The Dream Journal

After reading Carlos Castenada’s “Journey to Ixtlan” in the 1970s, Robert Waggoner devised his groundbreaking technique for inducing lucid dreams involving setting an intention to look at one’s hands in a dream as a way to realize that one is dreaming and thus to become “lucidly aware” in a dream. He wrote one of the seminal books in the genre called “Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Soul”. We speak with Robert about his early discoveries in the field of lucid dreaming and he give examples of what happens when we communicate with that inner wisdom that the dreams hold.

Christine from Scotts Valley asks about dreaming for the greater good helping us have a bigger vision and also Chris from Felton who asks about how different dream figures seem to have different levels of consciousness.

BIO: In 1975, Robert Waggoner taught himself a simple technique to become lucidly aware in his dreams. Five years later, when the scientific evidence for lucid dreaming emerged, Robert was already deep into the conscious exploration of dreaming. His first book, Lucid Dreaming – Gateway to the Inner Self is in its 14th printing.  This ground-breaking book opened up new areas for lucid dreamers like using lucid dreams for emotional healing, physical healing, connecting to one’s larger awareness and spiritual growth. His award-winning second book, Lucid Dreaming Plain and Simple (co-authored with Caroline McCready) has been translated into Chinese, French, German and other languages. Robert travels the world giving workshops and also does workshops online with GlideWing.com

Book website — LucidAdvice.com

Free magazine website — DreamingLucid.com

International Association for the Study of Dreams — ASDreams.org

We play clips from two songs: Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics and Dream by Jeff Beck.

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on July 3, 2021 from a show originally broadcast and recorded April 4, 2020.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

Stitcher 

Can making a collage serve some of the same healing function that dreaming does? Our guest today has seen that it can.

Johanna Vedral starts by sharing some of the intense nightmares that populated her world when she was young. As a multi-lingual person, Johanna also talks about how translating her dreams from one language into another deepens her experience and understanding of them.

She then describes her collaging technique which prioritizes intuition over planning or intention and urges us to chose images that induce emotional reactions in us, either positive or negative. Collaging can be used to tune into the body’s wisdom and sometimes can induce a more vivid dream life.

Johanna ends by sharing how her dreams have evolved from childhood nightmares of being chased by beasts to walking confidently with them.

Bio: Johanna Vedral is a psychologist and expressive arts therapist and works as writing teacher at universities and at the writersstudio (Vienna). She teaches psychologists, psychotherapists, psychonauts, teachers and students in Austria and Germany.

Her main interests are dreams, collage art and autobiographical writing. Since 2000, she is connected with the IASD community and offers workshops at conferences. She developed a creative approach called „Collage Dream Writing“ where cut-out collages are experienced like dreams. Collages help to explore and to map inner landscapes in an easily accessible playful way.

She published a book about Collage Dream Writing and a memoir in German and is the editor of the first German magazine for journal writing & memoir, „Schreibräume“ (Writing Rooms). Currently she is working on a Collage Dream Play book in English.

On Johanna’s website SchreibStudio.at, you will find a blog, workshops and her books. Or find her at WritersStudio.at/CollageWorkshops.php (Vienna), a writing school where Johanna offers creative writing workshops.

Johanna is the editor of the first German magazine for journal writing & memoir, „Schreibräume“ (Writing Rooms). The illustrator of issue 2/2020 was Victoria Rabinowe. The issue 1/2022 will be dedicated to dream journaling & visual diary, the illustrator will be Harshita Ilango, and there will be contributions by Tzivia Gover, Victoria Rabinowe, Lauren Schneider etc.

Photo Credits:

We play clips from two guest-selected songs:

Ane Brune with “Springa” and Georg Danzer with “Weisse Pferde”

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show was originally broadcast on June 26, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it,

In that synchronistic ways that dreams have, all four callers and even my own dream sharing revolve around family members. My dream share involves seeing my father at risk and feeling tenderness for him as in waking life his health has lately been poor.

We start with Amanda from Santa Cruz who shares two dreams, the first about her estranged sister showing up naked and unwelcome in her bed. The second is a dream of a beautiful cavern from which she can see the sea. She felt like this dream was for her friend whose family is going through a hard time. She had shared the dream with her friend who appreciated it very much.

