Ever since reading Carl Jung, I got interested in dream interpretation, but most of the time I don’t feel like interpreting my dreams. A dream I recently had though made me think that there was a message waiting for me. So in this episode, I go through the exercise of decoding my dream .
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] I had an interesting night. So the last couple of nights I have not been sleeping well, and it’s not that unusual for me, unfortunately, like it’s very unusual for me to be waking up at night is not unusual to sleep or eight or nine hours and wake up and feel tired. Right. That’s been a thing for two years now, but the last couple of nights I had difficulty falling asleep and it was waking up.
[00:00:26] Weird ways. One part of me was thinking there’s something going on with something I need to know. There’s something I’m running away from this something going on inside of me. I also started noticing that in the evenings the last week, I didn’t feel well. Not that I had anything, but it just wasn’t in a happy place.
[00:00:45] And I would still do my reading and my work and go to bed fairly early. Like I kept up my good routines and habits, but I was less enjoy. Usually when I read books that I like in the evening, I’m actually kind of [00:01:00] excited about it, but I was just working through it and not really feeling it. And so yesterday I thought, oh, I have a good idea.
[00:01:06] What if I asked Charles. To give me a shorter version of the yoga practice to do before I go to sleep, maybe I just have to release my body from all the tension, reconnect with my core self, whatever it is can hurt. I really love what it does to me the morning. I just don’t want to Rob my morning of yoga to give it to my evening.
[00:01:26] So what if I just had like a shorter or 20, 30 minute version of the site, do it before. Go to bed. And so she gave me that and I did kind of a more gentle, more sleep aiding, yoga practice, and it felt great as I was doing it. And when I was done, I was thinking, this is much better than the equivalent more reading that I would have done in bed.
[00:01:46] I can just read one hour versus one and a half or two, and just do this. This feels better than what reading felt like the last couple of days. And then I went to bed, I read a little bit and I fell asleep and I woke up in the middle of the night and I had a very [00:02:00] intense headache. Twice a year, I’ll have a headache.
[00:02:03] It’s always light. I never have like really crushing headaches. It’s a very, very rare for me. And to have a headache in the middle of the night. I dunno. It’s very unusual. So I was having a really difficult time falling asleep again, and there was dialogue going on that was saying, there’s something going on at night.
[00:02:17] Like maybe this is. In the internal family system model, maybe there’s a part of me that is rebelling against the idea of me sleeping. Well, maybe the reason I don’t sleep well is that there’s something happening during the night and whatever is happening during the night for me is threatened by me trying to fix it, to get rid of it right.
[00:02:35] To do yoga. So I sleep better and wake up, do this, do that. I’ve tried so many things. Temperature, sleep, routines, times, eating habits, no digital stuff that no phone or no. Tried so much a million pillows I’ve tried a million pillows. And while I was struggling to fall asleep, that was part of me that was saying too, there’s something going on at night and whatever that is in your psyche, doesn’t want you to get rid of [00:03:00] it is like, is rebelling against this.
[00:03:02] It’s weird that I’m doing yoga to sleep better and I sleep worse than usual. This is something weird about it. Anyways. I woke up and I remember one very weird dream specifically, and also felt immediately that that dream probably is one of the more significant ones. Like something that’s worth unpacking for me, because there’s potentially an important message in there.
[00:03:25] I’ve had a lot of dreams since the dream with my brother of pulling the safety pins through his eyelids. I have not done the decoding of the. It dream interpretation work. I still write lots of dreams down once in a while. I think while I write them down, this I could interpret, but oftentimes I just don’t care.
[00:03:43] I’m like, ah, I don’t feel like going back to this dream and analyzing it. But this morning it was obvious to me this dream. I actually want to analyze that there’s something here. There’s some message. My subconscious tries to communicate me. A part of me tries to communicate me and the dream was about a friend that I [00:04:00] have recently had a conflict with this.
[00:04:03] That you know is a really good person, has a big heart, but is a difficult person to deal with. He’s been having a, falling out with many friends within our circles and recently difficult situation with me where he wanted to invite himself to come and visit me somewhere. And I told him I don’t want him to come that I prefer to not have.
[00:04:21] With me. And so that caused a little bit of like trouble between the two of us. Not, not anything big, but kind of a weird feeling, like not feeling good in relation to him. And so in the dream, I’m in an apartment in New York and I’m trying to prepare some food and sit down and eat. And there’s a knock on the door and I open the door.
