Ep77: Embracing Unpleasant Dreams & Nightmares

This episode is all about nightmares—what causes them and how to work through them. We tackle heavy subjects such as recurring nightmares, PTSD, and even taboo topics like incest dreams, offering insightful ways to find healing and peace. The episode emphasizes the importance of understanding and working through dreams for healing and transformation.

Marta Aarli is an author, dream worker, and licensed psychotherapist with a Master's in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology. She helps people heal past wounds so they can live more fully in the present.

Links
Marta's Instagram
Marta's Website
IASD Website

Transcript

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Amina: [00:00:00] Hello dreamers. So I just got back from a three week trip to Europe where I went to the IASD conference. That's the International Association for the Study of Dreams. It was amazing. Life changing and a literal dream. I had to pinch myself every few minutes while I was there. I met some amazing people who inspire me.

Dream researchers, authors, pioneers in the dream work field that I've looked up to for years. I got to run a workshop on lucid dreaming, of course. And I was volunteering so I was quite busy, but it was a lot of fun and very rewarding huge Thank you to all of my listeners and my students. I couldn't have been there without you literally I got to meet some of you there in the netherlands And even if we didn't get to chat in person know that your love and support means the world to me There's so many people there.

I didn't even get to meet everybody that I wanted to And I'm still processing it all, but being a part of this community is really life changing and motivating. I finally accepted dream work as my life path. I want to teach [00:01:00] lucid dreaming for a living, and I'll get there. I also want to research dreams for my PhD and follow in the footsteps of these amazing dreamers and researchers and artists from IASD.

If you're not familiar with IASD, check out their website asdreams. org. The 2025 conference will be completely virtual, which makes it more accessible to everyone. You'll likely see me presenting or volunteering there, so stay tuned. IASD is where you'll hear about the latest cutting edge research on the neuroscience of sleep and dreams, and of course, the most welcoming and amazing people who will support your journey.

And that's where I met today's guest, Marta Arley, a very, very sweet soul who has come on the podcast for a second time, so very warm welcome to her. Today, we're going to be talking about nightmares and the unpleasant parts of dream work that some people maybe run away from or don't fully understand. So thank you, Marta, and welcome back.

Marta: Thanks so much, Mina. Yeah, I've been a psychotherapist for 30 [00:02:00] years, and I've been working with dreams as one of my specialties in my practice. And I've been a dreamer since I was a child. and had lots of nightmares and still do sometimes, not as often. I think I've worked through a lot of the things that the nightmares were really bringing to me.

So I don't have as many now because I've, I've resolved a lot of the things that, um, that they were bringing to me, but I do have some, they still come up and sort of remind me of old themes. That I need to revisit and do some more healing. Well, you know, you and I met at the dream conference, um, in the IASD community.

And I'm currently editing a book about doing dream work and using a lot of my own dreams. So there's a memoir aspect to it. Um, going [00:03:00] really deeply into my own dreams to really kind of bring out all the different ways we can work with them. So I'm, I will soon be a published author. 

Amina: Nice. Congrats. I'm excited for that book to come out.

Definitely keep me posted and send me the link and everything so we can share it. That's awesome. So when it comes to nightmares, um, just to kind of little intro on it. It's a pretty common thing, you know, a lot of people experience nightmares. It's more common maybe in younger children. Um, they're basically strong, vivid, unpleasant dreams.

There's different kinds of nightmares, you know, scary ones, gross ones. Just a nightmare really can be something where somebody is like, yeah, I didn't like that dream. And it had a strong impact on my waking life. Um, and then, you know, there's a lot of different reasons why people may have nightmares, which we'll get into, you know, it could be anxiety, trauma, medications, even sleep deprivation.

There's a lot of different reasons. Um, and when these nightmares are so severe that they're [00:04:00] very often and having an impact on someone's daily life, in your opinion, like what are some of the general. Reasons that people get nightmares and at what point is it something to uh, something unusual I guess 

Marta: Yeah, I agree that there are a lot of different reasons and sources of nightmares And I think a lot of people do have them And it's great when they bring them into therapy or talk with a good friend about them.

