EP69: Counterparts & Dream Characters

Do you ever have dreams from another person's POV? Do you ever dream about random people from your past who you haven't seen in years? How do dream characters represent different parts of the self?

Today's guest is Chris Cunniffe who is interested in spirituality, dreams, near-death experiences, parallel lives, the mystical branches of various religions, channeled wisdom, lucid dreaming, dream yoga, and other spiritual topics. He is a dream and abundance coach from South Carolina. 

Chris' links
http://www.lucidcoaching.com/
https://www.meetup.com/charleston-law-of-attraction/

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:25
Unknown
I'm here with Chris, who I met at the last

00:00:02:25 - 00:00:06:17
Unknown
dream conference in Oregon, which was an amazing experience, by the way.

00:00:06:17 - 00:00:11:18
Unknown
we were chatting at the lunch table about your presentation, which we're going to get into today.

00:00:11:18 - 00:00:28:00
Unknown
I think it's a really great topic. Funny enough, I actually had a dream last night that we were doing this podcast, and I guess it was like a stress dream because everything was going wrong and I couldn't get the lights on. There was distractions and I couldn't get my internet to work. So thankfully we're here and we made it.

00:00:28:00 - 00:00:30:10
Unknown
thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

00:00:30:10 - 00:00:44:06
Unknown
I often have these dreams or synchronicities right before I'm doing a talk that, I don't know what it is, but it seems to attract them. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I guess when something is important to us, we don't want it to go wrong. And then our dreams are kind of like, oh, but what if you're late?

00:00:44:06 - 00:01:11:13
Unknown
Or what if you mess up, right? Thankfully, everything's good. so yeah, we're going to be talking today about counterparts and dream characters, which, you know, is very good topic because I get a lot of people talking about this and asking me about this. I notice a lot of times we'll have different perspectives of our dream. Sometimes we dream as ourselves, sometimes we dream as a different character completely or a different lifetime.

00:01:11:16 - 00:01:33:23
Unknown
And people always wonder, is this a past life or parallel life? and then we have, you know, all these questions about dream characters like, why do I dream of this random person I have never even talked to, or this random person from my high school that I don't talk to? And this happens a lot. and so I'm hoping to get some of these questions answered by your presentation today.

00:01:33:25 - 00:01:44:27
Unknown
Terrific. Well, if nothing else, I hope to, you know, maybe motivate people to pay a little bit more attention to their dreams and explore some of these dream characters in greater depth. because I do think they have a lot to tell us.

00:01:44:27 - 00:01:53:04
Unknown
All right. Well, great. Yeah. So I called this presentation Meeting Yourselves in your Dreams and Exploration of soulmates and Counterparts.

00:01:53:07 - 00:02:10:25
Unknown
And as you mentioned, I gave this talk at the International Association for the Study of Dreams. But I really enjoy talking about this topic, and I'm happy to share it with your audience as well. So let me jump in and talk a little bit about, you know, how I got interested in this topic and it really it it evolved from two odd experiences.

00:02:10:27 - 00:02:35:29
Unknown
One that you sort of described a little bit in the intro is that there is a diversity of me in my dreams. You might think, you expect to dream of yourself as you know yourself in physical life, but I've found that I'm only sometimes Chris Cunniffe, who is, you know, six foot two, who's, 52 years old, who's a Caucasian male living in the United States.

00:02:35:29 - 00:03:00:28
Unknown
That is who I am typically in my dreams. But I found upon study that I'm often someone else. So, for instance, I've had several dreams with mirrors, and one of them, I was walking down a hallway of a hotel, and I looked in the mirror and I saw a person with dark hair. And when I examined the mirror image more carefully, I saw that my face had Japanese features.

00:03:01:01 - 00:03:21:26
Unknown
And so the reaction is, well, who the heck is that guy? that's reflected back to me in my dream. I've had other mirror type dreams where I look in the mirror and I see someone looking back at me that's much younger than me. So there's a sort of like, odd feeling of why is this much younger person looking back at me in my dream, I've had dreams where I'm a woman.

00:03:21:28 - 00:03:49:22
Unknown
so a fun example of that is I had a dream once where there was something that looked like a meteorite coming down toward the planet, and I had the intuitive understanding that I was a woman, and that was my husband returning, hopefully in the meteorite, sort of like from the original Superman movie, when that's how Superman gets to the planet as a child, you know, and there's two other women there, and we're all very eager to see this meteorite arrived.

00:03:49:22 - 00:04:08:16
Unknown
It is arrived like a space capsule. It crashes into the ground, and then we run over to it. We open it up, and it's actually the husband of one of the other women, and she's all excited and I'm all disappointed. So I clearly in that dream, I'm a female and I'm expecting my husband. So I'm definitely not always a male in my dreams.

00:04:08:19 - 00:04:32:11
Unknown
Another interesting example is sexual orientation. Sometimes I am gay in my dreams. this is interesting. I had a dream once that what I would call like a multi-level dream or a dream within a dream. And in this dream, I am dating a guy and the guy bears some resemblance to Ryan Reynolds. Funny enough,

00:04:32:11 - 00:04:36:29
Unknown
I am realizing that this guy just isn't into me that much anymore.

00:04:37:02 - 00:05:06:29
Unknown
And I'm having sort of to deal with this situation of what do I do about this relationship? And at the same time, I'm having that dream. I'm aware that I'm also in a bedroom with my wife from this life. And this turns out to be another dream. I later realize, and I'm aware simultaneously of the two dreams going on, because I'm concerned that my conversation with the Ryan Reynolds guy that my wife might overhear the dream conversation and I don't want to wake her up right.

