What Your Dreams Are Telling You- with Theresa Cheung | EP 463

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Hi there, I'm Brian D Smith, and welcome to Grief 2 Growth. And whether you're tuning in for the first time, you've been walking this path with us for a while, I'm truly grateful that you're here. The show is all about helping you navigate the challenges of life with more clarity, purpose, and hope. Together we explore life's biggest questions: who we are, why we're here, what happens when we die, and how do we make the most of our time while we're here. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome someone who has spent decades asking and helping others answer these and other profound questions. My guest is Teresa Chung. She's an internationally renowned author and spiritual thought leader known for her bestselling books on dreams, spirituality, and the paranormal. She's been named one of the 100 most spiritually influential spiritually influential living people. And you may recognize her from appearances on ITV's This Morning, the BBC, or her own podcast, White Shores. In today's episode, we're going to dive deep into the mysterious and often misunderstood world of dreams. Why do some dreams feel more real than waking life? What can recurring dreams and even nightmares teach us about our deepest fears, our desires, and our spiritual paths? Therese will help us decode the messages that our subconscious and and possibly even non-human entities might be trying to communicate through our dreams. We're also going to explore her thrilling debut novel, Nightborn. It's a chilling tale that blurs the line between waking life and the dream world. As we talk about the science, symbolism, symbolism, and future of dream manipulation, Theresa raises some fascinating and maybe even a little frightening questions about the direction our technology is headed. So if you've ever had a dream that haunted you for days, or if you're curious about the deeper spiritual and psychological meaning behind your sleep time stories, this is the episode for you. And always, after you listen, I invite you to continue the conversation at my Substack at grief2growth.substack.com. You'll find an article there about today's episode and conversation with other listeners. So with that, I'd like to welcome Teresa Chung to Grief 2 Growth.

Thank you, Brian, for that wonderful introduction. And it's my honor to meet you because I have long admired your work. And I believe we spoke a few years ago, actually. And I'm just in awe of how you've grown your platform form and all the healing and hope and comfort you are bringing across the globe. Thank you. It's absolutely my honor to be on your, your show. Thank you.

Well, that's, that's very nice to hear. I appreciate that very much. So, Theresa, I know you've done a lot of work over the years, but I think this is your first novel. Tell me what inspired you to write a novel.

Yeah, I am— I always say, I jokingly say, I'm not a serial killer, I'm a serial author. I have been extremely blessed to be given the opportunity to publish non-fiction title after non- fiction title in the area. I'm best known for dreams, but actually people who follow me know I write about astrology, manifesting, rituals, angels, the afterlife, near-death experiences. There's very few topics there isn't a Teresa Chung book out there about. So real— really blessed to be in that opportunity. But I have been writing since the late '90s in this area. Um, it was my daughter actually who inspired me because she's a bookworm. She absolutely passionate about books, and— but it's all fiction. Gothic romances and everything. And I've tried to encourage her to read nonfiction and she's just not interested in it, especially 'cause her mom does that. I realized that she was, you know, there are many people like that who won't necessarily engage with a nonfiction title. It's just not their vibe. 'Cause fiction is such a huge potential readership. And I'm passionate as you are about getting this spiritual message across about dream decoding being a very important part part of our lives. And I thought, well, why don't I try Dan Brown style, you know, to write a thriller about the dreaming mind so that the novel can be read on two levels. On the first level, hopefully it keeps you on the edge of your seat. And the reviews coming in, you know, um, have been that it— yeah, it's a page-turner, it's very fast-moving, and you want to know what happens to the main character who suddenly wakes up one day and everybody's dreaming about her. She's a psychology professor deep into Jungian theory, etc. Um, she wants— and The novel is her journey of finding out why on earth is she the subject of global nightmares, even people who don't know her. So you can read it on that level, but on another level, it's a subliminal messaging. As you read it, you'll be getting a crash course in how to recall and understand your dreams and then use them for your personal and spiritual growth. So you can read it on two levels. So I hope subliminally fiction readers will also go away knowing more about their dreams. And actually, again, the feedback I'm getting, not only is the shocking cover, for some reason people find it very shocking and disturbing. It's visceral reaction to it. You either love it or hate it. People seeing that are actually waking up the next morning and having more dream recall on their mind, which is what I want. And the same for the people who read it. I want people who read this book to wake up the following morning or the mornings after with wild and wonderful dreams. And gratitude for them on their mind. Wow.

