Dream Wisdom, Jungian Psychology, & Listening to the Psyche

In this capstone episode of the year, host Sheree is joined by Jungian professionals Greg Mahr, M.D. and Heather Taylor-Zimmerman, Ph.D. for a rich and grounding conversation about dreams, symbolism, trauma, and inner listening.

Together, we explore how dreams function not as problems to solve, but as relationships to tend — and how Jungian psychology offers a compassionate framework for engaging both gentle dreams and more intense dream material.

This episode also marks a return after a brief pause, and serves as a reflective close to the year. As a special treat, this conversation is available here on YouTube for those who prefer to watch or listen visually.

🌙 In This Episode, We Explore

- Why dreams matter in Jungian psychology

- Trauma, nightmares, and listening to the psyche with care

- Dreams as a dialogue between conscious and unconscious life

- The role of image, imagination, and symbol in healing

- Practical ways to begin (or return to) dream work

- Personal reflections from clinical and creative perspectives

🃏 About the Dream Wisdom Oracle Cards

Greg Mahr and Heather Taylor-Zimmerman are the creators of the Dream Wisdom Oracle Cards & Guidebook, a thoughtfully designed tool for engaging dreams through image, reflection, and relationship rather than fixed interpretation.

Learn more or explore the deck here:
🌐 https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Wisdom-Oracle-Cards-Guidebook/dp/B0DH3M7MM8

🔗 Resources & Further Exploration

For listeners who’d like to explore this work more deeply, here are a few trusted places to continue the conversation:

Inner Traditions — Publisher of The Dream Wisdom Oracle Cards & Guidebook, with a wide catalog of depth psychology, dream work, and spiritual exploration.
🌐 https://www.innertraditions.com/

Soul of Creativity — Heather Taylor-Zimmerman’s website, featuring her healing artwork and a thoughtful course on how to work with the Dream Wisdom Oracle Cards.
🌐 https://www.soulofcreativity.com/

Greg Mahr — Greg Mahr’s website, offering extensive writing, research, and resources on dreams, trauma, nightmares, and Jungian-informed psychiatric care.
🌐 https://www.gregmahr.com/

📌 Note: During the conversation, a reference is made to “Rupert Murdoch” when discussing morphic fields. The intended reference is to Rupert Sheldrake, whose work explores morphic resonance and fields of form.

☕ What’s Next for Cuppa Terrific

Cuppa Terrific will continue into the new year with at least monthly episodes, with the hope of returning to weekly dream analysis and creative readings as energy and health allow.

If you’d like to help support the podcast and make this work possible, you’re warmly invited to join the community on Patreon:
👉 https://patreon.com/cuppa_terrific

🫖 Thank You for Listening

Thank you to Greg and Heather for sharing their wisdom, and thank you for being here — listening, reflecting, and dreaming alongside us.

May your cups overflow.

Transcript

Host Return And Year Capstone

Sheree 0:25

All right. Welcome everybody back to another episode of Covet Terrific. I am your host, Sheree, and I want to begin today's episode to acknowledge the space between the last few episodes. Usually I meet everyone here on Thursdays, and it's been a few weeks since my last release. My last release was the interview with Dr. Carl Greer. This pause, though, has uh been shaped by a few different things going on in my life. I spent some time enjoying the merriment of the season with my family. And uh I found myself navigating a few things like uh I had an unexpected ailment, which caused me to have to do like an unexpected surgery. Um, and then I needed to take some time to take some downtime and just uh spend some time letting my body heal and just be a little bit more careful with myself. But I'm happy to share that the recovery has been going very well. Um, I'm I'm very healthy, other than just tonight, I'm recording uh a meeting and moving through what seems to be a cold or perhaps flu. Um, that made its way across my family members over the holiday visitations. So if my voice sounds a little softer, or maybe my voice sounds a little bit more wrapped in wool than usual, uh that's why. Um but I've been sipping broth and uh drinking my hot tea this evening and doing my best to keep my spirit and my body supported because it felt important to me to show up and create something lovely for you. This episode also feels special because the capstone of the year. Um, it's a moment to gather and um gather what we've explored together and to offer something that feels both grounding and meaningful as we move forward. And as a little treat, this episode is also being published on YouTube. So if at any point you'd like to pause and or continue listening, either here or there, feel free to. You're welcome to do so, whatever your preference is, um, whichever way you would like to listen to this conversation and go forward. And with that, I'm especially honored to welcome two guests today whose um work lives intersect at science, soul, and imagination. So, first I'm gonna introduce uh Dr. Greg Mayer. He's a psychiatrist involved in teaching and research on acute trauma and nightmares. He serves on the faculty um at Michigan State and Wayne State University, and he's published more than 30 different academic research articles, and he's the author of The Wisdom of Dreams, Science, Synchronicity, and the Language of the Soul. And he lives in Plymouth, Michigan. Welcome tonight, Doctor. And then we have Dr. And then we have Dr. Heather Taylor Zimmerman. She is a psychologist trained at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She directs an experiential teaching program in personal transformation through visionary art. Her artwork appears in clinics, hospitals, and public and private collections. And she lives in Olympia, Washington. And I believe she's here with us tonight from Seattle. Is that correct?

Heather 4:12

Actually, in Olympia. Yeah. Oh, good to be here, though. Okay. Yeah, good to be here. Thank you.

