My guest this week is the charismatic Kathleen Duffy, psychotherapist, dream analyst, and author of Awaken to the Wisdom of your Dreams. Kathleen is well-known in the field of dreamwork within psychotherapy practice and regularly runs workshops to share her own wisdom and experience on this fascinating topic. 

I had the privilege of chatting regularly with Kathleen over the years about analysing dreams, and I’ve always been drawn to the curiosity of this other realm and all that we don’t fully understand in our conscious mind.  So, when Kathleen agreed to join me on the podcast, I was so delighted.

We get personal as Kathleen unpacks my dream! We don’t go too deep as it was a pretty vivid and personal dream, but it helps to demonstrate the process of how to recall your dream in the morning, and then how to figure out the message your subconscious mind is trying to resolve for you. 

Kathleen demonstrates how Gestalt therapy works by asking me to move from describing a favourite pair of pants, to me becoming the pair of pants! Sounds odd, but it works! The exercise really hit home for me as it pinpointed so many significant symbols that were relevant to me this week in particular. I don’t share them all, but you can hear from our interaction, the exercise hit home! 

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• The first person to bring psychotherapy to Mayo!
• Letting go of the conscious mind (ego, left-brain), into the subconscious dream world (creative, right-brain)
• We need to listen to our dreams, information is trying to bypass our busy, distracted, conscious mind 
• "Sleep on it" ... bringing balance to the (rational) left & (irrational) right side of the brain 
• The function of dreams is to bring balance to the psyche
• Theorists of the dreamworld: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and then Fritz Perls & Gestalt Therapy 
• The 'wisdom' of our dreams - our dreams are more than the limitations of our conscious mind 
• Connecting Jung's dream symbolism and free associations with a LEGO Serious Play Workshop!
• Bert Hellinger's group work: Family constellations and the wisdom of the collective unconscious - stepping into an intuitive realm 
• Guiding steps from Kathleen's book to help you recall your dreams
• Kathleen demonstrates how we can analyse our dreams, using a dream I shared from the previous night
• Dreams brings to us whatever it is we are denying during the day, to balance our psyche
• Why do we have recurring dreams? 
• Jung's Universal and Personal Archetypes or Selves
• The dreaded 'Leaving Cert' dream!!
• Is Deja Vu connected to the dream world? 
• Linear versus non-linear time 
• "I am a purple pair of pants!" ... Kathleen demonstrates Gestalt therapy on me

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Kathleen's book website: http://www.awakentoyourdreams.com/about
• Family Constellations Ireland: https://www.familyconstellationsireland.com

_______________________________________________________
Subscribe to Journeying YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/3jLTdaq
Rate & review Journeying podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/journeying/id1529912826
Like Journeying Facebook Page: https://bit.ly/33kp4bU
Visit the Journeying website: https://journeying.me/
Instagram: @journeyingpodcast