Wow. So when it comes to dreams, you know, there's, there's different, uh, thoughts of dreams. Some people think it's just our subconscious reorganizing things. And, uh, but obviously you think dreams are much more than that. So what would you describe dreams as being? What are they here to tell us?

They hold up a mirror to your current mindset and what it is attracting into your life, both positive and negative. That's what they are. They kind of like offer you almost like an Akashic Records, a snapshot out of your current mindset. And that is so important because in our waking lives, many of us don't really know what we truly, deep down at our core, at a soul level, think or feel. But dreams, they don't lie. They are your best friend. And you often think dreams happen to them. They don't. Dreams are created by you, for you, and they're all about you. And that can be both liberating and terrifying because often in dreams we come up close and personal with our deepest, darkest fears. Of the unknown, of the mystery of life itself. And that's why so many, I believe 95% of our dreams are anxiety-themed for that reason. Because a lot of us during the day don't want to confront that. We distract ourselves with the noise and the bustle and the busyness of life and the material distractions. Our waking lives are outside in. But at night when we fall asleep and dream, the material world is paralyzed, logic and reason disappear, and what we are left with is the part of our brain that is pure intuition, pure creativity, but also pure compassion and empathy. And connect into that, almost like when we recharge our phone. I believe the reason we sleep is to dream because we need to go back and reconnect with where our soul currently is to get a snapshot of where we currently are and what our current mindset, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, our words, what they are attracting into our lives. A lot of people get scared about that and think dreams, oh my goodness, if I dream something awful, it's going to happen. Well, potentially dreams do showcase a potential future if you don't course correct a certain mindset. But it's so liberating 'cause dreams also show, if you wake up with a dream and you feel really unpleasant and you didn't like what you felt or saw, this is a wonderful transformative gift 'cause it's your opportunity to, take some time out, meditate, reflect on what you're thinking, feeling, doing, and saying, and think about what it is attracting. And if you don't like what that dream showed you it could potentially attract, you have the choice and the power to change the potential future you might be attracting in your dreams.

Interesting. That's a really interesting way to look at it. 'Cause I know, as you said, a lot of people, they'll have a dream of something, a future event, and they think this is bad, I'm bringing this into my life. But you're saying it's an opportunity to course correct.

Course correct. But also dreams, speak in this bizarre, weird, dark symbolic language. Dreaming Mind is a frustrated artist. You know how artists and poets, they don't actually say literally what they mean. Right. You, as the art critic, the poetry analyst, have to read it and then go beneath the surface. A great work of art will not be just the picture. It will be what it stirs inside you and the meanings that you dig deep beneath it. Exactly the same with the poem. We all had poetry analysis at school. Some of us were better at it than others. First time you read the poem, you think, "I do not understand a word of this." But then the teacher would come in and tell you about symbols, about metaphors, about association, about figurative language, about pathetic fallacy, you know, when nature mirrors the mood of a character. And then you would suddenly get in a eureka moment, and I get what the poet's trying to express here. In wonderful— it's the language of visionaries. And even if you don't think you're creative or artistic or poetic in your waking life, in your dream state you are. You are the ultimate visionary, the ultimate poet, the ultimate artist. We all have night vision, and it breaks my heart that people don't understand that about dreams. There's so much fear and misunderstanding about them, just as there is about the afterlife. And my role is to try and remove that fear, translate it into excitement, because they are really powerful self-help tools for your personal and spiritual growth if you know how to work with them.

Yeah. And you mentioned something earlier about, uh, percentage of dreams that are anxiety-laden. And so I'm glad to find I'm not the only one because my dreams are— they're all about me being lost.

They're—

I'm usually— I'm, I'm like, I'm in a place, I don't know, I'm trying to get somewhere, I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what time I'm supposed to be there.

I love that about you because you have to be lost before you find yourself. And your dreaming mind is showing you all these scenarios and wanting you to rejoice in being lost, as hard as that may be, because that's what life is all about. If we all know all the answers and we found the, you know, the destination, our journey on Earth is over.

Yeah, yeah.

The journey on Earth, as I'm sure you know, it's an Earth school. It's constantly being lost. And in that losing, opening your mind to a new perspective and finding a new direction to head down, it's all about the journey, life. And people always think we've gotta have the answers, it's all gotta be neatly tied up. And that's why I go back to the poetry analogy again. Poetry doesn't make sense, and that's the whole point of it. Your dreams aren't supposed to make sense.

