Children’s Dreams: A Well Of Wisdom

​This topic is very important to improve communication and the relationship with our children in general, because according to the results of Dr. Cindy Sauln’s research, there are many messages and messengers hidden in the dreams of children. In addition, this podcast talks about the connection between the emotional state of children in relation to the meaning of their dreams, having in this way a master class on the influence of dreams on our children, and how to treat them as parents.

Transcript

Living in harmony is possible if you know your emotions and how to handle them.

I am Dr.

Carmen Roman and I will share with you the current psychology by myself or by interviewing experts who will inspire you.

Learn how to live a life of fullness and how to recover your emotional harmony.

Welcome to Emotions in Harmony.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for being in contact,

Sending your emails or your texts.

Thank you.

You really inspire me to keep going.

And today,

This is one of our listeners and also my wonderful,

Very dear friend,

Dr.

Cindy Saul.

She is going to talk to us about children's dreams.

I am very excited about this interview because we have fun doing it.

We learn a lot.

I like,

I always like to listen from this topic,

From Cindy.

So she already promised to do the second part of this and I think we really need it.

Enjoy this first part.

Dr.

Cindy is a licensed psychologist,

Clinical psychologist in Redwood City,

In California.

She has her doctorate degree from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.

She also has an advanced training in existential humanistic therapy and spirituality issues.

She also has training in therapy,

Social DVD and CBT.

Of course,

She has a lot of training in dream studies.

This is her passion and mindfulness practices.

She worked with teenagers,

With adults of all ages.

She has been working with children in the past.

And also in her past,

She has 25 years of experience as executive in the computer industry.

She did that while she was raising her family.

So that helped her to understand her clients.

With no more introduction,

Here you have this interview with Dr.

Cindy.

Enjoy it.

I am so happy to bring you this guest,

Not only because she's a woman that I really deeply admire.

And I am in love with her work,

With families,

Children,

Teenagers,

But also because I love the topic.

I am waiting for it.

Talking about children and dreams.

You don't hear that often.

So you will hear everything here in the Emotions in Harmony podcast.

Welcome,

Dr.

Soln.

How are you?

I'm well,

Carmen.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Please,

Of course,

Call me Cindy.

Yes,

I will call you Cindy.

So Cindy,

Tell me a little more about you so our listeners can get to know you.

Sure.

Well,

I know you've already mentioned that I'm a therapist who works with primarily these days with teenagers,

Adolescents and adults.

But I have had an interest in dreams for many years,

Which started actually with my own spiritual dream as a child that had a lot of meaning for me.

And I actually talked about that in my research that I had a dream about a guardian angel.

And it was at a time when we were moving around a lot in my family and the presence of that dream actually was very,

Very comforting to me.

And came back to me when I started looking at my dream,

My dreams about 10 years ago.

And through that process of examining that dream,

I started paying a lot more attention not to my just to my own dreams,

But also to my children's dreams and the dreams of kids that I was encountering in my clinical practice.

So I started wondering and being a lot more curious about what happens with children's dreams.

Do they make any meaning of their dreams?

Who's listening to their dreams?

And what might we do with it?

And that led to my research.

So I actually did my dissertation research on children's dreams.

I met with 33 kids and collected about 75 dreams and did some in-depth analysis of those dreams,

You know,

And presented that as my research.

And as part of that was listening very carefully for what I thought might be their evidence of their spiritual awareness and how they made meaning from their dreams.

So that was kind of the gist of my research.

The title of that is actually in my dreams.

I am the hero I wish to be because I found so often that kids would find themselves not only as the central character,

But,

You know,

Being able to do things that they would like to do in their waking life that they couldn't.

Oh,

I want to be the hero in my dreams.

Carmen,

I know you.

I think you are the hero of your dreams and your waking life,

My dear.

Yeah,

I was.

I actually have a quote about that.

There's a if I can offer that to our reader or to our listeners about dreams and spirit.

Yeah,

Please do.

And it goes like this.

It's from a woman who was actually a Catholic sister named Joyce Rupp,

Who does a lot of spiritual teaching.

And it's it goes like this.

Oh,

Dreamer who quietly enters my life with your basket full of transforming symbols.

