Shadowing Practice: Working with Short Dreams and Fragments - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If you wake up with a very short dream and you think, that's not really worth it, and you don't write it down,

you may be providing a disincentive to your unconscious to help you remember dreams the next night.

So even if it's a little fragment, even if it's just a little bit,

write it down and be prepared to spend time with it because it might really reveal rich insights.

Welcome to this Jungian life.

Three good friends and Jungian analysts, Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee,

invite you to join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.

I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.

I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.

Well, welcome.

We are here to share some exciting news in this episode.

Our book that we co-wrote, DreamWise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams, is coming out in paperback.

It's going to be out in paperback on June 9th.

I don't actually have the paperback yet, so this is the hardback.

But I'm super excited about that.

And in honor of that, we wanted to bring this episode to you where you look at the importance of short dreams.

So I'm thinking like a single image, a dream that you can convey in two to three sentences.

Absolutely.

How many times have we heard and have you out there thought that, oh, this isn't a real dream?

You know, all it was was this little fragment.

Yes.

You know, a little wisp.

And of course, there can be an awful lot in what seems like a tiny little short dream.

So we're going to go take a look at those today.

In DreamWise, there are about 120 sample dreams that we got sometimes from some of you, sometimes from some of our clients, sometimes they're our own dreams.

And we wanted to find dreams that illustrated different principles that we talk about in the book.

But Deb, I remember you and I have this conversation as we went through.

I know exactly where you're going.

That we didn't want just these big, archetypal, very dramatic dreams.

Yes.

And when we were in training, particularly, and studying dreams, some of the books that we had

that were wonderful gave these incredible dreams

that were brilliant illustrations of some point in dream theory or archetypal imagery or something like that.

And so we wanted to make sure that the dreams we selected, that some are like that because that happens.

But most of the time, what do people really dream about?

That look pretty sort of everyday, ordinary, not blockbuster.

But if you take another look and then a look after that, you find real depth and meaning.

Anyway, that's what we wanted to get across with a whole lot of, quote, regular old dreams, unquote.

We did try to make sure that there are plenty of short dreams, ordinary dreams, and dream-wise as well.

And I really love that, the so-called ordinary dreams that have much deeper tap roots, take a little time.

Something is really there.

So we're going to hope that we prove our point here this morning with a lot of short,

short dreams and spiking your interest in taking a look at DreamWise if you haven't done so already.

Right.

And no better time than now because you can get it in paperback, which is good for taking with you to the beach.

I'm not sure it's beach reading, but maybe it is.

I don't know.

In some world.

Sure.

Why not?

But I also want to say, you know, one of the things that we discuss in DreamWise is dream recall, which is a question that we get from lots

and lots of people as they don't remember my dreams or how can I remember more dreams?

And you know, this matter of short dreams is relevant to that.

Because if you wake up with a very short dream and you think, that's not really worth it, and you don't write it down,

you may be providing a disincentive to your unconscious to help you remember dreams the next night.

So even if it's a little fragment, even if it's just a little bit,

write it down and be prepared to spend time with it because it might really reveal rich insights.

And the whole point of the dream work is really fertilizing the connection between conscious and unconscious.

And I think of it as sort of like going down and up, like, you know, easily and fluidly.

And so when you get something that seems like just a short little dream fragment and very ordinary,

It's a connection with the unconscious.

And it is kind of like priming the pump and telling the dream maker, hey, you know, if you send me something, I'll pay attention to it.

I'll take a look at it.

Deb, while you were talking, I had this image of going fishing and maybe you get a very small fish and you're just like, I'm going to throw it back,

you know, which is maybe a good idea if you're fishing.

But I think if you're dreaming, if you've hooked it, reel it in.

Yes, that's great.

Yeah.

So let's look at, speaking of fish, the first dream that we're going to look at is a couple sentences long.

Deb, do you want to read this one?

Sure, this is from a woman who's 34. And here's the dream.

My fiance and I walk into a room to encounter a table where five glass containers with betta fish have tipped over.

I direct us to slowly and carefully write the glass containers, discover any leaks, and feed the fish.

I find later that my fiancé has entirely filled one of the containers with food, thus suffocating the fish.

For context, she says, recently engaged but experiencing doubts in the relationship.

I hope to be a mother someday.

The main feeling, she says, suffocated identification with the fish, worry and fear at first encounter,

and frustration and exasperation at her fiancé.

And she adds some additional associations.

I had pet fish when I was a child, including a betta fish, and enjoyed caring for them.

The wooden stands that the vases sat on reminded me of the base of a crystal ball

that was given to me as a gift.

Huh.

So just to lift this up for a second, This dream is two sentences long.

And I mean, I'm having a pretty big reaction to it.

I could imagine the dreamer might have as well.

So again, just so much rich imagery in two sentences.

So one of the first things I wonder about with a dream like this, and this is something, again, that we give some space to in DreamWise,

is with the subjective versus the objective.

meaning of a dream.

