
I have the privilege and the opportunity to speak to
you and talk about what I'm passionate about that. And
then if you find joy in every present moment, you
build the momentum. Momentum somehow attracts better things into your life.
That's manifestation. Really, I've gone on a tangent.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But no, you know what, I agree with everything that
you with everything that you just said, accept the part
about coincidences, because I don't believe in coincidences. Now, I'm
an extreme, extreme, extreme logical person, so I'm also the
extreme opposite polar end of some belief systems. But I
(05:30):
do believe that we are all Stardust. I believe that
we all came from Stardust. I believe everything that exists
in our universe that we can understand is Stardust. And
we see how vast it is out there. We know nothing.
Like you said, we are now seeing new photos from
NASA that's just showing our galaxy to be less than
(05:53):
a microscopic spec in this vast I don't even know
what to call it. Whatever it is, right, it's I
think sometimes in my opinion, I believe that some people
or groups of people choose certain routes that are easier
for them to live by or to die by, like
(06:14):
religion for instance, organized forms of belief, cults, anything that
allows someone to think this is easier for me to live.
I have an excuse, I have a justification. I don't
think that there is any anything other than science to
(06:36):
prove that we are energy, that we are a startusts.
It's been proven by science. So it's not like if
you believe that you know what if I would say,
if you don't believe that, there's something very wrong with you, right,
your perspective has been a little off if you don't
realize that because the science says that we have a
(06:56):
Bible and that says God all that, and then we
have science that shows something very different. So to each
their own in their form of a belief, but nothing
can be denied about energy. We all feel energy. It's
how we explain love, It's how we explain so many
things that we experience on a second to second moment
(07:19):
by moment of our lives that we don't realize it's energy.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
You're a philosopher and a scientist.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
How have you been able to do that? You're researching
and you are teaching. How does that go for? How
does it work? How does it look? To learn from you?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
To learn from me? Is I hope after people read
my books, So listen to me rambling somewhere. I do
a lot of media about dreams and spirituality and the
importance of looking within that people go away being more
self reliant and self loving, because for me, that's the
start of spiritual growth. I mean, too many people come
to spirituality having a terrible lack of understanding of who
(07:59):
they really are and really knows respect for themselves, and
they're trying to get their identity from a belief set.
Because I don't actually prescribe any religion or fixed set
of beliefs. What I prescribe is looking within and understanding yourself,
because self knowledge is the beginning of all wisdom. If
you don't understand yourself, if you can't help yourself, if
(08:21):
you can't love yourself, how on earth do you think
you can be a force for positive change. So anyone listening,
please change yourself before changing the world too. Much problems
in the world are people who are really wounded deep
within trying to heal that wound externally from stuff, from relationships,
from money, from popularity, from how they look and what
(08:45):
others say about them, the fulfilling the expectations of others.
Too many people are trying to find healing and wholeness
outside in. And what I'm trying to promote and I
have done for the last twenty five thirty years since
I started writing, it's inside out. That's how you start.
And that's where dream work is so important because I've
(09:05):
done a lot of media about spirituality, but the media
is quite reluctant to talk about spirituality understandably, or the
afterlife if it exists. They will, however, talk to me
about dreams because whoever you are, whether you're skeptic or not,
you still dream. Now that's an ultimate mystery. Science doesn't
know really why we dream those incredible stories and plots
(09:29):
that are revealed to us night after night after night.
What is going on? And what I try to say
is that by decoding and understanding the meaning of those dreams,
you start to understand who you are. Because dreams really
are your nocturnal intuition talking to you in symbols, which
is up to you to decode, so you become a
(09:51):
detective of your own life. You start to fall in
love with yourself. We've had a dream, you wake up
and you start reflecting, what did that mean? So many
people just bash around in their life not reflecting on
the deeper meaning of why they're doing things right. And
that's why dream work is so healing, and research has
shown that it is. You know, it's used for people
(10:13):
healing some trauma, for veterans starting to do some dream
work can be very very powerful personal growth tool.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I was reading about you, Teresa, and again there's just
so much written about you, and you have written so much,
and I've identified and I agree, and I see likewise
with you on so many of these things. And like
you just brought up dreams. This is the one area
(10:41):
that I was very interested to really be able to
talk to you about because I my whole life, I
was a very very vivid dreamer. I could my dreams.