You come sailing the inaudible night skies within the silent corridors of my sleep,

Bringing the needed truths I rarely perceive in the full glaring light of my active days.

Harken to me with your messengers,

Gift me,

Please,

With dreams of revelation so the uncertain path I trod to my true self becomes ever clear and ready to walk.

Wow.

Wow.

Let's let's let's tear apart.

Let's let's go slowly.

Go slowly.

Would you like me to read it again slowly?

Yes,

Please.

That would be nice.

Sure.

Oh,

Dreamer who quietly enters my life with your basket full of transforming symbols.

You come sailing the inaudible night skies within the silent corridors of my sleep,

Bringing the needed truths I rarely perceive in the bold glaring light of my active days.

Harken to me with your messengers,

Gift me,

Please,

With dreams of revelation so the uncertain path I trod to my true self becomes ever clearer and ready to walk.

That's so wonderful.

So we are assuming that we have messengers,

That we have messages through the dreams.

We are assuming that we are more than this human body.

Oh,

Absolutely.

Is that true?

I mean,

There's a very famous quote by William James,

Which is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

And I believe that wholeheartedly.

And of course,

When we start talking about children,

Children are born as spiritual beings,

You know,

Walking the earth.

There is not that much about dreams,

Isn't that true?

Pardon me?

Dreams and children.

There is not that much research about dreams and children.

Well,

It's somewhat limited.

I mean,

When I first started looking,

What inspired me was actually a piece of research by a woman in the UK named Kate Adams,

Who is an educator,

Follows,

Has done a lot of work around children's spirituality.

She is a noted dream researcher,

And she did do some intensive research asking children about their dreams and noticing how children found meaning in their dreams and particularly evidence of kids,

You know,

Finding a connection with the divine.

And,

You know,

That inspired me.

But when I started to look around,

There was some dream research with children,

But not as much as you might think.

You know,

That inspired me to do more.

Yeah,

Well,

Thank you for doing that.

And please share everything you found.

I know we have only 20,

30 minutes,

But share everything.

Really?

Well,

It's hard when you're passionate about a subject.

I mean,

The world just scratched the surface,

But I'm delighted to be able to share some of the things that I found.

I will admit to a researcher bias,

As I've already stated that I was pretty sure that there would be evidence of children's spirituality and their ability to recognize that spirit appearing in their dreams and more importantly,

To be able to draw some meaning from their dreams.

I think one of the most important fundamental understandings from the beginning is that children have a sense of awe and wonder and imagination in the way that they look at the world.

And so they might experience their spirituality,

Not just in a religious sense.

And of course,

That depends a lot on their family background,

But they would experience it in much broader ways.

The appearance of animals in their dreams,

Nature in their dreams,

The numinous in their dreams.

In other words,

You know,

A sense of something greater than themselves.

It showed up in my research in some of these dreams.

It showed up in really interesting ways.

Kids as young as seven or eight years old would say that they felt a profound sense of of knowing of,

You know,

Like a felt sense of physical sense.

And the way I conducted this research,

I tried to be,

You know,

As unbiased as possible by just asking a very general question,

Which is,

Can you tell me about a dream that you remember any time in your life?

You know,

And I asked the child to tell me,

You know,

When they had had the dream and then a little bit more about the dream itself,

You know,

Just describe the dream.

And then from that dream,

You know,

Ask a series of questions.

What were some of the most important elements in the dream?

How did the dream make them feel?

What did they believe,

You know,

Made them remember the dream?

And what was really one of the interesting things about my research and this actually showed up in other people's research,

Too.

But it still surprised me was that about 75 percent of the dreams that reported were nightmares.

And most of us who talk to children or parents,

Even if you're not a parent,

You've got children in your lives.

And what will happen is a child will report a nightmare.

And at least instinctively,

If you've never worked with dreams,

The first thing you're going to say is,

Oh,

It was just a dream.

It was just a bad dream.

So forget about it.

You know,

Don't worry about it.

But what I found in my research is that when you sit with a child and listen to the nightmare particular,

And some kids were really nervous about telling me a nightmare.