So a subjective interpretation means that we're seeing that the dream is about the inner world.

And most of the time, dreams are about the inner world.

But an objective interpretation, that can happen too, where the dream is commenting on something in the outer world.

It's tricky to know which is which, and sometimes it's definitely both.

I mean, I think there's almost always a subjective component to dreams.

But sometimes a dream is commenting on something in the outer life.

And that usually happens, as we explain in the book, where it deals with someone who's in our life in a very immediate way.

So this is her fiancé, presumably someone very important to her.

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So we might wonder whether there is an objective component to this dream.

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In other words, is the dream commenting on some aspect of her relationship with her fiancé.

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I'm going to back us up to just the facts of the dream.

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So she's with her fiancé, there's a table, and there are five glass containers that contain betta fish,

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and they have tipped over.

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So my first question was, what on earth is a betta fish?

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I thought it was a symbolic meaning.

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Here's the value in really checking the associations.

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A beta fish is a real honest-to-goodness tropical fish.

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So it's a pretty colorful fish.

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There were several examples on Google and I thought, oh, okay.

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And of course, our dreamer says that she had pet fish as a child.

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So there is life experience, attachment, enjoyment, a whole history with just this one image.

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Our dreamy goes in charge.

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She is the one who says to her fiancé, OK, let's get the glass containers right side up again,

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inspect them for leaks, feed the fish.

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and then she discovers her fiancé has filled one of them with food and that has suffocated the fish.

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Hmm.

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So here is some childhood history and an attachment and someone,

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some force has tipped over the glass containers.

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So somebody offstage, some energy, some something has done something that looks like it's very fixable.

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All they have to do is set the containers back upright and put the fish back in.

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And that's the mystery for me in this dream is

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that the glass containers are tipped over and the rescue operation doesn't go well.

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It promises to go well, but it doesn't because the fiancé dream figure kills the fish.

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He's responsible for saving.

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You know, Deb, you're laying it out like that takes me to the dramatic structure of a dream.

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And there's a whole chapter in the book about dramatic structure and how to work with it, how to recognize it.

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And even though this dream is two sentences, there's a clear dramatic structure.

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There's the setting and exposition.

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The dreamer walks in with her fiancé and finds the scene as described.

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Then there's some kind of tension and development.

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She and her fiancé are able to rescue the fish.

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And it seems like that's it, that things are resolved.

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But there's a resolution to the dream that is a kind of negative ending,

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where she realizes later that this fish has been suffocated.

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So there's a sort of reversal in expectations.

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It's like, wow, we have this problem.

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These bowls have been tipped over.

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Let's fix it.

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Oh, phew.

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And then this kind of surprise at the end that you alluded to.

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So even just looking at it through that lens of traumatic structure is revealing.

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So we know what has happened to the dream ego, and that's the subjective level of the dream.

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The dream ego does all these things and discovers that her fiancé has suffocated the fish.

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So we say, well, part of that is our dreamer.

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Where does that reside in her?

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The fiancé is her dream image.

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And it may also be commenting on the outer world relationship with this person.

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But I want to go to the very last thing that our dreamer adds, which is that these vases holding the fish are on wooden stands

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that remind me of the base of a crystal ball that was given to me as a child.

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So what is a crystal ball?

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Well, we look in the crystal ball and it tells us things, especially the future.

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I might think to myself here, as our dreamer has already said, experiencing doubts in the relationship,

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and these bases had crystal balls associated with looking into the future,

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to pay attention to the feelings that she's having.

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Now, they are her feelings, but worth paying attention to.

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Yeah, I mean, I think that's really astute, Devin.

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And I just want to kind of build on that and note that she says, I direct us to slowly and carefully write the glass containers.

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So it feels very much in the scene like she's the very competent one

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and that her fiancé is the one who misjudges and overfeeds the fish.

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And I wonder a little bit, she says that in the dream she felt suffocated in identification with the fish.

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And I wonder if there's any way she's feeling suffocated in the relationship.

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And I thought it was interesting she mentioned that she hopes to be a mother someday, because from just this little dream image of two sentences,

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I think I hear that she's very competent at caring for things.

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And that is also in her association, she remembers it being really enjoyable to care for her pet fish.

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But I wonder, you know, again, if this is kind of an objective dream or if there's an objective element to it.

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I wonder if she has some doubts about whether

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or not her fiance is as competent as she is about caring for things.

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You know, I do just want to say, just to show how we can build this out and build this out and build this out, there are some archetypal resonances in this dream as well.

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First of all, we could go to town with fish, but even setting that aside,

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you know, this image of so much food the fish suffocates, there are some fairy tales that are related to that.

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But one that many people may know is the story of Strega Nona, which was popularized as a children's book.

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And Strega Nona, she's a grandmother witch.

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She has this pasta pot.

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She says, boil, boil, pasta pot.

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Make me some pasta nice and hot.

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And then the pasta pot boils and boils and boils.

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And there's just noodles everywhere that threaten to engulf the town unless you know the way to tell it to stop.

