S2E13 When Dreams Show the Way

We share two real dreams and use them to explore how personality, grief, and spiritual growth show up in the images our minds create at night. We leave with a grounded way to experiment with new rhythms while still honoring responsibility and relationships. 
• a short dream about a deceased mother as a symbol of caretaking, tradition, and faith-based wisdom 
• noticing “weakness” as a cue for shifting spiritual focus and loosening prescribed structures 
• building a self-authored rhythm instead of living by external expectations 
• using “life is an experiment” to stay flexible, learn faster, and reduce fear of getting it wrong 
• responder sensitivity to consequences when growth disrupts familiar systems 
• a high-energy dream of fast cars and remodeling as a metaphor for adventure, self-trust, and inner renovation 
• balancing risk and preparation, like stunt work that looks spontaneous but is carefully planned 
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. 

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 the Therapy Coaching in Dreams. My name is D. Kelly. This is Jim Shallet. My name is Jim Shallet. This is D. Kelly. Thank you. I'm a coach and a therapist, and we enjoy talking about things relating to personality and uh how we grow, how we look inward to grow outward, looking back to look forward, all kinds of cute little phrases we could use. Absolutely. Eat food to get bigger.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Yep. Lots of uh lots of metaphors.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

This season we have been um trying to explore a little bit more how dreams fit into our growth, our insight, and uh fit into the model of personality that we talked about in season one. This uh particular podcast, Jim, I'd love to share a couple of dreams I had last month. Um these are dreams that I haven't done a great deal of work on, but I have a few notes and I thought um So these are dreams dreams that you had personally?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah. Yeah. Um just to get your reaction, treat me, I guess, uh as a friend, but also like if I'm a client coming in with this. What kind of questions would you have or where might you go with this? Uh the first one goes like this, pretty short. I was outdoors and I looked to my left and I saw my mom. She looked very nice, very classy like she always used to be. I greeted her and noticed in her response that she was weak. She didn't necessarily look frail, but I could tell it was a bit of a strain for her to walk. And that was the end of the dream. So for the listeners, probably important to know that my mom passed away about 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

And um years, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, has been. Wow. Amazing problem. It it is. Yeah. Really when I started thinking about it after the dream, that kind of threw me off a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, my my mom died in 13. It's been what, 13 years now? It's wild.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah. So sometimes when people have a dream about uh someone who's past, every once in a while I'll have somebody talk to me and say that it felt kind of numinous, like it was almost felt like some type of visitation. And I don't at all want to discount that as a possibility for people. I I don't it's kind of beyond my area of understanding. Right. Um, but there's enough anecdotal evidence of some fascinating things that have taken place when those things have occurred that I don't dismiss that as something in the spiritual realm that uh could be taking place. This one didn't feel numinous at all. Uh it just felt like a dream that my mom was in. It it felt more like a memory than a presence, kind of, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Anyway. So, you know, the the logical first question is what does your mom represent to you?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. Certainly she was the caretaker in our family. She was um in that sense a responder. Uh she was sensitive to the relational makeup of our family, how people stay connected. She always cared about those kinds of things. But I also felt like she was, at least in some ways, the spiritual center of our home. Um, and so if I think of the imprint that she left, if she represented a part of me, I would say it was probably that quiet, steady faith-based wisdom part of me, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah, does that part of you feel weak?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

It's a good question. There's certainly been a shift in the last two year three years of the spiritual components of my life, kind of a shift in focus, a shift in um expressiveness of that part of my journey. So it feels like there's been growth, but the connections to some of the traditional spiritual pieces of my life have become weaker, less specific.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Uh weaker weaker implies some something different.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Uh less of an impact in your life or less So when I say weaker is referring to the ties to the traditional um Okay, that makes sense ways of expressing things. So in that sense, yes, less, but other things have grown more. Right. So probably that's a great help in terms of a wonderful question. That the there are parts of that spiritual focus side of my life that is taking on um kind of a different framework, a different character. Definitely. And my mom would represent the very classic traditional approach.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, absolutely. That's that's what it feels like breaking away from that.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, so it's interesting in the description of the dream, I said that she looked very classy, like she always did. And classy and classical uh could go hand in hand there. And so I have a dream that's just kind of a snippet, but not much happens in the dream other than that I observe it. Um but I think that dreams have that capacity to tend to s send us down a a thought pathway.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

