S2E6 An ATV Ride Into The Unconscious

A desert trail that stretches impossibly long. A lodge with a railing that feels too low to trust. Then a wave runner hovering above dark shapes as the ocean starts to churn. We take a co-host’s vivid New Year’s dream and slow it down scene by scene to show how Dream Work can become practical therapy and coaching, not mystical guesswork. 

We start with a key move in Dream Work: treating the people in a dream as parts of the self. When Jim shows up as a dream character, we explore what “initiator energy” can represent internally, especially for someone who tends to lean toward stabilizer and nurturer patterns. From there, the dream’s imagery opens into bigger questions about career change, entering unfamiliar territory, and why the psyche might choose a desert and a 500-mile ride to signal a long internal journey toward something new. 

We also dig into symbols and why dream dictionaries rarely help. A symbol is personal, emotional, and context-driven, which is exactly what makes it useful. The lodge becomes a transition and a breath of rest, the water bottles hint at preparation and self-care, and the ocean points to the unconscious. When the water churns and unseen creatures move beneath the surface, we talk about anxiety, readiness, and the idea that if something rises in a dream, we may already have the capacity to face it. If you like personality theory, dream analysis, and tools for self-awareness, listen through to the end and share this with a friend. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what dream symbol have you never forgotten?

You can connect with the cohosts through their respective websites:

AFCCounselors.com (Dr. Shalley) / https://www.inyourdreams.coach/contact (Dr. Kelley)

Transcript

Section A

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Therapy Coaching in Dreams. My name is D. Kelly. I'm here with Jim Shaley. Hi, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And my name is Jim Shaley, and I'm here with D. Kelly.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

It's good to see you today. We are in this season two digging into dreams and trying to understand how they might fit into some of what we talked about in season one. And I thought it might be nice if we started off with a dream and we'll toss around some of the things that come out of the dream and then maybe explore a little bit about how it fits into the uh personality paradigm that we've been discussing for um this podcast. So this dream, Jim, um, I had. So it's one of mine. Uh full disclosure.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Okay. This is gonna be great. Yes. So we'll be able to I think I'll be able to help you out this uh this session. Yep. I'm already regretting it. So um this happened. No, this was a this was a nighttime dream, not a daydream, not anything. You're just making a okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Correct. This was I it was either January 1 or January 2. So it started off the new year for me. And oh great. Yeah. And you're in the dream. So I thought that would make this interesting for us.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Okay, it's not me in the dream, Dee. It's what you know you think of me. So this should be great. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

That's exactly where I want to go with this so people will get a feel um for how easy it is to externalize things, but instead to take that in the inner journey and try and understand the characters that are within us. So here's the dream. It uh there's a couple scenes to it. Um, so I'll try and run through it quickly here. Um, but I will say that as soon as I had it, the imagery felt pretty significant to me. So not only did I write it down, but I've gone back to it a couple times. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it starts out in something that maybe the listeners should know. We periodically uh do trails with uh ATVs, four-wheelers, and uh that's kind of how this scene starts.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Oh, well, I I think I like this dream.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yep. So here's the dream. I'm driving an ATV along with a few others. Jim is one of them. And there seems to be two others who may also be female or androgynous. I couldn't when I sat down later and wrote it down, I couldn't remember about those other two characters. We drive a long, long time, like 500 miles.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

It seems like that's a big trail, buddy. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