We also receive a call from Susan Ackerman Joseph who shares some of her excitement about the recent IASD conference. She also shares about how her dreams about her mother (who died 35 years ago) have shifted over the years. While virtually attending the conference and listening to keynote Fanny Brewster, Susan found that those dreams about her mother took on a whole new and deeper sense of meaning.

Lucille from Cambria calls next to share her hopes that her long-deceased mother is now happy even though she wasn’t happy in waking life. She also shares a dream where she gets to pet a dog and feel a sense of peacefulness and connection.

Our final call is from Sylvia from Ontario Canada who shares a dream about meeting her great grandmother, a woman who died long before she was born. She shared some of her conference experiences around an indigenous dream group in which dreams were honored through scribing and dream art but not through reflection or projection or interpretation. The group was led by Apela Colorado of the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network at Dreamwork.wisn.org. We also spoke about IASD keynote Eduardo Duran who said, “Compassion is the wormhole to enlightenment.:

Show aired Saturday, June 19.

We played a clip from a version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by the Wardlaw Brothers.

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show will be broadcast June 19, 2021 and podcast Monday, June 21.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

Stitcher 

Spotify

Can imagining ideal dream scenarios a few minutes a day lessen nightmares and lead to a better night’s sleep and more peace of mind? Yes they can, and we talk about how with today’s guest Dr. Michael Nadorff. High rates of nightmares correlate with high likelihood of both suicidal ideation and with suicidal attempts. Research has shown a causal effect in that reducing nightmares reduces both suicidal attempts and ideation. So if you suffer from nightmares, be assured that you don’t have to put up with them! There are ways you can shift this affliction, and we talk about many of them on the show today.

Dr. Nadorff describes the simple Image Rehearsal Therapy (IRT) technique of imagining the dream that you want to have, and practicing this image 5-10 minutes a few times each day. There is a FREE and confidential government sponsored app called “Dream EZ” which will guide you through the process of IRT.

BIO. Dr. Michael Nadorff is an associate professor of psychology at Mississippi State University where he also directs the clinical psychology PhD program. He is the director of the Sleep, Suicide and Aging Lab, and his research focuses on the association between sleep difficulties, particularly nightmares, and suicidal behavior. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed manuscripts (ten more than when he was last our guest in August 2020) and received more than $5.6 million in external grant funding from NIMH, SAMHSA, and the CDC (up from $3.4 million from last summer). Dr. Nadorff is an expert in Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, a nightmare treatment that he believes has a lot of potential to not only improve nightmares, but also a myriad of other mental health disorders.

You can get in touch with our guest at suicidelab.org

We play clips from two guest selected songs:

Dan Hartman, I Can Dream about You

Selena : Dreaming of You

You can listen to our last conversation from August 15, 2020 here.

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on June 12, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Apple Podcasts

Google Play

Stitcher 

Spotify

Want to find a community that cares about dreams as much as you do? The IASD is a massively multi-disciplinary group of people interested in dreams from scientists to psychologists, artists and dream enthusiasts. We cover topics from spirituality to lucid dreaming to clinical applications and the science of sleep. When I found the IASD I felt like I had found my tribe.

Our guest today is IASD Conference Manager Bob Hoss. If you are interested, you can find out more about the fully virtual IASD Conference June 13-17 at IASDconferences.org/2021/

Bob Hoss tells us several dreams that helped him keep his emotional equilibrium during the nerve-wracking processes of canceling the conference in 2020 and while preparing for the virtual event in 2021. The way he works with his dreams gives some wonderful examples of how dreams work with our feelings and help us make decisions even when we don’t remember them.

We take a call from Sarah from Santa Cruz who asks about using lucid dreaming to help her with specific family issues and also asks about a recurring theme about dreaming of losing her teeth.

