Unveiling the Mysteries of Dreams with Dream Hub's Melissa Johnson

Will: [00:00:00] Karen. Yes. Had any weird dreams lately?

Karen: I always have weird dreams. Do you? Always. Like

Will: always? Always. Always. And do you remember them all the

Karen: time? I remember quite a few of

Will: them. Yeah. I'm so jealous.

Karen: I'm so jealous. Well, maybe not with the dreams I'm having. Some of them are better to forget.

Will: Um, might have a good point there. All right. Well, the question, do you think that dreams might actually hold the key to solving all of our problems? I mean, they might. Hmm. I think so too. Well, today we're diving back into the wild and wonderful world of dreams and what they mean, but more importantly, how understanding and working with our dreams can lead to Profound personal transformation and growth. Our guest is not just another dream interpreter, she's an industry leader and the founder of Dreamhug. And with her help, by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly how to remember and interpret your dreams and how to apply them to your daily life.

Don't go anywhere because The Skeptic Manifestation starts now. [00:01:00] welcome to the Skeptic Minute Physicians. I'm Will and I'm Karen. And today, how do we have a special treat for you? Melissa Johnson. He's a certified dreams teacher. She was certified by Robert Moss And equipped with a diploma in dream therapy, Melissa has trained international psychologists and psychiatrists to harness the power of dreams in their practices. Now, under the guidance of dream guru, Lana Sackwild, and I. Pretty sure [00:02:00] I butchered that name. So sorry, Lana. Uh, at the Lucid and Entrepreneur Lab, Melissa has mastered lucid dreaming and lucid living techniques.

You refer to lucid dreaming. I'm like, Ooh. Now her gift as an intuitive and a psychic medium specifically within the dream realm ensures her methods are both deeply insightful and transformative. So whether it's understanding a confusing dream about an. X or unraveling the deeper meaning of disturbing dreams.

She provides tools for clarity, understanding, and self improvement. And I don't want to talk anymore. I want to bring her on the show,

Melissa Johnson. Welcome to the Skeptic Metaphysicians.

Melissa: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Will: I doubt it. I doubt you're anywhere near as excited as we are because we've been looking forward to talking to you specifically for a very long time, dreams, dreams, man, what a wild magical realm that they are. And we actually we put out a call for. Some dreams from our audience, and we're [00:03:00] going to talk to you about some of them.

I'm going to read them to you and hopefully you'll help these audience members actually figure out how or why they're having these dreams. But before we get there, I want to talk about dreams and dream interpretation. go online and everyone says, Oh, if you dream of a tree falling in the forest, it means you're about to have a heart attack or whatever the heck it is.

So how can you be so? Concise and sure about the interpretations that you do when someone tells you a dream.

Melissa: Well, the way that I make sure that the answer's right is by working with you. So I'm never going to sit here and just tell you what your dream means. Because I don't know, I might have a, an idea of what it could possibly mean, but the best confirmation that I can get is from you. And it's usually when you get that feeling that all this resonates, sometimes you might get like goosebumps all over your whole body, or you just have that feeling of like.

Ah, that's right. And you know, we can go through some different options because dream interpretation isn't a one size [00:04:00] fits all thing. It's really personal and it can vary greatly from one person to another. So it's important to go deep within yourself rather than, you know, reaching out for those dream dictionaries or just Googling what did my dream mean?

Because yeah, so people will try to just make sense of it when you're the only person who can make sense of it.

Will: Okay. So you're telling me to throw away all my dream dictionaries.

Melissa: No, no, no, no, no.

Karen: so, but there are a lot of people that will have the same dream, you know, like being naked in front of a lot of people or their teeth falling out. I mean, are there any dreams that do have like a specific meaning that you can look up or are they all just dependent on the person who's dreaming them?

Melissa: Yep. So basically we can look things up because there are universal meanings for things. So you guys might've heard of the collective consciousness. So there are similar things that we can all resonate with. An example could be water. Often when water is in dreams, it's representing our [00:05:00] emotions and it depends on the state of the water as to the state of your.

Like your state, your emotional states of, is the water like choppy and messy and like a horrible storm out in the ocean? Or are you like in a rainforest with this beautiful waterfall or, you know, it depends on what it is, but there are universal dream symbols. But I like to go personal first. And if with personal association, you can't figure out what the meaning might mean, then go to the dream dictionary and look up the universal symbols and then see if any of that resonates with you.

Will: everyone knows dreams are really cool, really super cool, but what made you go into this as a career? Like what made you like set up one day and go, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to dive into dreams and help people interpret them. You

Melissa: [00:06:00] medicated. And I just didn't really have, like, I didn't know why I wasn't happy. And then when I got Pregnant, I started getting really strong dreams coming through.

Pregnancy can amplify dreams a lot because, well, there's a lot of different reasons why hormones and, you know, you can't just take a sleeping tablet and try to block it out and like all these things. When I started getting really crazy nightmares through that, I couldn't deal. Like I was waking up, bawling my eyes out.

I didn't understand what they meant. So I started researching them. And then I discovered lucid dreaming and that's what got me into it to start with because I was able to become aware in a dream, turn and face the nightmare and overcome the challenge and wake up feeling incredible. And from being able to do that, it just shifted my whole perspective of reality and consciousness and what's within us.

And we're making our own lives harder than we should be. Like it's a lot of internal [00:07:00] struggle. When I went through this journey of learning about dreams and applying it to my own life, and I was a student for a long time, just doing it my own before becoming a teacher, my whole life changed. My mental health improved drastically.

