Speaker 1: It's nice side with Ray WBS radiomor right.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everybody. It is nine oh six. I think
Speaker 2: it was pretty quick. Uh run down stairs, get a
Speaker 2: lit glass of water, and you run back up. Okay,
Speaker 2: as simple as that. We are going to give you
Speaker 2: an opportunity to talk with a researcher, a dream researcher.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: His name is Kelly Bulkeley. Hopefully doctor Bulkeley. I'm getting
Speaker 2: that correct tonight. How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good. Yes, that was perfect, Thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 3: be with you.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: Doctor Bulkeley was with us a little over a week ago.
Speaker 2: He is a psychologist and a dream researcher, and this
Speaker 2: is an opportunity for us to focus not only upon
Speaker 2: his general field work in this field, but all So
Speaker 2: give you an opportunity if you'd like to call in
Speaker 2: my producer today during we do a little promotional piece
Speaker 2: every day at four thirty for our program, and my producer,
Speaker 2: Marita aka Lightning was was mentioning that you were going
Speaker 2: to be our guest tonight, and she said that she
Speaker 2: had a recurring dream of zombies, that she was a
Speaker 2: zombie and very disquieted because she's not a fan of
Speaker 2: zombie movies. So I guess everybody has those dreams. So
Speaker 2: let's let's first of all explain to us generally, and
Speaker 2: we'll get to phone calls. I promise there's a few
Speaker 2: folks of the line already. You guys will be all set.
Speaker 2: But how did you get into dream research? You're a psychologist,
Speaker 2: I understand that. How was it and what drew you
Speaker 2: to the to the to the whole area of dream research.
Speaker 2: As I found out the other night when we talked,
Speaker 2: everybody dreams in some full we would talking the other night.
Speaker 2: If you recall between that there was some people dreaming
Speaker 2: in black and white, others dream in color, and you
Speaker 2: can't remember your dreams unless you're writing down. We'll go
Speaker 2: over some of that again. But how did you first
Speaker 2: get involved in this? What drew you to this field?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, well, like many people, my own dreams sort of
Speaker 3: steered me away from the path of normality and got
Speaker 3: me very interested in this topic that did lots of
Speaker 3: people look at, but not everybody sort of tries to
Speaker 3: bring together all the different strands of research. So I'm
Speaker 3: actually a psychologist of religion. My graduate school training was
Speaker 3: in religious studies, the psychology of religion in part because
Speaker 3: I was interested in dreams and I went to college
Speaker 3: psychology classes, and you know, it was all about rats
Speaker 3: and reaction times and behaviorists models of the mind that
Speaker 3: didn't make a whole lot of sense in relation to
Speaker 3: the dream experiences that I had that were strange, chasing
Speaker 3: nightmares and sort of other worldly types of things that
Speaker 3: were I found more insights in looking at dreams through
Speaker 3: the history of religions, through the history of philosophy, anthropological studies,
Speaker 3: as well as modern psychology. So yeah, I try to
Speaker 3: bring it all together because dreams are complicated and have many,
Speaker 3: many dimensions of meaning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of dreams that I've talked with other people,
Speaker 2: they will talk about being visited by a relative who
Speaker 2: had passed, or some people have talked to me about
Speaker 2: they've had a dream of a pet that had passed.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, and you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like the lawyer and the judge. I
Speaker 2: asked the questions. But if you want to invoke the
Speaker 2: Fifth Amendment and.
Speaker 5: Anything, feel fair?
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2: No what I'm saying. So, you got interested in dream
Speaker 2: research through religion because you were involved in that. Do
Speaker 2: you happen to be someone who is religious. There are
Speaker 2: people who also are not religious who study religions. Do
Speaker 2: you fall any where? Do you fall on that spectrum moment?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not you know, of course, No, no, no,
Speaker 3: this is my world. Uh no, I'm going to the
Speaker 3: American Academy Religion Conference on a couple of weeks in
Speaker 3: San Diego. That's my where I've gone for enviral thirty
Speaker 3: plus years.
Speaker 6: So no.
Speaker 2: To going by the way, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but no, I'm very interested in religion. I'm
Speaker 3: not personally religious in a kind of conventional way. I
Speaker 3: have spiritual beliefs and sort of our relations to the
Speaker 3: universe and nature in particular and all sorts of things.
Speaker 3: But but no, I'm fascinated by by religions in human
Speaker 3: life and how dreams in almost all religions are a
Speaker 3: primary source of people's experiences and understandings of what the
Speaker 3: divine is, what happens after we mentioned dreams of you know,
Speaker 3: friends and family and pets who have passed away and
Speaker 3: come back in dreams. That's a that's a universal phenomenon,
Speaker 3: and in most of the world's religions.
Speaker 2: I assume that that phenomenon has they can probably see
Speaker 2: it or have writings about it, going back millennia. We're
Speaker 2: not talking about something that, oh yeah, all of a
Speaker 2: sudden has percolated up in the last fifty years.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, there's a at the end of Homer's Iliat
Speaker 3: there's a great example where the where Achilles has a
Speaker 3: dream of his friend petruk Lass, who's been killed, but
Speaker 3: then comes back to a to Achilles in a dream
Speaker 3: and says, hey, you've got to go then to my death.
