Tag: radio | In your dreams …

Episode 133 The Dream Show: Dream stories and breakfast radio

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

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Dreams of worms, snakes, rats, ghosts, and bare bottoms, and what they mean, have all been topics on breakfast radio or drive radio when I’ve been on air as the dream expert, taking calls from listeners or interpreting presenters’ dreams. I enjoy radio work, and over the last couple of decades have discussed, interpreted, or bantered about thousands of callers’ dreams over many different radio formats. Whether the approach is light-hearted or deep and meaningful, there’s always something to get across to the listeners, a dream interpretation tip, an insight into how to look at their dreams.

Radio is in the moment, so to extend my contribution I sometimes blog about a dream we’ve briefly talked about on radio, fleshing out the interpretation and the story.

In this episode of The Dream Show, episode 133, I bring you some of these radio dreams and stories, so you’ll hear all about worms, snakes, rats, ghosts, and bare bottoms, and what they mean, and much more.

In this episode I also bring you into my world as a radio dream expert, share a little of the whys and wherefores, the fun, and what can and can’t be done within the medium to contribute to the understanding of dreams.

As we approach the end of the year, and as you are hopefully enjoying some time away from work during the festive season, this episode is designed for leisurely but insightful listening. Enjoy and please share.

Listen

(Our next show, episode 134, will be released in four weeks, on 11 January 2013.)

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Singing with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Have you ever met and deeply related with a celebrity or well-known public figure in a dream? How did you feel when you woke up and recalled the dream? Did you feel as if you really made contact, as if it were more than a dream? Did you feel inspired, or energised in some way?

Earlier this week, I was called onto Sydney’s Mix106.5 Rosso and Claire breakfast show to comment on Rosso’s dream.

Rosso dreamed Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant sang on stage with him then gave him his phone number.

“I used to play in a band, and in my dream I was back in the band when Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant jumped up on stage to sing with us,” Rosso began. “Then he gave me his phone number and suggested we meet up at the Byron Bay Bluesfest.”

Rosso described his dream as the best dream he’d ever had, and he was clearly excited about it. The sensuality of the dream – hearing, singing, and playing the music – combined with feeling the close connection with a legend, had left its mark. I guess in many ways Rosso felt touched by his dream, inspired and energised by his experience within the dream, but curious about why he should dream this now that his own band days are past.

What does it mean? We’ll come to that.

What’s the most memorable dream you’ve had? Was it a scary or dark dream, or was it positive and inspiring? How many of your senses were vividly engaged in the dream: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste? How deeply was your heart connected in your dream: emotions, feelings? How difficult did you find it to describe the magic and power of your dream to anyone the next day? There’s a numinous quality to these highly sensual, energising dreams that’s challenging to put into words. The most amazing dream you’ve ever had can sound straightforward to others. There’s an element that’s easily lost in translation but profoundly found within the self.

When you tell someone about a special dream, there’s an element that’s easily lost in translation but profoundly found within the self.

If you’ve experienced a soul mate dream, you’ll know this feeling well. In the classic soul mate dream, you meet a special charismatic someone, and experience a deep connection that touches your heart and soul and spills over into your waking life. That dream soul mate can be someone you’ve never met, and many a dreamer has fruitlessly searched for years for the person they met in their dream – with no success because the dream mate, no matter how convincing, is a marvellous creation of the dreamer’s mind.

That dream soul mate can also be someone you do know in waking life, someone in your circle, someone you’ve been in relationship with or hope to be in relationship with, or someone you barely know anything about. Again, the classic dream is compelling, the senses impassioned, the heart and soul energised, a feeling of deep connection, of finally finding something that has been missing in your life. If you have this dream, don’t think for a moment that the actions, emotions, and feelings the person demonstrated in your dream are intended by their waking life lookalike. Hard though it may be to believe, your dreaming mind chose that person as a perfect symbol of something you feel is missing, or something you’d like to connect with, in your life. Something, not someone. And that symbol is all in your mind too. You may see Joe as confident and supportive, while someone else might see Joe as confident and self-centred, and Joe might see himself as lacking in confidence and trying to make up for it with bravado. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are all other qualities. The Joe in your dream is not the Joe you know or vaguely know in waking life, so don’t go looking for a deep relationship with Joe based on a fabulous dream, no matter how compelling. Instead, seek to connect with those soul mate qualities within your own heart and soul. In this example, reconnect with the confidence you had lost, and reconnect with a sense of support for your beautiful self, a support that has perhaps wavered in the face of negative self criticism.