And so my question I guess for myself, and I would love uh guidance since you know me well, the shift within me, how do I nurture that, give it freedom to grow?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So uh uh articulate the f the shift.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So I think the shift is away from a very structured rhythm of my week, of my year of my life. So uh uh the pre previous iteration of that spiritual side had a very weekly rhythm, uh a calendar rhythm. It was prescriptive in that my work required some of that of me. Right. Now there is no prescriptive rhythm to it. And so there is, in one sense, a greater freedom, uh, but also less clear of a specific pathway. And so maybe the thought process for me would be to reflect on is that uncomfortable? Is it comfortable? What do I need uh in terms of my own growth and direction?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, I think it again it's the continuation a little bit, isn't it, of uh the initiator. Where you're really having to form your own your own rhythm, not based upon externals, but upon your own own desires, which I think for you is is really huge, as far as just uh pushing yourself to to write the things that you're doing in a more perhaps the same the same imagery of the structure, but now it's your structure. It's self-imposed, not otherimposed, which I think is a big journey for all of us, as far as if you have a certain uh personality style. Again, like an initiator would never have to worry about that because they would still do it. They'd have to build in time to kind of slow down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Is there uh a part of this journey that as you move in this growth process of tapping into previously kind of pushed away parts of who you are, that there is kind of an experimental phase where you you try one thing and see how it fits and and then kind of react to it and pull back, and then you try again. Do you see that in people often in their growth? It it just doesn't feel like it's a straight line to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Absolutely. That's why I will use the phrase so many times, and I I I I try to reflect on why I use it so much, but I think it makes sense. So life's an experiment. And so let's just try it and see where it goes. And that's where they have to access the kind of the transforming energy where they say, okay, I can I can hold this loosely, which is another phrase I use all the time. And I think uh life's an experiment fits that mode. So let's try that. Lock ourselves into it. If it works, then great. If it doesn't, well, we'll try something different. And I think that's why increasing our strategies or our coping strategies is what mental health's about, too. Being able to be flexible and see it differently.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah, I like that a lot. Part of the joy of sharing a journey with somebody, whether it's a coach, a therapist, a spouse, a friend, um mentor, or a guide, is to not lose your bearings when the experiment doesn't go as you thought it was going to go.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Absolutely. Yeah. That's that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Um it very seldom does. Yeah. If it's an experiment, then you're open to all kinds of different ways it might go.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah. And to shift from, oh, that didn't go like I thought, to what do we learn from it? And then to see how that leads to the next experiment that you put yourself into. I think the there's also some wisdom to have some guidance as to when an experiment has a lot more risk to it than other experiments.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Um lots of directions this conversation could go as far as experimenting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah. I I think because the initiator side, if initiating is not your go-to style, there can be a lot of discomfort when uh that effort to try and tap into that side leads to hurt feelings of people you love or throws off a system that you are comfortable being in. An initiator is not as sensitive to those kinds of things and can move forward quickly. But a responder has a tough time living through that result of an experiment uh as you grow and change. Absolutely true, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

So did do do you have any s uh any strong feeling about in the dream when you noticed that your mom appeared weak?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Well, the reminder to me was that I was around her a lot at the end.

unknown 11:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And it was in many ways, those were my final memories of her. So it's not a surprise that makes sense that she would appear that way in the dream.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

How'd you feel when you were with her and she was being weak when she was weak? You mean in real life? Yeah, in real life. Yeah. Um I think there was a sadness. Especially as vibrant and and as classy as she was, uh it's always it's always challenging to watch parents uh become fragile and she was one of those individuals that aged well.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

And now ten years later, as I'm getting older, I think that's a nice model for me to think about, and that could be a recognition of my own aging.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Aaron Powell So what you're saying is you think you're aging well?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

So is that an experiment for you throwing out phrases like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Oh yeah. I'm just uh yeah. I'm I'm dying well, so I'll know about that.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah. So let's get this in quickly before we uh lose either one of us. I do sometimes think about where my parents were at this stage of my life. Like I remember as a kid when my parents were at different key junctures, and um I it makes me think, okay, where where am I in relationship to where they were at this time in their life?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah. That's a great that's those are great uh thoughts, aren't they? Yeah. You know, when my dad would turn 75, he seemed like a really old man, and we're all excited, and uh, you get close to that age, it's like, oh, okay, so he probably was pretty vibrant, actually, in his brain.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

So yeah. Let me give you one more dream. This dream was about uh a week after that last one, and uh, you're in the dream. So this will Well, okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

It's about time we got around to me.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yeah. So we've not talked to the audience about transference, so I'm not sure we need to get into any of these things. So again, this is uh back in March. This is um about a month ago. Uh I wrote down, I'm with Shali and you. We were on a trip. I know I should have called you Dr. Shaley when I wrote this.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Well, I was I was offended, but I'm working through that. I just I I went to the right uh procedure in my brain and went, okay, that's uh that's who I am.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

We're on a trip. We're ordering food and renting cars. Uh he, referring to you, rented a black super sport. He is driving and he's doing 360s, spinning out. He also has another car on a remote. One of these hits a trash can that may have bumped into a car parked in a parking driveway. I get out and I move the trash can back. I don't know if I should say anything about the car in the driveway. A guy comes out from inside his home. He and Jim start in on a conversation. The home is being remodeled. Jim knew a lot about the home and expressed interest, but started listing all of the things that he would do if he were remodeling it. The guy started taking notes because he knew he had someone that might be a buyer. The end. Oh my word.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, because I'm in the dream, I would be much more interested in your initial view or uh thoughts about this dream.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