Speaker 3: Go out there and you know, kick some kick some
Speaker 3: trojan booty, and an Achilles gets up and does it,
Speaker 3: you know. So so yeah, twenty five hundred, I don't
Speaker 3: know longer than that. That's that's thousands of years ago
Speaker 3: people were talking about these kinds of dreams and how
Speaker 3: poignant they are and memorable and intense.
Speaker 2: Okay, what what percentage of people? And again I'm asking questions,
Speaker 2: and if I ask questions, there is no easy answer.
Speaker 2: Does everyone dream? Or virtually everyone dream in some form
Speaker 2: of fashion.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so.
Speaker 3: At a kind of brain science level of virtually all
Speaker 3: humans have the innate neural hardware of the sleep cycle
Speaker 3: of ram and non rens sleep, we can talk more
Speaker 3: about that if you like. But familiar with that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we do, we do. We typically associate with dreaming. And
Speaker 3: most people, if you get them in a sleep laboratory,
Speaker 3: even people say they don't remember their dreams, and if
Speaker 3: you wake them up in the middle of a rem
Speaker 3: phase and just say catch them right that moment, they'll
Speaker 3: probably remember a dream. There is a very small percentage,
Speaker 3: perhaps one percent or so, of people who seem to
Speaker 3: truly not have any dream recall and not have any
Speaker 3: other necessarily psychological problems. So, you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't amasize like, if you don't remember your dreams, that
Speaker 3: means there's something wrong with you. There's That's the way
Speaker 3: the case pretty much is the dreamer.
Speaker 2: Yes, they sort of disappear with me. I can wake
Speaker 2: up and I know I was dreaming about something before
Speaker 2: I woke up today, and I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was work related or whatever, but I remember whatever it was,
Speaker 2: I was conscious and that was kind of interesting. And
Speaker 2: then fifteen seconds later, now, what was that again? You
Speaker 2: know it's yeah, they flowed away.
Speaker 3: Well, they have their own way of relating to our
Speaker 3: waking consciousness. And the thing that we can be sure
Speaker 3: of is that if there's some important message or something
Speaker 3: whether our dreams want to let us know about, they
Speaker 3: can find us. They know right where we are. So
Speaker 3: I tend to emphasize the not the quantity of dreams
Speaker 3: that people remember, but the quality of how they reflect
Speaker 3: on the few do remember, and that they crossed that
Speaker 3: threshold into waking awareness. There's probably a reason for that.
Speaker 2: Has any work or study been done? I'm a huge
Speaker 2: uh dog guy loved Okay, sure that every dog that
Speaker 2: I've only had, really three in my in my life,
Speaker 2: that they've all they all dream because I'll see them
Speaker 2: lie there and they're they're they're kind of twitching and
Speaker 2: and sometimes they're almost talking to themselves. Has there ever
Speaker 2: been a study under dogs dream?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're actually a growing number of studies, uh,
Speaker 3: showing not just dogs, but but many other kinds of animals. Uh, birds,
Speaker 3: OCTOPI uh, the mice.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's were were actually and it's it's an
Speaker 3: interesting philosophical question because if we grant that these other
Speaker 3: species have dreams, which as a someone who has dogs,
Speaker 3: I have cats, you know, I hope you don't cut
Speaker 3: me off here.
Speaker 7: But.
Speaker 2: People, Yeah, yeah, but I love dogs yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: I just think of dogs. Cats. Cats to me are
Speaker 2: a little more.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. Well, they're all dreamers. They're
Speaker 3: all dreamers. We you know, we're not to put it
Speaker 3: this way. Human rought the only dreaming species on this planet.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Well, now this is good. Of course I know about
Speaker 2: dogs because you live with dogs. You see dogs, You
Speaker 2: see him sleeping in the afternoon. Uh And I have
Speaker 2: no knowledge of whether elephants or rhinoceros is dream because
Speaker 2: I've never been in the presence of close enough to
Speaker 2: one of them when they were sleep to see if
Speaker 2: they if their eyes were flickering or anything like that. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to open up the conversation that way.
Speaker 2: And we're going to get the phone calls, and you
Speaker 2: can ask a question, uh and and be happy to
Speaker 2: take the answer. And if doctor Kelly Bulkeley feels he
Speaker 2: has to ask you a little bit more about your
Speaker 2: dream cycle or your pattern, you've got to be honest.
Speaker 2: Then we'll go from there. The only lines that I
Speaker 2: have opened, our regular line six, one, seven, two, five, four, ten, thirty,
Speaker 2: are now fold So don't dial those until some of
Speaker 2: the callers come on and drop off. Our additional line
Speaker 2: six one, seven, nine, three, one, ten thirty are available
Speaker 2: as two there and you can jump on board. And
Speaker 2: I'd like to get probably to about ten callers this hour.
Speaker 2: I suspect we shouldn't have any problem with it. I
Speaker 2: see that we have Buck up in Gloucester, Glenn and
Speaker 2: Brighton and Karen checking in from Wisconsin already. We'll be
Speaker 2: back on Night Side with my guest. He's a psychologist
Speaker 2: and a dream researcher, doctor Kelly Bulkeley. Right back back
Speaker 2: right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with a dream researcher who's a psychologist, doctor
Speaker 2: Kelly Bulkeley, and we'll get to some phone calls. I
Speaker 2: could certainly talk about my dreams. My recurring dream is
Speaker 2: that there's always this one class in law school that
Speaker 2: I forgot to take, and it's like May fifteenth, and
Speaker 2: the you got to read an entire law school tone
Speaker 2: and you got to write a research paper, and you
Speaker 2: got the weekend, and I have plans for the weekend.