And I would reassure them that by telling the nightmare that we could help them find maybe something in there that would be helpful,

They would tell the nightmare and then be able through the telling of the dream,

Through the drawing of the dream.

And by just,

Excuse me,

Asking more questions that they could actually make some pretty interesting meaning and deal with the drama of the dream in a very positive way.

Probably,

I can imagine children will do more easily in a positive way than an adult.

Yeah,

Could be.

Yeah,

I think so.

I think that and I tried very hard not to interpret the dream for the child because children are also somewhat easily influenced.

You know,

I wanted to positively influence them by listening.

I mean,

That's the most positive thing we can possibly do for the child is just listen to the story.

And then ask the question.

And then what happened?

Wow.

You know,

What did you think about that?

You know,

When you woke up,

What did you notice?

And then,

You know,

Asking even more questions like,

Wow,

That sounds so scary.

What helped you deal with it?

How about drawing the dream for me now?

And then from the drawing,

Sometimes it's easier than words to say,

Wow,

That looks a really scary picture.

Who is that scary figure?

You ever seen anything like that in your waking life or,

You know,

Just really interesting.

And I think one of the things is probably important to note with children in particular is that often,

Whether we're a therapist or a friend or a parent or a teacher or Sunday school teacher,

Whatever way we encounter a child,

We forget how dramatically children are growing and changing and how rapidly that's happening,

You know,

Developmentally every few months.

I mean,

It's as adults,

We certainly go through transformative periods in our lives,

But as children,

It's happening so much more rapidly.

So go ahead.

Let me ask you a question.

As you're talking and you do it so easily,

You ask the question and stay in the nightmare with the child.

But as a parent,

I can imagine I don't want my child to suffer or I don't want to traumatize him or her again.

But by asking the dream or asking him to draw in or something,

I mean,

It's some kind of a protective side on me that say,

No,

No,

No,

Let's don't talk about it.

This is what you were saying at the beginning.

Yeah,

It's not it's actually involving the dream that will bring us something.

Right.

And I absolutely agree with your comment that that would be the natural protective response.

As a parent myself,

Who was pretty unaware of dreams and how they work,

I remember sort of discounting this and wanting to comfort my child.

Oh,

It's just a dream.

That's you know,

It's OK.

And try to sort of chase the dream away.

But what I had found in my clinical practice first before I ever did the research was by the nature of being a therapist.

I was working with kids who were coming in to see me because they were troubled and being a lot more open to hearing their troubling stories than I might have been as a parent.

And,

You know,

That was so helpful.

And because it's sort of a natural extension of,

You know,

Tell me this troubling thing that's happening for you.

But what I also found is I would say,

Gosh,

I'm I'm wondering if you ever dreamed about that or how did troubling dream about that and finding that the dream would symbolically help with something that was troubling in their waking life,

That the dream symbols of fire,

Which I know now often represents,

Say,

A transformative experience or typical dream themes like being chased or under attack,

Might be how the child metaphorically how the child was feeling in their daily life,

Frightened by a scary character,

Which in the dream,

Which in waking life might be an authority figure that's that they're having trouble with,

Like a teacher.

Or in the dream feeling alone,

Which in their waking life might be fear of separating from their parents,

Which is a very common experience for kids,

You know,

In their early and middle years.

So as a parent,

When I hear this,

So what I would encourage the parents is when you hear the scary dream,

Great to sit with your child and say,

Wow,

Let's hear this scary story together and see what we can make of it.

And then maybe we draw the dream and one little boy who is super scared of the dream.

He was pretty scared to tell me in the research format.

And I said,

Well,

Here's how I work with scary dreams.

Sometimes we tell it and we draw this picture and then we're going to change the ending of this scary dream.

And you get to choose how to change the ending and have the child kind of retell it with their scary ending.

And in the case of this one little boy that I mentioned earlier,

He drew the picture and then he got to tear up the picture and actually say away from you,

You know,

Away from me.

Go away.

This scary dream and then threw it into the trash can and left the dream with me.

So he didn't have to carry it anymore.

So in response to parents who were thinking about this or even therapists,

You know,

I would encourage the telling,

Treat it seriously,

But kind of matter of factly,

You know,

How this scary.

What do we want to do with this?