And apparently we didn't have to refuel at any point in time. We just kept going. Yeah. Um it seems like a foreign land to me. The terrain includes large rock formations, dirt, and sand. There's nothing familiar about it. We reach the ocean. Jim and I enter into a home or a place of lodging. We are on a second-floor walkway overlooking a large living room kitchen area. It feels like we're in somebody's home. The railing in front of us that's uh between us and the um drop down to the first floor is far too short. It comes up only to our knees or our mid thigh. Um, down in this living room floor area, there's a child playing with a remote car. It looks like he might have special needs. There are two ladies in the living room as well. Uh Jim is looking for water. I have a bottle or two in my jacket to give him. The next thing I know is that I am out in the ocean on wave runners. We are probably 150 feet from shore. I don't know who the other people are who are out there, but I feel a little sense of camaraderie with them. About 40 feet out further, the water begins to turn. It churns, it forms kind of a circle of ripples and waves. I don't know what it is, but I know that something is under the water and it appears to be very large. Other churning circles of water move closer to us. First to a guy to my right, and then behind me to my left. I think there may be pods of whales, something like that. I'm nervous. I don't know whether to head to the shore or just wait it out. A circle of churning water envelops me. I see the black shadow of creatures underneath the water. They look like they might be very large seals. Um it uh okay, lost my place here. Yep, look like they are seals. My legs are hanging in the water because the wave runner is rather small. That makes me even more nervous. I can't tell if they are playing, protecting, or scavenging. They're all around, and then the dream ends. So here we've got a dream with multiple scenes. Uh, one starts out in deserty area of ATVs. Um, we make our way to the ocean, but there's this brief interlude that takes place in a lodge that includes railing water, um, overlooking at a child and some women, and then being out 150 feet from shore uh on uh wave runners and uh the churning of the water that takes place. I'd love to start where you started uh when I said that there is um that in the dream you're there, and you correctly um identified how important it is to recognize that this isn't a dream about you, and I didn't call you on January 1st or 2nd and say what's going on. Uh because I was actually riding a wave runner in the ocean. Uh that's right. And and you hadn't invited me, and it was all about feeling left out. Um but for me, I think it's this is a great time to talk about something that came up um very early in season one, and that was how we perceived ourselves compared to how the other person perceives us. Right. So when the dream includes you, I know you don't see yourself as an initiator, but you represent that in my life in that your energy to make decisions, to move forward, uh um choices that uh take action that I've had the privilege at times of kind of riding that way, of tagging along, being part of that.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I think you view yourself more as the transformer energy, more of a feminine dynamic. And and I that makes perfect sense to me. But when you appear in my dream, um mentally I move toward, oh, that's the initiator voice in me that is calling me to move, calling me to be more dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah. So here we've got uh a scene where the maybe I should just say the dynamic energy is showing up because I tend to lean toward the static side. Both stabilizer and nurture are part of my kind of makeup. And so the dynamic side shows up in my dream, which is kind of the opening alert to me. What is it calling me to do inwardly that um is important?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

It's also interesting that it comes at the beginning of the year when psychologically we we we tend to make resolutions, we do all those kind of things too. That is a great point.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So you're working with me. Where where would you what would be a good direction for me to go with that? What kind of question would you ask that would help me um tap into that before we get to the rest of the dream? Just the fact, the timing of it all.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, I mean, I would ask the question, so what's your anticipation for the for the new year? What what are your thoughts? Have you got any thoughts about that? Do you wonder how it's gonna be? Is there anxiety around it? Any of those types of questions?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah. Very good questions. And certainly the notion of establishing some type of resolutions, some type of a resolution is like culturally the norm uh where we live.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Plus personally, uh I may not be completely correct here though, the last year or so, you've really focused on initiating and really being more proactive about your career and the career changes you've made recently. So I would say that probably plays in there a little bit as well. And again, it may not be as natural for you, so then I enter the dream or what I represent enters the dream. Because you're right, I would see that me planning these trips has nothing to do with initiating from my perspective. It has to do with I want to have fun. So, and if I focus too much on the initiating part of it, I can get worn out. Because it's not a natural, again, for me, it's not a natural energy. So when you dream about me, yeah, I think it's it's basically saying you have really connected with that part of you. Uh I think it's significant then to go to a lodge that represents rest. Or what would you say? What's the lodge represent for you? Would be another question. Am I moving too quickly past where we're at or not?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

No, you're not moving too quickly at all. However, I would say that um the terrain before we get to the lodge feels very significant to me. So very deserty.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah. And I think uh it'd be easy again to take this as a um just a recognition that sometimes that's where we do trails. But why at this stage, why at this point did the N-word psyche use the terrain of desert?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Um, do you have do you have any sense of the feeling you had in the desert or in the dream?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Um yeah, this the emotion that came out was this feeling of um this isn't familiar territory. And so the movement from a um well, a 18-year job, but a kind of a 30-year career, and shifting out of that completely into something else, uh feels very much like unknown territory and that's great. Yeah, the fact though, the two things happen, and I don't want to skip past the lodge piece, but uh before the dream steps into the lodge, I am aware that we've gone a long, long distance to the ocean, which for me has always been a symbol of the unconscious.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah. So um and I would love to explore whether we get to it this episode or not, but I'd love to explore the whole area of symbols and their value in in therapy, in coaching, in dream work, and how symbols become very important things for us if we'll pay attention to them uh both outwardly and inwardly.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Right, real quickly, uh to try to go the symbolic direction, for some people it's less threatening. Because it means something, it means this, and so it takes the it takes the kind of the anxiety out of, well, did it did it mean this of in the dream? Did it did I really what is this really going to happen? And so it takes that little bit of pressure off somehow somehow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