I still to this day can remember almost every dream
I've ever had. I feel I have been always able
to change the course of my dream. While I'm dreaming,
(11:02):
I can change the scenery, I can tell myself to
do things in my dream where it got sort of
in the way of my sleeping. It became a sort
of insomnia. I was unable to sleep. My dreams were
interfering with my life. I don't know why. I just
(11:23):
couldn't sleep. I mean, for many, many years I was
taking sleeping medications. It's easy for doctors to just obviously
give the Western version of the remedy. Just pop a pill,
You'll go right to sleep. I started getting more I
don't know. My dreams just started becoming more intense and
(11:44):
out of my grip at this point, so the only
thing that I sort of came upon was cannabis. And
cannabis I didn't come upon it for my sleep or anything.
At that time. I have an autoimmune disease, and I'm
on methotruxa, which is a form of chemotherapy, so I
was sort of fighting the side effects and the inflammatory
(12:06):
helped that it was giving for my autoimmune And then
I noticed I'm sleeping like a baby at night. And
then I noticed the more I was consuming of cannabis,
I'm now not dreaming anymore. So I am at a
point where I don't dream.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
We're going to take a quick break. But when we
come back, I.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Go to dream dictionary to like the many ones I've
written or whatever, and look for meanings and whatever. But
dreams are a series. They're like Netflix. I mean, Sandman
is on at the moment.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
On Netflix, they go on dream top Rakin, Yes it is.
I'm a researcher, just as you, Theresa. I researched the
hell out of everything. Everything so I realized after reading
was that cannabis shuts off your rem a. I am
(13:00):
part of sleep. What I really wanted to talk to
you about was what are dreams? Do we need to
have them? By not having it, am I creating a
stress factor in my life? I have seen research that
says science can't prove the benefits of dreams, but I
just I don't know. I just can't seem to believe that.
(13:23):
So Teresa, can you tell us a little bit about
what our dreams?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Thank you so much for sharing all this. There's so
much I want to say to you. For First of all, obviously,
the priority is your health at the moment, getting a
good night's sleep. You're a mom, You've got a busy life,
so I am all for a good night's sleep. And
if your dreams bordering on nightmares, it sound like and
your lucid dreaming was starting to interfere with your sleep.
This is probably a good thing that you're going through
(13:48):
a period. I mean, we all go through a period
of our lives and we don't recall our dreams as much,
So just don't panic about it. But I think what
our dreams dreams are your intuition talking to you, your creativity,
your inner world, the part of you that wants to
know the deeper meaning in life. Now you talked about
(14:10):
the science. Yes, there is science to show that dreams
don't matter, but there's also science to show that dreams
are very good for your holistic well being. Indeed, when
people are deprived of REM sleep, as you're suggesting that
you may be now, they do report higher anxiety during
the day. So just watch out for that rem sleep.
We need all the stages of sleep. You do actually dream,
(14:32):
You are actually dreaming, you're just not recalling it because
you do dream in the other stages of sleep, just
not as much. Rem stage sleep is the one you
dream the most. You can have, you know, you know,
misty dreams in the other stages but rem sleep is
where it all happens, and it's also the source of
infinite creativity. Rem sleep. If you think of the number
(14:53):
of inventions, novels, works of art, literature, movies, even Google,
you know, was inspired by a vision in a dream.
So you're kind of like starving yourself of an incredible
resource of creativity. What I'd love you to do, and
I hope this conversation helps, is to not have this
(15:14):
attitude that your dreams are keeping you awake because your
dreams are reflecting your anxiety about them back to you.
If you just sort of say I love my dreams,
you say you can influence your dreams, So why are
they keeping you awake? If you can influence your dreams.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And I actually have to say I loved my dreams
and they were not nightmares. I had so much control
over my dreams that when I noticed that it was
getting you know, tense or aggressive or violent in my dream,
I was able to stop the dream and turn it
into something else. I felt like my brain was never
(15:51):
shutting off. I was fully in my sleep.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Our brains, it's a myth that we sleep. We are
switched on twenty four, so we are infinite and we
are eternal, So that's just something. Don't worry about you.
