S2E7 Please Do Not Call Your Spouse

We start with a listener question about how meds can affect REM sleep, dream recall, and the sheer intensity of what you see at night. Then we get practical: even if a dream is amplified by chemistry or disrupted sleep patterns, it can still be a useful tool for self-awareness, emotional processing, and personal growth.

We bring back our STIR personality framework and use it as a map for dream analysis: Stabilizer, Transformer, Initiator, and Responder. Dee shares a recent dream that feels awkward and crushing upon waking, and we slow it down to notice the emotions, the “residue” from real life that shows up as dream material, and the big trap of externalizing. That includes the classic mistake of blaming a spouse or a friend for what their dream-character did.

As we assign the dream characters to different inner energies, one insight stands out: the initiator function is missing, and that absence helps explain why the whole scene feels stuck and unfixable. From there we talk about baby steps, how to tell the truth in a way people can hear, how to nurture yourself without slipping into self-absorption, and why the known dysfunction often feels more comfortable than the unknown change.

If you like therapy coaching tools, personality types, and dream analysis that leads to real-life action, follow the show, share this episode with a friend, and leave a quick rating or review so more listeners can find us.

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_00 0:12

Welcome to Therapy Coaching in Dreams. My name is Dee Kelly. This is Jim Shaley. Hello, Dee. Nice to be with you. And nice to be with you, too. This is season two. So excited about bringing together a number of things regarding season one, but taking a deep dive into dreams and seeing how they connect to the theory that we've been working with. Before we get to some of that connection, I'd love to start with a question that comes from one of our listeners. Great. And the question was related to dreams. The person said that recently they've been having very vivid dreams and have attributed it to medications that they were taking, which there is substantial research that there is a connection between some medications and more vivid dreaming. And so the question was with those vivid dreams and the medication, do some of the theories that we're talking about still hold true? Great question. I think you could look up and see that things like antidepressants affect memory and vividness of dreams, beta blockers do, um, nicotine patches do. And then there are many reports of withdrawal from certain types of drugs. Absolutely true, yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I mean, the one thing that I'll add in in conjunction with this is that the there's a the theory behind adaptive mental health really is to expand the way in which the brain can take in stimulus and process it and come up with new ways of doing it. So I'm wondering if the medications like the psilicybins, uh, ketamine, all those things are have that design to it. And I'm wondering, I don't have any proof of this, if indeed some of the antidepressants do the same thing with the brain. So there's an expansive dreaming that takes place. More vivid dreaming because the the brain is in a different function because of the medication.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah. I would thank you. I think that's absolutely right. And I would add a couple other things to it. One is that there is uh at least some documentation about a rebound effect when medications interrupt certain sleep patterns and hinder dreaming. Yeah, that could see that too. Yeah. There is such a need physiologically for that REM sleep state that there will come a time when the rebound takes place, and in tr in an effort to try and catch up on some of that necessary emotional recalibration and some of the chemical shifts that take place during REM sleep, that we can feel like we have a large increase of dream material, which is actually true.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

The vividness is another thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I'm I have that's an that's an interesting concept. I'd be interested in your thoughts about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah. I don't know of any research that gets specific as to does that change the nature of dreams, or are you just far more aware of the vividness that is taking place every night, but you tend to sleep through the vividness.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah. Because the many medications interrupt sleep patterns. And the the research that does happen in clinics where researchers wake you up at various times through the night to uncover what it is that you're dreaming about or thinking about at that time shows that there is an enormous amount of dream material through the course of the night, probably up to an hour and a half every night of dream material, maybe a little bit more. And that it actually can happen in any stage. It's just more prolific during the REM state. All of that to say that medications and withdrawal from medications, the way in which they interrupt sleep patterns could simply make the dreamer more aware of dreams that are already taking place. So then we can still So then we can use the formula and I've had the privilege of working with a lot of people on their dreams, and it doesn't matter if it's a small snippet that had very little emotional associated with it or a very grandiose vivid dream. All of them seem to set themselves up for wonderful opportunities to dig a little bit deeper into the landscape of your personality.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