Speaker 2: I have no idea where that comes from. I was
Speaker 2: a law student that always tried to things done annotated
Speaker 2: and ready to go, and I have no idea why
Speaker 2: that's so buried in my psyche. Any suggestion on that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, these kinds of dreams can provide sort of
Speaker 3: templates for life long anxiety, for better for worse. I mean,
Speaker 3: for me, it's often sports streams where like I'm in
Speaker 3: a game, you know, I'm basketball or baseball or something,
Speaker 3: and the ball slits out of my hands or I
Speaker 3: can't run fast enough or something that you know, I
Speaker 3: think becomes then a metaphor later in life, when long
Speaker 3: after I've been playing sports, long after you've been in
Speaker 3: law school, where that is kind of a paradigmatic emotional
Speaker 3: experience of like, whoa, this is how scary it would
Speaker 3: be if I really messed this up? And ever after,
Speaker 3: anytime something similar in life comes along, it's anxiety provoking
Speaker 3: the unconscious mind kind of goes back there and kind
Speaker 3: of remembers that, like, well, let's see, how is it
Speaker 3: as scary as this?
Speaker 2: As this was sort of a touch point, and we
Speaker 2: also talked the other vent the star in a way,
Speaker 2: to be honest, it's what it's a scar.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a scar, you could say, like kind
Speaker 3: of a you know, longtime emotional scar man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we also talked the other night
Speaker 2: briefly about airplane dreams. Uh, and you're on a plane
Speaker 2: and it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's not going well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Is that is that a common dream? Or is that
Speaker 2: from somebody who has never traveled in a plane before
Speaker 2: or someone who would travel and had a bad experiences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, it's uh, it's it's great. And I'm
Speaker 3: part of a group that's now gathering like a big
Speaker 3: database of thousands of dreams that are directly about flying
Speaker 3: from different sources. So it's really a great topic. And
Speaker 3: and going back in history and cross culturally, there are,
Speaker 3: for example, Native American groups where people would describe flying
Speaker 3: dreams long before they knew anything about airplanes.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It has to do in an ancient Roman dream interpreter
Speaker 3: talking about dreams of flying over the city of Rome
Speaker 3: in like second century a d. So this is something
Speaker 3: that humans have kind of been fantasizing about presumably forever.
Speaker 3: The uh many mystical dreams in Islam or flying dreams.
Speaker 2: So if those folks were well ahead of their times,
Speaker 2: doctor yeah, yeah, yeah, wins You're on a plane and
Speaker 2: the planes is having trouble finding the airport, and it's
Speaker 2: flying under bridges and just getting under the bridge, you
Speaker 2: two feet on each wing, and it's like, can we
Speaker 2: find it? Can we find somewhere to land?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Well, like a plane flying is sort
Speaker 3: of this defiance of gravity and defiance of the bounds
Speaker 3: that we have in terms of being on the ground,
Speaker 3: grounded beings for the most part. So what does it
Speaker 3: take to rise above that? And what hold?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: What? What brings us back down? It's a sort of
Speaker 3: a metaphor many people find around.
Speaker 2: Fine, let's let's go some of other metaphors that with you.
Speaker 2: Let me go first off this hour going to go
Speaker 2: to a long time listener and a great caller, Bucket Gloucester.
Speaker 2: Buck Welcome here with doctor Kelly Bulkeley. Go right ahead.
Speaker 2: We're talking about dreams.
Speaker 3: He doctor Bulkeley, you have a fascinating profession, and it's
Speaker 3: ironic these things you were talking about, because that's exactly
Speaker 3: what I wanted to share. I love my dreams, okay,
Speaker 3: and I've always been athletic, but the one recurring dream
Speaker 3: was that no gravity and I could just jump up
Speaker 3: and swim through the air. I would always be disappointed
Speaker 3: when I woke up and realized it was just a dream.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't mindless swimming through the air, but I
Speaker 3: propelled myself through the air, and I could, you know,
Speaker 3: just do anything I wanted purposely. And I don't have
Speaker 3: those anymore. I'm seventy four years old. I don't know
Speaker 3: what don't anymore. I'm still athletic. Any insight on that
Speaker 3: in particular, you already tell ye that it's universal, it
Speaker 3: goes back before there were airplanes. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: that's that's that's great to hear. And then and and
Speaker 3: you know, there is something about gravity or its lacking dreams,
Speaker 3: like what like the the reversive flying dreams are falling dreams,
Speaker 3: and that's that's many poets. Falling dreams are actually more common,
Speaker 3: so the dreams when we're liberated from gravity, when we
Speaker 3: can do these magical things, that's where it becomes this
Speaker 3: just wonderful metaphor of possibilities. You know, if you can
Speaker 3: fly where you know you didn't think you could do
Speaker 3: that in waking life, well what else can you do
Speaker 3: in waking life that you didn't think you could do?
Speaker 3: That's often the like the waking up and feeling disappointed.
Speaker 3: There is a sense like, oh I wish I could
Speaker 3: really do that. Yeah, yeah, But oftentimes there's a sense like, well,
Speaker 3: it's it's sort of a reminder of our own inner
Speaker 3: potential and and you know, may not have them as often,
Speaker 3: but they're they're they're they're still rattling around in there.