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Well, that's kind of based on a Grimm's fairy tale called Sweet Porridge.

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And it's kind of along the lines of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

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It's a similar kind of mythologem, that there is a porridge pot that will just cook as much porridge as you want.

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It's magic.

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But you need to know not only how to tell it to start, but also how to stop.

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And we can be engulfed and smothered by too much sweet porridge.

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That that's not always what we need.

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That sometimes we need that to stop and we need the opposite of it.

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So that image came up for me as I was reading this dream.

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Well, I'm really amazed as I am every time I encounter a dream of like, wow, look what's here.

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Look at all the richness that's here.

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objective, subjective, fish relationship, mythological fairy tales.

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Shall we move on to another?

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Yes.

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Yes, let's do that.

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This dream is from a 45-year-old man, and he is a machinist.

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And here's the dream.

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I was outside at night beneath the moon near a tree, sensing danger, when a woman dressed in white linen ran by me and went into a cave to hide.

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A voice said to me, That was Thisbe.

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As I awoke, the same strange voice commanded me, Go find your Thisbe.

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And he notes, At the time,

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I was in a fairly intense recovery therapy group trying to figure out my life after it had significantly fallen apart.

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When I had the dream, I had never heard of Pyranus and Thisbe or read the Greek myth before.

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After I woke up, I looked up the story

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and was amazed at how much my dream resembled the story of the myth.

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And he says the main feelings in the dream were wonder, mystery, slight fear that he would never find her,

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lonely and nominous, and that it felt like he was visiting a painting or a work of art,

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none in particular that I can recall.

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So very briefly, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is basically the early version of Romeo and Juliet.

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They were male and female.

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They were in love with one another.

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Their respective families were feuding, And so they were forbidden to meet.

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And they met and spoke through a crack in a wall until they could finally arrange to meet.

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So they had their designated meeting place under a mulberry tree or something like that.

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And Thisbe, the female, gets there first.

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And a lion has been there and had a kill.

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And as she runs past, she drops her veil and it becomes stained with blood.

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And she darts into a cave.

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And then when her lover, Pyramus, shows up, he sees her veil, sees it stained with blood.

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It believes she has been killed.

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So without her, he feels life is pointless and he kills himself.

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and then later, of course, she's fine.

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She comes out, discovers him dead and kills herself.

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Yeah.

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So here we have a dream.

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It's another dream that is two sentences.

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It's two sentences.

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And it's remarkable because it so closely follows this myth.

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I mean, as you were recounting the myth, I found myself smiling actually because my exposure to Pyramus and Thisbe, as I'm sure is true for many people,

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goes back to high school English class when we were reading A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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And there are some very funny scenes where the troop of

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amateur actors are playing out the scene where they talk to each other through the wall.

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So Shakespeare had a bit of fun with it in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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But it's a serious and in fact a tragic story in the Greek myth.

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But this dream illustrates how sometimes when there is imagery like this,

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You go immediately to the collective and the collective wisdom that we find in mythology and fairy tales.

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And these eternal stories from ancient times that Shakespeare had a good time with in Midsummer Night's Dream.

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And of course, he wrote Romeo and Juliet as well.

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So we go right there first, sometimes.

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Yeah, this is a great example of a very archetypal dream.

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And so what is this myth about?

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What can it tell us about what the dream might be about?

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We don't have a lot of context about the dreamer's life, but there's something about the yearning for connection with the anima,

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with the soul, and that there's a danger that you'll miss it, right?

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But that's the tragic irony in this story in Pyramus and Thisbe and, of course, in Romeo and Juliet, is that, in fact, Thisbe is fine.

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She's fine.

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But he missed it.

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He didn't see what there was to see.

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He misinterpreted something, jumped to a conclusion, and total tragedy ensued.

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So there's something about the anima, one's connection with soul, being just there.

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It's just within your reach, but then somehow consciousness doesn't see what there is to see and things go south.

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It's a significant dream, I think, about the archetypal feminine.

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Outside at night, so we're already sort of in the unconscious.

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Beneath the moon, a classic symbol of the feminine.

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and a woman dressed in white linen, very symbolic here, runs by and goes into a cave to hide.

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And I'm really building on what you said.

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And then a voice says, that was this bee, go find your this bee.

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Go do this, don't do.

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Right.

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What Pyramus did and figure all is lost.

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Go after this image.

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Go after this woman.

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Go after your inner feminine.

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You know, Deb, you make a really good point

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because the difference between the myth and this dream is

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that the dreamer sees Thisbe run past him and go into the cave.

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So he has knowledge to what has actually happened and he has the opportunity to unite.

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So I wonder a little bit if the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, if we want to look at it like this, is a story about being kind of tricked by the ego,

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as it were, who makes some assumptions,

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who jumps to conclusions and gets in our way as we're trying to have a kind of inner connection.

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And sometimes we're too smart for our own good or something like that.

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Or we see things and we put it together in what might be a logical conclusion, but it's not true.

