Deborah's Dreams: How I Explored & Found Meaning in Four Pivotal Dreams During My Midlife Unraveling

[00:00:02] Welcome to Dose of Depth Podcast.

[00:00:06] I'm your host, Deborah Lukovich, and I invite you to explore what's beneath the surface

[00:00:12] of all sorts of things, including your own life.

[00:00:15] Through conversation, stories, and education, you'll see what you couldn't see before,

[00:00:21] find new meaning in old events, and even discover a new sense of purpose out there in the world.

[00:00:27] Let's get started!

[00:00:30] I'm excited to share my personal experience of how journaling and dreams helped me navigate a

[00:00:37] 10-year transformative period in my life. I sort of got tricked into pursuing a master's PhD in

[00:00:43] depth psychology, not knowing that it was a prompting and inciting incident to my life

[00:00:49] falling apart, and it became my guide. Carol Young actually became my spiritual advisor.

[00:00:57] So it all started in 2013 when I journaled, I can't live this way anymore. And now my word

[00:01:03] document is 2,000 pages long and I love that it's an award document because I can go back

[00:01:09] and search for things and patterns. So if I look back at my midlife unraveling and reconstruction,

[00:01:14] I really can pinpoint sort of four dreams that represent two phases of this part of my life.

[00:01:22] And it all started with attending a dream-tending conference hosted by Dr. Steven Eisenstaff,

[00:01:30] facilitated by him, here's his book at Pacifica Graduate Institute. And I laughed when he said,

[00:01:36] when you go to bed tonight, ask your psyche to bring you a recurring dream that you're

[00:01:41] curious about. And I had been having one, I think maybe over seven years. And it was the one

[00:01:46] where you're being chased by armed mercenaries through your childhood home. I think I'm

[00:01:50] not the only one who has had that. And sure enough, in the morning, it had come to me,

[00:01:56] but it was different this time. My son was on it. I think my son was in middle school at the time.

[00:02:01] And so as I was running through my sister's red carpeted room and wanting to get

[00:02:06] crawl out the window, I noticed my son in bed. And I said, oh my gosh, we got to get out

[00:02:11] of here. Come on. And he said, Mom, go ahead, it'll be okay. And so that was interesting.

[00:02:18] So with my partner using active imagination, I slipped into what I thought was the end of

[00:02:23] the dream because I was afraid of this dream. It was terrifying being chased by mercenaries.

[00:02:28] And she just asked me questions. And it was interesting that where I slipped in,

[00:02:33] I was in the garage of our house childhood home. And I opened the door and I could see

[00:02:39] this dark figure sitting in the living room. And I was afraid, but I opened the door

[00:02:44] because he seemed harmless. It wasn't looking at me. And as I walked towards him,

[00:02:49] my dream-tending partner was asking me questions. And I got closer and closer and saw that it

[00:02:54] actually wasn't a solid person. It was like the shadow, shadowy figure. And she asked me

[00:03:00] what I noticed about him. He was wearing a top hat. And for some reason, that made me think

[00:03:05] of Frank Sinatra, who is my former husband's favorite singer. And I thought, hmm, so that

[00:03:11] reminds me of my husband at the time. And I got closer and closer, and it just

[00:03:16] stood there, sat there. And I ended up sitting down into the shadow. And the most striking

[00:03:22] part of that dream was that I felt nothing. So my initial meaning was, okay, mercenaries

[00:03:28] probably represent something I'm afraid to face in myself. And this was true in hindsight,

[00:03:33] a deep dark secret I had for myself. And over time, it came to have even more meaning.

[00:03:40] And later on, the shit hit the fan as they say, things fell apart. And I did find the courage to

[00:03:47] choose me and my relationship and also set my husband free from my expectations.

[00:03:55] And as I continued to journal about it, I found more meaning. And it came to me.

[00:04:01] I thought, I wonder if he felt the same way, but didn't have the courage to tell me.

[00:04:06] So I broke, I had to break his heart instead of him breaking my heart.

[00:04:11] So that was my first experience. After that, I started learning Youngie and Theory, of course.

[00:04:17] And Robert Johnson, his book Inner Work, gave me a framework for finding meaning and exploring

[00:04:23] my images. So I would say the second dream in this first part of my falling apart had to do with

[00:04:33] I had gotten divorced. I had started dating. I was sort of on top of my life and feeling good

[00:04:38] and confident, reconnecting with my body and my sexuality. And I got swept up with a much younger

[00:04:47] man in this love affair. And it was really archetypal. And I had to give myself permission

[00:04:58] to feel silly and awkward and vulnerable. And no matter what anybody else thought about this crazy

[00:05:04] relationship, which turned out to be very ironic as well, and brought up all other kinds of issues,

[00:05:11] I had this dream and it was an embodied dream. So I hadn't really known what an embodied dream

[00:05:16] was, but it stayed with me for months. And so in the dream, I'm in a bathroom,

[00:05:22] like in a state park, it's cement concrete, and it's pitch black pitch dark. And I'm done

[00:05:29] going to the bathroom. So the dream isn't about going to the bathroom, but it's about

[00:05:33] trying to get out of the bathroom. And it's so dark, I can't see my way out.