Speaker 3: I'm sure. Well I like that because I've never had
Speaker 3: any dreams of falling that I can recall. So thank
Speaker 3: you very much, just for a great guests, Thank.
Speaker 2: You, thanks, thanks for participating, appreciate the call. Let's keep
Speaker 2: rolling here. So now we get one line at six
Speaker 2: one seven, two fast four to ten thirty, and we
Speaker 2: still get get you in at six one seven, nine
Speaker 2: three one, ten thirty. We've got to Karen, who's in Wisconsin. Karen,
Speaker 2: what dreams would you like to ask about?
Speaker 7: Well, rather asking, I'd just like to say that I
Speaker 7: have always dreamt dreaming before I fell asleep, and they've
Speaker 7: always been very violent dreams, and you know, dreaming that
Speaker 7: I'm going to be chased and killed with care.
Speaker 2: Let me I understand that question. You're talking about you
Speaker 2: having dreams before you fall asleep.
Speaker 7: Yes, they're hypnal gogic and kept no pompic dreams you
Speaker 7: start dreaming before. I'm sure he has done research.
Speaker 2: Like, let's get let's get him to explain it and
Speaker 2: then we'll talk about your specific dreams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know, this is a this is a phenomenon.
Speaker 3: It's it's hip. As you just said, Karen, hypnogogic and
Speaker 3: hip hypnogogic is sort of from from waking into sleeping hypnopompic,
Speaker 3: from sleeping back out and waking. These sort of thresholds
Speaker 3: just on the edge of waking and then sleeping. The
Speaker 3: mind is special things and they can be very brief,
Speaker 3: but they can be intense. So, uh so, Karen, you're
Speaker 3: saying that in your these experiences for you, there's sort
Speaker 3: of a violent encounter right away.
Speaker 7: The pardon, can you just say that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're saying there's some some sort of violent
Speaker 3: interactions that happens in your list.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry. It was always uh dreaming that I was
Speaker 7: going to get killed, to the point that I would
Speaker 7: wake up right before I was being stabbed, and then
Speaker 7: I always had dreams, beautiful dreams where I'm sore over
Speaker 7: the ocean like a pelican. And now now I have
Speaker 7: to take medicine so that because I would dream and
Speaker 7: you cannot live and dream. I mean you're paralyzed. When
Speaker 7: you're dreams, you are awake, you could kill someone. So
Speaker 7: I take medicine so that doesn't happen, but I don't
Speaker 7: dream anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, let me just make sure, Karen, I want
Speaker 2: to interpret this. You take medicine that's prescribed by a doctor,
Speaker 2: so your mind will not be as active when you're
Speaker 2: in the process of falling asleep or when.
Speaker 7: You're right good, okay, right?
Speaker 3: Is that common, doctor, Yes, there's there's there's many kinds
Speaker 3: of sort of conditions where sleep can be disrupted by
Speaker 3: things happening. Either he's said a hidden the god to
Speaker 3: kidnap pumpic uh phenomenon. That that just starts to sound
Speaker 3: a little bit like a like a sleep paralysis episode,
Speaker 3: which is a whole other aspect of of you know,
Speaker 3: sleep pathology.
Speaker 2: Or I want to I want to talk about that separate,
Speaker 2: separately from Karen. Karen, I'm kind of coming up at
Speaker 2: my newscast here, right, that was a very interesting I
Speaker 2: had never heard of that, so so you have eliminated that.
Speaker 2: I assume now you can go to sleep without dealing
Speaker 2: with these sorts of experiences.
Speaker 7: I don't dream anymore, but i'd like to get off
Speaker 7: the drugs really because because not good when you're old,
Speaker 7: you know. But maybe I don't need them anymore.
Speaker 2: I would. I would suggest you should talk to you doctor,
Speaker 2: your doctor. Yeah, no, I'm seriously. Maybe maybe this will
Speaker 2: prompt you, this conversation that I will prompt you to
Speaker 2: do that. It's important for you to always tell you
Speaker 2: your doctor what you're thinking. He may say to you. Know,
Speaker 2: you've got to stay on Those dreams are that.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that.
Speaker 7: I just thought it was an interestinct phenomenon.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks very much for bringing that up. I had
Speaker 2: never heard of it. Karen in Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: Thanks Karen, and I don't dream anymore, and I'm very
Speaker 7: happy that I don't thank you very much to share that.
Speaker 2: We got a newscast coming up which we have to
Speaker 2: take and then a couple of commercials. If you'd like
Speaker 2: to join us, one line at six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty. That is our regular line, the one
Speaker 2: that's even easier to get through. One is six one, seven, nine,
Speaker 2: three one, ten thirty. They get you to the same place.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to talk with doctor Kelly Bulkley, Uh,
Speaker 2: he is a he's a psychologist and a dream researcher,
Speaker 2: and any questions you have. I want to talk to
Speaker 2: you at some point about those paralytic dreams because I've
Speaker 2: experienced those where you wake up and you think something's
Speaker 2: going on and you just you're awake, or you think
Speaker 2: you're awake, but you physically incapacitated, you just can't move exactly.
