My guest, Soul alignment life and business coach, Artist, Writer, and Speaker, Ann Marie Grace, dreamed she discovered a whole new floor in her home. She’s had variations of the dream before and discovered new wings, bathrooms, and living spaces that she had once known about, but had forgotten. What does it mean? Listen in!

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and now based in Melbourne, Australia, Ann Marie blends psychology, neuroscience, Human Design, Gene Keys, and astrology, translating complexity into grounded clarity, and empowering people to reconnect with their inner wisdom, see beyond conditioned patterns, and move forward with aligned direction and purpose.

With over two decades of experience spanning wellbeing, marketing, leadership, and personal growth, Ann Marie’s work sits at the intersection of soul and strategy, supporting individuals to not only understand who they are, but to build lives and businesses that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside.

Through her signature approach, including Your Soul’s Unique Blueprint, she guides people to come home to themselves, reconnect with their truth, and find the courage to realign with their unique gifts, purpose, and passions.

She is the founder of Thriving Through Connection and host of The Wildly Beautiful Life podcast, where she shares practical tools and soulful insights for living with clarity, courage, and authenticity.

Ann Marie is also the author of the forthcoming book, A Wildly Beautiful Life™, expanding her body of work into a deeply personal and practical guide to breaking free from conditioning, giving yourself permission to be, and intentionally designing a truly aligned life.

Join us as we explore and interpret Ann Marie’s dream before we flow into our conversation about her life and work, and how she can help you.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
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Connect with Ann Marie:

Ann Marie’s website: Annmariegrace.com
Follow Ann Marie on Instagram
Follow Ann Marie on LinkedIn
Follow Ann Marie on Facebook

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Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube here

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 305 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Soul Alignment Coach Ann Marie Grace dreamed of a new floor appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

A dream interpretation is an invitation to create positive change in your life. You may accept the invitation, but what is the next step? Spoiler alert: it usually involves wrangling with your unconscious mind to bring it on board with your vision. I’m here to show you how, using an example of a dream about a horse.

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These short interludes – published between our guest episodes – bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 305, will be out in two weeks on 11 June 2026. My guest, Soul alignment life and business coach, Artist, Writer, and Speaker, Ann Marie Grace, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

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Do Jane Teresa Anderson’s online courses:

How to interpret your dreams step-by-step
Dream Alchemy
Dream Therapy Professional Level 1

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 17 The Dream Show: Dream interpretation is step 1. What is step 2? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, Radio Breakfast Announcer Leah Tindale, had a recurring childhood dream of being chased. If only her childhood friend Ryan could save her! But where was Ryan?

Can our childhood recurring dreams and nightmares give us insight into our early years, and can they show us where we still might be stuck in our adult lives? Listen in to find out!

Leah Tindale lives in Bunbury, Western Australia. She loves to chat, bringing laughs and news to the people of Western Australia every morning on Triple M Breakfast Southern WA. She also hosts her own independent podcast, Note To Self, which gleans notes of wisdom from people around the globe.

Join us as we explore Leah’s dream, throwing light on those early years when she was 6-7 years old, and seeing how they connect with her life and work today.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Leah:

Leah’s podcast, Note To Self, on You Tube
Leah’s podcast, Note to Self, on Apple Podcasts
Follow Leah on Instagram

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Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 304 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Radio Breakfast Announcer Leah Tindale dreamed of being chased appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

How do you fly in your dreams? Do you flap your arms, glide, do a kind of swimming stroke, or launch like a rocket? Do you hover, keep touching back down, or fly high with ease? What do your flying dreams mean? Oh, and did you dream more of flying when you were a child than you do now?

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These short interludes – published between our guest episodes – bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 304 will be out in two weeks on 14 May 2026. My guest, Radio Breakfast Announcer Leah Tindale, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 16 The Dream Show: Flying dreams. What do they mean? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, Rat Race Release Coach Carolina Bakker, dreamed of trying to cover up the fact that she was smoking a cigarette. As a non-smoker, she was intrigued. In her dream she was astonished to see bulky mermaids with alien wings elegantly swimming in deep water.

What does her dream mean, and how can it help her in daily life?

Based in Mexico City, Carolina helps women entrepreneurs release the generational patterns and protective reflexes that keep their business stuck, through her Business Healing Bootcamp. She uses intuitive guidance, constellation work, and energy healing to release what’s blocking business growth and create real transformation. If you’ve ever sensed that your business growth is limited by something older than you, something ancient even, you’re going to want to hear this conversation.

First up we explore her dream, and as Carolina makes the connections with her life and work, we learn more about her personal and business life, and the ways in which she can help you.

If her name sounds familiar, Carolina was my guest a year ago when she lived in Portugal (episode 289). As you’ll hear, her business has evolved significantly since then.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Carolina:

Carolina’s website: Coaching by Carolina
Follow Carolina on LinkedIn
Follow Carolina on Instagram

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Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast on You Tube here.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 303 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Rat Race Release Coach Carolina Bakker dreamed of mermaids and smoking appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

How much insight can you get from a fragment of a dream? In my dream, someone left a bag of green apples on my doorstep. Were they a big enough clue to deliver a meaningful interpretation? Yes! Listen in to find out.

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long guest episodes, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 303, will be out in two weeks on 16 April 2026. My guest, Rat Race Release Coach Carolina Bakker, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

*

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 15 The Dream Show: Interpreting a dream about green apples appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, soul guide, shamanic healer, podcaster, and co-founder of Wild Sovereign Soul, Lian Brook-Tyler, dreamed of a wedding party in her neighbour’s beautifully renovated and extended home. But with a sudden urgency to find a toilet, the question of a lost Kindle, and accidentally killing a bad man, the dream plot thickens. What does it all mean?

Lian lives in Hertfordshire in England in a 500-year-old, quintessentially English country cottage with her husband, two children, an array of rescue animals, and her beloved rose bushes, blessed to be living what she describes as her own soul’s myth.

Lian suffered 15 years of chronic pain, panic attacks and anxiety, all of which mysteriously disappeared in 2012 upon the sudden death of her father.

It was that inexplicable transformation that inspired her to leave a leadership role in the corporate world to immerse herself in discovering what creates pain and struggle, and conversely, how to live from soul.

For over a decade, Lian, together with co-founder Jonathan Wilkinson, has guided soul seekers to find their way home, released from cycles of overwhelm, loneliness, and endless self-improvement, finally free to live a life of deep meaning, embodied ease, and love.

Their work, the Wild Sovereign Soul Path, is an initiatory journey of devotion to reclaim wildness, actualise sovereignty, and awaken soul. It is an alchemy of ancient ways for these modern days, weaving together eclectic wisdom teachings and traditions such as mythical archetypes, rewilding, alchemy, animist spirituality, Kaballah, embodiment, and self-illumination.

After we explore her dream to discover the rich insights it holds, we flow into a conversation about Lian’s life and work, and how she can help you.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Lian:

Website: BeMythical.com
Lian’s Podcast: Wild Sovereign Soul
Lian’s Courses
Lian’s Free Facebook group
Follow Lian on Facebook 
Follow Lian on YouTube
Follow Lian on Instagram
Lian’s Moonly Newsletter

Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast on here on YouTube

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 302 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Soul Guide and Podcaster Lian Brook-Tyler dreamed of toilets and renovations appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Someone once told me his favourite conversation starter at a party was, “What did you dream last night?”

I imagine that brief, light-hearted responses might prove fruit for frivolity and bonding: “I was ice-skating with a panda,” “I was running for a bus, naked,” “I was icing a birthday cake with dog poo.”

Let’s flip this idea.

What if your dreams were the conversation starters, inviting you each morning to engage with the questions they pose?

Be creatively loose, be curious. Each dream has many conversation starters. There’s no right or wrong question. Pick one that makes you smile.

The ice-skating panda might kick off the conversation: “Look at me! Big cuddly panda skating on thin ice! Do I remind you of a certain situation?”

The bus in the naked dream might be the first to jump in with a conversation starter: “Feeling a bit exposed, trying to catch up?”

Now, that dog poo icing. How about, “Do you feel like you’re doing a sh!t job?”

These are fictitious dreams, but even so, I’m sure you can imagine other conversation starters they might offer.

See how I’m writing this blog in single sentence paragraphs? I’m setting you up for the art of writing dream dialogues. (But, oops, there are two sentences, now three, in this paragraph.)

A dream dialogue is where you pick a character or item from a dream, get it to voice a conversation starter, and then have a chat in single sentences.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you dreamed of a house that burned to the ground.

Burned house: “Is this all that is left of me?”

You: “Your structure has gone but I sense your spirit.”

Burned house: “I have no spirit. I am completely burned out.”

You: “That’s how you feel now, you’re too exhausted to see.”

Burned house: “To see what?”

You: “That your spirit will rise again, a phoenix from the ashes.”

Burned house: “No energy for that. I’m done.”

You: “Time will tell, first you need to rest.”

Burned house: “The old me, the old structure, I’m over that.”

You: “The old structure led to your burnout, your exhaustion.”

Burned house: “I don’t want to be like that again.”

You: “This rest time is for you to imagine a more fulfilling structure, a lighter way to be in the world.”

Burned house: “Can you imagine a more fulfilling and lighter way for you to be in the world?”

You: “I feel a flicker, a flame, the promise of vitality returning, an end to exhaustion.”

Burned house: “I am your burnout, delighted you have recognised and acknowledged me.”

You: “Thank you for the shape you took in my dream and for this healing conversation.”

As you can see, I chose an obvious dream symbol to make the point, but a dream dialogue works brilliantly with the most bizarre and seemingly obscure symbols from a dream.

Try this with your next dream, or – just for fun – pretend the dog poo icing dream was yours and imagine the dog poo giving you a conversation starter.

The post A conversation starter appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Your dreams offer insight about things that may hold you back in life. What a treasure trove! What a key to freedom! We start with a waking life story about picking blackberries that delivers an unexpected harvest. Curious?

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 302 will be out in two weeks on March 19 2026. My guest, soul guide, shamanic healer, podcaster, and the co-founder of Wild Sovereign Soul, Lian Brook-Tyler, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

*

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 14 The Dream Show: Harvest your dreams to discover limiting beliefs appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, Poet, Teacher, Therapist and Mystic, Alanna Meredith, dreamed of trying to protect her female family and friends from a wild, toxic old crone. Later the scene shifts to dark, unruly, turbulent, roaring seas where … well, you’ll need to listen to find out!

Having lived and travelled all over the world, Alanna now makes home with her partner and young sons on a farm in Cygnet, Tasmania, Australia. Her lifelong study of art, spiritual practice, mysticism, embodiment and healing informs and inspires her work.

She says, “I find meaning in the natural world. I’m moved by the human heart and am inspired by the mysterious beauty of being here. I believe that our relationships are the most complex yet rewarding experiences of our lives and that when they feel connected, compassionate and courageous, so does our life. My life and work are in complete devotion to the relational nature of living.”

After we explore her dream to discover the rich insights it holds, we flow into a conversation about Alanna’s life and work, and the services she offers.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Alanna:

AlannaMeredith.com
Follow Alanna on Instagram
Follow Alanna on Facebook
Follow Alanna on Substack

Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast here on YouTube

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 301 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Poet and Therapist Alanna Meredith dreamed of a wild crone and turbulent seas appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Jenny had a recurring dream of a plane plummeting to the ground and exploding. What does it mean? It’s working hard to wake her up to something. Here’s how to approach a dream like this, how to stop it from recurring, and how understanding such a dream can enrich your life.

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 301, will be out in two weeks on February 19 2026. My guest, Poet, Teacher, Therapist and Mystic, Alanna Meredith, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

*

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 13 The Dream Show: Dream of a plane crash. What does it mean? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, Holistic Sleep Scientist Sabine Christelli, shares her dream of an otherworldly village where she was a young child taking part in ritual festivities. It felt powerful and profound, but when her brother let go of her hand she was lost, close to tears, and exhausted. Towards the end of her dream she met a deeply soulful horse with big dark chocolate-coloured eyes who … well, you’ll discover more when you listen!

After we explore Sabine’s dream and the revelations it holds for her, we talk about her life and work, recent advances in sleep research, and practical tips on how to get better sleep.

Based in Adelaide, Australia, Sabine Christelli is a Holistic Sleep Scientist who can help you to reclaim deep, restorative rest through her holistic approach and signature 9-Pillar Sleep Method — a unique blend of micro-habit neuroscience, circadian rhythm science, and ancient mind-body wisdom.

With a Post Graduate Certificate in Research in Sleep Science (PhD-level training) and decades of experience in teaching yoga, breathwork, meditation and being an NLP & hypnosis practitioner, she brings a rare fusion of scientific rigour and holistic depth.

Her work has been showcased in Australia’s most prestigious wellness destinations, including The Reef House, Palm Cove, and Ecopia Retreat Kangaroo Island, where she’s known for creating serene, sleep-supportive environments that soothe the nervous system, balance overall wellbeing, and re-awaken natural vitality.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Sabine:
sabinechristelli.com
Follow Sabine on Instagram

Theme music, video editing, sound editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

You can watch the podcast here on YouTube

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 300 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Holistic Sleep Scientist Sabine Christelli dreamed of a deeply soulful horse appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What are fever dreams, and how can they help you? Many people have a particular childhood dream that repeats for them in adulthood whenever they run a fever. Why?

Research shows common fever dream themes include spatial distortion, walls moving, objects melting. Listen in to learn more.

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 300, will be out in two weeks on January 22 2026. This will also be our first podcast published in full video format on YouTube in addition to our usual audio formats on Apple Podcast, Spotify and other platforms.

My guest, Holistic Sleep Scientist Sabine Christelli, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

*

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 12 The Dream Show: Fever Dreams. What are they and how can a fever dream help you? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

After 16 years of creating The Dream Show, we’re … no, we’re not stopping! From January 2026 we’re adding a video podcast format on YouTube. So why, you might wonder, has it taken so long to add this feature?

Why did we jump into podcasting so early (2009) yet stay away from the visual format until now?

That’s easy to answer. Our guests for the first 15 years were anonymous. The concept was to invite people onto the show to share a dream for us to explore and interpret, and my feeling was that anonymity offered our guests the opportunity to go deep and personal. Adding a video format would have robbed them of their anonymity.

But then, in late 2024, I decided to flip the format and invite ‘known’ guests onto the show: people who would still share their dreams for us to explore and interpret but who would then enjoy flowing into a conversation about their life and work.

It hit a chord and the feedback has been exciting. So now we have guests who are super keen to have a video format they can share alongside our regular audio podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other places.

So we’re finally doing it. For those of you who love visuals, you’ll be able to read body language and watch my guests’ responses as we discover the insights hidden in their dreams.

It just so happens that our first 2026 guest podcast is episode 300. So that one, which will be released on January 22, will be our first to appear in the additional video format on my YouTube channel.

It’s a triple celebration: a new year, reaching 300 episodes, and going video.

Yes, I hear you. Many podcasters today produce weekly shows, passing the 300 mark within six years. Those who pump out two or three shows a week hit the 300 much sooner. We began, in 2009, with a weekly show to build momentum before settling on a new episode every four weeks. Oh, except for this year I added the Interlude podcasts, released at the halfway point between our guest episodes, to bring you dream interpretation tips and inspiration to keep you engaged. These will remain in audio format only.

This year (2025) we also changed our podcast cover art (thank you to Nataly Lee, my daughter-in-law, for the new design) and theme music (thank you to Euan Gray, my son, for composition). Euan also took on sound editing and – moving into the new year, video editing.

Earlier this week we had so many downloads of the show that our server broke, and all the podcasts were unavailable for some 24 plus hours. Perhaps it was a last prod from the universe for 2025. We have an invincible system in place now, (thank you to James and Justin of Asporea Digital who handle all the IT things that are beyond my capabilities). It was James who guided us through the technicalities of podcasting back in 2009 when podcasting media was in its infancy, and he also suggested our name, The Dream Show.

Back to the future, beginning tomorrow, 2026:

I would LOVE to say that my guests will be physically in a studio with me, and that we will have a professional camera and lighting crew, just like the top podcasters do. But hey, our guests are from all over the world, and, well, logistics!

Looking forward to our new visual adventures. Episode 300 is already in the bag, and when it comes out, on 22 January, I’ll revisit this blog to post the direct link: (Update, you can watch ep 300 HERE.)

Happy New Year!

PS: About the blog header: A screenshot from upcoming episode 300 with my guest, Holistic Sleep Scientist Sabine Christelli, and a flashback to the pink clouds image that was incorporated in one of The Dream Show’s earlier cover art incarnations.

The post A triple celebration: The Dream Show appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, creative director and children’s author Ryn MacDonald, dreamed she bought a jigsaw puzzle for a rather aloof friend. At the last minute, she decided to put the puzzle together herself and give it to her friend as a finished piece. It went together easily but then morphed and went through several stages until all the puzzle pieces turned into thin slices of beef.

After we explore Ryn’s dream and the gifts it holds for her, we talk about her life and work.

Ryn is a Brisbane-based creative director, children’s author and single mum. Her debut picture book, It’s Not Because of Me, helps young children understand that they are never to blame for their parents’ separation or divorce. Drawing from personal experience and grounded in child psychology, Ryn has written a gentle, empowering story that helps families navigate big feelings with warmth, honesty and a touch of humour. Alongside being an author, she is the director of a marketing agency specialising in food and has spent nearly two decades creating food brands for leading Australian and international food companies.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Ryn:

rynmacdonald.com
Instagram
Facebook
Ryn’s book It’s Not Because of Me 

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 299 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Children’s author Ryn MacDonald dreamed of an unusual jigsaw puzzle appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Dreams featuring animals tend to occur at times of change, or when life challenges us to change. Why? Listen to find out! You can’t take a dream dictionary approach, but I share tips to help you discover what the animals in your unique and personal dreams mean. What can you learn from these dream animals, especially during times of change?

Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 299, will be out in two weeks on 25 December 2025. My guest, Children’s Author & Creative Director Ryn MacDonald, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 11 The Dream Show: Dreams about wild or exotic animals. What do they mean? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, TV host and business leader, Heidi Dugan, dreamed of a white carpet strewn with black silk roses.

There was also the question, in her dream, of why she had to pay for other people’s drinks at the pub, and … well, listen in as we explore and interpret Heidi’s dream.

Heidi had fallen asleep asking for a dream with a message. Her dream baffled her, but we uncovered what she needed to know: clarity and purpose about her next steps.

After we explore Heidi’s dream we talk about her life and work.

Based in Shanghai, China, Heidi Dugan is a globally recognised business leader, TV host, and board advisor who has spent over 30 years bridging the worlds of China and the West. Known for her ability to captivate audiences from boardrooms to live television—with more than 6 million daily viewers on her TV show to $1.5 million in live sales on national TV—Heidi has been featured in leading media including Channel 9 News, Marie Claire, The Financial Times, and The South China Morning Post. She brings a wealth of real-world expertise in influence, communication, and leadership.

Heidi is also the creator of The Power of Presence, a transformative program that helps women in leadership move from being overlooked to commanding any room with confidence, impact, and authenticity.

Her mission is simple: to empower women to speak, lead, and inspire with a presence that cannot be ignored.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

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Connect with Heidi Dugan:

Instagram: Leadwithpresence

Linkedin: Heidi-Dugan

Website: The Power of Presence (thepowerofpresence.co/sp)

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 298 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. TV Host and Business Leader Heidi Dugan gets clarity of purpose from her dream. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s Interlude is a story about a dream I had last year, not about a piece of string, but about a seemingly endless toilet roll. How long was it, and why couldn’t I break off just a few sheets? What did it mean?

Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 298 will be out in two weeks on 27 November 2025. My guest, TV host and business leader, Heidi Dugan, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

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Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
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The post Interlude 10 The Dream Show: What did my dream about not being able to break off a piece of toilet paper from an endless roll mean? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest, Holistic Divorce Attorney and Author Sarah Intelligator, dreamed that her great-great-grandmother—whom she had never met—visited her to deliver a life-changing message.

After we explore Sarah’s dream, we flow into our conversation about her life, work, and her latest book.

Based in Los Angeles, California, Sarah graduated from UCLA cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She received her Juris Doctorate from Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

Practising exclusively family law since 2008, Sarah is the owner and founder of Law Offices of Sarah A. Intelligator, P.C.

Sarah has also been a yoga instructor since 2000. Combining her gift for healing with her skills as a litigator, Sarah organically bridged her two worlds, coining the term “Holistic Divorce and Family Law” to describe her style of practice.

She is the author of the book Live, Laugh, Find True Love: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding a Meaningful Relationship.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

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Connect with Sarah:

LAFamilyLawPractice.com

Follow Sarah on Instagram

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 297 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Holistic Divorce Attorney Sarah Intelligator dreamed of her Great-Great-Grandmother appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s Interlude is about a dream that helped revolutionise the world. It was 1846, and Elias Howe had a problem. He was trying to design a sewing machine to handle mass manufacture. I share the story about the dream he had when he felt completely stuck. The dream delivered the solution! Next, I use Elias’s dream to demonstrate some key dream interpretation tips.

Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 297, will be out in two weeks on 30 October 2025. My guest, Holistic Divorce Attorney and Author, Sarah Intelligator, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

Website: JaneTeresa.com
Book a private session
Begin your dream mastery with Jane Teresa’s online courses
Follow Jane Teresa Anderson on Instagram

*

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 9 The Dream Show: Stuck with a project? Elias Howe was, then he had a dream that revolutionised the world. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Chief Happiness Officer Georgina Dawkins, from Brisbane, Australia, dreamed she was kidnapped by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and taken to an underground kitchen where she was made to cook hot chips.

At one point she was confronted by zombie kittens. There’s more to this dream as you will discover when you listen!

After we explore Georgina’s dream, we flow into our conversation about her life and work. Plenty to get you inspired here.

Georgina Dawkins, Chief Happiness Officer and keynote speaker, is the founder and principal consultant at Happy Hive Consulting, based in Brisbane, Australia.

She blends sharp strategy, unfiltered storytelling, and whip-smart humour to deliver no-fluff talks that make you laugh, think, and take action. She believes the best leaders aren’t just successful, they’re happy. And when leaders lead with courage and vulnerability, they create teams and cultures bursting with creativity, flow, and impact. On a mission to help solo entrepreneurs and small to medium teams build joyful, inspired workplaces where people feel seen and unstoppable, Georgina’s adventurous spirit fuels every keynote, from raw truths to fresh strategies that fire you up and move you forward. She’s available wherever big ideas and brave humans gather.

Connect with Jane Teresa Anderson:

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Connect with Georgina:

happyhiveconsulting.com.au

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 296 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Chief Happiness Officer Georgina Dawkins dreamed of zombie kittens appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

On radio, we generally invite people to call or text in with their dreams. Gaynor phoned about her recurring dream where she is unable to close doors securely, no matter how hard she tries.

In today’s Interlude, I use Gaynor’s dream to give you dream interpretation tips, and to explore the power of using dream alchemy to stop a frustrating recurring dream and change your life in beneficial ways.

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 296, will be out in two weeks on 2 October 2025. My guest, Chief Happiness Officer Georgina Dawkins, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 8 The Dream Show: How to stop a frustrating recurring dream and see positive changes in your life. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

The first thing I do when I open my eyes in the morning is close them again. I drift and search for memories of my dreams before they fade. Dream fragments float into view like seeds on a light breeze. I catch a seed or two and invite them to tell me more of their story. On a good morning, they do. Vividly detailed whole dreams instantaneously pop into view. I keep my eyes closed long enough to commit them to memory.

All of this takes maybe five or ten minutes. An overview interpretation of each takes a few minutes more, and then I may focus on one dream in greater depth while I get ready for my day.

“Can you always interpret your own dreams? Do some fox you?” It’s a great question, and one I’m often asked.

Some do fox me for a while. But I have a way to outwit the fox. I’ll let you in on the secret shortly.

The Art of Dream Analysis

Although I am a dream analyst, I don’t perceive analysing my dreams as work. The process took considerable effort at the start of my career, but after more than 33 years as a practitioner, I’m able to interpret most of my own dreams with relative speed. As a bystander, you might put that down to intuition. I see it more as an ability to process dream analysis steps at lightning pace, in the same way that we simply walk without consciously applying all the steps we discovered as babies learning to stand and propel ourselves forward, or the way our fingers fly across the keyboard without going through the step-by-step process of locating individual keys or spelling words.

Writers, myself included, often describe writing a first draft as ‘downloading’ because ideas seem to present themselves faster than we can think. Or are we simply so practised in generating ideas that we’re no longer conscious of the process?

Breaking Down the Process

When I sat down to write the first course for my online learning platform, The Dream Academy, back in 2017, I wanted to capture the steps I take when I interpret a dream. I had to work back from my familiar proficiency to slow down the process and become aware of each step, each technique.

Most of all, I wanted to break my methods down into the kind of easy-to-follow steps I wished I’d had access to when I was a young adult, before I became a dream analyst.

And so How to interpret your dreams step-by-step was born. The course centres around a Dream Interpretation Chart: I guide you through the steps and prompt you to write information and answers on your chart until, at the end of the process, you have neatly and accurately encapsulated your first interpretation.

Outwitting the Fox

Now, about that fox.

What do I do when I am foxed by one of my own dreams?

I have two choices. I can go back to basics, follow the steps, and fill in a Dream Interpretation Chart. Or—and this is my favourite approach—I imagine a client has brought me the dream. She sits opposite me in my imagination and describes her (my) dream. I know what to do. I ask a question, then another. I follow the steps I take as a dream therapist, and within moments I feel the goosebumps prickle my skin, signalling that deep recognition of my dream’s meaning.

I’m sure you’ve guessed: when I stumble over interpreting one of my own dreams, it’s because I’m in denial of what it means, or because I’m enjoying languishing in the shallower waters of its meaning rather than diving deep where the real magic happens.

Your Journey Begins

Whether you’re at the beginning of your quest to learn how to interpret your dreams, or you need a little more magic to outwit the fox when she throws mist—or misdirection—on your path, the steps, tools, and techniques await you at The Dream Academy. There’s no need to wait. You can do the courses in your own time, at your own pace, so you can begin right now.

The post Foxed by the meaning of a dream? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Darian Slayton Fleming, from Portland, Oregon, USA, is the author of ‘Defying Death: Living an empowered life with multiple disabilities’. She dreamed that her son, who passed away earlier this year, appeared as a column of silver energy.

In her dream, there are times when she’s stuck without her walker, and other times when she walks in step with her shimmering son in a way she has never been able to do in waking life. And there’s a mystery about unopened gift cards.

After we explore Darian’s dream, we flow into our conversation about her life and work.

Darian Slayton Fleming is a Certified Happiness Trainer and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She’s the author of ‘Defying Death: Living an empowered life with multiple disabilities’ and ‘Speak Up for Yourself: get what you need and feel good about it’.

She describes herself as a mom, a grandma, a widow, a therapist, an advocate, an author, and a deep thinker; a woman with multiple disabilities who doesn’t let anything stop her.

Based in Portland, Oregon, Darian operates a thriving therapy practice in which she encourages clients to find their voices and speak up for themselves, and guides people worldwide to overcome unhappiness through changing core beliefs, thoughts, habits, and behaviours.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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embracehappiness.me

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 295 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Happiness Trainer Darian Slayton Fleming dreamed of her son who had just passed away appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

How might dream interpretation clues be revealed by body language?

Today’s Interlude is about how the gestures we make while speaking about a dream can contribute profound revelations about the deeper meaning of the dream.

We unpack a dream about colourful clothes and add more interpretation tips to your collection.

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 295, will be out in two weeks on September 4, 2025. My guest, Certified Happiness Trainer, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and author, Darian Slayton Fleming, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 7 The Dream Show: How you talk about a dream can reveal clues about its meaning. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s guest, Confidence and Dating Coach Tzara Attwater, from Brisbane, Australia, shares a dream about masked people milling about in an underground labyrinth cave.

The masks were animalistic, and the people didn’t feel like real people: more half animal, half human. Shafts of light pierced the cave ceiling and … well, you’ll need to listen to the podcast to discover what happened next, how the dream relates to Tzara’s life, and the insights our dream exploration delivers.

Tzara is an acclaimed self-leadership motivational speaker and relationship development coach dedicated to empowering people to take control of their lives, relationships, and personal growth.

During Covid she left an unhealthy decade-long relationship to travel around Australia, solo, in a motorhome: a courageous, 2-year transformational journey chasing eclipses, surviving unexpected wild encounters in the Australian outback, and coming face to face with the depths of her potential.

After we explore Tzara’s dream, we move on to talk about her life and work.

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Website myconfidencecoach.com.au
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Free ebook: 52 creative ways to meet someone IRL
Free ebook: 52 date ideas to help you nurture love

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 294 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Confidence Coach Tzara Attwater dreamed of a labyrinth cave appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What does it mean when you dream of your partner or someone in your family?

Is your dream giving insight into the person and your relationship with them, or is there a deeper meaning to such dreams? I always encourage you to look at everyone and everything in a dream as representing something about yourself. It’s easy to do that for weird surreal symbols, but when it comes to dreaming of your partner, your logical mind tries to step in.

Here’s help: listen!

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 294, will be out in two weeks on 7 August 2025. My guest, Confidence and Dating Coach Tzara Attwater, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 6 The Dream Show: How to interpret people who appear in your dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Sometimes the most profound revelations emerge from the simplest gestures.

“I’ve never had so many colourful clothes”, Petra laughed, hands waving about expansively as she met my gaze over Zoom, “in real life or in dreams!”

“How did you feel about that in the dream?” I asked.

“Complete. Fulfilled. Excited. Like I had everything I would ever need. What does that say about me? That I’m superficial and shallow? That it’s all about how I look?”

“It’s a dream,” I reminded her, “nothing is as it seems. As I was listening to you telling me about your dream, I noticed your hands kept wavering over your chest then you would open your palms and extend them towards me as if you were making an offering.”

Petra’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

I mimicked the gesture back to her. “What does my body language suggest to you?” I asked.

Petra cocked her head to one side, considered.

“Before you answer, copy the gesture,” I suggested.

I remember the early days of doing dream consultations by phone, before Skype, before Zoom. I am an astute listener, able to read between the lines, or – perhaps that should be – listen between the words. When Skype entered the picture, I was fascinated to watch as people described their dreams – their faces, shoulders, hands signalling unconscious connections to their dream material. And now we’re so accustomed to Zoom that although we are in different rooms, and often on opposite sides of the world, we sit together in the same space.

My work, as a dream analyst and dream therapist, is to hold that space for my clients while I listen, ask them questions, help them explore, gently point out connections, guide them towards a deeper understanding of their unconscious mind, reveal the wisdom held within each dream, offer dream alchemy (to reprogram the unconscious mind) where needed, and shine new light on their life. Which brings me back to Petra.

Petra repeated the gesture. “How does it make you feel?” I asked.

“This bit, waving my hands in front of my chest, feels like summoning something up from my heart. It feels warm, like all this stuff is being freed up, kind of emanating from me. And this bit, opening my palms to you, feels like I want to share the feeling with you.”

Seconds tick by while Petra absorbs her own words.

“It’s not about clothes at all, is it?” she says. “It’s about … you know what it’s about? It’s about opening myself up to a more heartfelt way of living in the world. It’s about showing up in a more colourful way, not in more colourful clothes, but in a more expressive way, drawing on some of my – oh here we go – some of my more colourful experiences that I have kept a bit – oh here we go again – a bit close to my chest.”

She sniffed, grabbed a tissue, dabbed at a tear or two.

“How do you do that?” she asked. “How do you get me to the point where the answers I’m looking for come out of my own mouth?”

“Well,” I began, “partly I know what questions to ask, based on my understanding of your dream and from listening and watching between the lines. And there’s always a special magic that occurs when we spend time immersed in exploring a dream, and it’s this: your unconscious mind joins in the conversation and offers clues. Like your hands waving about in the way they did. Your unconscious mind creates the language of your dreams, so when you and I are in that space, revisiting a dream, it’s open, listening in too, contributing. It offers memories, connections. You become more conscious of what was, until we spoke, unconscious.”

“So if you’re ready to draw on some of your more colourful experiences,” I continued, “what does that say about how you were expressing yourself before today?”

“Pretty black and white,” Petra said, “a thing is either this or that, head stuff, you know.”

“What kind of garments did you notice in your dream closet, Petra?”

“Tops, bodices, shirts, jackets … I don’t remember seeing dresses, pants, hats, shoes.”

“Things that draw attention to the heart then,” I say.

This story is inspired by recent dream consultations with several different clients: all details and dream symbols changed to maintain confidentiality. I hope it has given you more insight into the way I work with clients, and into the way a client’s unconscious mind will frequently contribute at such a rich level. While I usually enter a dream consultation with a clear understanding of the dream’s meaning, my task is to offer you a safe space, walk through your dream with you, and support you as we gently unpack the wisdom at the heart of your dream.

What symbols from your own dreams might be waiting to reveal their deeper wisdom?

The post Unpacking the closet appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s guest, podcast host Sam Ramachander, from Melbourne, Australia, shares a dream of riding her bike through a sea of thousands of snakes.

More recently, she dreamed of driving a convertible while taking aim at – and killing – snakes floating in the air around her. Sam also asks about a tsunami dream.

Sam Ramachander is a chartered accountant with experience in finance within Australian corporates, and a life enthusiast who believes that learning in life never stops. Together with her partner Bala, she hosts the podcast Level Up with Sam and Bala, bringing authentic conversations that inspire growth and learning.

In this episode, we explore her dreams and Sam shares how they relate to her life. Our conversation ranges both wide and deep, discovering what Sam has learned from her podcast guests and from the work of creating her podcast show.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Level Up with Sam and Bala, on YouTube.

Sam at LinkedIn

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 293 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Podcast Host Sam Ramachander dreamed of riding through a sea of snakes appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Does perimenopause cause more vivid dreams?

As if night sweats, broken sleep, middle-of-the-night anxiety, or insomnia aren’t enough to cope with during perimenopause, many women report having more worrying vivid dreams throughout these tumultuous years. What’s the cause? Listen!

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 293 will be out in two weeks on 10 July 2025. My guest, podcast host Sam Ramachander, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 5 The Dream Show: Does perimenopause cause more vivid dreams? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s guest, Amber Needham, known to many as the blind girl who sees, dreamed of a funnel cloud, the precursor to a tornado.

She feels more curious than threatened. She feels the same way about the giant Transformers marching along – boom, boom, boom – with bits of their legs falling apart, and the mudslide rising in her garden.

There’s a lot more happening in these dreams (there are three related dreams), but I’ll leave you to discover the unfolding story as you listen.

We begin by exploring Amber’s dreams, relating them to her life, and finding insight to guide her next steps. I also suggest a dream alchemy practice.

Amber Needham is based in St Thomas, Ontario, Canada. She’s an International Best Selling Author, content course creator, long time entrepreneur, and the founder and co-creator of the Tandem Ride for Sight, a fundraising initiative to raise awareness of LSCD (Limbal Stem-Cell Deficiency) and the funds for the creation of a stem-cell donor registry. She is known to many as the blind girl who sees.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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thiswaytohappiness.com

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 292 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Author Amber Needham dreamed about a funnel cloud and giant transformers appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

In 1846, Elias Howe had a problem. He was trying to design a sewing machine to handle mass manufacture.

But he was stuck.

These were – of course – the days when all sewing was done by hand using a sewing needle: sharp pointy bit at one end, hole for the thread at the other. Howe tried to incorporate the sewing needle into his design, but it wasn’t really working.

Then he had a dream.

History has recorded different versions of his dream, but basically it was this:

He was captured by a tribe of cannibals. Their king gave him 24 hours to come up with a solution for his sewing machine design. If he failed, he would be killed.

He tried – and tried – and tried – to no avail.

The king summoned his warriors, who marched Howe to a huge stewing pot to cook him for their dinner. As they neared the pot, the warriors thumped their spears on the ground, and Howe suddenly noticed that all the spears had a hole near the sharp pointy end.

Thump, thump, thump, went the spears.

Aha! Howe thought in his dream, for my sewing machine to work the hole needs to be near the sharp pointy end of the needle!

He promptly woke up.

Legend has it he went straight to his workshop. His design was a success: it was the first lockstitch sewing machine, enabling the mass manufacture of textiles.

What a dream!

One of the many functions of dreams is to try to solve problems.

Not always practical problems like Howe’s. They also try to solve emotional problems, issues, or challenges.

Let’s look at Howe’s dream from a different angle:

Howe had woken from his dream excited. He had discovered a solution to a problem. He would have called it a good dream, I imagine.

But what if he had missed the message about the placement of the hole in the spears?

As he edged closer to the cooking pot in the dream, and then woke up, I imagine his heart would have been pounding, his breath shallow. He might have said, “That was one of the worst nightmares of my life!”

Let’s look at his nightmare from a dream interpretation point of view:

I consider everyone and everything in a dream as representing something about the dreamer.

The king who wanted a result in 24 hours is perhaps the part of Howe that puts himself under tremendous pressure, the pressure of a tight deadline. (The threat was death in the dream, a true dead-line.)

Dreams often use word play. Maybe the warriors represent Howe’s worries. Is he a worrier? Will his worries be the death of him, mentally, emotionally – or physically, perhaps resulting in a heart attack?

The cannibals are perhaps the part of Howe that is eating himself up as he consumes himself with his goal of designing the sewing machine, or as he consumes himself with worry. Was this project all consuming? Were there other priorities in his life he was ignoring?

