Speaker 1: Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. Hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing. This is Cliff, your host of Destiny,
Speaker 1: and I do hope you're doing well today, you know.
Speaker 1: Right now, and this is being pre recorded, I am
Speaker 1: climbing pyramids in Guatemala, at Tical and Elmador. I'll be
Speaker 1: reporting back with a number of interviews of various people
Speaker 1: that I see there, as well as some interesting video.
Speaker 1: I have a camera I'm going to strap onto my
Speaker 1: backpack as I'm climbing these pyramids. A couple of them
Speaker 1: and the Tacoll Archaeological Park have staircases. And when you
Speaker 1: see these staircases, they're in I mean it's like one
Speaker 1: hundred and plus feet in the air. And these aren't
Speaker 1: the staircases that are part of the stone pyramid. These
Speaker 1: are metal staircases that have been built that are alongside
Speaker 1: the pyramid so that you can easily get up and
Speaker 1: down without climbing the sensitive stonework that has been laid
Speaker 1: and carved into the to the pyramid. But they're very
Speaker 1: carefully positioned next to the pyramid so as you climb
Speaker 1: excuse me, as you climb the stairs, you can see
Speaker 1: the pyramid on your right. It's too steep and the
Speaker 1: angle is too severe, and the possibilities of falling are huge,
Speaker 1: even for the most abled individual. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: strap like a video camera onto my backpack can see
Speaker 1: me as I'm climbing this pyramid. This is one of
Speaker 1: my bucket list visits because I've been to a number
Speaker 1: of Mayan sights, but as I've mentioned before, they're all
Speaker 1: in Mexico. In Mexico, other than a handful of archaeological
Speaker 1: parks with pyramids, it doesn't let you touch the pyramids.
Speaker 1: This is a real serious problem, and it looks like
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church not only has restricted the ability to
Speaker 1: meditate or perform services with a shaman. With a Mayan shaman,
Speaker 1: it could be an Aztec shaman, or could be any
Speaker 1: miser American shaman. They don't want any kind of connection.
Speaker 1: They're so threatened by these indigenous practices that you will
Speaker 1: be removed from the park if they suspect that you
Speaker 1: are meditating, chanting, praising, whatever shamanistic ritually you're doing. Will
Speaker 1: be is a serious no. No, I don't think that
Speaker 1: they give you tickets which would result in a payment,
Speaker 1: but I do know that in a recent situation, someone
Speaker 1: a woman climbed El Castillo, the main pyramid at Chichinitsa
Speaker 1: in Yucatea, Mexico, and not only was she dragged and
Speaker 1: placed in jail, she was given us something like a
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred dollars fine. She just walked underneath the
Speaker 1: fence that surrounded the pyramid and she started climbing it
Speaker 1: and people were shocked. Now that has been closed for
Speaker 1: coming on twenty years. I had a chance to climb
Speaker 1: El Castillo twice before they closed it down, and that
Speaker 1: was the night first time nineteen ninety six, and then
Speaker 1: the second time, I think it was I want to
Speaker 1: say nineteen ninety nine or two thousand, and they just
Speaker 1: decided that they weren't going to have any more people
Speaker 1: climbing it, and they just started doing this across the board.
Speaker 1: I missed out on Ushmol, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite parks in Yucatam, and you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: And this is why I'm so excited to be visiting Guatemala,
Speaker 1: because not only is there a number of Mayan branches
Speaker 1: there with different dialects, but the museums are world class,
Speaker 1: and also the access to these wonderful pyramids that are
Speaker 1: made to interact with. In the future programs, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. But you're supposed to interact with the pyramids.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to sit there next to them and meditate.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that. So I'm actually climbing pyramids
Speaker 1: right now and I'll report back to you. But today's
Speaker 1: program is a special one. We haven't talked about nightmares.
Speaker 1: We've talked about dreams quite a bit. But there are
Speaker 1: a number of clinics and the one we're featuring today
Speaker 1: is in the Midwest, and the guest today is doctor
Speaker 1: Greg Mayor, and he's a psychiatrist that runs this clinic.
Speaker 1: There's a number of people, a growing number of people
Speaker 1: who are traumatized by frequent and disruptive nightmares. Now I
Speaker 1: have not personally had that many nightmares that I can remember,
Speaker 1: but according to Greg, there are people who are so
Speaker 1: disrupted by nightmares that they have to have two things happen.
Speaker 1: Number One, they don't sleep, and disruptive sleep is devastating.
Speaker 1: If you cannot sleep, your body's rhythms go nuts. You're
Speaker 1: just you're ruined. You have to close your eyes and
Speaker 1: you have to get rest. The other situation is that
Speaker 1: people are given drugs that shifts their brain chemistry to
Speaker 1: an effect that doesn't allow them to dream. I think
Speaker 1: that's just as bad as not sleeping. But we'll hear
Speaker 1: how that's a solution today. And there are other remedies
Speaker 1: as well. Many of them are more natural, learning how
Speaker 1: to meditate, how to eat and exercise more often, and
Speaker 1: also to use intention before you go to sleep. But
Speaker 1: that's something that is really a challenge. Now we're also speaking.
Speaker 1: We're also covering the series of new dream Wisdom Oracles,
Speaker 1: which are cards that you can used to tune into
Speaker 1: your own dream states, so you can actually change the
Speaker 1: type of dream you're having. But we are talking about nightmares,
Speaker 1: and nightmares are not fun. So today's program is Nightmares
Speaker 1: and the Dream Wisdom Oracle, and my guest is doctor
Speaker 1: Greg Mayer. You know, I've been talking about our frames
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Speaker 1: We've had a few different dream researchers on the program,
Speaker 1: but today we have someone from the allopathic academia side
Speaker 1: of things who has not only written a great deal,
Speaker 1: but also has developed some new cards and a guidebook.
Speaker 1: And I've always fascinated in dreams. I try to keep
Speaker 1: a dream journal, but I don't know I'm not taking
Speaker 1: it serious enough, and I think I should have. Given
Speaker 1: the situation in our current reality here in the United States.
Speaker 1: My guest today is doctor Greg Maher, who is a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: He is teaching in research acute trauma and nightmares. He
Speaker 1: has one of the only nightmare clinics in the country.
Speaker 1: We're going to learn a little more about that. And
Speaker 1: he's also the author of The Wisdom of Dreams, Science
Speaker 1: Synchronicity in the Language of the Soul, and he's coming
Speaker 1: to us today from Michigan and I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: this interview. So Greg, welcome to Destiny. Great to have
Speaker 1: you on the program.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, it's pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a little bit into your interest in dreams.
Speaker 1: I saw a Ted talk which was very well done.
Speaker 1: By the way, that must have been a little nerve wracking.
Speaker 1: But in that talk you mentioned that you have been
Speaker 1: collecting dreams from a very young age. What got you,
Speaker 1: I should say, what's the motivation for collecting dreams?
Speaker 2: That's a good question, something that I always found fascinating.
Speaker 2: But it must have been some kind of intuitive pull
Speaker 2: to look inward that I've had since childhood, because I
Speaker 2: started recording them since I was about ten or so.