Yeah.

They really aren't. They're supposed to make you fall in love with the questions and to ask better questions next time. You know, not necessarily to constantly get so obsessed with answers. And, oh, that's all sorted. Because answers, actually, if you look at, um, brain research, when people are given answers, their brain kind of quietens down. But when they're given a question, all the brain lights up in a way that it doesn't when you get an answer or one that satisfies you. So please, if you're listening, just fall in love with those words, what if. Make those your mantra. And get comfortable with life being a question mark. Because an analogy I often use is we know why a woman cries in pain when she gives birth to a child. So we're not that overly concerned unless it's extreme cases. So we kind of like a bit nonchalant, aren't we? Because we know it's just part of the process. Imagine we knew that about everything in life, the reason for the suffering. Wouldn't we just walk on by? Wouldn't activate our compassion. Our empathy. And empathy and compassion are also why we're here on this earth, not only to be curious and open-minded and loving, but also to have empathy and compassion. I would not want to live in a world where everybody was nonchalant because we knew why all bad things happened. What a horrible world to live in. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. You know, one of the hardest things about grief Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning.. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grieftogrowth.com/substack. .com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. Yeah, that's a really interesting point, you know, because I was just listening to a podcast earlier this week. It was Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, and he was talking about whenever we're presented with a problem, let's say, we always we always look for— we— the human mind says, let's find an answer to it. We've got to, we've got to solve it. And the older I get, the more I realize it's like we're not going to have all the answers, you know, while we're here. There's some things that are just— they're paradoxes. They just don't seem— they're never going to make sense, I don't think.

Yeah, but it's like life is experimental. I mean, I work with scientists and neuroscientists, learned a lot from their approach that they don't think of experiments that don't give the results they hope for as failure. They just see another learning experience.

Right.

Informs them moving forward. And everyone, we've all faced heartache, disappointments, setbacks. If you could just start thinking of this is just more wisdom, this is just helping me evolve, everything, lesson or a blessing, is helping me evolve. It's a wonderfully liberating way to live. And I think that is spiritual awakening when you get to that process. And dream work, One of the reasons I'm so passionate about promoting it is dream work is the first step. Because when you start writing down your dreams and thinking about the meanings and the questions and the emotions they trigger and the insights, you are starting to discover that life is an ongoing learning adventure.

Mm-hmm.

You have night school and you have day school. Fall in love with that learning process. You are really awakening spiritually when you don't even realize it. Every dream decoded is a kind of a mini spiritual awakening because it helps you understand yourself better. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of problems in life are people not really understanding what they're all about. You know, I think the journey to self-awareness is the first starting point for personal and spiritual growth, and that self-awareness will hopefully in time You'll find compassion for yourself. You'll understand with your self-awareness why you messed up, why things didn't work out, why that person right for you, why you lost someone, why all these things happen. So you've got your self-awareness, then hopefully self-compassion, and then the Holy Grail, self-belief, that you believe that things happen to you for a reason and a purpose and a higher meaning that you may not understand right now, but you will one day. And I think self-belief is where we've We've all got work to do for various reasons, childhood trauma, what's happened to us. A lot of us lack self-belief. But that's, I think, that's where we need to get in life is self-belief. That even if I'm messing up or getting it wrong, I still believe in my soul, my soul's journey. And it doesn't matter because I'm learning. And in some ways, you know, with my novel at the beginning, I'm not a fiction writer. I'm fully aware of that, opening myself up for criticism. But I'm not doing it for that reason. I'm doing it because I believe in my message about mainstreaming dream work, and this is just me trying in another way. You know, I've launched a new radio show with UK Health Radio as well, weekly live show, which is terrifying. You know, I get people calling in to decode their dreams live and have special guests and stuff. Again, that may not work out. My novel may not work out, but I don't see any of them anymore as disappointments if they don't. I just feel that, something I'm passionate about, and I will learn and grow through them. And I'm sure you found that in your life when things don't work out or whatever, somehow other doors open and other connections form, and it's following that invisible thread that your soul wants you to be on.

Yeah.