And I think a lot of people have them and then just tuck them away so fast that they don't even realize they're happening. So I think sometimes nightmares are causing anxiety or they're related to someone's anxiety or depression, um, which are two of the main reasons people come into therapy. You know, so we want to uncover the content of the nightmares because then we can get to the [00:05:00] root of the anxiety or the depression.

It's a chicken and egg, right? The anxiety can cause nightmares and then the nightmares can cause more anxiety. So we want to just get into that cycle and interrupt it and open it up and offer new perspectives on who the characters are. what the situations are and how to work with them differently and not ignore them.

Because of course, it's also common to have recurring nightmares and people wonder, why does this just keep coming back and coming back? And it's generally because we are really needing to look at something. And if we don't, our psyche will keep sending them these messages to us to, to try to get through so that we finally pay attention.

Amina: Yeah, that's true. And this can be very frustrating for a lot of people, especially [00:06:00] if they've gone through something traumatic, um, and they keep having these nightmares that maybe they don't even realize are related to, you know, those emotional. spiritual blockages that they have surrounding that event.

So what are some ways that people can embrace these dreams instead of running from them? How do we essentially pay attention to them and give them what they're asking for? 

Marta: Yeah, I think paying attention and writing them down. as unpleasant as that might be to just start to observe them. And if there are really scary or, or disgusting feelings, um, to just acknowledge, okay, I'm willing to work with these and feel these things because I want to get to the bottom of this.

So of course, writing the dream down as soon as you wake up in the morning is the best way to just Develop a stronger relationship with your dreams, and especially if they're really difficult, talk to [00:07:00] someone about them. Um, some dreams are so lovely and we can just sort of bask in them and, and they feel good, but the ones that don't feel good, that's a great time to get together with someone who has some skill and experience.

They could be a psychotherapist or they could be a skilled therapist. Uh, Dream Worker, who just helps open it up and, and start to reframe things. So, what makes this character scary? What does this remind you of in your life or in your past? What? It does all of this symbolize, you know, on a symbolic level so that all of that helps us kind of get a little bit of space a little bit of distance from the really hard material that may feel invasive or creepy.

You know, sometimes we wake up with this creepy feeling [00:08:00] like we, we want to get away from something. But, um, but if we get a little bit of distance from it and feel safe, then we can look at it, say, symbolically. You know, like what does blood represent, right? If there's a lot of blood and it's gory, well, what is blood to you?

So we just start to open it up and start to bring in some associations and associations start to expand the dream from maybe this really contracted place of, um, claustrophobia with it. You know, we, we bring in more information, images. allies and a person that we're working with gives us some breathing room.

Amina: Yeah. Yeah. That's great points. Um, and you know, I, a lot of people tell me like, um, no, I, I don't want to remember these dreams. I don't want to write them down. I just want to like, how do I [00:09:00] not dream or how do I just go black at night so I can just sleep at in peace. So they have this resistance towards it.

Do you have any like advice for people that might be thinking that way? 

Marta: I think We can always bring in some comforting or reassuring or protecting energies to just be there with us. So maybe when someone is falling asleep or when they're going to bed and maybe the fear, maybe the anxiety starts even when they're getting ready for bed.

That's when we want to start doing the work of, okay, what would make your room and your bed feel safe? Do you hang something on the wall above your bed? Do you have, um, a certain blanket or an object that you bring into the bed with you? Is it a stone or a crystal? You know, [00:10:00] depending on someone's belief system, they might say a prayer.

Um, and of course, I encourage people to make up prayers to, to create, to use dreams as a place of creativity. So create a prayer that sets some protection for you and asks, um, your protectors to come in. You evoke, um, Them an image in your mind, you invoke them by literally inviting them to come. They might be an ancestor.

