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Mimi explores dreams about babies and pregnancy. You will hear 15 dreams from real dreamers (including a couple men!), with dream interpretation examples. Even if you don’t have any baby dreams, this show will teach you a lot about how to explore and interpret the meaning of your own dreams by the examples provided.

For a full directory of The Dream Detective Podcast episodes, click here.

Links & Credits: International Association for the Study of Dreams.
Dream narrations and music: 1) “Get Rid of It” read by actor/voiceover artist Alyson Bedford, music by Lobo Loco Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND 4.0) 2) “I Dropped the Baby” read by Alyson Bedford, music Siddhartha 3) “Baby Avery” read by and music composed by Catherine Hildebrand 4) “Pod Baby” read by and music composed by podcaster Devon Trube. Check out his podcasts: Fabled, Streamer’s Guide to the Galaxy, he is also on Instagram & Twitter @fabledpod for both 5) “Touch & Pain” read by Monique 6) “That’s Your Kid” read by Alyson Bedford, music by C.K. Chang who is also on YouTube and Soundcloud 7) “It Gets Scary” read by Alyson Bedford 8) “Alternative Universe World” read by Monique, music by Devon Trube 9) “Pregnancy Test” read by Alyson Bedford, music by C.K.Chang 10) “Breast Feeding” read by Alyson Bedford 11)”Boyfriend” read by Donna from Renton, music by C.K.Chang 12) “Blondeheaded Baby Boy” read by Coach Katherin 13) “Vomit” read by and music composed by Catherine Hildebrand 14) “Wendy’s” read by actor and voiceover artist Amber Wolfe, music by Siddhartha 15) “The Sorcerer” read by actor/comedian/voiceover artist Vince Valenzuela, music by C.K. Chang

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Dave and Mimi talk about what it’s like being an empath, including health, healing, relationships, and managing energy. Dave Markowitz is a medical intuitive, and the best selling author of 3 books on empaths, including his latest book ‘Empathipedia: Healing for Empaths and Highly Sensitive Persons’.

For a full directory of The Dream Detective Podcast episodes, click here.

Ask The Dream Detective: from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal

HEART SURGERY DREAM

A 26-year-old woman had the following dream:

“I was awake and having heart surgery. The man performing the heart surgery had longish hair and I didn’t know him but I know that the heart surgery wasn’t what I wanted and that he was a bad man taking advantage of me. I didn’t want what he was doing to me but I had no choice because he literally had my heart in his hand and now I needed him to replace it or put it back. He replaced it with I think another heart or the same one I’m not sure and attached it into my chest. He attached it on my right side not my left. When it was over I was walking through hallways. The heart was beating very strong. As I looked down the heart (on the right side of my chest) was protruding. It was still under my skin but it was pumping out of my chest. I had to hold it in my hands, kind of covering it in order to protect it.”

For this dream we are going to take a special look at how language can play a role in understanding the meaning of our dreams. As always, dreams are usually more symbolic than literal, and it is when we get caught up in the literal that we get stuck in a limited view of the dream. Language is a reflection of our experience, and in this case it will help us to access the dream’s symbolism and meaning.

In the dream a bad man is doing something to the dreamer that she doesn’t want him to, and he’s doing it to her heart. Does this sound like anything familiar, outside of actual heart surgery? I don’t need to go very far before you can connect the meaning yourself, and realize that this dream was not about the physical act of heart surgery, but symbolic of her emotional experience in a past relationship. When looking at the dream through this lens, we can re-examine the language she uses:

• “(It) wasn’t what I wanted”
• “He was a bad man taking advantage of me”
• “I didn’t want what he was doing to me”
• “I had no choice because he literally had my heart in his hand”
• “Now I needed him to…put it back”
• “I had to hold (my heart) in my hands, kind of covering it in order to protect it.”

In waking life the dreamer had been in an abusive marriage, and though she had left him some time ago she recently made it official by filing for divorce. She was in the process of taking back control of her life and described herself as the happiest she has ever been.  At the time of this dream she was in a new, much healthier relationship, and studying for a career that she feels passionate about. So why then, when things are going so well, would she have a dream like this?

Even though filing for divorce was a very empowering maneuver, it caused some of the old painful feelings she experienced during the marriage to resurface. And though she had done a lot of healing, she was still in the process of fully reclaiming her heart. In the dream she states that she needs the man to “put it back” – ’it’ being her heart. She was still reclaiming the final pieces of her own heart after being wounded in the painful marriage. When she described the heart protruding from her chest and her need to protect it, though she found the imagery a little disturbing she also marveled at her ability to protect herself despite what had happened! It also gave her a new level of awareness as to how she might navigate the new relationship in a way that didn’t cause her to block her heart from the love that was now available to her.