I know I never need to go to a psychologist at all anymore because I feel like my dreams are my own psychologist and I don't need to take medications or anything like I absolutely love my life. And it's all because of dreams. And it's just powered me with that passion that I want to help people, you know, if we could all look internally and start to understand our subconscious and use that to help us, our lives just elevate so much.

Will: Hmm the people that are listening to this show probably know the kind of questions. I'm gonna ask you because we focus the show on what really matters, right? And the big question is, how

can we'll remember his dreams?

Karen: Oh my gosh, he felt like the minute he wakes up, he's like, Oh [00:08:00] God, I had this crazy dream. I'm like, what was it about? And he's like, I don't know, but I know it was crazy. That's the hardest thing. All the time. The hardest thing. But how do you know it

Will: was crazy? I know I wake up and I feel like, Oh my God, that was the weirdest dream and I start to say it and it's like, it's just like this wisp of smoke that just goes and like flitters away.

So how can someone like me who can't remember the dreams, how can I? Like, start to work with dreams.

Melissa: Yeah, definitely. And I think this is the thing. Some people say, Oh, I don't remember my dreams. And they just assume that they're not a dreamer, but we're all dreamers. Everybody can. So there are a lot of tips that I can give you on how to remember more dreams. And the first one. Is that you need to start sleeping more if you've got a sleep debt or you're not sleeping enough, you're not going to remember them.

So, having a quality sleep routine is crucial for dream recall. So I like to go to the bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time in the morning if I can, like if your sleep is fragmented or you're not getting [00:09:00] enough, it's going to be way harder to remember your dreams.

Will: explains everything. A lot. It explains everything. It really does. Yeah, because my sleep patterns are super erratic, and even when I am sleeping in regular times I wake up five, six times a night. Not wanting to, but I do. And that, that's, those are the days that I know it's going to be a rough day, but.

Melissa: Well, you don't have to sleep all just at nighttime. You can have polyphasal sleep where if you wanted to sleep, say four or five hours at night and then have a couple hours nap in the middle of the day, that's still okay. And you can still have even more dreams if you do it that way. So maybe you just need to add another nap in there.

Karen: anti

Will: napper. Not that I'm an anti napper. It's that when I nap, I wake up all messed up. My head's in the clouds. I can't clear. I get all grouchy and stuff. It's, once I go to sleep, once I go to bed, I'm in bed for the duration. Otherwise, if I wake myself up after I've gone back to sleep, it's impossible to wake myself up without feeling all crummy and stuff.

Melissa: Can I [00:10:00] ask when you're having a nap, are you usually aiming for like an hour to reckon you try?

Will: Well, usually when I take a nap, it's inadvertent. Yeah. It's an accident.

Melissa: Excellent.

Will: Right. Um, but the times that I have tried in the past, like I realized that if I have like a 15 to 20 minute nap, I'm usually wake up okay, but anything beyond that, I'm a mess. The problem is the 15 to 20 minute naps when you wake up.

It's a bad thing. I do not want to die. This is no, 20 minutes is not enough. So it's hard for me to, hard for me to wake up then.

Melissa: Yeah, so it's all about your REM sleep cycle. So 20 minutes is good because you're not going into a deep REM sleep cycle. That's good for just a little power nap. But if you're like deeply exhausted, then of course it's not enough. But I find a lot of people think, Oh, I'll just have an hour. And they're waking up in the middle of a REM sleep cycle.

So that's when you're in your deepest sleep in the middle of A dream. And you've got a lot further to pull [00:11:00] back out to wake back up. And that can leave you feeling really groggy. So the tip is to go for like an hour and a half to two hours. If you're going to have a nap and then you'll have a full like dream REM cycle, and then you'll be coming out of it in your lightest stage of sleep when you wake up and you'll feel refreshed.

Will: Well, I hadn't thought of that. I just need more time to snap,

Melissa: Yeah, exactly.

Karen: have it. You'd need to do the siesta.

Will: Well, the siesta is like, what is it? Oh, it is a two hour nap. A couple hours. Yeah, that's right. Right. Okay. Well, People. Some people think dreams are us leaving our bodies and experiencing different dimensions and things like that.

Other people think that their message is from beyond. What are they to you?

Melissa: Well, they're all of that and more, although

Will: God. How did I know you're gonna say that?

Melissa: With the leaving the body thing though, yes, in a way, but it's more we're going inward. So I think that there's sometimes a misconception or a fear around dreaming because [00:12:00] people tend to think that they're leaving their body and they're flying up out and then they're just leaving their body alone for, you know, I've heard people saying they're scared of entities coming into their bodies and things like that.

So they're blocking out dreaming, but it's not. You're going inward, but they are a place where you can communicate with the other side. But they are also a place for really personal healing. So if you think about it, when you go to sleep, you go into the dream world and then there's other realms above and below that as well, that other people will talk about, like the astral plane and that sort of a thing.

So you can go into the dream world and then that's where you do a lot of your personal work and then you can ascend up into other realms. To, you know, communicate with loved ones and things like that, or they can come through to you.

Karen: So then lucid dreaming. Is that just being aware that you're in a dream? In a dream? Or is that, have you gone somewhere else?

Melissa: Yep. You're aware that you're in a dream and then you can then use that as like a [00:13:00] platform to go to somewhere else. So let's say I'm in a dream right now and I go, I'm in a dream right now. What could I do? Oh, I know I want to go up into the astral plane. I could then say, use this computer monitor as a portal and like, Dive in through and come and visit you guys, or, you know, you can get creative from a lucid dream to then take you somewhere

Will: Don't tease us like that. Don't do it.