[00:04:38] It’s him. It’s a surprise. And he like hugged me and he comes in and it’s sort of like, holy shit. He just shows up to New York to my apartment. But because it’s so surprising, I don’t say anything. I just go with it and assume he’ll tell me how he ends up in front of my door. Uninvited, like to New York, we sit down, I offer him my food and weirdly enough, there’s a overweight [00:05:00] kind of Honda.
[00:05:01] Looking like young dude, like say mid twenties, very tall, little way, dark hair, kind of like a half sleepy phase, kind of a very calm energy that walks into the next room sits down, puts on the headphones and he’s playing with some instrument is doing some music stuff. And I don’t know, he’s like a roommate of mine or I don’t know.
[00:05:21] I don’t even address it. Just see him. And I go, I, you know, I don’t even address it like, oh yeah. It’s. However, my food, we talk in the entire time we talk, I wonder, when is he going to bring up why he’s here or maybe the, that we had this small falling out and maybe want to talk about that? When is he going to bring this up?
[00:05:39] And he starts telling me that recently he’s been in this life-changing workshop seminar thing, and he. To lead small groups to learn to lead and this, that, and the other and how every group he has led has rebelled against him. Didn’t like him and wanted a different person to be managing and leading them.
[00:05:57] And so he’s telling me, well, now what [00:06:00] I decided to do, there’s this really great leader in this workshop seminar group and the next group I’m leading, he’s going to come and we’re going to lead it together. And now I’m telling him, oh, that’s a really great idea. And I’m sort of fake about it. I’m half honest how fake, because I think dude, isn’t it.
[00:06:16] If all these groups don’t want to be led by you, there’s something here. You should learn about how to lead people, how to communicate with people, but then he brings up this all. I’ll bring this other guy together. We’ll do the next group. So when I encourage him and I tell him, oh, that’s a really great idea through him.
[00:06:29] You might learn a bunch of stuff, right. That could be really good to have like a strong leader with you. And he looks at me and just shakes his head and goes, yeah, duh that’s. That’s why I told him to come. Lead the next group with me and I’m like, oh, okay. Uh, okay. Eh, then I suggest, you know what, why don’t we go out for a walk you’re in New York city?
[00:06:49] Let me show you New York club. Let’s walk outside. Let’s get out of the apartment. So we are out, we walk around New York. He’s telling me all kinds of stories. I, the entire time I’m wondering, when [00:07:00] is he going to bring. Why is he not bringing it up? And then he starts telling me about this group of people and they all have very German names and he’s like, oh, you know, whatever fun so-and-so and Julian so-and-so, they’re on this trip to blah, blah, blah.
[00:07:14] And, uh, you know, Martin so-and-so is every, uh, also with them. And, and I stop him and I go, who are these people? Because I don’t recognize any of the names. I’m like, wait a second. Who are these people? And he then snaps and starts screaming. And he’s just like, get so angry and upset with me. How I dare pretend I don’t know them.
[00:07:35] And I’m just baffled because he’s screaming at me and I’m thinking, Hey, he’s never screamed at me before me. I really don’t know these people. What, what is the, what is his problem? And then see, I’m like, he’s never talked to me like this. Like he’s never screamed at me. I’m not used to being screamed at.
[00:07:52] And so I tell him, Hey, relax, calm down. Number one, don’t talk to me like that. I don’t know these people, I haven’t done anything wrong. [00:08:00] Just why don’t you just tell me who they are and he’s super upset and screaming at me. And then a group of people bumps into us and I turned around and I know these people, it’s like, you know, three guys and a bunch of girls, and they’re all from some conference in Europe.
[00:08:14] Spoken at right. They’re all, they’re not really their faces, but I know that they’re from there. Like I know them from their, some crew members, sound guys, whatever, like people that worked at a conference that I spoke at and they’re all like, oh my God, Steli dah, dah, dah, what are you doing? I’m like, what are you guys doing here?
[00:08:29] Oh, well visiting New York and this friend of mine instantly snaps out of his anger and screaming at me and just starts chatting with them. Oh, where are you from? What are you doing? Oh, and tells them nice. Oh, New York. Did you know this about New York? And that about New York, it’s like getting into this conversations with them and we.
[00:08:44] Decide to keep walking together for a little while. And one of them starts telling me, you know, Steli, I always loved your onstage. You’re one of the best because I’ve ever seen. And we always enjoyed you from that conference because you’re so such a cool guy and so nice this and that. It was giving me compliments and nice things.
[00:08:59] That’s it? [00:09:00] That’s the dream. Right? So, you know, one thing that I have, again, every time I especially read, uh, call young dreams, I go, my dream, see to be cooler. Like why, why is the no swings that’s flying in the sky and. At pyramid, that’s blue. And I walk inside the pyramid in the, the heart of the pyramid.