The fact that she was awake during the surgery may be symbolic of her realization that she was awake, i.e. aware, of what was happening in the bad marriage as it was taking place. A dreamwork technique known as re-scripting can be very helpful here. This involves re-writing the dream story to have a more favorable outcome for the dreamer. If she were to imagine a new story line for this dream she might consider the fact that since she was awake she could stop the man entirely from performing the surgery in the first place. This could then become a great personal symbol and example for how to stop negative situations and relationship patterns from happening, by not putting her heart into the hands of people who do not hold her best interest. In this way she would be protecting her heart in an even more effective manner than at the end of the dream, so that the damage to her heart does not occur in the first place. Examining who she shares her heart with, and connecting with her ability to exercise personal power and say ‘No’, can play a huge role in solidifying her new ability to bring healthier and happier people and relationships into her life, and keep the toxic ones out.

As always, our dreams love us and want the best for us in all areas of life, especially when it comes to love and relationships. Pay attention to the messages from your dreams, they are one of the best inner guidance systems we have.

Ask The Dream Detective: from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal

Have you ever dreamed that someone was breaking into your house? This is quite a common dream theme and can be very scary since most people fear that their dreams are literal. The good news is that usually they not literal, but symbolic. That said, even though the dream might not mean an imminent home invasion, it still contains a very important message and paying attention to it will benefit the dreamer greatly. To illustrate this universal theme and its meaning, here is a specific example in the form of a dream sent to me by a 27-year-old woman in Malaysia:

“I am in a house – my house in the dream but different than my real home – and I discover that the roof has a hole in it. Two men come in through the hole, and I tell them ‘Don’t do that!’ They don’t listen to me and come in anyway. Eventually they go outside to meet their friends, and some of them are wearing security uniforms. They don’t seem to want to hurt me, they just seem to want to have fun with their friends. They didn’t steal anything from me, so frustratingly I let them go.

Then I look up at the roof of the house and realize it is made of bag material, like from a school backpack, instead of roof tiles. I can see the sky through the hole in the roof. I also discover that I have an attic and there are men dwelling inside it! I ask my mom what they are doing in my house but she ignores me and just keeps doing her thing. I also remember walking through the house and noticing that some of the walls were cracked. The house was overall not in good condition and in need of some fixing.”

Through working with the dream, it became very clear to the dreamer that she was having boundary issues, especially with men. The dream outlines how men are invading her energetic field, symbolized by the house, and how she feels powerless to do anything about it. Her cries of ‘don’t do that!’ are ignored. When the men go outside she says they don’t seem to want to hurt her, and they didn’t steal anything, so in frustration she just lets them go and they get away with the invasion. As if breaking and entering weren’t enough!! In waking life this mirrored a relationship pattern with men where they would violate her boundaries and she would find ways to minimize, justify, and discount the impact of their actions – thereby minimizing and discounting her own power and violating her own boundaries in the process. Doing this was a natural repeat of what had been modelled for her growing up, as her family dynamics were a world-class training program in ‘how to get your boundaries violated’.

In the dream, some of the men were wearing security uniforms. While security guards are normally associated with protection and safety, these ones were more concerned with having fun with their friends. The dreamer’s association to this was that she did not feel emotionally or physically safe with unknown men. It seems also that the security guards slacking off could have to do with a lack of sense of safety and protection from the men in her life, as well as her own lack of self-protection in terms of setting and enforcing clear boundaries.

Even the dreamer’s mother is of no use when it comes to support or protection. In the dream, the mother just ignores her daughter’s concern over the invasion. The dreamer shared that her father was very volatile and abusive while she was growing up. When he wasn’t lashing out with his explosive temper, he was ignoring her and the rest of the family. She said she never felt safe at home. Is it any wonder that someone who never felt safe at home would have a dream that their home was being broken into? Not everyone who has this dream theme has this history, but in her case it was a relevant reference to how she literally felt at home.

And with parents who ignored her in waking life, her dream objections to the invasion being ignored are also very telling. It’s no leap that her current relationships with men are suffering as this is the relationship template she was provided by her family. At the end of the dream she describes the house having some cracked walls and needing some overall repairs. Walls can be symbols for barriers or boundaries, and this was another layer of symbolism reflecting the need to ‘fix and repair’ her boundaries as well as invest more in her self-care.