They might be a deity or spiritual. Uh, protector that you already have in your belief system. So you start right away by. making bedtime and sleep feel safer and more protected. 

Amina: Yes, that's a great point. Um, because a lot of people ask me like, Oh, well, are we vulnerable when we sleep? And when we're going through all these, you know, astral missions and things like that.

And, [00:11:00] you know, I tell people the same thing, you know, you can protect yourself mentally and spiritually. Um, and your beliefs role as well. If you go t suc a nightmare again. Um, yo your brain for that. So b beliefs of just being afr and dream, um, is going t This circle of protectors method, which is basically what you just said, you know, envisioning all of your, whoever makes you feel safe, whether it's religious, you know, entity or your family or somebody, you know, um, just inviting their energy in as you fall asleep.

And that has been really helpful. been able to make a big difference for a lot of people. Do you want to tell me like some of your personal experiences with like a nightmare that you had and like how you worked through it? 

Marta: Yeah, I chose a few from my collection. I have many, many dreams. Which I've [00:12:00] written down so this 1 was about a month ago and here it is.

I'm in an old rundown motel room up on the 2nd floor with a balcony walkway that leads to a row of external doors into each room. So, it's like the hallway to the motel is on the outside. So, I'm in the room and. A man is in there with me, and he's a conglomerate of several ex boyfriends, and I'm pregnant, early, I'm just beginning to show, my belly is just beginning to show, and we have an argument, and he shoots me in the stomach.

Blood pours out, and I run to the door, onto the balcony. And then he disappears, he runs away. So I'm holding my stomach and I'm watching this flow of blood pooling [00:13:00] onto the floor. And an older man who seems to be the owner of the motel comes up with a mop and a bucket and he complains that I'm getting blood on his tile balcony.

And I'm furious and I scream at him. I, and I swear at him and I say, I'm shot in the stomach and bleeding and all you care about is your tile floor. Fuck you. I don't know if I can swear on here, but I'm just, I'm swearing and yelling and. I'm furious and I'm also really scared and really sad. 

Amina: Wow, that one is really, really stressful.

I can imagine you woke up from that not feeling very pleased. 

Marta: Yeah, yeah, the violence of it. And the blood was pretty, um, pretty visceral, you know, and scary. And, uh, so yeah, I, I woke up [00:14:00] feeling very disturbed and, you know, heart racing. 

Amina: Wow. So what do you make of that? How have you kind of walked yourself through that dream?

Marta: Well, I just start by writing down my associations. So, um, and honestly, I haven't. Worked a ton with this dream. So, so it's good to kind of, you know, work it with you here, but my first thoughts that came up, you know, I'm, I'm, I've been. Really immersed in this process of writing my first book and writing a book about dreams and nightmares.

So, the 1st feeling was, um, fear that I'm, I will not birth this book that my pregnancy, which feels like the book writing is not going to work. And then I think about my, you know, I look a lot at dreams from this parts perspective. So if [00:15:00] I'm all the parts in the dream, how does my critical masculine sabotage me and sabotage my creativity?

You know, if, how do I shoot myself in the stomach, you know, in my womb, which is the source of creativity. Then I think about how I've let. The toxic masculine into my life throughout my life, you know, represented by ex boyfriends, um, you know, not, not that they are totally terrible people, but, um, that these were not partnerships that really fully supported me.

And then I'm really curious about this nonchalant part of me who doesn't care about the emotions. You know, this old man who's the owner who just wants to clean up the blood. He's, he's upset about the mess. So like, what's that part of me that just doesn't want to deal with my [00:16:00] intensity and all of my big emotions, you know, then there's the angry part of me who feels unloved and not taken care of.

And then I, I come back again to, you know, the pregnant part of me who really wants to bring something to life. new into the world. The blood is such a powerful presence. So then I think about, well, what is blood and blood is our life energy. Blood circulates through our whole bodies. It's this It's this really powerful life force, right?