That's great. What can spike some interest in diving deeper into who I am and who I want to be. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I have often said that one of my convictions about dreams is even if you would argue that instead of the dream emerging with this information, we are imposing a paradigm on it. Either one of those approaches to me, if it produces increased self-reflection, I don't care how you view it, if it's increasing your time spent in thinking about your own journey, then it's a productive exercise. So anyway, uh we spent a lot of time, season one, building a understanding of the way in which personality can be viewed. And just a reminder to the listeners, we talked about two vectors, one of those vectors being a masculine versus feminine vector, or another way to look at that is a task-driven versus relationally driven posture toward looking at our the emphasis of the energy of our life. The other vector is dynamic versus static, an energy that is always moving, or an energy that is always organizing and stabilizing. And out of that come four personality styles. The STERM model S T I R is that there is the stabilizer, a static, task-driven person. There is the transformer, a relational dynamic person. There is the initiator.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, if I had to sum up a phrase that that some one of my clients talked about this week, they were struggling with how what that looks like. And I finally came up with a very common phrase. It's they're out of the box. They don't fit in any box, they think outside the box. And when I said that, the guy went, Oh, that makes sense. Because I said, I he tried to, he asked me the question, how I use it, because you basically said, I think you're the transformer. I said, Yeah, my basic style is that. And he said, How do you sit all day and do this? And I said, Well, the transformer in me is creative as far as how I seek someone's life. So I'm able to access that part of thinking outside the box and thinking for an individual differently than they might think. And that what that's kind of reframing. That's what most therapists do in some ways. But that's how I use it.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah. It's a great one-word descriptor. For me, the one-word descriptor for the first letter, S stabilizer, would probably be organization. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Always is thinking organizationally. Inside the box. Exactly right. Actually trying to create the box for those who are doing the outside the box thinking.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

And interestingly, that's the natural attraction.

unknown 7:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

People that are yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah. So then the next letter is the I, which is initiator, which is a dynamic, task-driven energy. And in some ways, the expansion or conquer, I don't want to use necessarily the archetype of conqueror for everybody, but it's uh uh it's always moving, kind of an approach. And then the responder, which is uh always providing, always responding.

unknown 8:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Caretake caretaking. Right. So with that model in mind, it's so interesting to work with caretakers. I had one this week that finally understood that the caretaking that she needs to do is about her now. And she said it's really uncomfortable, but she said it's finally made sense that I've given that away and I was getting exhausted. And so when we started talking about it, and that what I need to do now is take care of me, she goes, it feels selfish. And I said, Well, if you look at it the other way, it was selfish the way you used to do it too. Because that was about you as well. It's just that we're all we're all selfish. I think self-absorption is what we start try to stay away from. We all want to take care of ourselves. The word selfish sounds selfish, really, but really it is about taking care of yourself.

unknown 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Great example. Really great example. I I um am going to use a dream of my own. Feel like I'm stepping onto dangerous gram because you know me too well and you pride and dig into places I don't want you to go. But nevertheless, this is a dream from this week. And one of the reasons I wanted to use this one was I thought it might be good to use it as a way by which to see how the model of personality can get applied and how it helps me to grow, reflect, and improve my journey. So the dream begins. I'm sitting in a space that isn't very distinct. I don't know where it's at, other than it's at a home, kind of in a yard. Some of the scenes take place in the garage and then in one of the rooms. But so I'm sitting where a lot of people have gathered.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And at one point the people are the people are there?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, yeah. People are gathered there, and I'm there as myself. At one point, a person named Marsha, who was seated beside me. We are seated in some lawn chairs on a driveway. She slowly lays down on the blacktop. There's some kind of moisture that looks like mucus or spit or something like that. And when she rolls over on her side, she gets some of it on her sleeve. So I go into the garage to find some rags to clean it up. I can't find any rags that are clean and it's very frustrating. Her husband is there, but I can't remember what he's doing. In another room where a number of people have gathered, I can hear Kay introducing and interviewing a person by the name of Cindy. Her introduction takes a very uncomfortable turn as she impugns the character and actions of Cindy's former husband. I cringe as I listen. Cindy is surprised at the introduction and tries to defend him, but Kay continues with questions that seem to expose things that others didn't know. The place was uncomfortably silent. I didn't know what to do. Cindy came out of that room and walked toward me and asked a question about how long before she should interact with our family. She was so angry. I didn't have an answer. She said something to the effect of, I don't want any contact for at least two years. And then Kay entered the room and came to the table. There was no apology forthcoming. Cindy and Git and Kay briefly briefly interacted and I woke up. So part of the waking up, part of what I always pay attention in the dream is what's the emotion I feel when I wake up? Am I afraid? Am I nervous? Whatever. This one felt significant because when I woke up, I felt like my spirit was just crushed. All of it felt so uncomfortable, and I felt so awkward. Middle of the night, I'm waking up and I'm just feeling horrible. So that's were you feeling exposed? No. No, just feeling like I wanted to fix it, but there was no way to fix it. Like something had been violated. Right. Right. Okay. So a couple things I want to say. One is that when I mentioned Marcia's husband, I had spent some time with him the previous day. So one of the things we've never talked about, but is true about dreams, is they pick up residue from previous days' experiences and often use that as material. I don't think it's wise to ever dismiss residue because of all of the things that we could remember. Why was that drawn into the dream? But it is also appropriate to acknowledge, well, it was drawn in because it's been recently on my mind. So it's an appropriate question to ask is there any emotion associated with it?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