00:05:07:02 - 00:05:26:22
Unknown
So I eventually focus on the, the dream of the Ryan Reynolds guy. And I focus on the one where I'm in the bedroom with my wife, and she starts asking me very earnest questions about my relationship with this guy, and almost giving me advice about the relationship and how to act. And it's not like I just woke up from a dream and it's gone.

00:05:26:25 - 00:05:49:15
Unknown
She's speaking to me as if this is like an ongoing situation, and I need her advice, you know? And then I wake up from that dream, and then I'm back in this reality and back in what we commonly think of as physical reality. And so that that dream is sort of interesting on many levels. It shows sort of the multilevel or multidimensional nature of dreams and possibly also physical life.

00:05:49:17 - 00:05:55:29
Unknown
but also it shows highlights, again, the idea that I'm not always the heterosexual male that I am in this life.

00:05:55:29 - 00:06:00:26
Unknown
you know, another example would be looking at your profession. I used to be an attorney,

00:06:00:26 - 00:06:08:27
Unknown
I haven't been an attorney for 20 years, but I still have dreams where I'm an attorney. When I practiced law some of those years, I was in New York City.

00:06:09:00 - 00:06:25:26
Unknown
And so I still have dreams of that time living in New York is, if I'm still practicing law, in New York City is if that's something that's something somehow ongoing on some level. So so that's a big topic. You know, the diversity of myself in my dreams.

00:06:25:26 - 00:06:31:11
Unknown
often are you aware of your current personality as Chris, when you notice that you're this different

00:06:31:11 - 00:06:47:10
Unknown
fully immersed in these other personalities? I'd say most often I'm immersed. I would say there's probably been a handful of occasion where that's been a lucidity cue. So I've been able to trigger Lucid dream because of realizing that something is off here or this just doesn't seem right.

00:06:47:12 - 00:07:06:01
Unknown
But in most of my dreams, like this, I'm not aware. You know, I'm just sometimes I'm confused. You might say some of these become what some people call pretty lucid dreams. Whether you're on that that cusp of questioning things, you're wondering what's going on, but you don't quite trigger that full lucidity of realizing it's a dream.

00:07:06:01 - 00:07:25:13
Unknown
second odd experience is the idea of the unexpected recurring dream figure. And this is, the idea that we would normally expect to dream frequently about our close friends and our family members. Certainly, if you have a spouse or significant other, you would expect to dream about them quite often.

00:07:25:15 - 00:07:46:15
Unknown
Or, if you have a lot of regular interaction with a coworker or something like that at work that you might expect to dream about them. But what about the times when you dream about these figures that you do not have any ongoing really relationship with? and I'll add another layer to that, that I found some of these dreams with the unexpected recurring dream figure.

00:07:46:17 - 00:07:54:13
Unknown
They also have symbolism that is suggestive of intimacy or connection. And so I begin to take note of that,

00:07:54:13 - 00:08:07:27
Unknown
and I'll going to go ahead, just introduce one of my potential counterpart. I'm going to use a fake name just for privacy reasons. I'm going to call him Keith. And Keith is one of the reasons why I got going down this path.

00:08:07:29 - 00:08:24:15
Unknown
and I first started noticing this trend all the way back in 2012, which was at that point, I was probably a couple of years into my getting more serious about dream work, and I was a regular dream journal. And I noticed that over the course of a nine month period, I had seven different dreams about Keith.

00:08:24:18 - 00:08:42:25
Unknown
And Keith was a business acquaintance. He was someone who I don't really have a friendship with. I'd say we're friendly, but I don't really have a friendship with him. And yet he kept recurring over and over again in my dreams. And those are just, of course, in the dreams that I recorded in my journal. Potentially, there were other dreams that I didn't record that he was it.

00:08:42:27 - 00:08:57:27
Unknown
And so we're going to explore some of those dreams as we go on here. but you tell me, tell me, do you have any experience like this of yourself where you are unexpectedly dreaming of these people? Yes, definitely. And that leads me to wonder why.

00:08:57:27 - 00:09:03:24
Unknown
Right. Because if I have no strong connection with them in waking life, why are they appearing in my dreams?

00:09:03:24 - 00:09:14:22
Unknown
And it makes me wonder if they ever dream of me too, right? Right. So I'm going to introduce sort of a theory that might help explain some of this stuff.

00:09:14:22 - 00:09:25:01
Unknown
I've got a slide up for those of you that are tuned in on YouTube, introducing Jane Roberts and the Seth material, and it requires a little bit of explanation because it's an unusual body of work.

00:09:25:08 - 00:09:49:02
Unknown
Jane Roberts was a channel, and she spoke while in a trance state for a nonphysical being that identified himself as Seth. And there's a whole body of of books by Jane Roberts that talk about the Seth material. But Seth was, one of the teachers that tuned me into the idea of thinking more in multidimensional terms and introduced the word counterpart to me.

00:09:49:02 - 00:10:23:19
Unknown
I had not heard that word before. I'd heard the word soulmate. And I want to think of counterparts or explain counterparts. This is an expanded idea of soulmates. We tend to think of soulmates in the romantic context that someone is my soulmate in. Sometimes we'll think of soulmates also in other contexts, like a parent child relationship, you may sometimes say that they're a soulmate, but the Seth material introduced me to the idea of counterparts, which is an expanded idea that says your soulmates may be much more numerous than you realize.

