Nightmares and lost sleep
In my work as a dream therapist, I’ve noticed that more than half of first time appointments are booked by people suffering nightmares and lost sleep, or on behalf of their children who are plagued by scary dreams and fear of going to bed. Sometimes all it takes is one chilling nightmare for someone to seek out a professional consultation, especially a dream that scares the dreamer into wondering if they, or the person they’ve
Deep roots
After living in Australia for more than half my life, I found myself back in England last month, standing in front of one of my childhood homes. Although I had revisited a hundred times in my dreams over the decades, I hadn’t made the physical trip to the south coast to trace those early years until now. We moved into this particular house when I was two, and left when I was nine, but it
What does my dream mean?
“For ten years I’ve had a recurring dream of a plane plummeting to the ground and exploding,” said Jenny, calling into a radio segment I did earlier this week. “What does it mean?” When you wake up from a dream, what questions spring to your mind? What does it mean? Why did I dream that? What does this dream say about me? Is my dream giving me a message? What’s going on in my subconscious?
Why do you do that?
I was sitting in ‘hair and makeup’ at the television studios being made up to go on Today Extra. In everyday life the only make up I wear is red lipstick. In television life much more is required to survive and look alive in the bright lights, and although I have occasionally fronted up to the camera in just my lipstick and got away with it, I always appreciate being on the receiving end of
Tell me a story
As the wonderful mysteries of life and twists of fate would have it, I have lost my voice on the very morning that I had set aside to write this blog. Yes, you’re correct. I don’t need a speaking voice to write, but the subject I had already chosen was how to give voice to an intriguing dream symbol. If you’ve guessed I’m going to write about doing a dream dialogue, no, I’m not. Today’s
Dream medicine
Close your eyes, it’s late in the evening, and time for your dream medicine. Here we go, counting down now, ten, nine, eight, relaxing, floating deeply down, let the healing begin. No drugs required, but the prescription is clear: dream. Sometimes the medicine is sweet and tasty, a deliciously sensual dream gifting grace and restoration, insights that, like the medicine, are easy to take, delightful to absorb and apply in your waking life. Sometimes the
Dream therapy Ancient Greek style
How well do you think you would sleep if there were snakes slithering around the floor of your room? Even if they were assuredly non-venomous, would you sleep enough to dream? If you lived in Ancient Greece around the fourth and fifth centuries BC, and felt in need of healing, physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, you might have booked yourself in for dream therapy at one of the many healing temples dedicated to Asclepius, the
Recurring train dream
I had a recurring dream when I was a university student back in the early seventies in Glasgow, Scotland. In my dream, I would arrive at the train station to see my train leaving, or I would miss my train because I was on the wrong platform, or because the stairs to the correct platform formed some kind of endless Mobius strip, or because I was at the wrong station altogether. I never did catch
What’s your superpower?
It was the middle of the night, both in reality, because I was asleep, and in my dream, because it was dark and no-one was up. No-one apart from me and the young boy I was teaching to fly. I had been walking down the staircase like a normal human being, when I started to joyfully fly over a few steps at a time in a kind of loop the loop fashion. “It’s my superpower,”
The Dream Reader and the Dream Therapist
Now, there’s a job title, Dream Reader. There’s also Dream Interpreter, Dream Analyst, Dream Alchemist, and Dream Therapist. I’m often asked about the differences between these job descriptions, and while the boundaries may overlap or blur, let’s get down to some definitions. People who choose to be in the business of helping people with their dreams operate under a range of job titles, a far bigger range than I have listed. Dream guide and dream