But so Marcia and her husband are actual people in your life.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

As are Cindy and Kay. Yes. Okay, got it. Okay. Everyone is. So for me.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

You're sure this was a dream. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

You know me too well. So my presupposition is all of the characters, plot line, even geographical locations and props all can be viewed from the perspective of parts of me, parts of who I am. The tendency is always to externalize this. I need to call Cindy and apologize to her on behalf of our family.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Which would be kind of odd, but might give it a shot.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

But people do that all the time, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yes, they do. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

They have a dream and somehow they think they need to call the person that was in the dream. It's so true. Yeah, you're right. Or, and if the listener doesn't know this, Kay is my spouse. Yes, that would be good to know. Yeah. And often in dreams, when somebody has a dream about their spouse doing something they don't like, they wake up angry or frustrated at their spouse. And the spouse is totally innocent. I didn't have an affair. I didn't pick up with your friend. I didn't. That's true. Yes. So it's so essential as I wake up to recognize that it's it's not about Kay. It's about the part of me that Kay would represent. So here's where I want to go with this. I'm going to give you three of the characters and tell you what I think they represent as part of me. Then I want your help to help me. Where do I go with this? Dig a little bit deeper. Okay? So let's start with Kay. Kay would represent for me the transformer side of myself. An attraction to it because early on it was so mystical to me. I just I didn't see the world that way, and it was so fascinating. It's also just like it's the attraction, it can also be the source of frustration. And so it's that part of me that I have worked at to develop. In a previous episode, I talked about going to art museums to try and develop that side, that part of me. So that's the Transformer voice. And that voice in the dream spoke out, spoke the truth, probably said what everybody was thinking, but nobody ever thought to say it. So that's the transformer part of me. So a part of you would like to do that. I think that that's accurate, and I find it so stressful to do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's kind of like last week when we talked about, or was it one one of the episodes where we talked about my incident at the car wash, where I reacted like, the car is a neutral. Whereas you would have gone, I'm so sorry, sir. I'm so sorry I didn't have a neutral. You you go the other way.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah. So okay. So it's a great recognition of an area that I work on. Marcia. Marsha, from my perspective, the way in which she has identified a part of who I am, I would say that she is the stabilizer. She is an individual that is represents the organizational side like patterns, like spreadsheets, like predictability. I'm not saying that's how she is in real life. I'm just saying that that's the part of me that she would represent. Got it. Okay. Then the Cindy character. Again, a real person, and I'm not saying that this is how she self-identifies.

unknown 17:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

But the impact that she's made on the case.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

You have to have these disclaimers so that if they listen to the exactly right No, no, Cindy, I was not talking about you, not at all. It's me. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Which works great if it's just one-on-one and we have confidentiality, but this is going out to everyone. That's very true. Represents for me the responder, caregiver, just is wonderful in terms of when she talks, there's this sensitivity. She sees through all of the stuff and seems to see your heart. That's the part of me that would be the responder. So now I have these three representations that in the dream are all female, but they're not limited to that in terms of the expression for me, the stabilizer being one of those. So I'm finding myself in internal tension as parts of me don't appear to be very integrated because they are at odds with one another. So I'm gonna add one more piece and then I'm gonna ask you to help me. Okay. And that is what struck me was there is no initiating energy in my dream.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