Speaker 2: Not it's just kind of sporadic, but I have a
Speaker 2: files now of thousands and thousands, probably four or five
Speaker 2: thousand dreams, and I got interested in dreams in high
Speaker 2: school in a kind of an academic way. I started
Speaker 2: reading Freud and Jung and just sort of got interested
Speaker 2: in trying to understand what dreams meant. And because I
Speaker 2: had this intuitive sense that they were telling me something
Speaker 2: important but something mysterious that I didn't quite know what
Speaker 2: it meant. And I think that was very enthralling to me.
Speaker 2: So there was that whole for the mystery of it,
Speaker 2: and I think I decided to do med school and psychiatry.
Speaker 2: I think I imagined naively that psychiatrists would be really
Speaker 2: interested in dreams and things like that, but they weren't.
Speaker 2: So it was kind of a suppressed interest that I
Speaker 2: had kind of like a closet interest for throughout a
Speaker 2: lot of my career. But what actually happened is I
Speaker 2: had a serious heart attack about fifteen or twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: and I decided, after the heart attack, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to do what I want to do. And
Speaker 2: then I sort of got more. I started exploring it
Speaker 2: more academically and more sort of openly. That's when I
Speaker 2: started writing the book, the first book.
Speaker 1: Right, so, how many dreams have you collected? And we
Speaker 1: just talked offline before we started that you are, I
Speaker 1: guess digitizing them. You're using a talk AI system that
Speaker 1: you're going to collect them, But what how many dreams
Speaker 1: are there? And have you categorized them?
Speaker 2: They're just by date and it's probably about it's something
Speaker 2: like thousand, probably, And there're like old notebooks from when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, like those old spiral bound notebooks,
Speaker 2: and there's some interspersed with little diaries and stuff. So
Speaker 2: it's hard to know what to do with. And I
Speaker 2: don't even read my own handwriting that well anymore twenty
Speaker 2: years ago. So I did find some software online that
Speaker 2: is like a transcription software that is in the process
Speaker 2: of kind of learning to read my hand rough So
Speaker 2: once I, once I work out the bugs in that,
Speaker 2: then I'll be able to have a file that then
Speaker 2: I can use more sophisticated AI tools to look at
Speaker 2: themes and maybe look at core. There's cool scales you
Speaker 2: can use to look at like life stresses at different
Speaker 2: times in your life, and you can I can see
Speaker 2: if there's correlations with nightmares or certain kinds of dream images,
Speaker 2: or have dreams changed over time. It'll be an interesting,
Speaker 2: large project that I'm working on right now.
Speaker 1: You mentioned you're Youngian psychiatrist does young bring into the
Speaker 1: therapeutic approach the use of dreams. Does he identify dreams
Speaker 1: as an important factor in UH patient research?
Speaker 2: He does so very much. He's different than Freud. I mean,
Speaker 2: Freud had a lot of really good ideas, but he
Speaker 2: saw dreams more as symptoms, where Jung saw dreams as messages.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how I've always viewed dreams to
Speaker 2: this It's it feels like they have something to say,
Speaker 2: and something very very important to say. And Freud kind
Speaker 2: of understood that. He called dreams the royal road to
Speaker 2: the unconscious, but he saw it in a different way.
Speaker 2: And what I love about Jung two is Jung sides
Speaker 2: like the associations, your personal associations. He he thought that
Speaker 2: we were connected to a deeper collective realm of images
Speaker 2: and symbols, and that those come up in dreams even
Speaker 2: though you don't even know about it. Like an example
Speaker 2: that comes to mind is I I had a think
Speaker 2: about witches when I was a kid. I had a
Speaker 2: lot of knifemares about witches and I still occasionally dream
Speaker 2: about witches. And a couple of years ago, I had
Speaker 2: a dream and a woman was helping me protect myself
Speaker 2: against witches, and she she told me to put rosemary
Speaker 2: above my door. So I woke up and I said, well,
Speaker 2: that's that's weird. And only after I looked it up
Speaker 2: that I learned that rosemary historically has been used used
Speaker 2: to keep which is a way. So somehow I knew
Speaker 2: that without my conscious ego knowing that, which fits a
Speaker 2: kind of union model. But we connect to this deeper realm.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's really quickly talk about your education. You're psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: which means that you're an MD who can prescribe medicines
Speaker 1: and recommend surgical procedures in the allopathic mode. What did
Speaker 1: you face as a student, I mean, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in dreams, what did you face as a young student
Speaker 1: in medical school?
Speaker 2: Well, I sort of I like that part of psychiatry too.
Speaker 2: I think there's important things, and I did a lot
Speaker 2: of hospital work, and you know, there's medications and breaking
Speaker 2: people's confused, and that was all valid and that was
Speaker 2: my day job, which I did well, and I did
Speaker 2: a lot of teaching and things like that. But I
Speaker 2: had the interest in dreams kind of on the side,
Speaker 2: so I didn't really It took me a while to
Speaker 2: sort of figure out how to use it. Actually, when
Speaker 2: I was very early in my career, I happened to
Speaker 2: share a floor in the hospital building with our sleep
Speaker 2: research department, so I got to know that the guy
Speaker 2: who ran that department a little bit. I was chatting
Speaker 2: with him, telling him I was really interested in dreams
Speaker 2: and stuff, and he kind of, in a very fatherly way, said, Greg,
Speaker 2: there's no future in that. He kind of meant, there's
Speaker 2: no grants, there's no money, You're not you know, forget
Speaker 2: about that. That's not going to help you in your career.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting that that that kind of attitude. But
Speaker 2: but I sort of kept the interest and then gradually,
Speaker 2: like after the heart attack, started doing things more directly
Speaker 2: with dreams and started working on the book and things
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: So the heart attack was a transitional period. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it sounds like you were kind of on the
Speaker 1: fence about diving in and then this health issue happened
Speaker 1: and you're like, I'm going to more fully investigate.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, maybe the easiest way to describe
Speaker 2: it's kind of like an alarm clock went off in
Speaker 2: my head, like, oh, I don't have forever to wait,
Speaker 2: you know, I better start doing what matters to me.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, interesting. All right, let's talk about dreams. Everybody dreams, right,
Speaker 1: So if we dream, what is a dream? And should
Speaker 1: we be paying attention to our dreams?
Speaker 2: I think there's we're actually unusual as a culture that
Speaker 2: we don't pay attention to dreams. If you look historically
Speaker 2: and geographically at other cultures, we were kind of the
Speaker 2: out We think of ourselves as we're the normal ones,
Speaker 2: but we're really the outliers that that ignore dreams. Dreams
Speaker 2: have always been felt to be important. There's a there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of dreams, and there's like twenty one dreams
Speaker 2: in the Bible. They say that in Jesus's time there
Speaker 2: were fifty like freelance dream interpreters in the temple areas.