And then maybe help the child to make some not interpret the dream,

But maybe help them make some associations to daily life.

Okay,

I like that.

Like,

Make what you do,

What this represents in your life or something like that.

In that in that case is their own meaning of it.

Right.

Exactly.

And it's great because what you're also encouraging in the child is this sense of efficacy.

Wow,

I can handle these hard things that come along.

And,

You know,

I work with adults too and I love to work with people in their dreams because we can get that same sense of mastery in the middle of a nightmare.

Wow.

Look at what your dream might be telling you.

You think about what transformative thing is happening in your life right now that this might represent.

And it's just lovely to feel guided by your own internal wisdom,

No matter what age.

So this is this is an important message is trusting the internal wisdom of my child.

Absolutely.

Thank you for articulating that so clearly.

Yes,

It is.

It feels new.

It feels like a very new because I can I think for decades or centuries we have been talking about dreams in adults,

But talking about dreams in children and helping them to recuperate their wisdom.

You know,

It reminds me like yoga for children,

Too.

It's like we are paying attention more and more to what is going on with children's spirituality.

I would say definitely.

It's so easy to discount a child.

I mean,

Just a quick anecdote in that direction.

When I was searching for participants for the research,

I actually asked a couple of teachers that I knew directly in the school.

These were teachers I admired for the way that they teach.

They taught their subject.

When I brought up the topic of children's own spiritual understanding that I found this inner wisdom in children and I was interested to hear it through the dreams.

These teachers actually one actually said to me,

Children don't know what to think.

We have to tell them.

And I think that attitude is actually more pervasive than one might think.

As parents in an authority role as therapists in a powerful role,

We often imagine that we have the answer before we help to the person look for their own inner inner wisdom.

So I would just encourage all of us to keep remembering that that inner wisdom is there.

Children don't need to be told they need to be encouraged and companioned.

That part of that's part of what we do with each other at any ages.

We companion each other on this spiritual journey that we're on.

Well,

But then it's scary because children can come with so many ideas that are challenging my own ideas that took me 30 years to build.

No,

Cindy,

I don't like that.

Well,

I'm speaking as a parent now.

It's like,

Yeah,

Do as I say,

Not as,

You know,

Not as,

Not as I think or as you want to do.

But when we truly listen,

Children do have some very strong ideas about what they need as a guide.

Obviously,

We're going to keep them from going off the cliff,

You know,

But a guide is just that we're on the journey together.

So part of guiding is listening.

We are just jumping.

I am just reading my questions here and they don't make sense anymore.

I am so glad that my questions that I prepare for you doesn't make sense.

But I have two of those questions that I want to bring.

Sure.

Can I and I told to my child's therapist about this topic?

Can I meet with my child's therapist and ask,

Can you work with the dreams or do you work with children's dreams or something like that?

Oh,

Absolutely.

I think no matter who the therapist is,

It's a really good question to say,

Are you interested in dreams?

Do you work with dreams?

What are your beliefs about dreams?

I have had parents actually in my very first meeting with them when they wanted to talk about their child and find a therapist,

Have said,

My child really has a lot of nightmares and I'm concerned about it.

And,

You know,

I'll ask about the nature of that.

I encourage them,

You know,

To listen and I let them know right up front that,

Of course,

I'll ask about it.

I'll listen to it and see what we can make of that.

But absolutely,

You can talk to your child's therapist about the topic.

You know,

You made the point earlier,

Carmen,

Which is a really good point.

And that is that we often overlook the importance of dreams just in general for ourselves,

Especially for children.

So if you're noticing that with your child,

Absolutely bring it up.

And a lot of therapists do not work with dreams.

I can tell you that,

Too.

Just a little bit afraid of it or just inexperienced.

And one of the things that's really cool,

I mean,

Just in a general rule about dreams that I've found is that dreams are now this is my opinion coming in.

But that a dream is sort of like a hologram that it takes on a presence in a room that when we start to tell the story becomes,

You know,

It becomes real.

There's a space in the room.

And that rather than being afraid of it,

Because we don't know what to make of it,

That by just being with it,

It's kind of centered with the dream and curious,

Very curious about it,

That the meaning begins to emerge.