Karen: And can you, is that something that you can learn? Because it's happened to me a couple of times, it just happened, but I'm like, dang, I want to do that more. But I, I just have regular dreams and I wake

Will: up. You have, you've had that, you have had lucid dreams? Yeah.

I'm sure you have too. No, I have not. I never know I'm in a dream until after I'm awake and I go, Oh, I was dreaming. Yeah. That doesn't count. I know. I know.

Melissa: All right. So yeah, you can definitely train for it. That's what I did and it's amazing now, but the biggest thing, and I suppose the biggest tip I could tell you both is. To be more mindful and aware in your waking life. So [00:14:00] in your waking life, if you're paying attention to what you're doing and looking around like, is anything weird going on?

Could I be in a dream right now? That's going to make you be more aware within your dream because it's like a subconscious autopilot thing that we do. So then when you're in your dream, you may automatically look around and go, Oh, is something weird going on? Am I in a dream right now? Yes, I am.

Karen: Mm

Melissa: you see what I mean?

You could just constantly ask yourself through the day. People do reality checks where they might check if they're dreaming and then look at their hands or like tug on a finger. And then if you're doing that automatically, say at every hour throughout the day, you're automatically going to do that within the dream.

And when you're in the dream and you look at your hand and pull your finger, your finger might come out like stretchy jelly, or it might fall off or something weird will happen. And you'll go, Whoa, I'm in a dream.

Karen: All right. I'm going to start

Will: that tomorrow. Would that really be what you say? Or would you, would you say, Oh my [00:15:00] God, my finger.

Karen: Well, she's done it a lot before.

Will: I'm talking about me.

Melissa: I don't know, what would you do?

Will: Oh, I think I would probably wake up.

Melissa: I have a, yeah, a lot of people will wake up out of excitement because the realization it is. Such a trip out. Like I cannot even explain to you the feeling of when you're inside of a dream and you realize that you are it's next level, but most people then wake up from excitement.

So what you need to do is have a plan of action. What you'll do once you become lucid, like, do you know what you want to do? Cause that people get excited, they get, or then like a dream character will come over and start talking to you and you can forget that you're in a dream and you'll just slip straight back into the dream.

Will: See, that's, I'm afraid that's what would happen to me. I was just like, Oh, I mean,

Melissa: Yeah.

Karen: it might, it's only happened like a couple of times and it's been bad dreams. And I'm telling myself, I'm like, wake up, you have to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. And then eventually I wake up. That's, [00:16:00] you know, not a terribly exciting lucid dream,

Will: but I guess if you're lucid, you could actually change it and make it not be a bad dream instead of making a good dream.

Well,

Karen: maybe I'm only semi lucid. Punch the bad guy in the nose. Maybe I realize I'm dreaming, but I don't realize I can control it.

Melissa: Yes. And there are, there is, it's like a sliding scale of lucidity. So the first level might be that you just notice something strange is happening and you think maybe I'm in a dream and that's still being lucid because you've become aware and you've noticed something, but you don't have like the strength to change the whole scenery or.

Go off somewhere. Cool. But then it gets higher and higher and you can get up to this phase of lucidity where I can walk around and I can touch the objects and they feel like real objects and I can eat food and it tastes like the real food and. You can be within

Will: no calories.

Melissa: no calories. You know, I'm celiac, I can't have gluten.

And in my dreams, I tell you, I eat so much gluten. It is amazing that then in my waking life, I'm [00:17:00] not even jealous of the bakeries. Like I'm like, whatever I had better last night. Yeah,

Karen: Oh, wow.

Will: I'm talking about your dreams, Will. Oh, oh, sorry. I just, uh,

Karen: yeah. So, so do you lucid or dream? Is it lucid? Mm hmm. Do you dream lucidly or do you lucid dream every night?

Melissa: No, I wish I could. It, some people can but no, it's something that I find for me personally. It happens when I'm doing my daily practices. So I have little things that I'll do to help me to become aware. So. Instead of just like, I don't really do the pull the finger. It's just the most common one that everybody does, but I will walk a perimeter of the room and just touch things and like feel the textures of things and try to bring my awareness into the room and do grounding.

And then. I will probably get lucid maybe, I go through phases. See in a good phase I did seven times in one month and that's massive. You'll find on average, average lucid [00:18:00] dreamers will dream lucidly about once per month. Some people once every six months. So

Karen: Oh, wow.

Melissa: it's really different. Yeah.

Will: that would be a banner, the banner day. I'm going to keep pulling my finger all show.

Melissa: Yeah.

Will: that, that puts a whole nother spin to pull my finger. Yeah,

Melissa: I was going to say careful.

Will: no, no. Well. Let me, maybe I'll touch my, I don't know, I'll figure something out, but yeah. So, you say that dreams using your dreams or interpreting your dreams can help you in your everyday life. What do you mean by that? Like, in what way can they help you?

Melissa: Oh, they can give you so much guidance. Like if you've got a problem that you can't solve, if you've got like internal issues that you're going through, they can offer different perspectives on things. They can come up with creative ideas on problem solving. And like we were talking about before, you can get visitations from loved ones that have passed over.

Where they're giving you advice or just offering you comfort. [00:19:00] There's so many different things that we can do.

Karen: So do you have to have, well, if you're not getting visitation from somewhere else. Do you have to have the knowledge of subconsciously how to solve that problem? Because you know, what if you're not the sharpest tool in the shed?

