S2E9 What If The Monster Chasing You Is You

A nightmare can ruin your sleep, but it can also tell the truth faster than your daytime mind ever will. We take dream interpretation out of the mystical zone and into practical therapy and coaching. When you wake up with panic, shame, or dread, don’t fixate on the knife, the prison, or the faceless stranger. Instead, ask the growth question: what part of me is trying to get my attention right now?

We connect that question to the STIR model of personality styles: stabilizer, transformer, initiator, and responder. You’ll hear why “template dreams” like being back in school and unprepared can be your psyche’s go-to way of processing anxiety, and how dreams function as emotional recalibration so you can meet the next day with more capacity. We also walk through vivid examples: the stabilizer’s fear of not being ready, the transformer’s claustrophobic “walls closing in,” the initiator alone on a small boat with danger circling below, and the responder who can’t stop running from an unknown pursuer.

We make room for trauma-informed dream work too, validating how past events can echo in nightmares while still exploring what may have triggered those feelings in the last couple of days. To close, we share a tool you can try immediately: active imagination, where you return to the dream scene and finally turn toward what’s chasing you to ask why it’s there.

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_03 0:12

Welcome to Therapy Coaching in Dreams. I'm D. Kelly, and this is Jim Shalley. I'm Jim Shalley, and that's D. Kelly. Good to be with you, Jim. It's nice to be back. And talking about the STERM model that we've referenced often, where we look at the uh task driven versus relationally driven side of individuals and the dynamic versus the static energy that sometimes flows out of both of those. And we've given some personality styles. The Sturm model uses that as an acronym for stabilizer, transformer, initiator, and responder. And we can explain more of those as we go along if somebody's not listened to season one, bring them up to date. But we've also, this season, season two, has looked far more closely at dreams and how they might be a good tool for helping us to understand ourselves and our interaction with others.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

But before you say anything, interesting, one of the listeners commented on the fact that because we referred to relationships and kind of couples or spousal things, that they were wondering, is it applicable to individuals? And I said, well, that's really the whole premise, is that it's applicable to the individual. And that I use it in the framework of couples because sometimes most of the time they project an aspect of themselves onto their spouse and want their spouse to fulfill that part of the responsibility rather than realizing it's it's a part of them as well. So I think it's thanks for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

I I think it's uh a great question that she asked. I think it also points out and correct me if you've not experienced this with people with whom you've worked, but the tendency for couples to reach a stable plateau in their relationship. And because nothing is going terribly wrong, they don't work at their own personal inner growth because the partner has carried their their shadow side or carried the undeveloped side. Trevor Burrus, Jr. A great observation. You're right. And I it's not that I want somebody to have a crisis, but because they're not in crisis, they're not stretched sometimes. And I guess I would just encourage anyone, whether they're in a relationship or not, to look at this model as a way by which to understand themselves better and to find areas of growth in their life. Yeah. So I'd I think maybe one of the great places to start, even if this emphasis, the season wasn't on dreams, when you talk about the shadow side, it often comes out in dreams. Yeah. It often comes out in a nightmare. Absolutely. Yeah. So I don't know the kinds of things that come to mind for you, but I think of being chased, you're running from something that you a person you don't know, or fear over being attacked by an animal, an insect, a snake, something like that. And then a nightmare that just has you in a situation that kind of brings a little bit of panic or shame or guilt to your life. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Or uncertainty or confusion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

From my perspective, those are some of the greatest gifts to have a dream like that because it startles you awake. It's emotionally.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

One of the more common ones from my perspective are dreams that have a sense of I'm back in high school, I'm back in college, I'm I'm late to a class, have to take this class over again. In my mind, that's that's kind of a metaphor of an underdeveloped side of myself that I still need to aspect. I don't know if that's if that rings true for you, but but I just had a couple weeks ago a client talk about, so I was dreaming I was back in high school. And so we talked about what high school represented, and they were they were not getting the m they weren't getting the the lesson right, or they just were confused about it. And in my mind, is that would that be fair? It's a little bit undeveloped, or how would you interpret it?