[00:09:18] There’s a small child. And like, why don’t I have these more, you know, I dunno, monumental dreams with special effects. Yeah. You know, mystical figures and dragons. I’m in a New York apartment and a friend visits me and he gets angry that I don’t remember some names like this does not make for great material for a movie or.
[00:09:39] But I walked through the exercise of writing down the unique symbols of the dream. This friend is a symbol. He symbolizes something to my subconscious, New York, symbolizes something, my apartment and being visited and having a visitor that’s uninvited enter my home, the ponder like dude, that was making art and music in the other room [00:10:00] silently.
[00:10:00] The argument. And the people that interrupted that argument to be my sort of low key groupies, all these things symbolize things. So I wrote every single element that seems significant to me down. And then I did association, like I wrote down anything that popped up in my head associated with that symbol, with that element in my dream.
[00:10:19] And I would do. Until a word came from the more nowhere place than the mind. Places, some words as you write them down, you know, they come from the top down, like your head, your mind created that word or created that association in there. Certain words that you write that came from what I would describe from below.
[00:10:37] Well from within, they come up, down, up into my head versus tub down into my mouth or hand or whatever. So there were a few words in each category that intuitively felt more right or more significant. And as I was unpacking these words, I was coming up with an possible interpretation for this dream. I think New York for me symbolizes.
[00:10:56] Very much my ambition. It’s a very ambitious place, a very [00:11:00] energetic place for me. My home apartment is a refuge and also a safe place, like somewhere where I go to be by myself with myself. Maybe at times even protect myself from all my ambitions from the world. That friend enter my home. Uninvited. It’s sort of like a intrusion of space.
[00:11:18] Like somebody entering my safe space that I don’t want there. It’s the kind of thing I try to defend against. And that friend to me symbolizes a part of me that is afraid of recognizing an obvious truth. This is something that is quite obvious that I don’t want to see yet. I’m fighting against, I don’t want to accept.
[00:11:38] And so that parts visited me to spend time close to me when I’m trying to get away from that part. Like I don’t, I actually don’t want to see that part that doesn’t want to see the truth. It makes me uncomfortable, but that part wants to be close to me and that part, and I, we don’t connect honestly together.
[00:11:56] Like I don’t tell that part what I really think. And I don’t want to see that [00:12:00] part. And that part is not talking to me directly. It’s fear and pain. It’s indirectly communicating to me about all kinds of other things. None of us wants to address the conflict. We have the thing that we are at odds with, and me not recognizing some names represents a certain arrogance, like a certain, I don’t care about you.
[00:12:18] The people you’re telling me about that, I should know. Maybe I even know them. I don’t even remember. And there’s a certain arrogance that then triggers that part to let out the true feeling. Anger at me, angry for not seeing it angry for not accepting it angry for not wanting to be with it. That group of a conference, people that drop by.
[00:12:37] I don’t know that may be represents a not invited, but a very welcomed distraction from that inner conflict, which is the pleasing of my ego, doing things that please, my ego is a nice way to. Distract from this inner conflict from this thing I don’t want to deal with. I don’t know about the ponder like, dude, Hey, I wonder if that represents a more artistic part of my soul, like a more kind of quiet.
[00:12:59] It’s not [00:13:00] bothered that it doesn’t get a lot of attention, but this kind of just doing its thing, but I don’t really know. So I write all this down and then I write down what are things possible? Things that I could be not willing to accept right now that are obvious, but I’m sort of fighting it. And I wrote down.
[00:13:15] Three things I’ll tell you later off recording which things, those are not quite ready to publish that if we have a published this, so wrote down three things, two of them seem very obvious to me is that’s probably true. This probably this is what it is, and this is something I have been working around, but I’d be.
[00:13:34] Not been addressing the core of the issue with these items in my life, but rather found a convenient way to ignore them or to pretend that I’ve dealt with them. Like I’ve dealt with them in very self-serving ways. It’s like I made it easier to deal with them. That’s how I dealt with them, but I didn’t really get to the core of what needs to happen next.
[00:13:53] And with both of them, especially with one. I’m really terrified. Like that is a monumental thing that if [00:14:00] I address, I have certain fears, I guess. And so I’m not addressing it, but I’m handling it, I’m managing it. Right. And making it more palatable. And that was that right. I wrote all this down. I thought, all right, this is some good stuff.
[00:14:12] There’s some difficult things to unpack in, into explore. Over the next days and weeks. And I went on the mat to do my yoga practice. And then during my yoga practice, there was an insight that arrived within me. It’s an insight I’ve had in many ways. And it was yet one more way. But you know, sometimes when you hear something for the thousands time and it clicks a little bit more, it felt like that it felt like this.