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And here the dreamer, again, is able to know that.

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And the voice is saying, go after it.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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It's really a very encouraging dream.

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And here, you know, really the symbolism is not about an outer world figure,

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which seemed like it might be a possibility in the preceding dream.

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This is about finding anima, finding soul, the inner feminine and an inner connection.

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And I love that there is a voice that tells him what to do.

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Yes.

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Go do this.

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We have a section in DreamWise where we talk about what we refer to as dialogue in the dream.

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Sometimes the dream ego, the I in the dream, will make a statement.

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And that can be interesting.

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Sometimes you say something odd in a dream and it's like, why did I say that?

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But it may reveal the attitude of the dream ego

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or at least how what the unconscious thinks of the attitude of the dream ego sort of like, this is what you look like.

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But in dreams like this, which is not uncommon, where there's either a disembodied voice or there's a kind of,

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you know, strange figure who says something that's a little bit mystical or difficult to interpret.

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Sometimes you can sort of assume that that is the unconscious speaking directly to you, of course, in symbolic language.

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And I think we have a very clear case of that here.

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So there are also further examples of that in the book.

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Yeah.

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This is also a dream that really proves Jung's whole theory to

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which he devoted so many years of his life of the collective unconscious.

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Right.

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That there are these inherent mythical sort of patterns in us.

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Our dreamer was not familiar with the tale, but there it is as a universal kind of narrative

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and a voice inside that is in touch with this universal substrata that says,

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go find your thisbe.

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That's great.

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It's a great injunction.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Our next dreamer is a woman who is 44 years old.

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And here's the dream.

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I'm lying exhausted on an island of black hardened lava with ice cold choppy dark water all around.

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My ex and his ex-wife are parading away in a ceremonial way

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while she plays some instrument behind him and rings a bell.

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My feet are bleeding and I realize I can't follow them.

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I lie watching the blood run down my feet while I watch them walk away.

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They don't see me.

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And for context, she adds, my narcissistic ex broke my heart after the most passionate,

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intense, and destructive relationship of my life.

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Our breakup was such a betrayal and shock to my system that I had to undergo something like a catharsis and have,

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since this dream, been going through what I hope to be an important part of my journey toward individuation.

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And she adds, the main feelings were exhaustion that had taken over after deep fury and rage,

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a sense of giving up and surrender because I have no choice.

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She does provide a few more associations.

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she said that her ex she describes him as a manipulative hot,

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older spiritual man who I still love and hate at the same time and she says his ex-wife beautiful,

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creative woman who he betrayed and cheated on for many years, but she doesn't know and now they're besties again,

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and I'm left with this secret of what he did to her and also what he did to me, and I almost died on that island of hard, sharp black lava.

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It was what our love had turned to after the deep red, passionate explosions that it used to be, now deadly if I keep following him.

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The iciness of the water is the shock of betrayal.

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The waters are my emotions, deep, cold, choppy, uninviting.

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The blood running from my feet is a clear and loud warning sign.

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The brightness of the red against my feet and the Black rocks are a loud warning sign to change my direction.

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So it seems like the dreamer herself has some good ideas about what this dream might be about.

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And again, we have three sentences this time.

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A little bit longer.

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It's three sentences.

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So the dreamer is hearing it as a warning.

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I like what she did about the lava.

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That, you know, lava results from a fiery, hot, destructive explosion.

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Yeah, volcanic.

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But then it does harden into sometimes very sharp rocks that are black.

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So I like her.

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I like what she did with lava there, that what she's left with now is this kind of cold, sharp, very inhospitable terrain that resulted from this,

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it sounds like, kind of explosive relationship.

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Yeah.

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So there's the dream setting, which as we can go into more in the book,

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really is a reflective of the psychic situation as it is.

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So that's just literally a hard place,

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hard, cold, unnurturing, exposed place to be.

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And then the next sentence that her ex

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and his ex-wife are parading in a ceremonial way while she plays an instrument behind him and rings a bell.

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So that does look like some kind of a ritual that is going on.

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and then the third sentence

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and the end of our story here is my feet are bleeding I can't follow them

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and watch the blood run down my feet so I think about feet

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and I think about blood I walk barefoot on rocky hard stony terrain

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and your feet will bleed and you don't have a standpoint.

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Shoes often are a giveaway about standpoints, and we get it automatically sometimes when we're people watching of,

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oh, what is on their feet?

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You know, we see some really over-determined shoes or spikes or gladiator sandals or something.

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We get that There's a message there.

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There was a real choice.

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But here our dreamer cannot stand.

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Her feet are bloody and sore and torn up.

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And she can't follow them.

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And there's something she says, she watches while the blood runs down my feet.

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And I watch them walk away.

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Yeah, and I'm thinking of that image of the blood flowing and how that is an image of purification in some sense,

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that sometimes we have to let the blood flow to wash it away, to wash out the wound, as it were.

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You know, there's also another hint in this dream.

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You know, she talks about being on an island of black hardened lava.