It it also one of the things that I love about thinking symbolically is it opens you up to multiple pathways as opposed to a singular pathway.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And then then you almost assess which one it rings the most true in examining all the different possibilities.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

So yeah. Um, one of the examples that I've used on numerous occasions is uh um a gentleman who had a dream and he was in a canoe. And I use that canoe imagery as a way by which to say that dream dictionaries are typically not very helpful because dreams are so, so subjective. What makes them so powerful is that they are subjective. What makes them a little more difficult is there's not a set book that says every canoe means this.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah. So my question to the gentleman with the canoe was let me give you five different possible scenarios of a canoe. Um, a canoe denotes instability because it's one of the least stable um modes of transportation. A canoe can represent um calm and peaceful waters that you're slowly gliding over the waters. So the emotion is calm and peaceful. It can denote uh whitewater rapids and somebody who had a whitewater rapid accident in a canoe as a kid that might be a traumatic image in a dream. Um, and the fourth, which was his particular case, um, sometimes canoes represent uh wonderful family time of vacations with parents or siblings. And that was what resonated with them. But there's one symbol that could easily mean four or five different things to zero in and what is it subjectively it meant to him.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

So let's let's go with the logic for I think it's interesting that uh you shifted from two things you've you love to do, which was the ATV and then just the wave runners. Uh so what's the representative of using the wave running across the desert? What's is there any anything there for you as far as being on an ATV going through the desert for 500 miles, which is excessive for an A TV, because you're right, you have to refuel at least, you know, three or four or five times. So it only goes 100 miles. So I think symbolically, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, it may not be, but I'm just wanted that would be interesting to know. I I think symbolically because you love being on an ATV.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

I really do. And the adventure is wonderful. I think there was a recognition though, it's interesting how the the psyche can bring together multiple images that evoke different thoughts. And it doesn't matter if they're contradictory, you can hold them simultaneously. So the joy of the adventure, but looking back and feeling like it's taken a long time for me to get to where I am right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And given what I know about your journey, I can see that would be very, very real and symbolic of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And I think, I mean, the fact that it happened very early in January, start of a new year, I think it denotes, at least in part, this sense of great hope and anticipation being on the edge of the unconscious in ways that I hadn't experienced in a while. And that that's a wonderful thing to do. And you're right, I do enjoy Wave Runners just like I do ATVs. Let's pause for a moment between that. This this lodge. Um for me, a lodge is like a potential dwelling place, whether it's permanent or or temporary, it it's a place to just take a breath for a few moments. Um but I do find it in the dream, it felt precarious that the railings weren't quite as hard.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, no, that's that is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

So it's like the protective, the protective parts were less were weren't as adequate. Or you were you were okay falling and risking.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yes. Um, um, if the listeners don't know, I tend to be more static in my the way I handle energy. And I also, from my perspective, lean toward the stabilizer, which values rules and sees the great um benefit that um regulations and consistency and predictability can bring. And so the fact that the um railings are described specifically, they're too low, they only come up to my knees or thighs. That this isn't regulation here. Who was doing the building code on this particular project?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Um so I'm aware of it, but I don't believe. Were you a was there fear associated with that or just an observation?

SPEAKER_01 17:46

No, it was it was uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Okay, all right. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Okay, yeah. I live in a high rise and I'm 22. Yeah, I'm 22 floors up. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

And even my very did you get up right away and go out and measure the railing, make sure it was I haven't been out there since.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Uh no, I even, you know, sometimes with a very sturdy railing, uh, it feels pretty high up. I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. Um, but in the dream, I don't leave, I stay right there, I observe some interesting things, and that is that the feminine side is actively engaged, which felt good to me, and that there was a little child uh playing with toy, which means for me something new that's emerging, new life, new growth.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Absolutely true. Yeah, and and when you get to the ocean part with the underlying and the unconscious, something's something's under there. So we'll yeah, we'll get there. But yeah, the feminine was was downstairs, it was uh safe. So the feminine energy was certainly present. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah. And there was no threat either direction. There was like this comfort, even though the individuals, the feminine people down in that area, I didn't recognize any faces. But in the dream, there was we were both comfortable that we were in each other's presence. I was watching, they knew I was there, and everything was good.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

It was interesting that well, it really does represent a rest, but between between the the desert and the the unconscious or the refreshment of water, because you ask, if I ask the part of you, do you have water? So it is a transition to the the the water scene in that perspective because the initiator carried the water with it in that sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah. And the fact that I had a couple bottles of water with me. Um you were you were taking care of yourself. I was prepared and taking care of myself. I was thinking of what I need in order to make this trip work.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