[00:14:35] Clicked inside me a bit deeper than ever before now. Like it was one additional layer down. When I think about that friend in particular, in the past my way of trying to be a friend and help that friend was by trying to challenge and get. Unpleasant truth, like be a male friend, a masculine friend, giving you the ugly truth, showing you a mirror that you don’t want to look at.
[00:14:58] Anytime I did that, that [00:15:00] friend would run away in one way or another metaphorically. Speaking of physically, like just not accepted, change it more fit, fight it, ignore it. And after a while I got so upset about this that I decided I, since you don’t want to hear my truth, I can give you my real truth that isn’t helping.
[00:15:16] Obviously I’m just going to keep my truth for myself. I’m not even expanding the energy to give you my truth. The problem with that approach is that when I don’t say my truth, I expend even more energy by holding it in and the person knows I’m holding something back from them, nothing better happened.
[00:15:32] And then the only third option I felt I had was to run away myself now, like metaphorically speaking, to create space. So not allow this person into my life or to limit the amount of space I give this person in my life, but never with real honesty about it. Like. Creating that space as a protection for myself, my not really explaining what’s going on with me and that person in our relationship and how I feel and how I see things.
[00:15:57] And in my mind, in a [00:16:00] simplified way, I would say, I’m trying to tell this person the truth, and this person doesn’t want to hear the truth. That’s the core of our conflict. But as I was doing yoga, there was this insight that came to me. That was. Basically making me realize that, telling my truth from a place of fear like this per this friend is afraid of the truth that needs to be recognized that person doesn’t look at the truth, just so he doesn’t want to look at some unpleasant truths because he’s terrified of them.
[00:16:26] He’s terrified of what he’s going to see, and he’s terrified of how to deal with. I want to show him that truth. And I am terrified and afraid that he won’t look at it and that bad things will happen to him, or he’s not gonna live a good life. And I will have failed him as a friend. I’m useless because I can’t help that failure from happening.
[00:16:44] And I can’t show him the truth in some way that he’s willing to see there’s an anger in me. And if you go a layer below the anger, there’s a fear, there’s a tension. And what I realized was that part of me, and I’ll going back to my dream. The solution to this is not [00:17:00] necessarily as a step one, this part of yourself that doesn’t want to see the truth needs to just be explained the truth and accept it.
[00:17:07] Right. That’s not really, the solution is just sit down, meditate, activate that part of you, that that is telling itself a lie and then tell it the ugly truth until it accepts it. That part in me. Terrified of the truth needs to be love, needs to be accepted, needs to feel safe first. Like no matter what happens, you’re safe.
[00:17:25] We’re good. Nothing will happen to you and then needs a bit of encouragement, which is just another form of love. And then yes, you might want to show that part a different mirror or your truth way different. Or challenged that part to accept a task or tackle a dragon that it’s been afraid of all. That’s fine.
[00:17:45] But the first thing that needs to happen is you need to invite it into, into your life. You need to accept it into your home, into your soul. You need. Love it. And you need to make it feel safe and you need to feel safe around it. You need to realize [00:18:00] that it’s fine, that you have that part. It’s okay to be telling yourself a lie about something you’re not ready to face yet.
[00:18:06] Welcome to humanity. This is not a grave sin that you should burn in hell for even you Steli FD can have things probably many that you’re bullshitting yourself about, and it’s very incompatible with your worldview and it’s very uncompetitive with your lives. But it’s still true is things you’re not yet willing to accept, accept that.
[00:18:28] Why, why can’t you accept that first? And once you accept that and you allow that into your life and you find a way to love that, wow, there’s a part of me that is both terrified of this chase. And creative enough to try to come up with a version of the world that allows it to see that part, but not tackle it, right?
[00:18:49] Like there’s an enormous amount of effort that has to go into distorting the truth to something else. And that effort, that energy is coming from a huge, terrified heart. There’s [00:19:00] something that is really, really, really terrified about this. And so just screaming at that part, telling it to grow up and just deal with it and stop telling yourself lies, see the truth.
[00:19:07] And then that part will go, oh God. Now that you say it, I realize you’re right. Let me just tackle it. Boom. It’s tackled. Oh my God. This was so easy. Like that is an expectation that is as unrealistic and as running away from the truth and telling yourself bullshit stories as what you’re pretending to be fighting here, like your approach to solving this problem is a real reflection of what you’re trying to resolve.