I know you want to shut off. Our body shuts down,
and most of our brain does, but there's a part
of our brain that's always alert, always watching. It's that
you know, we are twenty four to seven switched on,
(16:15):
and don't fear that. It's actually incredible potential there for
you to dip into. And the fact that you were
having so many dreams, they were like screaming at you.
Notice me, You're inner world, Notice me. Find the deeper
meaning to your life. Right now is the time. It's
not out there. It's not out there what you want.
(16:37):
It's within me. It's all within me. Other people are
not going to complete me. My career is not going
to These things all help. These are learning experiences. I
mean these material things we are either lessons or blessed things.
And you, I think the reason we're here on this
planet is to learn and grow. So there ought to
help you evolve. But the true magic and potential for
(16:58):
you is with in. And if you do have this
ability to lucid dream, that's quite rare and incredible treasure.
It writ down those dreams, brainstorm all those symbols. They're
trying to tell you something about what the next step
in your life should be. They're also very cathartic. They're
trying to get reared of past trauma for you. They're
(17:19):
trying to help and heal you. Nightmares and anxiety images.
I know you said you don't have nightmares, but disturbing
images and dreams are actually very healing because you get
to meet your shadow, you know, and when you go
in the dream world, you meet all aspects of yourself
symbolically represented it. And sometimes that's quite alarming to see
(17:40):
just how rich and complex and how many aspects of
our personality are out there. That's quite alarming. But what
you can do in the dream state is actually get
comfortable with all of you, both your toxic potential and
your positive potential, because we've got both. There is night
and there is day. Every person is a mix of
(18:01):
dangerous impulses and more positive, healing impulses. But it's when
you're awake and you're conscious and your reason, your logic takeover.
It's what you choose to do with that potential within
you that makes the woman, that makes the man, that
is true in strength, that is true courage, what part
of you you choose to feed, and dreams are giving
you a snapshot of the whole of mirrors that is
(18:24):
within you. All these symbols and metaphors in your dreams
that you encounter. Nothing is trivial in a dream. And
the fact that the universe was sending you so many
dreams and you were so aware of them when you
woke up, my goodness, that is a blessing. I'm jealous
because I'm a dream author.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I don't know, you know what. Maybe it's because my mind.
I'm just I feel I'm turned on mentally all day long,
and I get so envious of those people in TV
shows or in real life where they just say, I
just hands such a good sleep, And then I'm thinking,
oh my god, I just sub through five hours of
an action movie that I you know, I had to
(19:04):
mentally control the whole narrative of it. I'm exhausted.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Helping you switch off. It won't necessarily be in sleep,
because you are obviously highly creative, and you know there's
your soul has a lot to say to you. So
that's not that chat is not going to stop. But
if you wanted to find some inner piece of meditation, mindfulness.
You know, we hear a lot about that. Meditation is
very simple. It's just simply paying attention to your breath,
calming down that way. That's the way you'll get a break.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yes, I mean, for now, it's a very leafy green
that helps me instead of medization. It's been working for
an array of things for me. But you know, can
I ask some for you? They're probably quite immedial questions,
but I'm sure for the listeners out there, it's it's
very basic questions, like what does it mean when you're
(19:55):
falling in a dream?
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Oh, it's the number one reported dream actually, because you know,
there's dream chart, because I work with sleep and dream research,
there is actually a dream chart, you know, and they
chart the top one hundred or chop ten and number
one is usually in the top ten. Falling is sorry.
Falling is usually in the top ten. And it basically
means that you're feeling a bit unsupported and it's time
that you're sort of heading in a direction and you
(20:18):
need to course correct. Unless you are enjoying falling in
your dream, because feelings are a big indicator of the
meaning of the dream, then it just means just go
with the flow. However, if you're panicking when you're falling,
it suggests that in your waking life something needs to
course correct. You are heading in the wrong direction, so
just pay attention to your current circumstances. Dreams. People make
(20:41):
the mistake of thinking that dreams are about the distant past.