I appreciate that. It is always difficult when somebody tells you a dream that you're in. I've been on the receiving of that uh end of that many times. And I know that the dreamer is typically wanting some kind of reaction as if I knew anything about the dream or any of the psychodynamics that's going on inside of their head.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And I don't remember I was in somebody's dream, and uh now I know it was your dream. Okay. Yeah. It was a great dream. I had a great time in your dream.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Oh my goodness. So I would not expect at all for you to be on the receiving end of that without some explanation. Yeah, I the immediate go-to for me is what do you represent as a part of me? So um, in this particular case, that part of me is doing the driving, driving the ego, which is very interesting for me. One of the th one of many things you've represented to me in recent years has been opportunities for adventure. Um, the trips that we've gone on, uh, the climbs we've done, the trails, the four-wheel drive pathways, um, just wonderful adventures that are different than what most of my day in, day out uh life involves. And so in this case, that adventurous side of me is pulling the rest of the ego along with it. Yeah, it is. For me, this was uh wonderfully positive in that it was once again stretching me and taking me places that I uh probably wouldn't go if I stuck in the uh stabilizer side of my life all the time.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just on the surface, you're building a new house that you're interested in buying.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah. Yeah. Creating a new a new psychological space.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

And I could externalize that and I might be interested in buying it as well. I'm just saying. Depending on what you create.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

So I could externalize this and say that you've got a uh good voice in my life about giving me ideas about how this structure takes place, which is true. And it would be easy to leave it there as a wonderful friend who has insights that I trust and wisdom that I respect. But it also is important that that gets turned inward and to say that I can trust my own wisdom because that's a part of me, that I can listen to the ideas that I have about how my psychological structure is reforming, my spiritual side, my outward life, uh, becoming a reflection of that. And so this adventure that has a little bit of um what's the word I want to use when you're pushing the limits a little bit, um, with the two cars, spinning out in one car and remote control of another car. Uh it putting living a little bit more on the edge of it of trying experimenting, as you said.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Absolutely. And uh out of the ordinary. Yeah. That you're not you're not only spinning out here, but you got a remote control thing that you're doing too. I mean, it's like multitasking in that sense. You're more you're you're able to do more things than you think.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah. Yeah. And so stepping into that with any kind of active imagination to ask of those parts of myself, um, am I listening? Am I hearing? What are my fears? What threw me off in the dream and does it throw me off in real life? How do I reflect on those things that feel experimental in nature? What was the feeling in the dream? So, in in one sense, there are kind of two egos operating here. There's the I often think of the vehicle as being a reflection of the ego, maybe the more the persona, the way you present yourself to others. But there's also then my own character in the dream, which represents the ego as well. That character in the dream was enjoying the ride, but also had this sense of responsibility that I got to put the trash can back, uh, that got knocked over. Do I need to say anything about the car that was in the driveway? The guy's coming out of the house, do I need to be the go-between? And what was wonderful was that the part of me that was adventurous stepped right into that conversation, didn't hesitate at all, started asking questions, had ideas. And so I think that the dream in part speaks about how things are, but dreams also usually have that component of an encouragement of where to go. And I think it was to trust that voice and to be relaxed, that that voice is not off the rails.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It it is really a balance between the responsibility and the experimentation, which I think is is is it's like um uh uh uh stunt stunt people. You know, they look like they're crazy, but they plan and prepare a lot for the events uh for the things that could go wrong. So it's the same thing. It's like experimenting is great, but you also need to be as aware as you can about the consequences. Yeah. Yeah, the the amount of hours which we always do when we're on those trips. We're always aware of.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, it's uh it's a great point and a beautiful metaphor that those um people who do stunts, uh you don't see the hours, days, months. Uh some things take planning far beyond the boundaries of whatever it is that they're doing it for. It's just incredible. Um, to make it look like it was all spontaneous.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Absolutely true. Yep. And I think that's it is really, to your point, an incredible metaphor of life that you prepare really hard to have a great time.

unknown 21:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

And yeah, on the other side, you know, you you there's always opportunities at time to just risk the boundaries and you don't really think it through. That's probably that's probably my bias, is that I don't think it through when I'm backing up a trailer and there's a six-foot drop and I didn't see it.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah. Um, and I think that that comes back to what for each individual person is that balance, the risk, the reward, um what you lose if you don't take some of those risks. Um and sometimes that that's okay to step away from something that you're not comfortable with yet. But I do love that in this dream. There is both an enjoyment, a caution, and then this the dream ended on this note of, oh, we've got this. And that that was a good feeling. Not every dream ends that way, but this one felt like it did.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing those dreams. Hopefully the audience can get some help from them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Maybe you can bring some next time and we can actually dig into your life. Okay, guess not.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Okay. Okay, that's a little freaky. I can't believe you out loud.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Well, with that, it's a good place to stop. Jim, great to be with you. Thanks for your help. Yep, thank 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.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah, now that's good stuff.