Speaker 2: So it's als something that has always been people have
Speaker 2: always considered interesting and important and important in the sense
Speaker 2: of sending messages. Now they're often viewed as like prophetic messages,
Speaker 2: and there's there's some interesting truth to that, but they
Speaker 2: also carry internal messages about who we are as people
Speaker 2: and what we need to work on, and and it's
Speaker 2: like it's like we have this friend inside that keeps
Speaker 2: wanting to help us and share wisdom with us, and
Speaker 2: we keep ignoring him. But he's there, he or she
Speaker 2: probably she, but in any case, but I think that's
Speaker 2: a good way to think about dreams. And we we
Speaker 2: do dream a lot more than we remember. Dreams are
Speaker 2: very easy to forget, and I think our brains are
Speaker 2: probably wired that way that we forget dreams. But you know,
Speaker 2: the we usually are better at remembering them if we
Speaker 2: pay attention, like almost like set an intention. And I
Speaker 2: sometimes do this, like, especially when i haven't remembered a
Speaker 2: dream in a while, when I'm going to bed, I'll
Speaker 2: kind of tell myself, you know, pay attention tonight, you know,
Speaker 2: and kind of tell my in herself to talk to
Speaker 2: me because I'm ready and listening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this nightmare clinic is really unique. I think before
Speaker 1: we started you mentioned that you you think there's probably
Speaker 1: other clinics, but I have not heard of a of
Speaker 1: a clinic that's focused specifically on nightmares. I would say
Speaker 1: that's two sided. One sided would be that the nightmares
Speaker 1: are so disruptive that people are getting poor sleep. That's
Speaker 1: that's the medical side of it. And then the other
Speaker 1: side of it would be what is the message. Why
Speaker 1: why I clinic like this, Greg? And what what is
Speaker 1: the what is the what's the goal?
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's actually been a wonderful thing to do.
Speaker 2: And because I've seen a number of patients who've been
Speaker 2: having nightmares for many years that are very disruptive and
Speaker 2: cause them a great deal of pain and anxiety, and
Speaker 2: they don't know what to do with it. They don't
Speaker 2: many of them have never told anyone before about the nightmares,
Speaker 2: and sometimes they're recurring nightmares. So in terms of treatment,
Speaker 2: I don't even want to call it treatment. I let's
Speaker 2: call it like understanding and exploration. You want to make
Speaker 2: sure there's nothing medical. But most patients are referred to
Speaker 2: me by sleep doctors, so there isn't really anything medical
Speaker 2: going on. So I try to explore the dream with them.
Speaker 2: I have them tell me about the dream in detail,
Speaker 2: and we sort of try to understand it together. What
Speaker 2: the message might be. Oh interesting, And then sometimes sometimes
Speaker 2: it's something to be listened to. But sometimes it's almost
Speaker 2: like something's gone a little haywire. And especially after trauma.
Speaker 2: About half of people after trauma, like if you're in
Speaker 2: a bad car accident or an assault or something like
Speaker 2: that half of people will have nightmare. So it's like
Speaker 2: the it seems to be the mind's way of processing
Speaker 2: that kind of trauma. So and it may be that
Speaker 2: sometimes that kind of processing kind of goes haywire, it
Speaker 2: goes on and on. So there's a techniques you can
Speaker 2: use about reimaging the dream, like like imagining a different
Speaker 2: ending and thinking about that different ending like to almost
Speaker 2: like to induce a different dream. And that's that's very
Speaker 2: helpful too. So both the understanding and the kind of
Speaker 2: reimagining can be really helpful.
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of a patient that
Speaker 1: you were working with that had these traumatic dreams or
Speaker 1: these nightmares that you were that you you know, processed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with I'll kind of alter the story so it's
Speaker 2: not anyone in particular, and I'm not violating anyone's confidentiality,
Speaker 2: But well, I can give you a couple examples. One
Speaker 2: that analysts friend of mine, she wouldn't mind my sharing
Speaker 2: this because she shares it often, but she had a
Speaker 2: recurring dream of being chased by a wolf and she
Speaker 2: was terrified and running away from the wolf. That she
Speaker 2: was talking about her with her therapist and one day
Speaker 2: the therapist told her, when are you going to feed
Speaker 2: that wolf? And she never had the nightmare again. It's
Speaker 2: like she realized that that was part of herself that
Speaker 2: she needed to nurture and take care of. So that's
Speaker 2: that's one example. And I've had a sometimes people misinterpreted
Speaker 2: dream like there was someone after after a very serious trauma,
Speaker 2: that had a and they were telling me about what
Speaker 2: they called a nightmare, and it was like and it
Speaker 2: was they were telling me this family member was sitting
Speaker 2: on their bedside and talking to them very kindly, and
Speaker 2: and so I asked them, why why is that a nightmare?
Speaker 2: They said, well, because the person's dead. So they interpreted
Speaker 2: that as though they were going to die.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: But when I was able to talk to them, well,
Speaker 2: and that's it's not that that it's it's someone's visiting
Speaker 2: to to help and people. Another common thing that you
Speaker 2: can help people understand about nightmares is the the you
Speaker 2: in the nightmare is like, that's not you as that's
Speaker 2: not Greg mah, that's this actor that's playing Greg Maher
Speaker 2: and that's some aspect of Greg Mars. So people get
Speaker 2: very scared when they die in the dream or something
Speaker 2: terrible happens to them. And that that's sometimes a very
Speaker 2: good thing. Sometimes that's part of them that should die,
Speaker 2: you know, and when that part of them dies is
Speaker 2: maybe that's something to celebrate. So that's what I mean
Speaker 2: by sometimes re exploring and reinterpreting dreams, and this is.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm listening to you, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: as a physician, as a therapist, you're helping people realize
Speaker 1: and understand and decipher what they're experiencing in their dreams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or the way I like to think about it,
Speaker 2: I don't like to think of it as like puzzle salting,
Speaker 2: and I don't like to think of it as like
Speaker 2: your ego needs to find the answer. I like to
Speaker 2: think about it as I want to help people develop
Speaker 2: a relationationship with their inner cells. And as you kind
Speaker 2: of have this relationship with your inner self, then you
Speaker 2: can understand each other each other better. So it's a
Speaker 2: matter of kind of developing this relationship. And part of
Speaker 2: that is understanding that this inner friend has a different
Speaker 2: language and has a language of images and kind of
Speaker 2: says things in different complicated ways that you wouldn't wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2: Like it's a good example in that that I use
Speaker 2: in the ted talk of my dad at the end
Speaker 2: of his life when I was sharing with him the
Speaker 2: book I wrote, and he was like a hundred by that,
Speaker 2: and he was, you know, commending me and saying, geez,
Speaker 2: that nice job, congratulations and stuff. But then he said,
Speaker 2: just because he's part of the culture, he said, oh,
Speaker 2: but aren't dreams just nonsense? And then he did what
Speaker 2: people always do when they say that, They say, for example,
Speaker 2: last night, and then he told me this dream about
Speaker 2: that my mother was still alive on the porch and
Speaker 2: he was mowing the lawn and my mother was criticizing
Speaker 2: him that the rows weren't even and he was like,
Speaker 2: isn't that nonsense? And I'm thinking, because I know him
Speaker 2: and I knew my mother and how critical she was,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh, this, this is not nonsense. This is
Speaker 2: this beautiful depiction of your life. This is your life, dude.