SPEAKER_03 4:17

No, I think that's exactly right. Not everybody does this, but I call those dreams template dreams. And the reason is that I think our psyche creates a scenario that sometimes changes in the detail, but the general presentation of the anxiety is the same. And it mirrors a particular emotion. And so when we are experiencing in our daily life some of that particular type of emotion, we have go-to dreams that help process the emotion. Because one of the key functions of dreams is emotional recalibration to keep us balanced enough to have enough capacity for the next day. That's so helpful. That really is, yeah. And so if I have, as you described, I'm back in high school, I'm late for a test, or I didn't prepare for the test. The question is, is there something that you're not feeling prepared for right now? Feeling anxious that you're gonna show up and and not have an answer or not be ready for an interaction with a particular person. The psyche then recreates what has become for you this template approach that mirrors that emotion because that's the emotion that needs to be processed. Okay. That's good. Yeah. So you named a lot of them. Lack of preparedness for an exam, showing up underclothed uh for a particular engagement. Well, I used to do that in high school a lot. So uh sorry. I the middle image just threw me off there. As it did many in high school now, I have a new nightmare, I think is what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Well, it's an underdeveloped part of yourself, so let's just let's go with that.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

So let's step back from the dream material for a moment, though there is one more piece of that that I think is really important, and that is that when we wake up with a strong emotional reaction to a dream, the question that we ought to consider in that moment is what is it inwardly that's trying to get my attention? What part of me is trying to speak up? What aspect of my life that I've not been paying attention to is clamoring for attention. And so when that shadow side shows up, particularly as person, a person that you don't recognize, shadowy figure or somebody who's attacking, question is why are they screaming out, pay attention to me? Pay less attention to the fact that in the dream they had a knife up over their head. It's not about the knife, it's about trying to get my attention to what's happening in the unconscious. So to back up then, and then just talk about the kinds of things in our journey of personality exploration that are underdeveloped and why they're underdeveloped. So the shadow side, when you perceive that somebody is wrestling with things that kind of rest in the unconscious, how do you begin to tease that out? Because by definition, if it's in the unconscious, they are not very aware of what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah, that's a great question. I think initially sometimes you have to go if people talk about a dream, they r their bias really is it's an external expression. Right. So sometimes you have to just kind of lean into that and say, okay, so let's say it is external. Let's say so, what what would that what would they be trying to say to you? What would that person be trying to say to you? And so you kind of go that direction with it. At some point, if they're insightful enough, there's this there's a shift to, oh, I could see where that would be something inside of me. And so that then they can start to shift a little bit that way. But a lot of people just they really do want to believe it's external. And so getting them to shift into, well, if it's about you, again, my bias would be if they're in therapy, they're they're going to be more open to that question. It's a great point.

unknown 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

So let's work our way around the Sturm model. Somebody who's a stabilizer. What might be in the shadow side that that individual isn't paying attention to might come out in dreams, but it also might come out in relational interaction with the stability.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Let's just let's just give me a dr- a dream they might have to express the shadow side of the stabilizer.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

So stabilizer comes in and indicates that they had a dream where they were caught off guard because they were in front of a group and all of a sudden they knew that they were supposed to present something that they weren't ready to present. And they looked out in the crowd and it a sea of faces, none of whom they recognized, and they felt shame, they felt guilt. And so woke up in a panic.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

That's okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Where would we go with this stabilizer in terms of the undeveloped side?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

But I mean, I'm smiling because it's like, even though they can't see me smiling, because this is audio, right? Standing up in front of a class being unprepared is absolutely the transformer. So in my mind, the underdeveloped part of them is the ability to, for lack of a better expression, wing it and be okay. Because if a stabilizer would just lean into it, because they prepared more than they think they prepared, they'd be fine. If they could lean into, all right, I can do this. As opposed to, oh my word, I'm going to forget stuff. I I I forgot my notes, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Yeah. Yeah. The obsession that a stabilizer has with preparation leaves things in in their shadow side, undeveloped. And an interesting question then is to ask a person like that, what do you miss out on because you don't tap into that side of who you are? What do you not participate in? What do you what opportunities do you let pass?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