00:10:23:19 - 00:10:40:23
Unknown
one of the quotes from Seth is that a group of cells forms an organ, but a group of cells forms a soul. He says, I'm not telling you that you do not have a soul to call your own. You are part of your soul. It belongs to you and you to it. You dwell within it.

00:10:40:23 - 00:11:00:12
Unknown
Reality is a cell dwells within the reality of an organ. So there's this idea here that you are part of a larger entity. You can think of your soul as having, many different elements to it. and Seth says that you quite literally live more than one life at a time.

00:11:00:12 - 00:11:04:21
Unknown
and this is also expanding on the idea of reincarnation.

00:11:04:23 - 00:11:26:25
Unknown
Some people that are open to reincarnation think I might live a series of lives in different centuries, say, and I can understand or get my mind around that counterpart's is an expansion of that idea and says, not only do you, live multiple lives, maybe in different centuries, but you also share centuries or shared decades with other aspects of your soul.

00:11:26:28 - 00:11:45:14
Unknown
He further went on to say that some of your counterpart's memories and experiences will appear to you in your dream state, and that the dream state can be a place where you are a place where you can, so to speak, compare notes. You can compare your experiences. And finally, he encouraged,

00:11:45:14 - 00:11:59:12
Unknown
people to discover your own counterparts, to do the research, to study your dreams, and to study some of your waking life experiences as well as well, and see if you can identify who some of these counterpart relationships are in your own life.

00:11:59:14 - 00:12:03:13
Unknown
So that's something that we're going to explore with some of the examples I have coming up.

00:12:03:13 - 00:12:18:03
Unknown
and then finally, just a little bit from Jane Roberts herself, Jane. In addition to channeling that material, she also authored several of her own books. And one of her metaphors that she offers is the idea of what she called a multidimensional Ferris wheel.

00:12:18:06 - 00:12:38:01
Unknown
And this is just a metaphor for thinking about the nature of the soul and its many counterparts or aspects. and you can measure a Ferris wheel with each bucket on the Ferris wheel being a different personality or different aspect, and that the soul might be at the center of the Ferris wheel, might be at the hub of the of the Ferris wheel.

00:12:38:03 - 00:12:59:26
Unknown
Another metaphor that might be useful in this respect would be to think of like, if you were at a sports bar and you're looking at a bank of TVs that you, you could potentially observe all those televisions simultaneously and they could all be taking place at once. And you can shift your focus back and forth, but they are really all taking place at the same time.

00:12:59:26 - 00:13:27:21
Unknown
I've had, interesting dreams and out-of-body experiences where I saw something like that, and it was all these TV screens just like that, and green represented like a different life or like reality. Yeah. And and I know many lucid dreamers have reported experiences of, simultaneous dreams. And I sort of gave that example earlier where I had the wondering where I'm with the Ryan Reynolds guy and then another dreamer with my wife.

00:13:27:21 - 00:13:37:05
Unknown
And I was aware simultaneously of both dreams, and I could sort of decide in the moment if I was going to give more of my attention to one or the other, or to sort of straddle them both.

00:13:37:05 - 00:13:39:19
Unknown
So, yeah, I do think that's useful as a way of thinking about it.

00:13:39:19 - 00:13:43:09
Unknown
All right. So I want to jump in and talk about like, let's get that.

00:13:43:11 - 00:14:04:08
Unknown
There's the old saying, you know, there's a difference between the map and the territory. So I think Seth and Jane Roberts, they give us this map of what counterparts are, and then the territory is more important. The territory is actual life experience, actual dream experience, and seeing what you dig up as you as you've studied those experiences more carefully.

00:14:04:13 - 00:14:15:07
Unknown
So one thing that I've found with my counterpart or potential counterpart experiences is that there are some common dream hints. So we're going to go over for different types of dream hits.

00:14:15:07 - 00:14:19:21
Unknown
The first one is the idea of sharing restricted or intimate spaces.

00:14:19:21 - 00:14:24:10
Unknown
So if you have a dream with an unexpected dream figure and you're like, what is this person doing?

00:14:24:10 - 00:14:48:25
Unknown
In my dream? And you find yourself sharing intimate space, that could be a pretty good clue that they have potential as it to be one of your counterparts. So certainly I pay a lot of attention to bedroom dreams. Some people get a little freaked out if they have a dream, and they're sharing a bed with someone that they don't expect to be in bed with, and they may jump to the false conclusion of the bedroom you only symbolizes, for instance, a sexual relationship.

00:14:48:25 - 00:15:10:21
Unknown
bedrooms or beds, can represent intimacy in a general way because we we often share beds with people we're intimate with. Sometimes entire families will share a bed, you know, have the kids in the bed. Some people have their dogs or cats in the bed with them. And so it generally you don't share a bed with unless you're intimate with someone or have a close connection with someone.

00:15:10:21 - 00:15:15:23
Unknown
So many of my counterpart potential counterpart figures have appeared in dreams where I'm sharing a bed with them.

00:15:15:23 - 00:15:28:14
Unknown
but other practical examples would be sharing, for instance, a small office space. So I have a, for those that are on YouTube can see I have a picture of a shared office space, and I have, I want to go back.

00:15:28:14 - 00:15:44:26
Unknown
I gave that example earlier of a, calling this person Keith. And Keith and I again, are business acquaintances. We don't really have a strong friendship, but I had among those dreams. I had a couple of dreams where we shared office space, and in particular, one of them,

00:15:44:26 - 00:15:57:14
Unknown
we had our desks facing each other face to face. And then in the dream, he went to the wall and there were two bookshelves, and he labeled one with his name, and he labeled one with my name.