Speaker 2: And he didn't see it or didn't want to see it,
Speaker 2: you know, But that's what I mean by dreams talk
Speaker 2: to us in these images. Yeah. So it's like the
Speaker 2: message to my dad was process, you know, under this
Speaker 2: is you have time left to understand that, you know,
Speaker 2: But maybe it wasn't ready to hear it, or maybe
Speaker 2: he heard it in a different way that he didn't
Speaker 2: share with him.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a short commercial break to allow
Speaker 1: our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly
Speaker 1: with my guest today, doctor Greg Maher, discussing his work
Speaker 1: in nightmares. We'll be right back. My guest today is
Speaker 1: doctor Greg Mayer. He has been studying dreams but also
Speaker 1: nightmares and they're traumatic effects. I think that's an important point,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at dreams from a generational
Speaker 1: point of view. My parents, my father was a teacher
Speaker 1: and almost an authoritarian in some ways. He would not
Speaker 1: relate to dreams in the manner that you do. Whereas
Speaker 1: my grandfather, who was a physician who immigrated from Germany,
Speaker 1: who had a lot of stories of mythology and creatures
Speaker 1: and things like that, was very much into dreams and
Speaker 1: actually understood them in a way. So it's like it's
Speaker 1: like the dream subject skips a generation or something. It's
Speaker 1: funny that you're mentioning that, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true or not. I doubt it, but it's just
Speaker 1: a funny point that you're making that I'm kind of
Speaker 1: backing up when you talk about the inner friend or
Speaker 1: the one who's is producing these dreams. Are you referring
Speaker 1: to the soul or is it some other entity that
Speaker 1: we have when we incarnate.
Speaker 2: I let's I'd probably call it your deeper self, you know,
Speaker 2: And if if you want to call it your soul,
Speaker 2: that's fine. But I don't think you you don't. I
Speaker 2: want to be inclusive because I don't think you have
Speaker 2: to be religious to understand that. Yeah, it's your soul
Speaker 2: or your your deeper self, or as you called it,
Speaker 2: it's yourself with a capital S.
Speaker 1: So it is the unconscious self or the conscious I mean,
Speaker 1: because we can get into semantics here and consider the
Speaker 1: self as you know, the unconscious that is overseeing everything
Speaker 1: and is doing what I consider a dream data dump.
Speaker 1: You know, These dreams are data dumps of information that
Speaker 1: you don't get in your waking hours, but you're gonna
Speaker 1: get because this overseer, which I call the soul, is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: dude or lady, you need to pay attention here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So is that that self is probably mostly unconscious.
Speaker 2: I think it appears in our conscious lives. It sometimes
Speaker 2: appears in dreams as like a wise old man figure
Speaker 2: like one one of these dreams I had when I
Speaker 2: was like ten years old I happened to look at recently.
Speaker 2: It was kind of an interesting dream that I was
Speaker 2: going to my neighbor's house, but it wasn't It wasn't
Speaker 2: the actual neighbor that lived there. There was this older man,
Speaker 2: it's really very pleasant older man living there, and he
Speaker 2: was showing me how to help these plants grow. And
Speaker 2: I think he was that kind of self figure because
Speaker 2: he was I mean, there's a couple of messages in
Speaker 2: the dream. One that I wasn't going to learn how
Speaker 2: to make these inner plants inside me grow at my
Speaker 2: own house. I was going to have to go somewhere else,
Speaker 2: and I would need the wisdom of someone like him
Speaker 2: to teach me how to have those parts of me grow.
Speaker 2: So I think he is an example of a kind
Speaker 2: of that self figure with a capital S that appears
Speaker 2: in dreams sometimes fascinating.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this clinic for a minute. What are
Speaker 1: the protocols that you have developed for therapy for someone
Speaker 1: who is recommended to this to the clinics, someone who's
Speaker 1: got severe nightmares that are making their life.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah. Part of what I don't like about psychiatry
Speaker 2: and psychology nowadays is it's so protocol driven and everybody's
Speaker 2: filling out forms and checklists and checking off the boxes.
Speaker 2: So I just kind of full of school talk to
Speaker 2: people and ask them what to dreft. I mean, I
Speaker 2: have a certain kind of soft protocol in my mind.
Speaker 2: I want to get a better basic sense of how
Speaker 2: their sleep is. And because one thing people get with
Speaker 2: nightmares is they get afraid of sleeping, so then they
Speaker 2: sometimes develop bad sleep habits, like they wake up at
Speaker 2: night and check their phone and do things that are
Speaker 2: going to keep them awake more. So that basic sleep
Speaker 2: hygiene stuff is important. So I talk to people about
Speaker 2: bad but I talk to people about what the dream
Speaker 2: is about and how long they've had it and what
Speaker 2: they think it means, and so it thursday. Other people
Speaker 2: have more of a protocol driven thing where they're doing
Speaker 2: questionnaires and stuff like that. I don't do that. I
Speaker 2: think that's yeah, I think that's I think that's actually bad.
Speaker 1: But one of the things you said, Greg when we
Speaker 1: first started is that you use intentionality. You will prepare
Speaker 1: this is you personally, I don't know about your practice,
Speaker 1: but you will use the intention to set the tone
Speaker 1: for that evening for you. So that you have a dream,
Speaker 1: is that something you recommend to your patients.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think there's a really good literature, both scientific
Speaker 2: and cultural throughout other cultures and religion, and so for
Speaker 2: you can definitely incubate dreams, like like, if you think
Speaker 2: about something when you're going to bed, you can incubate
Speaker 2: thoughts and answers to that. And they've done study where
Speaker 2: they've taken college students, for instance, in a math class,
Speaker 2: and they had and they've had some student like half
Speaker 2: the students think about math problems when they're going to
Speaker 2: bed and the others not. And the people that thought
Speaker 2: about the problems did better. And there's amazing stories about
Speaker 2: how people solved certain problems during their sleep and got
Speaker 2: creative insights from their dreams, like the maybe the most
Speaker 2: famous example is the book Frankenstein was all from a
Speaker 2: dream that Mary Shelley had and Beatles song Yesterday that
Speaker 2: that came to Paul McCartney in a dream, and there's
Speaker 2: the yeah, yeah, he woke up with with his court
Speaker 2: progressions in his mind, and he played him on the
Speaker 2: piano and wrote him down and he was sure he
Speaker 2: must have heard it some where he kept asking people ete,
Speaker 2: what song is this? And nobody knew. He realized finally
Speaker 2: that this was something new, and there's still were I mean,
Speaker 2: you still had to like craft the song, but the
Speaker 2: actual inspiration and the mendelay of mendelay I developed the
Speaker 2: periodic table of elements, a mendelay of that kind of
Speaker 2: came to him in a dream. There's a number of examples,
Speaker 2: both from science and from creative literature.