It's like that, 'cause dream, every time you have a dream, you're reminded that there's more to you than your body. 'Cause we, mysterious world where you go in the dreams, it feels so real, doesn't it? And it is real because it's you in another state of consciousness.

Yeah, you know, it's weird. Every once in a while I'll have a dream and I'll become lucid in my dream, and then I'll just become fascinated by— I've created all this, and I can feel the sunshine on my skin, and I'm— I mean, I can feel that brick wall, and it's like, this is— it's really, uh, a strange feeling when that happens.

You're reconnecting with the sacred part of you, your soul. And it's sad, actually, when people do become lucid, a lot of those first response is fear and panic and the dream collapses. Mm-hmm. It's, you know, the more meditation you do during the day and the more during the day that when things trigger you, you learn to stay calm, take deep breaths, do meditation, the more likely you are in the dream state when you suddenly become aware you're dreaming to stay calm too and keep the dream alive. And it's a very, very powerful thing, lucid dreaming. And I would encourage anyone who does wake up in their dream, not wake up, become conscious in their dream, they know they're dreaming. When they're dreaming to actually say, well, I want to now, I wanna see myself happy and fulfilled. I wanna see myself doing what I want to do with my life. That is so powerful because the brain doesn't know the difference between the sleeping, the dreaming, and the waking state. And if it sees that happening in the dreaming state, it will believe it's real.

Mm-hmm.

And again, going to self-belief. So when you wake up, you've experienced it in the dream state, a part of your brain is taking it as fact. And that's tremendous power because we talk about manifesting, the power of positive belief to attract into your life what you want. So if you've dreamt something, you really can do it. That sounds very Disney cliché— if you could dream it, you could do it— but you can, because a part of you, your deep core unconscious part of you, has seen it happen, believes now, believes fully in it being possible for you. You believe something's— truly believe something's possible from you, from the deepest level, right? It's so much more likely to happen. It's so much more powerful to dream you can do something than to do your affirmations and your visualizations. That's outside in. Dream is inside out.

Yeah. Now, you mentioned earlier that a lot of times people think that dreams happen to them, and you're saying that we create our dreams. So is there a way that we can work on creating the dreams that we want?

Yes. First of all, make your life an open-minded, curious one. Do meditation, that— because meditation taps into the intuitive and creative and dreaming part of your brain. Meditation is key, and it doesn't have to be hours. I often speak to people who meditate for hours, and I think, who's got time for that? Just a couple of minutes a day where you go into that observer role. Meditation really is stepping outside of yourself and noticing but not identifying with your thoughts, and we can all do that. And we do actually do it in the dream state because dreaming really is meditating when you're asleep because you're going into an observer role and you're seeing symbolic reenactment of your current mindset. So do that more during the day. Read more poetry in the day. Practice the dreaming state, the language that the dreaming mind loves. Read more fiction. Listen to music that gives you goosebumps. All these things which immediately connect to the dreaming part of your mind. Do more of that during the day. And above all, start believing in the possibility of your dreams and that dreams matter. Because if you don't believe in that, or you're still conditioned with the old-fashioned— and it is very old-fashioned— view that dreams are random firings of the brain, I would like you to go and look at the latest sleep and dream research, which shows that dream recall is a sign of a very, very creative and active brain, and it's a sign of holistic well-being. So you want to look at that research. And even some sleep scientists are now saying the reason we fall asleep is not to rest, because when we are asleep, our body moves and our brain is active dreaming. It's not to rest, it's actually to dream. They don't know why we dream, but dreams seem to be fundamental for concentration, for memory, for emotional wellbeing.

Yeah.

Even if you can't remember your dreams, you are dreaming 5 or 6 times at night. You're just not recalling it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know there are some people that say that they don't dream, but that's just not true because if you don't dream, you actually go insane.