00:15:57:16 - 00:16:05:00
Unknown
So there's this odd element of sharing a tight space, and there's this double or mirroring element as well, which is another dream hit where we're getting into.

00:16:05:00 - 00:16:07:28
Unknown
I have have an image of a bad slide. For those of you on YouTube

00:16:07:28 - 00:16:15:13
Unknown
I had a dream with, I'm going to call this, potential counterpart George, not his real name, but George.

00:16:15:16 - 00:16:40:24
Unknown
Someone who I knew as a kid and in through my early years into my early 20s. But I've really not had any meaningful connection with him for the past 30 years. Yet he does commonly appear in my dreams. He's one of my most common dream figures. And in this example, we're sharing a bobsled, which is sort of an unusual I don't bobsled in my normal life, of course, but of course, when you're in a bobsled with someone, you are compacted in very tight.

00:16:40:24 - 00:16:44:27
Unknown
So that tight space, again, is sort of a hint that it could be a potential counterpart connection.

00:16:44:27 - 00:17:00:07
Unknown
bathrooms are often very tight, intimate spaces. You don't have a lot of room to maneuver often in the bathroom. So the same figure I just mentioned, George, I have one dream where I think I'm in the bathroom by myself. I'm getting ready to take a shower.

00:17:00:07 - 00:17:12:18
Unknown
I turn on the shower, and before I know it, George slides in behind me and like, steals the shower from me. He jumps in and and gets in there before I'm able to get in there. So that's sort of sharing an intimate space.

00:17:12:18 - 00:17:18:25
Unknown
another example would be I had a dream once where I'm sharing a swimming lane with one of my recurring dream figures.

00:17:18:25 - 00:17:34:23
Unknown
the swimming lead, again, is sort of an unusual symbol because I don't I used to swim laps when I was, you know, back when I was in college of law school, but I don't really do that much anymore. And so but you are sharing a confined space. You have to be aware of the other person in your space, so to speak.

00:17:34:25 - 00:17:53:29
Unknown
And that's a recurring figure who I've had many other dreams of that I'm going to call him Peter and you'll see I have a few more Peter dreams as well, where we have other sort of counterparts suggested dreams. So that's one thing to look for. I think that's probably one of the best things to look for, is sharing a restricted or intimate space.

00:17:53:29 - 00:18:09:04
Unknown
another one and these often happen layered. So sometimes you have more than one dream hint happening at the same time. So another important dream hint would be either the idea of mirrors or the idea of seeing double.

00:18:09:04 - 00:18:25:22
Unknown
So I mentioned George, that scene where he hopped in the shower behind me. There was another bathroom dream I once had with George, where we were both shaving at the same time, and instead of being a large mirror in a bathroom, it was a small mirror

00:18:25:22 - 00:18:29:16
Unknown
and we were competing to try to like, use the mirror.

00:18:29:16 - 00:18:43:05
Unknown
We were both trying to squeeze our faces in as we're trying to shave at the same time. So that's interesting because we got the confined space, you know, the bathroom, and then we have this mirror image. And what am I doing seeing this person's image in the mirror?

00:18:43:05 - 00:18:49:01
Unknown
Another thing you'll see quite commonly is with the mirroring is looking at clothing.

00:18:49:05 - 00:18:51:03
Unknown
So for example,

00:18:51:03 - 00:19:07:15
Unknown
I mentioned Keith earlier and another one of my Keith dreams is I encounter Keith Walker. You know, just we sort of cross paths with each other and I look and he's wearing a dress shoe on one foot and a tennis shoe or sneaker on the other foot.

00:19:07:15 - 00:19:16:13
Unknown
And then I look at my feet in the dream, and I'm also wearing a dress shoe on one foot and and a sneaker on the other foot.

00:19:16:15 - 00:19:21:11
Unknown
And it's like, well, that's funny how we both dress the same in this very odd way. Right.

00:19:21:11 - 00:19:26:16
Unknown
another example that I'm going to call this person Fred, in this dream with Fred,

00:19:26:16 - 00:19:34:00
Unknown
I notice he's wearing a shirt that is like a flannel shirt. And honestly, I'm wearing to to honor this dream today because I knew I'd be talking about counterparts.

00:19:34:03 - 00:19:41:00
Unknown
for those that are watching a video of this, I am wearing a flannel shirt right now as I'm talking. And in this dream,

00:19:41:00 - 00:19:58:10
Unknown
I see him wearing this fellow shirt that's the same shirt I have. And I had worn it, like the day before. And then his wife is there and he starts. She starts to talk about all the other clothes that he has in his closet, and it is as if she's describing my closet, all the different clothes that are pretty much the same clothes that I have.

00:19:58:13 - 00:20:04:18
Unknown
So people matching up wearing identical clothes, that's often a hint that they might be a counterpart.

00:20:04:18 - 00:20:17:03
Unknown
another example of the idea of double is what I once had a dream where I was on a plane and there was a woman on the plane. She was an African-American woman, and there was the idea that our our belongings had been mixed up.

00:20:17:03 - 00:20:25:17
Unknown
And I was going through a bag that now had both of our stuff in the same bag. So that's an element of sharing an intimate space. Is sharing, a piece of luggage.

00:20:25:17 - 00:20:35:28
Unknown
I pull out of the luggage, these two cans of Starbucks double Shot. And I understand intuitively in the dream that one belongs to her and one belongs to me.