Speaker 1: But you make a very good point, Greg, You say
Speaker 1: that a lot of these great inventions and thoughts and
Speaker 1: music and whatever have the form of incubation period prior
Speaker 1: to the actual dream itself. Is this something that you
Speaker 1: recommend to people who are having nightmares, that perhaps let's
Speaker 1: incubate or let's intent for either more clarity in our
Speaker 1: dreams or less frightful dreams, more productive dreams, so that
Speaker 1: we can get not only good sleep, which is critical
Speaker 1: to functioning well, but also a creative resolution to these
Speaker 1: horrible nightmares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very definitely. Like in that technique that's very well
Speaker 2: documented of cognitive behavioral therapy for nightmares, you imagine a
Speaker 2: different kind of ending and then think about it when
Speaker 2: you're going to bed to kind of help your mind
Speaker 2: let go of the pattern it's stuck in, if it's
Speaker 2: like having the same bad dream over and over again.
Speaker 2: And the kind of intentions that I've definitely seen be
Speaker 2: helpful is with the intention of remembering your dream, the
Speaker 2: intention and of when it's a problem that you can't
Speaker 2: really see a solution to to kind of think about
Speaker 2: that and ask ask for help with that. And that's
Speaker 2: part of the I know, we'll talk about these cards later,
Speaker 2: but the you know, the part part of what we
Speaker 2: wanted people to be able to get from the card
Speaker 2: was to be able to draw, you know, draw a
Speaker 2: card like pick a card and think about it, and
Speaker 2: that would give them, like a min their mind something
Speaker 2: to kind of focus on, to help draw them inward
Speaker 2: in that way.
Speaker 1: Right you You prepared a good segue I was bringing
Speaker 1: up with the cards. Next title of the cards is
Speaker 1: Dream Wisdom Oracle forty six Cards and a Guidebook. So
Speaker 1: what is the uh how did these cards come about?
Speaker 1: Number one? And what was your goal a creating cards?
Speaker 1: In fact, I think it's a fantastic departure from your
Speaker 1: academia credit, Greg, because they are most most people that
Speaker 1: and I've talked to a lot of psychics who create
Speaker 1: wisdom cards and things like that, but it seems like
Speaker 1: a very creative departure from what you're doing. I think
Speaker 1: it's amazing, and I really want you to define these
Speaker 1: cards for us and let us know what the inspiration was,
Speaker 1: because you just did a big painting. To my mind,
Speaker 1: you just did a great, big, beautiful rem brand or
Speaker 1: we'll call it the Mar the original mar painting in
Speaker 1: the cards.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the story of the cards is I wrote
Speaker 2: that first book about dreams, which which is good and
Speaker 2: fun and you know, there's a lot of important stuff there,
Speaker 2: but it's it was written. It was an academic publisher,
Speaker 2: so it was really expensive, and it wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like in regular bookstores and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to talk. I wanted,
Speaker 2: like regular people, non non professionals, non therapists, to understand
Speaker 2: some of the wisdom that's inside them. So I thought
Speaker 2: it would be fun to kind of have some of
Speaker 2: these ideas expressed them in a way that that was
Speaker 2: understandable to folks. And I thought, you know, having an
Speaker 2: art associated with associated with it, because that's like a
Speaker 2: different part part of the brain. So, so I had
Speaker 2: this idea of doing a guidebook with cars, and initially
Speaker 2: it was kind of the idea was a little more
Speaker 2: science y, like I actually looked up the most common
Speaker 2: kind of dream images and those were going to be
Speaker 2: all the chapters, and that kind of broke down a
Speaker 2: little bit. But anyway, I called an artist friend of mine,
Speaker 2: Heather Taylor Zimmermann, who lives out out in Seattle's and
Speaker 2: she's like a very accomplished visionary artist, and I thought
Speaker 2: she'd give me one of her her graduate students or something.
Speaker 2: So I asked her, you do you know anybody who
Speaker 2: might want to do these cards with me? And Heather said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I've always kind of been meaning to do
Speaker 2: something like that. Why don't we just do it together?
Speaker 2: So she did the art, I did the words, you know,
Speaker 2: So each card core like the kind of just picking
Speaker 2: what it ran. So the cards are kind of this
Speaker 2: visionary art kind of they're beautiful, They're gorgeous, They're absolutely gorgeous,
Speaker 2: and the back of the card is really beautiful with
Speaker 2: this Luna moth. So she'd so each card man and
Speaker 2: there's a like a paperback book that goes with it.
Speaker 2: So I wrote, well, it was kind of each thing
Speaker 2: was kind of a dialogue, Like I'd write something, she'd
Speaker 2: find or do an image, and then I'd kind of
Speaker 2: reflect on the image and the words, and she'd kind
Speaker 2: of alter the image. So she and I were in
Speaker 2: constant dialogue. And it seemed like the art and the
Speaker 2: words were in dialogue too. So that's kind of the
Speaker 2: story of the book.
Speaker 1: So you must have finished most of the book or
Speaker 1: were you working on the book, and you would send
Speaker 1: her a chapter and she would have put together a
Speaker 1: graphic for that chapter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, each chapter is about like an image. So she'd
Speaker 2: either she had a lot of existing stuff so we'd
Speaker 2: find stuff that sort of matched, or some of the
Speaker 2: stuff she had to create something new.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's fantastic. Okay, So give us some examples. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, how do we use the cards? Do
Speaker 1: we sit and think and ruminate about the problem, talk
Speaker 1: about the process.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a couple of ways to do it. The
Speaker 2: way the way the way I imagined that people would
Speaker 2: use it was they dream about a forest, for instance,
Speaker 2: and they'd find the forest card and look at it,
Speaker 2: and that would like help them understand it would kind
Speaker 2: of stir their mind about their own dream and then
Speaker 2: they'd read my little section about forests and they'd start
Speaker 2: making more connection in their own mind. So that's what
Speaker 2: I sort of envisioned what people like I want to
Speaker 2: want to do, which because it's the pre or some
Speaker 2: pre orders have come out, and when I would tell
Speaker 2: people about it, what they wanted to do is like
Speaker 2: draw cards and to and you can also like pull
Speaker 2: a card, and you can pull a card to do
Speaker 2: this kind of incubation, like, oh, let's say you pull
Speaker 2: a Com'm just going to randomly pull a card, so, oh,
Speaker 2: I happened to pull a card about numbers, which is
Speaker 2: very very beautiful card, and so I'd maybe put that
Speaker 2: beside me when I'm going to bed, and maybe there's
Speaker 2: something about numbers that I need to think about and
Speaker 2: you can. We've we kind of ended because everybody wanted
Speaker 2: to make these to roll like spreads. We decided to
Speaker 2: go with that. The cards seemed to wanted to want
Speaker 2: to go in that direction.
Speaker 1: They had their own mindset is the mind of their own,
Speaker 1: so that is really it's kind of cool though, Greg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, So we we had to kind of create
Speaker 2: after the fact like ways of doing spreads and so
Speaker 2: which are actually it was too late to have in
Speaker 2: the some there's a little bit of that in the book,
Speaker 2: but there's more on the website because some of that
Speaker 2: was kind of what the card wanted that we didn't
Speaker 2: realize until after they were out.
Speaker 1: Uh, the cards were produced when it was a June
Speaker 1: they came out.
Speaker 2: No, they're just I got like these pre author copies.
Speaker 2: It kept getting delayed. But they're they're going to be
Speaker 2: out in mid November.