The dreamer really ‘got it’ when working with this dream. She said that she had always felt guilty when setting boundaries with her family and with men, and this dream helped her to see that it is a healthy and loving thing to do for herself. She felt a sense of relief at the idea that it was not only OK, but necessary, to have these boundaries for her personal growth, self-love, and sense of safety in the world, as well as in order to create a healthy romantic relationship in the future. Our psyche always knows where we need repairs, and will show us through the mysterious world of dream stories.

If you have a dream you’d like to share, contact me about private consultations  or the podcast.

Ask The Dream Detective: from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal

CHEATING DREAMS

A 36 year old woman had the following recurring dream:

“I’ve been having dreams over the last 5 years that my husband is cheating on me. He is a really good guy and gives me no reason to suspect that he actually is, but when I wake up the dreams feel so real it scares me and I don’t know what to do.”

Dreams of being cheating on are quite common, and like with this dreamer they can make us feel very scared when we wake up, or very mad at our partner even though they didn’t actually do anything! Since the dream had been recurring for 5 years, I asked this dreamer if anything had changed 5 years prior, since recurring dreams are usually linked to something in our waking life. She said that was around the time he took a job requiring a lot of travel. By doing some more detective work we sleuthed that the dreams did indeed correlate with his business trips, either while he was away or about to leave. Dreams of cheating usually indicate that we are feeling cheating out of time with our partner. His travels became ‘the other woman’ in her dream world. Working with and understanding these recurring dreams, and sharing them with her husband, prompted them to plan special ‘date nights’ and carve out more time together while he was in town. This both reassured her psyche and fortified their relationship. After this awareness, and the consequent action they took to remedy the situation, she no longer had the recurring dreams even when he left town.

In another version of the ‘cheating dream’ sometimes we are the ones doing the cheating! For example, a different woman had a dream that she was cheating on her boyfriend. She had recently taken up a new hobby and was spending a lot of time in classes and practice groups for her new interest. Her boyfriend was not only fine with it, he was very actually very supportive of her pursing a passion and he enjoyed her newfound enthusiasm. However, she had some old programming that said it wasn’t OK to take care of her own needs while in a relationship. These old messages triggered feelings of guilt, which then created the dream story of her cheating on her boyfriend. We are all living unconscious stories that can be very strong drivers for how we run our lives. When we break the script of our story, even though it may be in a very healthy way, it can feel like we are doing something ‘wrong’ even though it is very right in the sense of enhancing our quality of life and our sense of connection to self and other. This dream brought to light her old programming and caused her to re-evaluate it, while at the same time it prompted her, like the previous dreamer, to add more quality time with her boyfriend to her busy schedule.

While these dreams may cause us to wonder ‘is my partner really cheating?’, or ‘am I a bad person for dreaming that I cheated?’, usually this dream is a metaphor. If you have reasons to believe your partner is actually having an affair, then do your homework to find out the truth so you can either put your mind at ease or make the necessary decisions to address the situation and take care of yourself. However, in the majority of cases this dream is a symbol of feeling like something is interfering with the relationship, but that something is not necessarily another person.

Whether it is our self or our partner who is the ‘cheater’, anything that feels like it takes away from our relationship can translate to the symbol of cheating. Factors such as working a lot of hours, caring for a family member, excess time spent on electronic devices, even physical or mental health issues such as chronic illness or depression can feel like they are taking away from our relationship. Our dreaming mind cares deeply about our relationships, and will show us when we need to tend to them to fulfill our spirit’s longing for connection. If you have this dream theme, consider it a message to explore the ways in which connection may have been compromised, and use it as a catalyst to repair and spend more time with the person you love.

Ask The Dream Detective: from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal

THE JESTER, PRINCE, AND KING DREAM

A 17 year old woman had the following dream:

“I dreamed I was dating a jester and he loved me, but I didn’t like him at all. Then I dated a prince and he loved me and I loved him back. But then a king came along from another kingdom, and I left the prince for the king. The king loved me but only when I did what he wanted. Once I didn’t do what he wanted, I had to earn his love back but the prince was still hoping for my return and still loved me.”