The stewing pot: I wonder how much Howe was stewing on his frustration.

Overall, in his dream, things were closing in on him, pushing him towards his end. How much were his worries and all-consuming goals closing in on him in life?

As it turned out, Howe’s dream revolutionised the world, and changed his life for the better. There were some hurdles to jump along the way, including successfully suing Isaac Singer (he of the Singer Sewing machine) for patent infringement, but that’s another story. Howe became rich and provided for his family.

If I had been around in 1846, and if Howe had asked me about his dream, and if we had explored some of these questions together, I wonder if he might have found a way to be equally – or more – successful while taking the pressure off, spending less time worrying, more time creatively flowing, and possibly seeing solutions at an earlier stage.

Note: my interpretation of Howe’s dream is offered as an illustration of how to approach dreams as metaphors of the dreamer’s situation, and how to begin to identify the various parts of the dreamer’s psyche. In reality, I use (and teach) a number of dream interpretation tools and techniques, and when I work with clients, we explore a dream together.

The post Elias Howe and the sewing machine appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Is my work as a dream analyst and dream therapist under threat from AI? What can AI offer you – the dreamer?

I share a dream I had when I was pondering these questions: it’s a playful, meaningful, insightful dream. Listen!

*

Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

*

Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 292, will be out in two weeks on 12 June 2025. My guest, International Best Selling author Amber Needham, known to many as the blind girl who sees, shares three related dreams for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 4 The Dream Show: Can AI interpret your dreams meaningfully? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s guest, multi-award-winning theatre director turned enterprise mentor, Simone de Haas, has a recurring dream of finding herself on stage in the wrong musical.

The cast is dressed for a different performance. The orchestra is not playing her tune.

There’s more to Simone’s dream, and she wonders if it’s an anxiety dream or if it has a deeper meaning. It does.

We begin by exploring Simone’s dream, relating it to her life, and finding helpful insight, before following the conversational muse and learning more about her life and work.

Simone de Haas, based in Hobart, Australia, is a multi-award-winning theatre director turned enterprise mentor, renowned for helping business owners find and amplify their unique voice. With over 40 years of experience in theatre, storytelling, and leadership, Simone brings a rare blend of stagecraft mastery and strategic insight to the world of business.

She works with entrepreneurs, founders, and thought leaders to elevate their presence, refine their messaging, and build authentic, values-driven enterprises. As the creator of The Performative Speaking Studio, and The Signature Presence Code™ Simone offers practical, transformative frameworks that help leaders speak with clarity, lead with purpose, and show up with impact.

Her approach is rooted in the belief that public speaking is more than a performance—it’s a powerful tool for influence, connection, and change. Through dynamic masterclasses, personalised mentorship, and speaker intensives, Simone helps business owners overcome stage fright, communicate confidently, and own their expertise—whether they’re pitching, presenting, or podcasting.

A passionate mentor and advocate for leadership through presence, Simone believes that every business is a stage—and every founder has a story worth sharing. Her work empowers clients to lead with intention, embody their message, and transform audiences with every word.

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Connect with Simone:

Linkedin:  linkedin.com/in/simonedehaas1

Website: simonedehaas.com

Instagram: instagram.com/simone_de_haas/

Email: simone@simonedehaas.com

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

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The post Ep 291 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Theatre Director Simone de Haas dreams she’s onstage in the wrong musical. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What’s your recurring dream theme?

Has your recurring dream theme evolved over the years, or has it stayed the same? How can it help you? I share one of mine. Plenty of dream interpretation tips here!

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 291, will be out in two weeks on May 15, 2025. My guest, multi-award-winning theatre director turned enterprise mentor, Simone de Haas, shares a recurring dream for us to explore and interpret before we flow into our conversation about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 3 The Dream Show: Tips for understanding recurring dreams. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest today is Barbara Courtille, author of Buddhism for Yogis, who dreamed of an ex-boyfriend who broke into her house and rearranged her clocks.

Barbara joins me from Cammeraygal land in Sydney, Australia.

We get to know Barbara and her work through exploring her dream and discovering how it relates to her life.

Barbara is a Yoga Educator, Writer, and Artist, the author of Philosophy on the Mat and Buddhism for Yogis. Since her yoga journey began in the late 1980s, she has been a teacher, trainer, and mentor to many. Now she supports teachers through her weekly Yoga Teachers Blog, while continuing to deepen her spiritual connection through her art, study, and practice.

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Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Connect with Barbara:

BarbaraCourtille.com

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 290 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Author Barbara Courtille dreamed her ex rearranged her clocks appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Can dreams sometimes be straightforward, literal?

Is there a case for some dreams being literal, or are all dreams more deeply meaningful on a symbolic level? Listen to find out!

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Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

So, you’ll have something to listen to every two weeks.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 290, will be out in two weeks on April 17. My guest, Barbara Courtille, author of Buddhism for Yogis, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we flow into our conversation about her life and work.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Consult Jane Teresa

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 2 The Dream Show: Why do some dreams seem more symbolic than others? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

It’s a common dream. You’re trying to walk but you’re held back by a strong wind. Or by air that feels as thick and sticky as honey.

Or perhaps your legs are too heavy to lift, or the surface you’re walking on has turned to glue.

Your first quest, when interpreting a dream, is to relate the feeling in the dream to a situation in your life. Where are you feeling held back? What seems incredibly hard to do? Maybe you’re managing it, but it feels very hard and oh so slow. Does this feel familiar?

Then turn your attention to your inner world. Might you be holding yourself back? Might you be making things harder than they need to be, and if so, why? Might fear be gluing you to the spot, preventing you from making easier progress?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The dream wind, or the sticky dream air, your leaden dream legs, or the gluey dream road.

Everyone and everything in a dream represents something about you and your inner world. So, question the dream wind. What is this part of yourself feeling or trying to do? Here’s how to do it:

After such a dream, close your eyes, and imagine yourself back in the dream, only this time swap places with the wind. Feel yourself moving like the wind. Perhaps even stand up and move about the room as if you are the dream wind. How do you feel? Can you see the person in the dream who looks like you, struggling to move? What do you (as the wind) want to tell her?

Your dream wind might say, “I feel agitated. I can’t relax until she stops pushing herself. I want to tell her to stop and relax.”

Or it might say, “I feel frustrated. She’s been down this path before, and it hasn’t worked out well. I want to prevent her from experiencing more pain. I want to tell her to stop and re-evaluate.”

Or perhaps, “I feel powerful and all-knowing. I want to tell her to turn around and move towards a different goal. A more powerful and all-knowing goal. She knows, but she’s forgotten. She just keeps doing the same old thing. It won’t get her anywhere.”

Or maybe, “I’m shaking with fear, chasing my tail like a tornado. I want to tell her to back off from the path she’s on. She wants the success it will bring, but at what cost?”

Or possibly, “I’m scared for her. She can’t do it. She’s not good enough. Who does she think she is? I want to tell her to stop, stay safe, and listen to her doubts.”

Or “I feel ignored. I’m her intuition, I used to whisper to her, but she stopped listening. Now I’m blowing a gale force to get her attention. I want her to listen to me, to see that new path just off to the left, the path that will bring her fulfilment.”

Or your dream wind might say, “I feel powerful, uplifting, supportive, but I need her to surrender and let me lift her up. Let me be the wind beneath her wings. Doesn’t she realise she has wings? Why is she focussing on her feet? Wings, not feet!”

What might you learn from doing this kind of exercise?

You might learn that although resistance seems to come from the outer world (people who don’t support your ideas, pushback from convention, financial limitations), it may originate within you. Resistance may take the form of a limiting belief (‘I’m not worthy of support’, ‘my approach does not appeal to conventional thinking’, ‘I’m hampered by lack of finance’).

Your dream wind might be your doubt, your hesitation, your fear of failure, your ignored intuition, or a part of yourself that wants to protect you from pain.

Or your dream wind might have a higher vision for you.

Dreams help you to become aware of various parts of yourself that operate from your unconscious mind, and powerfully influence how you go about your life.

Apply your dream interpretation tools and techniques to explore and understand the whole dream and apply dream alchemy to shift any limiting beliefs that have been keeping you stuck.

Or consult me.

The post The answer is blowing in the wind appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest today is Carolina Bakker, the Rat Race Recovery Coach, who dreamed of passing through a portal, a point of no return.

Carolina joins me from Porto, Portugal (yes, the portal does fit in there, doesn’t it?) There’s plenty of surreal dream action before she reaches the portal, and as we explore her dream, we discover what lies beyond the portal – and Portugal – in her life and work.

First up, we get to know Carolina through her dream, then we move on to talk about her life and work. As the Rat Race Recovery Coach, she helps women break free from the stress and burnout of toxic work environments. Carolina also shares her personal path of healing and recovery from the Rat Race she experienced during her corporate career.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Connect with Carolina:

coachingbycarolina.com, and enjoy

Her free gift course: courses.coachingbycarolina.com

Music and Sound Editing by Euan Gray

You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 289 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Rat Race Recovery Coach Carolina Bakker dreamed about a magical portal appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Sleeping with Strangers: about the guy who slept next to me on a long haul flight and … well, you’ll need to listen to find out!

This is our first INTERLUDE podcast for The Dream Show.

Four weeks can be a long time to wait between our hour-long episodes featuring guests, so I’ve designed these short INTERLUDES to bring you inspiration, information, and tips about dreams and dream interpretation at the halfway point.

So, you’ll have something to listen to every two weeks.

I’ve searched back through hundreds of my blogs about dreams and dreaming, going back to 2009, and selected the best to feature in these interludes. I hope you enjoy them.

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Our next episode of The Dream Show, ep 289, will be out in two weeks on March 20. My guest, Carolina Bakker, The Rat Race Recovery Coach, shares a dream for us to explore and interpret before we talk about her work and life.

Please make sure you hit the FOLLOW button at Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts, so that you get all episodes and interludes delivered to your feed as soon as they’re published.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen or follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Interlude 1 The Dream Show: When the guy next to me on the plane was dreaming … appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Gemma dreamed she was drugged and driving on the wrong side of the road.

Or was it the right side? She wasn’t sure, but she was scared to stop.

Gemma Louise joins me from her home in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she works as a spiritual coach and person-centred therapist helping people worldwide to create fulfilling lives in alignment with their values and soul’s purpose.

There’s more to Gemma’s dream, and we begin by exploring it and relating it to her life before she shares some case histories and deeper insights into the way she works with her clients. There’s plenty here to inspire and enlighten!

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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Connect with Gemma Louise:

gemmalouisecoaching.com

Gemma on Instagram

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 288 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Therapist Gemma Louise dreamed she was drugged and driving. appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What is the difference between a thief and a robber?

A client dreamed there was an intruder in his house. He couldn’t see him, but he could sense him. “What can you sense about him?” I asked. He closed his eyes, searched for the feeling. “He’s a robber.”

At the time, the word ‘robber’ struck me as odd. I was in dream therapist mode, unable to look up the difference between a robber and a thief in a dictionary. The word hung in the air, demanding attention.

“Robber seems like an old-fashioned word,” I said. “I wonder why you didn’t see him as a thief, or a burglar.”

In a flash, I realised why the dream figure was a robber. He represented the part of the client that was robbing him of something valuable. The clues offered by the rest of the dream fell into place: the client had a limiting belief that was robbing him of an outcome he desired. The limiting belief was easy to identify in the dream, but it was the sense of being robbed that helped drive the message home to the client. A dream thief or burglar really wouldn’t have cut it.

After the session, I checked a dictionary for the difference between a thief and a robber, and realised that I had known the facts, but had forgotten them. According to law, a thief is someone who steals without using force. A robber steals using force or intimidation. A robbery is violent. Theft is not physically violent.

In everyday English, many of us equate a thief to a robber, and we either tend to use the words interchangeably, or favour thief. Yet we also commonly say, ‘it was daylight robbery’, or ‘it robbed me of my sense of purpose’.

My client’s framing of the intruder as a robber was elicited by my question. Because we were immersed in his dream, my question was directed to his unconscious mind which responded accurately. It told us that the feeling was ‘being robbed’.

As a dream therapist, I know when and how to address questions to a client’s unconscious mind for deeper illumination.

But there’s more.

I find it’s often the words clients use when talking about a dream that are revealing. It’s quite common for a client to pause, midway through telling a dream, and say, “I just realised what I said there!”

When you are engaged in describing a dream, you are straddling two worlds: your conscious (waking world) mind and your unconscious (dreaming) mind. Your tongue will scatter clues!

You might like to speak your dreams aloud, either to yourself or to a friend. Speak freely without restraint. Let it flow. Listen to what emerges.

The post Spoken clues appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

It’s 2025, a new year – our sixteenth year podcasting The Dream Show – and it’s time to introduce a change.

Don’t worry, there’s more of what you love, but I’m adding something a little different into the show: you’ll hear all about it before I share some dream stories to give you more insight into how to understand and work with your dreams.

I also share some personal news in today’s podcast.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

 
Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 287 The Dream Show: Personal news, changes, and dream stories appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“I don’t remember my dreams,” Bella said, “except a snippet last night about some fish being too big for a fish tank.”

“Well, that’s a start,” I said. “Those few words alone raise some interesting questions, like what are you trying to squeeze into your life and why doesn’t it fit comfortably? And where do you need more space to be fully alive?”

Bella (not her real name), a journalist, was interviewing me for a piece on dreams. After the interview, I texted to ask permission to blog about her dream while protecting her identity. She offered a little more:

“Dad and I had a fish tank, and Dad wanted more fish, so we went to the shops and bought some. When we got back, we noticed the fish were way too big for the tank and it would be cruel to try and fit them in with the other fish. The dream was set at my childhood house where we had a pool. We kept the fish in the pool while we tried to figure out how to get them into the tank. I was upset for the fish.”

I knew it was late in Bella’s time zone, so I texted just one more question. “How exactly did you feel beneath the upset?”

The answer pinged back immediately. “Stressed that they weren’t going to be happy in that tank and that they wouldn’t be able to have the best life they could.”

If I were sitting down with Bella for a longer conversation, I’d ask her about the purpose of the fish tank in her dream. Was it for relaxation: to sit and watch the fish navigate their tiny world? Or was it for display: to exhibit various species and add to the room’s décor? Did they have a fish tank when she was a child, and, if so, what meaning or purpose did it hold in her life back then? We’d be exploring the fish tank symbol. Is she trying to squeeze too much into her life, diminishing space to relax? Was she encouraged to ‘be on show’ in childhood, or not be on show: to be small (like the small fish in the tank), to not take up too much space? Yet it is her dad in the dream who wants bigger fish. Does she feel encouraged or pressured by her father to take on something bigger, or be bigger in some way?

Everything in a dream represents something about the dreamer, so the big fish represent something about Bella that is big and needs more space to thrive. So why is she still thinking about how to fit this big energy into the tank at the end of her dream?

Bella may read this and recognise some practical elements. She may relate it to writing a book, or an article, and trying to fit too many big ideas into it. She might decide she needs to edit it down to make it fit the desired product (the required tank). Or she may relate the dream to ‘shopping’ for bigger projects and then getting stressed because she feels she’s taken on too much or can’t see how to fit it all in with the beliefs she learned from her father as she was growing up. If she sees the purpose of a fish tank as display, she may recognise that she’s focussing more on display (on what things look like) than on giving herself and her ideas space for growth and development.

Why did she dream about fish in a tank? Why not birds in a cage? Or tigers in a zoo? Does she feel like a ‘big fish in a small pond’? Does she talk about ‘fishing for ideas’? Is her dream reflecting the metaphors she uses in her waking life?

We tend to dream about animals when our animal (instinctive) nature is aroused, or when something is shifting in our unconscious, an energy we are becoming aware of but that has not yet found a voice. (Energies that have found a voice are more likely to be symbolised in dreams by people speaking words.) A powerful exercise is to close your eyes and ‘feel’ your way into a dream animal, or even adopt a body position that feels like the animal and move around. Bella might try to move like one of the big fish in her dream as it waits in the pool to be transferred to the tank. What does it feel like? What does the fish want to tell her? What can the big fish teach her about this part of herself? What does it want?

There’s emotion in Bella’s dream when she feels it would be cruel to try to fit the big fish in with the other fish. This adds colour: she is being unkind to herself at some level. She is stressed that the fish weren’t going to be happy and would not be able to live their best life. Yet still, at the end of the dream, she has the big fish waiting in the pool while she works out how to get them into the tank. Maybe there’s a way to integrate the small and big fish so they can live in harmony in the tank, but that doesn’t feel quite right, does it?

What Bella needs is to integrate the big fish energy into her life by giving it more space, possibly space away from the need to be ‘on display’. She may need to let go of some of the smaller fish (smaller things perhaps related to childhood) in her life so she can dedicate more room to bigger things. Symbolically she perhaps needs to put the fish in a bigger pond – not a bigger tank, not an artificial pool – but somewhere where she can feel connected to them and nurture their (her) best life.

From a dream alchemy perspective, she might imagine herself as a big fish swimming in a big pond, living her best life. She might then extend that feeling to herself as a woman, having the space to live her best life.

No dream – or dream snippet – is too small to offer rich rewards.

The questions and reflections I have posed here are a small sample of the territory Bella and I might explore during a dream consultation or during dream therapy. But the bottom line is clear: Bella’s best life is not to be found trying to squeeze that big fish energy into a small tank, but the end of her dream shows she is trying to do exactly that. Her focus is still on the problem of getting the fish into the tank. Time to shift that focus, Bella.

The post Big fish appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest today is Annabel Rolley, psychologist, professional golfer, and the founder of Interpretr AI, a dream analysis and conversation app.

Annabel’s passion for psychology and her fascination with the human mind have been major motivations throughout her career, most recently leading to the development of her app based on Freud and Jung’s philosophies.

We begin this episode exploring Annabel’s vivid dream about a shark attack. This one was for me – not for the dream analysis app. What does it mean, and how does it relate to her life?

We then chat about the app which offers dream interpretation, AI conversations to take you deeper, and visual art to illustrate your unique dream. And much more, which you’ll discover when you listen. We also return, toward the end of our conversation, to do some dream alchemy on Annabel’s shark dream.

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Connect with Annabel:

Interpretr.ai

Annabel on Facebook

Annabel on Instagram

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The post Ep 286 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Psychologist Annabel Rolley dreamed of a shark attack. How can her dream help her? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My guest today is Lisa Marchiano, Jungian analyst, podcaster (This Jungian Life), and author.

Lisa shares a dream about needing to find a transfer to complete her journey to Boston: yet although it was Boston, there were echoes of London’s Kings Cross station.

I invited Lisa onto the show to talk about her new book, Dream Wise Unlocking the meaning of your dreams, jointly authored with Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee. You can read more about the book and some fun activities planned for its launch at dreamwisebook.com

Listen as Lisa and I explore her dream and chat about her book.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 285 The Dream Show: Author and Jungian analyst Lisa Marchiano dreamed of a journey appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What do dreams about animals mean?

We start by looking at why we sometimes dream of animals, and what we can learn about ourselves and our lives from our animal dreams.

Sticking with the animal theme, we then look at what experiments with cats, back in the 1950s, taught us about the science of dreaming. I had been asked, last year, to chat about oneirology – the scientific study of dreams – on a radio show, and that got me thinking about the various ‘ologies’ I have studied, as well as my excitement, as a young student, about the neurological aspects of dreaming. We dip into oneirology in the middle section of today’s episode.

Finally, I include a radio interview from last week (ABC Radio Hobart), where the same presenter who invited me to chat about oneirology last year (Joel Rheinberger), interviewed me about my new novel, Ninth Life. Which – to round off the animal theme – features a cat.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 284 The Dream Show: Animals in dreams, in dream research, and in fiction appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

An eternity ago, when I was in my late teens, I had a recurring dream where I struggled to walk through the university campus.

It wasn’t one of those glue feet dreams, the ones where your feet are heavy or stuck to the road, or you feel like you’re walking through treacle. I had that recurring dream too.

The reason walking was such a struggle in my late-teens dream was because I wore a flat shoe on one foot, and a stiletto on the other. It never occurred to me to take the stiletto off in the dream, or to take both shoes off and walk barefoot. I struggled on regardless.

Looking back through the blur of time, I think I related the uneven limping gait in my dream to an accident I had when I was eleven. I had fallen from a fence and injured my hip and knee. As a young student scientist, I wondered whether the dream was picking up on a tiny imbalance between my hips or legs, something imperceptible to me in waking life, but amplified in my dream.

I know now that dreams can reflect physical imbalances or sicknesses. Signs and symptoms we might not notice – or choose to ignore – are registered by our unconscious mind and may be processed in our dreams.

Did my dream highlight a postural imbalance, or was there more to the story?

Reflecting on my teenage dream with the double blessing of hindsight and my professional experience as a dream analyst, I see the imbalance not so much as between my hips or knees as within myself.

On the one hand (or foot) I was grounded, practical, as represented by the flat shoe. I knew how to navigate my courses, how to study and pass exams. On the other hand (or high-heel adorned foot) I was developing my social life and working out how to be an adult female in the world now that I lived away from home. It was the early 1970s. Feminism was still taking its first shaky steps. As was I.

I was reminded of this dream last week when I bought a Bosu ball. (A Bosu ball is like an exercise ball cut in half, glued onto a flat board.) I bought it to strengthen my ankles. You stand on it – on one leg or two – and practise balancing. At first, I wobbled from foot to foot, much as I did in that old recurring dream, until I engaged my core muscles and discovered how to balance.

Dreams often reflect the perceived imbalances in our lives, whether they are physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, and offer us the inside information we need to discover how to engage a sense of healthy equilibrium.

The post A sense of balance appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Today’s show touches upon how dreams handle buried grief, the power of tears released as we wake, and a dream alchemy practice to help heal past wounds.

We also reflect on the gifts of perspective, and reverence for life’s challenges and what they can teach us.

I tell you about a new service I’m offering – for a short while, at least – and, because I’m still officially promoting my fiction book, Ninth Life, I share a couple of reviews.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 283 The Dream Show: When you wake up crying, here’s help appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Cat and Kat share the spotlight in today’s episode.

First up, I introduce you to Cat, the protagonist in my debut fiction, Ninth Life. Cat – yes, she is a cat – needs to make her last life count. But how far will she go to do that? “A charming, beguiling story full of quirky (human) characters who keep Cat on her paws as she uncovers the secret of her first life and why she is so driven to get this – her ninth life – just right.”

In the second half of the show, we turn to Kat, our guest in episode 277. Kat shares the results of doing the two dream alchemy practices I prescribed when we explored her dream. She also shares her experiences of being a guest on the show, and the insights that flowed when she listened to her episode and continued to engage with the material.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 282 The Dream Show: Cat and Kat appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Interpreting a dream provides powerful personal insight. But it’s doing the dream alchemy that creates the deep internal shifts that can make all the difference to your life.

Kat, my guest on episode 277, The Dream Show, recently emailed me to share her experience of doing the dream alchemy on the dream we explored on the podcast. She was also keen to share this with our listeners and readers. (Watch out for Kat’s full story in our next episode, episode 282.)

Following her guest experience, Kat continued studying at The Dream Academy, and quickly became proficient at interpreting her dreams. One night, she dreamed about me, and it was this dream that prompted her to send the update and offer to share it with you all.

If you’ve been studying with me – or listening to the podcasts, reading my books and blogs – you’ll know that people in our dreams represent aspects of ourselves or our perspectives. When Kat dreamed about me, I imagine she was dreaming about her own growing expert skills in dream interpretation and dream alchemy.

Over to Kat:

‘In my dream I’ve been arranging another interpretation session with you, Jane Teresa, and am surprised when you actually show up at my door! I invite you to a room upstairs to chat but realise I’m not prepared. I’m a bit flustered – I don’t have a dream picked out, I don’t have money set aside – but as we talk, instead of me finding a new dream to interpret, you ask how I’ve been going with the symbols and alchemy given from my last dream (although none of the symbols you mention are ones I remember ever having dreamed about). I feel disappointed in myself for not having any answers and I apologize. You are very kind and polite to me and tell me not to worry about it, but then you begin packing up your things to go. You remind me that I need to be doing the work on my old dreams before going ahead with new ones. As I leave the room to show you back to the door, I realise the rest of the house has been painted by a team of painters while we’ve been talking; you’ve brought them along and have surprised me with a fully repainted house! Each wall is a different vibrant colour and I’m in awe as I take it all in. I love it and am so incredibly touched by the gesture! I notice some of the paint could use a couple more coats as it’s patchy in some areas, but it was a short time that the team was working, and I don’t mind having to finish up myself. As you leave, I tell you I absolutely will do all my dream alchemy because I think it’s the most important thing, and I really mean it.

There’s more to it than this summary, but I woke up from this dream feeling so empowered and grateful. I feel so lucky to have discovered your work and to have benefitted from your help personally. You have helped bring colour into my world in a way I never would have thought possible, and you have provided me with the skills I need to keep bringing that colour with me wherever I go.’

Kat’s inner Dream Therapist is clearly very wise. Avoid the temptation to hop from dream to dream, gathering bits of insight here and there, and missing the transformative value of doing your dream alchemy. And painting the whole house in those vibrant colours? That’s precisely the gift that dreamwork brings.

The post A colourful message appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Cansu, from Turkey, is my guest with a dream about a building filled with exquisite artwork.

She is deeply curious about the art displayed throughout the rooms, and she wants to discover more. A mature, handsome man appears and generously tells her about the background to each piece. She is mesmerised.

Listen as Cansu relates the whole dream, and as we explore its meaning, how it relates to her life, and how it can help her.

There’s a beautiful synchronicity that happens during our conversation. It will make you smile.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 281 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Cansu dreamed of exquisite artwork appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Ania, from Krakow, Poland, is my guest with a dream about a cruise to a French Caribbean Island.

She’d like to go for a swim, but she’s wearing an outfit that’s too small for her, and not well tailored. Why didn’t she come prepared?

Later, on the island, she meets a man who can give her directions to a printery or place that makes posters. She wants to ask for his phone number so she can stay in touch, but it’s difficult to ask another man for a phone number when your boyfriend–her ex in waking life–is standing next to you.

What is it that Ania really wants, and how does this dream help her to define that? Listen to find out. We also create some dream alchemy to help Ania on her way.

*
Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 280 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Ania dreamed of not having the right clothes appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

During a recent radio appearance, I received a call from Gaynor that perfectly illustrates how our dreaming minds communicate through powerful metaphors. Her recurring dream troubled her: doors that never quite fit their frames, leaving gaps she couldn’t seal. No matter how hard she tried, the doors wouldn’t close securely, and she found herself unable to walk away from this unsettling scene.

In the brief minutes available on radio—just enough time to offer initial insights and practical tools—I explored what this vivid imagery might represent.

Dreams as metaphors

The most effective approach to dream interpretation begins with understanding dreams as metaphors for our waking experiences. As Gaynor described her frustration with these ill-fitting doors, I recognised a deeper concern: her inability to feel truly secure and protected in her own space.

This dream likely reflects challenges with personal boundaries in her daily life. Perhaps she struggles to create uninterrupted time for herself, finding it difficult to ‘close the door’ on others’ demands. Or maybe she battles intrusive anxious thoughts that refuse to be shut out, leaving her feeling perpetually exposed and unsettled.

The symbolism could also suggest Gaynor wants to ‘close the door’ on something from her past or worries about the future, but her unconscious mind reveals she’s finding this process more challenging than expected.

The difference between quick insights and deep exploration

These initial interpretations serve as valuable starting points, but they represent just the beginning of what’s possible. In my full consultation sessions, we spend an entire hour exploring a single dream, uncovering its deepest and most transformative meanings.

During that extended time, I can ask the crucial follow-up questions: “Gaynor, how did you feel when you couldn’t close the door? What were you afraid might get in, or get out? What else was happening in the dream?” These details often unlock the dream’s most profound meaning.

I also apply specialised tools and techniques that illuminate not just what the dream means, but why the dreamer experiences life in particular ways and how they can create positive change.

Many dreams, like Gaynor’s, present problematic scenarios where issues remain unresolved, usually reflecting unresolved challenges in waking life. Exploring these dreams often points towards solutions.

Other dreams feel uplifting or intriguing rather than stuck. While not problematic, dreamers often can’t connect them to their daily experiences and need guidance to understand what these dreams offer. Such dreams frequently help people recognise wonderful aspects of themselves they can more fully embrace and express.

Dream alchemy: Reprogramming through visualisation

Given the radio format’s time constraints, I offered Gaynor a practical dream alchemy technique:

“After such a dream, when you’re awake, close your eyes and imagine yourself back in that same dream scene. This time, however, the door closes easily and fits perfectly. Feel yourself safe, relaxed, and completely calm.”

This approach works because Gaynor’s unconscious mind chose the door symbol to communicate her experience. By using this same symbolic language in visualisation, she effectively sends a new message to her unconscious: she’s ready to establish healthier boundaries or successfully shut out intrusive, anxious thoughts.

This technique essentially reprograms the unconscious mind—or rewires the brain, if you prefer that framework. It’s a powerful form of therapeutic visualisation that uses the dream’s own metaphorical language.

The deeper work: Customised dream alchemy

While this radio advice provides an excellent starting point, deeper exploration might have revealed additional layers to Gaynor’s dream. Perhaps she was trying to shut out a problem or fear that would benefit from direct attention rather than avoidance. Alternatively, she might be closing the door on a wonderful opportunity she’s not yet ready to embrace.

In either scenario, I would prescribe a different, more precisely targeted dream alchemy practice to create the most beneficial outcome.

Even so, the visualisation technique I shared on air begins its transformative work immediately. By helping Gaynor feel safe and in control, it creates a foundation from which she can gradually develop readiness to address whatever underlying situation her dream reflects.

The power of dream work

Whether through brief radio exchanges or comprehensive consultations, dream work offers a unique window into our unconscious mindset. Our dreaming minds consistently communicate through symbols and metaphors, offering insight, highlighting unresolved issues, and revealing untapped potential.

The key lies in learning to speak this symbolic language and, in cases like Gaynor’s, using that same language to communicate positive change back to the unconscious mind. It’s a conversation between the conscious and unconscious self, one that can lead to profound transformation when approached with curiosity, respect, and the right tools.

Every dream offers valuable insights. The symbols your mind chooses are uniquely meaningful to you, and learning to interpret them opens a powerful pathway to self-understanding and positive change.

The post Door dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Lynn, from Japan, is my guest with a dream about her ex for us to explore and interpret.

Lynn has been dreaming of a long-ago ex since she moved to Japan twelve years ago. The relationship had not been healthy, and she certainly does not want the ex in her life now, so why does she plead with him to get back together in this dream?

The ex has featured in various recurring dreams, all with unresolved endings, and Lynn is curious. She wonders if the dream is about the ex, or whether he is thinking of her, or whether the whole dream is symbolic – and has nothing to do with the past relationship.

Listen as we explore the dream, relate it to Lynn’s life, and find the deep insight it delivers.

*
Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 279 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Lynn dreamed about her ex appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

We’re back after a three-month break, our first podcasting break in almost fifteen years of creating The Dream Show!

Why? Listen to find out.

In today’s episode you’ll discover more about the power of dreams – more specifically, the power of understanding and working with your dreams – through three little stories.

Talking of stories, I also chat about my forthcoming fiction book. Well, it’s still very much under wraps at the moment, but will be published by the middle of this year.

*
Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 278 The Dream Show: The power of understanding your dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Last month we spent a couple of weeks in Cambodia, visiting my son and his wife, exploring ancient temples, boating through floating villages, immersing in the local culture, and not doing any work at all. No dream consultations, no writing, no media interviews, no podcasting. Much as I love my work – at heart I am a passionate creative focussed on providing meaningful service through my endeavours – I know the value of rest, recovery, and regeneration. Weekends are sacred, sleeping and dreaming is non-negotiable, and holidays are an opportunity to experience different perspectives and flex different neural pathways.

A feature of holiday time with my son and his wife is always a games championship. We play a variety of games – cards, board games, daft challenges (who can shell a hard-boiled egg in the fastest time or remain balanced on a knotty tree bough for the longest time) and compete for overall champion. There’s plenty of brain stimulation. Our home-made Trivia games are notoriously tough and hilarious.

One night, I dreamed I was lounging in a garden, feeling a little brain-blurry but in a good sense, daydreamy, drifting, purposefully unfocussed, not required for intelligent comment or sharp conversation. A car motored slowly past, no driver, no passengers. Even in the dream I knew this was unusual – a driverless car! It wasn’t a Google self-driving car, a Tesla, or any of the other autonomous cars currently on offer. The car in my dream was a pretty conventional small car, a type that would normally require a driver. But not that night, not in my dream. It was travelling slowly enough not to pose a risk to other drivers, and seemed to know where it was going, and why. I settled back into the dream garden, content to see it making its own way, leaving me free to do nothing at all.

On waking and interpreting my dream, I realised the driverless car was an unconscious part of my drive that knows where it’s headed and doesn’t need my conscious input, or, at least, didn’t need my conscious input while I was in holiday mode.

All this proved to be the case when I got home and sat down at my desk. During my time away, it was as if magical little elves had worked away at my various projects, driving them further along the road, leaving yellow post-it notes for me to follow.

The post Time out appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Putting cats, dogs, horses, neighbourhood birds, and other everyday animals to one side, which of the wilder or more exotic animals have appeared in your dreams?

Over many years my dream menagerie has included jaguars, tigers, lion, snakes, various mysterious birds, whales, dolphins, colourful tropical fish, oh, and a tortoise. I’m sure that many of these – and their innumerable cousins – have prowled, slithered, flown, swam, and made their presences known in many of your dreams too.

‘Made their presences known’; now that’s an interesting turn of phrase.

We tend to dream of animals when we’re becoming more aware of our own animal instincts or when dormant powerful energies begin to stir deep in our unconscious and make themselves felt around the edges of our consciousness. We might have repressed magnificent energies we’re not ready to own – a powerful voice, a colourful nature, intuitive communication skills (perhaps appearing in a dream as a lion’s roar, a resplendent tropical fish, a synchronised pod of dolphins). Or we might have repressed energies we judge as undesirable – anger, revenge (perhaps, in dream form, the angry swish of a tiger’s tail, the poisonous fangs of a snake).

When life prompts these dormant energies to stir, our dreams offer the opportunity to recognise what we have repressed and decide which energies to nourish and express (perhaps the powerful voice, a more colourful, vibrant nature, the intuitive communication skills), and which to understand and work with (perhaps the anger and thoughts of revenge).

Animal dreams tend to occur at times of change, or when life challenges us to change. Change stirs us up, calls us forth, or sends us scurrying into retreat. Change can heighten our animal nature, prompt us to act instinctively, summon raw emotion, and bypass critical thinking. (Rushing to the supermarket to buy up big on toilet rolls during the first year of the pandemic springs to mind.) Change can also shake us from complacency and awaken powerful energies that allow us to live more vibrantly, more effectively, more magnificently, in the world.

During times of change it can be hard to put words on emerging feelings and shifting perspectives. Animal dreams capture that sense of emerging energies that you can feel but not fully name. Further along the track, when you have embraced change, you might dream of specific people to represent issues or energies you have become more conscious of – your dreaming mind might choose Uncle Jack to symbolise speaking out (because he is powerfully vocal) or the bully from your school years to symbolise revenge (because that was her modus operandi). Uncle Jack replaces the more emergent sense of dream tiger, while the school bully replaces the more visceral fanged snake.

I don’t want to pigeonhole (I see animals are the theme of the day as far as my typing fingers go) the dream meaning of a tiger, a snake, a dolphin, or any other creature. Our dreaming minds choose symbols based on our individual perspectives and experiences, both conscious and unconscious.

There are several ways to get to the bottom of what a particular animal in your unique dream means. You can close your eyes and imagine you are the animal in your dream. Inhabit its body, move around in the same way that it did in your dream. How does this feel? What is being expressed? Or you can take a piece of paper and a pen and dialogue with the animal or use a number of other key tools that you can learn in my online course, How to interpret your dreams step-by-step.

So next time an animal makes its presence felt in a dream, use one or more of these tools to encourage it to speak up and provide you with what you need to know to handle change in the best possible way.

The post Animals in Dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Kat, from British Columbia, Canada, is my guest as we explore her dream about a risky, ground-breaking science experiment that seems to have gone drastically wrong.

Helpless and confused in the face of possibly dangerous levels of radioactivity, Kat encounters a visual artist who asks her to hold her exquisitely designed purse. Later she meets a conspiracy theorist, and a bunch of Pokémon trainers.

And why does someone mention Life of Pi and another movie featuring a tiger?

Listen as Kat and I trace the various strands of her dream to see how they all connect, discover the light they shed on her life, and create two dream alchemy practices for her to do to consolidate the good stuff.

*
Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 277 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Kat dreamed about tigers and experiments gone wrong appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Tanya from Adelaide, South Australia, is my guest as we interpret her dream of an exquisite Japanese room and a search for a toilet.

The only toilet she finds is too exposed, but on the upside, in another room, she discovers the clear deep turquoise waters of a rock pool with a rock hovering – yes hovering – above the surface. How lovely it would be to climb up onto that rock, but Tanya can’t because there’s no toilet up there.

But oh, the stunning Japanese room that she finds next!

Listen as Tanya and I explore her dream, interpret it, relate it to her life, and discover new perspectives and insights about her inner and outer worlds. How can this dream help her?

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 276 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Tanya dreams of looking for a toilet appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Sometimes we get so bogged down in the small details of a problem that we miss seeing the whole situation.