That's a great question. Because usually they will be the type that would never jump out of an airplane, but if they're convinced to do it, they would love it, but never do it again, perhaps. But at least they would love it in the moment. And so how do you expand that and realize, okay, if you loved it in the moment, would you want to create more of those moments where you could enjoy that? Well, that's a big challenge for the stabilizer because they like to bring order to things. So it's it's it's challenging. And typically, as we've talked about in previous episodes, they're usually in relationship with someone who has that energy. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Transformer comes in for those who are not familiar. Excuse me. A transformer has a very dynamic energy. So it's transformer person is action-oriented, movement-oriented. And they also have a connection to the relational side of things. So they uh sometimes referred to as a feminine voice, but once again, it's neither male nor female. It's a it's a relational orientation. So a transformer comes in and has a dream that left them in a panic because they found themselves in a prison cell. And the prison cell seemed to be getting smaller, shrinking in size. And they woke up claustrophobic, overwhelmed with this sense of panic that they didn't know how to get out. That's great. Yep. So the interaction with you or with anyone, what's the invitation there? It all you can think of is I'm frantic and panic. I don't want to go to sleep again. But when you pause and say, so what is this telling me about the shadow side of my life, the undeveloped side, what might that be?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I would sit with them for quite a while as they express their feeling of what it feels like if the walls are closing in, and get them to really understand that you have control over what you do with the dream in that sense, but also to to expand the feeling level and say, oh, I I feel like I have no options, or I feel like I can't, yeah, they can't be themselves. So then what do they have to do? The undeveloped part of them is to bring order in that little room by the way they think about it.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

That's great. Because a dream, yeah. How do people survive when they're put in prison and they've they've obviously been in prison because they may have expanded their transformer a little too much to the to the to the dark side. Yeah, to the dark side. So then they have to they have to handle that. So they learn how to live in the confines, which is the forced development of what I would say the stabilizer.

unknown 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

It's like responsible freedom. People that can't handle freedom lose it.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Yeah. Often culture throws at us the shadow side by virtue of the consequences of our actions, whatever our tendencies are. And we can fight against them or we can learn from them and grow from them.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Aaron Powell It's a nice theory. In practice, it can be difficult if you're in prison and trying to adapt to to the confines of that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

However, but it's again easy to externalize that, but you look at the symbolism of the way the psyche creates these images, and you go, uh you're most likely not on the verge of being thrown in prison. It is it is it's a feeling of being trapped. It's a feeling of being trapped.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

That's a great way to look at it. It's like, okay, wait a minute. Yeah. As opposed to the literal way I was looking at it. You're going to prison soon, so you should prepare for that. That's right. Can you still pay your fee? I just want to settle the That dream indicates that the police will be at your door pretty soon and they'll be arresting you.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

There's probably also an important Yeah, I it happens with numerous clients in terms of my journey. And that is that there is a strange mixture sometimes of a traumatic event from the past and a reliving of something that's similar to that in a dream that's a nightmare or a panic kind of thing. And it seems real important to me to always acknowledge the weight of that trauma and validate somebody, if somebody was victimized, that the dream can still be processing some of the emotional weight. And often the person says, Yeah, I just I don't want to go back there. I don't I don't I don't want to revisit that. And I go, I understand. But it's probably a valuable moment to say what in the last two days might have triggered those same feelings. Feeling of being attacked, a feeling of being helpless, a feeling of the the fear that comes with being out of control. Is there anything that's happened in the last two days that the psyche would use, granted, a traumatic event, but as a way to describe you're not paying attention to an emotional trigger that's happened. I'm having to process this at night because we haven't given enough attention to it. So I don't I never want to negate that sometimes nightmares have that trauma connection, because that often happens with people. But also to bring it to today and say this could be a great moment to remind you what is a trigger? What what are we gonna look for that we either avoid or set up appropriate boundaries? Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Um let me uh let me go to an initiator.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

I'm not trying to tailor make a dream for an initiator, but initiator comes in and says, I have this dream where I'm out in the middle of the ocean on a tiny little boat, and I just see creatures under the water that look like they're circling. I'd it I woke up in a panic that I I was I was there alone. I didn't have anything to take action with, and I just I woke up kind of gasping. You know their background as an initiator. And so this person presents that way. You go with the emotion a little bit. Is there anything that's been panicky to you recently? And simply that question, trying to bring it into the present day can open up a flood of information.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Right. Or things they have no control over.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Right. So carry that a little bit further as to why that would bring up maybe a shadow side of an initiator. Any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