So let’s return to Rosso’s dream about a new deep and heartfelt connection with Robert Plant.

Wish fulfilment is not the explanation for this dream.

Rosso knew, before his dream, that Robert Plant is headlining this year’s Byron Bay Bluesfest, but wish fulfilment is not the explanation for this dream (or a meaningfully rewarding avenue of exploration for any dream). I asked Rosso which three words he would choose to describe Robert Plant’s personality.

“Cool, outgoing, legend,” he replied.

When you’re asked to quickly describe someone’s personality in three words, it usually turns out that at least one of those words helps explain their character role in your dream. Rosso and I would need an hour to really flesh out the meaning of his dream – and without thousands of people listening in on the radio – but here’s the essence:

Like all dreams, Rosso’s dream reflects the last 24-48 hours. Our dreams are the result of our minds processing the last one to two days, trying to make sense of our world. In trying to make sense of our world, our dreaming minds compare our recent experiences with our past experiences, then, armed with this most recent update of our individual model of life as we know it, some dreams may project forward to preview the future according to that model. To test it out in our imagination. Rosso’s recent experiences resonated with his old band days, and, in his dream, he experienced a deep connection with “cool, outgoing, legend” that he then projected into the future as a new way of being.

In a sense, Rosso “got the number” of a Robert Plant energy within himself that he’s ready to reconnect with and energise.

In a sense, he “got the number” of a Robert Plant energy within himself that he’s ready to reconnect with and energise. What a wonderful dream!

Rosso may go to this year’s Bluesfest, and, if he does, he’ll attend Robert Plant’s concert. Who knows, as a media personality himself, Rosso may get to chat with Robert, may even get his phone number or socialise into the evening. Or maybe not. Either way, life’s deepest rewards are those that energise your own heart and soul, that inspire you to find what has been lost, to reconnect with a greater part of your being, to live life bigger and brighter, to walk up to the microphone and sing with all your heart – literally or metaphorically. To be fully alive to the moment. Understanding such dreams can take you there.

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Mooning the personal trainer

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

I was called onto this morning’s Maz, Dan and Shane breakfast show on Nova 919, to do a bit of dream detective work on the embarrassing dream Maz had just shared with the listeners.

“I woke up when Josh Pyke mooned me and my new personal trainer,” she laughed. She had the dream the night after her introductory PT session, and she was doubtful that she’d be able to keep a straight face during her second session later today.

In the dream, she and her new PT went to a gig at an amphitheatre near her old primary school, to hear Australian singer-songwriter Josh Pyke. When she went up to the stage to introduce Josh Pyke to her PT, he mooned them.

Nova style radio means getting to the – ahem – bottom line pretty swiftly, give or take a bit of banter.

“If you want to succeed with your exercise goals, you’ll need to understand your mooning attitude,” I began, perhaps mysteriously. “Which three words would you use to describe Josh Pyke’s personality?”

“Chilled out, a chiller, friendly,” Maz replied.

“So there’s a chilled out part of you that feels like mooning your PT,” I suggested.

“So there’s a chilled out part of you that feels like mooning your PT,” I suggested. “And because your primary school comes up in the dream, this probably goes back to how you felt about training and discipline back in your primary school days.”

“I was 110% committed at primary school,” Maz observed.

Every aspect has its shadow – or balance – and for committed, disciplined people there’s always a chilled out side hanging in the shadows. Sometimes we’re driven to extremes (like 110% discipline) by a fear of the opposite extreme (totally chilled out).

“I was 110% committed at primary school,” Maz observed.