We can’t see the forest for the trees. Or, if you’re British, like me, we can’t see the wood for the trees. Either way, we’re too close to the situation (too close to the trees and all their details) to stand back and see the reality of the big picture.

It’s a metaphor fit for a dream, isn’t it? I once had a dream of wandering around in a forest (except mine was probably an English wood), quite lost until I finally found my way out, climbed a hill, and looked down on the forest from afar. No longer lost in the small details, I discovered what I needed to know. The size and shape of my situation was now quite clear, and I could see various ways in and out of it.

Dreams often play out as metaphors. I once dreamed of a cat with a human tongue in its mouth. A cheeky dream clue about a situation where ‘the cat got my tongue’. As a teenager I dreamed of being in the passenger seat of a car being driven up a vertical brick wall. I did feel, at the time, that someone was ‘driving me up the wall’ (driving me mad).

Dreams can be quite weird and surreal, but that is their power. When you’re too close to a situation, a problem, or an issue, a metaphoric dream helps you to step away from the everyday and see the bigger picture. A dream of a rock blocking a road might help you to acknowledge that you have been feeling blocked. You might see from the distance in the dream a way to move around the rock or remove it, or jump over it, or use it as a tool to progress further along the road. If you solve the puzzle while you’re dreaming, you’re likely to wake up with a solution to the parallel waking life problem.

If you don’t solve the problem during the dream – if you fail to get past the block in the road – you can play with the dream symbols and dramas once you wake up. Ask yourself questions: can I get someone to help me move this rock? Can I climb over the rock? Can I run around it? Can I paint it in bright colours to transform it in some way? Can I blow it away because it is, after all, a rock born of my own dreaming mind? When you work with the symbols and dramas of a remembered dream, you are simultaneously working with the life situation that prompted the dream. Something begins to stir and shift deep within, and the ‘rock’ that has blocked you from seeing the bigger picture gives way to a clearer view. Problem solved.

The post When you can’t see the forest for the trees appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Even mountains flow. What does this mean to you?

If you thought we got pretty cosmic in part 9, be prepared for some mind-bending metaphysics in this episode! After exploring how mountains flow, you’ll hear some stories I rarely share because although they may seem implausible, they shed more light on how to navigate life’s extraordinary mysteries.

This is the last episode in the series: today we bring Bird of Paradise home. If you have missed the earlier episodes, here’s the book blurb to entice you to go back to part 1, episode 266, and listen to the whole book from the first chapter:

Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition) is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and kindle from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

Next episode, we return to our usual format, featuring a guest bringing a dream for us to explore and interpret.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 275 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 10 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“As above, so below.” “As within, so without.”

What do these ancient sayings mean to you?

In today’s episode we venture deeper into the cosmic (although previous episodes have certainly had us journeying this space). We talk about a fairy, the Emerald Tablet, and explore why grass is green. The realm of metaphysics awaits.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and kindle from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 274 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 9 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I’ve finally done it. I’ve written my first fiction novel.

If you had asked me yesterday whether I’m going to write a sequel, I would have shrugged my shoulders, but I note that my typing fingers have a different opinion. My body knows what my head doesn’t: if this is my first novel, there will be a second, and a third.

I’ve been writing non-fiction for most of my adult life, including my seven books on dreams and dreaming, but when a podcast host asked me about my next project, I surprised myself by saying I wanted to write a novel. My mouth knew what my head didn’t. Even though the podcast admission went public, I still resisted taking action.

Then one day I woke up with an intense drive to find a suitable novel writing course, and, within the week, I took the leap of faith and signed up. ‘You don’t need to have an idea in mind,’ the course blurb said, ‘you’ll discover your story as you go.’ As it turned out, my story arrived a couple of weeks ahead of the course. I was doing a weights workout in my kitchen while listening to a podcast when a cat I had never seen before appeared in my garden, pausing to stare at me through the window before moving on. The combination of the podcast subject and the cat sparked a quirky idea that quickly evolved into the spine of my story. I saw the cat once more during the week when I began to look for the right publisher, and for a third time when I was pondering my potential future – or not – as a fiction writer.

I can’t tell you too much about the book at this stage other than to say that it’s quirky, light-hearted, and UpLit in genre, but I can tell you that I challenged myself to keep any mention of dreams or dreaming out of the story. I managed to do that, although I did include three exotic symbols from dreams I had during the writing period because they appealed to my playful nature and I wanted to see what would happen if I planted them into the story.

Somewhere between announcing that I wanted to write a novel and taking action, I had a vivid dream where I jumped from a well-worn and rather ho-hum path traversing the side of a mountain into the soft, luscious meadow below. I was carrying a bunch of Baby’s Breath flowers, and feeling joyful, elated, free. A friend followed my lead, only she held much bigger bunches of Baby’s Breath, one in each hand, like mini parachutes, so that instead of jumping, like me, she glided through the air and gracefully touched down into the meadow. I remember thinking, in the dream, that because she believed her bunches of flowers were parachutes, they became so.

Baby’s Breath is the title of one of the chapters in my 2020 book, Bird of Paradise. The chapter is about new beginnings. In my dream I met a part of myself that was ready to take a leap of faith and begin something new; and a second part of myself that had even greater faith, faith enough to take the process slowly, to gracefully surrender to the process, knowing that I would land softly on my feet.

So here I am, softly landed, finished manuscript in hand, a story told, the characters jostling daily for my ongoing attention for, as I have discovered, you don’t lay fictional characters to rest at the end of the story: gifting them Baby’s Breath is only a beginning.

Where to from here? I don’t know, but I’m still dancing in the meadow beyond the well-worn ho-hum of the known path waiting to find out.

The post Leap of faith appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

When change is in the air, are you a baby steps kind of person or a giant leap of faith kind of person?

In today’s episode, we explore how we navigate change. Along the way, you’ll hear some spooky stories, meet a housefly up close and personal, and listen in on a healing conversation between a bunch of animals. All this and much more.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and kindle from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 273 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 8 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Isn’t it interesting that when we meet something new, we first try to make it fit with what we already know?

In today’s episode we explore this through more stories and dreams: you’ll meet an ancient alchemist, a woman who dreamed she gave birth to a vampire, and much more.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and kindle from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 272 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 7 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“We’re doing a series on the ologies,” the radio producer said, “and we’d like you to talk about oneirology, the scientific study of dreams.”

Ah, the ologies, I thought, looking back to my university student days, and the exciting ologies on offer back in the very early 1970s. I had been channelled along the serious science route through grammar school: chemistry and physics, since biology was considered more suitable for arts students. Thankfully I was required to study biology – my first ology – at university as it was a prerequisite for biochemistry, my chosen major. Genetics, neurobiology, and a very exciting new subject, ecology, won me over, and I switched to a zoology degree to keep my options open. I loved the texture and weight of the ecology textbook as much as I loved the field trips out into nature, and almost as much as I loved ethology, the scientific study of animal behaviour, a subject our head of department viewed with suspicion, believing, I think, that it was impossible to apply scientific principles to animal behaviour. I ended up studying developmental neurobiology with him, and I wonder what he would think of me today, working in and teaching the art and science of dream interpretation. (I sense his eyeroll, and his smile.)

The first serious scientific study of dreaming was published by Nathaniel Kleitman and Eugene Aserinsky in 1953, the year before I was born.

Aserinsky observed his son’s eyes fluttering during periods of heightened brain activity during sleep. He coined the term REM (Rapid Eye Movement). In 1957, Kleitman and William Dement woke people up during REM and discovered that 80% of them were dreaming at the time.

But it was Michel Jouvet’s 1958 work that got my attention during my university years. He discovered that when an area of a cat’s brain was severed, the cat would move about during REM sleep, prancing around as if wide awake. Jouvet deduced the cat was acting out its dreams because its motor muscles were no longer inhibited (by the neurotransmitters produced in that part of the brain) during sleep. He effectively showed that dreaming occurs during heightened brain activity: an active mind, a sleeping body. He named dreaming sleep ‘paradoxical sleep’.

In summary, these studies concluded that sleep, far from being a state of brain inactivity, is an active state where the brain processes information as intensely as it does during waking hours.

I began my dream research in the early 1990s, and although I didn’t seek publication in the scientific journals, I observed the relationship between people’s daytime experiences and their dreams in the following 1-2 days. I noted symbols, themes, issues, and emotions from waking life appearing in their dreams, either directly or in symbolic or allegorical form, and I noticed the ways their dreams worked at resolving conflicts, finding possible solutions, or overwriting past attitudes and patterns with new ones.

Although three of my books on dreams and dreaming were published during the 1990s (1994, 1995, 1998), and I discussed dreams and dreaming widely on various well-regarded radio stations, the worldview on dreams during that decade was very much ‘new age’. In more recent years, it has been such a pleasure to witness increasing understanding and acceptance of both the science and art of understanding the function of dreams and dreaming.

Here’s a fun one: in 2000, Robert Stickgold broke the lull in scientific publishing of dream research with his Tetris experiments. Essentially, he trained seventeen people to play Tetris, the computer game where you organise tumbling shapes into patterns. He woke them up during their hypnagogic sleep (that early period of sleep where you see dreamlike images) and found that sixty percent of the participants reported seeing Tetris images or other reverberations of their experiences. Some of the participants were amnesiacs, with no short-term memory, yet they too saw Tetris-like images during their hypnagogic dreams. Not only did his work confirm that dreams seem to process waking life experiences, but he also noted that the images were most often seen on the second night after the games, fitting with my (unpublished) observations that our dreams process our experiences of the previous 1-2 days. (Here’s an article about Stickgold’s Tetris experiments in Scientific American.)

Huge advances in the understanding of dreams and dreaming from a scientific – oneirological – point of view have been published since then, and it’s now widely accepted that while our NREM (Non-REM period) dreams help us to consolidate facts, our REM dreams process the more emotional aspects of our experiences, consolidate recent memories, and reinforce (or edit, or delete) older memories.

As a dream analyst, dream interpreter, dream therapist, and dream alchemist, my interest is exploring dreams to see how they handle the conflicts between our recent experiences and our older, more established ones: when do the older experiences prevail, when do newer ones overwrite older ones, how are new experiences interwoven with older experiences or memories, what remains conflicted, what is resolved within a single life-changing dream? What problems do we solve when we ‘sleep on it’? What wonderful synergies occur when the old and the new bubble together in one big melting pot and come up with something entirely new: a new perspective, a fresh insight? How can our dreams – explored and interpreted according to professional standards – help us to understand ourselves and our lives at such a deep level that we can step into a new day with new eyes, enriched, lightened, and enlightened?

The post Oneirology appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Our challenge is to courageously bring more of our magnificence into the light of day and let it shine.

In today’s episode we explore both the dark and the light that we hide deep in our unconscious, and discover the treasures yielded through mining for both.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and the Kindle from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 271 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 6 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“I dreamed I was jousting on horseback, and my opponent stabbed me in the chest with his lance. I fell out of bed with the impact!”

Mike, who had called into the radio show with this dream, laughed. “What does it mean? Am I going to have bad luck?”

In today’s episode, amongst other things, we explore what it is – or isn’t – to be lucky or unlucky. I share a story about a couple of mountaineering accidents where I surprisingly lived to tell the tale. Lucky, or unlucky, or something else?

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and the digital version from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 270 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 5 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

When I was a young adult, I had a recurring dream where my car windscreen would mist up and I couldn’t see the road ahead.

The complication was that I was the driver, and the mist would often descend when I was driving along a highway or through a complex series of narrow winding pot-holed streets. I’m not sure which was worse, they each involved me trying to get off the road safely without melting into utter panic.

Variations included not being able to open my eyes while driving, or only being able to see the road ahead through a tiny pinpoint in the windscreen.

This is a common dream theme for many people.

The general gist, as I’m sure you can see from these short dream summaries, is that these dreams came up whenever I felt (or feared) that I couldn’t see where I was going in my life (forget cars, think life in general).

The pandemic reminded us that we can’t always see ahead clearly, and sometimes we must pull over and wait until clarity, or a new vision, emerges. We might then see a new direction, or – according to one of the pandemic’s most overused words in my opinion – pivot. What would that be in a car dream, a three-point turn, hiring a chauffeur, the car sprouting wings and flying to the top of a mountain?

There are other clues in my young adulthood dream. The mist might have been grief (we talk about being misty eyed), the tiny pinpoint in the windscreen might have symbolised narrow vision, overly focussed on one small point, blindness to the bigger picture. Not being able to open my eyes might have symbolised trying to become more conscious or recognising an unwillingness to see that I needed to break through.

This recurring dream predates my professional life as a dream analyst, and I no longer remember enough details of the individual dreams to be able to interpret them accurately, to uncover my underlying mindset at the time, and use that insight to gain the clarity I much needed, or to chill, point my life in the direction I wanted to go, and accept uncertainty.

This old dream theme presented itself when I sat down to write this blog.

I didn’t know what I was going to write: you could say that I sat myself in the driving seat and faced a misty windscreen, or a blinking cursor and blank page on my computer screen, but the road ahead revealed itself and I’m discovering each new paragraph as I type.

At some level, memory of this old dream theme was prompted by yet another visit to my ophthalmologist. I say ‘yet another’ because regular eye checks have been a theme of my life since the age of five when I received my first pair of glasses from the NHS (the National Health Service in the UK offered free prescriptions and frames). They were pink coated wire frames with lovely long bendy bits that hooked over my ears, lovely because I could take my glasses off and chew them, bend them, play with them, much to my parents’ distress.

Last week, I stood and looked at frame options for my latest prescription. I’m old enough to have been through most of the fashion waves several times over: chunky, cat-eye, diamante, John Lennon, aviator, oversized, undersized, octagonal, hexagonal, rectangular, round, oval, wayfarer, rimless, asymmetrical, designer. Plus a couple of bouts of dedicated contact lens wearing.

Beyond the frames, I’ve lived through and worn various lenses: tinted, photochromic, and, beyond middle age, graduated (multifocal). And both hard and soft contacts. I have glasses for everyday wear and glasses with a different prescription for working at my computer, including being on Zoom. And prescription sunglasses.

I don’t know whether new glasses make me look different – an overly focussed consideration when faced with all the choices – but they make my world a little clearer, frame by frame, as my prescriptions catch up with the tiny changes in my vision.

Much the same as dream interpretation really, a process that makes your world a little clearer, dream by dream, as those dreams reflect the changes in the way you see and experience the world and how these colour your projected road ahead.

The post The road ahead appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My grandfather appeared in a dream, a couple of nights after he died, when I was thirteen.

“Is there anything you’d like to know before I go back into the night?” he asked.

This is one of many stories I share in today’s episode, as we continue to explore how dreams, synchronicities, and mysteries help us to grow through life.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and the digital version from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 269 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 4 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“I dreamed that a two-inch worm wriggled out of my nipple. What does it mean?”

I was on a breakfast radio show interpreting dreams when a caller by the name of Kerry relayed the above dream. In today’s episode, I take you through some of my yesterdays, todays, and projected tomorrows, bringing you stories of my time as a young student in Glasgow, and some of the mysteries and synchronicities that connect the past to the present.

And yes, we do get to explore the meaning of Kerry’s dream as part of the intertwined stories!

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and the digital version from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 268 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 3 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks sleeping with a Garmin watch strapped to my wrist to monitor my sleep patterns and the amount of time I spend dreaming. What have I learned?

I successfully resisted playing with sleep technology until now, but curiosity got the better of me. I thought about getting an Oura ring, as I’m a dedicated analogue watch wearer, and didn’t really want to wear two watches, but then I didn’t really want to wear an extra ring either. In the end, I bought a relatively simple Garmin watch, and wore it continuously for two weeks so that it could get to know me.

My early mornings are sacred. The closest I get to looking at my cell phone – or any technology – is switching off the alarm if I haven’t woken naturally. Then I stay in bed, allowing time to recall my dreams and bathe in their magic. I generally remain in no-tech mode during breakfast, but my Garmin has tempted me to peruse my Sleep Score and Stages Timeline while I eat my muesli.

REM (dream) sleep shows up as vivid deep pink bars on the Stages Timeline bar chart, against a background of light blue for blocks of light sleep, and dark blue for periods of deep sleep. Awake periods are depicted with pale pink.

It’s the vivid deep pink bars that grab my attention, a suitable colour for my vividly colourful dream life. I’ve noticed that most of my REM occurs after six hours of sleep. There may be a slim bar or two of deep pink during the night, but it’s after six hours that the big thick chunks of delicious REM show up. Although this fits in with what we know about sleep – that 60-90% of our REM happens in the last two hours of an eight-hour sleep – I’m still surprised to see the colourful reality of it painted on my phone report.

It glows, a big luminescent pink slab of late sleep delight: ‘Look what you get,’ it declares, ‘your dream reward for having a good long sleep’.

On a few mornings I have woken around 5am and contemplated getting up early to get ahead for the day, but knowing that my sleep is important, I have done my ‘get back to sleep’ breathing exercises and returned to slumber. It was intensely satisfying, on those mornings, to see the wide vivid pink bars signalling the REM – and dreams – I would have missed if I hadn’t returned to sleep.

Are these sleep tracking devices accurate?

It’s early days, but research over the past few years suggests they are about 78% accurate in measuring sleep versus awake time, and only about 38% accurate in measuring how long it takes you to fall asleep. Accuracy in detecting and measuring sleep stages (deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep) is possibly less: research so far suggests inconsistent results.

If you want an accurate measurement of your sleep stages you need a polysomnography test which measures your brain waves, heart rate, breathing, blood oxygen levels, and eye movements by attaching electrodes to your scalp and other skin areas.

Sleep tracking devices such as my Garmin watch measure your heart rate and motion to estimate your sleep stages.

It’s been fun, and I will continue to examine my Sleep Score and Stages Timeline for a while, comparing it to how I actually feel: do I feel like I slept well, do I remember lots of dreams, do I feel refreshed and ready for my day, or do I feel tired?

Sleeping and dreaming apart, it’s been interesting to track my heart rate during exercise, and to discover my average resting heart rate (a rather low 50 or less) and my upper range fitness capabilities. But wearing two watches, one on each arm? Not so sure about that!

The post Sleep Tracking with a Garmin appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What’s your calling? When did you first realise it? Or are you still listening and waiting for all your stars to align and open the way?

Do missed opportunities call again, and again, if it’s in your karma?

In today’s episode, we explore these questions, and more, through stories, synchronicities, dreams, and mysteries.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between February and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

You can buy the paperback and the digital version from Amazon.

If you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment of the audio edition here on The Dream Show, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 267 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 2 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

After nearly 14 years – and 265 episodes – of The Dream Show, we decided to do something a little different between now and late November 2023 when we will return to our usual format.

Over the next ten episodes, I’m narrating my most recent book, Bird of Paradise (Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition), published in 2020. You can buy the paperback and kindle from Amazon, but I decided to offer the audio version in instalments through The Dream Show instead of placing it with Audible.

Publishing the audio version through the podcast means there is no fee for you, but if you’d like to express your appreciation and enjoyment, I’d like to encourage you to buy the paperback version for yourself or as a gift for a friend or two. Thank you.

Today’s episode, episode 266, Bird of Paradise Part 1, is one of the longer episodes. This is to get you off to a good start! Future episodes are of variable lengths, as they’re determined by the size of the chapters, and many are shorter than this one.

So what’s it about? To quote from the back cover of the book:

Bird of Paradise is an inspirational guide to finding your calling and navigating your life using dreams, mysteries, and alchemy. It’s part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide, and it delivers my down to earth tools and techniques for decoding dreams and synchronicities as well as my unique signature alchemy practices that enable you to flow and grow with life’s challenges, paradoxes, and mysteries.

So let’s begin!

*

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 266 The Dream Show: Bird of Paradise part 1 appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“A dead relative came to me in a dream and gave me the date of my death, please help!”

Several times a year, people reach out to ask me this exact question. More often, people tell me about dreams where they’ve previewed their death date, or the age at which they will die, or the dateless scenario or location of their death. If you know my work well, you’ll know that all dreams are symbolic, and you’ll know that I am about to take you down that track, but I want to begin by emphasising the sheer anguish experienced by those who wake up from a dream where a dead relative delivered a death date.

We all know that some dreams feel more real than others, and dreams of meeting up with deceased family can seem extremely real because they are so highly emotional. We may long to meet up with someone we have lost, and dreams can make such encounters feel genuine, as if, in sleep, a portal opens between life on Earth and the Afterlife.

We may deeply fear meeting up with a deceased relative who caused us pain or discomfort when they were alive, and such a dream encounter can bring back high intensity emotions and unresolved issues that cause us to wake up in significant distress, believing we’ve had contact, through our dreams, with the deceased in spirit form.

It can be challenging for people to step back from these highly emotive dreams and look at them symbolically. But when I sit down with people to explore the symbolism of such dreams, we soon find more rational explanations that ring deeply true to them.

We may dream of death (or the deceased) when we are processing our fears, feelings, and perspectives about physical death, but most commonly our dreams about death reflect symbolic deaths: what’s coming to an end in our life (a relationship, attitude, phase of life, and so on), and how we feel about this. We can’t bring change into our lives without necessary endings.

We may dream of the deceased not because they are deceased, but because our dreaming minds pick them as perfect examples of whatever we are processing in our dreams. Aunt Sophie (deceased) might be the best example of a procrastinator from all the people you know – living or dead – to symbolise the pros and cons of procrastination. Your dreaming mind puts together an excellent rendition of Aunt Sophie based on your interactions with her when she was alive. Her lookalike enters your dream, the perfect character to play the part of yourself that is currently conflicted around procrastination.

So, let’s jump straight to the question of what it means when a death date is given in a dream.

Our dreaming minds play creatively with numbers. They might bring up the number 303 and, when you explore this, you remember that you used to catch the 303 bus, or you once lived at number 303, or someone close to you was born on 30^th March (30.3), or a zillion other possibilities. The 303 in the dream will make perfect sense when you interpret the rest of your dream: for example, that 303 bus might bring back an emotional memory or conflict that fits with the issues your dream is exploring. It all falls into place.

 Our dreaming minds are also very good at remembering dates that we have consciously forgotten. I have been endlessly impressed by this. I might work with someone on a dream and, just when we have all the puzzle pieces together, they look up a diary, or check with a relative, and discover that a date given in the dream relates to the issues. For example, someone might be processing a current conflict over whether or not to resign from a job, and their dream might bring up the date 7^th June. They may then discover that 7^th June several years ago was when they resigned from a previous job. Their dreaming mind draws parallels between the two situations, drawing the dreamer’s attention to what happened back then and how it may be influencing their choices, unconsciously, now.

Your dream might give you 9^th October as your death date. What does October mean to you? Everyone’s answer will be different. You might think of October as the beginning of the university year in the northern hemisphere. You might then reflect back on when you first went to university, and see, quite clearly in hindsight, that the ‘old’ you died at that time, and the ‘new’ you was born. Your school days, your childhood, where you lived, how you saw yourself, all changed that October so many years ago. Your dream gave a death date of 9^th October. What does 9 mean to you? Again, answers will vary. If you enjoy numerology, you might see 9 as the end of a cycle, and that would fit perfectly with 9^th October being your dream symbol for the end of a cycle, a time to move forward in a new way.

Understanding dreams takes time and effort, and there are tools and techniques you can learn to help you to do this for yourself. Alternatively, you can seek help from a professional dream analyst.

If your death dream has come about because you are processing your fears about dying, or a newly-found sense of mortality, your dreaming mind might search for a date – any date – to symbolise finality. If the date given in your dream excludes a year, it has a 1:365 chance of being right through chance alone (whether you die this year or 75 years into the future). If you hear that someone died on the date predicted by their dream, think about all the people who didn’t die on the date given in their dream. My guess is that for every ‘accurate’ death date, there are some 364 ‘inaccurate’ death dates.

These dreams are common, very common.

Ask around, search the internet. You’ll find very few reports of ‘accurate’ death dates: read them with a pinch of salt, apply the 1:365 rule.

The death date given in your dream will most likely relate to a long-forgotten ‘ending’ date in your life, or even someone else’s death date that has been lodged in your conscious or unconscious memory: a relative, a famous poet, or more metaphorically, the fall of an empire, the deadline date you missed to apply for something important, the use-by date you barely noticed on that tub of yoghurt you ate last night.

Perhaps your dream death date included a year. Begin by looking at the number symbolically: the year 2035 might be drawing your attention to what happened in your life between the ages of 20 and 35, or your expectations of what life holds for you when you reach the age of 35. For example, you might see 35 as marking the end of an era, the death of youth, the beginning of middle age.

What about being given a death age in your dream?

You might dream that you will die at 55, or in ten years’ time. Again, explore these numbers or ages symbolically, or explore how they might relate to your beliefs and perspectives. Do you worry that you might not be on top of your game in your career by the time you reach the age of 55? Did a parent or colleague die at that age? Where do you imagine you’ll be in ten years’ time, and why might your dreaming mind see nothing but endings? What new approach might you be ready to begin in ten years? What opportunities might you miss if you wait another ten years?

During dreaming we can become more acutely aware of physical ailments. A dream may pick up on changing hormone levels around perimenopause (or dropping testosterone levels in men), signalling these changes as symbolic deaths. A dream might predict a death date of age 55 – or five years’ time – as prediction of menopause based on fluctuating hormone levels and your knowledge and beliefs about menopause: death of fertility, birth of a new way of being.

A dream might, rarely, pick up on other physical changes of which you are consciously unaware: a heart murmur, weakening bone density, a tumour, and may play this dramatically as a death date. Think of this more as a dramatic way for your unconscious mind to draw you attention to a physical change. Put your mind at rest by organising a medical check, then return to explore your dream symbolically.

I once dreamed that my deceased father came to escort me to the Afterlife. My time on Earth was done. In the dream I was warmed to see him, but I told him I was not ready to go. Outside, I saw a deceased aunt waiting by the door. Everything about the dream was true to life: the house was exactly the house I lived in, there was nothing surreal or out of place other than the presence of my father and aunt.

On waking I was momentarily distressed. I am a dream analyst, I understand these dreams, this dream felt too true to life and emotionally intense. But once I was fully awake, I was able to see a waking life parallel: I was contemplating making a change, perhaps stepping away from the work that I do, beginning something new. I was conflicted: was it time to step away or did I want to stay? There were pros and cons either way. When I thought about my aunt (my dreaming mind might have chosen from any number of my deceased aunts, but it chose this one), I realised she symbolised a key perspective. The dream helped me to understand the layers of my conflict and decide on my next steps. As you will note, I am still here, on this Earth, and my dream was long ago.

My blogs are usually much shorter than this. I have written this one as a resource for people who email me, terrified, to ask my opinion about dreams where a deceased relative gives a death date. You may be one of those people. I hope this article has helped to reassure you that your death date dream is symbolic, and I hope it has helped you to understand a little more about your dream.

The post Dreaming of a deceased relative giving a death date appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Karen, from Detroit, Michigan, USA, is my guest today asking about her dream involving cutting hair, an overflowing garbage disposal system, and a long party table.

There’s an extended hug with a long-dead relative who is crying oceans of tears, while an adult daughter decides to nap in a baby car seat.

And where, oh where, by the way, is Karen’s plate of food when she needs it?

Listen as we unravel Karen’s dream to relate it to her waking life and find meaningful insight in every symbol and drama. By the end of our dream exploration, Karen is much clearer about her waking life situation and next steps.

Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 265 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Karen dreamed of a long hug appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Why do we have bad dreams, and how can we stop them?

How many times have you lain awake in the middle of the night, unable or unwilling to go back to sleep because of a bad dream? Perhaps you have a regular anxiety-type dream that leaves you on edge, or maybe you occasionally wake up quivering with the certainty that an ice-cold ethereal presence is standing over you or pinning you to your bed.

In this episode we look at anxiety dreams, scary awakenings, sleep paralysis, and tips on how to stop bad dreams.

We also look at the best way to get back to sleep when you’re wide awake, or your mind is racing, and you’d prefer to get your full dose of healthy sleep and insightful dreams.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 264 The Dream Show: Anxiety dreams and scary awakenings appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“I have what I call my Inadequacy Dreams,” a neighbour told me recently, “a whole bunch of dreams that seem to fit that title, where I feel inadequate to complete a task, or something is not enough.”

If you’ve studied with me, you’ll know that I encourage you to give a gut-feel title to every dream before you begin to interpret it. It doesn’t need to be an all-encompassing title. It doesn’t need to encapsulate the whole dream drama. A title works best if it’s the first thing that springs to your mind when you think about the dream. Why is this?

When you’re immersed in recalling a dream, or writing it down, the symbols and surrealism continue to engage your unconscious mind, as if you’re still, at some level, dreaming. The title that springs to your mind often comes from that deep well of dreaming, so it can contribute to your understanding of the dream when you sit back to interpret it.

As an example, the title ‘The Dog’s Breakfast’ might pop into your mind for a long, adventurous dream in which all sorts of things happened including noticing a dog eating breakfast. Later, when you come to interpret your dream, the notion of something in your life being a bit of a ‘dog’s breakfast’ (meaning messed up or badly done) might throw much of your dream drama into context.

Giving each of your dreams an individual title means you can build an index, perhaps in the back of your dream journal, or as a Word doc, so that you can quickly find a dream when you want to refer back. Even when you can’t remember what title you gave the dream that you’re searching for, it will jump out at you when you run your eye through your indexed list of titles.

As a creative writer, I can get carried away with ideas. I could propose a subtitle for every dream, and this would indeed contribute extra light:

‘The Dog’s Breakfast’
– If only she’d been more prepared

You could have fun with that, but the practical tip I’m bringing you today is to give theme subtitles to those dreams that seem to follow a similar theme. Like ‘Inadequacy Dream’, for a recurring dream theme where you feel inadequate to complete a task or something is not enough.

In this way, you can go back through your dreams to compare similar themes, look for progress or – in the other direction – decline. You can compare what was happening in your waking life in the 1-2 days before each repeat of your dream theme. You can look for clues in one version of your dream theme that throw light on another in the category.

You might be thinking of standard dream theme subtitles such as Anxiety Dream, or Losing Teeth Dream, or Being Chased Dream, but have fun and colour outside the boxes. Giving yourself creative freedom also engages your unconscious mind, and this helps you to shine a light on your blind spots when you’re exploring the meaning of your dream theme.

If you prefer more structure, you might want to be guided by an emotion you feel (Fear Dreams, Grief Dreams, Rejection Dreams), or by the situation (Lost Dreams, Stuck Dreams, End of My Tether Dreams, Walking by the Water Dreams, Sea Life Dreams).

So you might have:

‘The Dog’s Breakfast’
– Not Good Enough Dreams

I’m writing this in early December. You might be running on empty at this time of the year (there’s a dream theme subtitle, Running on Empty, that I could apply to many clients’ dreams I’ve seen) and feel that you have no time to write out your dreams. Maybe you could capture them with a quick title and subtitle: you might be surprised how much a couple of weeks of dream titles can reveal. Or you might be planning some time off time to yourself, in which case you might want to go back over a few weeks of dreams in your dream journal and retrospectively assign titles and theme subtitles.

Or you may wish to save these ideas for a fresh new start to the way you record your dreams in 2023.

Whichever way, I wish you a happy holiday season, sprinkled with enlightening dreams to ponder at leisure over many delicious breakfasts.

The post Naming your dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Every dream explores a question about your life and gives you the opportunity to find the answers you seek.

But how can you cut through the bizarre language of your dreams to identify that question and find those answers? Is this something you can learn to do by yourself? Or are there times when you need a little – or a lot – of help?

Who is qualified to interpret your dreams? Can someone tell you what your dreams mean, without your input? What can you do to help someone understand their dreams?

Listen in as I explore these questions, find answers, give you dream interpretation tips, and offer insight and inspiration to entice you to change the world one dream at a time. (Yes, you can indeed do that!)

Ready to go? Listen!

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Episode 263 The Dream Show: Who can interpret your unique dream? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Molly from New York, USA, is our guest exploring her dream about mountain-sized walruses and sea lions that crashed to earth.

In her dream, she enjoyed an exhilarating flight with her friend before crash landing, followed shortly by the enormous, plummeting walruses and sea lions.

Why did Molly, when she tried to explain her friend to her family and other friends, misgender her twice, calling her ‘he’?

I’m not going to spoil the dream story, but I will say that it ended in the children’s books section of a library. Are you curious?

Listen as we explore Molly’s dream to discover how it relates to her situation, and what insights she can discover about her unconscious mindset and how it influences the way she lives her life. Oh, and we discuss some possible dream alchemy for Molly to do to help shift her mindset in a more fulfilling direction.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 262 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Molly dreamed of walruses and sea lions appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What if our night-time dreams offered the potential to create real, positive change in the world?

Well, they do.

Imagine that! Asleep, in bed, being gifted everything you need to make a difference in the world, dream by dream, night by night!

I could argue that simply having a good eight-hour sleep each night, along with all the physiological, mental, and emotional benefits that dreaming brings (whether you remember those dreams or not) is a good starting point. Rather than facing a new day short on sleep, your mind clogged and fogged by inadequate processing of your daily experiences due to skimping on healing dreaming time, a full sleep enables you to bring a refreshed self to the day ahead.

But that is only a beginning.

Occasional dreams can offer creative solutions to problems, as well as sparkling new ideas and inventions that can be put into action. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Niels Bohr’s realisation of the structure of the atom, and Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table of the elements, are amongst the more famous examples of world-changing scientific ideas perceived in dreams. The rapid transformation of the textile and clothing industries from handmade to machine manufactured products was a direct result of Elias Howe’s problem-solving dream, in 1846. Howe had been searching for a way to design an efficient sewing machine suitable for mass manufacture. He dreamed he was about to be killed for failing to come up with the solution when he suddenly noticed that the warriors surrounding him all had spears with a hole near the tip. That was what was needed: a hole at the eye of the sewing machine needle, not at the blunt end as was the case with a handheld sewing needle. (See more detailed blog and interpretation of his dream.)

Closer to our times, Larry Page had a world-changing dream that seeded the idea of a search engine, resulting in the birth of Google some two years post-dream development.

But what about our more usual dreams, yours and mine?

How can we change the world, one dream at a time?

We too may occasionally dream of practical, potentially world-changing ideas, or our dreams may inspire us to take creative action to contribute to a better world, but we can do even more through every single dream, if we take the time to understand them.

The dreams we have every night invite us to understand ourselves more deeply, to integrate our conscious and unconscious life experiences in healing ways, to transform our inner worlds where they need positive transformation, and to nurture our deepest gifts and bring them into the light of day. Our dreams help us to accept our deepest shadows and to accept and empathise with people who we might have tarred with that same shadow brush. Our dreams help us to walk in another’s shoes, to understand and empathise with other people, other cultures, and other perspectives, through understanding our personal unconscious perspectives and drives.

Our dreams help us to grow in ways that benefit our everyday interactions with other people and the world around us, and that’s a very good place to start.

The post Change the world one dream at a time appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Linda, from Grafton, NSW, Australia, is my guest exploring her dream about escaping from a swamp.

How did the car she was driving end up sinking into a swamp, and how did Linda, terrified, manage to escape and hitch a lift with a stranger?

Why did her dream begin with people from the past gathered in her home, and what was the significance of the L-shaped bench?

Linda’s dream takes place at night, even when she visits her hairdresser. Everyone, it seems, is up and about in this dream, while Linda stands, dripping water and mud, looking for help.

There’s more to this dream: what does it mean, how does it relate to Linda’s life, and what insightful new perspectives does it offer her? Listen to find out!

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 261 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Linda dreamed of escaping a swamp appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Rebecca, from Minnesota, USA, is my guest exploring her dream about a raven-haired crane dancer, a singer, and a somersault artiste.

This arresting dream is visually and aurally striking, mystical and mysterious. It begins at a camp where Rebecca invites three women to share their talents. The first one sings an “achingly beautiful” song, which the other two women interrupt when they arrive to reveal their talents.

Listen as Rebecca and I explore the details of her dream to discover how it relates to her life, the invaluable insights it offers, and the dream alchemy we create.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 260 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Rebecca dreamed of a crane dancer appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“What do you dream about?” asked a recent client. “If you’re on top of your recurring and scary dreams, what comes next?”

She had contacted me because she had a frustrating recurring dream theme that had been going on for years. She had the dream several times a week. It was interfering with her sleep, and she was feeling increasingly exhausted and anxious about the situation.

I was able to help her understand her dream and why she was having it, and work with her to address the underlying issues and stop the dream. She was excited to see what new dreams might fill the void, and how they might help her.

A scary dream, or a long-term recurring, draining, frustrating dream, is the reason many people book a session with me for the first time. Recurring dream themes point to recurring waking life issues that are limiting or holding us back in some way, so they are an excellent first port of call. Working with these dreams gives fresh perspective and new ways to move forward. Likewise, our scary dreams reflect our fears, so working with these dreams helps us to identify, face, and transform our fears, releasing us from their hold.

Once that job is done, clients are often amazed by the dreams that follow, and choose to explore those dreams with me on a regular basis. Which brings me back to the opening question in this blog:

What do I dream about?

I have been working professionally with clients’ dreams for over thirty years, and with my own for a little longer, so my personal recurring dream themes were put to rest a long time ago. Sometimes a new theme might evolve and alert my attention, and from time to time I might have a scary dream when I am processing a new and fearful situation. Fortunately, I can work with such dreams to my benefit before they have a chance to escalate in intensity.

So I have plenty of room for other dreams!