[00:19:33] And the other person you’re doing a very similar thing and you have to first love except see, recognize that part. And then also come at it from an attitude of Euro. K I’m. Okay. Right. Because I’m not that friends, for instance, when I would talk to them about more critical things in my soul, in my body, I wasn’t feeling I’m okay.
[00:19:54] You’re okay. I was feeling I’m kind of, okay. You’re not. How can I help you get okay from [00:20:00] that place? There is no healing that can happen from that place. There is no transformation that can happen. It’s not just about the other person. The other person will transform, heal and live their life through their choosing and through their actions.
[00:20:11] It’s all within their power. You have very little to offer, but you either reflect back to them. What terrifies them, or you reflect back to them. What could give them strength and you either see within them, what gives you strength or see within them? What terrifies you? So if I can be with a friend like that, they used to be very challenging for me to be around.
[00:20:31] And now I’m with him. And I feel hopeful. I feel inspired. I feel empowered while I’m with that person independently of what they’re doing or not doing or accepting or not accepting isn’t that much better for the world and for my relationship with them. And for me, selfishly, of course, And it’s obviously also much more beneficial to that friend to see a reflection that is not what’s wrong with them.
[00:20:56] What’s untrue about them or is rejected [00:21:00] within them. And so I came out of the yoga session. There was no resolution of the sword of, oh, and now I’ve made a decision about this really complicated, really big thing in my life and easy peasy. I’ll tackle it the next couple of weeks. And then it’s resolved in my life has made a big step forward.
[00:21:17] It’s too big of a topic for me to just nilly Willy tackle this too much. I’m still afraid of tour approach, but just recognizing a, that that exists, but then as a very important other. That it’s okay. That it exists, that maybe it’ll take time and patience and love and acceptance as step one, maybe getting closer to it and getting comfortable with it as step two.
[00:21:39] And then we’ll see what we want to do, how we want to think about it differently, what we want to tackle, what we want to change, but that can’t be the next step. I realized I have something I’m monumentally afraid of, and I’m not willing to look directly in the. And step two is I’m tackling it now and killing it.
[00:21:55] And so I’ve conquered it. It’s not a realistic approach. [00:22:00] Um, and so that I just saw you take that, take that, uh, whatever it is and hold it over, like a big base enough, like asset, like in that old Batman cartoon, throwing it inside. And it’s just a solving asset of understanding. Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me of these exercises where you write down something, some pain, somebody created something, and then you burn it.
[00:22:25] And then the moment it burns your fingers, you have to let go and it symbolizes you let it go, which I’m sure it does, but as well is not the only answer because if it was that easy every morning, I just write down a bunch of things, burn it off and boom, I beat the light, you know, the, the zero trauma and completely light this in your heart.
[00:22:45] Can you imagine that would be it. Somebody is actually doing that. Dude, somebody should try that and then see if they can claim that it has healed all their sorrows and they have perfectly clean soul now. Uh, [00:23:00] I’m sure there could be a school around this, uh, some sect. And if not, if it doesn’t work, he can do like a post on medium 30 days.
[00:23:08] I burned my problems and he is, let’s not pretend that you and I would not read that book was that’s immensely. Interesting. Yeah. I love people that actually think about complicated problems this simply right. I’ll take like an exercise and just make it the golf. What if this is the solution to all the problems.
[00:23:27] I remember Chris was telling us about this lady that thought, well, since you’re handwriting reveals things about your personality, what if we just fixed your handwriting? Maybe it was right. And so she developed this technique to change your handwriting, to change. I love shit like this. This to me is amazing.
[00:23:46] It’s amazing creativity. And there’s a chutzpah, uh, a lighthearted. Why not dare to put it all on black and do something believe something insane. I love when humans do this stuff, there’s a lot to learn when people would go [00:24:00] their way. So, yeah, but in this case I shall try something. That’s less say symbolic, it’s very simple, but not easy.
[00:24:08] What if I accept as a first step, he is a part in my life. I’m not ready to deal with right now because I haven’t thought about that this way before. And what if at first I just, I just walk with that. I don’t need to fix that immediately. I can just like, spend some time with that FOMO. Before going anywhere else.
[00:24:25] We’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll write a medium blog, post 30 days of how I just walked with my problem without attacking it. That HUD magically made the problem disappear on its own. Maybe there could be a kind of a counter to the ask and it is given the secret thing where instead of just visualizing what you want, you carry, what you don’t want as a loving baby with you.
[00:24:46] Every day and love it emotionally. And then it just transforms into this blessing on its own without any action needed from you. We shall see I’m buying that book. I wish I’ll see.