BIO: Robert Hoss is the director and past president of the IASD and directs the Dream Science Foundation for research grants to stimulate dream related research and is a trainer on the staff of the Haden Institute. He is author or author/editor of four books and is also published in 9 other books and 4 Journals related to dream studies. Bob Hoss held an earlier career as a scientist, researcher and corporate vice president at American Express and IBM, but, having been trained in various psychological disciplines including Gestalt Therapy, managed a parallel career over 40 years instructing dreams studies at various institutions. Bob now devotes his considerable science and management skills to dream studies and helping IASD manage its conferences and research granting activities.

Bob Hoss’s website: DreamScience.org where you can download the free book there called Dream Language.

Website for the IASD: ASDreams.org

IASD International Conference will be June 13-17 and is s fully virtual conference.

We play clips from Suzanne Ciani’s Silver Ship and a Chris Commisso version of All I Want to Do is Dream.

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on June 5, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Apple Podcasts

We begin with the similarities between the mental state one gets into writing poetry and the dream state. Then shift to dreams and film using as an example Hitchcock’s Spell Bound and how films reveal cultural stereotypes about dreams. Our guest Bernard Welt describes the “Hollywood Freudians” and how they influence our understanding of dreams to this day. Bernard recommends that artists keep a dream journal both as a bank of ideas to draw from and as a way to keep the artist in touch with their unconscious mind.

We then shift to A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Bernard tells us that imagination and creativity were not valued during Shakespeare’s time but that dreams were evidence of the dreamer’s health and moral condition and could even result in charges of treason for the dreamer. Bernard argues that both Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer’s Night are similar plots and are both strong arguments against the patriarchy through respectively tragedy and comedy.

We take a call from Barbara who asked a question about social dreaming and the Tavistock Institute in that dreams may be for the groups that the dreamer belongs to and not just for the dreamer alone. Bernard mentions two resources which are the JungPlatform.com and also MuseumofDreams.org. Dr. Welt ends by reading parts of one of his poems called “You Are Dreaming”.

Bernard Welt leads an online dream group on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month, 8 pm Eastern, 5 pm Pacific, through the auspices of the Washington DC grassroots arts organization Rhizome DC, “promoting creativity as a force for personal empowerment and community engagement.” The Dream Café is a lay dream-sharing group, using a gentle, non-intrusive method within boundaries controlled by participants. The next Dream Café is June 9; register at rhizomedc.org

On Tuesday June 15 Bernard will co-host with Kelly Bulkeley a presentation on approaches to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream through the ages; on Wednesday, June 16, he’ll present at a session on Dreams, Imagination, and Creativity. Each morning from June 14-17, he will co-host a dream group for first-time conference registrants with Loren Goodman. You can find the full conference schedule here: IASDconferences.org/2021/program-listing/ Times are Pacific Daylight Saving. You can register for the conference at IASDconferences.org/2021/registration/

You can find Bernard’s article on “Dreaming as a Fundamental Academic Skill,” along with some of his other essays, at GWU.academia.edu/BernardWelt

Write to him at bernardwelt (at) gmail.com for more information

The IASD Dreams and Ethnicity Portal links to many resources offering information and perspectives from people and organizations representing traditional and Indigenous dream cultures.

The Museum of Dreams is an unusual and valuable resource: “a hub for exploring the social and political significance of dream-life.” MuseumofDreams.org/ “a hub for exploring the social and political significance of dream-life.”

The Bridge Theatre’s spectacular 2019 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” brought the audience into the action and sent them out of

Our guest is author and poet Dr. Bruce Bynum. We start off talking about shared dreaming in which people who are emotionally close sometimes have very similar dreams. We talk about how vital dreaming is including how sleep deprivation was used as a form of brainwashing at various times in history.

We then dive into our history as a species which originated on the African continent and how all current major religions therefore have their roots in African mysticism including the idea that Jesus as a historical figure was most likely a black man with “feet of bronze and hair like sheep’s wool”.  We talk about dissociation and out of body experiences and Bruce talks about his vision of  a world in which nonlocal consciousness is accepted as a part of the human norm including the well-documented phenomenon of “crisis telepathy” and about how we can each start to experience this as a kind of universal spirituality.