Speaker 2: We'll get to those. We got other callers. We'll continue
Speaker 2: along with doctor Kelly Bulkeley right after this news break
Speaker 2: and a couple of commercial messages. You're listening to night
Speaker 2: Side on WBZ and Boston ten thirty and the AM
Speaker 2: dial coming back right after this.
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking about your dreams, talking with psychologists and dream researcher,
Speaker 2: doctor Kelly Bokeley. I hope the term dream researcher is
Speaker 2: an appropriate and accurate characterization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so absolutely, that's that's that's my focus. I've been
Speaker 3: at it for almost forty years now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't
Speaker 2: a more technical term. I didn't. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: downgrade it, but I want people to understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we come in many varieties. I mean, I'm on
Speaker 3: the kind of religion and psychology side of things that
Speaker 3: people who are more neuroscientifically trained, let's say, or you know,
Speaker 3: experimental psychologist, therapist. But I'm yeah, we're all. We're all
Speaker 3: doing the same thing, trying and understand what dreams are about.
Speaker 2: All right, let's keep rolling. You're going to go to Glenn. Glenn,
Speaker 2: what type of dreams do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2: My friend? You are next on nice side with doctor
Speaker 2: Kelly Fulckly. Go ahead, Glenn.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was raised by religious fanatics because I became
Speaker 5: an atheist. Buttally, I'm a believer again, but I'm a
Speaker 5: cultural Christian. I'm not a biblical Christian. Other words, that's
Speaker 5: good to know.
Speaker 2: How does that affect your dreams? Let's talk dreams.
Speaker 5: I have this scary recurring dream I was telling Rob
Speaker 5: and thank God I wake up before I hit. I
Speaker 5: go to heaven and they don't want me. So next
Speaker 5: thing I know, I'm flying through the air because I'm
Speaker 5: not holding onto no parachuting. I'm just and I'm going
Speaker 5: faster and faster and faster. I'm just indefinitely falling. Thank
Speaker 5: god I wake up. And I do have sleep paralysis
Speaker 5: a lot too, which I've had that since I was six.
Speaker 5: I'm seventy one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's talk about the first one being rejected
Speaker 2: from heaven.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Bad, that's a bad that's a nightmare ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well it's uh. Dreams are very sensitive to
Speaker 3: our religious and spiritual lives, and and particularly for people
Speaker 3: who've been raised in a tradition that they later in
Speaker 3: life don't feel comfortable in and maybe actively have to
Speaker 3: you know, forcedly, you know, separate themselves from. There can
Speaker 3: be lingering effects from that, and that's a yeah dream,
Speaker 3: that's like I imagine there's a lot of guilts that
Speaker 3: comes with a dream like that, and yet also depending
Speaker 3: on how one looks at it, it could be a
Speaker 3: sense of you know, liberation too, like, well that's not
Speaker 3: you know, they didn't want me. Well maybe you know
Speaker 3: I don't want them, you know, that's that's you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is this is where it's ultimately up
Speaker 3: to the dreamer. I guess it's you know, Glenn, I
Speaker 3: would have to say, like, you know, make sure that
Speaker 3: you know you always trust your own instinct about these things,
Speaker 3: because that's that's that's where it ultimately ends.
Speaker 2: How often Glenny experienced this, this recurring.
Speaker 5: Dream at least once a month?
Speaker 2: What's a month? And what kicks it off? Is there
Speaker 2: something that kicks it off?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I just it starts out nice that
Speaker 5: you know, Saint Peter says, hi, and you know this,
Speaker 5: and then somebody will say, you know, somebody one of
Speaker 5: my weight relatives will say he didn't go to church
Speaker 5: very often. He shouldn't be. You shouldn't let.
Speaker 2: Him, you know, uh hearing it, it's ugly head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you know something well, you know something Glenn
Speaker 3: that people often will do with with recurrent like this
Speaker 3: is though before we're going to sleep at night, they'll
Speaker 3: think about that dream and think about, you know, if
Speaker 3: I have that dream again tonight, instead of you know,
Speaker 3: letting myself fall, I'm gonna I'm gonna grab on, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna i'm gonna clip you know, I'm gonna tie a
Speaker 3: rope onto a post and hang on, or I'm gonna
Speaker 3: jump over the gate, or I'm gonna, you know, think
Speaker 3: of thinking of how you might react in the dream
Speaker 3: and any luck.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, when one I got into a brawl like
Speaker 5: a first It started out as a wrestling and turned
Speaker 5: into a face flight. I said, I belong here. You're
Speaker 5: not pushing me out. You're not gonna do to me
Speaker 5: what you did the last time. Hey, break it up,
Speaker 5: Break it up.
Speaker 2: Break, try to put a disguise on so you can
Speaker 2: slip by those nasty rat You out, all right, Dan,
Speaker 2: that's a good one. Thank you. Thanks for the call, Hope.
Speaker 2: That helps a little bit, give you a thought to
Speaker 2: deal with. Let me grab my let's say good night
Speaker 2: to Glenn. Okay, and we are going to go next
Speaker 2: to Rick in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Have checked in so far, Rick,
Speaker 2: Welcome next to On Nightstime with doctor Kelly Bulkeley.
Speaker 3: Go right ahead, Rick, Hi, Hi, Dan, and doctor Kelly.
Speaker 5: How are you. Dan.
Speaker 3: It's been a while since I've called you.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Not a problem you do. Don't have to go to confession.