Will: Stop talking about me. I'm right here. I'm right here

Melissa: So do you want to talk about like interpreting the dream and figuring out what it actually means on how to help you? Is that what you mean? Yeah. So I'll give you an example of a dream that I had. So. Picture this, like I've recently had a baby. I'm trying to study from home. I'm trying to start up a business and I'm just like trying to fit it in between.

I've got two kids and I'm really busy and all of my work is just being left behind and I'm studying from bed. Like that was my situation. And then the dream that I had, I was away from home. I was like at this workplace, but it was like a. A dorm room, like I was away to study at like a [00:20:00] college and I walk and I'm in the room and I'm cleaning up and all my kids stuff is there and I'm thinking why is my kids stuff in my room when I'm away at this dorm.

Anyway, I walk out and my ex boyfriend's there with just some other random people and they're like come on we're gonna go film this tv show and we're, I'm there to produce a show and I'm the star of the show and we're at the bottom of stairs and we're about to walk up the stairs and that's the dream.

It seems really random, but when I thought about what's my life problem, what are my personal associations with things? Well, I was away for study. I'm trying to work on my study. Then I'm thinking my kids stuff's there. That didn't make sense to me. But when I look into the interpretation, it doesn't make sense to be trying to learn and study whilst you've got children in amongst, like distracting me, getting in the way.

So that was telling me what the subject was about. My ex boyfriend being there, it was. Funny because usually you'd think, Oh, she's still hung up on him or whatever it is, [00:21:00] but no, when I think about him, what's my personal associations with him and it's work, we used to work in an office environment together for over 10 years, it was very structured, planned, scheduled, rigid.

And then we're about to go upstairs to be a movie star or whatever. It was just showing like the Ascension of my life of where it could go. If I followed the guidance of the dream. The guidance was to use the, like my associations with my ex partner and separate, like using him as like rigid scheduled rostered.

I needed to roster some time for my study, like as if a normal person would do in the outside world. But when you're a mom at home, you don't really think about that. And just removing my kids. Things from the environment. So get away from home and make sure that the kids things weren't in the house. So I went to my husband, told him about the dream.

And of course he's gone through the calendar, blocked out some time for me where he can have the kids and he's built me my [00:22:00] own office. All from one dream. And that really, like, it seems little, but it really enhanced my life, like drastically and made me feel a lot better, a lot less stressed. So it's a really just simple, common, everyday thing, but it helped heaps.

Will: Wow. I can only imagine. So, okay. This seems like people talk about using hypnosis to help you or therapy to help you to gain better quality of mental health, all that kind of stuff. But you can, it sounds like you can use dreams to do the same thing.

Melissa: Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Well, let's talk about like a bad dream and a lucid dream. We were talking about that earlier. So I had a bad dream. There was like this scary guy, like pushing walls around, like Hulk, like, Oh, I'm so strong. And he was like going to come and get me. And I didn't like it. And in that moment, because my emotions were elevated, I checked, am I in a dream?

And I was, so I just went, Oh, I'm not having any of this. And I walked out the door. And then I thought, [00:23:00] what do I need to work on in my life to heal? And at the, at the time I was focusing on unconditional love and feeling love for myself and learning how to feel that feeling. And so I walked out of the nightmare and I just said to the dream, like set out to the sky, show me unconditional love.

And all my friends showed up and they said, come on, we're going to a concert and we went to a music concert in my lucid dream. And I was like, loving it. And like having the best time and feeling unconditional love. And so then I was able to wake up and. Have this internal self realization that love doesn't need to come from your husband or your parents.

It's something that you can give to yourself in all different ways with friends and music and everything. So, yeah, instead of being, like, waking up and being rattled after a nightmare, I woke up, like, absolutely ecstatic and vibrating at this frequency of love.

Will: Wow. That's awesome. That is awesome. Alright, so I want, I have a lot more questions, but I wanna go into the first dream from our [00:24:00] audience so that in case, and I'm trying to find it now. I know I had, here we go. In case we run outta time, I wanna make sure that at least a few of these are are addressed.

Are you up for that? Melissa, you're good to, okay, all right. So this first one comes from someone named Faroochi, and I hope I didn't butcher your name, And she says, I'm happily married for six years, but I've been dreaming about my husband a lot.

The theme is always the same. He cheats or looks at other women. He would treat me like a different person as if he didn't know me, or sometimes he did know me, but he would treat me unkindly anyway. Like he doesn't like me at all and he would deliberately hurt me emotionally by talking to other women or being sweet with them while I'm around.

I know for a fact that he's not cheating on me. So these dreams are weird for me. Please help. Melissa, please help.

Melissa: I actually get these ones a lot and I'm really sorry. I've struggled with these myself, the cheating dreams. It's a big topic. What I would like you [00:25:00] to think about yourself internally is could your husband in the dream be a character that is reflecting a part of yourself? So are you cheating yourself from love in any way in your own life?

Like, do you know what I mean? Like, are you giving yourself self love or are you being mean to yourself? Like internally, like you're saying in the dream that he's not treating you nicely. Like, are you treating yourself nicely? That's what I'd be asking first.

Karen: So he's like your negative thoughts about yourself.

Melissa: It's like a mirror, dreams are often mirrors and it's a projection of what, the way you're treating yourself.

Will: Wow. So could it be the higher self? Your higher self giving you messages to, Hey, wake up. Is that what the dreams are?

Melissa: Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And look if, yeah,

Will: So then in essence, this [00:26:00] is since she loves her husband so much. To have him be the surrogate of her. It helps her to get, to come to terms where, to, you know, someone that she loves so much, like herself is actually treating her badly. She's treating herself badly because it's the person that she loves the most.