Sheree 4:18

Wonderful. Okay, so before we dive in, is it okay that I call you both Greg and Heather, respectively, during our conversation?

Greg 4:28

Yes, of course.

Sheree 4:29

Please. Yeah, thank you. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. All right. So as I listened to both of your backgrounds, what really stood out to me um that was different and beautiful was your work and your how you approach dreams was kind of different. It feels like two different doorways into the same inner landscape. So, my main question is um for listeners who are new to the Jungian dream work, how do you understand the role of dreams um in psychological growth? And why do dreams matter so much to the psyche?

Heather 5:16

Greg, you want to go first? Yeah.

Why Dreams Matter To The Psyche

Greg 5:18

I'll start that. That's a big question. Really good question. Um I I see dreams as kind of a portal to our inner selves and and deeper selves. And I think our culture has kind of ignored dreams and seen them as meaningless instead of honoring them and respecting them. So I think the the what we're trying to encourage with the book and with other parts of our work as well is deepening that relationship with the inner with the inner self who who speaks through dreams. Uh so that's that I think is why the importance of dreams is kind of this direct pathway to to the inner world, which which we're ignoring. And it I think the uh book and cards that we created kind of there's there's different paths to that relationship with dreams. Some people like the the word part of the book, which kind of engages a different part of the brain, and and some people connect better through the art and the and the visual.

Heather 6:35

Yeah, I feel like there's uh orientation now. Sometimes Joe Bolti-Taylor calls it whole brain living, but it it's it's the two doors, if you think of them as the two hemispheres archetypally, you know, and Greg and I have presented enough that we have these personas that are like the anima animus. Um, so he's more of the white lab coat scientific doctor, yeah, MD. And I'm the PhD working with art and visions. And Jung, of course, famously said that God speaks through dreams and visions. And dreams are this liminal state in between conscious and unconscious, um, where the soul who speaks in images can speak to us. And it it requires that we get in a different part of our mind or our brain to understand it because it's not our rational mind's language. And so I think that it's one of those amazing examples of doing it in like in walking the path, you become the path. In exploring these kind of dream images, you're actually activating or remembering a different older way of knowing, a gnosis or an embodied way of knowing that is the way of the dream. And and I think it's related to visions. Um, even if you return to the origin of the word I did, it's to see. It's a different way of seeing and being with the content of the dream um through the language of the soul, which again is in images.

Sheree 8:19

So you said I did translates to I see. I did.

Heather 8:24

Um I did translate I did, yeah, to I see. Or Plato, like the the soul can't think without an image or a picture. And if you think of it, um, we process approximately 60,000 times faster visual images than words. You know, we've evolved to take in visual input. Like I think 90 plus percent of our brain is dedicated to that. And so people think they're not artists and they think that our visual literacy is not second nature, but it is, it's actually our first language.

Sheree 9:05

Right. And then of course, we've probably all heard it said that a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Yes. And then when especially when you start looking at some pictures, ones that like bring many different ideas, like some of the maybe I'm I'm stepping too far into it, but you start bringing in things like sacred geometry. You start having really, really big ideas in there, and some things that are just so like human nature, like a mother nurturing a baby, you know, these like really like archetypal things that are so deeply ingrained in us, um, that that are on these cards that are really interesting, that would take a very long time to try to translate and explain to another intelligent entity that maybe isn't mammalian, um, what that means to us.

Images, Archetypes, And Knowing

Greg 10:03

It's amazing how how dreams can sometimes convey things so beautifully through images. Like um, I I use my father as an example because when when my first book came out, he he was in his 90s and living in an assisted living, but still very very lucid. So uh I showed him the book and he said, Oh, congratulations, that's that looks really interesting and stuff like that. And but then he kind of paused and said, Oh, because it's not it wasn't like his thing at all, he was never interested. And he kind of said, Oh, but but aren't dreams just a bunch of nonsense? Yeah, kind of reflecting the cultural milieu, and and and then he did what people often do after they say that. He said, For example, I had this dream last night, and he tells me he never tells me dreams, but he told me this dream that it was a great dream that he was that my mother was still alive and she was on the porch of their house, and he was mowing the lawn, and she was criticizing him because the mowing rows were were crooked. And I and and I said, like, well, and he said, like, well, isn't that nonsense? But I'm thinking to myself, gosh, this is a beautiful image. Because the my wife my mother was very very critical like that. So this dream in the like single image is like summarizing his life, and even the idea of mowing is kind of when you're in your 90s, you start thinking about harvest and all that. So there's a lot packed in that image, and he kind of missed, didn't see it or didn't want to see it, or whatever. I just thought it's a nice example of how dreams can really compress so many ideas in a visual form.

Heather 11:52

Yeah, I love that example, and uh dreams also take us. I mean, I think the trick is you have to be willing to go. They take us somewhere if you follow the image. Um, but you can always refuse it. Like Greg, your dad maybe was, you know, not willing to quite go there and see what it was revealing to him.

Greg 12:17

Yeah, and I was kind of in an interesting position because what do I, you know, he's gonna I kind of want to play therapist with my dad. But uh it's a good message, I think that there's something we all it's a good example of the kind of powerful information that's there visually if we kind of listen and pay attention.