Speaker 1: But oh, I was looking at because that's why I
Speaker 1: didn't get a set of cards.
Speaker 2: That's why, because they're.
Speaker 1: I thought they ran out because they were so popular.
Speaker 1: That's why I didn't get a get a debt.
Speaker 2: I wish to just that out yet. So they're they're
Speaker 2: now printed. They're sitting in a warehouse somewhere, but they're
Speaker 2: going to be actually out and they can be pre
Speaker 2: ordered now, but they won't be shipped till I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah I saw them on Amazon. You can't. You can't
Speaker 1: pre order them. So this is interesting. Talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the evolution and I think they haven't really
Speaker 1: come out yet, but you've had test groups. I guess
Speaker 1: look at them. Your initial idea was somebody has a
Speaker 1: repeating kind of a dream. They pull a card that
Speaker 1: is uh, part of the theme of the dream, perhaps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe the central image of the dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah, central image. So and then you have them write
Speaker 1: something down and then that's the incubator for the for
Speaker 1: them to actually intend and move towards a more positive dream.
Speaker 2: You could use it that way when I was thinking
Speaker 2: of initially there would be more like a guide to exploration,
Speaker 2: like I let's say I dreamt about a forest gel
Speaker 2: that's interesting, or another card is lost, as that's a
Speaker 2: real common dream.
Speaker 1: Lost, I don't know where I am.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so what does that mean? You know? And
Speaker 2: so you look at the card and the images might
Speaker 2: stir something unconsciously. You read stuff in the book and
Speaker 2: I would give like historical examples of being lost and
Speaker 2: some significant dreams about being lost. So that might stir
Speaker 2: your own connections. Because one thing that has happens when
Speaker 2: we're dreaming is it's it's like a psychedelic trip. We
Speaker 2: just don't think of it that way, but there's the
Speaker 2: same kind of brain activation and these new connections that
Speaker 2: you would get on a psychedelic trip. So the dream
Speaker 2: stirs up that state of mind allows for these new connections.
Speaker 2: So you it's sometimes you have to kind of kick
Speaker 2: it around in your mind to get where these connections
Speaker 2: are going.
Speaker 1: So you are you suggesting that dreams kind of create
Speaker 1: a neuroplasicity and expand the mind a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, they cut your egos shut off, like this ego
Speaker 2: that's where you and I are talking. That's kind of
Speaker 2: shut off when we're dreaming, and that opens us up
Speaker 2: to all this other stuff that's in our head and
Speaker 2: in our unconscious that we don't even know about because
Speaker 2: we kind of turn all that off just to get
Speaker 2: along every day in the world.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a short commercial break to allow
Speaker 1: our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly
Speaker 1: with my guest today, doctor Greg Maher, discussing his work
Speaker 1: with trauma and nightmares. We'll be right back. My guess
Speaker 1: today is doctor Greg Mahr. He is a sleep specialist
Speaker 1: focusing on nightmares. He has just released a new series
Speaker 1: of cards. Their oracle is called dream Wisdom Oracle that
Speaker 1: is designed for you to understand your dreams but also
Speaker 1: help you with your dream time. Wow, I've never heard
Speaker 1: that before. So that so that's the the ego I
Speaker 1: guess too, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you want to use neurophysiological language, it's
Speaker 2: it's the oh shoot, the default mode network, which is
Speaker 2: kind of the system in your nervous connections that we
Speaker 2: sort of maintained our every day, ordinary life in the world.
Speaker 2: And when that gets shut down. I have a cool
Speaker 2: slide that I show and talks. You see all these
Speaker 2: different parts of the brain light up and get connected
Speaker 2: that normally aren't. So that's why some of the imagery
Speaker 2: is kind of weird and stuff like that. So that's
Speaker 2: why I like the idea of sort of nurturing that
Speaker 2: kind of connection or exploring that kind of connection. So
Speaker 2: the idea with the visual image of the cards and
Speaker 2: the words, the words are kind of evocative, so it's
Speaker 2: to get you to walk around that spay that new
Speaker 2: space in your head.
Speaker 1: I like your psychedelic drug analogy because it's like the
Speaker 1: cards are are the drug they're influencing the dream state,
Speaker 1: is I think.
Speaker 2: Or I think the dream is like a drug induced state,
Speaker 2: and the card is something that you might be holding
Speaker 2: to keep your attention in that date and focus your mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think Sarah Toonam has been thought
Speaker 1: of as a psychedelic. But you know, it's funny. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of the paneal gland. The paneal gland
Speaker 1: produces a drug like effect when it's stimulated, and I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if the panial is part of this whole dream factor.
Speaker 2: Well, it's It certainly sets our sleep wake schedule, and
Speaker 2: we kind of mess up our pineal gland because we're
Speaker 2: we're like in modern culture, we're always like pretending it's
Speaker 2: summer and pretending it's daytime, and we have we want
Speaker 2: to be as productive as possible, so we have all
Speaker 2: these electric lights so we can pretend it's daylight all
Speaker 2: the time. Yeah, and we're sort of pretending like that
Speaker 2: our night world of dreams and stuff doesn't matter. But
Speaker 2: it does. And they like, if you take people and
Speaker 2: put them like away from lights in a cave and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, they'll sleep longer, and they'll interestingly have
Speaker 2: these buy it's called a bi phasic night pattern where
Speaker 2: they'll sleep for a few hours and then they'll wake
Speaker 2: up like at two in the morning for an hour
Speaker 2: or two and then go back to bed. And that's
Speaker 2: an interesting state because people are like you're, they're more creative.
Speaker 2: They think that's maybe when the cave paintings were done
Speaker 2: and things like that. I have a poet friend who
Speaker 2: like wakes himself up intentionally with an alarm clock at
Speaker 2: two in the morning because he feels like he writes
Speaker 2: better then. And then make makes sense because I think
Speaker 2: you're more connect that default mode network is more shut down,
Speaker 2: and you're more connected to that inner world. So I
Speaker 2: think that's what dreams are are part of that inner
Speaker 2: world trying to talk to us. And I like the
Speaker 2: kind of the idea behind the cards and the book
Speaker 2: is to to help help us connect connect with that
Speaker 2: world and make us feel more comfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've made some important points here that our society,
Speaker 1: Western culture is what I'm referring to. We're over stimulated.
Speaker 1: We're overstimulat because we're we're looking at our phones all
Speaker 1: the time, and we're watching TV too late, and we
Speaker 1: drink alcohol and we are stimulating our body so that
Speaker 1: our subtle thoughts and energy is depleted. You know. It's weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we don't pay attention that we're you know,
Speaker 2: to those that we're trying to be productive all the
Speaker 2: time and make money and then yeah, it's kind of sad.
Speaker 2: Really we're kind of trading away the most important things
Speaker 2: for stuff that doesn't really matter. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: what I realized after my heart attack, that some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that I thought was so important wasn't really
Speaker 2: so important. Like I remember in the nurses when I
Speaker 2: went to the cardiologist and they did my EKG and stuff,
Speaker 2: like even I could see, even not mischiagist, I could
Speaker 2: tell that there wasn't a good looking EKG. And she
Speaker 2: was saying, Oh, you're you're gonna We're gonna have to
Speaker 2: take you for a caf And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have to finish these I'm just going to run
Speaker 2: back to my office because I'll tell you take a while.