No, we are dreaming beings. I mean, if you don't dream— brain scans show that every night at least 5 or 6 times we dream, right? You've just got into the habit of not recalling them. The inner housekeeping is happening every night, but your dreaming mind, the recall's not happening 'cause your dreaming mind is a bit despondent because you've so, for many decades, dismissed your dreams as being important, right? Or not taking them seriously, it's very hard for them to break through that mindset barrier. So you've gotta, you've gotta release that. I mean, it's a bit like a friend who constantly texts you and you never text back. After a while, that friend's going to get a bit like, well, they're not interested. You could think of your— personify your dreaming mind like that. Think of it like someone who's trying to talk to you every night, a therapist who's offering you golden, precious wisdom, but you're just not noticing it or paying attention to it, after a while it's gonna kind of like get despondent. You need to actually reassure your dreaming mind that it matters, that you're taking it seriously. And listening to this interview, because we're focusing on dream work, may well do the trick. I really hope everyone who listens to this interview wakes up with a dream on their mind, simply because for whatever time this interview runs, we've been talking about dreams. So where your attention goes in the day is where your energy flows and what shows up in your dreams at night. So pay attention to what you're doing in the day. Before you go to sleep at night, tell yourself, I'm gonna have a wonderful dream. Take me away, dreaming mind. Beam me up. And I'll remember it in the morning. Then in the morning, don't immediately jump out of bed. Ideally, I'd love you to wake naturally because alarm clocks are the enemy of dream recall because the transition from dreaming to waking is too sudden. No. You need to enjoy those liminal states, those powerful hypnagogic states. And it's only 1 or 2 minutes. Love people to train themselves to wake up naturally because your dream recall will just flower. Hmm. And when you wake up, ideally naturally, stay still for 1 or 2 minutes. It's all it takes. Check in with your heart and your gut because intuitive memories from your dreams are often buried there. And just see what images and keywords surface. And as soon as one does, sit up and just write them down. Now, in the morning we're all busy, we can't write a novel, because sometimes dreams are so incredibly detailed. You know, you can understand why they've inspired novels like Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Stephen King's novels, Dan Brown. You can understand why, you know, dreams have formed the basis for many great works of literature. In fact, actually, if you are a writer and have a creative block, just write down your latest dream. You will immediately connect to the part of your brain that's intuitive and creative. So, so, um, just write down a few keywords like, I don't know, whatever you dreamt about— window, road, dog, I know, whatever. That's enough. Those 3 symbols are enough. And then leave it. And then later in the day, start doing some free association around those symbols and see where you can apply it to your waking life. But don't just do it for one dream. I often tell people, don't start decoding your dream until you've got at least 20 You need to use the benefit of hindsight with dream work. That's a really neglected thing that people don't do with their dream work. They get hung up on one particularly vivid, colorful dream that stands out and just obsess about that. But your dreaming mind is working on your behalf every single night. It's like a long-running TV series that you've gotta tune into every night. And if you miss an episode, that's sad 'cause you might miss a key part of the plot.

Mm-hmm.

Whatever mundane your dream is, write them down and gather, harvest, as I say in one of my titles, harvest at least 20 dreams. Then start doing your dream decoding. See if you can detect patterns and themes. Also see how your dreaming mind has been like a poetic voiceover to your waking life. And you will see it's parallel you. You will see the journey of your soul commenting on your waking life. You will see it. Because people are very skeptical about their dream work and have come to me and saying, this is all nonsense, it's imagination. I always say the same, come back to me when you've had 20 dreams, sign and date, date them I mean, because I need the date. Mm-hmm. And give me a few key events in your waking life that have gone on at the same time. We then have a conversation and in all cases they've gone away with a totally radically transformed view about their dreams. Mm-hmm. And how their dreams are trying to point out areas in their waking life or mindsets that are no longer serving them. And that's why so many dreams are anxiety ones. Or areas in their life that are really precious and important and true to their values that they are neglecting in their waking life because their ego, logic, and reason and the material world is too noisy.

Mm-hmm.

For the intuitive creative part of you to, to, to say, scream to you as it tries to in the day. It does try to. This matters for your heart, your heart, for your soul's journey, but you're not paying attention to what truly matters. So it has to resort to the dream state when the material world is quietened down.

Yeah, thank you. That's, that's interesting. So, um, we've been talking about dreams and we talk about, you know, a lot of mine at least are anxiety-filled, but there's also what we call nightmares. What, what purpose do nightmares serve?

Well, nightmares are just extreme dreams. People think they're different. They're basically when your dreaming mind has reached a point where it has sent you the rainbows and the unicorns and, and thing, and, and the, the being late for an appointment or forgetting your lines on stage or being chased or being late. It sends you these dreams night after night, but you're not, you're not paying attention to them. So what it will do it will use tough love and resort to shock tactics. Because one thing is guaranteed with a nightmare: you are going to reflect on it.

Oh wow.