Sheree 12:40

I think it makes good sense to always want to help those that we love, regardless of what our skills are. So I think it was a kindness you were trying to give him, even if he couldn't understand you. Yeah. Um kind of something that we're talking about makes me think of um the difference between maybe more archetypal imagery in Jungian versus what something might mean very personally. So a universal symbol maybe is like the harvest, like you said. But to your dad, maybe the mowing the lawn was an act of love that he provided to the family, and maybe that means something very different to him. Do you have some ideas about maybe there there's a difference between symbols that are archetypal and maybe given in a particular culture or just across humans versus maybe the depth of meaning to an individual? Because I find myself stumbling on this sometimes whenever I'm thinking about my own dreams or or thinking about helping someone when they're thinking about their dreams too.

Personal Vs Archetypal Symbols

Greg 13:54

Yeah, and I I think there that is a really good question. Is how do you the dreams often have a personal dimension, but they sometimes have this archetypal Jungian aspect too. And and how do you distinguish those two? Or I don't know, I might wonder, do you need to distinguish those two? They're they're often kind of both and rather expressive. Like just using my my dad's dream as an example, I mean there's there's this personal element that my mother was really critical and all that stuff, and he never really faced that. But there's this archetypal element of the dark feminine archetype and the harvest, and uh so it's kind of both and, or um another good example is um there's a well-known story about creativity and dreams. There was the uh this German chemist who was trying to figure out the structure of like organic molecules, and he knew the formula and the how much carbon and hydrogen, but he struggled with it for a couple of years. But then one night he dreamt of a snake eating its own tail, which is this ancient archetypal symbol of the Ouroboros, and he realized oh, that's the answer to my chemistry problem because the carbon atoms were in a ring. So it it he recognized that as the answer to his chemistry problems, but at the same time, it had this archetypal dimension, this Jungian kind of dimension that um uh li because that auroboris is a symbol of eternal regeneration, so that's these carbon um organic molecules that you're coming to understand, that's really what life is all about and the eternal cycle of life.

Sheree 15:49

Right, you're talking about um caligula, I guess. Um, not caligula, but um and you're talking about how the yeah, the symbol of the snake that eats its tail, so it's like the symbol of of like life beginning again, right? It's always going over, but he's got this um kind of like you, he has this scientific understanding, and he's at the edge of where science is at, and he's trying to build towards what there's no bridge at, you know, so he's he's using other things deeper in his deeper mind to try to help him build out what he doesn't know.

Greg 16:34

Yeah, and it's kind of a personal answer to his chemistry problem, but uh archetypal Jungian answer as well. He didn't just dream of a carbon ring, he dreamt of it.

Sheree 16:44

Right. So you're saying it's both and yeah, yeah.

Heather 16:49

I also think schematically you can look at as the intersection between the personal and the collective unconscious, you know, that that images have all the personal connotations and associations from our experiences, and then we can go into another layer that is a beautiful bridge because I think we when we heal ourselves, we heal the world through that intersection between the personal and the collective. And so, and even intergenerational, it's not like a delineation that is like personal and then collective, because sometimes I think there's ancestral connotations or symbolism. So I think it can almost be like rings of an onion that go out, but that there's a deeper layer of meaning and healing as you go out from one to the other.

Sheree 17:40

Yeah, there's sometimes that um I know I've experienced like I just know things, but I'm not really sure how I know things. I just know it. And then you're like, well, how do you know? It's like I couldn't tell you. I just know that is that's how it is, you know. Um that could be I I sometimes attribute it to that collective unconscious. Like there are certain things where you just know, like you get that feeling that that extra sense that something is you're in danger, even though or someone's watching you, right? Even though you can't see them. Yeah, you just get this feeling something is wrong, right? Like you can't say that there's any indicator that my conscious mind knows that there's a thing, right? But I can tell you for sure I feel a thing that is telling me I need to take care of myself, I need to protect myself, something's happening.

Heather 18:39

I think that could be like yeah, Rupert Murdoch's morphogenetic fields, too. If who I like, but I do I do think um more and more ancestral healing in that sometimes they talk about the psychoid state, so it looks at the bridge between the personal and the collective as also our interface between humans with nature. And I think that more and more we're we're called to look at that personal and then intergenerational space in between what we think of as personal and collective. Could be that I've been thinking a lot about my family, like a lot of people over the holidays, but you know, there's so much around lineage and ancestry and even dreaming in in different places, you know, like as people go back to their homeland or different places. I was just part of a conversation where people were talking about the dreams, you know, relative to a specific place, even and some sometimes when you talk to people about their dreams and you sort of explore.

Greg 20:00

them with them. You get the feeling that some images are more archetypal, where some are more personal. Like sometimes they'll dream of like an old man, for instance, and and but it's somebody they know and his personal qualities seem relevant to the dream overall. But but other times it'll be like an old man that you've never seen that's kind of mysterious and wise and then it has more of an archetypal feeling. Or dreams of water too. They're the kind of because the water water in dreams is often the unconscious. So when a if you dream of like a small body of water like a pool or something like that, especially like a swimming pool, man-made, that's more likely a personal um sort of relation to the personal unconscious where more if you dream of like oceans and huge these huge bottomless bodies of water that has a more collective kind of feeling. So sometimes you can sort of get a sense of that distinction from the dream content itself. And the images the dream maker inside you chooses to to express itself.