It pumps through our, our heart. It's, it's our emotions. So it also feels like the blood is a very important character in this dream too. 

Amina: Yeah, that's really interesting. Um, and I love the approach of kind of looking at every dream character, every aspect of their life. different parts of you. 

Marta: Well, and let [00:17:00] me just talk about themes for a minute because the, the, the blood one and the shooting one is interesting because it connects to a few of my themes.

In one theme is, uh, shooting. Like sometimes I'm the one shooting someone else. And then in this case, I'm being shot. And so, so that's an interesting theme of, you know, killing off a part of ourselves. Or we can look at it in terms of our culture, like how do things in my life or in my culture kill off parts of myself or try to?

And certainly creativity and the feminine are often attacked or killed off in our culture. So I like to look at it in terms of themes and in terms of, you know, collective meaning of a dream. And then I also have this long theme of vampire dreams. [00:18:00] And that's going to be in my book. I have about nine or ten vampire dreams.

And so again, there's this blood theme and blood being this character itself. 

Amina: Wow. Yeah, that's interesting that you've had so many vampire dreams. Do you think they're all related? Like are the vampires trying to hurt you or suck your blood kind of thing? 

Marta: You know, I'll give a little teaser for my book because, um, the, the vampire series really plays a big part.

One thing that happens in this series for me is the vampire starts in one place and a certain kind of interaction between us. And then our relationship changes over the course of this series until she finally transforms over years of these dreams into the vampire. a really powerful, [00:19:00] beautiful ally for me.

And she's connected to the moon, and so her pale, pasty, tattered quality in the first dream transforms into this kind of silvery blue moon, uh, radiance. by the end of this series. So I think by working really deeply with all of these themes of unrequited love, which is often part of a vampire story, or eternal life, or vampire lore that often sort of haunts a particular family for many generations, and my ancestral Slavic roots that go back to some of the earliest vampire stories.

So, so by working with all of these different angles on vampires and also sucking someone's energy and blood, it has transformed multiple times. [00:20:00] into something else. 

Amina: Yeah, I love this idea of how nightmares can transform over time, and how these nightmare figures can either turn, you know, more benevolent over the years, especially if we're able to work with our nightmares in that way.

And it definitely, I think, takes some Some of that conscious, building that relationship with your dreams in order to kind of switch them over. Um, so that, that is really interesting, actually. So what about, you mentioned this ancestral aspect of nightmares. How do you think that plays into these nightmares that we can have?

How do we sometimes tap into this collective knowledge, you know, trauma, whatever, and how that can still affect us even generations later? 

Marta: I think once we have an ancestral awareness, in our dreams, we then start to notice it more. So for instance, in the vampire series, realizing, okay, well, I [00:21:00] have these family roots that go back to, you know, Hungary and, and Romania and, you know, places where these, Legends are from and it's not a question of, well, our vampires real or not, did they exist or not?

Do they do they exist now? It's I'm more interested in how these legends impact our psyches. It's part of the collective unconscious, right? That's why in Dreams we look so much at fairy tales, mythology, and archetypes because it doesn't mean they're either real or not. That's not the point. It's how do they impact our psyche and the energies that we pick up over time in our lifetime and generations of families.

So is there any theme of, For instance, vampirism in my family heritage. You know, if I look back at generations [00:22:00] and say, was someone, you know, preyed upon by someone who, who took their life energy, or were there examples of energy vampires where someone was really troubled and that impacted the family or caused trauma?

Were there blood issues?

So then I get curious about the people in my lineage to see, what am I picking up here? So when we look at that in a dream or a dream series, it can start to kind of flesh out the lives of our ancestors. and individual trauma or cultural trauma. So for instance, this dream that I just shared, I can say, well, my ancestors were shot and killed.