You know, they're very current. Dreams are about what's happening
right now. The power of now. It's all about what's
happening right now in your life. Sometimes they use symbols
from your past to get that message across because it
will resonate with you. But it's about what's happening in
your life right now. And also another dream interpretation tip,
(21:04):
which is really important. People get hung up on interpreting
one big dream that they've had and they go to
dream dictionary to like the many ones I've written or
whatever and look for meanings and whatever. But dreams are
a series. They're like Netflix. I mean, Sandman is on
at the moment, number one on Netflix. There's all dream
(21:25):
you know, I love it. I mean, I couldn't be
happier that, you know, the Lord of the King of dreams.
You know, the Sandman is number one. You know, it's
all about set, all about the power of dreams. Away
people have these questions, there are a series so what
you need. That's why keeping a dream journal is important,
because you write down one dream, and then the dream
the next night will comment on, enhance it. It's like
(21:46):
a long running series that never stops, really, and you
need to look at your dreams in hindsight over a
period of time, because what you will see then is
that your dreaming mind is like a voiceover a commentary.
But again it speaks in this very difficult to understand
symbolic language. Now, back in ancient times we had a
(22:08):
more a better understanding to think in metaphors and symbols,
like the moon is intuition, the sun is warmth.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
We were primitive. Yes, we've become.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
A bit more superficial though as well. We look very
much on the surface level, and dreams are always what
lies beneath, look beneath the meaning. And what I hope
that anybody who does work with me whatever, is that
by the end they are actually looking at their waking
life as a dream as well to interpret and look
(22:37):
beneath the meaning. You know that they actually in their
waking reality that if this was in a dream. What
would it mean?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's all quite therapeutic. It's very therapeutic. What about people,
I mean, my producer here, Ryan, my mother, There's lots
of people. I hear say all the time. I don't dream.
I never have dreams, and I know that that that's
everyone's dreams. You just don't remember. Why do some people
have the inability to remember their dreams?
Speaker 4 (23:05):
I know many people like that. They often write to
me saying, I love what you do, and I love
what you're saying, but I can't remember my dreams. I
don't dream.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You're right.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Research shows we dream at least five or six times
a night, but you're not recalling it now. The number
one reason is your attitude towards dreams.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Right.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
It's like if you're thinking dreams are trivia or they
mean nothing, and you've been taught from school age onwards
they're random misfirings of the brain. Of course you're you
know your dreaming mind is going to be depressed. It's
not going to want to speak to someone who doesn't
want to hear what it has to say. So first
of all, change your attitude towards dreams. Then immerse yourself
in dream literature. What or if you love movies, watch
(23:43):
something like Inception. You know that that twenty ten movie
which just made dreaming cool, watch movies about dreams. Sandman,
as I say, is so current, it's on right now.
And to actually sort of like start thinking in this
dream language. That is the number one thing. Number two.
Alarm clocks are the enemy of dream recall because when
(24:03):
you wake up, the first two or three minutes are
crucial for recall because you're still in an unconscious state
where your intuition, your imagination, your creativity are unleashed. But
when you wake up, your brain goes from that SETA,
those deep steep sleep stages through to SETA, through to
the more awake stages where consciousness, reason and logic rule
(24:25):
and your gentle dreaming mind cannot compete with the waking state.
So as you wake up, just transition a bit slowly,
stay in the same position that you woke up in
that you mirror the state that you're sleeping in, and
keep your eyes closed because then your your waking mind
will saying, hey, I'm still dreaming. That is a really
(24:45):
good tip. Just two minutes is the optimum time for
dream recall.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I'd love to hear from Ryan. Yeah, you're going to
give it a try. Ryan, You're going to go it
a shot. Ryan's going to give it a shot. And
we're going to hear back from him. And when I
we when I do have dream because yes, my rem
dreaming no longer exists anymore, but I do have, like
you said, a little bit hazy dreaming throughout the night
(25:10):
that I can, you know, since the cannabis. But there's
often times I will wake up that one moment between
REM your final REM and you're waking up consciousness, there's
this moment where I'm aware of that in between, and
it's a little bit out of body in that one
(25:32):
split of a second, and I often go into a
cry that's almost like a and then it stops, it goes.
It's almost like I can't even I don't cry. I'm
not a cry you could trust me. Nothing really makes
me cry, So I don't. And I'm a logical person,
so I try to understand what is happening to me
(25:55):
in that Why am I so hyper aware of my mind?