Shifting Perspectives And Dream Ego

Sheree 21:19

Yeah I think something that sometimes like trips me up is um I don't always feel like I'm dreaming from the same point of view. Like a lot of times when I talk to people they frequently and I don't know if this is um just the disturbance of getting back into your conscious state trying to make sense and create like a narrative but people always like re will rewind their dream and speak from their perspective to go through the dream. But it's it's very rare that I ever hear people tell me or connect with me on the idea that they have dreams from different perspectives like they are different people. And I I have those dreams a lot of the time and so I've I get these like interesting um I have to think from other perspectives sometimes whenever I go through analytical states of what that would mean because I don't always get to enjoy just thinking from my own perspective. Sometimes I have to think from a completely different kind of character from my own waking self and to to get to what am I thinking about what does this mean?

Greg 22:44

Because people sometimes like over identify with them as as they're in the dream and they think it's they who they really are as opposed to like an actor representing them because sometimes or an aspect of themselves because sometimes like bad things happen to that dream. Well I hear nightmares a lot so sometimes bad things happen to that dream ego as we call it but that doesn't mean something bad is happening to you and that that dream ego may be some aspect of you that it's it's high time they fall off a mountain or or you know something something like that.

Sheree 23:27

And it's it's really interesting think of everybody in the dream as part of you like an aspect of you part of yeah I I think I came to that realization probably about five years ago that that was a potential solution to some of the way I was thinking was that and weirdly enough maybe you will agree with me Heather but one of the things that made me think of it wasn't about analyzing dreams but um was actually in reflecting upon childbirth um I realized in childbirth that all of the pain that I was experiencing was just the process of me creating life. So the the pain itself was just part of me. So rather than trying to force it away from myself I just tried to embrace everything that was happening and that helped me to have a much smoother experience rather than being terrified in the process of giving birth right and very similar the creation you know the small death the creation every night of a dream is similar whether at first if you are you know in a nightmare or uh a positive or negative dream or moments of it you know that every aspect of it is some aspect that has to do with you. It took me a very long time to move from uh I guess intuitively deeply knowing that in myself and then being able to use words to say that to myself that helped me a lot you know because it helped me to kind of calm down and not feel so like um I guess afraid of some of my dreams and and what they meant and why I was so different sometimes or just a lot of that anxiety that was wrapped up in all of that.

Heather 25:28

Yeah I love your reframe of childbirth and the pain um I do think it helps to differentiate or depersonalize the narrative of a dream when you see yourself in many perspectives. And I honestly Greg is the one who listens to so many dreams that he can um talk about the dreams overall but I often am not myself in the dream and I sometimes I'm not embodied in the dream I'm just witnessing in the dream. But I also like the stepping back and often dreams are the opposite of what I think at the beginning of my journey when I'm exploring them. And so what will seem horrible I know will often turn into something that's the opposite that an antiodromia or movement into the opposite. So it helps me to not judge which um you know get in interferes with our understanding of the dream to move through it and understand it's gonna take me somewhere and that things that seem bad are not necessarily bad and the people as they're cast and characters aren't exactly who we think they are.

Sheree 26:48

I love that yeah so so in keeping so I keep hearing like an emphasis on like relationships um and that dreams aren't like something that we solve but it's something that we stay like in conversation with um can you tell me what was like what was the big calling for creating your Oracle deck?

The Oracle Deck Origin Story

Greg 27:14

I can start with that I um I think I think the inspiration kind of came from my first book in a way because it it was an academic book with an academic publisher and it's it's actually very good but no one bought it because it was an academic book and it wasn't really marketed at all. And it when it first came out it was very expensive. So it got me thinking gee I really want to share I love dreams I'm kind of a dream junkie and I've been recording dreams since I was a and I really want to share what it's like to work with dreams and and to be able to share with uh with a broader like non-academic audience so I was thinking well would wouldn't it be fun to like have have cards and I my original idea was kind of a little more like science y like well I I found a list of the most common dream images and what if I had someone make cards of all the most common images and that idea kind of broke down but as I was working with this I I knew Heather from we're we're on the board of an academic Jungian society. So I knew her from that society and I knew what a wonderful artist she was so I emailed her and kind of thinking oh maybe maybe Heather knows somebody maybe one of her her grad students but Heather Heather to my surprise was like oh yeah no I'd I'd like to do it so that's kind of that that was kind of the the seed of the project and it was kind of the idea of the combining the words and the images and and well I'll pass it on to you you Heather so yeah well hey Greg has been delightful to work with um but I'll words and images um are you know reclaiming their relationship I do think the relationship with the dream and staying in relationship is huge and having the relationship between words and women images which maybe that's a Freudian slip where men and women but you know where it can be acrimonious where they're antagonistic even our personas like the anima animus but I like this playful way of being in relationship. And and then one of the things I always bring up because it's the haunting image for me is that quote that a a dream unexamined is like a letter unopened. And so I I have this image which is almost like a nightmare image of you know this desk piled high with a mountain of unopen letters and and so a deck and a book gives us a way to create a relationship where we can go back to images and be in relationship with images um and that they're not just past and inaccessible.

Sheree 30:18

I love the imagery of like the desk with the unopened letters because that drive and and like you Greg I've like always been attracted to dreams even from a very very young age um so that's always been a thing in my life from like the earliest memories that I've had so like both of these things are like it's just so cool that you guys are both talking about this stuff. That's so so neat.