Dr. Bynum is going to present some of his ideas at the virtual IASD conference coming up June 13-17 in a panel called Dreams and Ethnicity. Find out about the conference at IASDconferences.org/2021/ or about the International Association for the Study of Dreams at ASDreams.org

Bruce read one of his poems called “I Dreamed”.

The audio was initially a little rough so I had to cut out some of Bruce’s early recollections about dreaming.

Bio: Edward Bruce Bynum, PhD is a licensed psychologist and Diplomat in clinical psychology, nationally certified in biofeedback and senior fellow in the National Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. His focus is psychosomatic medicine, hypnosis and individual psychotherapy. He is currently in private practice in Hadley Massachusetts. He is the author of several books in psychology and poetry. Most recent books in psychology include DARK LIGHT CONSCIOUSNESS, Our African Unconscious and The Dreamlife of Families. New books in poetry include The First Bird, The Magdalene Poems: Love Letters of Jesus the Christ and Mary Magdalene, The Luminous Heretic, and Gospel of the Dark Orisha. He received the Abraham H. Maslow Award from APA for “an outstanding and lasting contribution to the exploration of the farther reaches of the human spirit”.

Contact Dr. Bynum at ObeliskFoundation.com

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on May 22, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page is found here.

You can also check out The Dream Journal on the following podcast platforms:  Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Apple Podcasts

Did you know you can enhance your dream life by sleeping with a glove on? We talk with Dr. Tore Nielsen about his current interests in dream science. Since the Covid pandemic has closed down his Montreal Dream & Nightmare Laboratory for over a year, part of his focus has been on DIY dream experiments you can do at home. Tore shares his research into what he calls the Black Glove Effect in which wearing a single glove to bed can produce more easily recalled dreams that are more vivid than usual, and it can also increase the likelihood of experiencing a lucid dream.

We talk about how dreams, even bad dreams, can help us emotionally, and Dr. Nielsen recommends taking difficult dreams to a dream group or otherwise sharing the dream. It not only helps the dreamer with their emotional issues, but research shows that dream sharing also increases the empathy of all group members.

We touch in on the idea that the right hemisphere is responsible for insight and thus may produce the famous dream recognition moment of “Aha” and yet be unable to articulate what the insight is since such verbalization is localized in the left hemisphere. Dr. Nielsen comments that the right hemisphere is responsible for detecting prosody or vocal tone and seems to be key for detecting deception. We also speak then about dreams how they help us process trauma and how the system breaks down in extreme cases like PTSD.

Tore Nielsen will be the Science track keynote at the upcoming IASD virtual conference and will be speaking about microdreaming which he also calls upright napping. He has discovered that all kinds of interesting images can be seen in the moments when he sleeps before his nodding head wakes him up.

The Montreal Dream & Nightmare Lab is currently conducting a study of dreaming during the pandemic. If you would like to contribute a dream and complete a questionnaire, please click here: dreamscience.ca/2020 (there is a French version too).

You can contact Dr. Nielsen at Tore.Nielsen(at)yahoo.com.

Bio: Tore Nielsen, Ph.D, is a Full Professor at the Dept. of Psychiatry and Addictology at the University of Montréal. He is an Ex-psychologist, and he is the Director of the Dream & Nightmare Laboratory The DNL, established in 1990, is dedicated to the scientific study of dreaming and its disorders, to the training of graduate students, researchers and health professionals in the techniques and applications of dream science, to the development and deployment of proven methods for treating dream-related health problems, and to public education about the important role dreams and nightmares play in psychological life.

Two books that are mentioned in the show are Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremey Taylor and The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.

We played clips from Because (The Beatles Abbey Road 2009 remastered version) and Dream a Little Dream (official soundtrack for The Undoing).

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on May 15, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

If you want to contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her, contact [email protected], or find out more about her at

Dr. Michelle Carr studies dreams in a Sleep and Neurophysiology lab in Rochester NY where she studies lucid dreams and nightmares. Michelle was fresh from her own overnight sleep study where she was sent flashing lights and an audio signal once she was in REM sleep that triggered a lucid dream. In her lab they are experimenting with a variety of lucid dream triggers. We also talk about sleep paralysis including how common they are (8% of the population, not 25% as Katherine incorrectly states) and how the experience itself can be used to trigger lucid dreams.