And through these sleep and ram and transitioning periods, I.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Think your soul is urging you to cry, because not
all tears are unevil create tears are wonderfully healing as well.
To release and to let go. Yes, it's important that
you release and let go. And that twilight stages, I say,
is is absolutely beautiful because you kind of get a
glimpse of infinite possibility, the mystery of who you are
(26:29):
in those moments. It's it's utterly beautiful and it should
give fill you with joy, really, and maybe it is
tears of joy that you're realizing that this isn't all
there is, this stuff, this world is not all there is.
There's something more infinite about me, and this is exciting.
So maybe it's it's a kind of an awakening. I
(26:51):
hope so. But I do also I don't like that
you're not having all stages of sleep. I know it's
important for you right now, but I do hope that
that does course correct and that you start dreaming and
loving your dreams again, because you know they could be
a source of a great novel for you, or of
screenplay or a song or a project. It's all in
(27:13):
there in the dreaming state. And I could quote invention book,
I mean Frankenstein, the first sci fi novel a dream
Salvador Dardi's art a dream, many of Stephen King's greatest
work dream.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yes it is, we're going to take a quick break,
but when we come back.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
But maybe you need it. Maybe it's all part of
your journey that you needed all these shocks, these challenges,
these setbacks, these problems because the growth potential. Maybe this
is the path you need to be that you can
ultimately actually be a real force of inspiration to others.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm not afraid of the dreams. It just happens to
be working together that I am consuming the cannabis for
my body, and also I don't need insomnia pills anymore
because it's allowing me to sleep, and it just so
happens to shut off the rem part of my sleep
(28:14):
and dream process. But to be quite honest, when I
compare it to what my life would be like without
the cannabis, I would choose missing out on that. You know,
first sixty to ninety minutes of round, you take naps.
I don't. I can't. I cannot nap. For me, A
nap is the deepest sleep I ever experienced. Therefore I
(28:35):
could never really come out of it. It feels like
the worst jet lag homa I ever have saying yeah,
I can't, so I absolutely cannot nap. I'm up by
four forty five five am every morning, I'm down by
about eleven pm. Every night I go into a deep
sleep until again four forty five five and I'm up
in go, Go go. You know, I've always had I
(28:59):
love my dreams, and a lot of people never understood
when I would say, I really love it because I
can control them. And when you learn how to control
your dream it's something very spectacular. But as a child,
obviously I didn't have this ability or understanding, and I
would have this one recurring dream which I really wanted
to ask you about, when I was very problematic. I
(29:25):
know this is our first time meeting for all those
people out there who have known me for a long
time with the TV world, I was a bit of
a troublemaker always my whole life growing up, and so
for that, I was in therapy from a very very
young age. It's very typical of parents to always, you know,
just throw the kid into therapy without healing themselves, but
(29:47):
I was in therapy from a very young age, about
ten to eleven. I mean I started doing drugs when
I was eleven and a half. So that goes that
when I was about thirteen, I had been got kicked
out of so much schools, but I had this therapist.
Her name is Wendy Fisher, and I will never ever
forget this bitch. She told me that I was going
(30:10):
to be dead or in jail for life by the
time I was eighteen. If I just was now this
is my therapist to mind you, and I'm thirteen years old,
I'm hearing this, I'm thinking, geez, because at this point
she's saying I need to come to therapy two to
three times per week. So she's like, if you don't,
and you keep continuing. But she was also a dream analyzer.
(30:30):
She always would analyze dreams and she did a lot
of therapy by asking me my dreams, and because my
dreams were so clear and vivid, it helped a lot.
But she was such a pos you know what I mean.
So now everything that she has told me, I second
guess was this true or was she just an asshole,
you know, telling me random things thinking I have problems.