I’d love to share this little dream snippet that I had last week.

It was part of a much longer dream, but I think it will delight you.

We all dream to process our conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 1-2 days, comparing these to similar past experiences, and, ideally, evolving our mindset as a result.

In my dream, I took a photographer friend (someone I know in waking life) into the back garden (backyard). I wanted to show him a tiny speck of light. “I saw it yesterday,” I told him, “I think I can find it again. We just need to look.”

I took him to the centre of the garden and stared deep into the crisp invisible air. “It’s like when you suddenly notice a spider’s silken thread floating in the air, made visible by a shaft of sunlight,” I told him. “Or like a mote of dust hanging mid-air.”

Suddenly, there it was. A tiny, bright red jewel, a slither of ruby perhaps, but the size of a tiny dust mote. As we watched, it turned and danced in the breeze, intermittently catching the light, sparkling. My photographer friend took a photo.

A synchronicity followed the next day, but I’ll come to that.

Exploring my dream, I began by thinking about the photographer friend. His specialities are photographing tiny details of nature up close and huge night skies spread with distant stars. In my dream he photographed the tiniest speck up close, and that speck was suspended in air, like a star in the heavens, and it carried a sense of the mysteries of the universe, all wonder, and awe. The ruby red felt like a grounded colour, perhaps like a faraway mysterious star almost grounded in my back garden.

This reminded me of my work, where I am very practised at identifying tiny details in dreams that throw sudden, magnificent light on the dreamer’s situation. No matter how many times I do this, and no matter how tightly I follow the tools and techniques that enable this, I still experience a sense of wonder at the process, and a sense of awe for exploring life’s mysteries and the grounded perspectives they can offer.

Such a dream might follow any day of consultations, so why this dream, on this specific night?

The previous day, I had been working with a dreamer who was intently exploring his devout religious beliefs through his dreams, and he had asked me for my personal thoughts about certain aspects of religion and spirituality. I told him that my spiritual life is a high priority for me, but that I don’t follow any specific religion. I told him that I am open-minded, and happily embrace life’s mysteries.

To some extent, as you can see, my dream had picked up on this theme, and was processing it, but here’s where it gets more interesting:

As I thought about my dream of a photographer friend in my back garden, photographing a speck of light that I had seen before, I was reminded of a story I tell in my book, Bird of Paradise. It’s the (true) story of another photographer friend who was taking new profile photos of me in my back garden, years ago. When she looked at the photos afterwards, there was a beam of light – or an ‘orb’ as she saw it – that she hadn’t seen down the lens when she took the picture. I open that story, in Bird of Paradise, saying:

“It’s lens flare,” says the scientist. “It’s synchronicity,” says the mystic. “It’s divine,” says the shaman. “It’s alchemy,” says the dream alchemist. “It belongs in the fifth chapter,” says the author.

“Let’s see what my dreams make of this,” says the dream analyst.

That’s me: scientist, mystic, shaman, dream alchemist, author, and dream analyst, though probably not in that order. And that’s me in the picture, taken by a Samsung smartphone, under the lemon tree in our Brisbane garden back in 2016. But what is the light that found its way into the shot?

It’s the backstory that sends tingles up the spine, whatever the source of the light. That’s why the photographer, Karyn MacDonald, leapt back in shock when she looked at the image moments after taking the picture.

The story goes on to reveal the backstory, and why Karyn and I were so surprised about the positioning of the light in the photograph. (You’ll need to read the book for the rest of this story!)

My recent dream was referencing the older story. It was comparing the recent experience with the similar past experience, seeing whether or not to update my mindset on this matter. The matter was where I stand in that field where science and mystery meet.

There’s far more to this, and I won’t bore you with the details of the larger dream within which this snippet appeared, but I include it here to illustrate the rich potential of exploring the smallest fragment of a dream.

Now, for the synchronicity and the deepening mystery:

The day after my dream, I sat at my desk as usual. I was swivelling my office chair slightly from side to side as I contemplated the working day ahead. I looked down and saw the tiniest flash of red, sparkly light emanating from the seat of my chair, just beside my thigh. Twinkling, it was there, it was gone, there, gone. The size of a dust mote, but the brilliance of a ruby bathed in sunlight. I slowed my swivelling to catch the exact point, put my finger where the red flash was, got off my chair, knelt on the floor, and peered into the seat cushion. It looks like there’s a piece of red glitter underneath the seat fabric, which shows through the fabric weave when the overhead light picks it out!

How did it get there? I don’t remember doing anything with red glitter. It’s possible that I may have opened a parcel or card with red glitter, but I don’t recall it. I bought the chair about nine months ago: the glitter might have got trapped in the fabric when it was being made. It’s a mystery: I guess I’ll never know!

Neither will I know whether, the day before my dream, I unconsciously noticed the flashing red glitter in my chair, leading to my dream processing the experience. Or whether I unconsciously noticed the glitter when I was in deep thoughtful conversation with my client and the two themes became linked.

I could look deeper, exploring the ‘seat’ of my work as finding the tiniest details in dreams and bringing them to light, and teaching you to do the same.

So what do I dream? I dream, as you dream, and the more we move through resolving the issues behind our recurring and scary dreams, the more we clear space and time to delve into the magic and mystery of what lies beyond.

The post See the light appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Betty, my guest from Melbourne, Australia, wept buckets in her dream over her missing car. It wasn’t where she had parked it!

A young girl riding a bike told her the car had been stolen, yet it turned out to be parked in the next street. Before long, Betty was in the driving seat, reversing her car, then somehow hit her head so hard that she woke up with the pain, a pain she could still feel for a few seconds before it faded.

Listen as Betty and I explore her dream – there was more to the story – and put the puzzle pieces together to relate it to her life and discover insights that help her to make the best decisions about a key situation she is currently facing.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 259 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Betty dreamed her car was stolen appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I talk about the ‘art and science’ of interpreting dreams: there are methods, techniques, and approaches to follow, but is there more to this work than meets the eye?

Part of me sees dream interpretation as straightforward and methodical, while another part of me is constantly astonished by the seemingly magical way in which a dream interpretation falls into place when you reach into the work with your bare hands, trusting the alchemy of the process.

In this episode we dip into the magical and make our way toward the practical, before exploring the types of services professional dream workers offer.

Yes, this is one of our ‘talkie’ episodes, packed with dream interpretation tips and inspiration for working with dreams.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 258 The Dream Show: The art and science of interpreting dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“Can you write a blog about dreaming of being raped?” asked Laurie, after she awoke from a shocking rape dream.

Laurie is a regular client, and since all dreams are unique and deeply personal, she knew there was more to interpreting a rape dream meaningfully than doing a quick Google hoping for a dream dictionary one-size-fits-all answer. If you find an article that says, “To dream of rape means …”, you’re on the wrong track.

But yes, Laurie, I can write a blog about being raped in a dream, and here it is. It’s for people who have not yet learned the art and science of interpreting their dreams, and for people who may not have the luxury of being able to book a dream consultation to deeply explore and understand a dream. I’m here to give some guidelines on how to approach and understand such a shocking dream.

Before we go into the possible symbolism of rape dreams, it’s important to acknowledge that people who have consciously experienced the trauma of rape, and who suffer ongoing PTSD as a result, may have recurring rape dreams. Their dreams may either be accurate replays of the original rape, or replays of some of the memories from the experience. Their dreaming mind is essentially trying and failing to resolve the trauma, and intervention is needed to help stop the recurring dreams and assist the dreamer in healing. PTSD dreams – common for war veterans – can be stopped by consciously changing the dream narrative while awake, retraining the mind to interrupt the stuck dream next time it begins and move it from repeat toward change and resolution. You can read more about this here.

Let me wave a big red flag before we go into the possible symbolism of rape dreams: if you’ve had a rape dream, and you have no recollection of being raped, it’s unlikely that you are accessing a lost memory, no matter how real or plausible the rape felt in the dream. Buried traumatic experiences are more likely to show up symbolically, rather than as literal replays.

Let’s also take a moment to acknowledge the catalogue of shocking dreams that most healthy people dream from time to time: murder, torture, violent death, explosive anger, to name just a few. I’m sure you can add one or two themes from your own repertoire if you regularly recall your dreams. Yet you know that these dreams are not literal memories or drives: you have not been tortured, but you may have felt tortured emotionally. So take a deep breath and remember that dreams are generally symbolic.

Let’s move on to some guidelines for understanding rape dreams.

Focus on the feeling you had in the dream (not the feeling you had after you woke up and thought about the dream). You might have felt powerless, helpless, forced, violated, worthless … or one or more of many other feelings. Take time to pinpoint exactly how you felt in your dream. If you felt violated, for example, where in your life, at the time of the dream, were you feeling or fearing being physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually violated? If you felt powerless in your dream to assert your boundaries, where in your life were you feeling or fearing powerless to assert your physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual boundaries?

The dream rape is a metaphor for a feeling or fear in waking life, but very much amplified.

Then consider the dream rapist from a symbolic point of view. What does this person or entity represent to you? What was their personality, or energy? For example, your dream rapist might have ‘not taken no for an answer’: where in your life at the time of your dream was someone not taking your ‘no’ for an answer, leaving you feeling perhaps overpowered or helpless?

The most courageous and insightful approach to interpreting a dream is to view everyone and everything in the dream as representing part of yourself (or a conscious or unconscious belief that you have). Taking this approach for a rape dream asks you to consider that there’s a part of yourself that is – for example – overpowering or violating your boundaries. Perhaps there’s a part of yourself that believes you shouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, pushing you to an extreme to get what you want when this might be ultimately damaging for you.

These are tips, entry points for exploring a dream about rape. I hope they help to reassure you that these dreams are generally symbolic – dramatic metaphors for a waking life situation that you are experiencing. They also offer insight into your unconscious mindset and patterns of behaviour, and the opportunity to reprogram or change these using dream alchemy techniques.

The post Rape dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Kendra, from Coles Bay, Tasmania, Australia, is my guest asking about her dream where her friend died then came back to life.

Kendra was visiting her dying friend – who is fit and healthy in waking life – in hospital. Another friend fled, “I can’t stay for this!” she said.

After the friend died, her body was placed in a big ice bucket, but her hands and some other body parts were still moving. At one point the nurses stand the dead body up on her feet, and there is a little more movement, a spot of menstrual blood smeared across her stomach.

There is more to this dream, but eventually the friend comes fully back to life.

What does the dream mean, how does it relate to Kendra’s life, and how can this dream help her?

Listen as Kendra and I explore her dream together. Do please share.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 257 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Kendra dreamed a friend died then came back to life appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

We pause our guest-format to celebrate 13 years of podcasting The Dream Show and to explore the immense treasures and opportunities offered by our dreams.

This episode brings you tips on how to incubate a dream about a specific topic, and shares some of my earlier research on the surprising things that happened when I asked people to incubate a dream about a certain object. A clue? The objects started appearing in waking life!

This episode also brings you dream interpretation tips and inspiration wrapped in stories: there’s one about a yoga class, one about a steep climb down into into a fossil-blessed cove, and one about an old-fashioned paper map. Intrigued?

Thank you for listening to yet another episode of The Dream Show, and for sharing this huge resource with your friends. Some of you, I know, have ploughed through listening to all the previous 255 episodes!

Thank you also to those of you who have been guests on our podcasts throughout these thirteen years, bringing dreams for us to explore and interpret. Your contributions are invaluable and deeply appreciated.

This sounds like a wrap, but it’s not. The Dream Show now enters its 14^th year!

Listen, and do please share.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 256 The Dream Show: Dream incubation. How to induce a dream to answer a question appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

In a recent dream, in a fairy-tale setting, I knelt at a fireplace in an open courtyard, gently tending the clay tablets etched with exquisite symbols that I was baking in the flames.

At least, that’s how the scene would have looked to some of the people watching.

Other onlookers, in my dream, were astonished by the magic I was performing, reaching into the fire with my bare hands, extracting beautiful works of art born of flame and magical spells.

In my eyes, in my dream, I was doing my work, inscribing my first draft into wet clay before passing it through the alchemical fires of the deeper work to produce the final, polished piece.

The dream metaphor could apply to writing – a book, a blog, an article – but on waking I knew that it was, on one level, about writing dream interpretations for those who choose a written interpretation over a Zoom consultation.

There’s an art and a science to interpreting dreams, a way of looking that can seem quite magical until you learn how to do it yourself.

My dream shows that there is a part of me that sees the process as straightforward and methodical (represented by the people in the dream who saw me simply baking the clay tablets in the flames).

There’s another part of me that is constantly astonished by the seemingly magical way in which a dream interpretation falls into place when you reach into the work with your bare hands, trusting the alchemy of the process.

At a deeper level still, my dream is not only about my work in the world, but also about the alchemical process of my own personal and spiritual enquiry.

When I interpret dreams, I draw the dreamer’s attention to the various concurrent levels of their dream’s meaning: how it relates to their outer world as well as how it relates deeply within their inner world.

In this way, interpreting a dream involves focussing on different levels, looking into the dream rather than at the dream.

Do you remember the Magic Eye books that were popular in the early 1990s?

Depending on how you looked at the images in these picture books, you saw either two-dimensional patterns or three-dimensional pop-up scenes. Here’s one to try:

The images are auto stereograms, sometimes used by optometrists to test eyesight. If you have a binocular or stereovision impairment you might not be able to see the 3D image seemingly hidden in the first-glance pattern. But before you self-diagnose or rush off to book an optometry appointment, have another look at the image above. Instead of focussing on the surface of the picture, soften your eyes as if you are looking beyond the image. Think of the image as a curtain or veil and look through it to see what’s at some distance behind it. If this doesn’t work for you, let your eyes go a bit crossed as well. Once you’ve got the knack, Google ‘magic eye’ for a feast of fun examples.

Today’s blog is inspired by a recent client’s response to my written interpretation of her dream. She wrote, “I just realized the movie was in 3D and the damn glasses were forgotten on the top of my head.” A dream makes sense when you discover how to look at it. I played with her metaphor, which is totally apt, and spun it into the Magic Eye version because I thought you’d have fun with it.

If you’ve not yet learned the art and science of how to look into your dreams to see the meaningful pictures within, you might want to do this course, or ask me to do the looking for you.

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Juliana, from Atlanta, Georgia, is my guest asking about her dream of encountering a knotty problem when changing a baby’s diaper.

This very visceral dream begins with a diaper change and the challenge of cleaning an abundance of yellow poo from the baby’s crevices. The wet wipes she was using were moist but tough, and she worried that she was irritating the baby’s genitalia.

The baby’s gender was ambiguous, partly boy, partly girl.

As you’ll hear, Juliana’s aunt has some caregiving advice that involves tying lots of knots into something that emerged from the baby’s digestive system: was it the baby’s intestines, or an umbilical cord, or something else?

And is the aunt’s caregiving advice ultimately healing or harmful?

Listen as Juliana and I explore her dream to discover what it means, how it relates to her waking life, and how the insights we uncover can help her with her situation.

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Meredith, from Ventura County, California, is my guest asking about her dream set in a clothing store.

She’s there to choose new clothes for someone and asks the store attendant to try on various options so she can see how they look. The white-blonde attendant is only partly engaged in the process, making Meredith feel anxious and deferential as she tries to make good choices.

The attendant models three layers of tops, and then agrees to trying Meredith’s idea of a dark blue shirt but there isn’t one available.

“Why am I buying her all these tops?”, Meredith wonders, exasperated, before seeking refuge in a private changing room.

Listen as Meredith and I explore her dream to uncover the deeper goings-on in her life, discovering insight and fresh, helpful perspective on her waking life situation.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

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According to a recent survey, the top Google search for dream symbols is ‘dreams about dogs’.  Why do we dream about dogs, and what do these dreams mean?

Before we go there, according to Google’s February-March 2022 report on my website, there was a big jump in people looking for information on dreams about the end of the world. We’ll go there in this blog, but let’s begin with dreaming about dogs.

The survey, done by a bed retail store, reported that ‘dreams about dogs’ was the number one dream symbol Google search for 19 out of 180 countries. I was surprised by this result – and I speak with thousands of people about their dreams – but let’s explore!

What was the dog in your dream doing? Was it barking at you, or at someone else? Were its teeth bared? Or was it wagging its tail, happily running through a meadow or welcoming you home? Was your dream dog loyally carrying out your commands, or was it being disobedient or naughty? Was that dog in your dream running away from you, or was it a scary dog, chasing you or barring your way? Were you looking for a lost dog, or did you rescue an injured or mistreated dog?

Bear with the questions, they are the key to understanding your dog dream.

How did the dog in your dream feel? It might have been obvious: perhaps the dog was howling in grief or in abandonment, or barking fearfully, or barking confidently. Was your dream dog cowering, dropping to the floor in surrender, or was it in guarding or protective mode? Read your dream dog’s body language: name what it was feeling.

Dream symbols are important, but you can gain quicker insight into your dream if you look at the dream theme and any expressed emotions or feelings.

For example, your dog dream theme might have been abandonment (the dog howling in grief), or protection (the dog guarding someone), or loyalty (the dog carrying out your commands), or unconditional love (the dream dog’s unwavering support of you), or cowering in fear (the dog dropping to the floor), or mistreatment (the injured dog in the dream).

Or your dog dream theme might have been loss (looking for the lost dog), or rescue (wanting to rescue a dog), or disobedience (the naughty dog). It’s your own unique dream, so keep exploring along these lines until you feel, ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s the theme of my dream’.

Where is this theme playing out in your life?

By now, you’ve probably identified the life situation or issue that your dream is processing. It’s a start. You may realise that your dream dog represents your feelings about or issues around loyalty, protection, defence, attack, personal or physical boundaries (marking your territory), fear, disobedience, mistreatment, or many other possibilities.

Dream interpretation helps you to acknowledge what you already know (for example, ‘Yes, I do need more personal space’), and to discover what you don’t yet know about yourself, what is unconscious (for example, ‘I didn’t realise I was feeling abandoned but knowing this makes sense of how I’m approaching my life right now’).

As an aside, the dog in your dream might be an actual dog: your current dog, a dog that died, a friend’s dog. What do you see as these dogs’ personalities? What do you see as their doggy life dramas? What does a particular dog mean to you? Your answers will help shed further light on the meaning of your dog dream.

Why are Google searches for ‘dreams about dogs’ ranking so highly?

I haven’t looked at the Google search data myself, but I wonder if an upswing in dreaming about dogs is a Covid pandemic effect.

Isolation and working from home led many people to buy pets or give shelter to rescue dogs. Perhaps people living alone in quarantine wanted companionship, comfort, and loving, loyal support. They may have dreamed about their new companions in this light.

But I prefer to look more deeply, and into the personal.

People in lockdown with family or housemates may have needed more personal space and boundaries, metaphorically wishing to mark their territory, defend their patch, or, just occasionally, snap and bite. Their dreams may have processed these feelings and issues as dreams about dogs.

Dreams about disobedient dogs – or even just mildly naughty ones – may have reflected people’s feelings and issues around lockdown rules, travel bans, mask mandates, QR code check-ins, and other regulations. Such dreams may process battling your own streak of disobedience or your feelings about people who do not co-operate with the law.

Loyalties have been questioned during the pandemic: perhaps you lost your job due to Covid after many years of being a loyal employee, or – more significantly in the land of the deep self and dreams – flowing with the changes has made you feel disloyal to the past. You decided to pivot in your career? It was probably the right response, but did part of you feel disloyal to your previous career plans and goals?

Dreaming about dogs certainly predates the pandemic, of course. I had recurring dreams of wolves (wild dogs, I guess), as a child, and many people have asked me about their recurring childhood aggressive dog dreams. After childhood, my dream wolves gradually transformed into dogs, firstly quite scary and then, over time, loving and supportive, as I overcame my fears and learned how to confidently stand my ground and claim my space.

Hopefully the dream interpretation tips I’ve shared so far have helped you to define the issue your dog dream is processing, and may have shed some light on your more unconscious feelings and tendencies. The full meaning of your dream – what it reveals about your mindset and the issue, and insight into how to resolve the situation – is contained in the other details of your dream.

So, why are people also searching more for ‘end of the world’ dreams?

At least according to my website stats they are, and I have also noticed people telling me more ‘end of the world’ dreams recently. Why do you think this is?

On one level people are processing, in their dreams, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as climate change induced natural disasters (floods, storms, fires) while we’re also still experiencing levels of Covid uncertainty. Our dreams help us to process these devastating emotional experiences, although it’s true to say that our dreams will often use symbols removed from the literal situation because that’s the nature of dreams.

On a deeper level, our ‘end of the world’ dreams are also about ourselves: what is ending in our personal world, and what is about to begin. Endings can be positive, the end of an attitude that no longer serves so that a new and more appropriate attitude might take its place. Dreams often use death as a symbol of change, a symbol of what is ending in our lives. ‘End of the world’ dreams tend to symbolise our fears and feelings around really big changes, changes in our personal world that seem all embracing, a huge change from the way you used to live your life to how you choose to live your life now. The end of the world as you knew it, and the beginning of your new world.

As things in the outer world and in your inner world rumble, you have the opportunity to decide how to move forward, how to build a new outer or inner world, how to live in a different way. What have you learned about change during the last two years? Explore your ‘end of the world’ dreams to gain deeper insight.

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Tas, from Melbourne, Australia, is my guest asking about her dream of discovering wildlife trapped in her house.

Tas is about to move interstate, back into her old house in Sydney, which she has rented out for many years while travelling with her career.

In her dream, she and her sister arrive at the Sydney house ahead of her furniture. When she opens the door, she is shocked when colourful rosellas fly out and up into the air. As they venture inside, they are scared to encounter insects, spiders, and snakes.

There’s more to this unexpected wildlife sanctuary discovery, as you’ll hear when Tas shares her dream and we explore it to find out what it means, how it relates to her life, and what wonderful insights she can take forward.

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MaryBeth, from Portland, Oregon, US, is my guest asking about her dream where everyone at a party is naked.

MaryBeth dreamed she was at work, and when she opened the storage cupboard door it led to another wing, a mirror image of her current workplace but with larger, better rooms and more equipment. She was particularly amazed by the sand tray room where she wanted to stay, but she and her husband had agreed to go on a camping trip, so she had to leave.

I won’t spoil the story, which you’ll enjoy as you listen, but toward the end of her dream MaryBeth is encouraged to remove her T-shirt before joining a party where everyone is naked. Does she, or doesn’t she? What happens next?

What does MaryBeth’s dream mean, how does it relate to her life, and what meaningful and practical insight can she draw?

Listen as we explore MaryBeth’s dream!

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Director Jane Campion, who wrote the screenplay for the 2021 film, The Power of the Dog, based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, and Benedict Cumberbatch who starred in the film as a 1920s cowboy oozing a toxic masculinity designed to protect his deepest sensibilities, each drew from their dreams to enhance the authenticity and vitality of their work.

So, what did they do?

With the help of LA-based Jungian Dream Coach Kim Gillingham, Campion and Cumberbatch brought their dream characters to life, giving them space to speak and express their essences. While Gillingham keeps the exact nature of her professional processes under wraps, she combines various psychoanalytical techniques and Method Acting with dream exploration to connect artists to the energies they need to augment their work.

Drawing on the unconscious, most powerfully through dreams, opens artists of all genres to reach beyond their waking life perspectives and cultural views to bring fresh vision to their work.

I have noticed that people who work with me regularly on their dreams often become interested in developing artistically. Some deepen or expand their existing art–perhaps writing or painting–while others awaken and tap into latent skills with quite fabulous artistic results.

Sometimes it’s working with their dreams, in similar ways to Campion and Cumberbatch, that awakens my clients to their unconscious resources.

More strikingly, it’s practising the dream alchemy that we create (designed to reprogram a limiting unconscious belief or perspective revealed by a dream) that confers that extra magic. Dream alchemy practices involve working with art, drawing, writing, movement, and a range of other expressive avenues. When you do dream alchemy, you’re using an art form to express a desired transformation (or integration) of energies or dramas using symbols from your dream.

Campion and Cumberbatch used dream work to inform their art and bring us their powerful film which I would rank as one of the best of 2021.

While Gillingham’s work with artists is not necessarily directed at personal integration, healing, or transformation, I imagine this may frequently occur during their exploration, even though the main intent is mining the unconscious to enhance the artists’ work.

Let’s remember that exploring our dreams offers us the most precious gift of healing through getting to know ourselves so deeply that we empathise with our dream characters (who, like other elements of our dreams, represent aspects of ourselves), and integrate them in a way that confers personal healing and transformation.

With self-knowledge comes the opportunity to connect more authentically in all aspects of your life, and with healing comes vitality.

The particular work of exploring your dream characters also increases empathy for others – a sense of having walked in another’s shoes – as well as unconditional love for yourself.

Ah, the power of working with our dreams!

Special thanks to Jyotsna, a dream student, who sent me The Guardian article about Gillingham’s work, which you can read here.

The post The Power of the Dog appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Lucía from Cuernavaca, Mexico, is my guest asking about her dream of a disgusting coughed-up black spider.

She dreamed she was at a monastery where a monk was questioning her desire to be the bellringer for the meditations. She wanted to sit beside the huge singing bowl and embody its beautiful vibrations.

Later in the dream she prepares to interview a woman for a broadcast. She’s nervous, but as she writes down her questions, they flow.

The woman she is interviewing, however, expresses her disappointment about an activist document that Lucía wrote a few years ago. After several false starts and stumbles, the interview begins, but then a woman to her left coughs up a black spider!

What does her dream mean, how does it relate to her life, and what key insights can she draw?

Listen as Lucía and I explore her dream to find out!

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Ashe, from Wodonga on Dhudhuroa Country, Victoria, Australia, is my guest with a dream about a sculpture that he knocked over and smashed.

The sculpture was a large concrete monolith, built by a close friend and mentor, and all it took was one little push to topple it, accidentally-on-purpose. Ashe tried to cry tears of remorse, but they were not forthcoming.

The monolith was smashed to smithereens, spraying sparkly light and glitter everywhere. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ashe lamented, “constantly bumping into things and falling over!”

There’s much more to this dream, including a full-length velvet theatrical curtain, and the danger of a baby being caught up in the curtain cord.

How does it relate to Ashe’s life, and what deep and meaningful insight can he draw from our exploration of his dream?

Listen in to find out!

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

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Waiting for a train, I glanced up at the station clock. It was a beautiful, antique, analogue clock, its hands set at 7.30.

I glanced away and noticed another clock, a little further away. It was showing a completely different time. I noticed a third, and fourth clock, each indicating various times of the day. I checked back with the original station clock, where it was no longer 7.30 but mid-afternoon.

Someone asked me if this was a dream. I assured them it wasn’t.

They were persistent, so to humour them I rolled my eyes, rose onto my tiptoes, and flapped my arms. To my utter surprise, I flew high into the air and into lucidity.

“Look,” I called to one of the people on the station platform, “you can fly too. You can do anything in a lucid dream. Come on, it’s amazing!”

“I can’t,” she replied, “I’m a dream character, not real, an aspect of yourself.” And, in that instant, she freeze-framed as did everyone else in the dream. Time stood still – perhaps the clocks breathed a unison sigh of relief, their message delivered. I was free, beyond the realm of linear time, to explore my dream in the timeless now.

Except that I woke up, high on flying and laughing at my dream character’s droll response. I looked at the clock. I’d like to say that it was 7.30, but it was a little earlier than that and resolutely measuring the steady rhythm of linear time.

The dream clocks woke me up to the fact that I was dreaming. What an apt dream symbol for a wake-up call.

I have written in other blogs and in my most recent book, Bird of Paradise, about my brushes with lucid dreaming. Although I enjoy it occasionally – and it blows me away every time – my more common experience is that a dream character asks me if I am dreaming and I go on to prove that I’m not. I try to fly, and fail, or I dismiss the question because – obviously – I am not dreaming!

During normal dreaming the more rational areas of the brain – the prefrontal cortex – are not very active. That’s why dreams seem real while you’re in them. They make sense. If you’re keen to wake up inside a dream and become lucid you can remind yourself, while you’re awake, that dream clocks are not very consistent with telling the time, that dream books can be very difficult to read because of morphing words, and that dream mobile phones are notoriously impossible to navigate to a successful outcome. If you encounter a dream clock, book, or phone, there’s a chance that someone in your dream – and it might be you – says, “Is this a dream?”

Other people in a lucid dream are usually more co-operative than my cheeky person.

You can chat, ask them questions, or introduce a mentor or someone you admire into your dream to seek advice, get creative, adventure, or chill. When all is said and done, though, these characters – like all dream characters – are created by you. They speak with your voice (drawn from some deep level), draw on your perspectives, even though they may seem infinitely wiser (or less wise) than you know yourself to be. Why is this? It’s because you are freer in dreams, less constrained by your waking life perspectives, open to the greater fluidity of your unconscious mind.

My droll, freeze-frame dream character might have reflected my perspectives on time (enjoying freeze-framing linear time and entering the timeless now). No doubt she was also an aspect of my dream analyst self, and the humour I like to use to communicate analytical things. But most of all, she is the part of myself that perhaps believes she can’t fly, the part of myself that sometimes raises to her tiptoes and flaps her arms in a dream only to fail at flying and fail at going lucid. Perhaps she’s a part of me that sometimes freezes instead of flying in waking life: fear of flying. Metaphorically, that is.

This all brings me to the point of this blog, the intention I had when I sat down to write.

If you’re familiar with my writing, you’ll know that I enjoy a lot of scene-setting in the lead up!

My recent lucid flying dream led me to reminisce some of my non-lucid flying dreams over many decades.

I have flown high, flown low, flown acrobatically, flown in hops and skips, flown downstairs instead of using the steps, taught others how to fly, practised fly-running (big, moon gravity leaps, covering the ground fast), and insisted, in many a dream, that flying is a special talent that anyone can develop: look, watch me, you can do this too!

But there’s one recurring flying dream I had in the months leading up to really taking off (see that clue?) with my work in dreams. We’re going back almost 30 years here.

In this recurring dream I would be sitting on the floor – or on a chair – with other people, listening to someone giving a talk. I would be at the very back, behind everyone else. I was happy sitting there, listening, learning. But periodically my body would lift from the floor, just a few inches, but enough to be flown to the front of the group and into the speaker’s position. I would decline, walk back to my seat on the floor, only to be lifted and moved to the front again. If I was on a chair, my chair would be my low-flying chariot. It was a kind of passive flying. I wasn’t frightened (it wasn’t a possession kind of feeling). It felt, in the dream, like I was being encouraged to take my place, to teach, but I also felt, in the dream, that I didn’t feel it was appropriate, or that I was ready.

In those very early days of my work I wondered whether the unseen flying force in my dream was an ego that needed to be kept in check, or an energy within myself that knew I was ready and urged me to stand up and teach. To some extent my dilemma was resolved when situations kept arising, as if by magic, to move me into the speaking space. I was carried upfront passively and set on my feet. My job was to accept the situation and deliver.

We can all fly, in our dreams and metaphorically. While our flying dreams may not be about our potential (they might reflect flying to escape facing something, or not being grounded, or many other possibilities), they often help us to understand our potential, why we might hold back, when we have flown too high, when we need to find balance, or when it’s time to face fears, spread our wings, accept, and deliver.

Spread your wings!

The post Flying dreams revisited appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Emily from Denver, Colorado, US, asks about her dream of attending a ceremonial banquet with Jonas Hill.

As it turned out, Jonas Hill was replaced by an actor from The Office at the last minute, and the focus in this dream was more on the magnificence of the building and a curious word puzzle – falling somewhere between Hangman and Wheel of Fortune – that needed to be solved along the way.

There’s a nod to secret knowledge, a table of chalices, and a rather ersatz pink dessert topped with a wafer, along with other bizarre symbols and interesting dream dilemmas.

As you’ll hear Emily say, toward the end of the podcast, “So much came out this evening that had never crossed my mind before, so it was very cathartic.”

What does it all mean, and how does it relate to Emily’s life? Listen in to find out!

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The post Ep 249 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Emily dreamed she attended a banquet with Jonas Hill appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Votey, from London, England, dreamed of a white-caped warlock calling a declaration of war in the middle of a shopping mall.

All was well on this shopping expedition until a loud alarm or horn sounded, and an ominous vibe filtered through the mall.

Votey and her sister dropped to their knees for protection as the warlock, wrapped in a white silk cape, commanded attention, speaking softly but clearly, declaring war or a state of chaos.

The mall fell silent. This was a dangerous moment. Votey knew she needed to find her parents to protect them.

What does Votey’s dream mean?

Listen as we explore this short but scary dream, relating it to Votey’s waking life, and discovering layers upon layers of deeply meaningful insight.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 248 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Votey dreamed of a warlock appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Twenty years ago, I read Geraldine Brooks’ book, Year of Wonders, an international bestselling fiction based on the true story of an English village, Eyam, in Derbyshire, that went into voluntary lockdown in 1666, to stop the spread of the bubonic plague to nearby villages.

Somehow – perhaps on a bolt of fabric delivered from London – plague “seeds” as the villagers imagined them, had found their way into Eyam and into the blood of swathes of families who died an agonising death. Today the village is a tourist attraction. You can see the boundary stone, still in place, with its chiselled hollows where the villagers placed their coins in vinegar – to sterilise them – as payment for basic foods and necessary deliveries from surrounding villages. These supplies were left at the boundary stone, and the villagers were not permitted to collect them until the couriers had stepped back to a safe distance.

The lockdown was successful in that the plague didn’t spread beyond Eyam, though history suggests that up to a third of the villagers died during the year of their isolation.

I know that I read the book twenty years ago because I remember that I enjoyed it. I owned a copy and wrote my name and the year I read it on the inside cover. But I could only recall one detail: the boundary stone.

When I ran out of library books to read last week, I rediscovered Year of Wonders on my bookshelves, and was curious to look for resonances with our Covid lockdown experiences, so I turned to page 1 and became totally engrossed.

While I loved the book – again – and marvelled at the corresponding themes (uncertainty, social distancing, conflicting attitudes, the best and worst of humanity, no more spoilers!), what really stunned me was that I couldn’t remember any of the story, apart from the boundary stone. There’s plenty of colour and drama, but not one single moment had stayed with me. I had no idea, as I turned the pages, what might happen next.

How can such vivid experiences, whether they’re books we’ve read, movies we’ve seen, or actual first-hand life experiences, leave no memorable trace?

When I was about seven or eight years old and learning to do handstands in the school playground at recess, I asked my mother if she could do a handstand when she was a little girl. I was eager to progress to walking several paces in handstand, and I guess I was looking for encouragement. I was shocked when Mum laughed and said, “How would I know! It was too long ago!”

I remember that moment as if it were yesterday, though in fact it was perhaps almost 60 years ago. The shock, the emotional impact of the sudden knowledge that memories could be lost, anchored into my psyche. While that remains, I can’t tell you whether I acquired the skill of walking on my hands. I suspect that I managed two or three tottering paces, but I’m just guessing.

In a similar vein, my sister and I remember the emotional impact of sad news that we received when we were very small, I was six, she was four. We each remember exactly where we were at the time the news was delivered. We were together, but my memory of place is different from her memory. While we understand that memories are not reliable, we both marvel that – were our memories of place uncontested – we would each be certain that we were correct.

Dreams – yes, perhaps you were wondering when I would make a connection with dreams – reveal our conscious and unconscious experiences, but you’re more likely to encounter your emotional memories (the shock of my mother’s handstand announcement, the grief my sister and I experienced). In interpreting your dreams you’re able to witness the patterns of behaviour, attitudes, and beliefs that these emotional experiences set into motion. People and places from your past might appear in your dreams in various morphed and surreal forms, but the underlying emotional experiences and their effect on your mindset are easier to trace and enlightening to reveal.

When you discover how your past has shaped your present, you may be able to predict the general shape of your future unless you make a change.

Dream work can help inform the changes you might make and how these might impact the shape of things to come.

A friend, Jessica Adams, a well-known astrologer, told me that the astrological lay of the stars at the time of the 1665-6 plague was very similar to that at the time of Covid. What goes round, comes round. While I’m not an astrologer, I do know that in terms of our individual mindsets, what goes round, comes round, unless we make a change.

I was keen to read Year of Wonders, to immerse in the wonder of how much we can forget, and to compare notes between 2020/21 and 1666.

Oh, and one last dream interpretation note to impart before I leave you to rush off and read the book: How often do the characters or scenarios in a book that you are engrossed in turn up in your dreams? How often do your dreams take up a theme or conflict from a movie or box set that you’ve been watching before sleep? Often, right?

People say, ‘Oh, I only dreamed about that because I saw the movie before I fell asleep’, or ‘I fell asleep mid-chapter and my dream continued the story’.

The dream, they feel, was interesting, noteworthy, but not interpretable. But no! Think again! One of the functions of dreaming is to problem-solve, to resolve issues. Your dreaming mind might take on board a problem or theme from a book or movie and work it through, looking for resolution. And guess what? It’s your unique mindset (both conscious and unconscious) that sets about problem-solving in your dream, so when you interpret the dream, you discover more about that mindset of yours: enlightening information that you can put to good use.

On top of that, any book or movie characters, issues, conflicts, or events that resonate with your own issues, conflicts, or experiences, may feature in your dreams as symbols of your own inner stuff.

We’ve all experienced – or are still experiencing – varying degrees of lockdown, but if you’re curious to step back in time some 455 years and compare notes through reading Year of Wonders, your dreams might surprise you.

The post Year of Wonders appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Lucy, from Adelaide, South Australia, is my guest asking about her dream of her mother-in-law wearing a long red wig.