00:20:36:01 - 00:20:40:14
Unknown
So that's symbolism of double going on, you know, so that can be

00:20:40:14 - 00:21:03:03
Unknown
an element of mirroring or doubling or seeing double. And then another example I'll give again, this is just to show the creativity of how dreams can bring up this idea of double is I had a dream once about a Siamese cat, and I was in bed and I heard this noise under the bed, and I looked under the bed and there's the Siamese cat staring at me.

00:21:03:03 - 00:21:08:20
Unknown
when I woke up from that dream, I did some free associating with the idea of Siamese cat

00:21:08:20 - 00:21:20:07
Unknown
one thing that came to my mind right away was the idea of Siamese twins. And Siamese twins is another word for conjoined twins. Some people who are physically attached, their bodies are physically attached.

00:21:20:07 - 00:21:22:24
Unknown
and for those that have the ability to see the image on the screen, you there's,

00:21:22:24 - 00:21:35:18
Unknown
bunker twins or famous twins from Siam or would now call Thailand who, in the 1800s were sort of a sensation. They became very, very famous, for being conjoined twins.

00:21:35:18 - 00:21:41:19
Unknown
And so a conjoined twin is certainly the symbolism of a strong connection.

00:21:41:21 - 00:21:52:25
Unknown
and so in that example like that was actually that bedroom at that time in the dream of sharing with my wife. And so that could be a symbol of a strong, particularly strong connection with someone. Is the idea of conjoined twins.

00:21:52:25 - 00:21:57:16
Unknown
So tell me if any of that makes sense, and whether you think you've had any similar experiences to this.

00:21:57:16 - 00:22:14:12
Unknown
you know, there's two dreams that come to mind in particular. one of them was like recently, like last week, and it had the element of confined space. I was in, like a van or like a bus. Yes. My mother. And in the back seat there was like some random people from my school, like

00:22:14:12 - 00:22:23:05
Unknown
they weren't even in my grade. They were younger than me. I didn't have a friendship or really much connection with them at all. and there was the element of

00:22:23:05 - 00:22:29:09
Unknown
twins, so to speak, because my mom and I said something at the same time we were talking about dreams in the dream.

00:22:29:09 - 00:22:46:11
Unknown
Right? Funny. And we said something at the exact same time, like, oh, people want to know what their dreams mean. And we both kind of, like, said at the same time in agreement, like a jinx kind of moment. So that's interesting because I know I have a spiritual soul connection with my mother, obviously like a soulmate counterpart connection.

00:22:46:17 - 00:23:08:18
Unknown
But this other girl in the dream, I mean, it's hard for me to wrap my head around that. I have any sort of connection with her outside of physical reality because we barely even speak. I don't have her phone number. Nothing like I never talked, so that's funny. And then I had another dream two, where I'm like, ice skating and there's like two other girls around who, I don't know, just dream characters that I don't recognize in waking life.

00:23:08:25 - 00:23:24:28
Unknown
But we were all wearing the same sweater. Oh, funny. Yeah. And we were kind of like, we noticed in the dream. And then we kind of became friends and we're talking, you know, sharing positive messages to each other in the dream. But, so that's another thing that's got me thinking, like, you know, could that be a counterpart?

00:23:24:28 - 00:23:39:16
Unknown
I don't even know who they are. I don't know their names. I don't know if they exist or if they were just in my dream imagination. Yeah. So I think it's a great question. I do think, some of your counterparts, you will know and you'll have a you'll have the potential to have waking life interaction with them.

00:23:39:16 - 00:23:57:27
Unknown
and then some of them, you, you may never actually meet. So I gave that example of the woman on the plane and we're, you know, all our belongings are in the same bag. And there's the double shot symbolism. So that's all very strong symbolism suggesting counterpart or connection. She may simply represent another another life. It could be, a reincarnation of life.

00:23:57:27 - 00:24:13:27
Unknown
It could be someone who's living on the opposite side of the planet. I just don't know. But I do think it's it's interesting that, some of these symbols come along with people we know. Well, some with with acquaintances, some with people from our, our distant past and some that we just simply don't recognize at all.

00:24:13:27 - 00:24:24:20
Unknown
So then a third category. So we're going to have a total of four categories. So this is the third one. The third one. That's a common type of dream. Hint is

00:24:24:20 - 00:24:31:13
Unknown
dream scenarios where there is confusion about identity or there's a case of mistaken identity.

00:24:31:16 - 00:24:37:06
Unknown
Or there might be some playfulness in the dream about identity symbols or credentials.

00:24:37:06 - 00:24:45:01
Unknown
one, example of this would be I had this dream where I was in a hotel and I have like a suitcase with me

00:24:45:01 - 00:24:45:25
Unknown
for whatever reason,

00:24:45:25 - 00:24:49:27
Unknown
my room key is tucked in, like, in a pocket on the luggage.

00:24:50:00 - 00:24:57:27
Unknown
And I go to get the room key out and I notice then the luggage tag. I'm going to call this person Neal Smith, not his real name.

00:24:57:27 - 00:25:10:06
Unknown
And I'm like, why does this nametag say Neal Smith instead of like, my name? What am I doing with Neal's bag? Right. So name tags is is definitely something to look for.

00:25:10:08 - 00:25:21:26
Unknown
and Neal, by the way, is someone who, again, is an acquaintance, someone who in at the time of this podcast I haven't seen in over ten years, at the time of the dream, I probably hadn't seen him in five or more years.

00:25:21:26 - 00:25:26:18
Unknown
So what am I doing? Dreaming about him and seeing his name on my luggage tag?