Things began to click for Maz. In her introductory session, her PT had discussed nutrition, and she said she began to think, “Oh, no! I’ll have to give up booze, foods I love …”. She could relate to the feeling of mooning the whole PT idea in favour of chilling out. But by the time she went to bed, she said she’d decided to “110%” commit to her personal training goals.

Maz’s dream reflects the way her mind processed all of this – as all dreams do.

I pointed out some dream word play: her introductory PT session became, in the dream, an introduction to her PT.

Dreams cleverly convey levels of meaning and visual word play, and I suggested to Maz that the mooning may reflect deeper feelings of being quite happy with her butt the way it is (assuming her training also targeted this area).

I returned to the opening bottom line.

Better to add some balance, to add some chill, to get the right mix to make it fun and achievable.

“If you want to succeed with your exercise goals, you’ll need to understand your mooning attitude. Giving your PT 110% discipline may lead to burn out. Better to add some balance, to add some chill, to get the right mix to make it fun and achievable, and maybe, just maybe, to factor in being happy with your butt the way it is.”

Maz related to this, and I’m sure the memory of the dream mooning incident will bring a chuckle and a chill factor to her workout this afternoon.

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2012 Wake up call

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

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What’s your recurring dream? If you’ve been following my blog, listening to my podcasts, and reading my books, and you’re still experiencing a recurring dream, today’s post is your wake up call. It’s time to put what you’ve been learning into action if you want to enjoy life changing results in 2012!

Let’s review the basics:

1. A dream is the experience you have, during sleep, while your brain processes your conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 24-48 hours.

2. Think of this processing as like updating your hard drive. Your brain and mind compare your latest experiences to all your past experiences, drawing conclusions – beliefs – about how life works. Mostly you consolidate your oldest beliefs. Sometimes you modify your beliefs. Sometimes you completely overwrite an old belief and wake up with a transformed personal view of how the world works.

Imagine a painter trying to capture your mind’s fast processing of experiences, emotions, and beliefs, as an abstract picture.

3. During dreaming, you are more in touch with your unconscious mind, which is why dreams seem surreal. Imagine a painter trying to capture your mind’s fast processing of experiences, emotions, and beliefs, as an abstract picture. She might use metaphor, analogy, colours to represent emotions, shapes to represent belief structures, any number of creative techniques to help you ‘get the picture’ – or, at least, to store it in your archives under ‘update on how life works’.

4. The magic begins when you know how to ‘get the picture’ – how to interpret a dream – because this helps you to understand your unique mindset. You get to understand your unconscious beliefs, both the ones that work for you and the ones that work against you in your everyday life.

5. You can then see which beliefs need to be changed to get the kind of waking life results you desire. If you stop there, you probably won’t see those results. You need to apply a deeper magic – dream alchemy.

Dream alchemy is a way of working with your unique dream symbols to reprogram your unconscious beliefs.

6. Dream alchemy is a process you can use to transform an unconscious belief. It’s a way of working with your unique dream symbols to reprogram your unconscious. It works because your unconscious mind relates to your personal dream symbols – after all, it created them!

7. Now, back to your recurring dream: Since dreams reflect the last 24-48 hours, your recurring dream reflects a recurring waking life issue. Have you noticed that most recurring dreams are unhappy, frustrating, or unresolved? That’s because they reflect an unhappy, frustrating, or unresolved issue in your life.

8. To resolve that issue, apply the formula: Dream interpretation + Dream alchemy = Success + an end to your recurring dream.

Ok, that’s your wake up call. Do your dream alchemy to make 2012 your best year ever!

Listen as DK asks me about his recurring dream of driving a car that goes way out of control … and more.

On a more light-hearted level, here’s an hour’s entertainment about recurring dreams. DK, host of At the Watercooler on Z Talk Radio, invited me onto his show. In this podcast, he asks me about his recurring dream of driving a car that goes way out of control, and, excited by the discovery, moves on to ask me about another recurring dream featuring buildings.

Listeners ask about their dreams and we cover lucid dreaming, falling and floating dreams, a variety of toilet dreams, dreams of snakes, dream sharing, and the question of astral travelling. Oh, and we also talk about dream alchemy and much more.