Speaker 2: There's no religious aspect to this church on Sunday. Don't
Speaker 2: worry about it.
Speaker 3: Okay, go ahead, Thank you, thank you. I have these
Speaker 3: crazy dreams and they're so exhausting I wake up. I
Speaker 3: feel tired from the dream. I've had these dreams where
Speaker 3: I'm looking for something, going from one place to another,
Speaker 3: looking and looking, and the dreams seem to last for hours,
Speaker 3: and then I wake up. I feel exhausted from the dreams,
Speaker 3: and I I just wondered what you might think about
Speaker 3: that in search of something it can be. I don't
Speaker 3: there's no particular item I'm searching for. It's crazy, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: well well yeah, and it just just quick like are
Speaker 3: they in the same settings each time or is it
Speaker 3: just every different places with that kind of searching quality
Speaker 3: looking at an item that could be and and then
Speaker 3: after I wake up, it's hard to remember. That's why
Speaker 3: I can't relate your call. And I know it's it's
Speaker 3: bouncing around. It seems that like it lasts for hours,
Speaker 3: going from one place to another, and they don't make
Speaker 3: any sense. But it's yeah, yeah, you know, I might
Speaker 3: think of like, so, so there is something about the
Speaker 3: brain and dreaming that this is a general way putting,
Speaker 3: but that that we we that it activates Pickling ren
Speaker 3: sleep what's called the orienting response, which is basically like
Speaker 3: if you're thrown into a situation you've never been before,
Speaker 3: you look around, you try to figure out what's going on,
Speaker 3: where am I, what's what's happening? And then the ideas
Speaker 3: that our minds create these these these you know, amazing scenarios.
Speaker 3: From that point, it sounds like you may be in
Speaker 3: a place where like you're just kind of orienting, just
Speaker 3: like where am I looking trying to find? And it
Speaker 3: makes me wonder if there's some maybe pre sleep relaxation practices.
Speaker 3: You know, there's uh, you know, sort of breathing exercises,
Speaker 3: different things people do that, something called yoga ndra that's
Speaker 3: kind of a pre sleep spiritual practice, different ways that
Speaker 3: might calm kind of that that that that what sounds
Speaker 3: like kind of a hyper aroused orienting response. And in
Speaker 3: the dream worlds, I am under a lot of stress
Speaker 3: in different areas and yeah, it must even safe into
Speaker 3: my during uh yeah, I mean having said that too,
Speaker 3: there's always multiple dimensions to dreams. There's never just one
Speaker 3: meaning and a dream in which there's sort of this
Speaker 3: ongoing searching that can also have some spiritual overtones of
Speaker 3: I'm looking for my path, my purpose, my my my
Speaker 3: ultimate values. That could be part of part of what's
Speaker 3: going on too. That sounds very possible.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much for joining us. I think
Speaker 2: that you've got you've got some insights that you can
Speaker 2: work with here. So thank you. Great call.
Speaker 3: You're welcome. I have a good evening. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. Different people have really good questions here tonight.
Speaker 2: Let me go next to Jan in Worcester back home
Speaker 2: to Massachusetts. In Worcester, Massachusetts, Jan, what's your question? Doctor
Speaker 2: Kelly Bulkeley, go right ahead.
Speaker 8: Bye Dan and doctor Bley. How are you listen? I've
Speaker 8: got two very quick dreams, h Garry, and they haven't
Speaker 8: quite a bit. One of them is that I'm always
Speaker 8: in a city and I've driven my car and park it.
Speaker 8: Then when it comes time to find that thing, i'll
Speaker 8: never find, never find it.
Speaker 2: I'm with it. I had that same dream, Jim. We
Speaker 2: must have both lost our.
Speaker 8: Cars, right, So I walk around the city and find
Speaker 8: strangers who are kind to me and help me to
Speaker 8: try and give me a ride or something. And that's
Speaker 8: kind of where it ends, just try and find the car.
Speaker 8: The other dream is one where it's very enjoyable. I
Speaker 8: will go in. I'll be in a house for some reason,
Speaker 8: maybe gonna rent or buy, god, I don't know. An
Speaker 8: old one usually with many many rooms, and I discover
Speaker 8: lots of rooms and wondering what I could do with
Speaker 8: each one of them, and room to room and more rooms,
Speaker 8: and that comes up quite a bit too.
Speaker 3: Hmm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Let's deal with the Let's deal with the parking one first,
Speaker 2: because I think some people are going to have that.
Speaker 2: I had the same situation. I know where I parked
Speaker 2: my car. I'm in an area that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 2: It's not like, come in a city that I've never
Speaker 2: been before, and I know that I parked my car
Speaker 2: in this block on that side of the street, and
Speaker 2: I go there and it's not there. But I'm I
Speaker 2: I know I parked it, but I'm not worried about
Speaker 2: buying stolem. But I can't find it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well these are these are some of the
Speaker 3: sort of day to day anxieties of living in the
Speaker 3: modern world. And and and dreams are actually really accurate
Speaker 3: reflections of the things that we worry about and feel,
Speaker 3: you know, different emotional things towards towards the waking world
Speaker 3: that that shows up in our dream. So at one level,
Speaker 3: it's as simple as yeah, this is it's a big
Speaker 3: hassle when you can't find your car in waking life,
Speaker 3: and our dreams can can reflect that that anxieties, both
Speaker 3: literally and metaphorically, because cars are often symbols of the self,
Speaker 3: of our our our individuality in uh, this modern world.