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Well, one of the things that can happen with a major eruption is that volcanic eruptions can give rise to new islands.

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And of course, we're very familiar with islands that have been created through volcanic eruptions.

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So an undersea volcano erupts and spills up all of this material,

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and suddenly there's a new area of land.

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and the suffering that we go through,

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that this dreamer is describing and going through this relationship can give rise to new islands of conscious awareness.

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And that is not an easy process and it doesn't always feel good.

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But I do wonder, and the dreamer absolutely speaks to this,

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that this process has awakened something in her,

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awakened a new capacity for self-reflection and a process that is leading her toward individuation.

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So very, very, very hard-won self-knowledge.

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But she is unable to follow them in the dream.

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And they're going off in perhaps some kind of folly-a-deux.

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Yeah.

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And the separation has already taken place.

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They don't see her.

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They don't see the dream ego.

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I'm very taken by the vividness of the imagery of the blood and the bleeding feet on this hard,

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cold, black lava.

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The blood has mythologically often stood for life itself.

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The life force.

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And she's wounded and does not now have a standpoint.

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But I agree with you, Lisa, you commented before

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that she's done work herself on this dream of what our love turned to after the deep red passionate explosions

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that it used to be.

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The shock of betrayal, the waters of her emotions are deep,

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cold, choppy, and the blood a warning to change her directions.

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So the next step symbolically is what will it take for her feet to heal?

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Yes.

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And, you know, she says the feet are a warning.

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I agree with that.

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But I think it could go a little deeper as well.

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I mean, Deb, I like very much your bringing up that blood is associated with the life force.

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And the spilling of blood is also often sacrificial and that something needs to be sacrificed.

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And this may speak to your question about what will allow it to heal, because when we consciously sacrifice something, we create the opportunity for it to transform.

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So if she can allow herself to suffer,

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to have conscious suffering, that will be a growthful and transformational experience.

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You know, I also want to mention, she talks about the water, cold, choppy, uninviting, and she says, you know, these are her emotions, which again, I think, yes,

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and, you know, it could be something broader than that.

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You know, we talk about symbols in the book and the fact

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that a symbol is not the same thing as a sign.

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You can't say cold water equals cold feelings.

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That's too pat and that's too simplistic.

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But Jung did talk about relatively fixed symbols, and there's a section in the book where we talk about that.

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So water, especially large bodies of water, it can be associated with feeling and with the unconscious

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and we just have to be careful about not making it too pat.

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Should we do another one?

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Yes, go for it.

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Okay, this is a woman who's 63 years old and she is a retired project manager.

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And here's the dream.

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I'm on a country road.

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The air around is whitish.

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At an intersection, there's a shrine with the life-sized head and torso of Christ

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that is also all white as if covered in flour or talc.

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He has ropes around his torso.

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One is tightened so much that the Christ's belly starts bleeding.

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His eyes are open.

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I think that was four sentences.

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So very, very striking image, by the way.

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For the context, the dreamer says, I had this dream last year soon before I decided to start therapy again.

428

My husband and I are going through some difficulties and also had recently moved to a place we're not too happy about.

429

The main feelings in the dream, she says, I'm very much a solitary observer in the dream.

430

I'm in a strange land.

431

It's the countryside, but it's rather desolate with no trees and an otherworldly white air.

432

I'm diagonally opposite the shrine.

433

When the rope tightens and the Christ opens his eyes, I feel deep compassion as I can see how much he suffers.

434

His eyes are sorrowful.

435

She says, I'm not religious, though I feel a need for more spiritual life than I lead right now.

436

I'm at many intersections in my life and dealing with different forms of grief.

437

Death of a mother, a friend, left a country I liked very much, etc. So again, I think we're looking at four sentences.

438

And of course, she has already kind of picked up on the image of the intersection,

439

the crossroads, and that she's at some crossroads too.

440

And, you know, the image of Christ on the cross is, of course, an image par excellence of suffering.

441

And she seems to be suffering greatly in many ways right now.

442

Yeah.

443

So we have that image again, crossroads, intersection, Christ on the cross.

444

So here it is, just what she talks about in her associations of being in a difficult marital transition

445

and living somewhere that they're not crazy about.

446

So there is this sort of vague idea of the atmosphere, that it's desolate, no trees,

447

kind of otherworldly, sort of like being in a fog.

448

Here on the Cape, sometimes it's foggy and it's actually pretty well lit and bright and can't see anything.

449

So that's where I went to my own imagination of kind of entering the dream imaginally.

450

And then same thing of this sort of no distinctive features.

451

Everything is white.

452

There's a torso.

453

So, and one of the ropes around the Christ's waist has tightened so much that his belly starts bleeding.

454

And when we might say, and then his eyes open.

455

So blood, as we touched on in the last dream, is often the life force.

456

And here is this dream taking place in a sort of featureless place, no color, no trees.

457

And then all of a sudden,

458

the blood of injury, of wound comes pouring out and adds a dramatic feeling of there's life here.