Listen here. Note: the interview starts halfway through the podcast, so move the slider halfway, or enjoy DK’s interview with the guest before me, Jane Congdon, author of It Started With Dracula.

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Killer ghosts

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

“I dreamed ghosts were coming out from the walls and mirrors upstairs, killing people,” said Lynn, who called Radio 2GB this week when I was interpreting dreams on Chris Smith’s afternoon show. “In the dream, I thought I have to get mum to come and clean the house,” she added.

What does it mean?

Lynn described the house in her dream as double storey, and said she was on the ground floor, and the killer ghosts were upstairs. She really emphasised the ‘double storey’ and since dreams often employ word play, I wondered if there was a ‘double story’ going on in Lynn’s life. I didn’t mention this on air, and it’s certainly not as dark as it may sound. I’m not talking about a double life, or a secret life, but you’ll get the picture as you read on.

I wondered if there was a ‘double story’ going on in Lynn’s life.

What I did say to Lynn in the couple of minutes or so that the radio show format allows, was that the ghosts probably represent feelings of being haunted by her past, perhaps regrets, perhaps loss, perhaps limiting beliefs.

In her dream, Lynn is in a practical space, on the ground floor. The ground floor probably represents her physical body and everyday world, while the upstairs probably represents her higher self – her mind, thoughts, beliefs. It’s up there, in the mind, that the past can live on in ghostly form to affect the way we live our lives today – and in the future.

Lynn’s dream ghosts were coming out from the walls and mirrors, suggesting that, until the dream, they were tucked away, hidden behind the walls and inside mirrors. Something must have happened, in Lynn’s life, to release her ghosts of the past from where she had safely hidden them.

Ah, but that’s the thing. Safely hiding (or blocking or denying) aspects of the past deep within ourselves is not the solution. Our ghosts of the past may be unseen, but they still influence the way we live our lives. They hold us back, keep us limited and fearful, even when we’ve hidden them so deep in our unconscious that we’ve forgotten about them. The unconscious powerfully influences our decisions and responses in life, like it or not.

The way to free yourself from the past is to bring your ghosts out of hiding, acknowledge them, and release them.

The way to free yourself from the past is to bring your ghosts out of hiding, acknowledge them, and release them. Let your ghosts rest in peace, whether that means forgiving others, forgiving yourself, or simply realising that life’s greatest gifts can come in strange packages.

I asked Lyn to describe her mother. She said she was spiritual, mystical. Our radio time was running out, but I suggested that her mother may represent personal or spiritual development, so the dream solution of bringing her mother in to clean the house was a good one: clean up (the ghosts of the past) by doing some personal or spiritual work – much as I have described in this blog.

We are all influenced by our past, and a lot of it is good stuff, stuff to hold onto. Our dreams can help show us which aspects of our past haunt us and hold us back, and Lynn’s dream symbol of scary killer ghosts delivers the message.

Life’s greatest gifts can come in strange packages.

And what of the double storey/ double story word play? There’s the story we tell ourselves about our life, the story we’re conscious of, and there’s the story that’s going on behind the scenes – behind our walls and mirrors, upstairs in our mind, deep in the unconscious, the story we’re not aware of until our dreams awaken us.

Life can be tough when your conscious and unconscious stories conflict. How wonderful then, that dreams can reveal what we need to know, and that dream alchemy can assist us to transform the inner story into a positive, supportive one that helps us move forward in life successfully and with ease.

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The leashes that bind

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Dreams, even when they’re scary, can be very playful. Some are laugh out loud funny, like Brig’s dream of taking her dog for a walk only instead of her dog what was on the end of the leash was a bit of lamb’s fry (offal). Deep and meaningful though the dream was, you’ve just got to laugh, and Brig’s co-presenter and anchor on Radio Mix 101.1FM Melbourne certainly made meat of that one on their breakfast show last week. It was an offal dream for Brig, but perfect breakfast fodder for the team, and we managed to get to the bottom of it pretty quickly.