Speaker 3: When you're in your car, driving your you're in this
Speaker 3: little you know, sort of metal shell and everyone else
Speaker 3: is in their metal shells.
Speaker 2: And so try not having a the day that it's
Speaker 2: in the shop and you say, gee, I wanted to
Speaker 2: go here, I wanted to go there was so wedded to.
Speaker 3: Our yeah, yeah, very much.
Speaker 2: So those there's situation that has talked about.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: With the house, that's that's a that's many people find
Speaker 3: that an enjoyable dream, and and psychologists will often interpret
Speaker 3: that is the house symbolizing the mind, the sort of
Speaker 3: the inner uh sort of architecture of the psyche. And
Speaker 3: to discover new rooms is to discover new aspects of
Speaker 3: the self. And so Carl Jung had a famous dream
Speaker 3: of a house at many levels and the deeper he went,
Speaker 3: the farther down into the unconscious he went. And uh,
Speaker 3: so many psychologists have kind of drawn on that metaphor
Speaker 3: as a way of thinking about how our minds sort
Speaker 3: of are are shaped and how we you know, kind
Speaker 3: of live within our the structure of our minds.
Speaker 8: Wow, thank you very much. It's very interesting.
Speaker 3: Thank you, so thanks very much.
Speaker 2: Have you called my show before? Is this your first time?
Speaker 8: I called you once?
Speaker 3: I believe once, you believe I.
Speaker 2: Think like ten years ago, Jan, because I don't know, no, no.
Speaker 8: This may this might be the first time. I don't
Speaker 8: know for sure.
Speaker 5: Why don't we do this.
Speaker 2: Let's give Jan a round of applause because if it's
Speaker 2: a possible first time, we always like to welcome first
Speaker 2: time callers. We'll look forward to your next call.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Jan, have a great night, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: These are the nights Doctor Buckley, that a lot of
Speaker 2: times people who listened to the show regularly decide to call.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, it gets the telephone. We got one more
Speaker 2: coming up. I get Laurient, Idaho, so we're gonna have Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: Idaho and Pennsylvania for sure, and I can probably try
Speaker 2: to get a couple more. Get Peggy as well. Give
Speaker 2: us a call six one, seven, two, five, four to
Speaker 2: ten thirty six one seven, nine, three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: Be right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 9: By the way, at ten o'clock after the ten o'clock
Speaker 9: News talking with former Boston, New York and Los Angeles
Speaker 9: Police Commissioner Bill Bratton about security concerns relating to the
Speaker 9: election of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: That'll cause you some nightmares. Let me go to Laurie,
Speaker 2: you know in Idaho. Laurie is next here on Nightside.
Speaker 2: Love to know, Laurie, what sort of dreams you would
Speaker 2: like to ask my guest, doctor Kelly Bulkeley about. Go
Speaker 2: right ahead, Laurie, my.
Speaker 6: Dan and doctor. Well, so I have the typical following,
Speaker 6: you know, But then I actually learned somewhere along the
Speaker 6: line to tell myself it wasn't gonna hurt when I fail,
Speaker 6: And then I woke up the that's right. But I
Speaker 6: do have airplane dreams, and this is a recurring one.
Speaker 6: I'm on a full sized jetliner and it's got no
Speaker 6: roof on the fuselage. For whatever reason, I don't there's
Speaker 6: no access and whatever. I guess it's just the way
Speaker 6: it was made.
Speaker 5: And so but it is it is.
Speaker 6: We're not above the oxygen situation because we're actually flying
Speaker 6: through a city below skyscraper level. And it's kind of
Speaker 6: like yours that we never went under bridges, but around
Speaker 6: and banking and going around the skyscrapers and stuff. And
Speaker 6: my seat is the only plane I've only seen the
Speaker 6: plane that doesn't have a seat belt, and they're always
Speaker 6: in vivid, vivid color.
Speaker 2: Good luck doctor by Buckley with this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that sounds like a like a like
Speaker 3: a action movie or like a like a Disney theme
Speaker 3: park ride or something. I mean that really sounds uh
Speaker 3: uh am, I right that it's it's physically you can
Speaker 3: feel the the the sort of the swerve I think
Speaker 3: you said swerving or banking again.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I'm afraid of falling out of my seat
Speaker 6: and falling out of the plane. Everybody else's on my
Speaker 6: seat doesn't have a seat belt, right right, Well.
Speaker 2: This, Laurie, why pick a seat like that? Go ahead?
Speaker 3: Uh huh yeah yeah yeah. And you say color that
Speaker 3: was in vivid color? Like what can you say anything
Speaker 3: about the colors or what's what?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Right? Oranges?
Speaker 6: Greens, like the trees that we go by are brilliant green,
Speaker 6: they're oranges. There are reds super vivid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well this is I mean thank you for
Speaker 3: sharing this. It's it's it's sort of a testament to
Speaker 3: the power of the dream imagination that you know, you're
Speaker 3: lying there asleep in the dark, you know, eyes closed, motionless,
Speaker 3: and yet hear your body is like you know in
Speaker 3: the dreams, swooping around and the vivid colors like the
Speaker 3: you know, the dreaming of mind is really an amazing thing.