You know, many of our ancestors have been shot and [00:23:00] killed. And sometimes in war women's pregnant women would be targeted. Because it's an especially heinous thing to kill a child in the womb, right? It's, it's an especially horrible way to, um, inflict cruelty on someone. So these are aspects of trauma that are in our collective psyche, whether it's in our bloodline or just the collective traumas that, that humans have suffered for our whole existence.

Amina: I don't have nightmares very often, but thinking about it that way, I definitely have some recurring themes throughout the nightmares, even if I only have maybe like two or three a year, if that. A lot of times for me, it'll be shooting, like you said, shooting nightmares, either I'm getting shot or somebody that I care about getting shot, or they'll be like kidnapping related, where somebody's trying to kidnap me.

Kidnap me or trap me or something like that. Um, and I'm [00:24:00] trying to get away from them I do think that there is some collective aspects there like you know especially it's like a woman in society and like All these generations of women like you said that have just been stressed about being kidnapped or hurt or whatever We feel very like vulnerable out in the world.

So I definitely feel some themes of that in there And it's also, for me, like, they're usually related to people that I care about, like, you know, things that I don't want to happen about my family or my friends being hurt or something like that. I have an interesting relationship with nightmares because the earliest dreams that I can remember were nightmares, like the earl the first dreams that I've ever had that are still imprinted in my brain till this day.

I don't have them written down or anything, but I just remember them so so vividly because of the impact they had on me, and they also happened to be my first lucid dreams ever. So I really am thankful to nightmares for kind of putting me on this journey of lucid dreaming, which is such a big part of what I do now.

And I think also some of those [00:25:00] which I'll share in a second have like some aspects of my past lives as well. Two particular nightmares that I had when I was like five or something like that. The first one I was just walking around my neighborhood and there were these creepy guys in cars following me around like they were trying to kidnap me or they had bad intentions and they had like a tiger or something and the tiger was like trying to chase me.

So I get away and I go to my house. And then there's some, there's like a portion of my house that's different. It's like got these tombs of like ancient Egyptian Pharaohs and things like that. There's like sand. And I did something, I don't really remember the details. It was like 20 years ago, but I did something to make them mad.

And so I pissed off these mummies and they were mad at me and the whole house started to like shake. And I don't know why they were mad at me, but. I went outside and I was like standing at my front door and that is the moment that I [00:26:00] realized I was dreaming. I was like, oh, this is a dream. I could just wake up and then another nightmare that I had around that age It was very similar things You know, being chased and Egyptian themes and the same way I was at the front door of my house and I became Lucid and realized it was a dream and I woke up at the time It was like very scary and I didn't really think about it But now thinking back on those dreams and analyzing them like paired with all other dreams that i've had About egyptian history and things like that and i've now fully believed that that was part of my dream Souls past which I'm still trying to understand but I appreciate those dreams now because it kind of started me on this journey to lucid dreaming and I think that that's part of the reason why maybe I don't have nightmares that often and I don't know if it's because I've just been so aware in my dreams that usually if I do have a nightmare, I'll realize that it's a dream, 

Marta: right?

Amina: And so it creates some space between my waking self and the scary [00:27:00] aspects of the dream so it doesn't affect me as deeply as when I don't realize it's a dream. Because when I wake up from a nightmare and I, and I'm not lucid, it hits me so much harder and I just like, I have to force myself to write it down.

There's been like a handful of dreams. Where I just don't want to remember them at all. But it really doesn't happen that often for me, so I'm thankful for that. But I'm also not really scared of nightmares. Like, I'm kind of like, I have the bring it on energy because I want to be able to talk about them and explore them deeper.

Marta: Well, it's interesting, you know, the way you describe really a very natural lucidity that you've had since you were a very young child. So I would guess that that has really helped you because in a way you empower yourself and resolve some things within the dream right away. You're waking up on the spot.

Which I think helps people to not carry that trauma with them then into waking life where we then have to work on [00:28:00] it, you know, in therapy or a dream work session. So it sounds like you have a sort of a natural gift in resolving things. quickly within the dream. 