00:25:26:20 - 00:25:40:12
Unknown
Another example would be passport applications. So I did have a dream once where I was working on a passport application, and I mentioned earlier one of my potential counterparts named Peter. He's the one who shared the swim lane with.

00:25:40:12 - 00:25:52:28
Unknown
in this dream, I keep noticing that I'm wearing a name tag. And this is not the passport. I'm working on the passport application on the desk, but I'm also wearing a name tag, and the name tag says Peter's name instead of my name.

00:25:53:01 - 00:26:06:12
Unknown
It's like, well, that's interesting. Identity symbol and name tag. And then the fact that I'm working at a passport application, which is another identity symbol I think is highlighting, it's a message from my inner self to be thinking about the nature of identity in a broader way.

00:26:06:12 - 00:26:13:06
Unknown
Another example would be your phone. Your phone now has become something that you closely associate with yourself.

00:26:13:06 - 00:26:18:17
Unknown
Everybody needs to have their own phone with them all the time, right? We can't go too far. Mine is just

00:26:18:17 - 00:26:20:06
Unknown
foot or two with me right now.

00:26:20:06 - 00:26:23:10
Unknown
So I had this dream once where the same,

00:26:23:10 - 00:26:34:21
Unknown
dream character or friend or acquaintance that I mentioned earlier, Peter, he, comes up to me and tells me, hey, someone just left a voicemail on my phone for you.

00:26:34:23 - 00:26:37:12
Unknown
So again, there's confusion of identity.

00:26:37:12 - 00:26:41:05
Unknown
why is someone leaving a message for me? You know, on his phone?

00:26:41:05 - 00:27:02:01
Unknown
And I'd say one more example. This that's that's a good confusion of identity. Dream would be I once had a dream where I was going through a drive through, and the drive through clerk referred to me not by my name, but by the name of this other person you know, who has also appeared in some other, you know, counterpart themed dreams.

00:27:02:06 - 00:27:10:14
Unknown
So I think those are also interesting, you know, examples of a type of dream that should get our attention, especially for recurs repeatedly.

00:27:10:14 - 00:27:14:28
Unknown
And then the last kind of dream, to jump into,

00:27:14:28 - 00:27:27:06
Unknown
and this is a combination of dream and waking life really is to look for experiences where you might have a telepathic dream or a precognitive dream

00:27:27:06 - 00:27:31:05
Unknown
and potentially also associated with a waking life.

00:27:31:08 - 00:27:32:10
Unknown
Synchronicity.

00:27:32:10 - 00:27:37:11
Unknown
I've come to understand or believe that we have these types of experiences more frequently

00:27:37:11 - 00:27:50:03
Unknown
with people with whom we have connections with on the inner plane. And so these again, if someone is a counterpart, you're more likely to have a telepathic or precognitive dream about them, or you're more likely to have a waking life,

00:27:50:03 - 00:27:51:28
Unknown
synchronicity about them.

00:27:52:00 - 00:27:58:17
Unknown
So I'm going to introduce another of my potential counterparts. I'm going to call him Walter, and this was a really cool experience.

00:27:58:17 - 00:28:02:01
Unknown
I had a dream, that didn't involve Walter.

00:28:02:01 - 00:28:13:03
Unknown
I just had a dream with some very specific imagery where I was holding up my shoe, and I was shaking my shoe because it had glass in it, and I was shaking the glass, out of my shoe.

00:28:13:05 - 00:28:24:07
Unknown
I had this dream on a Monday, and then a couple days later on Wednesday, I was actually doing a real estate showing for Walter and

00:28:24:07 - 00:28:39:19
Unknown
Walter shows up on crutches. And I was like, what happened to you? Right? You know, I hadn't heard anything about him injuring himself. He says, oh, well, I was on a boat with some friends, and I stepped on some, broken glass.

00:28:39:21 - 00:28:49:20
Unknown
And so here we have the dream imagery of me shaking glass out of a shoe. And then I have two days later, I have this encounter with someone who, actually stepped on glass

00:28:49:20 - 00:28:54:00
Unknown
injured to the point, actually, where he had to have surgery, because of that.

00:28:54:00 - 00:29:01:23
Unknown
And that same, person in a separate event, a separate time, where I was also showing him real estate.

00:29:01:26 - 00:29:04:28
Unknown
and this is an example of the synchronicity happening with a potential counterpart.

00:29:04:28 - 00:29:17:19
Unknown
I found out about a property that was available for him to see, and I said, are you available this afternoon to see it? I gave him the address and he said, it's unbelievable, but I have a doctor's appointment, like right next door to that property.

00:29:17:19 - 00:29:28:00
Unknown
it's a commercial property. Right. So he already had an appointment that afternoon. It was going already going to be right in that neighborhood. And so that's another example. And then a third example would be

00:29:28:00 - 00:29:36:18
Unknown
and this is interesting because there aren't many of my friends who I necessarily would share dreams with, but this is someone who I know pretty well, actually.

00:29:36:20 - 00:29:42:11
Unknown
and I dreamed about him. and in the dream, he was talking about train depots,

00:29:42:11 - 00:29:59:18
Unknown
I decided to email him the dream and say, hey, how you doing? I have to talk to you a while. But he had dreamed about you last night. and when he read the dream email basis. That's really funny, because I just listed a new property that has been used as a train depot in, like, you know, decades.

00:29:59:18 - 00:30:01:28
Unknown
But at one point in time, it was a train depot.