Well, actually she wasn’t wearing the wig: it fell off in the road and Lucy rescued it. They were on their way to a seminar where they met up with other members of the family and their dogs, a rather chaotic gathering.

At the seminar, the focus was all on the food stall, and a packet of chocolate biscuits that Lucy didn’t have enough cash to buy.

For those of you who love interpreting dreams that feature numbers, there are some juicy ones to explore here.

Listen as we discover the connections between the dream and a dilemma–a big decision–Lucy is facing in her waking life.

How does exploring her dream help her to understand the dilemma more clearly and move toward a decision? Listen to find out!

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Ashley, from Anchorage, Alaska, is my guest asking about a dream that made a big impact on her a couple of years ago on the eve of her birthday.

In her dream, Ashley was walking through a silent, snowy field when, suddenly, two giant snowmen, each 40 storeys high, loomed in front of her. Their eyes slowly dripped blood. Ashley felt no fear, but immense curiosity.

Later, in a log cabin, she met five women, one being a Stevie Nicks kind of character, ethereal, with long blonde hair and a flowing outfit, who had a message for her.

Listen to hear the full dream and our conversation as we explore the dream to discover what it means, how it related to Ashley’s life at the time, and the insights she gains.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 246 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Ashley dreamed of two giant snowmen appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

If you’re lost, unable to find your way home, or looking for directions to take you to where you want to be, you need a map.

Imagine an old-fashioned paper map, one you can unfold or roll out to examine in detail. A map that literally provides a big picture of where you are and how that relates to where you want to be.

Maybe you know where you are right now on the map, and you can place your finger right there – the railway station where the bus dropped you off. Or maybe you don’t know where you are, but in studying the map you can work it out – you’re where the river meets the track down from that old farmhouse you can see in the distance. Either way, you can use the map to visually explore the terrain, choose a destination, and decide on the best way to get there, before taking a single physical step.

Ok, so I bet you thought, when reading that last paragraph, that if you dispensed with the paper map and used Google maps or sat nav, you could quickly identify where you are by the dropped pin or wobbly blue dot, and that you wouldn’t need to work out the best way to get to your destination because you could just type it in and follow the automatically selected route. Stay with me and the paper map analogy for now.

Does a paper map offer you direct guidance?

Does it say, Go this way! Ignore all other paths and opportunities!

It doesn’t. It shows you all the well-trod conventional routes, the roads, railway tracks, footpaths, and it offers you possibilities for the lesser-trod routes, the hop-skip-jump across farmland, the adventurous mountain-top hike, the underground catacomb that emerges at your destination.

The map also shows you the potential pitfalls, the potholes, the quagmires, the ups and the downs, the paths that are maybe too close to the cliff edge for your liking, the mountains that may provide shade on a hot day or cast shadows that leave you shivering on a cold day. The map shows you shortcuts if you’re in a hurry, and meandering routes if you want to discover surprises or immerse yourself in mindfulness. You might choose an easy route, or a challenge. You might opt for your comfort zone means of getting from a to b, or you might opt for stepping into new territory, opening to all the gifts and lessons such a journey may bestow.

The point is this. The paper map doesn’t offer guidance. It shows you what is so that you can decide on the best path for you.

It’s the same with dreams.

Dreams don’t offer guidance. They provide a map of your mindset, symbolically showing you what is – at a level you haven’t glimpsed before – so that you can decide on the best path for you.

Your dreams reveal the map of your conscious and unconscious beliefs, patterns of being, patterns of doing, and ways of approaching life’s opportunities and obstacles. They reveal your subterranean emotions and feelings, possible pitfalls, hidden treasures, blind spots, and your personal perspectives of your life, past, present, and future. They reveal which of life’s paths you see as open and which you see as closed to you. They reveal which tracks you judge to be easy and which you judge to be difficult. They reveal the dead-ends or cul-de-sacs of some of your stuck ways of approaching life, and they reveal surprising ways that you can get to where you want to be if you change your approach. Your dreams reveal the mountainous shadows that can cast doubt or help you to see more clearly. They can reveal the tunnels that lead to light if you’re willing to take the risk. They can reveal the astonishing depths of your magnificence, and ways to clear access routes to let it shine.

So, when you’re looking for guidance, consult the mindset map provided by your dreams, survey the big picture and the small details, highlight the best paths for you, and make your decision.

You can learn how to interpret your dreams so that you can create your own map, or you may prefer to have help with reading your dream map, in exploring options, or deciding on the best path for you. There may be times when you’d enjoy having someone to accompany you through some of the more challenging aspects of your journey or be there to reflect with you upon your experiences as you go.

The post Dream map appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Tim, who lives near Rotterdam in The Netherlands, is my guest asking about her dream of a pending earthquake.

Was it an earthquake? The ground was shaking. Was this the residue vibration of a faraway earthquake? The ground shook a second time.

Is it a residue or is it the real thing, an advance rumble of a pending earthquake?

There’s a sudden explosion and a fair park cart crashes onto the scene and then …

Listen in to find out what happened next, and to hear Tim and I explore her dream, relate it to what’s going on in her life, and discover fresh insight into her situation. We also develop a dream alchemy practice for Tim to do to invite change.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 245 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Tim dreamed of a pending earthquake appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Namitha, from Bangalore, India, is my guest, finding a little sanctuary during lockdown to ask about her dream.

Namitha’s dream opens in a Hindu temple that reminds her more of a trip she took to Bali than of the Indian Hindu temples closer to home. The women wore their saris without blouses, each baring a shoulder, in a way that reminded Namitha of paintings from several hundred years ago.

The dream temple and rituals are as exquisitely detailed as a painting.

One woman falls into a pond. Will anyone save her?

Listen to discover how the dream relates to Namitha’s life right now, the insights our dream exploration delivers, and the steps Namitha can take to move forward in the best way. We also create a dream alchemy practice.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 244 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Namitha dreamed a woman fell into a pond at a Hindu temple appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

If you’ve decided to do a dream alchemy practice, should you complete the prescribed dose before starting a second?

Is it ok to combine practices?

Tim, one of our Dream Academy students, posed this question, and she also wondered if it’s wise to park any interesting dreams that come up during the time that you’re focussing on doing a dream alchemy practice. Tim thought her question might make an interesting blog, so here it is!

Let’s begin with the basics.

If you want to experience profound positive change in your life through working with your dreams, I suggest a two-step process. Step 1 is interpreting a dream to bring you fresh self-awareness and insight. This can be powerful enough to cause positive change, but when a dream reveals long-held unconscious limiting beliefs it can be hard to shift these. This is where Step 2, the art and science of communicating directly with your unconscious mind using dream alchemy techniques, comes in.

Dream alchemy techniques come in a range of modalities including visualisations, artwork, and writing practices, each specifically prescribed according to a precise formula using symbols and dramas from your dream. The techniques focus on transforming unconscious limiting beliefs or patterns by transforming the symbols and dramas that represent them in your dream. Those dream symbols and dramas are unique to you, born of your life experiences, expressed in the unique language of your unconscious mind. The most powerful way to reprogram such limiting beliefs and perspectives is to communicate with your unconscious mind using its own language, the very language it expressed so vividly in your dream.

As a very simple example, many, many years ago I had a dream of not being able to walk properly because my legs were as heavy as lead. You may have had that type of dream before. I call it the ‘slo mo’ dream. It’s a common dream theme for many people, although each person’s variation of the dream has a unique and revealing story line. As Step 1, I interpreted the dream to understand it. I wanted to know what was holding me back (resulting in slo-mo), and whether I felt ready to let it go. I created a dream alchemy visualisation where I imagined myself back in the dream only this time my legs were light and powerful, and I danced all the way to my destination. (There were other details to the formula, but I’m keeping it simple as an example here.) Results in my life were fast: within days so much of my life had changed – some due to my actions, some due to unexpected events – and all for the better.

Some dream alchemy practices create the desired outcomes rapidly, while others take time, in the same way that a caterpillar takes time transforming into a butterfly, or a seedling takes time to burst into the sunlight even though the growth began, weeks before, deep in the earth.

These are the precious, gently transforming times that prompted Tim’s question. If you’re doing a dream alchemy practice that is stirring and unfolding deep with your unconscious, preparing to burst through into your conscious life, would it jeopardise progress to begin a different dream alchemy practice based on a new dream?

Moreso, Tim asked, should we pay attention to dreams that come up while we’re in the middle of a dream alchemy practice?

Should we interpret them, or park them until later?

My advice is to pay attention to all dreams that come up during a dream alchemy practice period, as they may reflect the deep unseen progress – giving you an update – or they may indicate that you would be wise to review and tweak your practice.

I advise not mixing dream alchemy visualisations. Generally a dream alchemy visualisation is a daily practice that extends to 2-4 weeks. It would be both time consuming and potentially weakening to overlap two different visualisations.

However it can be powerful to do a dream alchemy artwork practice while doing a dream alchemy visualisation if the two desired outcomes are in alignment with each other. In other words, the outcomes can be different, but do need to be mutually supportive.

So the question of mixing practices depends on the type and duration of the practice, and on the desired outcome.

I prescribe a new dream alchemy practice each week for people who do the 12-week dream therapy programme with me, taking care to not overlap visualisations and to prescribe all practices in ways that enhance and build upon each other. A good analogy is to see this as an opening process, each practice opening a different petal until a flower is in full bloom.

While most dream alchemy is prescribed to reprogram limiting beliefs and perspectives, you can create dream alchemy to magnify and enhance a positive attribute identified in a dream, perhaps something you’d like to foster and grow from an unconscious glimmer into full sunshiny life-fulfilling gold.

Prescribing dream alchemy is an art and a science. In the Dream Alchemy online course that you can do in your own time at your own pace at The Dream Academy, you learn how to do this as I guide you through filling in – step-by-step – the Dream Alchemy Prescription Charts that you download as you go.

Once you’ve created a dream alchemy prescription following my steps, all that’s left is for you to DO the practice and stand by for results!

The post A dose of dream alchemy appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Renee, my guest from Ohio, USA, had a vision of her deceased father who told her to pay special attention because she was about to have a very significant dream.

Charged with this special mission, Renee slid into sleep focussed on gathering as many dream details as she could, so that she could bring the dream to The Dream Show to make sure she left no stone unturned in exploring its meaning.

Throughout the dream she carries a silver bracelet, a gift from an angel, as she tries to find somewhere private to examine it more closely. There are holes dug into the earth all over her back yard, there are a dozen construction workers, a huge machine for further back yard digging, a close encounter of the soul mate kind in a new patio room, a priest, and so much more. Who am I to spoil a good story?

Listen in as Renee and I explore her dream to discover not only its meaning but why that meaning is of such importance right now. You’ll hear exactly how it relates to Renee’s life, and what she learns to make a difference going forward.

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While we always offer complete confidentiality to all our guests, some do ask if their details can be shared. Since Renee mentioned her work in the podcast, she asked to share her massage website and her tarot website.

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 243 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Renee dreamed of a silver bracelet appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Selin, from the San Francisco Bay Area, is my guest exploring her dream about a frustrating journey and an unusual planter, shaped like a coiled snake, filled with succulent flowers.

Selin dreamed she was flying home to Istanbul, but got stuck in Germany, trying to get a boarding pass from a shambolic, 80s style office, complete with people sporting 80s perms and shoulder pads.

People ignored her, were rude to her, shut her down, then, suddenly, she found she had that planter of flowers in her hands. There is more to this planter, as you will discover when you listen. There is also a lot more to this dream, which is, amazingly, one of the very few dreams that Selin has ever recalled. Why did this dream break through?

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 242 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Selin dreamed of a frustrating journey appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

What does it mean if a symbol from your dream appears as a synchronicity the next day, or as multiple synchronicities in the days to follow?

Let’s start with an imaginary example:

Cass buys houses to renovate and sell for profit, but recently she had a run of bad luck. She lost money on a couple of houses then invested in another one and worked long hours doing all the renovating herself to save labour costs, but it didn’t sell as expected either.

She falls asleep and dreams.

She dreams of a fire-damaged house and she wonders, in the dream, how she can rebuild it.

The next day, three real estate agents phone to tell her about a fire-damaged house in town that she might be interested in buying and renovating. She’s too tired to think about it at the moment, so she decides to take a drive out of town to the beach to get some fresh air.

The sea looks inviting as Cass parks in the first vacant spot she sees. She gets out of her car and the first thing she notices is the remains of a burned down house right in front of her. She walks the esplanade, feeling a little spooked. The burned down house seems meaningful in some mysterious way, coming right on top of her dream about a fire-damaged house.

On the way home, she listens to the car radio. An author is being interviewed about her new book, a story about finding buried treasure in a burnt out house.

‘This is definitely synchronicity,’ Cass thinks, …

‘This is definitely synchronicity,’ Cass thinks, ‘the three phone calls about the fire-damaged house, the burned down house at the beach, and now this book about finding treasure in a burnt out house! Is it a message from the universe? Or from my dream? Should I phone the real estate agents back and look at buying and renovating the fire-damaged house in town? Maybe it’s a sign that this time I’ll make a profit!’

Well, what do you think? Should she take the synchronicities as signs to follow?

Let’s take a step back:

What is synchronicity?

Synchronicity is a coincidence that feels deeply meaningful, whether or not you can grasp that meaning or put it into words.

First defined by Carl Jung as the ‘simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully but not causally connected events’, it more typically manifests as a number of meaningful coincidences experienced over a short period of time, such as in the example of the burnt out house.

Science has two takes on synchronicity.

Take 1.

There’s a network of nerves in the brain stem called The Reticular Activating System (RAS) that has many functions, including maintaining arousal and consciousness by activating the cerebral cortex, and regulating our sleep-wake cycles. It also acts as a filter, screening out things we don’t need to stay conscious of (like safe background noise) and alerting us to things we need to know or are interested in.

It helps us to focus, to notice what’s important to us. It’s the RAS that explains the observation that ‘what you focus on you get’.

It’s the RAS that makes you notice burnt out houses when they’re on your mind, but it’s not the RAS that determines that the only free car parking spot is right outside a burnt out house, or that the only subject on the radio during the short drive home is a story about a burnt out house.

Take 2.

In its truest form, synchronicity is a simultaneous occurrence. The moment you hear a story about a burnt out house, you see one. Quantum Physics acknowledges simultaneous occurrences, events that take place beyond cause and effect at the quantum level of life.

Now let’s add your unconscious mind and your dreams into the equation:

Synchronicity happens when a new perspective is breaking through from your unconscious mind into consciousness. The enormous psychic energy that accompanies this shift can resonate with similar energies in the world around you. It’s as if the emerging shift attracts or creates similar forms in your waking world, or deeply draws your attention to them. You may be familiar with looking at your outer world as a reflection of your inner world: what you see is a reflection of what you believe. As your beliefs (or perspectives) begin to change, so does your outer world. (See my book, The Shape of Things to Come, first published by Random House, to explore this further.)

Our dreams process our conscious and unconscious experiences, sometimes resulting in new perspectives that break through quite dramatically into our waking lives.

In our example, Cass dreamed of a fire-damaged, burnt out house because she was burnt out from all the effort and labour she had put into her business. The dream house symbolised her burnout.

The thing is, she hadn’t realised she was burnt out. She had been pumped on adrenalin, running hard and fast to make her money back, even doing most of the hard labour on the last house herself instead of hiring contractors. Then her dreaming mind presented the true picture: burnout.

‘You are burned out’ was a new perspective beginning to break through into Cass’s consciousness but although we can see this in her dream, it would typically take a while for this revelation to seep fully into Cass’s awareness. Meanwhile the psychic power of this breakthrough was strong enough to result in simultaneous synchronicity in her life. As her day progressed, and the breakthrough continued to gain momentum, it continued to reflect as synchronicities throughout her day.

Knowing this, what do you think now? Should Cass buy that fire-damaged property to renovate?

Or would she be wiser to wake up to the symbols in both her dream and her waking life, and face the fact that she is burnt out? She might reflect upon the radio story about the treasures found in a burnt out house and consider the treasures she might find within herself if she takes time out to explore her inner world and what drives her to burnout. Then she might find a better, healthier, and more profitable way to proceed with her renovation business. Or she may pivot and change direction entirely.

If you experience synchronicity following a dream, return to your dream, explore it, and interpret it, so that you can understand and name the breakthrough. Be guided by what you discover about yourself through your dream. Think of the synchronicities as delicious prompts to open to the deeper symbolism of life, rather than as literal signs to follow.

Oh, and if you experience synchronicity but you are unaware of a preceding dream, explore the synchronicity situation itself as a symbolic dream. Apply your dream interpretation tools and techniques to the waking life synchronicity and surrounding drama. You’ll strike gold.

The post Dreams and synchronicity appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Mouse, from the Salish Coast in Washington State, USA, is my guest asking about her dream of dodging daggers that a man was hurling at her.

The daggers were quite beautiful, bronze blades with red and black handles, old, tarnished, and they had Mouse enthralled.

Things evolve until, much later in the dream, Mouse drives an abandoned old white van with a vagrant man sleeping on the back seat, and by the end of her dream, she has become a young man, romantically attracted to a young woman.

Listen as we deeply explore Mouse’s dream, discover how it relates to her life, and find the gems to light her way forward.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 241 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Mouse dreamed of dodging flying daggers appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Anna from North Carolina is my guest with a dream about a place where dead people roam the streets.

Very much alive herself, she wanders along, occasionally veering off the path. There’s a bit of a groundhog theme, as she meets the same creepy guy, walking with his bicycle, three times. Each time they have the same superficial conversation. Why does he keep reappearing?

Later in the dream, there is a suicide, which left Anna, on waking, very concerned. She decided to bring her dream for exploration on The Dream Show. As you’ll hear, this is a dream with positive, insightful light that assists Anna in moving forward.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 240 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Anna dreamed about a very awkward conversation appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Maybe you have a regular yoga, meditation, writing, music, journaling, or exercise practice, but do you have a dream practice?

What do you do with your dreams when you wake up in the morning?

Do you catch a wisp of a dream, ponder for a moment, and then jump out of bed and get on with your day?

Do you vaguely consult a dream book, or the internet, and then give up because the proffered interpretations do not relate to your situation?

Do you find yourself contemplating a dream at lunchtime, only to have your focus suddenly snapped away by someone or something that needs your more urgent attention?

If you have a scary or unsettling dream, one that lingers and worries away at the edge of your mind throughout several days, do you keep the dream to yourself, mention it to a friend, worry about going to sleep for fear of having a similar nightmare, or take steps to discover what it means? What steps do you take?

Do you sometimes write down your dreams, but not always?

If you are intensely passionate about your dreams, curious about what they mean, and dedicated to exploring your dreams to gain insight into yourself and your life, what’s your practice? Do you have a routine that you can follow, even on days when your passion wanes or the call of the to-do list is too insistent?

Think about the various practices you have in your life. I have a yoga practice that includes attending classes. Part of the practice is the commitment to getting my yoga gear on, rolling up my mat, and leaving home at a set time on my yoga days. Whether or not I am super keen on the day, whether or not I think I ‘should’ be doing other things, my practice begins with following those simple steps that actually get me to the yoga studio.

I also have a writing practice. If I am writing a book, it is a very different practice from my blog-writing one, but each includes the practical step of sitting at my computer at the self-appointed time and letting the words flow. Much as I enjoy writing and am inspired to share my words with others, my output would have been considerably less in the absence of a dedicated practice.

A solid practice includes a non-negotiable routine that removes the barriers to actually beginning: the non-negotiable walking out the door dressed in yoga gear at a certain time on a certain day; the non-negotiable walking into the office, sitting in front of the computer, opening a Word doc, and laying fingers on the keyboard.

So where might a solid dream practice begin?

1. Write down your dreams every morning. If this is impossible, speak them into the recording app on your phone, or draw a quick series of stickmen accompanied by a few keywords to jog your memory of the dream later. Choose your method and commit to it. If you need to wake up a little earlier to do this, go to bed a little earlier. (Dreams too easily evaporate. Recording them secures the details for you to explore later, and this practice alone increases your dream recall in the long run.)
2. Decide how many dreams you are going to explore in any one week. Be honest with yourself. How much time do you have? If you have plenty of time and you’re really keen, dedicate your dream practice to exploring one dream from each night. In the early days of your practice, while you’re still learning dream interpretation techniques, you might dedicate your dream practice to choosing one dream each week to explore.
3. Make your dream practice as unique and individual as you desire but make sure you define it and commit to it. Examples include:
4. Decide on a day and time (perhaps even a place) to explore your dream, in the same way that you decide on a day and time to attend a yoga class, practice a musical instrument, or go for a run. Stick to it.
5. Decide on your method: I created the ‘How to interpret your dreams step-by-step’ course to give you a – wait for it! – process that you can easily follow one step at a time. You download and print your dream interpretation chart (as well as course notes) and, guided by me on the videos, you simply fill in the chart as you complete each step. Once you’ve completed the steps, you have your interpretation. You then simply repeat this process for each dream. After a while, the process will become second nature to you.
6. Another approach some people like is to include listening to my podcast, ‘The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson’ as part of their dream practice. It might be listening to one podcast a week, or one a month, or one a day. The practice of listening results in picking up key skills you can apply to your own dreams. People often say to me, ‘I had a dream and I thought about what questions you would ask if I was on The Dream Show, and when I answered the imagined questions, I understood my dream’.
7. Or your dream practice might be to meet with other dreamers to explore your dreams together, perhaps as a dream group. Again, it is a practice only if you make it a dedicated routine: pick the day and time, invite people who are equally dedicated to sharing the practice.
8. Or you might decide that your dream practice is to choose one dream a week, or one dream a month, to explore with me. (Many of my regular clients do this, making setting the consultation date a part of the practice, then choosing the dream to bring to the session closer to the time.)
9. Or you might prefer to take a seasonal dream practice approach, perhaps dedicating to a spring practice, or a ‘term’ practice that works for you.

As you design your own unique dream practice, be guided by one that is doable yet offers you a bit of a stretch.

Choose a practice that suits your nature, that feels right to you, then add a slice of challenge, an edging beyond your comfort zone. Then write your Dream Practice down as a charter, something to pin on the wall, to read every day, to seal your commitment, and support your devotion.

Follow your practice, and let the magic begin.

PS If you thought ‘Create a dream practice’ – the title of this blog – was going to be about how to create a professional dreamwork practice, you might be interested in doing my Dream Therapy Professional Level 1 course.

And if you’re irritated by my spelling of ‘practice’, as I know many of you will be, I am very fond of sticking with my native British English spelling! In British English, practice is the noun, practise is the verb. Let’s continue to celebrate diversity and individuality in our various practices and practises.

The post Create a dream practice appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Your unconscious mind is a reservoir of untold wealth–untold until the moment you decide to interpret and listen to your dreams.

Consider this episode a dip into Dreams101 for 2021, as this is our first episode of the new year.

We explore the brilliant treasure trove your dreams offer, the ways in which your dreams can help you to solve problems, resolve issues, and know yourself deeply. And those are just some of the benefits of awakening to your dreams!

We also explore the question of whether your personal dreams can help other people, take a detour into social dreaming, and end up with a practical exposé of what your dreams about your ex really mean.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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The post Ep 239 The Dream Show: Tap into your dreams to discover unconscious wealth appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Edie, from Panama in Central America, is my guest with a trio of linked dreams spanning six decades, starting with a dream she had at age six, finishing with one she had at age sixty-eight.

Throughout her life from the age of six, Edie has noticed several characters recurring in her dreams. Among them is a Wonder Woman avenger, and a spirit she calls The Nun.

As you know, most of our guests remain anonymous, apart from sharing their first name and their city or country. Anonymity eases the path to exploring a dream on a public podcast. Occasionally though, a guest chooses to give more details, as Edie does. The linked dreams Edie brought to The Dream Show are featured in her new book, How Wonder Woman Became a Smuggler, and she was keen both to explore these dreams and to talk about the book.

Enjoy this vibrant conversation, exploring Edie’s dreams in retrospect, finding patterns, discovering meaning and insight.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

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About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 238 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Edie dreamed about Wonder Woman appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Why do we have bad dreams? Should we pay them attention? How can we stop them?

Let’s face it, no-one wants to experience bad dreams, whether they’re of the full-on horror variety that leave you terrified to go back to sleep, or whether they’re more of the anxious, stressful variety that disrupt your sleep and leave you feeling a lingering sense of unease.

There are ways to stop bad dreams and nightmares from recurring (for example, you can book a Nightmare Relief session with me), and there are ways to reduce the likelihood of having bad dreams, but let’s begin with why we have bad dreams, and whether we should pay them attention before bringing in the ‘stop bad dreams’ tools.

Why do we have bad dreams?

By the way, this is all a matter of perspective! One person’s bad dream is another person’s curious night-time horror movie, or exciting, adrenalin-inducing cliff edge adventure, but when scary dreams disrupt your sleep, leave you feeling unsettled or anxious the next day and scared to go to sleep the next night, they are indeed in your personal ‘bad dream’ or ‘nightmare’ category.

Most bad dreams or nightmares involve fear, stress, and anxiety, and most have unresolved endings. Your dreams are the result of your sleeping brain and mind processing your conscious and unconscious experiences in a bid to make sense of those experiences and prepare you to handle similar situations in the future. Your dreams also try to resolve problems and issues, but not always successfully. When dreams are unresolved or have unsatisfactory endings, it’s because your dreaming mind has been unable to find a solution to the issue that you were grappling with in the 1-2 days before the dream.

When you are processing fear, stress, and anxiety in a dream, your body releases the same fear, stress, and anxiety hormones that it would if you were awake and experiencing fear, stress, or anxiety. So even though you are dreaming, your body, as well as your mind, is in a state of physiological fear and stress. This is why you wake up with your heart beating fast, feeling cold with goosebump skin, and feeling a sense of dread. Awake, you have the feeling that the dream actually happened, and this compounds your fear.

So, in summary, you have bad dreams because you are processing your conscious and unconscious fears, stresses, and anxieties, without finding solutions, and the bad feeling is compounded because your body and mind is drenched in the actual hormones these feelings induce.

Should we pay attention to bad dreams?

Bad dreams and nightmares, like all other dreams, are symbolic. It’s only when you learn how to interpret your dreams that you can understand them, relate them to your waking life, and find helpful insight you can use to move forward.

Some bad dreams may appear to be less symbolic – perhaps you dream of a friend having a serious accident, for example – and it’s natural to wake up from such a dream and think you’ve previewed an actual event, or received a warning, and this escalates the horror of your bad dream. But, rest assured, when you explore such a dream, you’ll discover what it really means about you and your life, and you’ll be able to use this insight in positive ways.

Interpreting a bad dream or nightmare can help you to understand your deeper, often unconscious, fears, stresses, and anxieties. It can help you to see what underlies those fears – perhaps your limiting beliefs about yourself or about your life, for example – and it can help you to resolve issues, find solutions to problems, shift perspective, and change limiting beliefs into more positive ones that can free you up in life.

So, in summary, it’s best to pay attention to bad dreams and nightmares by interpreting them (or seeking help from a professional dream consultant), before looking at how to stop them. If you jump straight into stopping them, you miss the opportunity to gain meaningful insight that can transform your life in wonderful ways.

There’s additional magic in interpreting a bad dream and taking action on your insight: the bad dream stops!

The issue is resolved, so the dream stops.

So how can I stop bad dreams and nightmares?

Apart from stopping bad dreams by interpreting them and acting on the insight you gain, as described above, or by booking a Nightmare Relief session by Zoom with me, here are some other ways you can stop or help prevent bad dreams:

1. Change the ending of the dream

This is a form of Dream Alchemy. When you are awake, rewrite the dream with a positive ending. This works best if you have already interpreted the dream, but there is still value in this method without interpretation. There is only one thing to bear in mind: in your rewrite, don’t kill anything off or make anything disappear. Instead, transform negative – or bad – into positive, or good.

For example, if your bad dream was about falling off a cliff, rewrite a version where you find a safe path. Or rewrite a version where you fly. If your bad dream was about finding an evil monster hiding in a cupboard, rewrite a version where you find a loving little puppy in the cupboard. Then visualise your rewrite over and over again while you are awake. Your dreaming mind will take the cue to change the dream and, even better, your unconscious mind will take the cue to find a safer path, or to face your demons and find something precious in their place.

2. Get a full night’s sleep every night

If you avoid sleep by going to bed later because you’re anxious about having more bad dreams you can make things worse for yourself. With less dreaming time to process your waking life experiences – especially your fears, anxieties, issues, feelings, emotions, and challenges – you head into the next day already ill-at-ease. Those fears compound, those issues remain unresolved, those feelings lose the opportunity to vent during a dream, those emotions go unchecked, and those challenges miss the opportunity for the deep creative problem-solving that dreams can offer.

Not only that, but the more you deprive yourself of sleep, the more likely you are to suffer REM Rebound. During a normal eight-hour sleep, you experience four or five REM (Rapid Eye Movement) periods during which you do most of your vivid dreaming. After several nights of sleep deprivation or short sleeps, those missed REM periods can all crash in bringing an avalanche of overdue dreams, most of which may be vivid and nightmarish.

Go to bed early enough to get a full eight-hour sleep. If you wake up with a bad dream, sit up in bed to do the rewrite (or visualise the rewrite), then lay back down again, telling yourself you are safe.

3. Avoid alcohol and drugs

Alcohol can repress REM sleep, leaving you bereft of healthy dreaming time. Ultimately, you’ll experience REM Rebound (see above section) with increased likelihood of bad dreams. Some medicinal drugs can induce bad dreams. Check with your doctor.

4. A note about PTSD

If you suffer with PTSD, you may experience flashback dreams that are either exactly the same as the trauma you experienced or similar to it. Here are some tips on stopping PTSD dreams.

5. A note about sleep paralysis and scary awakenings

If your bad dream has you waking up unable to move, or seeing or sensing bad energies in your bedroom, you may be experiencing sleep paralysis. Here are some tips on dealing with this.

So now you know! Set yourself up for good healthy sleep every night, be curious about what your dreams mean, and apply dream alchemy rewrites!

The post How can I stop bad dreams and nightmares? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Liz from Queensland, Australia, is my guest today with a dream about running on a dusty path, and all the things she encounters along the way.

There’s a prison to pass through, there are old metal car parts being thrown her way, there’s the potential for fire, and there are people suggesting she take a different track. There are tunnels, spiky brambles, and thoughts of hiding and escaping as well as keeping on running on the straight and narrow.

Listen as Liz and I explore her dream to discover the insight she needs at this time in her life. As you listen, absorb dream interpretation tips and notice the kinds of questions I ask.

I know you’ll smile as we make the connections between the dream and Liz’s current dilemma, gifting her perspective and clarity.

(During our conversation, I mention a recent blog: here it is.)

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 237 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Liz dreamed of a prison on a dusty road appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

As we begin to emerge from the emergency of 2020, how can our dreams help us to contribute to building a better world?

In this episode we take one of our occasional pauses from having a guest on the show, to focus on delivering tips for exploring your dreams along a specific theme. I have noticed themes of emergence in some of my clients’ dreams recently, so it occurred to me to put together an episode on the emergenc(y) that was – and is – 2020.

Enjoy the mix of storytelling, dreams (mine), dream interpretation tips, and uplifting guidelines for emergence.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 236 The Dream Show: Dream interpretation tips and a new way forward appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Here’s an extract from my 2020 book, Bird of Paradise–Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition.

And if this entices you to keep turning the pages, you’ll find more details about this, my seventh book, here.

Introduction: Garden of Dreams

This book that you have before you is part whimsical memoir, part healing balm, and part alchemical guide to navigating your human journey by observing some of the deeper mysteries of the human experience. It aims, in a larger sense, to be an inspiration to you, to be used in ways that will enrich your life.  Bird of Paradise is made up of stories I’ve wanted to share for a long time—stories whose time to be given a wider audience has now come.

But they’re not individual stories and this is not one of those “dip in and read” books, although I know you’ll be tempted to do just that! Accompany me from the beginning—where appropriately enough we begin with a story called “The Seed”—and progress all the way through to “Savasana.”

I am a dream analyst and dream therapist whose work is largely based on my own research and practice of more than twenty-seven years. As such, I have been privileged to spend much of my professional life engaged in exploring my clients’ dreams and witnessing their breakthroughs as they quite magically bloom and grow in  their amazing lives. When I haven’t been working with clients, I’ve been writing about dreams and dreaming, speaking about dreams and dreaming in the media, training students to work with dreams, and at night, dreaming my own dreams.

When I look back over my life so far, I see a path of dreams. I think of my early childhood, and there it is: My dream of snakes nesting at the foot of my bed. I think of being six or seven, and there it is, in full color and vivid heart-pounding emotion: My dream of being a shepherd boy encountering a pack of wolves gazing down at me from a mountain ridge with ominous intensity. I think of being nine or ten, and there it is: The plane flying at such a sharp incline that it flips over backward and explodes in the sky. I think of being thirteen, and there it is once more: A dream of my grandfather, a couple of days after his death, riding a motorbike into my dream and casually asking me if there’s anything I’d like to know before he rides off again.

As a child I was curious. Were these dreams a parallel reality? Did they offer glimpses into a more distant past, perhaps a past life? Or were they predictions of future accidents, or glimpses into the spirit world? As a child I was entranced by the magic of dreams, and always welcomed the promise of the nightly adventures that sleep would bring, even the scary ones.

As my dreams became increasingly surreal, I began to understand that they were rather more like energy pictures depicting my emotions and interactions with the world. Yet they were also larger than life—as if they offered a glimpse of a bigger and deeper part of myself and the nature of life than I could grasp while awake.

I can mark out my life in dreams, as if turning the pages of a photo album. Most key events and turning points of my life were preceded or accompanied by vivid dreams, and I know the same will hold true in the years to come.

It’s not that my dreams predicted my future. Like all dreams, they connected or reconnected me with the deepest parts of my being. When I learned how to understand my dreams I learned how to understand myself and my life, and how to use those insights to make powerful changes when that’s what was called for.

These are the blessings that dreams bestow, and since every one of us dreams about five dreams a night, whether or not we remember them, on a regular basis they are universal gifts available to each and every one of us. To accept these gifts we need to learn and practice the art and science of reading dreams, and allow the insights they bring to bestow the blessings that they hold.

There’s a certain magic that comes from spending so much of a life in dreams. Your eyes acclimate to seeing beyond the everyday and you experience quite astounding synchronicities and mysterious goings-on. You witness a greater tapestry that’s woven from the threads of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Among the vignettes contained herein, you’ll find tips and techniques to help you understand your dreams. That said, however, dreams are not the main subject of this book! They are markers on the path, inspiring you to look and discover the big picture of your life’s purpose.

The entire book is a story strewn with flowers, trees, and birds that bloom, shelter, and sing a direction for the reader to follow. (You may have noticed that most of the chapter titles refer to flowers!) The book also contains a subtle through line, one I have gently nurtured to build your understanding of the mysteries of the psyche as you turn its pages. Read slowly, read quickly, read and pause, read and ponder—but stay with the flow, page by page, and begin at the very beginning!

As this book wrote itself into being, I realized I had a cache of stories that had accumulated in various blogs I’d written over the years, so I gathered these together and wove them in. Most are slightly updated with the wisdom of hindsight or reworked to fit the style of this book, so if you’re reading and thinking I know this story from somewhere, well, now you know.

As regards the book’s title, there is such a creature as a bird of paradise, but that is not the bird of my story. My bird of paradise appears in several guises throughout these pages. You’ll first meet him as Joey the budgie in “The Seed,” and you’ll last meet her—yes, her!—in this book as a constellation of light in the epilogue. In the pages in between, you’ll also encounter the bird-of-paradise flower, and the bird-of-paradise yoga pose. Once you’ve finished reading, I imagine that the bird of paradise will cross your path in many forms, shedding a feather here and there or a petal or two, or challenging you to yoga-extend your limbs to fully embody her true nature. Or you will simply hear her calling to you in what may be some other mysterious, enigmatic way.

So let’s begin! Don’t think too hard and certainly don’t analyze as you go—just immerse yourself and read!

The post Garden of Dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Erica, from Austin, Texas, is my guest with a dream about joining a line of people at a funeral or wake – she wasn’t sure which.

Someone from her graduating class, who had died, was in the line, very much alive and well. Whose funeral was it? One of Erica’s friends was there, and a small casket. Had her friend’s husband or baby died?

And why was Erica’s sister intent on pushing her skin care products during a wake?

Our guests are usually anonymous so that they can confidentially explore their dreams while you all listen in, but you’ll hear Erica mention the book she has just published, as it’s relevant to her dream. She agreed to include the link so you can check it out. It’s called, Bye Bye Social Fears, Hello World! You can buy it from Amazon here and you can learn more about Erica here.

Listen as we explore and interpret Erica’s dream, relate it to her life, and discover fresh insight she can use as she moves forward.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 235 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Erica dreamed of a funeral or wake appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“I dreamed about you last night, and I think you should know …” Can our dreams help other people? Yes, and no, and perhaps not in the way that you think! Let’s explore:

Let’s look at the opening example first.

If you dream of a friend having an accident, have you tuned in to a future event, and should you warn them about the details and advise them to take care? Or, if you dream of a friend’s partner cheating on them, should you give them a heads-up? Or perhaps you dream of a fabulous solution to a problem that a close friend has been talking about. Should you share your dream’s brilliant idea?