Amina: Yes, definitely. And I like to call it more of an ability because I do believe everybody can do this.

But I understand that lucid dreaming doesn't come naturally to everybody. So you know, I didn't want it to come off as like, Oh, well, just realize you're dreaming and boom, nightmare solved, you know, like, I know, it's not that easy for most people. But if you do have something recurring that happens often in the dreams, you can kind of train your brain to be like, Oh, this again, like I'm dreaming.

And then when I'm lucid in a dream, I wake up feeling way better about the nightmare than when I just, if I'm not lucid and I wake up and the nightmare is like, I can literally still feel it on my chest. It's a huge 

Marta: difference. Yeah, and you know, this, this makes me think about, you had sort of asked this earlier, like why so many kids have [00:29:00] nightmares.

When I look at statistics, it's like 50 or 60 percent of children, young children have nightmares. And then by the time we're teenagers, it's down to like maybe 20 or 30%. And then maybe 10 percent of adults continue to have nightmares. So, so why is that? And I would say from a, from a psychotherapy standpoint.

And looking at human development, I think one of the functions of dreams is to help children learn how to deal with fears and to practice facing things that they're scared of and building their confidence in being able to handle conflict or, you know, scary things. And And go on with their life. And so when children have nightmares and hopefully get some support from family and parents to work through them, they feel more confident, not just in their dreams, but in waking life that they can handle things that they can deal with fear.

And this [00:30:00] really helps us develop into more confident. Yeah, 

Amina: that's a great point. It kind of goes back to this threat simulation theory of dreams, which is kind of one of the purposes that we've seen of why we dream. But our brains are kind of thinking of all the possible scenarios of things that might happen, good and bad.

Um, and so we kind of prepare ourselves. For all this pain and horror and things we don't usually experience. It's not very common, you know, to be in a school shooting or being kidnapped. You know, I mean, it happens and we all have these fears, but it's not like your everyday experience. So it kind of prepares us for that in a way, even though I don't have nightmares that often, I have had a lot of sleep paralysis, which I guess kind of falls into the same category because it's scary and not fun, but it's more of a lucid state.

Like, I still know that I'm kind of in this. Liminal phase of sleeping, but I've had some terrifying terrifying sleep paralysis experience so I can relate to people on that note You [00:31:00] know I've been like I had this one where I was feeling like I was being dragged by like Some sort of demon through like space like I was going through this tunnel being like dragged and then I woke up into this false Awakening and I couldn't walk.

I was like stuck Stumbling through my room and I was still dreaming though. So it was like a sleep paralysis, false awakening. Um, and I used to have sleep paralysis, like almost every day when I was in college, but again, that even played a role in my journey as like a lucid dreaming coach, because eventually I just stopped being scared of it.

I was like, Oh, this again, like, I know what this is. I know how to, you know, Turn this into a dream and I would either stay asleep and turn into a dream or I would just stay calm until I could wake myself up. Yeah. I learned how to embrace it. And then same applies to nightmares. When you embrace it with like this exploration mindset, it can completely transform the experience.

Yeah. I like sleep paralysis now. I'm one of those weirdos. 

Marta: Yeah. Yeah, [00:32:00] I'm glad you brought that up because that's it's a little different than a nightmare. Right. And I've had a fair amount of those too. And they often leave me with a real creepy feeling like a presence is in the room with me trying to, you know, whatever, take over my body or like you said, like drag me somewhere.

And so it is, and that it's a powerless feeling, right? Even now, like I wake up my husband sometimes because I'm yelling or talking in my sleep, but the words don't make sense because my mouth. Can't really move, right? It's that part, it's that aspect of paralysis where you can't say what you want to say or yell the way you want to, or move your body.

So I have those two. 

Amina: Yeah, it's really frustrating. And I'm always trying to scream and shake and wake myself up. And then I'm just like still in the same position. So I just kind of give up eventually and just. And it's funny because often people will report feeling like a negative energy or like a [00:33:00] demon or some sort of like incubus type of energy in the sleep paralysis phase, which I've experienced a lot and it's definitely not pleasant.