459

There is suffering here.

460

And there's consciousness.

461

Because the eyes open and we're forever saying eyes are the window to the soul.

462

we see things I see your point consciousness so it seems

463

that when she's in this situation and at the crossroads

464

and sees just a torso but in a shrine

465

so something connected to spirituality then the life comes back as suffering and she feels compassion.

466

And Deb, I just want to lift up what you just did there

467

because you used this construction that we share in DreamWise. When, then.

468

So when Christ's belly starts bleeding, then he opens his eyes.

469

So when there is so much suffering, that actually produces consciousness.

470

And, you know, Jung talks about that all the time.

471

And we just saw that in the last stream, too, that suffering produces consciousness.

472

And, you know, it's so striking because, of course, the head and torso of Christ in a shrine.

473

I mean, I'm thinking of all the things, you know, that you see in churches and museums in Europe and these kind of lifeless, but sometimes quite beautiful figures.

474

But this, as you said, Deb, is alive.

475

there is life here.

476

And it looked quite deadened with this whitish air and the torso being covered with talc or flour or something like that.

477

It was all kind of misty and covered over.

478

But here is something that is vivid and bright red.

479

And then the eyes open.

480

And I'm thinking too that when the eyes are open, there's a chance that she might look into those eyes, that there might be eye contact,

481

there might be a meeting with this suffering.

482

And it also universalizes her suffering.

483

It places her suffering, she's had all of these losses recently, she's lost a mother, a friend, and she's left a country, and she's going through some difficult things.

484

And I think that, you know, Christianity does do this for people, right?

485

Like, if you're a practicing Catholic, you know, a devout Catholic,

486

and you're suffering, you see your suffering reflected in the suffering of Christ on the cross, or perhaps in the suffering of,

487

you know, Mater Dolorosa, his suffering mother,

488

you know, those paintings of Mary with her brows knit as she takes him down from the cross.

489

So that has always been an important feature, I think, in Christianity, is it allows us to experience the universal nature of our suffering,

490

and that dream certainly does this year.

491

Absolutely. And Jesus suffered.

492

It can be very reassuring to know that you're part of a greater human story.

493

Many have trod this path.

494

And we see that in all kinds of dreams, and mythologyms and fairy tales.

495

It's very reassuring to know I'm part of a great human story, not alone in this.

496

And that the point of suffering is to bring greater consciousness.

497

If we can engage it and feel it as hard as it can be, we can metabolize something.

498

We see it.

499

We can bring it inside to serve us and make us more conscious,

500

more compassionate, more aware, which was the point of the crucifixion,

501

followed by redemption, a new life, a greater life, a different life.

502

So I don't know what meaning this dreamer will have taken from the dream, but I hope it is that,

503

that there is life here and suffering.

504

Yeah, and I want to just back up for a second to show, because one of the things

505

that we tried to do in DreamWise was we wanted to really break down the skills

506

that we learned through our years in analytic training

507

and in the years of working with clients and their dreams and find the specific skills that we were sort of practicing.

508

It's a little bit like tying your shoe.

509

You don't even know what you're doing, you just do it.

510

And we wanted to break those down

511

and present them to people who maybe didn't have the background

512

and dream interpretation that we did to make it easier for you to work with your own dreams.

513

So that little technique that you did there, Deb, when then, which by the way, you know, it's not original to us.

514

We do cite the source, one of our teachers in the book.

515

But we go through that technique and how to use it and how to apply it.

516

And we give you some examples.

517

And this was a great example here.

518

You know, when Christ bleeds, then his eyes open and there is consciousness.

519

And you can see how that little technique,

520

assuming that two things that happen consecutively in a dream are causally related.

521

When Christ pleads, then his eyes are open.

522

And again, we give more context to this in the book.

523

But you can see how focusing on that moment led us into some very rich,

524

mysterious territory in understanding this dream.

525

So my hope is that DreamWise is full of these little techniques that are, you know, relatively easy to understand.

526

We've broken them out.

527

We've presented them in very plain language.

528

We give them to you in a direct and straightforward and accessible way.

529

And then if you apply them to your dreams, sometimes they do just what you just did, Deb, which is to really open something up and you can see the deeper levels of meaning.

530

You know, I would like to add, no doubt as a point of pride,

531

that the book in bringing some of these ideas,

532

theory, techniques to an accessible level is also incredibly faithful to Jung's work.

533

he is past master

534

and present champion there are many there are many others who

535

have expanded built on his work at one point i thought i must have read them all

536

but that can't be true

537

but i believe we have been faithful to the master in dream interpretation

538

and what we did was very much like what happened in training where we have all this theory

539

and then we would do case colloquium of, you know, what does this look like in working with a particular person?

540

And that's the gift of the book is the application of these concepts to your dreams.

541

So at any rate, shall we go on to another dream?

542

Sure.

543

Here is...

544

A very short dream, two sentences.

545

This is a woman's dream.

546

She's 36, and she's a therapeutic art facilitator and PA, I guess physician's assistant.