Most, if not all, of our dreams are about ourselves, even when they appear to be about other people. On extremely rare occasions people may incorporate telepathic or psychic information into their dreams, but while acknowledging that this can happen, it’s far more constructive and helpful to look at our dreams as reflections of our own conscious and unconscious experiences. If you dream about a friend (or anyone, known or unknown to you in waking life), consider that person to represent an aspect of yourself. A little digging around using the right tools will help you to identify the aspect of yourself that person represents. It may be a conscious aspect, it may be an unconscious aspect, but once you have nailed it you’ll know that you’re absolutely right. It will simply feel true right down to your bones.

For example, you might discover that the friend you dreamed about (who is rather rash in waking life) represents an aspect of yourself that tends to make quick, rash decisions. You might, like your friend, have that rash streak to your personality, or it might be an unconscious tendency that you keep pushing down deeper and deeper, because you are scared of making quick decisions and prefer to go to the other extreme, perhaps even procrastinating. In this example, your dream of your friend’s accident may be alerting you to stop and think things through regarding a rash action you have been considering. Or it might be exploring your fears of making a quick decision: things will go wrong! Or maybe the dream is an invitation to allow accidents to happen – not the dramatic accidents portrayed by your dream, but in the sense of making mistakes you can learn from. These are just three of a multitude of possibilities that a dream of a friend’s accident might reveal once you know how to interpret your dreams. The exact meaning will be reflected in the specific details of the dream.

In the same way, your dream about your friend’s partner cheating on her is highly likely to be about the ways you ‘cheat’ on yourself, not in any major dramatic way, but in the sense of dropping a promise you had made to yourself, or straying from a path you had chosen, or judging yourself for wanting to make a change that might actually be good but feels like cheating.

Seeing people in your dreams as representing aspects of yourself is something that takes practice, but once you have this skill under your belt, you will be deeply rewarded for your diligence in taking this approach to interpreting your dreams. Your options in life become much clearer as you come to know your inner world and see your way to resolving inner conflicts.

What about the question of dreaming a fabulous solution to a problem that a close friend has been talking about?

Our dreams process our conscious and unconscious experiences, so if you have been chatting with that friend and her problem has engaged you, it’s highly likely that your dream will take that experience on board for processing. Creative problem solving can be at its best when we get out of our own way. When you set aside conscious thinking, editing, and looking at a problem from inside the box of the usual, standard approaches, magic can happen. Perspectives can shift. Out of the box solutions can pop up. When you dream, your logical, editing mind is mostly resting, and your unconscious mind can come out to play, pitching wild ideas, some of which are absolutely brilliant. In this way, dreaming can provide us with an excellent problem-solving resource, though you do need to let the dafter ideas go as you search through the madness for that one shining workable winner.

In this case, you might indeed come up with a solution that your friend might like. Share away! On the other hand, our dreaming mind is really purposed at processing our own experiences, so your dream will be focussed on your particular mindset and what solution would work or not work for you given your unique individual makeup in her situation. Such a dream may also explore why you might be driven to solve your friend’s problem, or it might explore a similar kind of problem within your world that happens to resonate with your friend’s. For example, your friend’s problem might be about how to protect her business from being drained of its financial resources, while your dream might have taken the cue from her problem and gone in to process your tendency to overlook your value and give too much of yourself away in a personal relationship, draining yourself of energy. Your dream might be read both ways: as a possibly inspired solution for your friend and an insight into an energetically similar problem in your own life.

Are there other ways in which our dreams can help other people?

One that springs to mind is dream sharing. You may have experienced this personally if you have listened to several episodes of my podcast, The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson. Every so often a guest brings a dream that resonates with what is going on in your life. Her sharing provides an opportunity for you to see your situation in a different way. This is especially true when a guest’s dream touches upon the kinds of experiences that so many of us share from time to time: grief, loss, change, the discovery of hidden potential, negotiating relationships, fears of being judged, feeling stuck, lingering in comfort zone, and so on. As a listener, you experience being helped by another person’s dream. As a guest on the show, sharing your dream, you perhaps never know how many people your dream helps.

Another way of offering your dreams to other people is to share them in a dream group, always bearing in mind that your dream is absolutely about you and your life and perspectives, but knowing that this sharing can help other people to gain personal insight by seeing life through the lens of your dreams.

Have you heard about social dreaming?

Social dreaming exists in various forms, and I am not an expert in this process, but from what I understand the idea is for people to come together to share dreams in the hope of understanding more about the prevailing culture, and perhaps divining messages for the common good. A relevant example right now is the Covid-19 pandemic. Globally many of us are dreaming about the pandemic: our fears, our strategies, our ideas, our adaptation to change, our losses, our potential gains (in the shape of future positive change), our light, our shadows. Our dreams process our similar shared experiences through the lenses of our individual, unique perspectives. Just as we might gain insight from other peoples’ dreams in a dream group, or through listening to a podcast like The Dream Show, we might gain insight from listening to other peoples’ dreams in a social dreaming group where the group comes together specifically to explore shared themes. Social dreaming takes sharing a step further, asking each participant not only to share a dream but to associate to other peoples’ dreams as if they were their own or as if they were material dreamed for global purpose.

Another application of social dreaming is its use within an organisation such as a business struggling with a problem, for example. The assumed given is that everyone working for the business experiences the problem on some level, and so sharing dreams may provide an avenue to share individual perspectives of the problem and highlight the organisational culture at both conscious and unconscious levels. When this works well, it is most certainly a case of using our dreams to help other people, as well as finding help through other peoples’ dreams.

My one big reservation around social dreaming, however, is that it deflects the focus away from interpreting our dreams as reflections of our own self.

It’s all too tempting to believe that our dreams are not about ourselves, but that they are about – or for – other people.

Our dreams can reveal our deepest shadows and, when we go there with courage, they can gift us with life-changing insight for personal and spiritual growth. Let’s not be blinded, in an effort to help others through our dreams, to overlook helping ourselves. Change begins within. Dreams offer us that opportunity.

Can dreams help other people? Yes, but most profoundly by using them to help yourself and inspiring other people to do the same.

The post Can our dreams help other people? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Sue from Rye, England, is my guest with a dream about finding keys and valuable jewels in a dried cat’s stomach.

Of course, there’s more to the tale! Sue’s dream begins with revisiting a small house she liked, with a view to buying it. It has pluses and minuses, and it has a box that Sue is drawn to look into, which is where she finds the keys and jewels inside a cat’s dried stomach.

Who is the woman packing up the house, and why does she feel so very familiar?

Listen in to discover what the dream means and how it relates to Sue’s life.

After we recorded the podcast, Sue emailed me to say, “Thank you so much for our dream show session. I found it interesting, enlightening, and uplifting! I am fascinated to see how my unacknowledged feelings and desires were presented in this dream.”

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 234 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Sue dreamed of finding jewels and keys in a cat’s stomach appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I love the tang of seaweed on the air, although, as a young child, I was scared of slip-sliding across the beached slimy tangles to reach the waves.

Once in the water I was happy enough, but on murky green sea days, eels lurked below the surface, wrapping themselves around my legs, or so I imagined. On clearer blue sea days, I could see they were nothing other than harmless fragments of drifting seaweed.

Earlier this month we descended from a nature reserve clifftop walk onto a hidden, and perhaps secret beach. The tide was out, and the sand was strewn with such a diversity of seaweeds, speckled with shells and leaves and seeds blown down from the clifftop that I too was blown away, albeit in a different sense. Out came my phone, and I took a barrage of photos thinking they’d be great inspiration for an artist, perhaps a printmaker. I realise now that the pictures were inspiration for this blog, a metaphor for the fragments of dreams that are beached each morning onto the shores of our waking consciousness and, ideally, captured in some form—writing, pictures, audio, art–for later contemplation.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could grab our phones in the morning and somehow record our dreams as photos!

Some mornings our waking shores are empty of dreams, even though everyone dreams, every night. Perhaps we jumped too quickly into waking mode, forgetting to linger a moment and peruse the tideline before the dream wisps, untended, unloved, were drawn back into the oceans of the unconscious.

Some mornings we notice scatterings of dreams, fragments of this and that, with no remembered storylines.

There are ways in which you can work with dream fragments, doing the detective work to imagine how they might fit together, or forgetting about storyline and focussing instead on the elements and what information and insight they carry.

Look for patterns in your dream fragments, in the same way that you might seek out patterns in the tangles of different varieties of seaweed fragments delivered by the tide. Does this type of seaweed keep appearing alongside another type of seaweed? Do leaves and seeds from a nearby clifftop tend to settle into patterns with a specific seaweed? Is there flotsam and jetsam and how does their placement fit into the pattern of the tideline? Are there shells and if so, are they open or closed? Stand back from the tideline, what overall patterns do you see, and how do they make you feel? Are there walls, blocks, obstacles in the patterns? Are there freeways, paths, stepping-stones? Are there conflicting patterns, merging patterns, emerging patterns? Move the metaphor into your washed-up morning dream fragments. What themes can you see, and how do these make you feel? How might they relate to your recent experiences, to your life?

After a storm, a tideline might be piled high with elements torn up from the depths of the ocean. I suspect the calm and beautiful beach we visited had experienced such a storm, given the diversity of seaweeds and bits and pieces of intermingled trees and plants.

After an emotionally stormy day, your dreams of the next day or two will probably involve high emotion, making them more vivid and more likely to leave their mark on your waking mind.

Such dreams are potential treasure chests, bringing you bounty from the depths of your unconscious mind that you can explore to understand the dynamics behind that emotional storm and discover the best way forward.

Walking the tideline at the hidden, secret beach, I noticed some standout feature items, an unusually deep red floret, a single shining oyster shell, a delicately placed tree nut. In full length dreams and in dream fragments, there may be single standout features, a particularly surreal image, or an oversized element, or a vividly coloured item. These are dream symbols shouting for attention, symbols holding hidden secrets of their own, ready to share them with you when you approach them with wisdom.

Do you notice recurring motifs in the dreams of a single morning, or in a spread of dreams over time?

These relate to recurring motifs in your waking life, both those you are already aware of and, more significantly, those you are as yet unaware of, those deeply unconscious thoughts, feelings, and patterns of behaviour that­­­—unbidden—powerfully influence the way you live and experience your life. There’s magnificent alchemy awaiting you when you explore recurring dream motifs.

Lay in bed long enough, after waking, to capture what your dreams have tossed onto your waking shore. Don’t let these treasures fade or be reclaimed by the next tide. Revel in the magic, and take it into your day.

PS The image I’ve used for the blog header is from one of the many photos I took that morning.

The post Dream tide appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Jane from Sebastopol, California, is my guest with a dream that begins with a roiling boil of rats and ends with the discovery of a bee colony and a newly seeded geometric garden.

Along the way, she meets a black bear, several chaotic, shadowy situations, and spends some time at a college party with a bunch of roommates who insistently blame her for some broken windows.

Jane’s dream comes at a time when she is entering a new phase of life. How does her dream relate, and what fresh insight does it offer to help guide her?

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 233 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Jane dreamed of rats and bees appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

How often do you dream about work, what are the most common work dreams, and what do they mean?

Yesterday I was on Today Extra to talk about work dreams. You can watch the video at the end of this blog, but I thought I would write this article to extend the topic.

The Today Extra team had found the results of a survey of the most common workplace dreams. I’m not sure who did the survey, but the results generally fit my expectations. How many of these have you had?

Being late/forgetting you have work (64%)

Unprepared for a presentation (58%)

Realising you are naked (47%)

Having sex with a colleague (42%)

Trapped in the toilet/lift (38%)

I’ll explore what these might mean, but let’s begin with why we often dream about work.

If you are fortunate to have a job, career, or business, work is where you spend most of your day, whether that’s at a physical workplace, your home office, or somewhere in-between. If you are currently out of work, you probably spend a good proportion of your day thinking about getting work, reflecting back on a previous job, or exploring future work possibilities. In short, we spend a lot of time at work, or thinking or worrying about work.

Since the main job of dreaming is to process our recent experiences (conscious and unconscious) to help us understand them and to understand ourselves more deeply, it’s perhaps no surprise that many of our dreams are focussed on processing what’s happening for us around work.

Other dreams may seem to be about work or the workplace but are more about our personal issues. Interpreting them helps to distinguish the difference.

Dreaming is also a potent time to solve problems and resolve issues, drawing on our deeper, more unconscious creative problem-solving abilities, so some work dreams may be focussed on delivering career-changing insights and breakthroughs.

So, what do the ‘five most common workplace dreams’ mean?

The best way to approach each of these common dream themes is to look for the parallel feeling in your waking life. Where does the feeling you have in your dream relate to your life?

Asking yourself the kinds of questions I pose below will guide you toward what your unique variation of these common dream theme means.

Being late or forgetting you have work

The chances are that you are never late for work. How do you feel, in the dream, about being late? Are you worried, in the dream, about letting people down, or being seen as incompetent or unreliable, or not being able to get other priorities sorted? Or do you simply feel, ‘I’ll never get there!’ Be as precise as you can be about nailing the feeling in the dream, then ask yourself where you feel or fear this in your life. Often this dream reflects conflicting priorities, having too much to handle, or being a bit of a perfectionist and unconsciously wanting to delay getting the job done. You might find it easy to directly relate to the dream feeling, ‘Yes, I am worried about letting people down’, or your dream may be revealing your unconscious fears, for example, a fear of letting people down, a fear that drives you to be super-reliable and overly attentive, perhaps to the point of overkill and exhaustion. On the other hand, your dream feeling may alert you to another area of your life, for example, that “I’ll never get there!’ feeling may relate to a personal goal that seems ever-more distant.

Unprepared for a presentation

So how did you feel in the dream? Did you decide to jump in anyway and deliver a spontaneous presentation? Or did you worry because you didn’t have every single detail at your fingertips? What was the potential outcome in your dream, and how did you feel about that? Were you feeling tested? Where in your life recently have you felt or feared being unprepared, or unready for something? Name the feeling more closely: fear of uncertainty, lack of confidence, the need to follow a set way of doing things, fear of being judged. The list is endless. What did your dream bring up for you? Does it relate to work or to your personal life? How does this insight help you to put this situation in perspective? What changes might you make?

Realising you are naked

How did you feel about being naked in the dream? Did you feel exposed, or vulnerable, or proud of dropping your cover? Don’t just pick one of my words. Pin it down. Exactly how did you feel? Where in your life in the last 1-2 days did you feel like this, or fear this feeling? If you feared the feeling, what did you do to try to prevent it? Our dreams show us our unconscious feelings and fears as well as our conscious ones. Such a dream might reflect your feelings about being exposed – people seeing the real you – or it might reflect your fears of being exposed. Either way, the dream highlights your discomfort with exposure (in this example) and offers you the opportunity to explore this discomfort, where it originated, where it might be holding you back at work and/or in other areas of your life. In simple terms, perhaps you feel or fear that people can see the real you, beyond the role you are playing or the image you are trying to project. In some situations, might it be better to be more authentic and find a way to feel more comfortable with that?

Having sex with a colleague

No this doesn’t mean you have an unconscious attraction to this person. (You may have a conscious attraction, but if you already know this you wouldn’t be asking what the dream means.) It’s more often the case that the colleague you’re intimate with in the dream is someone entirely inappropriate, or someone you don’t like. Think about the personality or attributes of the colleague in waking life: your dream shows you are attracted to bringing these attributes into your working style. Are these attributes going to help or hinder your way forward at work?

Trapped in the toilet or lift

How did you feel about being trapped in the dream? Were you freaked out, feeling claustrophobic or smothered, feeling stuck, worried about not getting to where you needed to be, grateful for the excuse for time out or time to reflect, or relieved to be saved from getting to where you were supposed to be? Pinpoint the feeling then ask yourself where you felt or feared this in the day or two before your dream. Then think about what a toilet or lift means to you. Perhaps a toilet is a place to let go, to have privacy, to have some of your basic needs met. Are you feeling stuck in sorting through your basic needs, unable to progress until this is done? Maybe a lift is a playful dream symbol for being uplifted (except, in the dream, you’re stuck, not getting the upliftment you desire), or maybe you feel you are trapped at a certain level in your career or in another situation in your life.

These questions are beginnings, helping you to relate your dream to your life and explore possible meanings. The next step is to interpret the details of your dream (or consult a professional dream analyst or dream therapist) to get accurate insight into your unconscious mindset and how it is affecting your life, so that you can make changes if you wish for better outcomes at work or in life in general.

Here’s the video of yesterday morning’s TV segment on Today Extra, Channel Nine, speaking with presenters David Campbell and Sylvia Jeffreys:

The post Dreaming about work appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

My new book, Bird of Paradise, was destined, it seems, to be published during lockdown, perfect timing perhaps for a book about finding your way during times of uncertainty.

In this episode I share a couple of stories related to these times and my book, then read an extract from ‘Bird of Paradise Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition’, to introduce you to this, my seventh and most cherished book.

Today’s stories include the tale of a blackbird that flew into our house earlier this year, a dinosaur that chomped its way past my office window last month, and a couple of tortoises on the verge of birthing into a whole new world.

Share the episode to share the love. Oh, and of course I’d love you to buy my new book here.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 232 The Dream Show: A blackbird, a dinosaur, a tortoise appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Why do we sometimes dream of people we don’t know, complete strangers?

While many of your dreams probably feature people you know, or have known, or people you know about (celebrities) or fictional people you feel you know (characters from movies and books), your more dramatic or vivid dreams may often feature strangers. Those strangers may have uniquely detailed faces, leaving you in awe of your dreaming mind’s creativity, or wondering whether these are people you’ve fleetingly noticed in life, or people you’re yet to meet.

So who are these strangers, and why are they in your dreams?

Begin by noticing the role the stranger plays in your dream. He or she might be a driver, a guard, a thief, a liar, a lover, a passer-by, for example.

Then give each stranger a voice, summarising their role and their feelings about you in your dream.

Their feelings about you may be obvious in the dream, but if not, close your eyes and imagine what they might say. Here are some examples:

Driver’s role: I take you where you want to go.

Driver’s feelings about you: You work me too hard.

Ask yourself: Are you driven to work too hard? Is there a part of yourself that drives on relentlessly?

Driver’s role: I drive you against your will.

Driver’s feelings about you: Why don’t you stand up for yourself?

Ask yourself: Do you find it hard to stand up for yourself? Is there a part of yourself that drives you to do the will of others?

Guard’s role: I protect you from harm.

Guard’s feelings about you: You need protection.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that believes you need to be protected from harm? Is it true, or are you overly protective?

Guard’s role: I stop you from going where you want to go.

Guard’s feelings about you: Who do you think you are?

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that stops you from going where you want to go because you doubt your abilities or suffer low self-esteem?

Thief’s role: I steal things of value from you.

Thief’s feelings about you: You don’t protect the things you value.

Ask yourself: Do you deprive yourself of things you value: time, attention, energy, relationship?

Thief’s role: I rob you of your belongings.

Thief’s feelings about you: I don’t care about you at all.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that cares so little about you that it robs you of a sense of belonging?

Liar’s role: I cover up the truth.

Liar’s feelings about you: You would hate me if you knew the truth.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that protects you from discovering a truth?

Liar’s role: I manipulate the truth.

Liar’s feelings about you: You don’t like to be judged.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that lies to you, that guards you from the truth, that preserves how you like to be seen?

Lover’s role: I charm and seduce you.

Lover’s feelings about you: You need what I have to offer.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that knows how to seduce you into fulfilling your needs?

Lover’s role: I am devoted to you.

Lover’s feelings about you: I want to be with you forever.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that is devoted to being with you forever, perhaps lost or forgotten qualities that you can now integrate into your life in a positive way?

Passer-by’s role: I pass you by.

Passer-by’s feelings about you: I can’t help you.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of you that dismisses your needs?

Passer-by’s role: I am insignificant.

Passer-by’s feelings about you: You wouldn’t be interested in me.

Ask yourself: Is there a part of yourself that drastically undervalues what it can contribute to your life?

These are simply examples. The drivers, guards, thieves, liars, lovers, passers-by, and other strangers in your dreams represent your own unique unconscious voices.

Dream strangers often feature in our more dramatic and vivid dreams when we’re processing highly emotive issues, or touching on deep unconscious conflicts, as the examples show.

While many of our dream strangers’ faces are indistinguishable – with the dream focussing more on the character’s role and energy – some are quite detailed. They may be snapshots of faces you have unwittingly accumulated in your memory, faces that are called into play to suit the role, while others, if you look at them closely, may remind you of people you know, or be combinations of people you know. These form extra clues about the what these dream strangers represent.

In my online course, How to interpret your dreams step-by-step, you learn further techniques for elucidating the meaning of strangers in your dreams, as well as tools and techniques to interpret the meaning of people known to you who appear in your dreams.

The full meaning of any dream takes the whole dream story into account, but the exercises I have given you here can quickly shed surprising light on your inner world. Stay playful for best results!

The post Dream strangers appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Rita from Cape Town, South Africa, is my guest asking about her dream of a baby crawling in the middle of a busy highway to retrieve her dummy.

There were twins, one on the side of the road, one crawling into head-on traffic before getting run over by a van. Rita was hysterical, but the strange thing is … well, you will discover what the strange thing is when you listen!

What does it mean? Listen as we go deeply into exploring this dream, relating it to Rita’s life, and finding insight that really opens things up for her.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 231 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Rita dreamed of a baby crawling on a highway appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Once upon a dream, everything changed.

I’d had a recurring dream theme for many years. The dream stories were always different, but, at some point, I would need to catch a bus. I was always in a faintly familiar city, but a little lost. The streets had changed, or the bus stops had moved, or when I caught a bus at a familiar stop it took me in a different direction to my intended destination and I’d have to try to stop the bus so that I could get off and retrace my journey.

Working with these dreams, I knew they reflected times of transition when I had one foot in familiar territory and the other stepping into uncertainty, an intended destination in mind, but missing complete clarity on how to get there.

When you have a goal in mind, or an intention to fulfil, do you plan every step before you make a move, or do you take the first steps confident that you’ll work it out as you go? Do you step out with a fixed goal, knowing you’ll watch the signs and feel your way to that particular destination, or do you step out with a general direction or intention in mind but open to letting the challenges and mysteries you encounter reveal a better opportunity? Or are you too wary to step beyond the familiar at all?

When I was in my early teens, my optician advised my parents that my eyesight might improve if I stopped wearing my glasses all the time, and reserved using them for schoolwork, writing, reading, and watching television. Research, he said, suggested that leaving my glasses off would train my eyes to see better. I struggled for a couple of years with this approach. It didn’t work. One of my biggest challenges was getting on the right bus to go to school. Even after all these years, I can still remember the bus numbers: 148, 148b, and 143. I can no longer recall which of these was the right bus, and which were the ones that would start off in the right direction but then turn left and head off into the wrong suburb, a long way short of my school. I was ok if other kids from my school were at the bus stop. If they got on, it was right bus for me. But when I was there alone, I was anxious. Squinting didn’t help.

I have no idea, as an adult looking back, why I didn’t check with the driver when I boarded.

I must have been shy, or worried about asking a silly question. Perhaps I should have grabbed my glasses from my satchel and popped them on as the busses approached, so I could read their numbers. I must have been dedicated to training my eyesight. As an adult I can be very self-disciplined and self-motivated when I have a goal in mind. Maybe I had that trait then. Looking back, I suspect that I did.

Although I can be very disciplined, my personal style is to step out with a goal in mind rather than an unbreachable plan. I watch the breeze, listen to the wind, and sniff out the options. I get in touch with the current wisdom and get a taste for different approaches. I employ all my senses and watch for feedback and perspectives in my dreams. I discipline myself to following an unfolding and revealing path, and making choices along the way, rather than disciplining myself to a specific non-negotiable plan.

My bus dreams helped me to recognise the various stages of these journeys, and to alert me to my blocks and limiting beliefs, as well as to my options.

In exploring these dreams, I was always focussed on the buses, and the bus routes, as if there were a set number of routes by which I could reach my goal, and my task was to choose the best one and find out how to get started on it. My challenge, in many of these dreams, was not the destination (I always knew where I wanted to go) but having clarity on the route, just as my challenge, as a young teenager, was not the destination (I needed to get to school) but having the clarity of eyesight to get on the right bus. My dreams, it seems, chose an excellent personal symbol. I learned that I was confident of my goals, but that my clarity on how to achieve them was not so good. I learned to embrace the positives of this and allow uncertainty – and faith – to be my guide. What if the ‘wrong’ bus were actually the ‘right’ bus, and the lessons learned along the way the quickest route to the destination?

So imagine my surprise, when this dream theme came to an abrupt conclusion once upon a dream.

That night I dreamed I was walking fast, trying to get to the bus stop in time to catch the bus, when a taxicab drew up alongside me. “Where do you want to go?” asked the driver, “I can take you straight there.” I hesitated, mentally absorbing in the offer. “It’s my job to serve you,” the driver persuaded, “I need you to let me work for you.”

In all these dreams it had never occurred to me to take a taxicab. It had certainly never occurred to me that I had a personal driver and that I had been depriving him of work and purpose.

In waking life, I rarely take buses. I walk, drive, or catch a cab. The buses in my dreams were purely personal dream symbols, related to the way I approached my goals back then.

It was the taxicab version of the dream that alerted me to the fact that buses travel set routes. Taxicabs don’t. I had been exploring set routes, established ways of reaching goals, the kinds of routes lots of people take, just as buses are designed to take lots of people to a destination following a set route. This dream freed me to see other ways of achieving my goals, beyond the conventional, or beyond the set routes that existed in my mind. While I could celebrate the goals I had achieved and the things I had learned about more conventional approaches, I was now ready to tune into my own inner driver, one charged with a mission of service and purpose.

While my dream solution evolved naturally, and probably came at a time when I had learned what I needed to learn from travelling conventional routes and believing in a fixed number of set approaches, I might have accelerated my learning if I had applied tools, back then, that I use now.

Instead of totally focussing on the bus dream symbol, I might have asked myself if there was another way to get to the dream destination. Awake, and exploring, I might have come up with several ideas: walking, hitching a lift, taking a train, calling a cab. The idea of a cab might have appealed to me and I might then have noticed the freedoms it offered. Applying this metaphor to my waking life situation might have shifted my perspective many moons before the taxicab made its appearance in a dream.

Question your dream symbols. It’s an art and a science that can take you to wonderous places. The taxicab door is open: go!

The post The bus stop appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Kim from Washington State, USA, is my guest with a dream about a parting of the clouds to reveal a golden sunset and a white sandy beach scattered with sheep.

Sheep on the beach? What’s that about? Oh, and by the way, the sheep were Jesus’s sheep.

Earlier on in the dream, the dramas and symbols were less ethereal but totally intriguing. There were yellow padded bras left out in the open, a curiously laced pair of new rubber boots, and weird ways of opening things.

Listen as Kim and I explore her dream and discover how these elements are related to her life and what she can learn about herself and the best way forward from here.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 230 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Kim dreamed of a parting of the clouds appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast to get to know the host a little before being a guest on her show.

I clicked on her most recent episode, listened to some of it while doing some exercise at home, then settled into a window seat to hear the rest of the interview. I’ve forgotten what it was about, but I think they were comparing notes on business styles while wandering off into engaging personal asides. In any case, I needed a post-exercise rest, so I was content to gaze out the window and follow their conversation for the next little while.

I drifted in and out of listening, half contemplating some of the ideas they were sharing, going off on my own track, and half planning my day ahead, when my ears pricked up. I heard the word ‘synchronicity’, a subject dear to my heart. It wasn’t related to the topic of their chat, and I got the impression it arose spontaneously, so I was interested to hear what they had to say.

The guest mentioned the RAS, the Reticular Activating System, and the role it can play in precipitating experiences of synchronicity.

The Reticular Activating System is a network of nerves situated in the brain stem. It has many functions, including maintaining arousal and consciousness by activating the cerebral cortex, and regulating our sleep-wake cycles.

It also acts as a kind of filter, screening out things we don’t need to stay conscious of (like safe background noise) and alerting us to things we need to know or are interested in.

It’s the Reticular Activating System that will make you notice everyone’s shoes when you are on a mission to buy a new pair of shoes, or that will alert you to any mention of a subject that has particularly engaged you. Thank your RAS every time your ears prick up, or your eyes spot an item of interest that would otherwise be lost in a mountain of stuff.

I studied neurobiology at university, so this wasn’t new to me, but I was interested in how the conversation would evolve because I am familiar with the standard argument that synchronicity is really just a result of the RAS in action.

So, the guest painted an example. He made the point that if you develop a sudden interest in red Toyotas, you’ll begin to see red Toyotas everywhere. You will be overwhelmed by the number of red Toyotas you see in a short space of time, and you will conclude that these sightings are deeply meaningful synchronicities, perhaps bearing a message for you. You will overlook, he said, the fact that red Toyotas are extremely common vehicles.

His example is spot on. That is indeed how the RAS works, and it goes some way to explaining some experiences of synchronicity. But not all.

This is how the few seconds the guest spent outlining his example worked out for me, sitting in my window seat.

The moment he mentioned red Toyota, I looked out the window and saw a flashy new-looking red Toyota drive super-slowly past our house, as if it were looking for a parking spot. It stopped, even though there were no parking spots available. It then slowly coasted around the central bank of trees in the middle of the street, returned for another loop, and sped off down a perpendicular road. I watched it recede into the distance.

There was no other traffic movement during this time. The whole event played out while the podcast guest was talking about red Toyotas. Not before, not after, but simultaneously.

Later that day, I went for a walk down our street. There were maybe some thirty or forty cars parked, and only one of these was a red Toyota. It wasn’t the flashy new one that made such a song and dance for me earlier in the day.

Knowing what you know about the Reticular Activating System, what do you think of my synchronicity experience?

Synchronicities always feel deeply meaningful, even when we can’t elucidate that meaning. It’s easy to work at synchronicity, to go for a walk alert for signs, signals, or messages, to seek deeper meaning in what can be simply a result of your very efficient RAS doing its job for you. Look instead to those synchronicities that seem to have an energy of their own, that present themselves in situations that are not easily explained by RAS filtering. Like my red Toyota.

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ll know that synchronicity fascinates me as much as dreams do, but I don’t seek out synchronicity. I let it happen, although I do generally practise awareness of myself and my surroundings.

When I was listening to the podcast, my RAS did its job perfectly, alerting me to the word ‘synchronicity’ when I had been drifting in my attention. That one is definitely down to my RAS. But the red Toyota? I don’t think so, do you?

My new book, Bird of Paradise – Taming the Unconscious to Bring Your Dreams to Fruition, explores synchronicity and dreams. It’s part whimsical memoir, so it’s studded with my own stories while offering ways for you to find your calling and navigate your life. Its official publication date is 19 May. In paperback and Kindle here

The post Synchronicity or just another red Toyota? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Celena from Clarkesville, Georgia, is my guest asking about a series of increasingly catastrophic dreams.

The dreams took place over six weeks. In the first dream Celena is building a safe place, a bunker, because of an imminent weather-related event. By the second dream the danger is war, and by the third dream it’s the coming of the Antichrist.

Celena was concerned about the progressively cataclysmic nature of her three dreams as she was unable to relate this theme to her life. She worried that she was missing a vital alert.

Listen as Celena and I explore her dreams and discover how they do indeed relate to her life. We excavate and find powerful insights that dramatically shift Celena’s perspective, opening her way ahead.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 229 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Celena dreamed about catastrophe and the Antichrist appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Have your dreams become more vivid, crazy, momentous, and scary during the coronavirus crisis?

Last week I wrote a blog about Dreams in the time of Covid-19 for my online learning platform, The Dream Academy. It covered the kinds of issues people are dreaming about, the value of using dreams to discover insight and potential solutions to issues and problems (think job loss, relationships, and so on), tips on how to quell middle-of-the-night anxiety, and more. You might like to read it as a prelude to this one. What it didn’t do was list specific dream themes you might be experiencing and give some insight into what these might mean. I reserved that for today’s blog:

But first, why are so many people’s dreams more vivid, crazy, and momentous during the Covid-19 crisis?

The job of dreaming is to process your conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 1-2 days, compare these with similar past experiences, and, sometimes, project forward to possible future scenarios and how you might handle them. Think of dreaming as a nightly mindset update. The sheer volume of experiences many of us are processing at the moment is the reason why our dreams are crammed full and spiced with high emotion. You may have had vivid, crazy, momentous dreams during past personal crises for similar reasons.

Dreams tend to be more vivid when you’re processing strong emotions: the emotions you are aware of, those you try to repress, and those of which you are unaware, but which simmer in your unconscious mind. The more vivid a dream, the more likely you are to recall it when you wake up. This can give the impression that you are dreaming more then usual. In reality, you generally spend the same proportion of your sleeping time dreaming, but many of those dreams fade from your memory as morning dawns.

You may be dreaming scarier dreams during this time because you’re processing your fears about Coronavirus and all its implications.

Whenever you feel fear in a dream, fear and stress hormones are released into your blood, preparing you for fight or flight. This hormone burst will often wake you from a scary dream – a nightmare – leading to broken sleep and feelings of exhaustion the following day. Here’s a tip: When you wake up from a nightmare, reimagine the dream with a positive ending. What you need to do is imagine transforming whatever was scary in the dream into something more positive. (Don’t kill off the scary thing. You must transform it.) This changing of the story in your imagination not only begins to calm you but also triggers your unconscious mind to start finding positive ways to address and resolve your fears.

So what kinds of dreams might you be having during the coronavirus epidemic?

Dreams of feeling out of control

There’s only so much you can control during times of uncertainty. Dreams of driving an out of control car, trying to control a crazy situation, trying to pack and organise in the middle of a state of chaos, may all reflect your conscious and unconscious feelings of being out of control. When you examine the details of such a dream, you’ll discover your deeper beliefs about control, and perhaps understand where issues of control have been limiting you in the past.

The opportunity is to accept what you can and what you can’t control. It can be an opportunity to open to change, to flow without needing to control, to be curious about what might happen if you loosened your grip on the metaphorical steering wheel and opened to exploring different ways of travelling through life.

Dreams of earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis

You can’t take a dream dictionary approach to interpreting dreams. Every dream is unique and personal, so take my suggestions and see how they fit in your life. It’s the details of a dream that deliver an accurate interpretation. In this blog, we’re looking at general themes. You may dream of earthquakes because life, at the moment, feels like it’s constantly rumbling and shifting and changing. The known ground you were so sure about yesterday (your workplace, the promise of travel, your income, your freedom to hug those you love) may no longer be there to support you. Tornadoes in your dreams may be excellent metaphors for how you feel at the moment, or for your fears about what is yet to come. Tsunamis may represent that feeling of overwhelm that threatens to knock you off your feet, or leave you drowning (in your emotions).

The opportunity is to welcome the good things that change may ultimately bring, to build new and firmer ground under your feet, ground that supports you in different and better ways. The crisis may continue, but you may develop or find innovative ways that get you – and others – through and offers brighter longer-term prospects.

Dreams of being trapped

I’m sure you know what this means in the current context! Such dreams most likely reflect your feelings or fears around being in isolation, quarantine, lockdown, sickness, or unable to pay your bills, support others, travel. Again, interpreting these dreams can help you to understand your mindset around being trapped, physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Self-awareness is part of the solution.

The opportunity is to discover how you can expand. You may feel physically trapped indoors, but how can you expand mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, or perhaps in a business or altruistic sense, during this time?

Dreams of bugs

I have heard many dreams about bugs during this time – bugs like insects biting peoples’ skin, or huge lice in their hair, or swarms of flying, devouring insects coming towards them. On one level these dreams may symbolise your fears of the virus invading your body. On a more likely level these dreams may be about feeling irritated or bugged by the situation or issues around you. Things can easily get ‘under your skin’, and you might be super sensitive. The details of your dream will reveal what’s going on for you and offer potential solutions.

The opportunity is to explore your personal boundaries, or to acknowledge your propensity towards feeling irritation and reach out to respond to life in more gracious ways.

Dreams of loss

This theme looms large in many people’s dreams right now. It needs no explanation. The list of potential losses is never-ending: health, money, security, job, business, relationship, fitness, intimacy, physical connection with family, control, sense of identity (job title and so on), sense of belonging, the old way of life. Such dreams may be processing your experiences of actual loss or your fears of potential loss.

The opportunity is to transform loss into found. What new job, business, or identity might you find in the face of loss? What news ways of connecting might you find with your family? What new ways of being in the world might evolve for you when we finally emerge from this crisis?

Dreams of death

While some of these dreams may be processing your grief for those who have died from the virus, or your fears around contracting the virus yourself, or your fears and beliefs around death, death dreams at this time are more likely to be symbolic. Think ‘death of the old’: what has died in your life, or what do you feel is dying in your life (your energy, your income, your previous lifestyle, your physical social life, certain dreams, aspirations, and ways of being in the world)?

The opportunity is to discover what to birth from the death, what new ways to bring into the world as the old ways fade away.

Naked in public

This dream theme also seems to be increasing for some people. Essentially the dream is about feeling or fearing being exposed, being seen in your true colours, letting your public image slip. Possibilities here might include fears around not being able to keep up with perfect haircuts and colouring, Botox or other beauty treatments, because of social distancing. Another possibility is fear of being seen in your home environment on those Zoom meetings that used to take place in the boardroom. Instead you have perhaps iffy lighting, domestic backdrops, and the occasional child popping in for some attention. At a deeper level, an increase in these kinds of dreams may reflect exploring fears around changing how you present yourself to the world, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

The opportunity is to embrace authenticity and vulnerability, and to relax notions of perfection.