Yeah, yeah, you are going. And that's all your dreaming mind wants. It wants that connection with you. It's crying out to be embraced and to be loved. It's, it's your soul calling you. And sometimes it will use vampires or serial killers or scenes of execution or violence or cheating or things that you would never contemplate doing in your waking life. It will do that for one purpose and one purpose only: to get your attention.

Wow.

Go away and reflect on where you currently are with your mindset. That's all it wants.

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty wild. Because, well, another thing I want to ask you about is, you know, in the— when we're in our dreams, some of us believe we're actually leaving our bodies, we're visiting the astral planes, etc. And we have sometimes we have dream visits with our loved ones who have passed over. But every once in a while, someone will have a dream about their loved ones passed over that's a negative dream or as a nightmare. How would we talk about that?

That is difficult because afterlife dreams, for when they're positive, are very healing for the grief. Yeah, they remind you that death ends a life and not a relationship. If it's negative, I would suggest that this actually is more going into the symbolic category of dreams rather than afterlife one. You've got to look at the symbolism depart— what your departed loved one is saying about an aspect of your own personality. This is more about your personal growth, in my humble opinion. It's not actually— but your dreaming mind is resorting to using the avatar of a departed loved one to say, look what's going on in your mindset. So think about what that departed— don't think about them. I know that's hard, right? About who they are, but what what keyword do you associate with them, and how are you expressing that in your daily life?

Yeah.

Go away and work on that. It's all about Jungian— it's very Jungian. It's about projection and integration and all that, um, which is a very, very deep psychology. But if it's unpleasant— because I believe the afterlife is always elevating and empowering— and if you get an afterlife visit from a departed loved one, it should raise you up. If, on the other hand, it drags you down, this is time to look at what's going on in your own mindset. This isn't about the departed loved one. They have become a symbol. Just like, for example, a rainbow is a symbol of hope. Right. Or a snake is often a symbol of transformation. You've got to think, what has my departed loved one— what symbol have they become? And what does it say about my current mindset? That is a symbolic dream. It's not in any way saying that your loved one is unhappy. It is just your dreaming mind using their disguise to tell you something important for your personal growth. The other more positive afterlife dreams are spiritual experiences. I believe dreams are a powerful afterlife sign. Mm-hmm. And there is research into that. You know, from the University of Northampton here in the UK to show that afterlife dreams in, I think it was over 90% of cases, really helped the grief journey when all forms of other grief therapy didn't.

Yeah. You know, I, I think I can see how that would be true. I know that, uh, a lot of times when people, the, the thing that people seem to cherish more than anything when they have a departed loved one is that dream visit. Visit. You know, people say, I, I, I want the dream visit, I want them to come to me in my dreams.

But if they don't, please don't despair. They are coming to you in other ways. They are coming to you in memories during the day. They are through potentially afterlife signs or synchronicities, or that song you hear on the radio that, you know, they have chosen. It's, it's, you know, it's their choice. They have chosen not to do the dreams for whatever reason, I don't know. But they will be alive around and within you in other ways. So please feel like a failure, or it's disappointing, or they don't want to talk to me. Absolutely not. They've just decided that a better way to reach you is through signs, through the people you meet, through words you overhear, through music that gives you goosebumps. Then they're alive. Through a sudden memory you have when they jump into your mind for no reason. These are very subtle afterlife dreams, just as dreams Nocturnal dreams are subtle signs as well.

Yeah.

They could do it in so many ways. And they also may not do it because they think, you know that I'm alive, you know that I haven't gone, that my consciousness lives on, you know that. And I'm not going to, you know, pamper you. You've gotta get on with your precious life, learn what you've gotta learn. And, you know, death is just a heartbeat away. Time doesn't exist on the other side. From all my research with mediums, and I'm sure you do, time doesn't exist. It's an illusion. Um, and, and they're, they're busy learning and growing because the learning doesn't stop on the other side. They've got things to do. Yeah.

Well, you know, and I, that's, I appreciate that because that's why I try to encourage my, my clients to understand. It's like the dream visit is nice, but it's not the be-all and end-all of, you know, there, there are, they come to us in many different ways, and there may be reasons. You may be a person that doesn't recall their So they may have come to you and you don't remember.

Or they have been there. Maybe they've been knocking away for night on night and you just not anything, right? Yeah, that is maybe you haven't recalled that. I hadn't thought about that before. That's beautiful, Brian. Thank you.