But what's funny and I've noticed is that sometimes we think it's something evil because we don't know what it is. It's like the unknown to us. We don't know what is in this realm. And one time I had this sleep paralysis where I was having Auditory hallucinations of like this static y like radio transmission and I heard this like creepy demon voice like just the creepiest voice you can imagine like deep static y But it was telling me nice things.

It was like, I heard it say my name. It was like Amina and I was like But it started telling me like, you're doing great. Like, I'm proud of you, like positive things. And it was really confusing. It was like this paradox of like, I'm scared, but thanks. And like, that made me feel a little better about it, but because it was still so unknown to me.

And I was like, who are you? Who are you? How do you know my name? Why are you talking to me? That I [00:34:00] just woke myself up and like managed to wiggle out of it. But to this day, I'm like, was that my subconscious? Was that some. Passing by energy that just wanted to tell me that I'm great and maybe the transmission or you know Made it staticky and scary sounding to me But I say all that to say like when you confront the whether it's a nightmare someone chasing you or a sleep paralysis Energy or whatever when you confront it with like love and gratitude.

Sometimes it might actually turn out to be a nice energy 

Marta: Yeah, I, I love that, that point, Amina, and you showed curiosity, right? Instead of just immediately blanking them out or pushing them out, you listened and you realized, Oh, well, what they're saying is, is nice. And so even though it's sleep paralysis, it doesn't mean we can't work with these things as a dream, right?

Because it is a type of dream. And I would see that, you know, if it were my dream, like, Oh, this is a shadow aspect of me. [00:35:00] That I'm scared of, and it's unknown, and it's a little creepy, and I don't know what it's about, but oh, hmm, if I pay attention, it's, it's not as scary as I thought it was initially, and that's just so powerful.

Amina: Exactly, yeah, and I kind of want to, Tie this circle back to talk to the people that are kind of going through the journey of being able to find peace within themselves. So we know about lucid dreaming and we know about dream journaling and how that can help from like a psychotherapy perspective. What are some things that people can do in their waking life to kind of find peace with these dreams?

I know we kind of talked about some of them, but is there anything that we missed? 

Marta: Yeah, I think If someone has a significant PTSD experience or, or history, it might be something ongoing that, that happened to them. We always want to pay special attention to that in their dreams. [00:36:00] So how might this be? It's kind of like having an ancestral awareness, right?

How, how do we have a PTSD awareness? So is this demon or scary character? an aspect of the trauma. It could literally be a perpetrator, uh, like a memory of that perpetrator, or it could symbolize someone's fear about that happening again, or shame that this trauma happened to them, or rage. That they wish they could get justice, but it's not possible.

So, a scary character might be coming, not to re traumatize someone, but to help us relate to all of the feelings around traumatic experiences. Like I said, rage, fear, shame. And so again, to open it up, not just, Oh, why am I being like, like not staying [00:37:00] in the victim role? Why do I keep having these dreams that re traumatize me?

Well, Are they re traumatizing or are they bringing some wisdom and gifts, kind of like this demon who looks scary, but hmm, let's actually give them a chance to say what they need to say here. 

Amina: Yeah, exactly. And that can be like a very unpleasant process. To reframe the way you look at your dreams, but at what point do you think that it becomes something that you need to seek, like professional help for?

Mm-Hmm? . Maybe like a therapist. Mm-Hmm. . I know not all therapists have experience with talking about dreams, but at what point would it be considered like a nightmare disorder or something? Mm-Hmm. more serious. 

Marta: Yeah. I think if nightmares really are happening very frequently, like every night or multiple times a week, and.