547

Here's a dream.

548

I see a spider web with a furry, dark gray spider that looks almost cute.

549

I'm scared of it.

550

It jumps on me and bites me.

551

In context, she says she's choosing whether to have a second child

552

and choosing a therapy method that I want to study professionally, her first step in therapy education, and whether it's the right time.

553

Choosing what should go first, a baby or my professional development.

554

And she says the main feelings in the dream were fear, surprise, and disgust.

555

And she adds, A cartoon character or my daughter's spider toy.

556

How she loves them and tells me to be brave.

557

Spider felt nice and fluffy like our cat, but I didn't like him.

558

Symmetry.

559

Everything was symmetrical and neat.

560

And so I am taken with these juxtapositions of things that are cute.

561

And what does it mean to be bitten?

562

Yeah.

563

I almost wrote my thesis on bitten.

564

What bites us?

565

And how do we get bitten by something?

566

So I obviously didn't do that, but here's my chance to take another look at a spider bite.

567

Yes.

568

First of all, you know, there are some spiders that are kind of cute, you know, I'm thinking of this one.

569

I mean, it's cute until you realize that it has like 32 eyes or something and then you're like, get out of here.

570

But, you know, sometimes they do look kind of fluffy and I can see it.

571

I can see it.

572

Well, I'm glad one of us can because I'm out yet.

573

This spider is cute.

574

Going to the comment about the spider looking like nice and fluffy, but like our cat, I didn't like him.

575

So I'm willing to grant that in this dream,

576

there is a fluffiness to this dark gray spider, and he looks almost cute.

577

And yet our dream ego is scared.

578

Yeah, and didn't like him.

579

Here's another little rule of thumb that we often use, which is if anything in the dream is wrong,

580

it's likely to be the dream ego.

581

Right.

582

We actually spend quite a bit of time talking about this in the book, because this is one of those, a little bit like when then,

583

this is one of those nuggets that comes in handy a lot.

584

So the idea is if there's conflict or a negative emotion or experience in the dream, try on precise.

585

It's not always true, but it's usually helpful to try it on.

586

What if the attitude of the dream ego is wrong?

587

In other words, what that would mean here is, what if there's actually nothing to be afraid of with a spider?

588

Exactly.

589

And that would lead us to understand the spider bite as something that was necessary, something that perhaps was transformational.

590

You know, when you get bitten by a spider bite, I think, I'm really not an expert on this,

591

but I think there's some toxin that basically kind of starts to break down the tissue. Does that sound right?

592

when spiders, you know, wrap up their prey and inject, I guess they sting their prey.

593

I do believe that it kind of like pre-digests the meal, as it were.

594

So I think something like that goes on, at least with some spider bites.

595

But the point is, when we get bitten, Deb, to go to your question, it changes us.

596

Yes.

597

You know, for me, just the imagery is that something penetrates us and something that is unwelcome.

598

Unwelcome from the perspective of the ego.

599

Exactly.

600

We don't like to be bitten.

601

It breaks the skin.

602

Something goes in that we did not choose and has to be metabolized.

603

Mosquito bites, spider bites, something like a snake bite that maybe can't be metabolized.

604

But something is penetrating and getting our attention and injecting a toxin that we must deal with.

605

Once it's in, it's in.

606

However, This dream just leaves it with the fact that it bit her.

607

And I'm holding the juxtaposition of this sort of association to a kitten, a cat, nice and fluffy,

608

and almost looks cute, with spider.

609

And, you know, dream ego says, ooh, spider is bad, spider is scary.

610

So what has bitten her?

611

That to me would be the question of what has come in, punctured the skin in her system?

612

What happened here?

613

And she says, choosing whether to have a second child or do some study about therapy and develop her professional career.

614

Right.

615

What is she getting bitten by?

616

One of the things that came up for me when you were talking, Deb, is that there's something about cute and cat-like that is,

617

it's a little dismissive.

618

It's like we don't, things that are cute, we don't take them very seriously.

619

You know, it's like we minimize the gravitas, let's say, of the spider.

620

It's like, oh, there's a spider, but it's cute.

621

It's fluffy.

622

We're kind of minimizing the potential of, I mean, archetypally, boy, if we wanted to pull out the archetypal resonances of a spider, we would be here all day.

623

You know, interestingly, it's associated with creation because a spider spins a web.

624

Spiders are sometimes trickster figures in some mythology and fairy tales.

625

And also spiders can be associated with the great mother.

626

so we could spend a long time talking about what the spider might mean archetypally

627

but to say that it's cute minimizes its significance so i wonder

628

if there's something very big coming up

629

that she wants to sort of imagine the drink the attitude

630

of the ego is to want to make it something cute and fluffy and kind of manageable like a house cat.

631

But it's not.

632

But it's something that's a bit more unpredictable than that.

633

It can't just be patted on the head.

634

And it has something for her that it needs to deliver.

635

Yeah.

636

I am putting this together with choosing whether to have a second child.