That's what I yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. Other than the transformer by saying the truth, she initiated that.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, but the common ground is the dynamic side of things, not necessarily the task-driven side of things.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

So the initiator to integrate all those is missing.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

That's exactly it. So using this matrix takes the dream to a new level. You know why it's missing? I've come to you for help.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Because you don't want to do it. Yeah. Spot on. Yeah. Because it's working.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah, because look how you woke up. You woke up in turmoil. It's a lot of work to actually initiate change from the perspective of a pattern that we're comfortable with. It would be, again, like me having to uh, you know, read all day long. Or something that's, you know, that brings structure or something. I love it when I'm doing it, if I get into it, but to start it, yeah, the initiating energy is often hard to access. And that's exactly what it takes to create these changes. And that's why some people that come in that are natural initiators and have transforming energy. Like a couple of my clients this week, one guy came in, he said he's been listening to it, and he goes, man, that made so much sense. But it's frustrating because my wife is pretty static. And see it. So I've I've implemented these things, I'm going to be present, I'm it's working with my company. And you can see because he's an initiator. Now I have there's another side to that as far as he's moving too fast, and he he could he can affect not pay attention to the emotional dynamic of it. But that's that's another point. The reality is that initiator will get a good idea and they'll say, Oh, I can do this. So set with the the feeling when you woke up with you were uncomfortable, what's the strongest word that describes it?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Oh, I was holding the tension inwardly of all of the interactions. And I think the the primary was the tension between the the transformer and the responder. Absolutely. Because the responder is is put on the defensive and the responder is not comfortable with being on the defensive.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

And but but and the responder would almost always say, My intention is always good.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

But the transformer who sees through that is gonna absolutely lambast you and say, You're doing it for you. You know, you take care of everybody else. You know, you're so nice, but you're not that nice. I mean, that's that's the harsh reality of the transformer, because they speak that crazy truth into people's lives that they don't want to deal with or they don't want to see, or they can't see. Yeah. Now Transformer, I mean, the downside of that is your transformer may need initiating energy to tell them not to tell them to knock it off.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah. Here's here's the I think the part of the tension.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

That's a technical term, to tell them to knock it off.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That's right. Use that. The listeners may not understand that term as well. Psycho babble.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Pretty deep, heavy psycho babble. Anyway, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

No. The predisposition of a stabilizer is that there is great concern for social norms. Social norms provide predictability and stability. Yeah. And so the social norm in that moment would be to bring things back to peace by an apology. And a transformer doesn't even occur to them. There's no apology necessary. You tell the truth. What what's wrong with that? That's so true. Am I right?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah. So I have the inward tension. I hold that tension. But you do. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're never gonna apologize to the car wash attendant.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

No, in fact, he should apologize to me. That's right. No, the other thing that I thought of in your in your work life, you've been really, at least from my perspective, you've really been pushing the initiating energy for you to accomplish things and get things done. So I'm wondering if your dream is compensating for that, where you're giving away a lot of that in your work life, but in your personal life, you may need to use more of that. I don't know. Very insightful. So that's the other thing dreams will do. If we're out if we're lopsided in our expressions, in my opinion, the dreams come along to try to balance that out. It's part of the recalibration piece.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Because really, the transformer was speaking into your own stabilizer. So from what I'm hearing you say, I mean your own responder. Your own responder.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is, and I'm sure this comes a bit from you knowing more details in my life, but the steps that I've taken to expand, become healthier and balanced, have been focused mostly on my personal vocational aspects of my life. The relational side to move from applying it just to tasks and shifting it over and moving it to relationships.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

A lot of uncontr d discontrol in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Absolutely. Like I can't control how the other person's going to respond if I switch in that way.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Which keeps a lot of people from really growing because they're very concerned how it's going to affect others.