So I would encourage people not to be afraid of it.

Bring it up with a therapist or as a therapist.

Hey,

Read about it.

Think about it.

There's a lot to be gleaned from that.

Yes.

And my other question is how we can help children to remember their dreams.

Well,

Certainly one of the keys to remembering dreams is just to put it on the table.

I find that it's so interesting when I ask a kid about their dreams,

A child about their dreams.

One of the questions is,

Have you ever told anybody about this dream?

And they'll say no.

So the very first step to helping a child remember their dreams is just to say,

Do you ever remember your dreams at night?

I do.

Or so encouraging children to pay attention to their dreams is the very first step.

And another thing that I know you're going to ask me,

Which is if I can put it because it's really connected to the same concept,

Is you have to get enough sleep.

So if kids don't get enough sleep,

They won't remember their dreams.

It's certainly true for adults.

Often we don't remember our dreams because we're not waking naturally.

What is it?

Is it related in their waking life,

The amount of video games or content?

Is the content has any impact in the dreaming life?

Well,

I certainly saw that in my limited study that there is a there are a lot of there's a lot of dream research going on.

I know that there is a dream researcher.

Gackenbach is her last name,

Who's done an enormous amount of research around the connection between video games and dreaming.

I'll mention a website,

You know,

When it's appropriate,

That is just a wonderful entry point into dream research,

Dream studies,

Capturing your own dreams,

Dream bibliography,

Lots of variety of information about dreams.

And her research is available through that website.

But yes,

There is certainly some relationship between what happens in waking life and what happens in our dreams.

So what is the website?

The website is for the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

It's an incredible organization.

It's worldwide.

And the website is asdreams.

Org.

That is the main website for the association.

And there are links to reading lists,

Conference information,

Event information,

Researchers,

Dream studies,

Just a very,

Very broad variety.

And resources are available on that website.

What I love about that association,

And I've attended multiple conferences in many of the dream researchers that are noted on the site.

What's amazing about it is when I went to the conferences,

There's a very large number of just general population,

People who are just interested in dreams,

Who go to the conference.

It's just like,

Wow,

I want to know more.

So it's not specifically for mental health professionals?

Not at all.

Although there are conferences and website and there's a cyber dreaming conference that will be starting in September,

Which is a week long.

You can learn about and participate in a dream conference in your pajamas,

Which is really wonderful.

It's an online conference.

But in the big conference,

There's a spiritual track,

Psychotherapy track,

A research track,

General tracks.

So there are many different ways to take a look at dreaming through this organization.

We will put all of these resources that you are mentioning in the show notes for our listeners to keep working on it.

Do you have any more in your topic before I put you on the spot?

Sure.

Sure.

Any more of my topic?

Yes.

Gosh,

I could talk about this forever.

One of the things I probably didn't spend enough time on that's probably quite relevant for children,

Especially,

Is the idea of drawing the dream.

What it did for the children was adding details to the dream story.

And since children,

Especially boys,

I hate to be gender stereotyped here,

But often the boys had fewer verbal comments about their dreams.

But when they were asked to draw it,

Could draw a lot of the action of the dream.

And that was super helpful.

So,

I mean,

The dream drawing was very useful.

I think that asking children a little bit more about some of their fears in relation to the dream is really,

Really helpful.

Acknowledging some of the heroics in the dream,

Because a lot of the kids will have sort of,

Even if it's not a nightmare,

But even if it is a nightmare,

Kind of an action story in the dream.

And saying,

Wow,

I noticed,

You know,

You were so successful at getting away from that monster enhances their waking life feeling of power and ability to deal with problems.

Noticing some of the visual qualities in the dream or some of the other sensory things like what did you notice a smell or did you notice a sound helped children to better recall their dreams.

And that's true for adults as well.

You know,

Just looking at this rich variety of sensory experience.

So those are just a few things,

You know,

That we haven't talked about before.

Wow,

Cindy,

That has been really helpful.

And I'm sure it will be really helpful for parents,

For families.

We often ignore in many ways our children.

So this is a very great resource to put attention to them to be curious about their lives,

Their inner lives,

I will say.