[00:05:38] And it took me a little while to realize that in that dream, in order to get out,

[00:05:43] I had to feel my way out instead of using my head and my mind. So I put my hands out in

[00:05:48] front of me and I scraped my feet on that concrete floor. And eventually I found my way to the door.

[00:05:54] And suddenly I was falling backwards down a hill in the dark again, it's that kind of dark

[00:05:59] where no matter how wide you open your eyes in the middle of the night, you can't see,

[00:06:03] there's no adjustment, you can see nothing. And oddly, I was falling backwards slowly.

[00:06:10] And I could sense that it was fall weather. And I stopped. And then I started tumbling

[00:06:17] backwards even more. And now I could sense that there was this breeze that was sort of cradling me.

[00:06:24] And as I was falling down, I had this sense that I felt safe in a way that I had never felt in my

[00:06:31] literal life, never felt truly safe. And when I woke up, I lingered in this feeling of safety.

[00:06:39] Now I did something else besides journal. I drew it, I drew the image and something about

[00:06:45] my unconscious caused me to add a pair of hands at the bottom of the drawing. And so I drew me

[00:06:52] falling down this hill with leaves and the wind and drew these hands. And it was something transcendent

[00:06:59] that made me feel like I was safe that I got this. Well, the meaning of that dream.

[00:07:07] That day, I was actually going hiking with my new lover at a state park, oddly. And that

[00:07:15] during our hike was the first time that I felt insecure. It was just having fun. And now suddenly

[00:07:20] like I cared, and I was feeling insecure. And I didn't know what was going to happen next,

[00:07:29] but it just, I noticed that this feeling of insecurity. So it took me time to find meaning

[00:07:35] in this dream. And over time, and I have come to believe that you don't necessarily even have

[00:07:41] to find the meaning of a dream in order for it to be doing something in your unconscious.

[00:07:47] So for me, part of the meaning of this dream is that I could slip back into that feeling of safety

[00:07:52] anytime I wanted until I couldn't anymore like three months later. But and also that dream,

[00:07:58] I identified that I was beginning to connect with something other than the literal me,

[00:08:03] whether it was my self capital S or this divine presence. And I really do like the notion of

[00:08:11] that ourself is the bridge to the collective and to our unconscious. So I could access that.

[00:08:17] So that was part of the meaning as well. And in the end, really what it came to mean

[00:08:24] was that I was going to be okay. So I didn't know that because I didn't know what was

[00:08:29] up ahead of me, but myself knew what my journey was going to be and what this ironic love affair

[00:08:34] was going to bring to the surface for me to have to work out and reconcile. But I think if I hadn't

[00:08:40] had that dream, I might not have said yes to that ironic relationship. And I might not have

[00:08:47] actually followed through when certain red, red flags started occurring where other people

[00:08:54] would have been like, what are you doing? And very odd things ended up happening. And it was

[00:09:00] those difficulties that ended up transforming me, making me reconcile things and eventually

[00:09:07] unleashing. And that wouldn't have happened. And so I really do think like, that dream was

[00:09:13] preparing me and was giving me this inner sense of security that I don't care how silly you

[00:09:19] feel, you're going to follow through because it's going to be worth it. So that's like the first

[00:09:24] phase. And of course, like I said, I have 2000 pages of journaling now. And I kept journaling,

[00:09:31] but those two dreams are really pivotal. The sort of the second phase and this might be in

[00:09:39] another video. So there were some pivotal dreams that helped me during this first phase of

[00:09:45] midlife unraveling. And then sort of the beginning of like working out what had to be worked out

[00:09:52] through this transformative, ironic relationship. All right, so picking up from these first two

[00:10:00] pivotal dreams that number one gave me the courage to sort of choose me and end this

[00:10:08] relationship and come into relationship with me again after 24 years of marriage.