unknown 24:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Back to my my back to my point earlier when I talked about the person that finally realized they were using their responding energy to take care of everybody else and they needed to take care of themselves, they felt really selfish and they felt like people are going to judge him because they were moving to an uncomfortable place.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah. So then my question for you is knowing that that is a hard arena for me or for anybody, what are borrowing from an old movie, what are baby steps? What are some small steps? What are some small steps that might have the potential to give you some successes to build on relationally when you're trying to step into a new place through your yards?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

That's the foundational question for all that we're doing. Yeah. It's like really, what is the small step? Again, the observation is most important. So as I find myself noticing when I should have spoken up or when I should have spoken spoken the truth to someone, and I I chose to please them instead, just to become, again, that's why self-awareness in those moments are so crucial. And I still struggle. Even though I'm a pretty strong transformer, you know, in therapy, you have to say things in a way that people can hear them. And once you earn the right to speak more directly, probably more authentic. But in the beginning, to say something that's pretty controversial as far as a person being able to hear it, I mean there's an art, a little bit of an art to that to be able to say it. And that's why it's so important to access, from my perspective, all the different aspects of the of the of the stir, because I I need to figure out where I need to be. So this person needs to hear this, but they need me to nurture them more right now than they do need than they need to hear it. And it's like validating first and then speaking the truth, the same way with my individual journey. Where do I need to be validated before I can move someplace? Okay, I really need to step up and speak the truth to a family member or whoever that is. Okay, how do I take care of myself so that I can be better at doing that? It's kind of an abstract concept, but it's it's basically grounding yourself and saying, okay, I need to have a conversation with my spouse about this. Well, I had a guy this week who he said, I'm I'm afraid to tell my to talk to my wife. I'm afraid to ask her questions. And then she comes to me and says, I'm I was afraid to ask to call you on the way home from work to have you pick up some milk. What's that about? And I said, Well, there's a there's a fear of rejection, there's a fear they won't understand, there's a fear that they won't appreciate where you're coming from. All those are fears. So how do you take care of that? Well, I always frame it in in the sense of, what it would how would you say it to your child? Well, I wouldn't have any trouble saying to my child. Well, why is that? Well, because I'm I'm wanting to help them grow and to teach them some things. Exactly. So how do you how do you say it to yourself? Because you're doing the same thing with yourself.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

It's just incredible It's incredible self-awareness and the patience and the discipline. And I don't do it great most of the time myself. So it's it's a great concept and I and I really believe in it, but it's it's difficult to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

We also need to add to that mix that what we've said many times, and that is the dysfunction that is known is always more comfortable than the unknown.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

That is so true. That's such a great phrase.

unknown 28:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

And we we we so desperately want the dysfunction to be functional.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah. And then we keep doing the same things and hope it'll change and it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

It's it's so true. And then we project it, thinking if they would just be different, I would be different. Yeah. I think it may not have been tangible enough as far as a small step, but it it really does. I think that's why I like our model so much, because if I can get that concept that I'm in the middle there, on any given day, I'm in the middle. I have a bias, absolutely, but where do I need to be right now with this individual? And again, that makes you so much more present. I mean, when I know when I have a when I have a couple coming in and I know kind of know their story, okay, I know where I need to be. If they're an incredibly strong personality, I need to be in my responder mode. I need to be able to listen to them. I need to be able to be very careful.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

This has been great, Jim. I hope it helps the listener see how dreams can be such an amazing tool to discover the parts of you because they appear as characters. You get a face, you get a context of those parts of who you are if you pay attention to your dreams. Hopefully, this will carry out.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

And I love I love your vulnerability to share your dreams with us. That's great. Thanks, Jeff. Again, we need to restate those were aspects of my friend D had nothing to do with those people.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

That's exactly right. You say humorously, but it's really important to not take the dream and impose that on look at what my friend did to me in the dream. No, your friend didn't do that. That's your inner workings that are taking place. So thank you for that disclaimer. We'll dig in more and hopefully uncover more ways to learn about ourselves, grow in our self-awareness, and become healthier. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, to you. 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. And my name continues to be Jim Shaley. What was that?

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Did you did you fart? Well it wasn't. It was weird. Anyway. Why did you think it was me? Because I can feel me.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

It may have been my computer, and it might have my computer all screwed up, so you look you look startled.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Yeah, no, it's good to start.