And but the initiator asked for it. So it's like the integration really is the initiator asked for the water, your responder part of you had the water.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So in that sense, this feels incredibly positive. And then we get to the um the raised anxiety part, which is the part of um on a wave runner about 150 miles from shore, 150 feet from shore.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

I was gonna say, whoa. You have quite some dreams here, 500 miles on ATV and 150 miles on a wave runner.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Uh so um several of us are out there uh writing on the surface of the water, again, for me in my journey with dreams, is good to be in contact with the unconscious, but it also is a safe uh space with the unconscious because I'm not going beneath the surface. Um, but in the dream.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

But the wave runner was smaller than normal.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yep. Yep, and my feet were dangling in the water. Yep. Um so then the images begin the churning of the water, the churning of the unconscious, the churning of that side of me that offers what is undeveloped, what is frightening, what can sometimes be anxiety-producing, that there is this churning of activity that is bringing something to the surface. And uh one of the adages I used with somebody uh last week is the adage that if something comes up in the dream, we have the emotional capacity to work with it. That if it arises out of the unconscious in a dream, it's as if our psyche, our soul, is saying. Yep, it's time. It's time to pay attention to these kinds of things. So as anxious as I was, there is this sense that I'm I'm not leaving, I'm not going back to shore. I it it's all around me. I don't know, it's still unknown. But I think it's a person to deal with it. Man, I love that line. Yeah, I'll write that one down today, right next to the dream in my uh journal.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yeah, and that's accurate. And you did. Yeah, you a couple years ago, you you took off into uncharted territory. So I think even doing uh some some work around uh 2026, the the numbers, what does that represent? But that's for for another time, perhaps. So um but what my appetite, where where would you think to go with that? I would just do some some symbolic work with just around numbers, like uh why this year, 2026. Uh in a larger context for me, the world seems to be in flux um in some ways that maybe we've experienced before, but we certainly haven't done that in our time in our lifetime. Right. So I think all that works together, I think. And you you're pretty you're pretty deep in lots of ways. So there may be a connection for you that's that's larger than just what you think of being on the water, especially with the what I heard you expressing was underneath there was lots of stuff going on in in the water. Which is typically the unconscious, the the channel, the the challenge for all of us is to make the unconscious conscious. And so that your feet were dangling, that you were very aware that was something was going. That's that's really interesting from that perspective. And at the beginning of the year.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

And that is the saying, you don't know what you don't know. So if it's in the unconscious, by definition, that's and I prefer I prefer to stay there. Yeah. Um it was interesting to not recognize you as a figure that had been in the dream all the way through when I got out to the unconscious waters, which makes me wonder if the initiation that it takes to step out into the unconscious means that in at least that moment the initiator had been integrated enough. Absolutely. That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah. Okay. Or you just got tired of me being in the dream. It's like right now, which is exactly right. So no, I would say you you embraced it. Yeah, and then that was that maybe very well what the respite was at the at the uh lodge. You were integrating that because you took water from that part of you.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

So in the dream, the masculine and feminine integrated because the the awareness of the feminine side uh that was on the foundational floor, which makes sense to me. The the new birth, the new energies that were taking place, the providing the provisions for the initiator side.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

So the integration and just the fact that the railing was lower, which meant you had easy access to the feminine, and it was okay. There was the access wasn't as scary, so there was more of a transition from that perspective. That's where I would take the positive approach as to why that railing wasn't so high. You didn't need the protection.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah. Wow. Integration gives us more freedom.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah. It does, because I mean you think about our model, uh, what do I need to be? The freedom to be able to choose uh any expression of that.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Well, Jim, I hope this uh journey to dig a little bit more into dreams is helpful to listeners, as well as as we move through applying what we've been talking about for the last 20 episodes about personality theory and uh a model um and how it benefits so much in taking apart some of the pieces of the dream. So as always, great to be with you, Jim. Great to be with you, D. Thanks. Yep, bye-bye. That's it for this episode of Therapy, Coaching, and Dreams. If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love for you to follow, rate, or share it with someone who might appreciate it as well. Thanks for being here, and until next time, keep growing. Stay curious, and take good care of yourself. Oh, I probably need to warn you ahead of time. I'm starting to wear a body cam, just so I can record everything that goes on.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Uh I've been wearing one and live streaming a lot of the stuff that you do, so I I I guess I should have told you that. But so where is your body cam at? I don't worry, do I really want to know? It's right here. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yeah. Yeah, there's there's nothing to film here. Keep on walking.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Oh man. Yeah, no, that's good stuff.