[00:10:14] Also knowing that I would be safe in whatever this ironic relationship was, what was in store for me

[00:10:21] that I didn't know. And then this thing happened in this relationship. And this gets to another

[00:10:29] pivotal dream, which really maybe is a fantasy. So I was with my lover and we were

[00:10:37] napping in my bed. And he was napping, but I was laying on top of him. And the sort of in

[00:10:47] kind of in a lower level of consciousness, I imagined him and the image of him between

[00:10:52] my legs pleasuring me came up. And that was cool. That was enjoyable. But then something

[00:10:58] happened that really challenged me. His head transformed into a serpent. And the serpent

[00:11:05] wanted to enter me. And at first I constricted and I felt silly in my mind was like, oh my gosh,

[00:11:12] this is so wrong. It was being literal. But I remembered I knew enough now about

[00:11:16] Youngie in theory to know that this is a symbol of something. And so I allowed in my imagination,

[00:11:23] which I think is like a dream, to I allowed the serpent to enter me. And I ended up

[00:11:29] touching something really deep inside. And for me, the meaning that I gave to it was that I

[00:11:35] touched an ancient feminine. And for me, part of my midlife unraveling was to reconcile

[00:11:42] sexuality and spirituality. And I had an overdeveloped sense of masculine. So coming back into

[00:11:48] relationship with the feminine was part of my journey. So I journaled and looked up the

[00:11:54] meaning of the serpent and the snake. And it's a symbol for goddess before there was a word for

[00:11:59] goddess. And I had all sorts of associations that had to do with that. So for me, as I explored that

[00:12:08] in my journaling, it just came to mean that I surrendered. And at the time, my lover had

[00:12:14] a conflict having sex outside of marriage. So I was wandering meandering into the space of

[00:12:20] what I call no sex sex, which is an amazing experience of slowing down and becoming intimate

[00:12:26] in a different way with yourself. So then there was another period of time. And

[00:12:34] with this relationship, the other there were there was a pause in the relationship and there

[00:12:41] was a climax in the relationship. And suddenly, my fantasy of this relationship

[00:12:47] was sort of crashing and old memories of over adapting to my former husband were coming back.

[00:12:53] And I had a flurry of dreams with the phallic symbol. And I drew a lot of those. And there was

[00:13:01] either the symbol transitioned and evolved. And I think this is another component of

[00:13:08] exploring dreams, is that the same symbol will change over time. And so the phallic symbol

[00:13:15] in the earlier dreams was attached to a man. And then it wasn't attached to

[00:13:21] anyone. And then eventually, I had my own phallic symbol. And in the dream, I could kiss it and I

[00:13:28] loved it and I could make it come. And the last dream of that series combined,

[00:13:34] I was suffering from menopausal hot flashes. And I had anger about the,

[00:13:40] I didn't know this relationship was going to end. And at the same time,

[00:13:45] I had finished the dissertation for or it was working on research for my PhD, which was exploring

[00:13:52] women's relationship and experience of reconciling sexuality and spirituality. So there was a lot

[00:13:57] going on in me. And after those series of dreams and waking up with this anger phallic symbol

[00:14:04] that I had of my own, I decided to draw the image. And it's actually in the back of one of

[00:14:09] my books. And it's called womb on fire. And I just drew my womb and flames and a phallic symbol

[00:14:17] going in. And I wrote feminine phallus and creativity and anger and mad woman. And what

[00:14:24] happened is that I had just a couple of weeks ago submitted a proposal to do a workshop,

[00:14:32] to speak to people about healing this wound, patriarchal wounds that men and women both

[00:14:38] carry. And I didn't know what I was going to write, but I got accepted. And so that unleashing that

[00:14:43] anger and beginning to understand that me, my creativity, my new self had nothing to do with

[00:14:50] this literal person. I literally wrote that whole proposal then, like the next day.

[00:14:57] And so that is sort of, and then that relationship ended. So those are sort of two

[00:15:02] specific phases in my midlife unraveling and reconstruction. And then there's more that happens

[00:15:08] after that like a three act play, right? So you've got this inciting incident and progressive

[00:15:13] complications. And then you have this mirror moment. And so this represents my mirror moment

[00:15:18] where I'm like, no to the relationship, this is about me and unleashing my creativity.

[00:15:23] And then X3, you don't know about yet. So those are four significant dreams, fantasies,

[00:15:32] journaling, act of imagination that I hope bring to light this theory for you and help you actually

[00:15:42] develop a practice of finding meaning in your own dreams and also with your client. So

[00:15:47] thanks for letting me share. I could talk about this all day long. So thanks.

[00:15:55] I'm your host, Deborah Lukavich and you were listening to Dose of Depth Podcast. To get updates

[00:16:01] on new episodes, my writing and how I teach my clients to get to know that deeper part of themselves,

[00:16:07] go to DeborahLukavich.com. Oh, and if you're not ready for a coach,

[00:16:12] learn what my clients know in my book. Your soul is talking. Are you listening?

[00:16:16] Five steps to uncovering your hidden purpose. You can check it out on my website or get it

[00:16:21] on Amazon.