Speaker 3: And and when it goes to the trouble of creating
Speaker 3: some vivid is this that that's a lot of red
Speaker 3: to create something a dream death that vivid it it
Speaker 3: tends to reflect something important in life. And and and
Speaker 3: I guess I would if it were my dream. This
Speaker 3: is the way, you know, we'd often talk about dreams.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it means to you, but if
Speaker 3: I had a dream like that, I would certainly think,
Speaker 3: are there areas in my life where I have that
Speaker 3: kind of feeling of a lot of potential movement, but
Speaker 3: also a lot of constraints that I've got to find
Speaker 3: some way to even though it seems are possible, I've
Speaker 3: got to find some way to navigate my way through.
Speaker 3: That may or may not relate to your sensitive but
Speaker 3: that's what comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Laurie. That's I hope that helps a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 2: thanks Laura, appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try to get at least one, maybe two
Speaker 2: in here. Let me see what I can do. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go next to Danielle in Worcester. Danielle, you were
Speaker 2: next on nightside. You got to give us your dream
Speaker 2: quickly because they want to get one more as well.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Danielle.
Speaker 4: So I have a couple of you know, I always
Speaker 4: have those dreams that the person is real, somebody that
Speaker 4: I know, but they won't be at their house. It'll
Speaker 4: be somebody else's house, so it's we wake up and
Speaker 4: you can never remember what they were. So I have
Speaker 4: those a lot, and I am guilty of not sleeping
Speaker 4: a lot, so I don't get into rooms sleep a lot,
Speaker 4: which is terrible. But the other one that really sticks
Speaker 4: out when I was younger, when I first moved to
Speaker 4: Worcester out of high school, I had the most vivid,
Speaker 4: realistic dream of a place I lived with my dad,
Speaker 4: and my mom for some reason was taking me there
Speaker 4: to show me something. When we're in the car and
Speaker 4: as we round the corner, she goes, look and the
Speaker 4: townhouse that we lived in was just a pile of
Speaker 4: ashes that had burnt to the ground. And I went, no,
Speaker 4: and I get out of the car and I went
Speaker 4: running towards the pile of ashes, and up comes my
Speaker 4: dad and I went Dad, and I went to hug them,
Speaker 4: and it was like the movie ghosts, you know, when
Speaker 4: you arms go through them. And I woke up, and
Speaker 4: I woke up like sweating piper ventialy and go. So
Speaker 4: I called him my dad and now I'm nineteen years old,
Speaker 4: and he answered the four thirty in the morning, and
Speaker 4: you know, we had home phones back then and on
Speaker 4: cell phones, and he of course was scared, you know,
Speaker 4: like startled, but I told him, like, I just had
Speaker 4: to hear your voice. And my father's theory has always
Speaker 4: been a few dream of somebody that's donated in your
Speaker 4: sleep that you're wishing them a healthy life, a long
Speaker 4: healthy life.
Speaker 2: Okay, listen what doctor Bulkeley says here. You you raised
Speaker 2: a questions. Quick answer from doctor Bulkley.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, well, a lot of these kinds of dreams
Speaker 3: are expressing in very dramatic form, are feelings a concern
Speaker 3: for our loved ones. So sometimes they really can be
Speaker 3: very dramatic. Sometimes there can be a prophetic quality too,
Speaker 3: so I don't I don't blame me for giving your
Speaker 3: your dad a call and just checking in on them.
Speaker 3: That's an amazing dream. Yeah all right, yeah it was
Speaker 3: so realistic.
Speaker 4: But anyway, thank you.
Speaker 3: That was This is really neat listening to this.
Speaker 4: I've always been into this kind off.
Speaker 5: Well this has been this has.
Speaker 2: Been so thanks Danielle. By the way, this has been
Speaker 2: so good. I got a bunch of people who aren't
Speaker 2: going to be able to get in here, So to
Speaker 2: Dana and Peggy and Gina, I apologize. I have a
Speaker 2: guest coming up next hour, so I I did my best.
Speaker 2: But again, this is not the sort of thing you
Speaker 2: can move through people quickly. Next time, you got to
Speaker 2: just call a little earlier, folks. I keep reminding people.
Speaker 2: Then when you wait till the last ten or fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: there's no guarantees. So sorry, sorry, sorry, all big thank
Speaker 2: you to doctor Kelly Bulkeley. This was great. You know what,
Speaker 2: Let's let's do this again a couple of months from now,
Speaker 2: because there were a lot of good questions and a
Speaker 2: lot of interesting experiences, and I thought this was a
Speaker 2: great hour. Thanks doctor Bulkeley, it exceeded my expectations.
Speaker 3: So great. Yeah, happy have you so they've truly been
Speaker 3: great questions, a lot of I mean, and things we
Speaker 3: could talk about for a long time.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we'll do it again. And you had a
Speaker 2: chance to talk to listeners in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Idaho.
Speaker 2: We do have quite a quite a reach on this
Speaker 2: on this stage. Thanks so much, best of best of luck.
Speaker 2: We will talk again. I'd like to have you back.
Speaker 2: Thank you, doctor balcr.
Speaker 3: Thank you good, appreciate it all right, thanks again.
Speaker 2: And when we get back, we will talk with Bill Bratton,
Speaker 2: former police commissioner, about Secure and about what's going on
Speaker 2: in this crazy world of ours. Back after this