One of the most powerful questions that I ask kids that I got amazingly rich results from was after they had talked about their dreams was to say,

Where do you think dreams come from?

Uh huh.

And that was so interesting.

You know,

Some kids would say just from my mind or something scary,

But other kids would say things like,

I'm pretty sure that it came to me from my guardian angel.

I think God brought me that dream to tell me that everything's going to be OK.

And again,

That gets back to that inner wisdom of children accessing a source other than their parents that brings them comfort and understanding.

Pretty awesome.

Yeah.

And pretty comforting as a parent too,

Because if something happened to me,

At least they are connected to their greater source.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I think we all long to be connected to something greater than ourselves.

Or if I have flaws as a parent,

Which we all have,

It is comforting to know that they also have their own wisdom.

Absolutely.

So I will put you on the spot.

OK.

Yeah.

And for the listeners who are new,

You know,

Putting Dr.

Sarlene on the spot means I will ask her some questions and she needs to answer quickly as she can.

Yeah.

What is a daily habit that you believe contributes to our children healthy dreaming?

Well,

I mentioned earlier,

Make sure they get enough sleep.

So the best you can to get your kids in bed at a reasonable hour.

So I find that school children are often deprived of enough sleep.

And the other thing that I would say is turn off their electronics well before their bedtime to sort of settle their minds.

Often all of us,

You know,

Are not fully centered at any point in our day.

So although you may not participate in meditation,

I'm a believer in that helping your child settle down before they go to sleep often helps them sleep more deeply.

You know,

Maybe even just telling a story before they go to sleep and it sends them off into sleep with a calmer,

More settled opportunity.

OK.

What is an online resource that has been invaluable for you or your clients about children's dreams?

Well,

I mentioned ASTreams.

Org.

That certainly is not uniquely children's dreams,

But there are resources on that site that could lead to children's dreams.

It's about the only online resource that I've spent a lot of time with.

I do have,

Which is,

You know,

Some other related resources that I could offer about children's dreams.

And that would be any research by Kate Adams.

She's a wonderful researcher in the UK.

I mentioned earlier,

She was also on my research committee.

I just found her to be an amazing resource.

She's done wonderful research about children and their dreams and their spirituality.

There's a journal,

International Journal of Children's Spirituality,

Writes a lot about children's spirituality in general,

But there are sometimes dream related articles in that journal.

And there's another journal called Dream Dreaming,

The Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams.

And you'll find researchers articles there,

You know,

For people in the audience who are more researcher therapy oriented,

You might find dream dream articles there with children.

Okay.

What is your favorite related book?

Well,

There's a couple.

There's a book called Dream Catching,

Every Parent's Guide to Exploring and Understanding Children's Dreams.

It was Dreams and Nightmares.

And it was written by Alan Siegel and Kelly Bulkeley,

Who are two longtime dream workers.

Alan Siegel is a therapist and Kelly is a researcher and professor.

And they wrote this book together.

I found that written for parents,

Which is so helpful.

There's another book called Your Child's Dreams by Patricia Garfield,

Who's very,

Very noted researcher in the dream world.

Those are just two that I really like.

There's another one called Dream Time with Children by Brenda Mallon,

Who is a researcher in the UK.

Wow.

We will put those books in the notes for people to get the link and get directly to Amazon.

Great.

And I'd be happy to send you information if you need it after this.

What is one tip that you will give to someone who is thinking about starting their own dreams work?

Well,

I mentioned meditation earlier.

For myself,

I noticed that when I was doing a lot more yoga,

Just it seemed to deepen my dreaming at night,

Which was very interesting connection for me.

But at the very least,

When you wake up,

Don't move.

You know,

Just maybe spend a minute recalling a dream from the night because dreams are sort of ethereal.

I mean,

They're very ethereal.

I find that if you just leave out of bed,

The dream evaporates.

But if you can take a minute to recall the dream before you move your body,

Before you get out of bed,

It could make it more accessible to write it down.

And that would be the other tip is just start jotting notes and don't discount a dream fragment because sometimes there's quite a bit of information,

Just a little bitty vignette from the dream.

Sometimes we wake up the dreams like we wake up the children suddenly like,

Come on,

You need to go.

Right.