So she doesn't feel

Karen: like she deserves him for whatever reason. Ooh, that's what she needs to figure out,

Melissa: See. There are so many layers. And you know how I said before, like, I can't tell you what your dream means. You're very right. It could be that as well. It could be a fear of cheating. Like her parents might've cheated. Like there could be all these different things. So we'd have to go through all of those and say, which one resonates with you?

Like, what do you think the dream means? But I just wanted to touch on that cheating one being like, you know, if you love your partner so much and. Then they're usually just a symbol for love. And like, are you loving yourself too?

Will: Um,

Melissa: It's just a really common one that comes up a lot.

Will: that makes a lot of sense. It does. A lot of sense. Okay. [00:27:00] So before we get to the next dream, can, not everyone believes the things that you believe. Some people think that just a dream is your brain just processing the day in by, while you're dreaming or whatever, but it doesn't mean anything. What do you tell people who say dream therapy is a bunch of bull?

Melissa: Well, I'd say it's not a bunch of bull, but the part that you were saying about sometimes dreams don't mean anything. That's also true. You know, sometimes they are just us processing the day, like the science behind dream work is that it's a blend of psychology and neuroscience and a spiritual aspect as well.

So it's all of it. Why can't it all be true? It is. So, you know, especially at the beginning of the night. It's usually our daily processing dreams where we're just consolidating what's happened and that sort of a thing. And then once we're cleansed out from all of that, you'll find most people will have spiritual, deep, higher self dreams around 3am and onwards, because we're [00:28:00] like clear, ready for the spiritual stuff to come in.

So yeah, it's all of it. And if you're still skeptic, like just give it a go, start paying attention to your dreams. As you go to sleep, think I'm going to remember my dream and write it down. And I'm actually going to give this thing a go. And see,

Will: you know how many times I said to myself, I'm going to remember my dreams. And next morning I wake up and go, Nope, didn't

Melissa: well, okay,

Karen: you have to sleep more,

Will: right?

Melissa: I've got something perfect for you, which I'll give you the link. I've made an ebook on how to remember more dreams and it's free and it explains why I should want to. And it's got like so many practical steps that you can give a go. And I guarantee you like within a week, you'll be remembering more, even if it's just a fragment, but they build, I build up gradually.

Okay. But you need to have the intention that you're going to write it down. That's the biggest thing. Get ready to write it down. Like as soon as you wake up, don't wait till after breakfast, like in bed, write it down straight away.

Will: I've heard that before. Actually, I've heard that before, but knowing that you've [00:29:00] got a book that's going to help me remember my dreams now makes you my favorite guest today. Absolutely. All right. So now is there a correlation with life at all? Some people dream super vividly and they remember everything.

And then other people don't have detailed dreams at all. It's just a mishmash of stuff. Is there like, am I normal? Yeah. Like I

Karen: can smell and taste in my dreams. That's not, sometimes I dream in different language, like Spanish. Weird at all.

Melissa: That's not weird at all. They're totally magic, but yeah, everyone's different, but it can just depend on like your current relationship with your dream self. So when you're first starting out to try and remember more dreams, they might just be mishmashed and it might be one or two random or what you think is a random symbol.

You could get something really deeply profound from just one symbol in a dream. It doesn't need to be lucid and tasting things and everything to still be a good dream. But the more you work with your dreams, the better they're going to get. And I [00:30:00] can promise you, like when I first started, I was remembering like one nightmare a week and that was it.

And they were horrible. And now I'm able to have like between two and five dreams a night. And there are a range of everything from really random to super spiritual, to like psychic messages for other people. Yeah, they're all different.

So I have a question about a dream that I had. It was a long, long, long time ago. I was a young girl and it just stands out in my brain and I don't really remember much of the dream other than I was standing behind like some tall hedges and I looked down and on the ground were two beautiful snakes.

Karen: One was like royal blue with a little bit of gold and the other one was bright red with a little bit of gold and they were intertwined and I wasn't afraid of them. That's all I remember, but they were so pretty. That memory has always stuck with me. So I'm thinking about those colors. Do those necessarily mean anything?

Melissa: Yeah, they definitely could. I'd have to look it up for you though, but I find it so fascinating that you loved the [00:31:00] snakes and you thought that they were beautiful. And this is a perfect example of why with symbology, you can't just say, Oh, I dreamt of a snake. That means anxiety. Do you know what I mean?

Because this is why the dream interpretations aren't that great, because it really depends on how did you feel and how did you feel in the dream. And how did you feel in that dream when you saw those two snakes? Did you feel like it was related to anything or did you have like an emotion wash over you?

Karen: No. I was just looking at them. I was very curious about them and I just thought they were so pretty,

Melissa: So pretty, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we hop off here, look up color psychology for each of those colors and see, it's sometimes difficult to interpret a dream from the past because they're very related to our current lives. And at the time of what was going on. And if you're really little and you're a kid, it may have been like a creative dream.

I don't know, but blue and red. Making me think of like wires and intertwined. And is there like a symbol that you've seen somewhere [00:32:00] like that? I think that's like a symbol for health.

Will: so then this brings me to. My next question you mentioned dreaming in color. There's a lot of misconceptions out there people believe, like you can't, when you dream, you dream in black and white. If you dream in color, you're psychotic, right? Or something like that. First of all, let's debunk that right off the bat.

Cause obviously Karen's not psychotic. She's an angel. So there's no way so why do people say that you can only dream in black and white?