Greg 30:45

And when when we've done we've had the chance to do a couple of conferences together in bookshop programs. So it's when we're physically in the same place it's kind of fun to play off the the different personas and the different roles and the gender and so it's kind of fun to play that off and yeah

Sheree 31:12

you kind of get to dress that up

How To Use The Deck And Spreads

Heather 31:13

yeah and I think one of the assumptions that obviously is false is that it's either or you know so of course we have two hemispheres of our brain we have a most um post-jungian people or you know most commonly it's that we have the masculine and the feminine the animus within all of us so then it's like how do these two different capacities within us work together to explore dreams as living images to guide us nice so that brings me to my next question which would be not everybody necessarily has your cards right now but if they did have these cards or got these cards how could they start using them tonight? Yeah okay so um I do have a a website with with some information on how to do that. Yeah so that's the www dotsoulofcreativity dot com and um because one of the things that honestly Greg and I were late bloomers in in in kind of evolving to a place where these cards of course have a life of their own and we've actually had some relatively humorous experiences with people engaging with the cards because you know they have their own complexes they have their own life in relationship to the cards. The cards are relational and so part of it is as simple as just drawing a card. I mean you can look up a card based on an image from your own dream like that might be step one simple and it could be the dream that you had last night. But what I really like about these cards is that they can open up the field of your dreams as a collective like not only the dream last night but dreams like going back because like you guys like a lot of people you have dream journals you have some sense of recurring images. And then you can do spreads like you can do you know what is the dream calling me to do today you can ask different questions just like you'd ask a different question as you go to bed to kind of seed um the dream you can ask a question before you draw a card or you can do like dreams in the past like draw a card and present and then future but essentially what I have walks you through some different ways to work with cards oracularly. And then as a last um comment before Greg takes over one of the things that I have found helpful some of them are like active imaginations they're almost like cards that help you engage you know doing art or active imagination as a practice and so you can draw a card and it you know let's say it's um oh I don't know I mean they're all different ones like okay let's say it's cars which is the one that Greg is from Michigan which cars are way more meaningful A in Detroit but B, you know, so it's cars are really huge archetypely but I don't have a lot with cars personally. So then you can draw another card to kind of amplify or clarify the image and I've found that that technique alone has been really helpful with the cards. So then it gives you a secondary image to understand the first and that can help in all different ways. Like it could elucidate that one card or it could take you another step in that direction. If I draw let's say active imagination and relationship to cars I could do active imagination with a car. But so just that one thing helps to like relationally engage with the cards which helps you engage with the dream.

Greg 35:26

That's probably a little long-winded but yeah uh just to kind of say similar thing but maybe in a different way is you can you can use it like uh when you have a dream like I am just picking cards at random that's not a good one okay you okay pick the card about beaches. So let's say I had a dream about beaches so I'd find this card about beaches and I looking at the card it would call forth a lot of ideas about beaches and might help amplify your particular beach dream and you might see it in a different way through the visual. And then you'd um the images in the the book are in alphabetical order so then you'd find beaches the and and you'd read the two or three pages on beaches and that would maybe help you get a different deeper way of exploring your own dream. So that would be that's one way of doing it you have a dream pull a card read the book and that helps you understand that dream gotcha. And you could can also use it to like incubate dreams like you're you you've been thinking about forest a lot or something like that and you wonder what that image might mean in a dream you might pull that card and look at it have it at your bedside and kind of look at it to kind of incubate the dream. And I guess the third thing would be the oracular which we was a little bit of an afterthought because that's how people started using the card so that's why some of the um methods of using it are on Heather's website instead of in the book itself because it was more we kind of learned that from our audience in some ways. So that's kind of trying to use the cards to sort of channel the collective energy explore that collective energy so kind of see what's around you see might what might emerge in the dream world and kind of use it that way to kind of draw up that energy. And we've we've had there have been really interesting stories of people you know just randomly pulling the card and you you you know when they pull it oh that that's like exactly the right card because of the issue they were talking about.

Dreams, Creativity, And Brain Science

Sheree 38:01

It's been kind of they kind of have a life of their own yeah it's really it's it's very interesting actually you know I I kind of I kind of I have this problem where like I go from in my conscious mind I'm an extremely studious person you know straight A student very high scholarly mind you know um so I want to research everything and like I may not know how to pronounce everything you know that I I research about but I can piece together a lot of things that I learn about you know and but because I'm kind of a creative thinker right a lot of times I will connect things that a lot of other people don't see you know so um using like a tarot deck or an Oracle deck is an interesting way to do what you're calling channeling because it helps me to make sense of things in a different way right because it gets me out of that very rigid hard um thinking structured brain side you know and it allows me to kind of allow that side of myself to open up and go where it's gonna let me make those connections um and just grows where it's gonna grow and then I pick up things that it just allows me that space to do so. So that's I relate to some of those studies with your audience that you're talking about that that is very useful um in in many in many ways.

Greg 39:34

Yeah one one beautiful thing that happens with the with the brain in while you're dreaming is is you and they've done this with um imaging studies that you can see there's more connections and things like that. So the the the brain in dreams kind of gets out of its usual rut and and makes connection connections Other areas. I think that's why there's this interesting connection between dreams and creativity. And dreams are kind of reminiscent of psychedelic trips in that way, because you sort of connect with different parts of your brain.