Yvonne phoned the station with a dream of being a passenger in a plane, enjoying her trip until she looked out the window and noticed the plane had no wings. What was keeping it airborne? She looked towards the cockpit – chickens were harnessed to the plane keeping it aloft. That was fine by Yvonne until she remembered, in the dream, that chickens have clipped wings. She painted a playful picture, and look at those plays on words – cockpit and chickens. We’re ‘chicken’ when we’re scared, and Yvonne was pretty scared at the thought of being at the mercy of a band of wingless chickens. A wingless plane, wingless chickens, and yet the plane was safely flying along and getting somewhere.

Yvonne was pretty scared at the thought of being at the mercy of a band of wingless chickens.

Yvonne’s dream suggests she can achieve far more than she thinks and fears. She may fear that her plans and ideas don’t have wings, but they do. There’s so much more to Yvonne’s dream than breakfast radio allows time to say, but simply looking for word play is fun and gives a clue to the interpretation.

Rachel’s dream of dating a dentist who gave her a gift of a dental cup containing dental floss and mouthwash made us all smile, and she related to my brief interpretation about taking a new attitude to how she communicates – clean, clear, fresh, positive words and intent. “Yes,” she said, “that makes sense.” How playful of her dream to go for a dental hygiene theme to encapsulate this.

Andrea’s recurring dream was more frightening. She dreams of being smothered by hair while in bed, and sees a chest at the bottom of the bed with a light that pulls her down. She wakes up struggling for breath.

My quick on air interpretation was that Andrea’s dream comes up when she feels restricted during the day, as if she can’t breathe to claim her space to express herself, and that this ‘pulls her down’, depresses her. It was spot on, she could relate to it. There’s so much more to her dream, but notice again how helpful it is to look for word play. The chest at the bottom of the bed is also Andrea’s chest, the place where her lungs are situated, her breathing centre. Although she feels depressed about finding it difficult to express herself fully, there’s ‘light’ here, like light at the end of the tunnel. When we can get to the bottom of our feelings, we can see the light about our blocks and how to overcome them. I wonder whether Andrea also suffers from having too many ideas (head stuff, like hair), that she doesn’t know how to ground (make happen), so she feels smothered by too many ideas and no action. The chest is at the bottom of the bed, near Andrea’s feet, and the place for feet to be is on the ground. If Andrea can just ‘pull down’ one or two of those ideas and ground them – make them happen – then there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

Strange creatures, dogs and humans …

And what about Brig’s dream of the dog that wasn’t, the dog that was, in fact, a bit of lamb’s fry? I won’t spill those beans in this blog (you can get to know Brig and her dreams by tuning into the show next time I’m on), but it does remind me of the time Michael and I took a dog we were looking after for a walk. The dog had been a bit porky, and he trimmed up in our care and was looking pretty good. He had a bit of arthritis in his paws, so he was a plodder to walk. On that particular day we took a slightly longer walk than usual, and we had to slow our pace to match his drag towards the end. Suddenly, home in sight, the leash slackened, and Michael said, “He’s picked up his pace, got a bit of energy now he can see home.” I looked back and there was the dog, still plodding along slowly and faithfully, a long way back down the road, while the empty leash trailed behind Michael. The next day we tossed his old fat dog collar and bought him a nice slim one, though I think the sight of us dragging a leash is all it takes to keep him plodding along. Strange creatures – dogs and humans – conditioned to believe in limitations long since gone.

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The goat and the cobweb

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Here’s a puzzle. What’s the connection between a cobweb and a goat? If you’re already searching for an answer, you’re in the right frame of mind for interpreting a dream. I’ll give you some more clues:

Sandra phoned Loretta & Moyd’s Afternoon Show on Radio 4BC this afternoon to ask me about her dream featuring – you’ve got it – a cobweb and a goat. In her dream, she was going somewhere with her husband when she suddenly had to get a cab and go back home. In the cab, she looked down and saw that her feet were covered in cobwebs. She looked again, and saw an adorable little goat, sitting at her feet, with a blister on his nose. What does Sandra’s dream mean?

I’ll refine the puzzle: What’s the connection between feet covered in cobwebs, and a goat?