There are other dream themes prevalent at the moment, but let’s stop there!

Vivid dream themes like these can all help you to acknowledge and validate your emotions and vulnerabilities, while revealing – through the dream details – any blocks, limiting beliefs, or unresolved issues that may be holding you back from flowing with change in healthy ways. The dream details, once interpreted, add valuable personal insight to help you through these challenging times.

Each of the opportunities I’ve suggested can serve as points of contemplation in waking life.

You might ask yourself, for example, If I feel trapped, how can I expand? Or, If I feel loss, what can I find? Or, if I feel exposed, how might I flip that into embracing authenticity?

There is wonderful value in such waking life contemplation. You will come up with fruitful answers. But if you include working with your dreams, you’ll access deeper insight and unique personal truths to guide you on your way.

The post Dreams during the coronavirus epidemic appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Benjamin from Germany is my guest with a dream about a zombie attack on a fantasy mediaeval city.

There’s a Game of Thrones feeling, a foul-smelling mass, house to house fights, and riddles to solve. It’s a multi-level adventure of a dream that, once interpreted, throws light on Benjamin’s waking life situation in a way that leaves him with goose bumps – not the kind of goose bumps you get from the proximity of the undead, but the kind of goose bumps you get when you connect with something quite magnificent.

Listen as we explore his dream and find its heart of gold.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 228 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Benjamin dreamed of a zombie attack appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

This little blackbird flew into our house on January 15 this year, and settled next to my nest of Orkney eggs, heralding both a synchronicity and a decision.

Birds flying into our house are not a common occurrence. Thinking back over a lifetime I can only recall one other blackbird flying in, one dove walking in around 1996, and a bush turkey wandering in around 1995. So this little blackbird really drew my attention, as did its placement next to the nest, as did the date. Stay with me, and all will be revealed.

When I was about six, a very exotic bird landed on the washing line in our English back garden. As a young child, I was utterly transfixed. This colourful bird looked nothing like the generally black and brown birds of our neighbourhood. As Dad and I got closer, I realised it was a budgerigar (a bit like a parakeet), and budgies, in my English world, did not live in the wild. They were pets, kept in cages, and, like parrots, they could mimic human voices, often building up quite a vocabulary of entertaining chatter. Our exotic visitor ended up in a cage in our living room, a fixture in our home for many years to come. I was never sure whether to feel happy for him, safe and warm in our house, or sad for him, locked in a cage, chatting to all of us and to his ‘mate’, his reflection in his mirror.

There’s much more to the budgerigar story, a tale I tell at the beginning of my new book, Bird of Paradise, which will be published later this year.

As you will have noted, there’s a bird in the title of my new book. Bird of Paradise is also a flower and a yoga pose, all of which is meaningful as you’ll discover when you read the book!

I’ll tell you more about the book closer to the time, but suffice to say it is about dreams, synchronicities, navigating life, and discovering your calling.

In January this year, a week before the blackbird flew into our house, the final edit was completed. The book was ready for its next stage. Since all but one of my past books have been published by traditional publishers, I started along the known route. The day before the blackbird flew into our house, I sent out emails to potential literary agents in the US.

My first thought, when I saw our blackbird, was a sense of coming full circle.

Blackbirds are not native to Australia. They are an introduced species, and only thrive in the more temperate Australian states, not in the tropics or subtropics. When we moved from the subtropics to temperate Hobart just over a year ago, I was delighted to discover ‘English’ blackbirds singing in our back garden. Budgerigars are native to Australia, while in England they only thrive in cages in people’s homes. My book began with an Australian non-native bird flying into our English life, and my book’s completion was marked by an English non-native bird flying into our Australian home. It’s too late to add a final chapter about this little blackbird, but isn’t that what blogs – such as this one – are for, to continue enriching the tale?

I have written about my nest of Orkney eggs before. They’re stones I collected from a beach in the Orkney Islands of Scotland some forty years ago, nestled into an Orkney basket, a traditional island weave. That story, and its many resonances and synchronicities, weaves throughout my new book, so the fact that the little blackbird chose to land by my nest was highly significant to me – though perhaps, for the blackbird, it had some vague resemblance to a nest, to home, to safety.

Clearly the bird was trapped. It didn’t know how to fly free from our room.

We helped set it free, and it flew, up and up and away.

I had the feeling that my book, Bird of Paradise, needed to be set free, to fly, up and up and away.

Over the next few weeks I noted how much longer the traditional publishing route seems to have become. Agents and publishers these days are more focussed on the size of an author’s social media platform and expect the author to bring their own marketing expertise to the publishing table. The more I looked at this, the more I realised that I had the expertise – my own and professional people I can engage – to publish the book myself, to free it to fly out into the world about a year earlier than it would otherwise take, and to have more creative control of the process.

So that’s what I decided to do.

As I sat down today to write this blog, I Googled to check my facts about blackbirds. One thing that jumped out at me – a fact I didn’t know – was that the ‘four calling birds’ in ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ were, in the earliest version of the song, ‘four colly birds’ or ‘four collie birds’, colly or collie meaning the colour of coal and being the English archaic name for blackbird.

By January 15 the twelve days of Christmas were done and dusted, but did my little calling bird call in to underline my calling, to free this new book about dreams, synchronicities, navigating life, and discovering your calling? So, you did notice all that calling, right?

There’s so much more richness to this synchronicity, but this blog-sized chunk is where I’ll stop for now.

I hope I’ve whetted your appetite for Bird of Paradise too! Watch this space.

The post Blackbird calling: a synchronicity story appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Jay from the US is my guest today asking about her dream involving her extended family, money, and guns.

A cousin expresses shocking anger, another cousin steals a wallet, there’s a deformed dog that bites Jay painfully on the hand. There’s a couple of white Bentleys, a potential store robbery, and a scene where another cousin goes on a wild shooting spree.

Yes, it’s the stuff of movies, perhaps. Oh, and there’s a ghost and, throughout, there are young children to be looked after.

Jay’s life is nothing like this. Or is it, at a deep, symbolic level?

Listen in as we explore and interpret this dream, discover how it relates to Jay’s life, and find the insight she can take from this to move forward in healing, growing, and thriving ways.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 227 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Jay dreamed about money and guns appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Imagine this: as you fall asleep and dream, a musician sits at his piano and reaches into the music sphere, opening to the dream world, composing music to gift you upon awakening.

Then imagine this: You, the dreamer, fall asleep listening to that very same composition, reaching into the dream sphere, opening to the music, awakening with dream symbols you draw upon to create the collage art work for the musician’s album.

The musician is veteran singer-songwriter Tim Arnold, and the dreamer and artist is Kate Alderton, both based in the UK. The resultant album, Constellations, featuring violinist Jonathan Hill, was released this week. There are ten compositions, each written on a different night over the space of ten weeks. Each night began with a phone conversation about dreams, before Kate retired to bed and Tim took his seat at the piano.

I immersed in the album earlier this month. It was an absolutely transporting delight. I particularly enjoyed the tracks Who Looks Outside, Dreams; Who Looks Inside, Awakens; and The Path of Heart. The soaring violin played my heartstrings across the board of the whole album.

I was drawn to this project because it encompasses dreams, synchronicity, music, and a novel experimental approach to composition, so I was keen to interview Tim and Kate to discover more. They were each so engaging, that I decided to include all their responses to my questions.

Jane Teresa: You said you talked about dreams on the phone with Kate before she slept and you started composing. Were these open-ended conversations, or was there a structure?

Tim: When Kate and I starting talking to each other about dreams, it just happened to coincide with the time that I was preparing to make an album with my friend and collaborator, violinist, Jonathan Hill.  So, there was no structure when I began composing the music. It was completely organic, but utterly inspired by our meeting of minds. There is a vibrant and active dreaming community in the UK and Kate is held with great affection by that community.  We met acting together in a film project, and when she told me she was a dreamer, I didn’t think she meant it so literally.  But since meeting other dreamers in that community, I realised that in the same regard that I am a musician, Kate is a dreamer. And if dreaming is an instrument, she’s a virtuoso.

The conversations were fairly open ended and sprung out of my curiosity about dreams and Kate’s openness to share her rich wisdom about it with me.  When I’m in composing mode, I tend to start late and go on until the early hours.  During that time, Kate was on a more conventional schedule and going to sleep when I was beginning to compose.  I’d say goodnight, put down the phone, go to the piano and begin reaching into the music-sphere as she was entering the oneirosphere.  I can say that now, but at the time, all I knew was that my head was full of what we’d shared on the subject of dreaming.  I suppose it inspired me, and every time we continued the conversation on subsequent nights, it continued to inspire me, until the whole album was written. I was encouraged to listen to my dreams as a child.  This process, with Kate’s encouragement, has rewilded that childlike wonder.

Jane Teresa: What was your intention behind the process? Did you want to capture the essence of Kate’s dreams while you were working? Or did you hope to influence her dreams with your creative process? Or did you intend to co-create (the music and her dreams)?

Tim: I think there was an element of me wanting to continue the conversation with Kate after we’d said goodnight.  Composing and recording reflected the excitement and awakenings I was discovering during our conversations. I just poured them into a musical instrument. I would have talked all night if it had been possible, so carrying on with the music was the next best thing. I wasn’t consciously hoping to do anything other than express the energy inside me that came from talking about dreams.  I think for the first three songs I composed, I didn’t identify any particular process.  But by the time I’d written the 5^th song, I realised that I had a creative partner in Kate. I realised then, that the music was all being created at about the same time she would have been entering into REM sleep and dreaming.

Jane Teresa: How long did you spend composing on the average night?

Tim: I think the main body of most of the songs were all written between midnight and 5 o’clock in the morning. There were also compositional nips and tucks the following night before I began a new song, but on the whole, Constellations was composed in and around the witching hour on ten different nights over the duration of ten weeks.

Jane Teresa: Which is your favourite track?

Tim: With most of my albums, I usually only feel strongly about songs I’ve written and recorded in the same way that a teacher marks exam papers.  Good.  Very good.  Must Try harder.  Imaginative but lacking structure. Needs more development.  That kind of thing.  I’m usually very studious and trying to stretch myself and my abilities, and I don’t really have favourites because I’m so critical of everything I do. They are all exercises in a way.  However, with Constellations, I didn’t try to achieve anything.  I closed my eyes most of the time when I began to play piano.  I was in a liminal state of mind.  Whatever came out from between my fingers and the keyboard is what you hear on the album.  I love all the songs, but in the same way I love someone else’s album.  I don’t feel entirely responsible.  It’s come from somewhere other. Maybe The Path Of Heart touches me the most.

Jane Teresa: What surprised you the most during this whole process?

Tim: The first surprise about Constellations is that it all came as a unified whole from beginning to end in the same couple of months.  My previous albums are made out of songs and ideas that come from different periods of times in my life and different places.  Constellations is a chunk of time and a sonic diary entry for me.  But the biggest surprise and one that makes me so happy was Kate’s ability to continue the creative conversation.  The music was born while she dreamt, and when she finally heard the music, she dreamt again and created the artwork from the imagery in those dreams. Taking the fruits of your inspiration back to their source and witnessing the source also being inspired to develop the work into another medium is a kind of alchemy I’ve never experienced before. It’s like an infinity gift.

Jane Teresa: Is there anything you’d like to add?

Tim: We’re now talking about holding Social Dreaming Events where we can bring our creative partnership into a live situation with people who can participate in an exploration of dreams, music and imagery. I’d also like to add how grateful we are to you for taking interest in Constellations.  Thank you Jane.

Jane Teresa: In the first phase, when you had the phone conversations and then slept while Tim composed, were the dreams you had quite different from your ‘normal’ dreams? If so, how did they differ? Did your dreams seem to address the issues and topics you had talked about?

Kate: When our conversations began I’d just returned from a waking-life pilgrimage with a group of artists to Jung’s house in Bollingen and the eco-art community Damanhur. That journey was inspired by a dream, so we talked a lot about dreams as fuel for life’s passages and ‘living’ dreams. We began reading Jennifer Dupert’s incredible book Liminal Dreaming and talked about crossing through the hypnagogic corridor into the full dreaming with focussed attention. Re-reading the dreams from this time, there were lots of vast landscapes present and the deeper the conversation, the more enriched with symbolic imagery the dreams became.

Jane Teresa: In the first phase, did you have a feeling that Tim’s composing was influencing your dreams?

Kate: It was a while before we realised a process was naturally happening between the dreaming and the composing. I’ve always felt that dreams pay special attention to those who pay attention to them and once we became aware of the linking between the two, there was a growing ‘supposing’ that we could be occupying a shared space which Tim could access through music and I could access through dreaming. This had a huge effect on my dreaming. I drifted off to sleep full of curiosity about where I’d end up and about the ways in which my dreaming might resonate with the sounds that Tim was accessing while I slept.

Jane Teresa: In the first phase, did you notice any performance anxiety: did you go to sleep hoping you’d come up with amazing dreams?

Kate: Looking back, I think I often fell asleep in a state of curiosity about what our conversations might seed in the dream fields. I’m part of a regular dream sharing community The Dreamfishing Society and I guess one of the things I’ve learned most from an extended period of dream sharing is the value that smaller dreams can have. I love it when ‘big’ dreams happen, but I’ve found dream wisps and faint threads of dreams can also offer so much meaning and insight depending on how you work with them or who you tell them to.

Jane Teresa: In the second phase, when you listened to the finished compositions and then went to sleep, did you listen to one track per night, or to the whole album?

Kate: When Tim first sent me the links to Constellations it was like listening to the sounds of the border crossing between waking to dreaming. I listened to the full album during waking hours then began to experiment with listening to it in its entirety as I drifted across into the dream states. The soundscapes Tim and violinist Jonathan Hill have created are sound journeys into the inner realms, the compositions are so vast. In waking hours I find they invoke a dream like state and at night the music becomes like a vehicle to assist travel into the dreaming lands.

Jane Teresa: In the second phase, did you listen to the music once, or did you have it on repeat as you slept?

Kate: The artwork we’ve used for the album came from dreams that arose after I completely immersed in the music during the day and listened to the full album as I fell to sleep. I’m still actively in the second phase and continuing an exploration with the music. I’m experimenting with following Tim’s 10 week structure, listening to each track on repeat during the night and to the whole album on repeat in a process we call dreamstreaming. I’ll be creating 10 collages, one for each of the ten compositions, from the dreams that emerge when they’re fed throughout the night with the music.

Jane Teresa: In the second phase, were the dreams you had quite different from your ‘normal’ dreams? If so, how did they differ?

Kate: There’s a shift that happens when I focus my attention on dreaming for something specific. The visual quality and textures to the dreams are more visceral and richer in imagery. Working with Tim’s album was a form of dream incubation using his sound as the delivery method. When I listened to Tim’s incredible music, the dreams often responded with sound and light: invisible, oscillating sound strings being played across infinite spaces, of becoming an embodied, dancing version of the sound itself. In one of the dreams I was aware of dwelling in the space in between two very specific notes which Tim later identified as what’s known as the ‘tritone’ or ‘the devil’s interval’.

Jane Teresa: What did you learn about dreaming and about yourself during this period?

Kate: It’s been such a privilege watching how Tim works, catching the very first threads of songs from the musicsphere and expanding them into these hugely beautiful layered soundscapes. It reminds me of the way a dreamer might catch the faint wisp of a dream from the oneirosphere in the early hours of the morning and pull at it lightly enough until an entire dream comes through.

What I’ve loved about merging sound with dreams in this way is that we’ve found ourselves in a creative structure that emerged, rather than the other way around.  The music, the dreaming and the collages have been in call and response with each-other, back and forth across the waking dreaming states. The whole project has been such an intuitive way of working. We’re following the unfolding nature of how it wants to be made, much like the unfolding of dreaming itself.

Jane Teresa: Did the collage work help you to understand those dreams more?

Kate: Absolutely. Working with cut and paste collage rather than digital helps me to bypass my rational mind in favour of a more instinctive one because I can only work with the materials and images at hand rather than try to plan anything. Synchronous links and patterns begin to emerge between the images I find and the content of the dreams as I work, often revealing forgotten or surprising aspects of the dream and new thoughts about what it might mean. When I write down a dream, it’s a snapshot encapsulated in words: with an artistic process it becomes more like a conversation with the dream. Dream art creates an experience and quality of aliveness to the dream as it continues to unfold itself. The dream keeps on dreaming through the art.

Jane Teresa: Which is your favourite track?

Kate: It’s hard to choose! I love how each track paves the sound journey into the next. It’s like a film score for dreaming, but with ‘Who Looks Outside Awakens’ Tim’s reached so deeply into the far reaches of inner and outer space: that’s the one I hear in my inner ear when I recall a dream about light and the Aurora Borealis which became ‘The Promised Sky’ the art work I created for the front cover of the album.
(Note: Kate’s album art work is featured in the header image for this blog.)

The Constellations album is available on stream, download and Limited Edition CD.

The post Social dreaming appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Welcome to my world, as I explore one of my synchronicity stories and two of my dreams, imparting interpretation tips while sharing stories from my life, past, present, and future.

How can you use your dreams and spine-tingling synchronicities to help navigate your path?

And here’s a hot-off-the-press addition to the synchronicity related in this episode: The synchronicity begins with a story about my driver’s licence. I finished recording the show and sat down here, at my computer, to write these words to accompany the show. “Ping!” My Messenger app disrupted my attention. I leaned across to check my phone. It was my son, who lives in Asia, asking if I could send his driver’s licence to the UK ahead of his arrival there next month. Last time he visited us, he renewed his Australian licence, and asked me to hold onto it until his next trip back to Australia. Change of plan! Synchronicity doubled: you’ll smile as you listen to my story about both my Australian and British driver’s licences!

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 226 The Dream Show: How to use dreams and synchronicity to find your way appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

If you’ve been following my work, you’ll know that I encourage you to do dream alchemy visualisations to assist your unconscious mind in transforming blocks, but is there a place for doing ‘normal’ visualisations as well?

One of our newsletter subscribers, Liziwe, recently asked if I would cover this topic in a blog, so this one’s for you, Liziwe! Oh, and for everyone else reading this blog too.

Liziwe said, “I’m curious if you do visualisation/manifestations as a way to create future self or life, for example, wanting to move to a better place or attracting better life circumstances such as love or better relationships or money?”

Before I address this question, let’s take a quick look at dream alchemy visualisations.

What are dream alchemy visualisations, and how do they differ from the type of visualisations Liziwe is referring to?

The simplest way to do this is to give an example.

Imagine you had a dream about arriving at an airport too late to catch your plane. On waking and interpreting your dream, you might have concluded that the plane is a job opportunity you feel is within your grasp although somehow you keep missing it. Your interpretation might have revealed that the reason you keep missing the opportunity is that you unconsciously doubt your abilities, and this doubt undermines your efforts. The undermining might manifest as omitting key information from your resume, or subtle negative body language during an interview.

A good dream alchemy visualisation for this dream would be to close your eyes and visualise yourself back in your dream only this time you arrive at the airport in plenty of time and you easily catch the plane. Visualise the sensation of taking off in the plane and summon up a feeling of confidence and satisfaction as you feel the plane ascend.

What you’re doing here is talking to your unconscious mind using its own language, the language it presented in your dream.

You’re telling your unconscious mind to transform ‘late’ to ‘early’ and to transform ‘miss the job opportunity (miss the plane)’ to ‘catch the job opportunity (catch the plane)’ by transforming doubt into confidence. Repeating the dream alchemy visualisation helps to reprogram your unconscious mind, undoing limiting beliefs that cause you to doubt your abilities, and building new confident beliefs in their place. As a result, those unconscious undermining tactics dissolve, and you start to submit better resumes, or you naturally display more confident body language in interviews, or you simply find yourself in the right place at the right time to get that much desired job.

Now let’s take that same scenario – where you keep missing out on job opportunities – but instead of interpreting a dream and doing a dream alchemy visualisation, you do a more standard type of visualisation.

You might picture the job you really want and visualise yourself getting that job.

Now, if you have no unconscious blocks to getting that job, this type of visualisation will probably help you to manifest it. But if you do have an unconscious block, the more you do your visualisation, the more your unconscious mind will protest. The more you do your visualisation, the more you trigger your unconscious blocks to powerfully undermine your efforts to get that job.

Where there’s unconscious resistance to the outcome you want to manifest, all the ‘normal’ visualisation in the world isn’t going to help.

It will, instead, strengthen your unconscious resistance.

Now, back to Liziwe’s question. Do I do visualisation/manifestations as a way to create my future self or life?

I used to frequently do visualisations until I discovered how they can bring about the opposite result if there is an unconscious objection. My approach now is more dream-centred. I watch my dreams, notice where there are unconscious blocks to the things I would like to manifest, and then create specific dream alchemy to reprogram these. I usually create dream alchemy visualisations, but I sometimes use other modalities such as affirmations, artwork, writing, and body work, sticking to the same principles of transforming dream symbols and dream emotions. While it takes a little work to interpret my dreams and design the dream alchemy, the powerful results are worth the effort!

I do have goals. I plan and look ahead. I visualise the results I anticipate or what I would like to happen. For example, if I’m looking for a new home, I’ll write a list of all the features I want it to have. It’s a practical approach: I can check that a potential home has everything I want, rather than getting carried away with loving one or two features and overlooking what it’s missing. Because I don’t have any unconscious blocks to getting the home I want, it will generally manifest, with all the features and a few extra bonuses. But if I had unconscious blocks, I would expect a dream to come up shortly after writing my list, a dream that would reveal my unconscious mind’s response to my visualisation. I’d then create a dream alchemy practise to smooth my way.

I believe we’re all extremely powerful at manifestation. We either manifest our conscious desires, or we manifest our unconscious blocks to our conscious desires. Of the two minds – the conscious and the unconscious – the unconscious has the more powerful edge. And where can you go to discover the makeup of your unconscious mind? Your dreams, of course!

So, Liziwe, yes, I do visualisations to manifest what I’d like to happen, and then I watch my dreams. Where there’s unconscious resistance, I change the visualisation to a carefully created dream alchemy visualisation designed to transform unconscious blocks into beliefs that support my desired outcome.

I’d like to stress, though, that my general approach to my future is to look ahead, make plans, then attend to the present, watching my dreams for feedback. I’m very much a step-by-step person, dedicated to taking action in the present. It’s what we do (and feel) today that determines our future. Inside knowledge of my unconscious blocks, combined with the powerful magic of dream alchemy, helps me to take the best steps.

Even so, I prefer to keep an open mind regarding goals. Narrow focus on a goal can blind you to better – or more healing – alternatives. There again, thankfully, dreams provide a running commentary on those alternatives, helping us to see our blind spots and open to new perspectives on how to live our glorious lives.

The post Visualisation versus dream alchemy appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Shannan from California is my guest with a trio of recurring dreams about holding someone’s baby and feeling such a strong emotional bond that she doesn’t want to let go.

Who is the real mother, and why does Shannan feel so deeply attached to the baby?

In the first dream, which Shannan had three months ago, the baby is a cat, while in the second two dreams, which she had earlier this month, the baby was a newborn girl.

Why the dream symbol shift from cat to baby, and how does interpreting this recurring dream help Shannan to move forward in her life?

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 225 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Shannon dreamed of a kitten and a baby appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Have you ever had a dream where you discover a previously hidden room, one that fills you with a sense of wonder and awe? What does it mean?

It’s a common dream theme, so, chances are, you’ve either had this dream before, or you will in the future, but one thing is for certain: no matter how many millions or billions of people have dreamed of a wondrous hidden room, each version of the dream is as unique as each dreamer.

What kind of door did you find, or was the room hidden behind vines, or accessed through a secret cave, or did it reveal itself when an interior wall tumbled down? What exactly did you find in the room: how was it furnished, was there any natural light, was there anything in there from your past, did it seem futuristic, was anyone else in there? What happened next, what dramas unfolded, what thoughts went through your mind, what emotions touched your heart, what did you imagine you might do with such a room?

The variations are endless, and each of these details helps to specifically pinpoint what the dream means for each individual dreamer.

In general, though, such a dream comes up when you are beginning to discover your own, previously hidden, wondrous potential. The dream is an invitation to bring more of your magnificence into the world.

Common dream themes reflect common life themes that we all experience from time to time, simply because we’re human. They reflect the kinds of conflicts, dilemmas, and challenges that so many of us face at some point in our lives, including, in this case, the challenge of overcoming our limiting beliefs, our thinking small, our loving small, our tendency to lock off our greater potential.

As we approach a new year, no, a new decade, how might you bring more of your magnificence into a world that sorely needs what you have to offer?

Your dreams can help you to identify your magnificence, and why you have kept it hidden, even from yourself. Your dreams can help you to discover what holds you back, and why, and dream alchemy can help you to naturally release the binds that have kept you from living your best life.

In my younger years I often dreamed of discovering extra rooms. Sometimes they were wonderful, and I couldn’t believe that all I had to do was open a door to find them. I couldn’t believe that these amazing rooms had been there, all along, while I crammed my life into such a small living space.

In other dreams, I discovered extra rooms that were dark and scary. I courageously opened doors in these dreams, sometimes stepping inside, heart pounding, sometimes stepping aside, frozen.

There were rooms where people had died, rooms filled with cobwebs, rooms filled with old furniture I didn’t like, rooms filled with stuff, stuff that took up too much space, stuff that needed to be cleared out to make the rooms useable. Each of these rooms spoke, symbolically, of how I felt about my potential magnificence, or what obstacles and fears I needed to face and deal with to free up the space for better purpose. There was grief I needed to process, binds I needed to dissolve, vitality I needed to restore, old ideas and expectations I needed to clear, stuff, so much stuff, that I had been hanging onto, stuff that was in my way.

In my book, The Dream Handbook (an updated version of Dream Alchemy), includes a chapter called, ‘Wow! Extra Rooms!’ designed to help you interpret your unique version of the wondrous extra rooms dream. It begins on page 198. (The Dream Handbook is published by Hachette in Australia, and by Little Brown, Piatkus, in the UK.)

The Dream Handbook features 41 common dream themes, ‘Wow! Extra Rooms!’ being one of these. Each chapter follows a similar process, exploring common variations of the dream, how you might feel in your dream, ideas for the meaning of your dream based on how it ends, what kinds of things might be blocking you from moving forward, how to move forward, what this dream may be about in your life (examples of scenarios and situations), some of the personal clues to look out for in your dream, ideas about why this dream has come up for you now, a selection of three different dream alchemy practices suitable for this type of dream, and signs to look for, in your dreams and in your waking life, that show the dream alchemy is working.

Yes, if it’s not already on your bookshelf, in paperback or digital format, it should be! And if it is on your bookshelf, turn to page 198 for more help on understanding your dreams of extra rooms that fill you with such a sense of wonder!

The post The hidden room in your dreams appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Nicole, from Melbourne, Australia, is my guest with a dream about being robbed and mugged by a masked man, who held her at gun point before shooting her through her third eye.

As soon as the bullet penetrated her brain, and she realised she was dying, her mind expanded into a gold mandala. It seemed, to Nicole in her dream, as if something extraordinary and ever expansive was beginning. She was petrified, but also at peace.

Listen as we explore the details of her dream, match it to what was going on in her life at the time, and uncover insights that Nicole can act upon, insights that would have remained deeply buried if we had not interpreted the dream.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 224 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Nicole dreamed she was shot through her third eye appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Are you ready for another little synchronicity story? I like to play with synchronicities as if they’re dreams, letting them unfold and tell their own tales:

A couple of weeks ago I received a renewal notice for my driver’s licence, and decided to renew it for the maximum, another five years. It’s one of those things that can’t be done online, so I made a note to go and get it sorted while I had a bit of time up my sleeve. The original expires on my birthday, which is a few days before Christmas, so leaving it until the busyness of the silly season seemed, well, silly. Why not get it done now?

The next morning, I discovered that my watch, a birthday gift five years ago, had stopped at 22.14pm while I was asleep. What had I said about having time up my sleeve? I’d need to take the watch in to a jeweller to renew the battery. It felt weird not having a watch up my sleeve, and weirder still consulting my bare arm far too often in search of the time. Do I really look at my watch that many times a day?

I’m saying yes to another five years of driving and yes to another five years of tick tock time.

So, what happened five years ago, and why is it time to renew and reenergise it now?

The first thing that sprung to mind was that I decided to write a new book five years ago. I announced it just after Christmas and added that I was going to take a different approach this time. All my other books have been written to tight delivery dates (I don’t like the word ‘deadline’), but this time I wanted to take it slow, let it develop, let it write itself, no hurry, no delivery date. And that’s exactly what happened. Along the way I showed various drafts of the developing book to people, followed suggestions and advice, looked for an overseas agent, failed to find the right match, let the book sit to one side for a long time while other things took precedence, then, finally, brushed it up and got a top editor to add her magic and also ‘translate’ it from British English into American English. She began this work in early November, renewing and energising the book for publication at the same time that I was renewing and reenergising my erstwhile exhausted watch batteries and permission to drive.

Perhaps that’s it, one reading of the synchronicity: renewing on all levels, and particularly energising for bringing out a new book, which requires time and drive amongst other things.

Let’s look at that 22.14pm again.

My birthday is on 22nd (of December), and five years ago, when I received the watch, the year was 2014. If you look super closely, you’ll see the date on my watch is 20. The date is never right because it’s far too fiddly for me to adjust, so I don’t. You could read that as 2014, or you might think that’s going a bit far. But the new year coming up is 2020, and it’s definitely time to energise for 2020 and the years that follow.

It was only after I took the photo that I realised that part of my face is reflected in the watch face.

Honouring the synchronicity, I’ve been reflecting on the themes and symbolism, and watching … yes, you got it, watching … to see what happens next.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I passed my driving test, but it was sometime in my very early 20s. I might even have been 20. What I do remember – apart from the elation of passing the test first time, which was rare in the mid-1970s, and a feeling that they had made a mistake because I really didn’t feel ready to be let loose on the streets driving a car – was that I received a driving licence for life. It was a British licence, and that’s how it worked back then. ‘Life’, I discovered, looking at my licence, ended on 22 December 2024. After that, my driving skills would need to be reassessed. I kept staring at that date, 2024, unable to comprehend a time so far in the future, let alone next century, let alone imagine how old I would be by then and what would be happening. Now that I’ve renewed my Australian licence for another five years, I have caught up with that magical date. My new licence expires on 22 December 2024. I look forward to renewing it many times in the future.

I have to share a story about the hour before I passed my driving test all those years ago. I had booked an hour with my driving instructor to warm up on the drive in for the test.  I met him, in Glasgow’s city centre, on a steep street where the car was parked. I kept repeating to myself, ‘mirror, signal, mirror’, keen to get this right. “Off we go then,” said my driving instructor. I checked my mirror, signalled, pulled out into the traffic, and checked my mirror again. I drove downhill to stop at the red traffic light at the bottom of the hill. I was feeling shaky and nervous but pleased with my progress so far. “It might help,” offered my instructor, “if you turn on the ignition.” Those were the days when you always needed to turn the key to get the car started. These days, with a proximity key, this wouldn’t have happened, but back then it was only the steep downhill slope of the road that gave the car momentum. I was driving without the engine on. Was it all going to be downhill for me from now on, I thought, heading for a failed test result? Luckily for me, my instructor didn’t share my huge mistake with the examiner who took me for my driving test. Was I really ready to drive safely? I’m not so sure! I can look back on my life and see so many charmed events like this one, and, over time, my driving skills naturally improved. As did my writing skills.

I like to treat a synchronicity as a dream, to explore its themes and symbols and see where it leads.

When exploring a dream, it’s important to give space to whatever memories come up, to watch their stories unfold with wise hindsight eyes.

When a number comes up in a dream, one approach is to look back that number of years. So, if 20 comes up, for example, you look back 20 years, or to when you were 20.

When I was 20, I graduated from university. I was excited about the great unknown that lay ahead. Everything in my life felt uncertain. I can look back now and see a path from where I was then to where I am and what I do now, but back then I couldn’t see that path. In the end I had to trust that uncertainty and pull out into the flow of life’s traffic in the best way I could, whether or not I was doing it right, whether or not I had control of my journey or was merely freewheeling downhill.

Looking back 20 years takes me to the weeks leading up to the new millennium, and our global fears and concerns about Y2K. Would our computer systems, our businesses, life as we knew it, continue smoothly or be thrown into massive cataclysmic disruption? Well, it was all smooth and easy, wasn’t it, in retrospect, but uncertainty was certainly the vibe at the time.

We can renew and re-energise our intentions for another five years – and then another and another – but intention requires faith, faith in the ultimate blessings of uncertainty as long as you keep your eyes and your heart wide open.

As it turned out, my watch was ready to pick up on a Monday, and I arrived at the jewellers around lunchtime. I had to wait for five minutes or more while the assistant attended to another customer. By the time he handed me my nicely re-energised ticking watch I noticed that it was exactly 1pm. The date was 11.11, and it was 1 pm. Isn’t there a nice new beginnings kind of ring there with all those ones? And I’ve got time up my sleeve again, time to devote to what’s coming next.

The post Synchronicity Time appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Tania, from the south coast of England, brings a short dream that has been baffling her, a dream about a manky cat.

For those of you who are wondering what ‘manky’ means, it’s British slang for dirty, or dirty and old. It’s a word that’s long been in my go-to vocabulary, but I suspect those of you who are not familiar with British English may be, well, as baffled by that word as Tania was about her dream.

Tania has just completed the first of my Dream Academy courses, How to interpret your dreams step-by-step, and has been drawing on the techniques to interpret her dreams and help friends with theirs, but the manky cat dream still mystified her. She had most of it worked out, but felt she was missing something.

We find it and then relate the dream to her life and all becomes clear.

She also mentioned a dream from long ago, in which her father died when he fell into an abyss. When he died a couple of months later, she noticed parallels between the dream and his death that felt comforting. She coveted the dream, feeling it was a premonition, a connection with her father and what he was going through. Now she asks, in the light of her studies with me, was it a premonition, or was it symbolic?

Listen in as we explore both dreams, and Tania engagingly brings her life stories, as they relate to the dreams, into the picture.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 223 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Tania dreamed of a manky cat and an abyss appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Are there weeks where you remember many dreams, and others where they seem to fade altogether? Have you ever had a dream drought, and what can you do to bring back the flow?

Do dreams naturally ebb and flow over days, weeks, months, or even years, or is it our ability to recall our dreams that fluctuates?

If you’ve been following my work, you’ll know that we all dream, although some conditions such as sleep apnoea, or taking certain medications, or drinking heavily, can reduce dreaming quantity and quality.

For most people, the question is not why dreams ebb, but why our dream recall fades at times.

Scary, emotional, or vivid dreams tend to wake us up, or linger around the edges of the morning light, making them easier to recall. In contrast, we tend to stay asleep after more mundane dreams, or dismiss them too quickly as boring and unhelpful when we finally awake. The moment we start dismissing dreams is the moment we turn down our dream recall dial, the moment we begin to train ourselves to not remember our dreams, to let them fade. It’s an easy trap to fall into.

But don’t be fooled by their humdrum cloaks!

Those mundane or boring dreams can provide deeply insightful material. Encourage them into the light of day and let them speak. They often bring us insight about our routines and habits, what keeps us stuck, or what keeps us from stepping into our greater potential.

Other mundane dreams may reflect periods of time when we feel settled in a good way, not stuck-settled, not settling for second-best, but happily settled with recent issues resolved, feeling good, wanting life to stay like this. With less challenges for our dreaming brains and minds to process, there’s less material to spin into exciting dreams. For a while, anyway! Life soon brings new challenges to the most settled of us: perhaps we decide to venture out, physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, from our lovely stable settled base, and the moment we do, our dreaming brains and minds get to work processing our new experiences and whipping up more rousing dreams.

The dramatic quality of our dreams may ebb and flow with the challenges we meet in daily life, and our dream recall may fluctuate in the same way unless we make an effort to recall all our dreams, whether they’re high drama, humdrum, or somewhere in-between.

The risk in letting our more mundane dreams slip away, is that our overall dream recall begins to slide.

Honour every dream, no matter the content. The more you honour each and every dream, the more your recall will increase in both quantity and quality.

But how do you honour every dream, especially if you feel time poor? How can you honour every dream when you get to the stage of recalling four or five or more detailed dreams most nights?

While you may still be able to find time to write every dream in your dream journal, an alternative is to find other ways of honouring dreams, ways that still encourage recall. You might like to draw a single symbol from each dream into your dream journal, knowing that each single symbol is a key to help you recall the whole dream. Or you might like to dedicate quiet time to going over your dreams in your mind’s eye while you’re having your shower, having breakfast, or travelling to work. As you become more adept at interpreting your dreams and working with dream alchemy, you’ll discover that you can do this during those dedicated quiet times too. You might then like to record your key insights in your dream journal, or simply choose one dream per week, post-quiet-time-processing, to write out, treasure, and reflect upon in the future.

Here’s a refresher in how to remember more dreams and more dream details, and here’s one on how to record your dreams.

The post When dreams ebb and flow appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Teisha, my guest from South Carolina, went to sleep asking for a dream to clarify her destiny.

She dreamed of a father and son who created a board game and cards, and a merchant who generously paid more than the asking price, adding that the extra money was to improve the quality of the game. He showed them a book, their names were already written on the page. Was the dream addressing Teisha’s question of destiny?

The dream was set in a church. There was a hymn to sing, though Teisha couldn’t remember the words, and a fear to face at the end of the service, once everyone had left.