Sheree 40:16

Yeah, I haven't personally partaken in any of that, but I have um read about you know how these connections and experiences are um fruitful and showing evidence to what you're explaining.

Greg 40:32

And people sometimes uh I think most of your audience will have probably heard of Mary Shelley and how she came to Frankenstein story, and there's similar other stories like that, like um um Paul McCartney, the the music to yesterday came to him in a dream. There's a lot of wonderful stories like that.

Sheree 40:58

Yeah, and then you can't you can't really say that they were crazy, you know. You can't say like, oh, you're crazy because you know, that it came to you in a dream because it it happened. Look, it is that it exists now, you know, and many people really appreciate that these things exist. So it's very hard to go back and say that there is no evidence to support, you know, dreams being a valuable resource in our minds to to cultivate things. Um you know, it's uh creativity needs to be needs to grow, right? You have to plant it, you have to nurture it, and you have to let it grow someplace. And I feel like dreams are a really wonderful place for us opportunity-wise to do that if we just are willing to be intentional and and pay attention and kind of grow those muscles.

Heather 41:53

Yeah, and it takes a letting go to a certain extent. One of my favorite books was on how almost all Nobel award winners had a vision or a dream beforehand. Um, and so there's that combination again between the kind of the intuition, if you will, and then the discernment to bring that idea down and to know what to do with it. But I think dreams require of us a relinquishing of that, what Jung called directed thought versus fantasy thinking. And back to the brain scans, they I think I assumed that the most active brain scans would be like when someone was given a really hard math problem or something. And it's actually in our creative reverie, almost like our daydreaming, you know, instead of the focused thought, it's that wonder. And so I think when we enter into, even if we're reading Greg's beautiful writing on the different dreams and dream images, entering into reading that or looking at a card or a dream, an active imagination, relinquishing control and just seeing where we go with it. And I think that that's actually a really lovely state to be in. We're just not accustomed to it.

Explore Not Interpret

Greg 43:18

Yeah, that's why we like to talk about exploring dreams rather than interpreting, because the interpreting you almost gives this connotation that there's some like right answer that you have to discover. But that's a very ego masculine way of scientific way of thinking about it, and that's just not the right way of connecting with dreams. That's why we like to use it, exploring, because there's no right answer, and there's dreams that I still learn from that I see in different ways, uh, so and there's no like right answer. There's a old saying that um in Jesus' time in the temple, there there were historic fact that there were probably like 50 itinerant dream interpreters, but people would say, well, if you took your dream to all 50 of them, you'd get 50 different interpretations, but they'd all be correct.

Heather 44:21

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So and I love Greg, you're bringing up entering the dream, because I think dreams are like portals. Sometimes we have recurring dreams, but that you can go back to especially big dreams and re-enter them in active imagination, for example, and discover something totally new and different that's more relevant for that time or that stage of your development. And so they're living images too, which I love.

Sheree 44:51

I love listening to my children tell me about their dreams, it's absolutely fascinating. They don't have as much rigidity about the world in general, anyways, and know that like they still think anything is possible, really, right? So they still are like they come up with some of the most wild and interesting ideas and so much rich symbolism of things that are like just just dripping with you know, uh a story just waiting to be told, you know. So it's like I'm hanging on every word that they tell me because I just want to know what happened in their dream. And they're just like, okay, mom, like it's just a dream. And I'm like, oh, but it's such a good story though. Uh um, but but that that brings me to another interesting thing. I I you bring up about how it's like kind of like overly masculine to kind of try to interpret everything and be so rigid about stuff. And we kind of need to think about it more like a conversation and a relationship when we think about these characters and places in our dreams. But how how how would you advise others or or do you go about not overthinking or preventing overthinking, especially as you learn more and more and talk to so many different people about their dreams, um, to to be able to stay true to maybe a more simple wisdom to to help one on a, or even one to help themselves and not overthink.

How To Avoid Overthinking Dreams

Heather 46:31

I know for me, I do a basic, you know, have tell the dream in first person, as if you're experiencing it, whether you're telling it or listening to someone, and then going back to it. But for me, what I really like to focus on is the energy. So almost like like you'd do a body scan of how you feel, like what is the most numinous or archetypely energetic, like what, and it could be attraction or repulsion. So, like if you had to sometimes I'll frame it this way, if you had to or got to engage with one thing in the dream, what would it be? Like if there was one part of the dream that had the most energy, what would it be? And so then it's more of a feeling sensing, intuiting than thinking. So I'm almost like if you think of Jung's four functions, I'm kind of outside of that thinking realm and energetically kind of scanning and feeling into the dream.

Sheree 47:32

Yeah, I relate to that. Um, so you kind of assign weight based off of that intuit pool.