And I also tell people, be careful what you wish for. I, without revealing, I have clients that they just want to have that dream visit. And then I have one just recently. That had the dream visit and got very frightened because it was, it was so real that it was, it scared them.

So, um, fear to excitement. I'm sure you told that, that this is, this is, you've got to, when you feel fear, it's where your growth is. Go where your fear is.

Yeah.

Um, because it's where, it's a signal that there's growth on the whole.

Yeah, that's, that's an excellent point. Yeah. But there's this phenomenon called the This Man Phenomenon, I guess. I hadn't heard of that before. Tell me about that.

Inspired my novel, really. It was, I think it was 2008, where, um, a marketing company put up a very sort of generic image online of a male and said, so many people are dreaming of this person. Have you met this man? And of course, in our dreams, we've all met strangers. And the, the sketch was so generic. What— it caught on. It became a phenomenon that thousands of people were across the globe were dreaming of this man, and there was a website set up. But it actually turned out to be a marketing hoax. It showed the power of suggestion and subliminal flashes, but also it tapped into the appearance of a mysterious stranger in our dreams. I mean, all of us have had dreams where there are people in it we don't know who they are. You know, but we know—

oh, absolutely.

Yeah. And who are they? Because they're all, they're all aspects of our own personality, our side, our inner child expressed again symbolically. But the dreaming mind in its cleverness makes them feel so real. So that, that actually did inspire Nightborn, really, because I was thinking, you know, imagine if you're, you're a, um, a psychology professor and you're deep into Jung and the idea of projection and the power— you know, dream work is used in Jungian psychology, Freudian dream analysis— and suddenly you wake up and your pupils are saying, "I've dreamt about you," and then strangers are saying, "Oh my God, I saw you in my dream last night," and then it starts to escalate. What is going on? Why have you become an archetype of the stranger in people's dreams? And what power have you got over people's minds then? Because if you are moonlighting in people's dreams, you have tremendous power.

Yeah, that's right.

And, and can you trust yourself with that power?

Yeah.

That you become the most famous and the most dreamt about person on the planet. You've kind of got people at a soul level. Yeah. Um, and I just thought, I, oh, this is a gift. Uh, I kind of thinking this is a movie. Come on Netflix. I live near Netflix actually. I can see Netflix. I, I live close by. Hmm.

Wow.

Because it would be a great way to mainstream dreamwork and capture people about the potential power of dream hacking and subliminal flashes. When you see an image, it imprints and then it shows up in your dreams. I think that's a really untapped area of mind control that we need to be careful about. Just imagine we all start dreaming of the same things or subliminal messages get inputted into our dreams. Now, this was explored by, um, uh, Christopher Nolan, of course, in the movie Inception.

I— when you— I was just thinking of Inception.

Yeah. Yeah, of course it is. Um, Christopher Nolan, interestingly, he does not use a mobile phone, stays away from that distraction, and is a vivid lucid dreamer. Plots come to him in his dreams, and you can see that, uh, all his movies, so creative, so rich in powerful dream symbolism. Yeah, you know, but again, you know, if anyone wants convinced about the power of the dreaming mind, Theory of Relativity, everyone. The inspiration from it came to Einstein.

Yeah.

In a dream, because when he was awake, logic and reason stopped him making creative connections. But in the dreaming state, as I said, logic and reason don't exist. You suspend disbelief. And when you are in that state, you can make wild connections and leaps of faith you simply can't do when you're awake because your logic and reason won't let you.

Yeah, I heard, I think it's true, that when, when Einstein was stuck on a problem, he would go take a nap.

Yes, yes, yes, he would. And actually, napping is a great way for dream recall because it's fascinating. When you nap, it's like the body knows you're not going to go into the deep stages, the non-dreaming stages of sleep. You're not going to go there. So what it does— this person wants to be restored, so I'm going to give them what they really need, which is a dream. Mm. So you go in that light stage of sleep immediately, which is REM, which is where most, not all, but most dreaming occurs.

Yeah.

And that's why you feel energized after a nap. It's not because you slept or rest, it's because you dreamt on it. And the same when you go to sleep at night. People say, oh, a problem will be better in the morning. It often is after a good night's sleep. It's not the sleep, it's the dreaming.

Yeah.