Listen in to hear the whole dream, what it means, how it relates to Teisha’s life, and how it helps her to make decisions around her destiny. She has plenty of ‘aha’ moments as symbols from the dream resonate with previous dreams, and everything begins to fall into place.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 222 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Teisha dreamed about destiny appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I live quite lightly, but I do have some archive boxes where I keep special mementoes, and some things that I have treasured for so long that I can’t throw out. One of these ‘can’t throw out’ items is the first edition of a magazine that I made for my school in February 1966.

It was only ever a single copy, because it was handwritten, glued, and stapled, but it was shared around the classes and, at the principal’s request, I went on to produce similarly handcrafted issues every month for that year. I engaged the help of the other students, asking them to contribute articles, puzzles, jokes, and drawings. I was eleven-years-old, and my magazine would look an extremely poor production to any five-year-old child today, let alone a 21st century eleven-year-old.

The magazine started as a soft punishment, though I only realise this looking back.

The teacher caught me writing a story on my lap instead of paying attention to the lesson that I had found slow and boring. She suggested I write a magazine so everyone could benefit, so I did, in my own time at home. The flip side of her soft punishment was her gentle encouragement, pushing me to reach further.

I mention this now because of the recent Moon landing celebrations.

When it came to finding a cover for my first issue, I chose one of the first photos taken from the lunar surface after the landing of the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 spacecraft. The Luna 9 was the first successful unmanned landing on the moon, and the photos it beamed back were the first ever taken from the moon’s surface. I cut out the picture on the front page of the newspaper and glued it to my magazine. And there it is still, rather tattered and torn and edged with sellotape browning and brittle with age, recently returned to the archive box after my granddaughter asked to see it when I told her the story.

Looking back, my interest in both dreams and writing were with me from a young age, as were the people – like that teacher and principal, and many more before and since – who took a moment in time to generously encourage me reach for the moon.  I am very grateful to you all.

The post Reaching for the moon appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Cynthia from St Louis, Missouri, is my guest asking about the meaning of her intense and upsetting dream, and looking for insight into her life.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” she implores, in the dream, when it turns out that everyone else knew her husband was leaving her. She feels betrayed, angry, hurt. If she had known, she could have been better prepared. She hopes he hasn’t taken her desk.

In waking life, her husband has no plans to leave.

In the dream, she finds herself on foot in the middle of traffic on a busy street near where she grew up. Cars are stopping all around her. She’s wearing two pairs of the same shoes. A passing wizard tells her to let him go.

Cynthia gets progressively lost, and discovers, to her horror, that she’s left her daughter sleeping at home and she can’t find her way back. It’s a nightmare!

Listen as we discover light in the darkness, and a path from lost to found. Cynthia shares her story, how it all fits, and explores her next steps.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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The post Ep 221 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Cynthia dreamed her husband left her appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“My wife and I both dreamed that our house was violently broken into. Why did we have the same dream, on the same night, at the same time?”

I was on a Breakfast radio show in Perth, Western Australia, and the question came from Pete, one of the presenters. Since our discussion was live, I can share the story with you here.

Many people might wake up from this dream and check the house for signs of a break in, or double-check their security and locks, worried that the dream foretells a future home invasion. When a partner mentions having the same dream, it’s natural for concern to escalate. It also adds a touch of spookiness: what causes two closely related people to have the same dream on the same night?

Pete’s house hadn’t been broken into.

“If you had asked me about the dream but not told me about your wife having the same one,” I began, “I would have said it sounded like you were feeling that your personal space was being violently invaded, that you weren’t getting the privacy you needed, that your personal boundaries were being trespassed. Sometimes this kind of dream can also come up when your body has been invaded by a virus or bacteria, and you’re about to get sick.”

This was radio, so there was no time to get the full details of the dream and spend time exploring it. But it was a start.

I went on to say that one reason why Pete and his wife might have had the same dream might have been that a loud noise – such as, especially in Australia, a possum scrabbling over the roof, or a tree branch breaking, or an unexpected wind rattling the windows – found its way into whatever they each were dreaming. External sounds as well as smells and sudden temperature changes can find their way into our dream story lines from time to time. Since dreams are processing our conscious and unconscious experiences, these external stimuli, if sufficiently intense to register on our senses while we are dreaming, will be subject to the same processing. So a possum scrabbling over the roof might translate, in dream terms, to someone scrabbling inside the house.

I don’t know how similar Pete’s dream was to his wife’s. They both dreamed of a violent break in at their home, but there wasn’t time to ask for other details. It’s most likely that they shared a similar theme – a violent home invasion – but with differences in the details.

“The other explanation for your shared dream,” I continued, “is that you were both feeling that your personal space was being invaded, that your personal boundaries were being compromised. You’re partners, living in the same house, sharing similar experiences, and probably talking about them. It wouldn’t be surprising to both go to sleep and process those similar experiences in similar dreams.”

This isn’t an exact transcript from the show, but this is more or less how it went.

This turned out to be the case. Pete shared with his listeners how their three-year-old isn’t sleeping well at night, and how much this is disrupting their sleep and their lives. They had been talking about this before bed, wondering what to do, both exhausted and feeling that they had very little personal space and ‘us-time’.

Our radio chat of only a few minutes established both the basic meaning of the dream – what it reflected about Pete’s life at the moment – and the reason why he and his wife had the same kind of dream. It also demonstrated how succinctly our dreams process our experiences.

As I mentioned to Pete on air, every parent will be able to relate and commiserate with his situation, but here’s something he might like to try:

This is a dream alchemy approach to finding a solution to Pete’s predicament. I suggested Pete (and his wife) each reimagine their dreams while they are awake, only this time they each imagine standing firm in their house with an unshakeable confidence in their security. In their imagining they must summon up a feeling of enjoying their space, of being safe and secure, free to peacefully breathe easy. Their unconscious minds had chosen the symbols of their house and a break in to symbolise their feelings.

By reimagining the dream, they communicate with their unconscious minds using the same language, a language expressed as their house and whether or not there is a break in. What this does is trigger their unconscious minds to come up with solutions. It does this by reprogramming their beliefs about being powerless to restore some personal space into their lives.

I don’t know what solutions they’ll come up with, but I can imagine some possibilities, as I’m sure you can too, even if it’s as simple as getting a babysitter from time to time.

Before looking for spookier explanations for your shared dreams, think about which waking life experiences you both shared, and explore how your slightly differently detailed dreams might reflect your slightly different perspectives on the situation.

There are certainly cases where spookier explanations may account for shared dreams, but there’s more value in taking the more rational approach. The resulting insight, especially if you look more deeply into the dream, is potentially life-changing.

The post Dreaming the same dream appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Jann from Western Australia is my guest asking about a scary dream she had thirty years ago.

Jann has been recording her dreams since 1983, so you’ll hear her reading her account of the dream as she wrote it down way back then.

The tension mounts as the tale is told, a dark fairy tale of a dream. There’s a small tin hut in a clearing in a forest, a scary man with a wolf-like dog that smells like death, and lots of moonlight. I won’t spoil the story!

Even after all this time, as you’ll hear, Jann remembers what was going on back then in her life, and responds to how the interpretation fits. “It’s as if you were sitting on my shoulders,” she says.

Listen in as we explore and interpret Jann’s dream. Along the way we discuss some key points about dream interpretation that will help you to understand your own dreams.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

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You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
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The post Ep 220 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Jann dreamed of a scary man and a wolf dog appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

I was admiring photos of broken pieces of antique pottery, hand blown glass, a clay pipe, and an inkwell, all mudlarking treasures foraged from English river mud by Carys, a friend on Instagram, and it took me back to childhood expeditions to the gardening allotments near my grandmother’s house in Portsmouth, England.

Portsmouth was heavily bombed during World War Two, with some 6,ooo houses destroyed and a greater number severely damaged. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents lived within the bombed areas, and my parents described emerging from the bomb shelters on many occasions to find nearby houses reduced to rubble. Over the next few years, prefab houses were built as temporary measures to house the homeless, and a huge council estate was built just outside Portsmouth to help accommodate the overflow. In the mid-1950s, when I was two years old, we moved to the council estate – one of Europe’s largest wholly social housing council estates – where we lived until I was nine. We rarely left the estate, as we didn’t have a car, but sometimes we would take the bus or train back into Portsmouth to visit our relatives.

I don’t really know the history of the garden allotments near my maternal grandmother’s house, but we believed they were situated on bombsites because it didn’t take much digging to find buried treasure of the kind Carys shared on Instagram.

We brought home so many bits and pieces, imagining what they had looked like whole, who had owned them, and what kinds of lives those people had lived.

Today, my Instagram mudlarking and foraging friends repurpose some of their finds as oracles, throwing them with bones, stones, and other treasures offered up by Mother Earth, interpreting the way they fall, reading into the stories their juxtapositions offer.

There’s a magic to bringing broken shards from older generations into the light of day, and letting them tell their tale, whether that tale is historically accurate, intuitively read, creatively imagined, or repurposed as healing balm.

In a grander leap of faith, we might feel we help to heal trauma from previous generations and shift our karma, individual and global, when we set out to explore buried elements of the past and use these to find ways to move forward with new purpose. When I put this notion to Carys, she said it was very apt for one of the pieces of crockery she had shared in her post, a late 1880s children’s plate from the series ‘Children at work’ made by Edge, Malkin & co.

And even if these shards we dig up and treasure were simply items thrown out as rubbish, no longer needed, perhaps they still have stories to tell, wisdom to share about letting go, or evolving.

Naturally you’re waiting for the dream analogy.

While we sleep, our dreaming mind and dreaming brain process our conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 1-2 days, comparing them to all our past experiences and building possible models for how to approach our future. This processing includes retaining some memories and information, discarding others (perhaps as broken pieces), healing, transforming, and building new perspectives.

Over the years our dreams might reference shards, shattered memories, fragments of discarded truths and wisdoms, and those dreams might spin some healing magic by drawing on what was broken or lost and putting it together in new and healing ways.

More often, though, it is we who must do that work, foraging for treasure amongst the bits and pieces from the past that show up in our dreams and applying our dream interpretation tools and techniques to put it all together to find new insight, learning, and, where needed, healing.

Take the metaphor of mudlarking, dig deep into the layers of your unconscious, and explore what your river of dreams washes up on the morning shore.

How might you piece – or peace – together broken elements of the past? Might you restore what has been broken to its original wholeness, or create a fresh or healed perspective in the same way that an artist creates a mosaic from broken shards, or a tapestry from wispy threads?

PS: A synchronicity

On Sunday, three days after posting this, I was coming to the last few pages of a book I was enjoying reading, and came upon this. (The book was not about mudlarking. This piece was totally unexpected.)

“We pause at the foot of Marygate and watch a train crossing Scarborough Bridge. The water level in the Ouse is very low for this time of year, exposing the different strata of earth and mud which line it. Everyone has left something here – the unnamed tribes, the Celts, the Romans, the Vikings, the Saxons, the Normans and all those who came after, they have all left their lost property – the buttons and fans, the rings and torques, the bullae and fibulae. The riverbank winks momentarily with a thousand, zillion, million pins. A trick of the light. The past is a cupboard full of light and all you have to do is find the key that opens the door.”

– Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson

The post Foraging for treasure appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Joshua from New Jersey is my guest asking about his dream of a serrated kitchen knife that, he fears, may be used to stab him.

There’s a whiff of threat and conspiracy in the air, and although Joshua is offered help, he declines, until he finally yells, “Call 411, call 411!” No-one responds, because 411 is the number to call for information on a business. He had meant to yell the emergency services number, “Call 911!”

Usually our guests retain anonymity, but when Joshua volunteered as a guest on the show he asked to share his details. He’s the author (under the pseudonym Emilio S Cot) of a new book on dreams, My Dreams and Me,  published in March this year by academic press MindMend Publishing. Here’s Joshua’s website.

Listen in as we explore Joshua’s dream to discover the true nature of the knife, the threat, and the conspiracy.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 219 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Joshua dreamed of a scary knife appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Once upon a dream, standing at an open casement window, resting my elbows on the sill, I noticed a silvery shining in the flowerbed below.

My heart leapt, for there it was, something very precious to me, a gleaming silver statue of a goat, studded in turquoise gems, half-hidden in the foliage like a discarded child’s toy. I reached through the window and nestled it into my arms. It fitted perfectly, being about as long as my forearm and a little taller than its length.

It wasn’t heavy, despite its silver sovereignty: solid silver yet light as a feather. Untarnished. Indeed, someone must have polished it very recently, so how did it end up fallen by the wayside? And why did it feel so familiar and precious to me?

When I awoke from this dream last week, the silver turquoise goat stayed with me, floating within my mind’s eye during the day, shining a lovely energy through to my heart.

So what did it mean?

Leaning into the feeling of deep connection with the silver turquoise goat, my first awareness was that I often say to people that I was blessed to be born on the cusp at the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice, my birth sign straddling between Sagittarius and Capricorn. Now, I’m no astrologer, but I did take on board from a young age that according to astrology, I was half horse (centaur) and half goat. Throughout my life I have observed these two energies interplay, the blessing, as I sense it, being that I get very visionary and set huge far out goals (plucking my arrow, taking aim from horseback), then bring in mountain goat energy to plod, climb, plod, climb, all the way up the mountain to the chosen goal. Yes, my understanding of astrology is probably totally skewed, but the point I’m making is that my perception of my approach to various endeavours, throughout my life, has been to reach for the stars and then set out on the foot journey, one foot after the other, just plodding away at it until it’s done.

In my wiser years, I’m not so sure that my horse-goat, visionary-plod, approach has always been the best, but I acknowledge that it has served me well.

So that was my first conclusion about my dream goat, and when I turned my attention to the turquoise gems that adorned it I remembered that I have always considered turquoise to be my birthstone. The two symbols, the goat and the turquoise, somewhat confirmed each other. My dreaming mind had come up with a good symbol to represent my Capricorn goat energy.

Why silver? I love both silver and gold, and white gold too.

The first thing that came to me when I asked myself why the goat was silver, was that it was valuable but not as valuable as gold. Gold is first place, silver second. As always with dream work, we discover our own truths and perceptions, not absolute truths. In my mind, conscious or unconscious, silver was second to gold, and my Capricorn goat energy, precious though it felt to me, was second to my Sagittarius horse-centaur energy. The dream suggested I valued my visionary aim for the stars energy over my plodding get-the-job-done goat energy. (Oh, and I should add that according to Chinese astrology I am a horse: all zeal and passion. I absolutely relate to that. You can see why I perhaps need that balancing mountain goat energy to get things done and finished!)

So far, just playing with the dream symbol, I had discovered that my ‘stick in there and get it done’ energy had been recently polished, and that perhaps I didn’t value this side of myself as highly as it deserved. According to my dream, this value had fallen by the wayside, a fact that hit home as I have written before about my habit of immediately forgetting all the hard work that goes into a project once it’s done. (Like childbirth, better to remember the labour as a lesser deal so you’re open to giving birth again. Nature’s protector.)

I have a twist in the story to deliver, but let’s pause here for a moment.

Last month, I wrote a blog, Dream Interpretation Chart, for my online-learning platform, The Dream Academy, in which I said that “Interpreting dreams is an immersive affair.  If you really want to understand and gain helpful insight from a dream, dabbling in the shallow waters around the edges of the dream isn’t going to take you there. Playing with one symbol from your dream isn’t going to take you there. Meditating upon the dream and emerging with an intuitive understanding isn’t going to take you the whole way there. All of these approaches are important, the dabbling, the teasing of symbols, the meditation, but they are insufficient alone.”

In that blog I went on to say that interpreting a dream deeply and accurately requires a series of systematic approaches, a step-by-step recipe that delivers results. Does this step-by-step remind you of my mountain goat?

I decided to tell you the story of my silver turquoise goat from last week’s dream to illustrate this point: look how much information and insight I derived from “playing with one symbol from a dream”. I learned about two key values, and the order in which I ranked them, and was able not only to acknowledge this but to re-evaluate their ranking, especially in the context of what I had been doing in the day or two prior to the dream. But I then needed to delve into all the other details of the dream, step-by-step, to gain the full and deep insight that the dream –and I – deserved.

It’s true that I value my visionary nature and somewhat pioneering spirit over my ability to put in the follow-through work that manifests the desired outcome. It’s true that I need to be kinder to myself and acknowledge the hard work. It’s also true that my zeal and passion for dream work extends to advocating a step-by-step approach to interpreting dreams, an approach that nestles wonderfully magical intuitive dream work within its embrace, just as I nestled the silver turquoise goat in my dream.

I was puzzled momentarily as to why I saw the silver turquoise goat as “discarded, like a child’s toy”.

I laughed when I remembered a toy from my childhood. I was born in a time when children had very few toys compared to today. One of my favourites was a furry lamb  – yes, a lamb, not a goat – on wheels with a pram handle. It was a baby walker designed to help a baby take their first steps by pushing it along. I don’t remember learning to walk, but watching my own children and grandchildren do this I know it’s a very tough adventure, one you take step by step, plodding along, until finally you have the confidence to run and jump and discard the baby walker along with all the memories of the tough task. Walking? Easy, peasy!

Layers upon layers, as many of you will know that I have spent the last few months rehabilitating from a fracture, and am only now back to the freedoms of totally fluid walking.

And if you’re still with me, here’s one more association to make you smile. Why was my dream goat a statue? Any ideas? (It wasn’t a fluffy toy like my long-ago baby walker: it was most definitely a statue.) Well, a statue’s job is to stand. You stand before you learn to walk. You stand in order to walk. But what stood out (ahem) to me, was that the statue felt like a totem, something of great value to stand (ahem again) the test of time and to inspire and re-inspire me to walk this path through this life.

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How many dream dictionaries have you got on your bookshelf?

It’s so very tempting to look up a dream symbol, or to look up several symbols from the dream you had last night and try to link them together, but how helpful is this approach really?

In this episode we look at why you might want to re-evaluate your collection of dream dictionaries, or, perhaps, toss them altogether.

Can looking up dream themes, rather than symbols be useful? For example, looking up themes of being lost, or being late, rather than symbols like a train station (you’ve lost your way to the station) or a doctor’s surgery (you’re late for an appointment)?

We look at how far an understanding of common dream themes can be helpful, and what you need to be able to do to build on such understanding to arrive at accurate insight into your dream and your life.

Finally, what if you – or the person who is helping you with your dream – gets the interpretation wrong? Is there such a thing as a right or wrong interpretation? By now, you’ll have many questions of your own. Curious? Go ahead, and listen.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 218 The Dream Show: Can a dream dictionary help you to interpret a dream? appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“Let’s go back to basics today,” suggested the producer of a television show I’m on from time to time, “and give people some tips about those dreams we all share: teeth falling out, being naked in a public place, falling, being pregnant, being chased.”

I thought I’d follow the same cue for today’s blog. Much as I enjoy getting into the nitty-gritty of more complex dreams in my day-to-day work as a dream analyst and dream therapist, it’s the common dream themes so many of us share that people want to know about when they first become interested in dreams.

In my book, The Dream Handbook, (published by Hachette in Australia and by Little Brown in the UK), I introduce over 40 common dream themes, and give questions and tools you can follow to discover the meaning of your unique variation of the dream and how it relates to your life. I also suggest dream alchemy practices (exercises) you can do for each type of common dream to help you resolve issues and move forward.

Why do we often share the same dream themes as millions of other people, now and throughout time?

Well, because we’re all human we tend to share similar challenging life experiences such as loss, grief, fear, self-doubt, betrayal, and emotional overwhelm, and these grand themes are frequently processed by our dreaming brains and dreaming minds in similar ways. So you and I and a million other people across time might dream about an oncoming tsunami when we are feeling overwhelmed, but the details of our individual dreams will differ. It’s those details, once interpreted, that throw light on the specific meaning of each individual’s dream within the grand theme of the matter.

Here’s a quick take on five common dream themes, followed by a video clip from the television show I mentioned.

Dream of teeth falling out

There are so many variations of ‘teeth falling out’ dreams, but in general people often have these kinds of dreams when they’re worried about communication. Maybe you feel you’ve said too much, and you can’t take those words back (just as you can’t take the teeth back in the dream), or maybe you FEAR saying the wrong thing, worrying that it will come out all wrong (like broken teeth in the dream). Maybe you’re worried about your image, not only how you look but, more importantly, how you come across, and the dream might picture this as you being worried about flashing your smile because you’ll reveal your not-so-solid confidence (like your not-so-solid teeth in the dream).

Dream of being naked in a public place

Again the details of each person’s unique dream points to the correct interpretation, but in general being naked in a dream may reflect your feelings or fears about people seeing the ‘real you’ in waking life: not your body, but your personality, your thoughts, your mind, your agenda. Deprived of hiding behind an image (like the clothes you have chosen), you risk baring your soul, or your true self. If you feel good about your nakedness in the dream, that’s great! Perhaps we should all feel comfortable with being our authentic self. If you don’t feel so good about your nakedness in the dream (the more usual scenario), the other details in your dream will help you to understand why you feel this way, and what you might want to do to change this.

Dream of being chased

If you’re being chased in the dream, presumably you’re running away, trying to escape. What are you running away from in waking life? Is it a fear, a worry, a deadline, something about yourself or your life that you don’t want to face but no matter how much you try to avoid it it’s always just there, on your tail? The other details in your dream can help you to discover what you’re running from, and why you’re not turning around to face it and deal with it. If you have this type of dream, you might like to do this dream alchemy: when you wake up, re-imagine the dream only this time turn around and face what is chasing you, transforming it from something negative or bad into something positive or good. Even imagine yourself hugging that chasing thing. This helps program your unconscious mind to face your concerns and find the positives. It can be very healing too, as that thing that is chasing you represents something in your life or within yourself that really needs your attention and acknowledgement.

Dream of being pregnant

Think symbolically. Often this kind of dream (which can happen for men as well as for women) reflects something you’re creating, gestating, and getting ready to launch into the world – like the pending birth in the dream. What are you thinking about birthing into the world? Your feelings about the dream pregnancy, along with the other details in your unique dream, help you to understand and explore any issues, worries, or limiting beliefs you have around this new step. It can be as simple as a growing desire to be different in the world, to change your attitude or approach to life, something you feel you’re preparing to do, or it can be more obvious, like a book or project or business idea you’re getting ready to launch.

Dream of falling, and why do we wake up before we hit the ground?

We don’t always wake up before we hit the ground, though we usually do. What wakes us up is usually the fear: when you feel fear in a dream, your brain and glands produce fear hormones which enter your bloodstream and produce real physiological fear in your body: racing heartbeat, maybe feeling frozen to the spot, goose bumps across your skin. If you manage to stay asleep and dreaming through the fall, typically you’ll either find you can fly (and miss hitting the ground), or you’ll bounce when you hit the ground and go on to do something else, or you’ll die and then step out of your dead body and continue with the dream as a new self (as if leaving the old self or an old way of being behind). Every falling dream has its own unique meaning depending on the details of the dream, but in general it can be about letting go (what are you clinging onto in life?), or fear of falling behind, or a feeling of not succeeding in your climb to some imagined goal. It can be about letting go of control, but it can also be about feeling unstable in some area of your life, mentally, emotionally, or physically.

Here’s the video clip of me talking about common dreams on one of Australia’s national morning shows, Today Extra:

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How many possible messages can you spot in a dream, and how do you know which is the right one?

You might wake from a dream and feel that its message was obvious, but is it right? How easy is it to misinterpret a dream, or to settle for the message that jumps out at you instead of delving deeper for one that offers you more appropriate clarity, wisdom, direction, and potential for powerful positive change?

Explore these questions with me, discover what it takes to unearth a dream’s message, and enjoy a side trip into two young children’s dreams, one about a tsunami of rubbish, and one about a scary lion. All designed to bring you closer to understanding your own dreams, naturally, as well as to inspire you and make you smile.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 217 The Dream Show: How to discover a dream’s message appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

You dream of a field of lavender in full bloom, swaying in the wind, beautiful yet overwhelmingly same-same, and perhaps a little too heady: what small change would make this dream more comfortable or inspiring?

There are probably myriad possible answers, but let’s take an obvious one. You could add oases of lush roses to the field of lavender, apricot and fig trees for dappled shade and thirst-quenching fruit, perhaps a crystal clear waterfall, a cascading invitation to splash and play and clear your head of an overload of lavender perfume.

Ok, so that wasn’t such a small change, unless you pare it down to ‘introduce variety’.

Take your turn. What small change would you suggest to make this imaginary dream scene more appealing? Or does the field of total lavender feel just right to you?

Without fully interpreting this dream scene, the dreamer might see the connection to a heady (stuffy) overwhelming same-same kind of feeling or situation in her waking life, particularly in the day or two before the dream. She might either be experiencing this same-same directly in her life, or she might relate to a fear of overwhelming same-same that drives her to madly seek a different-different whirlwind lifestyle, a lifestyle that is heady in a giddy kind of way, exhausting and ultimately unsustainable.

There, in a nutshell, is one of many ways to begin a dream interpretation: identifying the connection with waking life. It’s always exciting to make that first step and experience the ‘aha’ goose bumps confirming that you’re onto something, but the real rewards come as you apply the other steps and go deeply into the dream to uncover your mindset and understand why you’re really feeling this way about life and why you respond in the way that you do. This knowledge about your unconscious mind empowers the potential for change.

But let’s go back to that one small change you would make in this dream, or in a dream of your own.

For this to work really well, stay light-hearted. Don’t over-think the change. Stay with the dream scenario and playfully consider changes.

Only after you’ve decided on the change, or changes, translate them into possible actions you can take in the waking life situation you identified from the dream.

In the example I gave, which came down to ‘introduce variety’, how might you introduce variety into that situation that feels so same-same? Notice that my change wasn’t introducing massive variety that overwhelmed the senses, and it didn’t involve moving into a different field, or ripping up the lavender (though these might be changes you choose). It wasn’t about getting as far away from the lavender as possible in a frenzy of fearful escape. It was a subtle change that made a very big difference.

This isn’t dream alchemy, though it may look similar at first glance.

(There are specific guidelines you need to follow to create dream alchemy that leads to effective and meaningful change in waking life.)

Neither is this dream interpretation, apart from that first step in identifying the parallel waking life situation.

And it’s not about discovering a dream’s message. Dreams do not tell us what to do or offer specific guidance, but once we know how to interpret them they give us the insight about ourselves that we need to make our own good decisions.

Today’s exercise is about playfully shifting the dream picture then translating your changes into options.

Some options will be daft, some will be dangerous, some will be unethical, some will be eye-opening, some will be inspiring, some will feel courageous, some will feel just right, and some will awaken you to your brilliant next step, but what all these have in common is nudging you out of a perhaps limited mindset or perspective and preparing you for positive change. That change may be prompted by one of your options, or it may just flow naturally, a result of your shifted vision and the wonderful insights that pop up for us when we play.

The post Dream play appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

Patti from Seattle is my guest for our tenth anniversary show, asking about her dream of parachuting over the oceans to Italy to meet a widowed man who invites her to his bed.

What is the secret of Corsini Island, does Patti have enough battery power to fly home, and will she cover her betrayal by lying to her husband?

In this slightly extended episode, we begin with audio clips sent in by listeners to celebrate ten years of The Dream Show. You’ll hear Cynthia from St Louis, Missouri, USA; Caroline from SW England; Viv from Brisbane, Australia; Marjeta from Slovenia; Barbara from Sydney, Australia; Dana-Sofie from the Czech Republic; Kerry from the Sunshine Coast, Australia; and Domonique from Paris, France.

Huge gratitude to all our listeners over the last ten years, and to those of you who have courageously volunteered to be guests and opened to sharing your dream exploration to help others understand their dreams. Big thanks also to all of you have shared the show with dreamers all around the world.

None of this would have been possible without Michael, my husband, who has engineered the technical side of the recording and production since the very beginning, and – because of this  – probably claims the crown for having listened to the most episodes, in fact, every single episode in minute detail. Big love and deep appreciation to Michael.

And so we continue into the future, creating new episodes every four weeks. (You can learn more about The Dream Show here.)

Now, parachuting to Italy: what’s all that about?

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 216 The Dream Show: Live Dream Interpretation. Patti dreamed of a parachute trip appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

How much dreaming time do you lose by sleeping six hours instead of eight?

Go on, have a guess, or work it out based on everything you know about sleep and dreaming so far.

Since as long as I can remember, I’ve always needed lots of sleep, and generally fall asleep within minutes of closing my eyes for the night. It’s very rare for me to lay awake at night, and for this, I am deeply grateful. My mother would tell you that as a baby I cried most nights, sleeping very little, and robbing her of good sleep too. In the end she went with the advice of the times and left me alone to cry it out. While I didn’t take that approach with my own babies, and zombied through my fair share of night time soothing and exhausting sleep deprivation, I wonder if Mum’s approach set me up for learning to just get on with it, to fall asleep and stay asleep because no-one was going to come no matter how much I cried. I’m certainly not advocating a return to letting babies cry it out, and thankfully there are many excellent resources and programs available to help new parents today find loving and effective ways of soothing their babies while training them to sleep, but if my ability to sleep so solidly is an outcome I can pin to my early years, I am thankful for that.

How much sleep do you get most nights? Do you get by on six hours a night? Or less?

Did you work out that sleeping six hours instead of eight would mean losing 25% of dreaming time? While that might seem logical, it’s not true.

Given that dreaming is necessary for our physiological, emotional, and mental health, a loss of 25% dreaming time would be bad enough, but in fact you lose far more.

Most – but not all – of our dreams occur during the REM phases of sleep, and the last couple of hours of an eight-hour sleep are very rich in REM, so rich that if you only sleep six hours instead of eight, you lose 60-90% of your dreaming time.

Oh, and by the way, science has shown that eight hours is the natural amount of sleep people need. If you are sleeping less than eight hours, or if your sleep is fitful or broken by nightmares leaving you anxious about getting back to sleep, or if you’re simply awake for long periods or suffering insomnia, you are missing out on more than sleep. You are missing out on nature’s nightly quota of dreaming time, which means you are missing out on the health benefits of dreaming, whether or not you remember your dreams.

Missing out on the health benefits of full dreaming time is one thing, but if you’re getting less than eight hours sleep you’re also missing the opportunity to interpret and work with a full platter of dreams. During one night’s sleep, the dreaming mind and brain will often process the same experience or issue from several different angles, dream after dream, searching for perspective or a solution. In a shorter sleep, you may miss the most significant dreams, the ones that come with early morning light, those that potentially put a night’s worth of puzzling together.

So here’s your sleep-in challenge:

Maybe your life is so packed and busy that you feel stuck with getting by with less than eight hours sleep every night. Or maybe you’re parenting a baby and even a solid five-hour sleep sounds like heaven. Or maybe you’re saddled with insomnia, and getting any sleep over a few hours seems impossible. Or maybe you suffer from nightmare anxiety (which can be overcome by understanding your nightmares and doing dream alchemy exercises).

Or maybe none of these are true, and you know that you can, just for one week, go to bed early enough, or sleep in long enough, to clock up eight hours sleep for seven days in a row.

Or maybe that feels too big, but one night a week sounds doable.

Start where you can. Make yourself a promise.

Then, even if you normally write down your dreams, buy a new notebook or journal with the intention of recording your eight-hour sleep dreams. Or even just recording the last dream of each eight-hour sleep. Maybe decorate the cover with a big number 8. Place it beside your bed each night that you intend to sleep in to reach those eight hours. In the morning write down your dreams, or, if your dreams float away on the morning light, write down any fleeting memories or feelings from the night.

If you wake up after your usual six or seven hours, and feel ready to get up, don’t! Close your eyes and drift, or, if your bladder has pressing urgencies, get up, go to the loo, then climb back into bed. Suitably relieved, you are very likely to fall into another round of dreaming. Just close your eyes and surrender to the possibility of drifting into dream.

Take the sleep-in challenge and note the differences: do you feel more refreshed in the mornings? Do you feel calmer, more balanced, and with a greater sense of perspective? Are the dreams you gather from the extra sleep different in context or quality than dreams you have earlier in your sleep? If you know how to work with your dreams, do the insights you reap from your extra hours sleep-in dreams have extra value?

Though you may think that cutting one or two hours from your waking life is a loss, be prepared for a surprise. That extra sleep and dreaming time – well, not really extra sleep, sleep as nature intends it – can add more efficiency and magic to your days. Try it, and see.

The post The sleep-in challenge appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of The Dream Show, we look back at how it all began before sweeping into a theme of how past, present, and future intertwine in our dreams and in waking life.

You’ll meet a shaman and a boy-beast from my dreams, and discover how I worked out what they represented and what I could learn from their presence. We’ll explore why we sometimes dream of people and faces we’ve never met, and how to interpret the roles they play in our dreams.

I’ll also tell you the story of two strangers I met some 30 years ago, before I began working with dreams, and the strange and beautiful way in which our short conversation has reverberated throughout my life. It’s all about time. And it’s also about time for you to press the play button and join me, the shaman, and the boy-beast, and discover more insights into how to understand and work with your dreams.

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Connect with Jane Teresa:

Do Jane Teresa’s online course: How to interpret your dreams step-by-step

Follow Jane Teresa on Instagram

Consult Jane Teresa

You can also listen to The Dream Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT OUR VISION
About The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson

The post Ep 215 The Dream Show: The shaman, the beast, and the nature of time appeared first on Dream interpretation and dream analysis with Jane Teresa Anderson.

“You should do a podcast show about dreams,” said Belinda, a self-confessed geek friend, ten years ago.

I groaned. Podcasting was only vaguely on the periphery of my awareness, and the thought of getting my head around yet another kind of technology for my business felt overwhelming. I was already doing quite advanced html work developing my website – which had originally launched back in 1998 – and was preparing for the inevitability of adding Skype consultations to my repertoire. The ‘blogging’ word was being flung around, and I was successfully dodging that one at the time. I preferred the simplicity of organising my business around phone consultations, writing books, and talking about dreams in the media. All that was to change.

“Podcasting would really suit you because you’re confident on radio,” Belinda added.

I resisted. She persisted.

Then she sent me a list of people offering podcasting platforms, and highlighted one face, James Williams, because she thought his profile read well. I looked and noticed that one of James’ clients was a friend of mine, astrologer Jessica Adams. So I enquired, and, naturally, it all began from there.

My husband, Michael, learned the technical side of podcasting, assisted by James’ expertise, and off we went. The Dream Show was born in May 2009. Now here we are, about to celebrate ten years of podcasting. We’re going to dedicate episode 216, due out on 26 April, to our tenth anniversary.

Little did I know that starting The Dream Show was only the tip of the technology iceberg. By the end of 2009 I began blogging, and in 2017 launched my online learning platform, built by the very same James Williams.

One of the things that we value about The Dream Show is keeping it real and raw. We don’t edit, other than to add some music to the beginning and end. I enjoy knowing nothing about our guests or their dreams until we hit the record button, and then getting to know them and their lives through their dreams. It has been such an honour and a blessing to walk with our guests through their dreams and to share the experience with our listeners. When our guests explain how the dream interpretations relate to their lives, when they share their intimate stories, that’s where the magic happens, for me, for our listeners, and for our guests.

As well as our episodes featuring guests asking about their dreams, we do our ‘talkie’ episodes, where I share information about dreams in, I hope, an entertaining fashion. Our listeners asked for this addition to the format, and we responded.

For our 100^th episode we invited people to send in messages that we read out, or audio clips to include in the show to celebrate.

I’d love to invite your thoughts, messages, and audio clips for us to include in our tenth anniversary episode.

Please leave your comments here, or email me privately. If you’d like to send in an audio clip/mp3 (perhaps saying what you love about the show, or what was most memorable to you), please include your name and which city or country you’re from in the audio.

Thank you. Don’t be shy. Let’s make this a lovely celebration.

I was sorting through my files this week and found this little piece that I wrote as an introduction to one of our newsletters last year, when we were preparing to leave Brisbane for our interstate move to Hobart. It feels like it fits into this blog:

I don’t know whether you have this in your city or country, but in Australia each street has an annual kerbside collection. It’s a week where you put all your oversized garbage and things you’re not allowed to put into regular garbage or recycling out in front of your house for the council to come and collect and dispose of. People put out old furniture, mattresses, defunct electrical and white goods, and various odds and ends. It was our street’s week this week, which was brilliantly timed considering our imminent move. You don’t know how much stuff you’re hanging onto until you move house do you?

As I was writing this newsletter introduction, the council truck picked up our stuff – I have a nice street view from my office – and I felt a lovely lightening as the last pieces were lifted into the truck. The metaphor for dreams is obvious, of course: in dreamwork we discover what we’re hanging onto, what (beliefs and attitudes and so on) we can let go, what can lighten our life and our spirit.

The reality of our kerbside collection system is quite community oriented. We started with a huge pile, including some good usable stuff. People drive by, sort through, and pick out stuff to take home or to recycle in entrepreneurial ways. Everyone gains, and the resultant landfill is reduced. This morning, our last bits and pieces that the council truck picked up amounted to very little.

I’m looking for the analogy to dreams and dream work, and one thing that pops into my head is listening to guests exploring their dreams on The Dream Show. As listeners, we pick over the details of a guest’s dream, what’s ‘let go’ or released, finding treasure and value we can apply in our own lives.

What treasures and value have you found through listening to The Dream Show – or through being a guest on the show?

Do please share for our tenth anniversary. Send me an mp3 or a message. It doesn’t need to be long. A minute or so to share the joy will be perfect.

Thank you.

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