637

The child she has daughter.

638

The daughter has spider toys and says to her how she loves them and tells me to be brave.

639

So I'm again holding that tension between the tendency, as you're saying, to minimize it.

640

It's soft and fluffy like a cat with the fear and the being bitten.

641

And is it like a child's toy and her daughter tells her to be brave.

642

So what needs to be faced here in a way

643

that is not either too much kind of glossing over

644

and minimizing it and neither is it too much fear that's out of proportion to a relatively small creature.

645

I have this temptation.

646

I wish I could say, oh, the dream means, you know, which one of these life choices to make.

647

Right.

648

But what I think we can safely say is something is really getting your attention.

649

Yep.

650

And asking to be understood as you work through this dilemma of which direction is right for you.

651

And, you know, the last chapter of DreamWise is about active imagination.

652

And I think if I had a major decision to make and I had this dream, I would want to sit down and have a conversation with that spider.

653

And in the book, we provide some very, I think, clear examples and illustrations of how to do exactly that.

654

How to talk to your inner spider.

655

How to talk to your inner spider.

656

That's right.

657

And see what it, he, she has to say.

658

Yes.

659

And it will.

660

Mm-hmm.

661

So the book is DreamWise, Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.

662

We wrote it.

663

It's been out in hardcover since November 2024, and it's out in paperback on June 9th.

664

So we feel like it's always been accessible and clear.

665

That was one of our goals.

666

And now it's even more accessible because now it's a paperback

667

and you can throw it in your book and take it on your summer travels.

668

So we hope that you will buy many, many copies and share them with all your friends

669

and tell everyone how much you love it because we're very proud of it.

670

So thanks for joining us today.

671

Thanks for listening.

672

To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic, or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisjungielife.com.

673

If you enjoyed this episode, give us five stars and a good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

674

Subscribe to our YouTube channel and make sure to click the notification bell to be alerted whenever we upload videos.

675

And keep up with all things TJL by following us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok you

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52 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Working with Short Dreams and Fragments”. This video has 675 sentences and 8041 words to shadow. The speech runs for 59:13. The speaker talks at a steady 136 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
dreamer noun	/ˈdɹimɚ/	One who dreams.
unconscious adjective	/ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/	Not awake; having no awareness (usually as the result of a head injury).
container noun	/kənˈteɪ.nəɹ/	An item in which objects, materials or data can be stored or transported.
lava noun	/ˈlɑvə/	The molten rock ejected by a volcano from a vent such as a crater or fissure; magma that has breached the surface of the earth.
myth noun	/mɪθ/	A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are…
archetypal adjective	/ˈɑɹkɪtaɪpəl/	Of or pertaining to an archetype.
suffocate verb	/ˈsʌfəkeɪt/	To suffer, or cause someone to suffer, from severely reduced oxygen intake to the body.
torso noun	/ˈtoɹ.soʊ̯/	The main part of the (human) body that extends from the neck to the groin, excluding the head and limbs.
paperback noun	/ˈpeɪ.pɚˌbæk/	A book with flexible binding.
bleed verb	/ˈbliːd/	To shed blood through an injured blood vessel.
subjective adjective	/səbˈd͡ʒɛktɪv/	Formed, as in opinions, based upon a person's feelings or intuition, rather than upon observation or purely logical reasoning; coming more from within the…
imagery noun	/ˈɪmɪd͡ʒɹi/	The work of one who makes images or visible representation of objects.
boil verb	/bɔɪ(ə)l/	To heat to the point where it begins to turn into a gas.
choppy adjective	/ˈt͡ʃɑ.pi/	Having many small, rough waves.
crossroads noun		A place where one road crosses another; an intersection of two or more roads.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
run down verb		To hit someone with a car or other vehicle and injure or kill them.
break down verb		To stop functioning.
run past verb		To bring an idea or proposal to the attention of (someone) in order to obtain their opinion.
walk away verb		To withdraw from a problematic situation.
bring up verb		To mention.
come back verb		To return to a place.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I know exactly where you're going.
I'll take a look at it.
Deb, do you want to read this one?
Shall we move on to another?
Should we do another one?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to be
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	haven't done · you've hooked · have tipped
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was given · is set · are tipped
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	paperback, which is · recall, which is · one who says

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 108 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: myth /mɪθ/, otherworldly /ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: unconscious /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/, shrine /ʃɹaɪ̯n/, intersection /ˈɪntəɹˌsɛkʃən/, passionate /ˈpæʃənɪt/, reassure /ˌɹi.əˈʃʊɹ/
Long words — get the stress right: archetypal /ˈɑɹkɪtaɪpəl/, intersection /ˈɪntəɹˌsɛkʃən/, ceremonial /ˌsɛɹɪˈməʊnɪ.əl/, disincentive /ˌdɪsɪnˈsɛntɪv/, metabolize /mɪˈtæbəˌlaɪz/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dreamer, unconscious, container.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Working with Short Dreams and Fragments - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?