In case you’re not there yet, I’ll come at it from another angle:

What’s the connection between Sandra having her journey cut short (having to return home), and a goat?

Most dreams have a repeating theme, and if you can identify this, you’ve got a good starting point for interpretation. Since Sandra’s goat was adorable, it was most likely a pet goat, and pet goats are usually tethered to keep them close to home. Sandra’s feet were kind of tethered by the cobwebs or, at least, she must have walked through a potentially trapping spider’s web to have cobwebs clinging to her feet.

What’s the connection between a cobweb and a goat?

At first I thought Sandra’s cobwebs suggested she’d been standing still for too long in one place (metaphorically), long enough to gather cobwebs, and though this may also be true, the dream shows Sandra’s journey cut short by the need to take a cab home, as if she can only get so far because she’s tethered.

In the very short time that we have on radio to interpret a dream, and without being able to clarify aspects of the dream with the caller, looking for out-of-the-box connections that repeat in a dream can shine a light on the dreamer’s situation. At the time of her dream, Sandra probably felt restricted or tethered, especially around her direction. In the dream, her journey was cut short, so there’s a sense that she has direction – she knows where she wants to go – but she’s not getting there.

When goats aren’t tethered, they roam free and far. Goats can climb mountains and follow paths other animals, and humans, find difficult. Goats can journey a long way on very little. Sandra’s dreaming mind chose the symbol of a goat, no doubt because she does know, deep down, that she is capable of reaching her goal. (Is this word play, a tethered goal a dream goat?) So what’s holding her back?

What happens when you instinctively follow your nose?

Could it have anything to do with the blister on the goat’s nose? I wonder if Sandra had the feeling, in the day or two before her dream, that she had poked her nose into something she shouldn’t have. Or that she’d followed her intuition (followed her nose) and got burnt, either recently, or in the past, and this experience has held her back from setting out again.

What would you set as a dream alchemy practice here? I’d suggest the following visualisation if Sandra would like to achieve the goal she identifies with this dream: Sandra, see the blister on the goat’s nose vanishing, then look down to see the cobwebs gone and feel a wonderful, warm, dancing sensation seeping into your feet. Open the car door and dance wherever you wish, led by the adorable goat, sniffing the wind, following his nose which happens to lead you both to exactly where you’d like to be (picture where you’d like to be).

As with all dream alchemy, as we rewrite the story using our personal dream symbols, we simultaneously rewrite our unconscious mindset around the issue and the waking life outcome.

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Pregnancy dreams: Jellybeans and leeches

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 4 Comments

It all started when Sunrise weather presenter Grant Denyer told the SAFM Breakfast crew – Hayley, Craig and Rabbit – that his pregnant wife dreamed she gave birth to a monkey.

Then Hayley, who had just announced her pregnancy on the show, shared that she had dreamed she gave birth to leeches.

Was this just spooky, the crew wondered, or is it common for pregnant women to dream of giving birth to animals?

I (who dreamed when I was pregnant with my first child that I gave birth to a tiny, delicate, almost invisible stick insect), was invited onto the show this morning to throw a little light on Cheryl Denyer’s monkey and Hayley’s leeches, and to take calls from people about their surprise birth dreams.

Yes, it’s common to dream of giving birth to all sorts of non-human entities, but particularly animals, and especially during first pregnancies.

The phone lines buzzed with more callers than we could take on the show. Jennifer gave dream birth to a daddy longlegs spider, Robert’s mother had dream birthed a moth while she was pregnant with him, and one of the callers we didn’t get to had dream birthed a jellybaby.

Jellybabies, leeches, spiders, monkeys, stick insects, moths, all dream birthed by pregnant women.

We tend to dream about animals when we are facing change, and anticipating the birth of your first child is a huge change. The prospect of change brings up our survival instincts and gut feelings, and our dreaming minds often come up with animals to express these.

I had the feeling that Hayley’s leeches represented her feelings of attachment, of her attachment to her future baby, of her baby’s attachment to her, and her concerns about potential drains on her energy. That’s what leeches do really well – attach firmly and draw on your vital resources (suck your blood). That made sense to Hayley. It’s good for Hayley to know this because she can explore her feelings about this before her baby is born, and contemplate how she would ideally like to mother her child and enjoy a sense of balance in her life.