And you'll hear a child say,

Oh,

I was in the best dream.

Why did you wake me up?

And then maybe if you could take even just a second,

Tell me about it.

It'll help them recall it.

Wow.

Yeah,

That's very helpful.

Imagine Cindy that you were only with two hundred dollars in your laptop.

What is the first step you will take towards starting your dream work?

Well,

You don't even need the money to begin.

The very first one would be to keep a dream journal,

To start writing down some notes.

One of the things that caught my own interest that caused me to start keeping a dream journal was a recurring dream.

Now,

Not everybody has recurring dreams.

But one of the theories around recurring dreams is there's a message in that dream that's just not getting through.

You're trying to tell yourself something and in your unconscious life that needs to happen in your conscious life,

It needs to be paid attention to.

So we don't need the money.

Just start writing it down.

And then,

You know,

If you do have a little money,

Join one of the cyber dreaming conferences,

Perhaps you could do that with your laptop.

And even as a not even a member of one of the dream associations,

You could likely participate in an online conference and just start to explore a little bit.

Stay open to the possibilities.

Be curious.

And more things will likely come your way.

I like this question because I give people two hundred dollars and most of my guests,

They don't use it.

Yeah,

I'm just so excited.

I actually want to say,

Hey,

Carmen,

Do you want to do dreaming part two?

Happy to do that.

I will be happy any time.

I think there is a lot to talk about dreaming.

There is a lot.

So,

Yeah,

Cindy,

Let's do a part two and let's do other topics that you manage very well.

Oh,

Thank you.

Anything else before I ask you for your private practice?

Tell me about your private practice.

But I want to close this topic.

Anything else about children's and dreams for now?

Well,

I would just encourage just encourage parents and therapists,

Anyone is,

You know,

To stay open and not be afraid.

Obviously,

There's a responsibility if a child is having a recurring nightmare to be on the alert for more information.

But there's always help available.

And don't be afraid to listen.

And I might end with another thing that I think is really important,

Which is that another quote,

Which is that all human beings are dream beings and that dreaming ties all of us together.

It's the one thing,

Regardless of age or background or ethnicity or location or language that ties us all together.

All beings dream.

Wow.

Yeah,

That's a beautiful way to finish this episode.

Tell me a little bit about your practice.

You are located in Redwood City in California.

Tell me more.

You have a website or some way we can contact you.

Sure.

Well,

I'm actually a part of a group practice now called the Wise Mind Institute.

And that is our website,

The wise mind institute dot com.

You can hear more about what we do there in our practice.

None of us are working with young children at the moment.

My youngest client is eleven.

But so I tend to work with slightly older children on up.

I do work with dreams.

I work with dreams whenever someone brings a dream into the room,

Whether they're an adolescent or an adult.

Most of my colleagues do not.

All of us work in the humanistic existential framework.

But we also work intensively with dialectical behavior therapy for adolescents and their parents as well as adults.

And there's more information about that on our website.

OK.

And again,

It's the wise mind institute dot com.

And there's more about me there.

Sure.

And I guess we can post your psychology today as well.

Oh,

Of course.

Yes.

OK.

Well,

Thank you,

Cindy,

For being so generous with your time.

I know you may have a client pretty soon,

So I will let you go.

And thank you,

Wonderful listeners,

For being part of this podcast.

And we will stay in touch.

Stay in touch.

Great.

Great to me if you have any questions,

If you have any more topics,

If you have any questions for Dr.

Solemn that we can address in the second part of this topic,

Just keep in touch and we will grow a wonderful community.

If you want to be part of the Amigos in Harmony Facebook group,

It was supposed to be a secret group.

And now it's like six hundred or seven hundred people already.

So you want to be part of it?

Just send me your email that you sign with Facebook or go and request yourself to join there.

And I will happily approve you.

So bye for now.

We have reached the end of another episode of the podcast Emotions in Harmony.

See you the next week.

Visit www.

Emotionsinharmony.

Org where you can subscribe,

Find the notes and be in direct contact with me.

Thanks for listening.

Reviews

Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this subject!

excellent and very helpful sharing. thank you. helpful for my own childhood recurring and other dreams, to remove the fear around them. brilliant!