Melissa: People say weird things about dreams. There are so many, like,

Will: Yes.

Melissa: there are so many dream myths that I hear. And no, some people do dream in black and white. I never have, I think, I don't know, but sometimes a black and white dream can be reflecting the past, you know, like the olden days when everything was in black and white.

So if you do have a dream that's

Will: Those commercials, so

Melissa: be like trying to tell you that this topic is over and done with. It should be in the past or it's revisiting something from the past, but no, most people do dream in color. [00:33:00] Sometimes the color is faded, like it's not as bright.

And that can just be because your relationship with your dreams aren't. Like, isn't that strong? So the more you have the relationship with your dreams, where you have the intention that you're going to dream, your dream journaling, you're trying to understand the messages from your dreams. It's going to bring you stronger dreams that are more vivid and have more color and more like taste and texture and smell and everything like that.

Sometimes if they're a bit fuzzy and pale, it's just because you've not been working strongly with them.

Will: wait, I can actually taste in my

Melissa: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Will: Oh, forget it. I am on board. I'm getting that lucid dreaming thing. And I'm waiting on there.

Melissa: I'm so excited. We'll have to have a check in in a couple of months and you can tell me all about it.

Will: deal deal. All right. So then what other misconceptions are there that you know about that you want to put to rest once and for all right here, right now, we got you, you got our attention.

Melissa: For sure. [00:34:00] I suppose, well we've talked about the whole dream symbols being one size fits all and Like that not all dreams do have a deep meaning. I agree. Some of them are just housekeeping and that's fine. Some people think that you have to be gifted or have a special intuition to be able to interpret dreams.

And that's not true. Anyone can learn to engage with and understand their dreams. And I've. I've actually got also an online lesson that you guys might like. It goes for about an hour, but it's got a downloadable workbook. And I take you through step by step on how you can interpret your own dreams. I look at it from like a very psychological perspective, and then there's a little bit of spiritual stuff in there as well, if.

None of it makes sense. Then sometimes we go there too. But I think a big misconception is that people think dream therapy is only for people that have problems or mental health issues, and that's not it at all. Like it's beneficial for everyone. Like I was saying, it's like a tool for self exploration and personal growth and [00:35:00] even creativity.

So it's not only about solving problems or healing your wounds. It's just really about enhancing your understanding of yourself and your world around you.

Will: Mm. Got

Karen: it. So, now what about if, is this a myth? Some people say they just, they don't dream. I mean, does everybody dream and they just don't remember ever their dreams? Oh,

Melissa: small population of people who don't actually, or don't dream. And that's a health condition. And that's a really serious problem. If you don't dream, I'm really worried. Everybody does dream besides that very small population. It could be, you know, medication, shutting things down or brain injuries and things like that.

But of the general population, everybody does dream and depending on how much sleep a night you're getting, we dream between four and seven times per night. You're just not remembering it. So sometimes you might wake up out of bed and think, Oh, I'm in a real mood today. You know, you got up on the wrong side of bed.

It's, you might've had a dream that you, your subconscious [00:36:00] is remembering, but your conscious mind isn't remembering.

Will: Okay. So first let me put in a disclaimer. We're not saying you have something wrong with you. If you're not dreaming, you might check out all the boxes first, before you rush to the hospital saying you have a head wound. But second, now I'm thinking if four to seven times in a night, you know how sometimes you have a dream and it feels like you're one thing else and it shifts and you're something else and then shifts into something else.

Could that be a bunch of different dreams coming together and you just remembering them all as one instead?

Melissa: Yes. Yeah, definitely. And it's tricky because sometimes they are all different dreams, like different topics about total different things, but sometimes we can also have dreams that is like a series and it's like a whole television show and it's showing you every single episode in the whole thing.

And then the next night you can go back and go back into the same dream and it will carry on and carry on. It's amazing. Sometimes they're linked. Sometimes they're not,

Karen: And then what about waking people up when they're having a really vivid dream? Like sometimes, you know, you'll like, I've cried before in my [00:37:00] dreams, or you'll hear someone laughing or sleepwalking. Is it, should you not wake them up if they're having a really crazy, you know, if you can tell they're having a bad dream, or should you just go ahead and wake them up?

Melissa: I wouldn't wake them up. I just give them something for comfort. So say it was a child and they were like whimpering or whatever. And you're thinking, Oh, they're in a dream. It's good to leave them so that they can resolve it within them in there themselves. Kids are very strong, lucid dreamers. So you never know, they might be scared of the monster and then become lucid and realize it's a dream and be like, Oh, you might be a cookie monster.

I'll give you some biscuits and then end up having a good time. And that's helping them to. Figure out their own issues and problem solve themselves. So I wouldn't wake them up in the middle of the dream. Just give them a cuddle or give them a teddy or something like that.

Karen: okay. That is

Will: very good advice. Okay. So I'm going to ask you about a dream that I have and I think or have had in the past. It's been a very long time and I've heard that this is a very common dream. So I'd love to get your take on it. Once upon a time I was an actor. I did a lot of theater in in New York when I was a much younger man.

[00:38:00] Part of the job is to memorize gobs and gobs of dialogue, but I would have dreams a lot where I would show up on stage and not have a clue as to what my lines were, and yet the audience was there and the show had to go on. What the heck? I mean, I think I know, I think I know, but is there, could it be anything other than the obvious?

Melissa: I think it's pretty obvious. I think your subconscious would be saying to you, it's time to go practice your lines a little bit more mate.