My feeling about Cheryl’s monkey is that it represents a cheeky, playful energy that’s emerging as she readies herself for being a mum.

How do you put a nappy (diaper) on a daddy longlegs spider?

Jennifer, the caller who dreamed about the daddy longlegs spider, said she was totally happy and filled with love for her baby spider, and her only concern was how to put a nappy (diaper) on a baby with six long thin legs. Her dream suggests a wonderful unconditional love already in place (and this may also relate to issues with her father or husband, both daddies), and a concern about being able to deal with new practicalities.

Caller Robert’s mum may have dreamed of a moth in anticipation of all those night feeds – moths are active at night, but really, of course, as with all these dreams, I would need to hear the whole dream to get the big picture, and ideally ask the dreamers a few questions to elicit more accuracy.

The jellybaby? I’ll let you chew that one over. As for my stick insect, you can read about that in my in-depth blog about pregnancy dreams, Congratulations, it’s a vampire.

What have you given birth to in your dreams, and were you pregnant at the time?

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Nipple worms & radio experts

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

“I dreamed that a two inch worm wriggled out of my nipple,” said Kerry, who called Brig and Lehmo’s breakfast show on Radio Mix101.1FM a couple of weeks ago to ask me about her dream.

Parasites seemed to be the order of the day, as I had just helped Brig understand her dream of picking lice from a sports star’s hair. Lice and worms, nice subject over breakfast.

Dream interpretation on breakfast radio has to be quick, punchy, entertaining and light hearted, while also delivering something insightful and meaningful about each dream and imparting – between the lines – a dream interpretation tip or two to the listeners. Callers don’t have the luxury of describing a whole dream, so it’s often down to the basics, like Kerry’s worm wriggling out from her nipple. Oh, but we did have a little more information: the worm was two inches long.

Breakfast radio’s often straight down to the basics, like Kerry’s worm wriggling out from her nipple.

Every part of a dream is meaningful, and it is deeply rewarding to explore and interpret every detail, but for the time poor – and for radio – there’s a lot of magic to be gained by reducing a dream down to one or two basic sentences that give the gist and highlight the weirdest symbols.

Yes, I will share my insight on Kerry’s dream! There are no ad breaks or tunes to squeeze into this blog post, so I’m spinning my tale.

If you’re very busy, if the pace of your life is more breakfast show, more grazing bytes than navel gazing, jot down your dreams using the same words that you’d use if you were phoning a radio station and the producer told you to describe your dream in no more than a couple of sentences. At least you’ll have something written in your dream journal, some record of dreams that would otherwise disappear into the rush time ether. And you can get some good insights working with these basic bottom lines.

Interpreting dreams is not dream dictionary work. There’s no universal meaning for worm or nipple. It’s more meaningful to look at how the symbols in a dream interact than to look at them in isolation. Whenever someone describes a dream, I empty my mind and just listen. As the dreamer paints the picture of the dream, I keep an open mind, observing how the elements interact, how the drama unfolds, how the dreamer expresses the dream.

What do you see when you put nipple and worm in the same sentence? What does the interaction of these two symbols conjure up for you?

Many decades ago, when I lived in Glasgow, I enjoyed skipping the occasional lecture to relax and potter around my kitchen while listening to Radio BBC Scotland. I liked the afternoon play readings and the segments where they had experts in the studio answering callers’ questions. The experts always came in panels of three, and they would decide amongst themselves who would answer each caller’s question. “Over to you, Jack,” one expert would say, after giving a brief opinion of his own.

The experts always came in panels of three, and they would decide amongst themselves who would answer each caller’s question.

I imagined the panel of experts sitting there in the studio, reference books on the table in front of them, two rapidly thumbing pages checking facts and searching for answers while the third held fort with a wordy introduction. (Yes, these were pre-internet days.)