Speaker 2: I got to finish these notes and stuff.
Speaker 1: Did you have your heart attack on campus on the
Speaker 1: in the hospital?
Speaker 2: No, but I the doctor was in the hospital where
Speaker 2: I worked at But but I was, And she she
Speaker 2: looked at me like, no, you're not going to go
Speaker 2: back to your office. And then I realized, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right that this is more important. You know that
Speaker 2: kind of paying attention to our inner selves is very important.
Speaker 1: I want to use these cards in a couple of
Speaker 1: seconds here and and hear what you come up with.
Speaker 1: Let's pull uh one or two cards, and let's have
Speaker 1: you read the theme and what you would say would
Speaker 1: be the recommendation of the car to call it that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm just randomly drawing a card and the
Speaker 2: card is water.
Speaker 1: Water Okay, beautiful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And water is water is actually a really common image.
Speaker 2: It's kind of an interesting choice because that's one of
Speaker 2: the most common images in my own personal dreams. So
Speaker 2: maybe that's why I drew that car, because I have
Speaker 2: water dreams like all the time. Like I've been in
Speaker 2: this dream exploration group for years and everybody always lasts,
Speaker 2: and I'll always dream. I'm always walking by a river
Speaker 2: or swimming or kayaking or looking at an aquarium. That's
Speaker 2: so water usually has to do with the unconscious because
Speaker 2: you're kind of immersed in it, and it depends like
Speaker 2: if you're in a little water thing like a pool,
Speaker 2: for instance, that's often like you're personal unconscious, where if
Speaker 2: you're swimming in the ocean, then you're in this big
Speaker 2: collective body of water. So I don't remember what I
Speaker 2: wrote in the book, but I can look, well, you can,
Speaker 2: but I'm sure I said something like that, and I
Speaker 2: probably explored that image because there's you know, the the
Speaker 2: way the water appears can be very different in different
Speaker 2: dreams and different and important ways. Like if you're on
Speaker 2: the water but you're in a cruise ship, then that's
Speaker 2: a very collective way, whereas if you're in a kayaking
Speaker 2: then that's it's a different kind of way. You're not
Speaker 2: immersed in the water, you're skimming along the top of it.
Speaker 2: And I have a lot of dreams where I'm swimming
Speaker 2: where I'm actually immersed in the water, and maybe that's
Speaker 2: because I love trying to connect with the unconscious so
Speaker 2: much that But somebody.
Speaker 1: Who's having the dream of being in the ocean, either
Speaker 1: swimming or on a boat, and they're having a repeat
Speaker 1: version of that, what does that signify.
Speaker 2: That sometimes dreams keep repeating because we're not listening to them,
Speaker 2: so they have to keep knocking, as it were. So
Speaker 2: maybe there's something in their unconscious that they haven't connected
Speaker 2: with that they need to listen to in a different way.
Speaker 1: Okay, and what is the book? What can you read
Speaker 1: like the first paragraph of the water because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: that the book denotes some form of decode. Is that
Speaker 1: my right interpretation or no, just my.
Speaker 2: Only objection was decode sound real.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. Whatever language you want to use.
Speaker 2: I would say, it's a exploration exploration water. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking at that page two of three to two.
Speaker 1: Oh, sub you don't have to read the whole thing,
Speaker 1: just like the paragraph or two, so that we get
Speaker 1: a sense of what you're trying to achieve by these well,
Speaker 1: I mean dream interpretation. There you go interpreting the dream.
Speaker 2: Oh well, it's I it's I looked up the page
Speaker 2: for swimming, so it's similar. So the beginning is a
Speaker 2: description in words of what's in the card. So the
Speaker 2: card of I'm sorry, I'm trying to hurry and then
Speaker 2: I'm messing up. So let me look at the other one,
Speaker 2: which is two eighteen.
Speaker 1: Take your time.
Speaker 2: This is the actual swimming card. Okay, water. So so
Speaker 2: I described the card a little bit, saying a figure
Speaker 2: floats peacefully on his back and on the back of
Speaker 2: a turtle. The turtle is a spirit guide carrying the
Speaker 2: dream figure through the water. The water is born of spirit.
Speaker 2: The sky is ablaze with a circular mondoli like mandola
Speaker 2: like figure of the south. How far can we get
Speaker 2: if we let the turtle bear us?
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. So you're you're, you're, you're interpreting the
Speaker 1: card's design as part of the dream and the people
Speaker 1: and as the person's reading, what they're getting is information
Speaker 1: that they reinterpret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of that little paragraphs. First paragraph is
Speaker 2: always about the card, and the idea of that is
Speaker 2: to help people pay attention to the details in the card,
Speaker 2: because the card is very thoughtfully drawn and painted. And
Speaker 2: then I go on to say, a dream about water
Speaker 2: is an invitation to a relationship with the unconscious. Do
Speaker 2: we relate to water willingly? Or does it burst into
Speaker 2: our lives? Do we dive in, wade in or tiptoe in?
Speaker 2: Is the water clear or dirty? Flowing waters like rivers
Speaker 2: represent the unconscious flow of life. Swimming pools represent a
Speaker 2: more personal aspect of the unconscious. Big bodies like oceans
Speaker 2: are deeper levels of the unconscious. Water cleans, as Beige baptizes,
Speaker 2: our relationship to water and our dreams represents our relationship
Speaker 2: to the unconscious. So the first pair, So then I
Speaker 2: kind of go on at different length and different stories
Speaker 2: about dreams about water. So the idea is to kind
Speaker 2: of nurture that sort of exploration. Yeah, hide you into
Speaker 2: and through that inner world.
Speaker 1: No, I like it because you're you're defining with your
Speaker 1: years of practice. You're going, this is what I see
Speaker 1: in water, and here's the various aspects of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is how people used to interpret it, and so
Speaker 1: forth and so on.
Speaker 2: Between my own dreams and the dream group and all
Speaker 2: the stuff I've read and all the people. Yes, I've
Speaker 2: heard like thousands and thousands of dreams and I love them.
Speaker 2: I just love listening to them because they're so beautiful.
Speaker 2: They're like little works of art, like my father's dream.
Speaker 2: But it's such a beautiful little work of art and
Speaker 2: in a single image captures this whole life. I mean,
Speaker 2: how could you do that? I couldn't. I couldn't do
Speaker 2: that if I tried to. But that's that's the point
Speaker 2: when you try to mess it up, but when it
Speaker 2: just you.
Speaker 1: Know, what's interesting, Greg is the fact that you're in practice. Now,
Speaker 1: can you use these in your practice? Or is it
Speaker 1: not copasetic because it's not a drug or a therapy
Speaker 1: of some gain?
Speaker 2: Oh the cards you mean? Yeah, Oh, I probably that
Speaker 2: would make me feel a little self serving to use.
Speaker 1: Well, no, if it's helpful, you know, and it's.