00:30:01:28 - 00:30:16:20
Unknown
So again, somehow I had a telepathic hit or connection with him that, showed up in a combination of dream events and waking events. That, to me, can be a hint that you might have a deeper connection with that person.

00:30:16:26 - 00:30:37:11
Unknown
So I'll wrap things, things up, and then we can maybe jump into some further discussion or conversation about this. On a broader level, I wanted to end the the formal presentation of this just with just sort of a, a summary and then sort of a, a pretty funny story that happened right before I was giving this presentation for the first time.

00:30:37:18 - 00:30:59:01
Unknown
I mentioned a few times in this presentation my connection with this guy. I'm calling Keith. He's the one who I had the seven dreams in about nine months, back in 2012. And then periodically over the years again. And so I was preparing this presentation where I was going to give it up for the first time last year at the IAC conference.

00:30:59:01 - 00:31:10:02
Unknown
I was walking over to get a coffee, and I was actually had been working at it on my desk in my office, and I walked over to get a coffee that was actually rehearsing the presentation in my head, because the presentation was coming up in a day or two,

00:31:10:02 - 00:31:14:04
Unknown
we're getting ready to fly out to, to Oregon for the conference.

00:31:14:07 - 00:31:34:27
Unknown
And I walked over to Starbucks and I couldn't believe it. I crossed paths with Keith in the Starbucks, and I said, of course he doesn't have any clue that I think he's a counterpart. I'm not that close with him to where I would share that with him, but, I thought to myself, that's pretty wild that I ran into him just as I was preparing this presentation

00:31:34:27 - 00:31:39:00
Unknown
and then, but didn't think too much of it.

00:31:39:02 - 00:31:57:18
Unknown
Then the next day, I was, in my office and we had a check to deposit. And in my business, I have an assistant in 99 at of time when we have a check to deposit for the real estate business, she takes it over to the bank. For whatever reason, I had an impulse that afternoon to take the check to the bank myself.

00:31:57:20 - 00:32:13:29
Unknown
And for those that are benefiting from, you know, watching this on a video format, you'll see I have a picture posted of a bank branch. I took this later, but so the day after encountering him at Starbucks, I pull up at the bank drive through, which has two lane to sort of a double image, which is interesting.

00:32:13:29 - 00:32:17:03
Unknown
And, there's already a car in the inner lane closer to the building.

00:32:17:03 - 00:32:36:03
Unknown
I pull up in the outer lane and I want to make eye contact with the teller. So I look through the car that's on the inner lane, and to my shock, it's Keith again who I just seen the tape before. and so he rolled down his window. We both shared a big laugh because we hadn't seen each other in a couple of years.

00:32:36:03 - 00:32:54:19
Unknown
And then here we were. You're seeing each other two days in a row, and unbeknownst to him, I'm also working on a presentation that, features some of my dreams and interactions with him. So I thought that was a really cool synchronicity that happened. You immediately in the days before you know, the date. I was first giving this presentation.

00:32:54:26 - 00:33:10:02
Unknown
That is fascinating. Yeah. I don't believe in coincidences at all. I definitely see the connection there. That's so interesting. And if it's somebody that you're not even close enough to to share a dream, what do you do with this information that these people might be potential counterparts, like

00:33:10:02 - 00:33:13:18
Unknown
Right. It's a good question. Like what do you do with it? Is it useful to have

00:33:13:18 - 00:33:36:02
Unknown
so one of the things I've found is that so for some of these people that are my counterparts that I'm not necessarily close friends with, in some cases I do have actual business relationships with them that, I find that maybe there's more opportunity for synchronicity to unfold, for things to go well, for,

00:33:36:02 - 00:33:41:11
Unknown
for me to be in the right place at the right time, and for them to be in a partner on a transaction for something.

00:33:41:13 - 00:33:59:24
Unknown
So I do pay attention to it, because even though I might not consider myself to be close friends with them, I do feel like because we have that interconnection, you know, there is potential opportunity, for us to have, you know, positive interactions that might benefit us both, you know, and then, you know, what else do I do with it?

00:33:59:24 - 00:34:32:29
Unknown
I would say, you know, for me, it's part of my passion project about being interested in dreams and synchronicity, is to share this information with others because I feel like, there's a lot to discover here. and it's more about self knowing, you know, you don't necessarily need to have a tangible benefit. There's a lot of benefit comes from the self knowing that you're not alone, that you have a soul that has many different aspects and that you have a deep inner connection with other parts.

00:34:33:01 - 00:34:56:15
Unknown
You know, I really feel like, on a much deeper level, we actually have these connections with all of humanity. You know, everyone here on the planet is really our sister and our brother. And hopefully if you had that realization, you might be less, less inclined maybe to get into a fight with someone or go to war with someone, or get into a dispute with someone.

00:34:56:18 - 00:35:10:22
Unknown
If you understood that on a deep level, you're interconnected with this person, you know? And so I think it hopefully causes me to have a more positive outlook and try to find creative solutions.

00:35:10:22 - 00:35:13:26
Unknown
because I'm understanding that these people are really part of me.

00:35:13:26 - 00:35:22:16
Unknown
Yeah. That's great. I love that I always try to foster sharing my dreams with people when they pop up, even if I haven't talked to them in a while.

00:35:22:16 - 00:35:34:23
Unknown
And just as a way to honor the dream and see what interesting connections come out of it, I think it's important to normalize that. And then it might make the other person comfortable sharing their dreams with you and it just like, has this big effect. Yeah.

00:35:34:23 - 00:35:38:02
Unknown
Yeah. So dreams are big. it's a big part of my life.