(30:54):
But this one dream that I had a recurring dream,
I was maybe I don't know, eight, nine, ten years old,
and I would have it for years, I was being
kidnapped by three men, and one of the men is
carrying me over his shoulders and they're running down a
path and I am also chasing them as well. So
(31:17):
I'm on the guy's shoulder and I'm chasing them, and
there's a peal of an orange. My father when I
was younger, I used to peel oranges in like a flower,
kind of a one long ring, like a spring. And
there was this orange peel and it was coming and
it was wrapping around my body and it was making
me stuck that I couldn't go save myself. So this
(31:40):
dream kept coming up all the time, all the time,
and now as an adult, through fucking thirty million years
of therapy, I haven't understanding. I had a lot of
issues with my father as a child. I was never
really enough for him. I come from an academic family,
so my dad didn't even come to my graduation. He
(32:03):
said I had a four point oh gpa, I should
have had a four point two. And I was like,
you know, eleven years old at that time. So I
understand that orange peel perhaps was representing my father, but
I didn't understand the me chasing me, you know, at
such a young age, is my Is this my subconscious
(32:25):
mind telling me that I'm trying to save myself? What
was what was this? What was this dream? If you could,
I'll do my best.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And first of all, though, thank you for inviting me on.
Given the background, I didn't know that you'd had a
difficult experience with a previous dream analyze a therapist, So
this is incredible. Thank you, Thank you for that. And
you know that therapist makes me very very disturbed saying
(32:54):
things like that to a young child, because by asking
you to share your dream, what she's doing is she's
really getting an intimate understanding of your psychology. And that's
why I always treat when people share dreams and when
your friends do anyone listening, If people share their dreams
with you, like you just have, it's a really sacred
moment because you're getting a glimpse of their soul. This
(33:18):
is really really sacred. And I'm so sorry that that
was that trust. Thank you that that little child had
was abused. That dream is all about your relation, because
everything in a dream is an aspect of yourself. As
I say, it's a hall of mirrors. It is about
your relationship to the masculine met the men in your life,
but also the masculine tendencies within you, your desire to
(33:41):
be assertive. It's all about that tussle and trying to
understand what. I'm a woman, but I need to be assertive.
How do I do that? I've not had proper role models.
The kidnap scenario is something happening against your will, that
the men in your life are imposing things on you,
or taking new places or doing things to you that
you are not in line with. And yes, you are
(34:02):
trying to save yourself, but at that time you're such
a young child. What I would suggest is that if
you get a time today, dream to go back and
revisit that dream.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
I've tried so many times. I as with the ability
to understand and actually view my dreams as I'm dreaming.
I have tried so many times to revisit it. I
can't seem to grasp it. I can't seem to grasp it,
but not in the.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Dream state when you're awake daydreaming, or to write it
down the dream and actually change the plot. It sounds
really simple, but rewriting your dreams and changing the plot
to how you ended it so in that scenario, I'd
like you to kick ass. I'd like you to not
be kidnapped. I'd like you to not have the orange
(34:48):
peel after you. I'd like you to be wonder woman
in it and just escape. Just rewrite it or rethink it,
and your brain will take note. It will be very
healing healing that but your dreaming mind, then, what it
was trying to do. It was trying to warn you.
It was trying to tell you that as you go
through life, the men in your life are going to
be disruptive.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And I grew up to become very alpha. I grew
up a very alpha independent woman. I mean, I got
a sperm donor to have a son. That's how much
I have this opposition to men. And I'm not even
a lesbian, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I love deck.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yeah, as you say, programming you had as a child,
you see. And I think the reason all these dreams
are coming back through because men are Okay, most men
aren't like that, some wonderful men out there, and it's
allowing that masculine energy to come into your life.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
A Dreamlind trying to help you.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
That is that is the past. Let it go. It's gone.
It's you know, every moment you recreate who you are.
You don't need to be defined by all these past
versions of yourself. But you, you are right now, totally new.
Every morning when you wake up, are born and new.
I mean, there's a wonderful tribe called the Parah who
believes that actually, if you sleep too long, you become
(36:07):
a different person the next morning. And they call themselves
a different name, and it's called the napping tribe. They
only nap because they don't like to sleep too long,
because they fear that they you know, they want to
retain their identity. It's fascinating culture. I mean a lot
of it's to do with fear of being bitten by snake.
But they are actually one of the most happiest tribes
(36:28):
on earth. They're known to be, and could it be
because of their attitude towards sleep being something deeply sacred
and that if you sleep for too long, you wake
up a brand new person because your cells recalibrate, You've dreamed,
you've gone to your you know, the soul heaven wherever.