Will: Yeah,

but it was

Melissa: what I mean? Like it's a stressful dream and you think, Oh, that was so stressful, but it's trying to help you. To have a better waking life. So it's saying, all right you're not feeling fully confident in knowing your lines.

This is what could happen. Our dreams are often playing out scenarios that could happen in the future as like, depending on what I'm doing as of today, this is how my future could play out. Do you like it or do you not? And if you do like it, what could you do to make [00:39:00] sure that you bring that into your reality?

And if you don't like it, what could you do to change the course?

Will: But it was, I'm sorry, Karen, real quick. I just want to, as a followup, sometimes the dream would be not just, I'm not remembering my lines, but like, what the hell am I doing here? I don't know what I'm supposed to walk where I don't remember my blocking. I don't know. That I, I'm not, I've never practiced or rehearsed this play.

Why am I here? It goes way deeper than just your lines. I'm wondering if it has something to do with, you know, not feeling prepared for life or something.

Melissa: It could be that. I'd also be wondering if acting or being in this situation is something that your soul really wants to do. It might be like, yeah, yeah.

Karen: say, I guess it's one of the, so I have a dream similar to Will's dream. I was on a dance team and, but even now, like a million years later, I still have dreams that I don't remember the steps. And I think listening to what you're saying, so maybe at the time I was thinking I didn't know the steps and I need to practice, but [00:40:00] maybe now it's just my psyche has taken that to.

Apply it to anything when I don't feel confident in something that I need to study more or get more prepared for work. Maybe it just goes back into that I don't know the dance steps dream because I still have that and I also didn't have a crazy dance teacher. So it would

Melissa: Yes.

Karen: PTSD.

Melissa: Yeah, definitely. Yes. I used to be a model like a, like on catwalk fitness model type thing and I loved it for a while. And then I started getting dreams creep in that every time I got on stage, something would go wrong. Like my shoe would break or my outfit would pop on like you.

I didn't know what I was meant to be doing. And it just turned out that that phase of my life was meant to be done with, like my soul didn't want to do it anymore. And I was trying to. To push it and keep going when it was like, no, like internally my ego, like it didn't feel right. So it was trying to give me signs that something could go wrong.

It will go wrong. It doesn't fit for me. And then as soon as I made

Will: interesting because I

Melissa: they went away.

Will: when I was, I think [00:41:00] if I remember correctly, when I was starting to have those dreams a lot, it was right towards the end of my career as an actor when I, I made the switch to behind the scenes, like, the production team. Interesting. Okay. I one more dream from the audience, then we'll call it a day. And I'm sorry for all those that didn't we didn't get to. Maybe we'll have Melissa on a second time.

We'll ha we'll get to the other dreams but this one's from someone by the name of. Piret, P I R E T didn't put where they're from, so they're from somewhere. The, they go on to say, in my dream, I was deeply in love with an old female dwarf. I love her audience. I love them. Uh, She was old, skinny and very wrinkled and reached my waist.

I wore a white wedding dress and I guess that this is a woman, Perrette. And the dwarf and I apparently got married. I was unbelievably happy and I'm in a blissful state of mind. Then I was in a classroom where I studied Japanese. From the classroom I got transferred to a typical corporate conference room where there was a dignified and completely [00:42:00] rational and objective conversation about love.

I did not find out the conclusion of the conversation because I woke up. Can you make heads or tails of that?

Melissa: Hmm. Very interesting. Like I said before, it is hard when the dreamer isn't here with me for

Will: Yes

Melissa: to question them. Marrying the dwarf, it would be like it's trying to tell her that she wants to be close with or have something close to her. That is to do with a dwarf, whatever she's thinking of, like, it could be something like she might've been worried about her height, you know, in waking life.

And this is trying to tell her that height doesn't matter. You know, it could be, I don't know. There's so many different things. It could be, it depends on what her associations were with that. a, it's a, yeah, it's a bit of a doozy. That one, I've got to talk with them.

Karen: interesting that it ends talking about love too. So it's somehow all about love

Will: Yeah, and and she made a point of specifying that it was a female dwarf and she was a woman So I'm wondering if there's something around that [00:43:00] where the sexuality in question is there or something along those lines I'm not sure but you know,

Melissa: I suppose the best like overall dream interpretation tip I could give you on this topic and on this dream is that when you have a dream that you're in a relationship with, like marrying or in a sexual relationship with someone it doesn't mean that it's sexual. So say you like, like, Oh, I guess in this dream, she's with a female dwarf and in waking life, she'd never actually.

She's straight, you know, and she's wouldn't go that way, but the dream is trying to say like that you want to somehow bring the aspect of whatever's going on there. Into you and be close to you. So you might, as an example, you might get close with someone at work, a colleague, and then have a sex dream about them, but it doesn't mean that you want to have sex with them.

It might be that you've just been working together all week very closely. And that's just how our. Minds associate things, you know, or you've got a new friend and you really like [00:44:00] them. So then you have a dream, you're marrying them.

Will: Ah,

Melissa: want to try to pick what is it about that person in the dream that you want to get close to?

Is it their personality? Is it, you know, the energy that they bring when they walk into a room? Is that what you love about them? And then you have a dream that you're sleeping with them. Well, then you need to try to bring that energy. Within yourself so that you show up like that. It's just trying to say I want this close to me

Will: Oh my gosh. So much more to talk about. And I'm, I just read ahead at the one, one more dream. This one's super interesting. Well,

last

Melissa: on Go and throw it at me

Will: classroom and that my teacher was out and there was a substitute teacher instead. For some reason, the sub looked like a literal goblin. And it goes on to say, give you an idea of what it [00:45:00] looked like. It looked like green goblin from Spider Man.