00:35:38:02 - 00:36:04:25
Unknown
I would not have, imagined if you'd spoken to me 15 years ago that, I would be so excited to talk about dreams with people. but, it started really for me as a as a spiritual inquiry. I got interested in spirituality and many of the teachers that I tuned into, it was became like the beat of a drum that tuning into my dreams was an important way to get better depth of understanding about these things.

00:36:04:25 - 00:36:25:20
Unknown
yeah, I continue to be amazed at what dreams reveal to me. So yeah, that's great. And now that you are interested in dreams and you're studying it and all that, what type of work do you do within dream work? Yes. Thank you for asking. So I have a couple things going on in my life. I have, you might say, multiple interests.

00:36:25:22 - 00:36:38:21
Unknown
so in my day life, I own a real estate business and I spend a lot of my time working with clients. and I do like that because it gives me an opportunity, as I told, as I shared with some of these stories I told you earlier,

00:36:38:21 - 00:36:42:06
Unknown
to see how synchronicities play out in a real environment.

00:36:42:06 - 00:36:45:22
Unknown
You know, and real estate's a fantastic profession

00:36:45:22 - 00:36:57:06
Unknown
for seeing if you can be in the right place at the right time. or to have sort of interesting interactions. and then I have, my side hustle, which is my coaching business,

00:36:57:06 - 00:37:06:05
Unknown
and I call that lucid coaching. I named it that because I got interested in lucid dreaming, going back about a dozen, 13 years ago.

00:37:06:05 - 00:37:17:26
Unknown
lucid here in the coaching is intended to mean certainly lucid in your dreams as one expression of lucidity, but also lucid in your waking life.

00:37:17:26 - 00:37:26:15
Unknown
and this counterpart stuff is an example of that. It becomes a process of becoming more aware of the kind of environment that you live in,

00:37:26:15 - 00:37:34:06
Unknown
and what's a healthy way to navigate in physical life, if it has deeper qualities than meets the eye?

00:37:34:06 - 00:37:48:05
Unknown
if it's not simply a physical environment, if it's also a psychological environment or a spiritual environment. So a lot of my coaching work, deals with that. Some people, since I have the practice and experience as an entrepreneur,

00:37:48:05 - 00:38:02:05
Unknown
some people do come to me for more business coaching or I call it abundance coaching. And so one of the expressions I do with my interest in these topics is I, am a facilitator at a retreat center here in the Charleston area where I live.

00:38:02:05 - 00:38:07:11
Unknown
And so I facilitate three meetups each month. These are in-person gatherings.

00:38:07:11 - 00:38:08:12
Unknown
one of them is

00:38:08:12 - 00:38:16:00
Unknown
specifically a dream circle. You know, where we share dreams and my dreams and the others are where we gather to talk about things like synchronicity.

00:38:16:00 - 00:38:18:13
Unknown
about what some people call a law of attraction,

00:38:18:13 - 00:38:32:26
Unknown
so those are fun. But, you know, one other fun story to tell you that relates to the connection between my two worlds, between my coaching work and my my real estate work is I had an opportunity, a few months ago, where I got a

00:38:32:26 - 00:38:36:11
Unknown
some ladies, and they had just inherited a property.

00:38:36:13 - 00:38:53:01
Unknown
It was a commercial building that was sort of unique. It used to be a like a telephone company building. And I went over and met them, and I was in the property with my assistant. We were there for about 30 minutes just meeting them and touring the property. What have you like that there was the potential we might get to list the property for sale.

00:38:53:03 - 00:39:18:15
Unknown
As it turned out, you know, they end up hiring a different company and that's all well and good. And then a few days later, after I had met them, I had, I had a dream where, there was a secret door. And in the dream, the secret door was in the floor. And I just wrote that down in my dream journal.

00:39:18:15 - 00:39:40:03
Unknown
Sort of an unusual dream, but an opportunity came where someone called me and asked me to, show them the property. A potential buyer of it. And when we went over there, we were there, there for just a couple minutes and he yelled out, hey, come check this out. And he had just pulled up a secret door in the floor that was totally camouflaged.

00:39:40:03 - 00:39:52:00
Unknown
You'd never know it was there. so that was a fun interplay of like, you know, sort of a precognitive dream. Maybe a telepathic dream. but it's just fun and playful.

00:39:52:00 - 00:39:53:08
Unknown
Yeah.

00:39:53:12 - 00:40:10:00
Unknown
I know I have a book in me, and that's something that we're going to work on, as well over probably the next 12 months or so. Oh, great. And, someday I want to emulate you and, thinking about getting into the podcast arena. That seems like a lot of fun. A great way to meet and connect with other people.

00:40:10:02 - 00:40:30:12
Unknown
Yes, I love doing it. I'm here to support, if you have any questions or anything of that regard. I, I love it. I mean, I love talking about dreams and bringing all the different perspectives. So yeah, this has been wonderful. and I will put all of your links and everything in the description, but if you just want to say like your website or where people can find you, absolutely.

00:40:30:14 - 00:40:42:06
Unknown
Yeah. So the best way to connect with me is on the web. So my website is Lucid coaching.com, lucid coaching.com and and you can also follow me

00:40:42:06 - 00:40:50:13
Unknown
I'm not much of a Twitter or whatever I call it x now but I, you can find me on Instagram. You can find me on Facebook. you can find me on LinkedIn.

00:40:50:15 - 00:40:56:02
Unknown
And so feel free to follow me those ways as well. Awesome. Great.