Speaker 2: True, you know, I that's an interesting idea. I haven't
Speaker 2: thought about it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I thought you were. You're going to
Speaker 1: use these in your as a therapy for your OW.
Speaker 2: I never thought of it that way. But as the
Speaker 2: more the more people look at the cards, the more
Speaker 2: ideas I get, like said, they kind of have a
Speaker 2: mind of their own.
Speaker 1: And all the years of your study and practice, and
Speaker 1: you're you're documenting your dreams as a kid. You got
Speaker 1: five thousand dreams. You're you're the forefront of the of
Speaker 1: the industry.
Speaker 2: My friend, Well, using cards was never part of my
Speaker 2: medical school.
Speaker 1: Well, that's my question is that you may not be
Speaker 1: allowed to introduce the cards in your practice because of
Speaker 1: some AMA protocol or some kind I don't know.
Speaker 2: The nice thing about being as old as I am
Speaker 2: is I can kind of do what I want. No
Speaker 2: one's going to do anything to me.
Speaker 1: I think they're a great solution.
Speaker 2: No, I like that idea. And actually, what one of
Speaker 2: the people I shared the deck with is a is
Speaker 2: a Torot card readers, and he was very excited about them.
Speaker 2: He said, Oh, I'm going to use these tomorrow, you know,
Speaker 2: and as supplementing is to row cards or something.
Speaker 1: So I think I think there's motivation on two sides.
Speaker 1: First of all is nightmares, which is what you're all
Speaker 1: about in your research, And the other is instigating, influencing
Speaker 1: and cultivating dreams. And this is the problem that I have.
Speaker 1: I have so much on my mind that I forget
Speaker 1: to set an intention to when I'm in bed to
Speaker 1: have dreams, but I miss the interpretation. And I have
Speaker 1: dream journals from years ago, but I haven't been doing
Speaker 1: it for you know, many years, because I'm just so
Speaker 1: caught up. And those cards it's not like a great
Speaker 1: way to kickstart.
Speaker 2: The intention is really important. Like we've this has happened
Speaker 2: several times with the dream group that I do. People
Speaker 2: will come because they're interested in dreams. They'll come kind
Speaker 2: of apologizing, saying, yeah, is it okay if I just
Speaker 2: come and listen, I don't really remember dreams, and we'll say, sure,
Speaker 2: you know, that's cool. And then but then like two
Speaker 2: weeks later, the fact of them having gone to group.
Speaker 2: Two weeks later, they'll come back and say, oh, I
Speaker 2: had two dreams last week. Yeah, but that's the kind
Speaker 2: of like setting that intention or paying attention, yeah, or
Speaker 2: beginning that relationship is another.
Speaker 1: Language, fantastic. The cards are called Dream Wisdom Oracle forty
Speaker 1: six cards in guidebook. My guest today has been doctor
Speaker 1: Greg mar. I want to have you pick another card
Speaker 1: as we conclude, Greg and give us a further sense
Speaker 1: of this collection. Forty six cards. So forty six cards
Speaker 1: is a lot. That's a lot of different topics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the four or five of the cards are like tips,
Speaker 2: They're like word cards with like twelve tips to remember
Speaker 2: your dreams. And oh so it's like five of them
Speaker 2: are those kind of cards.
Speaker 1: So it's more like forty one cards and.
Speaker 2: Are yeah, okay, okay, well that's interesting. The card I
Speaker 2: picked is death, so maybe that was referring to the
Speaker 2: end of the interview. And yeah, and death, like we
Speaker 2: talked about, is kind of one of those scary nightmare
Speaker 2: images that often doesn't mean death, that means death of
Speaker 2: a part of yourself. So let me see what I
Speaker 2: said in the death in the card. Death is in
Speaker 2: the card. Death is contained in a box, but a
Speaker 2: spacious one where he has room to move and even
Speaker 2: dance with him in the box. Are Kala lilies in
Speaker 2: Greek mythology that Kayla lily was created from drops of
Speaker 2: milk from the breast of hair US's Zeus's wife Us
Speaker 2: had Zeus had fathered Hercules with a mortal woman. Hercules
Speaker 2: would be mortal because he was born of a woman
Speaker 2: unless fed by milk from the breath of a guy.
Speaker 2: And then I the box is surrounded by pink, mob
Speaker 2: and green colors of life energy. Surrounding Death's coffin are
Speaker 2: images of the lushness of life. And just to go on,
Speaker 2: I won't go on with all that, but just the
Speaker 2: beginning of the actual material about death. To dream of
Speaker 2: death is to dream of rebirth. Every night, our waking
Speaker 2: self dies as we sleep and a deeper self comes
Speaker 2: to life. A death dream is a call to the
Speaker 2: night world, where the everyday self is dead but the
Speaker 2: inner self is alive. And well, so what that is
Speaker 2: a very fitting way to close the interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very excellent. Good. I mean, that's a good one
Speaker 1: because a lot of people think, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: pulled the death card. I'm in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're dead. Nightmares sometimes our interpretation of a dream
Speaker 2: that has an important positive message.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic. Uh, Greg thank you for joining me. That
Speaker 1: was insightful. And uh, I'm gonna have to ask inner
Speaker 1: traditions to get a deck of cards because I've been
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I know Gail Towards your publicist, and she's a good one. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I never got the cards even early. I typically
Speaker 1: get an early set as a test set, you know,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 2: Just because they haven't been out yet. But if you
Speaker 2: don't get them for her, just email me. I'll just
Speaker 2: mail it to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fantastic. I think you got something. I think you're
Speaker 1: I think you're onto something here and I appreciate the
Speaker 1: inner site and the I should say insight and what
Speaker 1: what develops from these cars because it's so unique for
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist to present these. So you're I think your
Speaker 1: child is coming out on this one and really doing
Speaker 1: a number. He's he's got his crayons in hand, he's
Speaker 1: doing a number.
Speaker 2: That's that's a nice image. I like that.
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, congratulations and thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Dreams are really critical to a lot of creativity. In fact,
Speaker 1: I know artists that cultivate their dreams. They'll have a
Speaker 1: intention before they go to sleep, have their journal by
Speaker 1: their by their bed and kind of work with the
Speaker 1: unconscious to cultivate and develop dreams, to answer questions, to
Speaker 1: solve problems. And this is something that needs to be
Speaker 1: really worked on even more because I for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, dreaming isn't possible because they're just so exhausted,
Speaker 1: or they don't have trouble they have trouble sleeping, which
Speaker 1: is a problem. So the Dream Wisdom Oracle cards are
Speaker 1: now available. If you go to Amazon and look up
Speaker 1: doctor Greg maher m AhR, you'll see the cards and
Speaker 1: check them out. It might be something you want to try.
Speaker 1: So thank you Greg, it was nice to have him
Speaker 1: on the program. Yeah, I got a perfect gift for you.
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Speaker 1: I want to thank my guests today doctor doctor Greg
Speaker 1: mar coming to us from Wisconsin as always, a team
Speaker 1: of Gail Tour, Mark Foster, and Faya Pavar. You guys
Speaker 1: rock all right, take care of you well, and we
Speaker 1: will talk to you next time.