This dream reminds me of the story of the three bears. When Goldilocks tries their porridge one is too hot and one is too cold, but the other is just right! On one level, the story in this dream is a reflection of a young woman finding her way when it comes to selecting an appropriate romantic partner. When discussing the dream, she described her ex-boyfriend as looking like the jester! According to her, he was somewhat immature and a bit of a class clown who seemed more concerned with what other people thought than with standing up for his own values and beliefs – or for those of his girlfriend. He would spend his energy trying to please outside people, even if he didn’t know them, rather than pleasing her or making her a priority. When we side with the waiter, for example, over our partner, when the waiter brings the wrong order, we are discounting the person we supposedly care about the most and placing a complete stranger above them. This is a recipe for relationship sabotage. According to top relationship expert Stan Tatkin, one of the keys to making a relationship work is to put each other first before any outside parties, and – get this – to treat each other like king and queen! No wonder a jester didn’t make the grade for her.

In the next part of the dream she dated a prince and the love was reciprocal. How nice! Finally, a good match. But then she left him for the king, who’s love was unfortunately very conditional. He only loved her when she did what he wanted. When we explored this dynamic, she had not actually had a boyfriend like this…yet; though her programming would likely lead her to one as this conditional approach to love was very reminiscent of her father. When she got good grades, and met with his approval she felt loved. But when she didn’t live up to his expectations he could be very disapproving and she felt like she had to earn his love back, just like she did with the king in the dream. She never felt loved or OK for just being herself, and always felt like she had to ‘perform’ to get his acceptance. Is it any wonder then, that she found a boyfriend who himself was a performer (symbolized by the jester in the dream) in the form of the ultimate people-pleaser?

This brings another layer of meaning to the dream, as we are very holographic creatures. If we look at the dream from an intra-psychic perspective (i.e. within her own psyche) we can see the jester not only as her ex-boyfriend, but as an energy within her own self that she was embodying. By jumping through every hoop her father expected her to, attempting to constantly please him rather than living true to her authentic self, she was embracing the energy of the people-pleasing-performance-oriented jester. In the dream, she eventually rejected the jester, as she did in waking life when she broke up with the jester-like boyfriend. To continue on the intra-psychic layer, the relationship with the prince very likely represents her connection with her true self, finding what she loves, and loving herself. She had glimpses of this feeling when involved in an extra-curricular school activity that she loved. She found that when she was enjoying her natural talents and interests and being true to herself she was able to connect with others on a very authentic level. She was able to make some great friends and get a taste of being liked for just being herself. However, the old patterning soon took over and she ditched the activity she loved to pursue an interest of her father’s, after much pressure from him. This is depicted symbolically in the dream when she leaves the prince for the king. Meanwhile, the friends that she made while participating in the activity she loved were beckoning her to come back, as was her soul! This is shown in the dream by the prince still hoping for her return, as well as his continued love for her.

What an intense dream. What seems like a short little fairy tale on the surface has so much to say not only about the dreamer’s romantic relationships, but about her connection to her true self. And when we shift the energies within our self, the energies of the outside world, including our relationships, shift as well. All her life, this dreamer had felt afraid of losing her father’s approval, and sacrificed her own desires to please him. The few times she did pursue her own interests were met not only with the external disapproval of her father, but an internal sense of guilt that she was doing something wrong because of his reactions. Working with this dream helped the dreamer to see these dynamics and gave her the validation, confirmation, and permission she needed to pursue that connection with her authentic self without guilt, which would then allow her to have a balanced romantic relationship and friendships as well. Long live the prince!

People often wonder when they dream of being romantic with someone, does it mean it will really happen? Whether it is an ex, a co-worker, or someone they have a crush on, this question can be very perplexing. The more intense or vivid the dream, the more it bothers us. It can also make us feel very awkward next time we see the person from our dream, even though they have no idea about it!

Kissing and sexual intimacy in dreams are symbols of connection and passion. So we look at who the dreamer is connecting with and what qualities that person represents to them. Then the dreamer can contemplate whether they currently are, or would like to be, connecting with those traits within themselves or in their life.

Sometimes these dreams can be about rehearsing what it’s like to be physically intimate with someone, and especially young adults will experience this before their first kiss. Whether or not it will happen with the person they dreamed about is not necessarily determined by the dream. However there are many documented cases of someone dreaming about their future partner before they actually meet them. This is not the most common thing, but it has happened many times, and I wonder if more people remembered their dreams perhaps we would hear even more cases reported.

Sometimes we dream of making out with someone we would never consider as a partner (casual or long-term) in waking life. We may even find them the complete opposite of attractive! At least on the surface. Whether the person is someone you know, a celebrity, or something in between, look at what that person represents to you and how you might be connecting with those traits (the ones you like) within yourself.

