Bad dreams can pack a powerful punch. They often bring us back to places and situations that caused us stress or unhappiness. But our dreams can also deliver messages that we need to heed. Messages that offer us a way out to something better.
Hello and welcome to Uplifted. My name is Meg Luther Lindholm. And I welcome you on this journey from stories of adversity towards new insights for a better life. Today’s step on the journey is called Dream deliveries.
So, recently I was home. It was the evening. The radio was on and a familiar voice floated across the living room to where I sat reading with my daughter. The voice belonged to a talk show host Brian Lehrer. Once upon a time I produced his radio show in New York City. My job was to find guests for the show which was on for two hours every weekday. I loved the job but it was extremely stressful. There were two hours of program to fill with multiple guests every day. The grinding wheel of pressure just never let up.
So that night after hearing Brian on the radio I had a dream that took me back in time. I dreamed that Brian wanted me to find a guest for his show which was scheduled to go on air very soon. But instead of searching for the guest, I was cooking in the kitchen of my home. You know where this is going, right? Because I think we’ve all had those dreams where we’re paralyzed or unable to do the thing we most need to do. And the clock is ticking. Our feet turn to molasses, or we’re caught in a maze. We run down corridors that lead nowhere. Or we run away from people who might attack us. Right?
Even my husband was getting anxious in the dream. Don’t you need to find the person that Brian wants to interview he asked? Which is funny because my husband never involves himself in the particulars of my work. But yes. Time was closing in on me like the dark purple clouds of a stormy sky.
Brief digression - If you’ve driven out in the country where the sky is enormous you might have experienced a certain fear-inducing sight. You look ahead and see a menacing wall of black thunderstorm clouds moving towards you. You feel dread in the pit of your stomach knowing that soon you’ll be driving through a blinding downpour. And there’s not a darned thing you can do except hope you’ll get through it.
This kind of fear is what one feels in a nightmare. So, I woke up from my anxious dream knowing that it was a dream. A bad dream. I should have felt relieved and fallen back asleep. But I really wanted a good ending to this dream. Something that would save me and my sense of professional competence. So, I did something I’ve never done before. Like a diver searching for pearls, I dove back into my dreamworld to try to salvage that talk show guest. Only now, speaking of diving, I was at a swimming pool with my son. We got out of the pool dripping wet and I knew I was doomed. I was past the point where I could find that blasted guest in time for the show. And I feared I might be fired. No guest? No job. How many times in my career had I faced that spoken or unspoken ultimatum? I had lived with that kind of stress for years. It was the kind of stress that both motivated and frightened me.
Thinking about the dream now I can’t help but wonder – what it is that keeps us spiraling down as though being pulled into a whirlpool with repetitive actions that get us nowhere? And why do these dreams repeat sometimes years or decades after the situation in our dreams is over?
Writing in Psychology Today neurobiologist Michelle Carr says that over 60 percent of us have recurring dreams. The most common ones are of being pursued, or falling, or flying, or dreams that connect us back to school and studying and dreams of sexual experiences. It’s a relief to wake up from most of these dreams and realize they were just that – bad dreams. We weren’t actually being chased by the guy with the knife after all. Or being tossed into a pit of hyenas.
We can leave it there. We can savor our relief and get on with life. But, our bad dreams may be telling us that some area of our life or emotions are unresolved. And in fact, our bad dreams may actually be giving us good advice.
For example, over the past couple of years I have applied for a number of jobs that are similar to the one I had with Brian’s radio show. Because I loved that job. But, I think my dream was telling me to stop. Stop pursuing jobs that will throw me back into a world of constant stress. Because I know, like I know my own name, that I don’t want to live like that anymore. So, my question for you is what messages for change are your bad dreams delivering to you?
Thank you for joining me on this step of the Uplifted journey. I’m Meg Luther Lindholm. You can subscribe and listen to the podcast at Upliftedpodcast.com or wherever you find your podcasts. You can also subscribe to my blog on Substack. You’ll find a link on the Uplifted website. And if you like what you hear I would so appreciate your sharing it. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.