Greg 47:39

Yeah. Dreams, I think, kind of keep you humble because uh sometimes they're like bigger than you are, and you you you you realize you can't always understand them. And so some uh as many dreams as I've heard, so there are many of them are still mysterious, you know, and some of my own dreams are still are are are still mysterious. But we uh I think I describe in the book, I'm pretty sure one of the books is card or card is uh because some of the cards are informational cards, but I think one of them is kind of a simple breakdown of how to how to look at a dream. So the like in a nutshell, it's first think about the the whole dream, see if you have any like associations or thoughts to the whole dream, and then think about different elements. Because sometimes there's like little weird things that why is that there? Like, why is this particular part of the city that doesn't exist? Or oh, once I had a dream about rosemary, so why is rosemary there? What do I do I have any personal associations to rosemary? And then the fun thing that we do is Jungians, Jungians do something beyond just associations, they do what's called amplification, where things, images and dreams seem to connect with these deeper archetypal images. So it's it's perfectly permissible actually to kind of encourage to sort of amplify the dream, just to use the rosemary example, because that was a dream about witches, and somebody was helping me, helping me protect myself against wish witches, and she put a sprig of rosemary above my door in the dream. So when I woke up, I think, well, why rosemary? So but but then when I looked up rosemary, it was it was like really fascinating to me because it actually has been used in in mythology and and folk culture to keep out witches, and somehow my mind knew that. So it it's uh you you call up these so you could amplify the images in the dream, and then with the people in the dream, you kind of think about um it it may be them, but it may be some trait of theirs, like if you dream of Uncle Joe and he's always angry, then maybe he's depicting image, or if he's always pleasant, or something you know, that may be a calling up that energy associated with that sort of intuitive persona.

Sheree 50:29

So there's kind of organized way of thinking about dreams, but they're always so I've got an intuit answer from Heather, and I've got a methodical answer for analysis from Greg, which again is this delightful masculine feminine anima animus. Yeah, he's always gonna give you a more straight place to but both are great ways to go about it so that you don't overthink or feel lost. And I did like one thing that you put in there, Greg, about even you, with all the dreams that you've had and people you've talked to and experiences in clinics and trauma nightmares that you've helped people through, some things simply still remain mysterious. And sometimes we just have to be cons content to allow that to be so. And maybe at some point in our lives they will be revealed to us later, maybe, but not to be wrapped around the wheel about it, right? Like let that conversation kind of come when it comes.

Greg 51:41

Yeah, there is something paradoxical, as Heather pointed out, about thinking about how not to overthink. So that's why it's let go with art and imagery and other ways to approach things differently.

Trusting Nightmares And The Opposite

Heather 51:58

Yeah, and I think unions have a very high regard for fantasy and mystery, you know, so the numinous and symbols by their very nature have a mysterious or unknown quality. And you almost don't want to depotentiate that because then you'd be at the you'd be at the end, and who wants to be at the end? So you're always being led by that mystery, you know, and so then it's this beautiful, you know, maybe it's a rainbow, the pot at the end of the rainbow or something. It's elusive, but it's always inspiring you.

Sheree 52:33

I feel that I'll drink that drink um with that pot of people, yes. Um, because otherwise it would seem very um kind of color would lack its muchness to me. Otherwise, yeah.

Greg 52:49

That's good. That's very poetic color relations.

Sheree 52:53

It would, it would be color, but it would just lack its muchness. Um so here's another here's another good question for you. Thinking about personal reflection and bringing it home for others. What do you wish that people um knew or trusted more about their dreams?

Heather 53:18

I'll go into that first if you don't mind, Greg. Um that they aren't what you think they are initially, that what I was referring to before that and antiodromia, that they're often the opposite. And that even like I I've talked about in different interviews, a dream that really was the most disturbing, but it was my deep calling. And so I had a dream where my oldest son killed himself. Spoiler alert, on a very positive note, he did not. But um, but there were these shades of the dead above ground, these kind of um emergent adults, like let's say 20-something people in this liminal space at night and underground. I was in this cathedral of death with NYX, and there was this dark communion and all these different things. And I literally woke up and threw up a bunch. Um, the dream, I've never had a deep dream be present. I it was like it was with me for a month, but that it initiated me. So a part of that is that it's not just over when you wake up, and we've all had that where we wake up in the residue of the dream, and sometimes that's kind of disturbing, but to honor that, that the dream is an initiator. It's not only an initiation, it's an initiator, and it's it's bringing us into ourselves, so to trust that, and then that it often, in my experience, is the opposite of what I think. So a lot of people stay away from bad dreams, you know, there's no bad dream. And that often I've found that when I really explore those dreams and enter more deeply into them, that they're the opposite, that they have some gold, like Hades, the Lord of Riches. There's something if we go to hell, you know, into the darkness that we bring back that was worth the journey. And so there's there's a movement into the opposite if we stick with it long enough.

Sheree 55:27

That's absolutely beautiful. I love that. And thank you.

Greg 55:33

Just as a little example of that, my my mentor who the does the dream group with me all always tells me uh always tells people the story that she used to have a recurring nightmare when she was in her own analysis. And the the nightmare would be this wolf chasing her, and she'd have this dream all the time, and it was very scary. And um she described it almost like the analyst she was seeing got tired of hearing about the dream and said, So when are you gonna feed that wolf? And and and she never had the dream again because she kind of realized like in a flash that the dream is about part of her that she nurture and things things like that. So um, yeah, and I think so. Approaching dreams kind of playfully and intuitively, and that there's no single writing answer and developing that relationship.