Many romantic dreams have nothing at all to do with actual romance. In that case look at what the dream has to say about your other passions in life such as your creativity or life purpose. Other dreams that do not contain elements of romance with another might actually have profound and meaningful insights about our relationships. The dreaming mind wants us to be happy and fulfilled, to live our purpose, and to love deeply. Listening to their messages can enhance both our quality of life and our relationships with our selves and with others.

Dream: ‘The House Break-In’

A 42 year old man had the following dream:

“I recently had a dream that my house was being broken in to. I was in the kitchen, my wife and kids were in different rooms of the house. I heard a noise and realized someone had broken into our house. I moved toward the invader and started to tackle, when I suddenly realized the intruder was a woman. I woke up very confused.”

Dreaming of a home invasion is a common theme. While houses or homes can represent different things in dreams, within the context of this theme the home is usually a metaphor for our private life. The invasion of the home is symbolic of feeling like our private life is being ‘invaded’ or threatened by an outside force. When we look at who or what is doing the invading, we have a clue in the direction of what energy is violating the work-home boundary. For example, if someone dreamed that their boss broke into their house, it would be very likely that matters related to the person’s job were encroaching upon their personal life. Working too many hours, thoughts of job related stress, or even working at home – yet feeling cut off from the family or a personal life – could all be triggers for this type of dream, resulting in the symbol of a work related character (the boss in this example) becoming the perpetrator.

Typically we think of home invaders as men, so this dreamer was particularly surprised by the fact that the intruder was a woman. By working with the dreamer and asking him some questions about what the symbolism represented to him, he made the connection to the idea that he had been considering having an extra marital affair. Our dreaming mind cares intensely about our personal relationship, love, and our connections with others. His takeaway from the dream was that while the temptation of an affair appealed to his libido, there was a deeper part of his psyche that perceived the threat to his family life that it would create. It was this part of his psyche that created a message to send him in the form of this dream.

We also looked at the symbolism of the dreamer being in the kitchen, and the fact that the rest of his family members were each in different rooms of the house. To him this was symbolic of how he was not only feeling disconnected from his wife and children, but that they were all disconnecting from each other in waking life. This reflection caused him great sadness, as it had not always been that way and he longed for the connection they used to feel together. He contemplated that perhaps this was the reason he was seeking affection elsewhere. By gaining the conscious awareness of what his subconscious mind was showing him via this dream, he decided not to have the affair. He decided instead to devote his energy to reconnecting with his family, and finding ways to bring them together emotionally and physically by spending more time together.

Somehow if a co-worker had given this dreamer the same advice, it likely would not have landed in the same way as when it came from his own psyche. The dreamer was profoundly moved by the message he received from his own mind. Such is the magic of working with dreams.

I am often asked if it is true that every aspect of a dream represents some part of the dreamer. The answer is both yes and no. Yes: the characters and even the objects or settings in a dream can represent various parts of our selves, and this is a fascinating way of looking at a dream that can reveal some of our deepest truths. And, No: sometimes a dream interaction with another person is there to shed some light on our actual relationship with that person. Can it be both? Yes. Even if the dream is showing us about our relationship with another person, it can be enormously beneficial to look at that person as if they were a part of us. Doing so can greatly enhance our understanding and the quality of our relationships.

This is where dreams, and the human psyche, are very holographic. Each of us has within us all the qualities of humanity, whether or not we express them. So whether we dream of an interaction with our brother, boyfriend, boss, spouse, friend, or foe, we can gain powerful insights about the other person and our relationship with them. At the same time, by empathically merging with our perception of another person we learn amazing things about our self in the process.

One way to experience this is to have the dreamer speak as a person or character from the dream. A dream worker may facilitate the process by asking questions of the dreamer, as the dreamer imagines embodying the dream character and answers as that person. Another way, coined by Fritz Perls, is to have the dreamer sit in one chair as his or herself, and begin a dialogue with the dreamed about person, imagining that person sitting in an empty chair in front of them. Then the dreamer moves to the empty chair and answers as if they were the other person. The dreamer can move back and forth continuing the dialogue until some kind of resolution is reached. If we look at the dream as intrapsychic – meaning that all the characters and elements of the dream represent part of our self – this process facilitates integration of internal conflicting parts. When we are not at war within our selves, it is much easier to have peaceful relationships with others.

Either of these methods of dialogue may be done with the dreamer imagining they are another person from their dream, however the dreamer can also embody the role of an object, animal, or setting from the dream. Any of this can also be done to facilitate a deeper understanding of our waking life relationships, whether or not we recall a dream to work with.

This technique of taking on the role of another person (or object or setting) is only one of many different ways of working with dreams to understand their meaning and the messages they wish to convey to us.