Katherine bemoans her own lack of lucid dreaming, and Michelle shares several powerful techniques including her favorite the “wake back to sleep” method in which you set an alarm at 4am, then spend 30 minutes awake before going back to sleep with the intention of becoming conscious in your dreams. We then talk about how active both body and mind are when we are sleeping. We talk about the phenomenon that sometimes people dream that they are lying in bed awake leading them to think that they are having insomnia when they are actually sleeping more than they think. Michelle talks about using lucid dreaming to help people with symptoms of PTSD and about a newly technology called Nightware which nudges people who are having nightmares to help them shift into a more productive dream state without waking them.

Michelle Carr will be the next IASD president. We talk about what that entails and also about her upcoming swearing in during the June virtual conference which you can learn about on their webpage here: https://iasdconferences.org/2021/. Early bird discount available through May 15.

We take a call from Westside Ray who shares what he describes as a wonderful dream in which he gets a beautiful hug from his deceased grandfather which led us into a discussion of how to induce more visitation dreams. Michelle suggests priming the sleeping room with smells that remind you of your beloved deceased.

Bio: Michelle Carr, PhD, is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester in New York, where she works in the Sleep and Neurophysiology Laboratory. Michelle has been studying dreams in various sleep laboratories for the past 10 years; she mainly studies the structure and functions of dreaming – what’s happening in the brain and body while we dream, and how does this influence our waking life? She also studies nightmares, and treatments for nightmares including lucid dreaming. Michelle is also developing a research network in the new field of dream engineering – using techniques and technologies to influence dreams for greater health and wellbeing. She organized a Dream x Engineering Workshop with MIT Media Laboratory in 2019, and was managing guest editor for a special issue on the topic with the journal Consciousness and Cognition. Michelle is also Vice President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and she writes for Psychology Today, and other magazines.

You can find out more about Michelle Carr at the following sites:

TheDreamEngineers.com

PsychologyToday.com/us/blog/dream-factory

Twitter @darwinsdreams

We played clips from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and Daydream Diamonds by Paul Patience which can be found on Sound Cloud here.

Live ambient music by Rick Kleffel.

Show aired on May 8, 2021.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at 

Keith Salmon is a world-renowned nature videographer. He shares with Katherine how he was inspired by a series of distressing dreams to leave his academic job to become more connected to nature. He eventually found his calling as a videographer. We talk about the ability of animals to be present in their environment while humans have been sheltered from the consequences of their actions. Keith brings up the idea of Indra’s net of gems as a way of thinking about this web of natural relationships and says that nature invites us to become a gem in a net of gems.

We then talk about how to work with the animals that show up in our dreams. Keith recommends exploring our own associations and then also to dig into the science around these animals to find out who they really are. There are times when we can follow our dream animals into waking life by visiting their habitats. Keith then shared some of his own stories about following his dream animals into waking life, and we talk about the quality of enchantment that happens as the veil between dreamtime and awake time thins.

We take a call from Sylvia from northern Ontario. She reminds us that we dream not only about wild animals, but also about domesticated animals such as our pets and also talks about how when she dreams for global healing, which is a part of her regular practice, that the dreams that come are often about nature and stillness and peace.

Keith quotes several memorable passages, one from writings by Eagle Chief Letakos-Lesa of the Pawnee People, and one from David Wagoner which encourages us that when we feel lost, we should stand still and let the forest find us. And finally he quotes the following:

“Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,

We played clips from nature sound recordist Lang Elliot: the Cades Cove Coyotes and the Symphony of Loons, both of which are available on SoundCloud.

Bio: Ronald Keith Salmon was raised on a small sheep farm on Vancouver Island, Canada. This intimacy with animals ignited a sense of wonder in the mystery and the miracle of the Natural World. To deepen this sense of wonder, Keith studied animal science at university—where he received a B.Sc. in Animal Science and a Ph.D. in Animal Genetics. After a tenure as a Professor of Animal Biotechnology, Keith’s dreams led him to leave the academic world to engage more directly with the animals and plants who share this planet.