Uh, anyways we were sitting at our desks and the sub teacher said that we will do an experiment and then hit a switch on the wall. And we all went, I guess we all caught on fire, except for the teacher and the goblin. Oh, I guess there's a teacher and a goblin. But it was like a bubble of not spreading fire around me.

And each one of my classmates were in our own little separate bubbles of fire. I stood in the fire listening to the teacher and the goblin laughing their heads off for a while waiting to die. But I got impatient and stepped out of the fire because it was taking too long. And I went and I turned off the switch on the wall and then everyone's fire bubbles went out and they were so amazed for some reason that I looked at the ground and saw that the fire melted a lot of the people's skin off of them.

Hmm. Is that where it ends? That's it. He says, and then I woke up.

Melissa: I'd love to see some of these dreams on screen as movies. Hey, like[00:46:00]

Will: Definitely.

Melissa: It seems to do a lot with life and death. So this dreamer may be contemplating like, when am I going to die? How am I going to die? You know, the, these like big life problems that we think about as we're falling asleep. If you're thinking about this stuff, as you fall asleep, it could manifest into something, but.

There's also multiple layers. So that might be like an underlying thought that the dream is having. And then there's something to do with, they're in a school, there's a teacher. I'd be thinking, who are you learning from? Who are you consuming media from? Like. And are they worried that this teacher is going to leave and then some goblin is taking place?

Like what's the goblin got to do? Do they feel like they, that maybe they were like learning of someone respectful and then now they've left and something else has come and set them on fire. Like, do you know what I mean? Like sometimes you could be getting your news from a reputable source and then all of a sudden [00:47:00] now you're watching.

The, the normal media and they're showing disasters everywhere. And you feel like your life's going to end. And then you go, Oh, hang on a minute. I can just flick the switch and turn this off.

Will: Hmm.

Melissa: I'd be there's yeah. A few like deeper layers in there.

Will: Yeah. And I think that's where I was going to take a crack at it. That's what I would say. Like they were in the bowl of fire and it, all it took us for them to just step out of it. Like there's all this stuff happening in my life and I, and they made the decision to just walk out and suddenly everything was fine.

So that's,

Karen: they had no skin. A lot of them. Yes, that's true. They're not totally fine. That's

Will: true. They were skinless, but fine. They were fine as skinless people. I don't know. I, but,

Melissa: Well, maybe also reminding you, like, when you pass over, you don't have any skin anymore either, do you? We don't have a body. So it's like at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter. Yeah. So like that dream could be guidance. Like they might be feeling like they're still in the fire at the moment and they might be struggling in their life thinking, [00:48:00] Oh, when is this going to end?

Like, I'm just waiting to die here. It could even be relating to their job or something. And it's like, just get out.

Karen: and maybe the higher self is coming in saying, all you have to do is

step out of the bubble. Yes.

Will: Yes. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. Thank you for answering or interpreting all these dreams. We're going to have to have you back because we've got a whole slew of the ones that I, I'm not really curious.

So. Maybe I'll take a crack at them first and see.

Karen: No, don't do that. It's poor people.

Don't listen to Will out there.

Will: No, they know better. They

Karen: know better. I'm just picturing this, a solo podcast, taking a crack at these dreams. That's

Will: terrible. Maybe that could be a recurring thing. Once a week, it'll be me reading people's dreams and interpreting them for them terribly.

Karen: That's going to be someone's nightmare.

Melissa: please do my online lesson before you attempt that. [00:49:00] Use the workbook.

Will: All right. All right. All right.

Okay. Well, in

Melissa: own dreams, get your own dreams together first, and then give that a crack.

Will: Yeah, I'd be afraid to share some of my dreams, but okay. Let's since you touched on it, how is someone wants to. Access your lesson or the book that will help them start the down the road. What's the best way for someone to get ahold of you for

that?

Melissa: sure. So my website is dreamhub. au. You can get it there. You can contact me on Instagram as well. It's dream double underscore hub. Or email me personally insights at dreamhub. au.

If you're listening now, you love podcasts. You're starting to figure out that you love dreams. Then come and check out my podcast. It's called the dream hub podcast. It's pretty easy to find and yeah, I hope you love it.

Will: I'm sure they will. I am a subscriber and I can't wait to dive even further into it. I can't thank you enough, Melissa. This has been a wonderfully stimulating conversation. I think I know a lot less about [00:50:00] dreams now than I did at the beginning, because there's so much more complex than I ever expected.

So, thank you for opening my eyes for sure.

Melissa: It really are. You're welcome. No worries. Thanks for having me. I loved it.

Will: Yeah. We did too. So did we. Yep. All right. Well, if you want to reach out to Melissa Johnson, we're going to go ahead and add her direct links to our show notes. All you need to do is go to skepticmetaphysician. com and you'll find that link laid out there directly for you. So it's an easy reach. And if you do, please tell her we said hello.

And a huge thank you to you. We hope you've enjoyed this conversation as much as we have. If you did and you feel called to give back, we invite you to visit our website at SkepticMetaphysician.

com where you can donate to the show or subscribe as a member through our Buy Me a Coffee campaign. Your support will go a long way towards allowing Karen and I to bring you these wonderful conversations and teachings in more and more robust ways. Well, that's all for now, but we'll see you on the next episode of The Skeptic Metaphysician. Until then, take care. [00:51:00]