So I mean it let all that go rewrite that dream.
(36:50):
But my goodness, as a child, to have that vivid
dream you were already having your own back then, looking
out for yourself. Your unconsciou was already was trying to
warn you and help you. But maybe you needed Maybe
it's all part of your journey that you needed all
these shocks, these challenges, these setbacks, these problems because the
(37:14):
growth potential, maybe this is the path you need to
be that you can ultimately actually be a real force
of inspiration to others. There are many people listening to
you who will have had many of the issues that
you've gone through. You know, and you don't talk at
it in a superficial way. You've been there. You're actually
(37:34):
very similar. Actually, twenty nineteen, I did Under the Skin
with Russell Brand and he was having a very similar
description of his dreams because he'd been really to Helen
back and he was talking about how it is nightmares
and whatever, and this is very interesting. And I remember
saying to him at the time that this was so
(37:58):
powerful what he was saying on air, because it would
really help people understand that their dreams are not attacking them.
Their dreams are not to fit.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Your dreams are trying to heal you.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
They're trying to cathartically release all that's been dragging you down,
and they're trying to point you in the only way
they know how, through symbols and metaphors and shocking things
in the right direction, and of course kidnap, death, murder,
all these things. You're more likely to remember it when
you wake up. If you're constantly dreaming of skipping through
(38:29):
a field. It's not that's life, isn't it. Because life
is about the journey and not the destination. And that's
why we love all these epic things like Harry Potter
what or Lord of the Rings or all these things.
It's the journey that we love. You know, say the
Lord of the Rings was set in the Shire. We
(38:51):
don't get so bored. We need that journey to Mordoor.
And you're on your journey to more door. You will survive,
and you've got to believe that you will.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Thank you. You're so sweet. You're very, very inspirational and motivational.
I really enjoy your perspective. It's not just entertaining, but
it's also knowledgeable because I do believe in these things
that you're talking about. So maybe some for some people
(39:22):
it's just entertaining conversation, but for me, it's really both
because it's so true and the entertaining part to it
is because of the unknown aspect. It's so unknown and
so real that there's this little bit of fear that's
a bit of a turn on. You know, what is
out there? What are our dreams? So being able to
(39:42):
dive in and really understand more and learn more. You've
provided that for us by writing all these books. Belahadid
has posted about your Dreams book Your Dreams from a
to Z book, So I encourage everyone to just go
out there and get one of to research on books.
If you're into dreams and want to learn more, pick
up her books on dreams. You have so many books
(40:06):
about so many different understandings of intuition, consciousness, spirituality. So
I encourage everyone to go pick up at least one
of your books, if not all of them, and learn
a little bit more about yourself, because it all starts
with ourselves and what we manifest. That is the power
(40:27):
of intention. Thank you so much for being here, Teresa.
Where could people find you if they're looking for you?
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I'm just mesmerized by your story and all that you're
saying and your energy. You are going to inspire so
many people. I can feel that in the future for you.
I'm not a psychic, but I just feel that you're
going through all this.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
That's my dream is to do that, like public speaking
is like one of my dreams, to just be able
to talk to people.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
All these things are a waiting. I feel it because
you will be real. Really you know you have that
ability to do that. And as I say, you're dreaming,
mine knows that already. Now. If you're dreaming about all
these things and you can influence your dreams, your intuition,
your unconscious already believes who you can be, the next
(41:20):
step is just for you to believe absolutely. If the
mind can believe it, the body can achieve it.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And I'm going to have to fly to Windsor, England
and give you a hug because your main new best friend, Teresa,
oh than lots of love and thank you so much,
Thank you so much for being here, you guys. Her
name is Teresa Chang. Her last name is about C
H E U N G Teresa with an AH. Thank
you so much Teresa for being here, and I cannot
(41:46):
wait to dive deep into your bags.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Thank you, thank you so much, and it's anything else
can do for you, Hesitate.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
We'd love to have you back again.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Thanks for listening to Genuinely Gigi. Download new episodes every
week and if you haven't already, subscribe and be sure
to leave.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Us a rating and review.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
And while you're at it, check out some of the
other great shows available on Strawhut Media.
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