The work's been going on behind the scenes, whether you recall or not. So if you do wake up in the morning with a solution to a problem, or you just feel a bit lighter and better, it's the dreaming that's behind it. All that work, all that intuition, creativity, empathy, and compassion working on your behalf, trying to help you evolve. It happens, people. Every night, dreams happen.

Yeah. No, you know, as you were saying, I was thinking, you know, sometimes when I'm meditating, I will— I guess I wouldn't really call it dreaming, but I'll start to— I guess it is kind of dreaming, you know, even though I'm not really asleep.

Meditation, like, actually is dreaming with your awake. It's the same, like, when you, you get lost in a work of fiction. That's dreaming with eyes wide open. Meditation is a way to dream. You're absolutely right, because again, you go into this observational stance where you get an overview of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and words, but you don't identify with it. Think of every dream, actually, when you write it down, as a kind of a meditation in the morning.

Yeah.

That you're rising above, you're getting a snapshot. So yes, meditation is dreaming, in my humble opinion, but conscious dreaming. It's a kind of almost lucid dream when you're awake.

Yeah, that's a really good point. Well, Teresa, I know you have to go, so I wanna, honor your time, but, uh, tell us a little bit more about the book and where people can find it. It's out now, right?

It is out now, and thank you so much because I'm most well known for my many, many, many, many, many nonfiction titles. I'm very blessed and privileged. I never take that for granted to write book after book in this area. And more coming out this next year. I had about 6 books coming out this year. I'm very blessed. Interesting. But all my nonfiction publishers, Harper, Hachette, the ones that I work with, I said to them, I want to write a novel, and I thought that they would maybe help me, but they put me in a box. And often in life you get that when you struggle to be different, people don't like it.

Exactly.

And they just raised their eyebrows and went, no way. So very kindly, an independent publisher took pity on me. And this independent publisher I'm very grateful to. They have been sending authors to my podcast over the years. So we had a rapport and they said, let's take a leap of faith in you. So they very kindly allowed me to be different.

Yeah.

Like it's interesting actually, because Nightborn is actually about being different because the lead character, Professor Alice Sinclair, who is a psychology professor, she has different colored eyes and she hides that behind a pair of blue lenses. So it's all about, you know, when you feel different or you're outside the box and learning how powerful actually being different is and being true to who you are at a soul level. Because dreams, again, are so honest. They never lie to you. They want you to know who you truly are and to love the messy, the ugly, the good, the bad, all of it. 'Cause all of it is the bigger picture, the tapestry of you that you need to just understand and have compassion for and see it as part of your soul's evolution. So the book's about that, you know, and— It's out there in the world. And you know, you're an author. When you put books out, it's like, um, a baby, isn't it? You have to just let it fly and it finds its readers. I mean, the people who have read it have been like, oh my God, this is wild. But I'm remembering my dreams. Thank you. So, um, I hope people who are meant to read it— I think that with every book, that a book will find its way to who needs to read it when they're open to it. I truly believe that actually. That's why I actually struggle with, I'm much happier talking to you about dreams than pushing a product. I've always struggled with that throughout my writing career. My publisher hate me for it. I often tell people that my dream dictionary, which is my HarperCollins one, you know, my publisher say, "Will you stop saying that?" 'Cause I say to people, "Actually the best dream dictionary is the one you write yourself." 'Cause your association becomes before the archetypal and the common. Saying that, but I do. I, I very much believe the books will appear when you're ready. And I love the fact that my books have appeared in dentist surgeries or left on the tube, and people have contacted me like that. I love that. Maybe I'm like symbols. So I hope Nightborn will appear in the lives of people who are ready to really— who are ready to dare to dream. Yeah, to dream so big.

Well, I think it's great that you're doing that crossover to reach the fictional, because I'm the opposite of your daughter. I don't read fiction. I only read nonfiction. So this will be the exception for me when I get out there.

Okay, well, brace yourself. It's weird. It's dark. But please love it, everyone. Yeah.

Well, Teresa, again, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure. Love to have you back.

I'd love that. Thank you, Brian D Smith. Privilege to talk to you. Thank you.

All right. And people can reach you, it's theresachung.com, right?

It is. I'm on Instagram as well, @theresachung.

All right, cool. That'll— the links will be in the show notes. All right, well, enjoy the rest of your day, Teresa.

Sweet dreams, everyone. Bye.

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