My guess is they they have been out of touch with where they need to take care of themselves. Which is which is the natural attraction with the responder. But that you feel out of control and there's there's there is there fear associated with it? Yeah.

unknown 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Okay. So the fear would be definitely, I don't know how to handle this. And for an initiator, they're problem solvers. They want to fix it. And when they're in involved in an environment where they don't know how to handle it, the responder shows up and says, You're gonna be fine. Whatever happens is gonna happen, and you you're just leaning into it, and you have no control over here. So what are you gonna do with that? You're gonna love yourself, you're gonna take care of yourself? Are you going to lay down the boat as best you can and let whatever happens, happens, because you have no control. Whatever that imagery, that's that's extreme. But in my mind, it's it's the underdeveloped part, which is what happens when all my options run out and there are things circling and I don't know what else to do.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

Aaron Ross Powell The fear of jumping into the water is the fear of jumping into the unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Absolutely true. I mean, yeah, that's how you and that's how you make peace with those aspects of yourself that you didn't need to didn't need to access for whatever reason.

unknown 19:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

The world will almost always put you in the position to maybe have to face that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

And the reason we don't is because we've developed patterns that had been successful for us in the past. Aaron Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

As long as as long as the dynamic, which is the the dynamic masculine is what the initiator is, as long as it's working, they have no need to stop. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, why would I? This is going great.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Until it's not. Until it's not. Yeah. And that's where you come to a point where either by crisis it comes to your attention or by choice it comes to your attention. And it always seems, and this is just me talking, but it seems like the better route is to do it by choice than by crisis.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I mean, but again, that's where you're right. But that's why I reframe with couples or with individuals that the trauma is the doorway through self-discovery.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And unfortunately, the human condition seems to be that we have to create traumas in order to get our attention.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Because at our age, you know, we've, you know, we're wise, we we just jump in because we want to, all that stuff. When there's, I don't know about you, but for me, lots of traumas that have caused me to self-reflect and think, geez, and I could have done that better. But I couldn't have. That's that's the fascinating thing about being human. Lots of times I couldn't do that until the trauma gets my attention because we're we're pretty much, you know, clueless sometimes when it comes to self-discovery. Absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

I don't want to leave the responders out of the mix. This is a static energy that is organizational in nature or has some stabilizing aspects to it, but is one who is very attentive to others and is very attuned to relational issues, wants to make sure everybody's doing okay. And I'm gonna make this dream that they come in with very brief. Somebody says I've had the same type of dreams several times over the course of the last few weeks, where somebody is chasing me and I'm in a panic because I can't ever quite get away. And it's making me not want to go to sleep because it has happened numerous times. Where would you begin with this? And you know that the individual is a responder, that that's their fault mechanism. Say the dream again. Very simply, they wake up very often in a panic because someone is chasing them, and they don't know who that someone is, and they can't ever get away. Like they run, they try and dart in a different direction, but it just seems like it is. Getting closer and closer, and they wake up in a panic.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Wow. It's counterintuitive, but I would say is there anything you need to take charge of in your life? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

I would probably push a little bit further on the language of let's assume for a moment that that person that you can't quite give a face to or don't know is a part of you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

That's good.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah. And you are running so hard and exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

That's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

I'd say that's what's trying to get your attention, is it that you're not paying attention to how exhausted you are?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah. And again, this is why it's weird, a weird way of looking at it, because you're basically having a dream about the responder that needs to take care of themselves, not other people. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

And and the initiating side, the one who's generating the motion, the one who's chasing you is the one who's forcing action. That initiating energy you push away from for whatever reason to use it for yourself. Is there any chance that it would be possible for you through active imagination, through our conversation right now, to stop running and turn around and face it and just ask the question, why are you trying to get my attention? See what it says. That's great. Yep. I love the use of active imagination, trying to recreate the dream scene and confront the characters. Like the initiator leaning over the edge of the boat and looking at one of the creatures and saying, How are you doing? Yeah, that's great. We've covered a lot of ground. We probably ought to bring this to a close, but we'll talk a little bit more about the shadow side or the undeveloped side in the future. Great. I love it. Thanks, Dee. Good to be with you, Jim. Thanks. 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. Yeah, now that's good stuff.