Did my imagining manifest my many years of being an ‘expert’ on radio? Probably! I was first interviewed on radio 34 years ago, and it’s been in my life, on and off, ever since. But there’s no sitting in the studio with a reference book, or even with a laptop. Mostly there’s no sitting in the studio. I’m usually at home, on the phone and I ask not to be told anything about the dreams before we go live to air. It keeps everything in the moment and allows me to just sit, with a totally clear mind, and listen as the caller (or the presenter) describes their dream. If I don’t analyse – if I simply sit and watch how symbols interact, how the dream drama develops, how the caller tells the dream, I have enough clues to respond.

Being a radio ‘expert’ has taught me the clarity of being in the moment.

Being a radio ‘expert’ has taught me the clarity of being in the moment. I use the same approach for working with long, detailed dreams, for clients where we spend an hour on one dream, and for The Dream Show where I chat luxuriously with guests about a single dream.

So what does Kerry’s dream about a worm wriggling out from her nipple mean?

So here we are at the bottom line of today’s blog. What does Kerry’s dream about a worm wriggling out from her nipple mean?

There’s a tension at work here: a nipple is designed to deliver milk, to nourish and nurture. A worm that has been living inside the body is probably a parasite, feeding on the person’s energy, ultimately depriving the person of energy and nourishment. Kerry’s dream shows a tension around nurturing. Something’s been draining her of her energy. Something that should be nourishing and nurturing for Kerry has, in fact, been potentially draining her reserves.

The good news is that Kerry’s dream captures the moment where the worm leaves her body. Every dream reflects the 24-48 hours prior, so Kerry most probably ‘got something off her chest’ about what’s been draining her instead of nourishing and fulfilling her. And since that worm was two inches long, this draining has most likely been going on for two years.

Of course, we’d need to really look into the details of Kerry’s dream to be precise and gain deeper insight, but as a starting point for Kerry and the radio listeners, and as a starting point for busy people – like you perhaps – byte sized dream interpretation is good breakfast food for thought.

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Dream interpretation: Radio 2UE, Finding home

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Vanessa called Radio 2UE when I was interpreting dreams on Tim Webster’s afternoon show earlier this month, to ask about her recurring dream which she’d been having for six months.

She was intrigued because a previous caller had asked about her recurring dream of never being able to find the right train station, or catch the train, and I had said that this was a common dream related to not getting going with goals, or taking the wrong approach, and that exploring these dreams reveals the personal reasons why each dreamer is experiencing these blocks.

“But I do get to the right train stations,” said Vanessa, “and I catch the right trains, buses, planes and taxis in my dreams, but for six months none of these dream vehicles have got me home and I’m left, in the dream, feeling distressed about not being able to get home.”

As with any recurring dream, the issue the dream is reflecting can be traced back to the first time you had the dream, so Vanessa’s dream related to an issue that began six months ago and was still troubling her.

“Do you feel that you’re on track, following the goals you set yourself, but somehow not getting time to yourself,” I asked, ‘as if you’re not finding that special place within your heart where you feel ‘at home’ and at peace with the world?”

It hit home (oops). Vanessa related to this, and this had indeed been the situation for the past six months.

Understanding a dream brings us awareness, and that awareness can help us to make better decisions for ourselves. This can be accelerated by applying dream alchemy, and I suggested to Vanessa that for her dream alchemy she visualise herself back in her dream, on the train, only this time arriving home, imagining the best possible kind of home, both in the material sense and in the emotional sense. What this does is train (oops again) Vanessa’s unconscious mind to become comfortable with permitting herself to enjoy coming home to her heart. This done, she will find herself taking waking life actions that support and therefore manifest this.

Home is where the heart is, if only we allow ourselves access.

In synchronicity, my son, Euan, and his band, The Rooftops, released their new single, Something so familiar, from their upcoming album on Friday.

In synchronicity, my son, Euan, and his band, The Rooftops, released their new single, Something so familiar, from their upcoming album on Friday. For a limited time you can download a free copy here. As Euan says, “Ever explored the world, had the time of your life, missed home and come back to realise that it’s actually the best place in the world? ‘Something So Familiar’ is a song about coming home …”

Let the lyrics and the music reveal more. Enjoy & share.

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