Simple Ways To Work With Dreams

Sheree 56:34

I think that also like is a beautiful dream example of why we specifically choose the word wisdom to put on the cover of your Oracle cards and associate it with dreams, because there's some beautiful simple wisdom there that you know we can we can learn about ourselves and help ourselves and and advocate for ourselves so much by just connecting with that deeper inner, maybe more truthful version of ourselves rather than just the version of ourselves that walks around in this conscious body and this plane of existence. You know, there's more to what makes up the entire being that is you, that has consciousness. There's there's all of you. And it's not just your hair and your skin and your nails and your age, even. There's a lot more of you than that, even. And you you should be um able to enjoy the delights of all of that rather than holding that away from you or being afraid of it even. For a very long time, I was very afraid of it.

Heather 57:43

Yeah, wisdom, you know, is not discrete knowledge, you know. So Einstein has all those great quotes about, you know, the imagination. Um, Jung, it really was the intuitive function that we're talking about, but it allows you to get at a more full, wise understanding. It's a really different orientation. And I think you do have to surrender or relinquish control, the ego, and that rational mind. But then the gift you get is that you can take the guidance of the dream, but also I think the intuitive function that it activates, and then you can bring it with you in your life, you know, and live in the waking dream with that wisdom as well.

Sheree 58:34

It's almost like you always have this built-in friend, you know, you get to check in with, you know, and you don't feel so lonesome. You feel like you're a part of something, a a net, a collective unconscious that is much greater than yourself. A friend that has your best interest at heart, and so that brings me to my closing question for each of you. What is one simple way a learner can begin working with their dreams, whether they have your deck or not? Would you suggest?

Greg 59:19

Well, first of all, buy the deck, of course.

Sheree 59:24

It's a fun deck. There's a lot of stories in it that are fantastic. I highly recommend.

Greg 59:28

Oh, yeah. I'm just joking because it we r really have, I think, a higher call. We we really want to spread the word that you know dreams are wonderful sources of wisdom and knowledge, and we can build that relationship with with them. If I can just call on my father one more time to offer a dream, because this the other dream he shared like two dreams with me in his life, both of them near the end of his life. So um, the second dream he shared, which when he was Even older, he lived to be like 102. So I think this dream was closer to the end of his life. And he he was telling he actually called me, which he very rarely did. He called me and said, Oh, I I had this dream. And so I said, Well, I'll step over. And so we talked. But he had this dream that he was building a bridge, and um people were telling, like some kind of nameless people were telling him, Don't bother, it's too expensive, it's too late. And he's like, So what do you what what what do you think now? It's like such a weird dream. And I I I told him, I mean, I sort of in you talked about intuitively sensing, I intuitively was sensing that he was like building a dream, building a bridge to the next world. And he's always had these critical voices. And I I think uh so I I just didn't try to make a long interpretation, I just told him, you know, keep building that bridge, you know, because that was the kind of wisdom that dream could offer him, a kind of gentle, kind wisdom.

Sheree 1:01:04

That's that's that's so awesome.

Heather 1:01:07

Yeah. Mine would be, you know, practical and different, but what I do is I I I almost every morning wake up and I tell my husband, I had a strange dream. They're all strange, right? So the nature of dreams. Yeah. But I I sketch it kind of, I tell it like a landscape. So I almost do a dream map. Um and so I would just encourage people to not only write their dream, but begin to play in whatever way feels intuitively comfortable, whether it's doodling or mapping, but to just enter their dream. And for me, the reason I map it, I think is because it helps me navigate in it and enter back into it. But to explore dream mapping, you know, and as a way to explore dreaming.

Where To Find The Book And Deck

Sheree 1:02:06

So what I'm hearing is keep building that bridge, keep following the wisdom that you find in your dreams, make a map for yourself so that you can continue to explore the wild and crazy and weird creative places that we create for ourselves every night. And um can you tell our wonderful listeners where they can find more from you?

Greg 1:02:35

Uh well, I oh go ahead, Heather.

Heather 1:02:39

Oh, I so I was just gonna do the you know, soul of creativity.com is a good place to start, and that's where I do have some of the dream content.

Greg 1:02:50

Yeah, and I I have a website, uh gregmarr.com, and and there's some links and videos and presentations we've done. There's a lot of information there. Also, so those two websites would be the book, and and the book and cards are on Amazon, and the the the publisher is Inner Traditions, and you can get it on their website also.

Sheree 1:03:18

Nice. I will link all of that in the show notes so that everyone will be able to find more from these wonderful doctors who are bringing the good news to you. And as we close, I wanted to begin by offering my sincere thanks to you both for joining me today, Greg and Heather, for bringing such depth and care and wisdom to this conversation about dreams. Thank you so much.

Greg 1:03:47

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. I hope you keep your recovery continued because it sounds like a long month you've had.

Sheree 1:03:56

Yep, but you know what? I'm strong, I'm healthy, and uh it's it's all gonna be great. So I'll it'll be fine. Uh, I just need to get over this little cold that I have, and it's it's gonna be great moving into January. And I'm very much looking forward to the new year, and I'm hoping for the best for you as well, both.

Heather 1:04:18

Thank you. Yeah. Dream the dream on.

Show Updates And Support

Sheree 1:04:22

Yeah. And for those of you that are listening, thank you for being here and for sharing this space with me. Moving into the new year, Cuppa Terrific will return to weekly dream analysis and creative readings. And I'll continue with at least one longer monthly episode as I'm able to do them. Um, and I'd like your help to support the podcast. You can find me on Patreon, patreon.com slash cuppa underscore underscore terrific. Your support really does help make this work possible. But thank you for listening. And as always, may your cups overflow.