If they're so disturbing, and if they stay, uh, sort of stuck, and they, they don't move, you know, [00:38:00] the, like we talked about earlier, these characters are not transforming, they're not moving, it feels really overwhelming to the person, or it starts to, you know, impact their quality of life. Like, maybe they're not going out of the house, or maybe they're, you know, Not going into certain situations because their anxiety is so high, then that's clearly a sign that we need to, you know, have more support and get into some deeper work that really focuses on this because then there's a whole series of things that we can do to first set a lot of protection around the person and around the work and then bring in allies and protectors like this might happen over Multiple sessions to start with just to, you know, we talked earlier about, like, how do I bring in my, this sort of council of protectors who are all around me before we even start doing the work, then we [00:39:00] go in and.

We might not even want to tell a whole nightmare because that in itself might be too triggering. So then maybe we pick us an aspect, or we pick a particular character to sort of isolate from. The whole situation, if it's overwhelming, and just deal with that one aspect with all of these allies around and helpers.

So we might want to wade in very gently and pace the work. Because we don't want to retraumatize someone. 

Amina: Yeah, that patience with yourself and with people you're working with is very important. It's a lifelong journey, you know, of healing yourself and working through these things. And actually I thought of something else too, somewhat related, not related to the trauma, but that I wanted to tell you about.

Sometimes I'll have these nightmares and I consider these nightmares, although they're not scary, they're just very uncomfortable. Like every [00:40:00] once in a while. I'll have like an incest dream with like my family molesting me or doing something weird like that to me. And my family's great. I have no problems with them, no trauma with them in that regard.

So I think about that sometimes, like those dreams, like I hate them because they're so weird. And you know, I have some friends that are like, oh, yeah, I have incest dreams. Sometimes I hate them Like why does that happen? Do you think like what in my brain is thinking about these things that is just so disgusting to me?

Like i'm repulsed when I wake up. 

Marta: Yeah, 

Amina: I it's like an intrusive thought. 

Marta: Yeah I I really appreciate that this question because, um, incest is one of those topics that is so taboo in our culture, that we rarely talk about it. And in the dream work field, you know, we don't talk about sex dreams that much or incest dreams, or, you know, and these are really important and common.

So that's the first thing to say, I've had incest dreams. I really freaked out when [00:41:00] I first had one and I brought it to my analyst and she, it was so helpful. So I think that. Feelings of incest and sexual attraction within families is natural and it's part of human nature. So just to say that first, it's, it's like masturbation, right?

Another topic we don't talk about. And that's also really natural. And even the young children have orgasms and masturbate and, you know, or have incest dreams. Like this is, we don't have to make it something like, Oh, there's something really wrong with you. If you're doing this or you're having these dreams.

The thing with taboo topics is. We don't want to act on incestuous feelings, right? We don't want to harm other people. So how do we recognize these natural feelings without doing harm [00:42:00] to others? Well, we explore them within ourselves. So, you know, now this is going to maybe sound really Freudian and I do have some, uh, you know, Freudian work in my background.

But, um, for instance, if I have like the incest dream I had was about my father. So what could this be saying in terms of my psyche? Sex is union. So if we have, say, opposite sex fantasy or, or incest dream, it could be a desire to bring together. To create a union between these aspects, like, do I want to connect with my father energy internally, the part of me that protects me, that supports me being in the world who, you know, helps me create boundaries and to be a strong person, right?

Maybe I need to bond with my internal father [00:43:00] energy. I could have an incest dream about my mother, right? So if I'm the same gender. I may be wanting to embrace my mothering instincts. And how do I express that in the world or towards myself? So, any of these things, siblings, right? This is, this is natural.

What would a, a sister or a brother archetypal energy be in my life that I may be craving? So, even though it has this creepy context, It's often a healthy impulse that's underneath it, but it's tied up in all of our cultural judgments and fears about it. 

Amina: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad that I brought this up and that you gave me this kind of perspective on it, because this is something that I think about a lot and I don't usually talk about.

And I know that people can relate to this, but nobody wants to talk about these things because they're so uncomfortable. So, you know, that's what I'm all about is [00:44:00] like normalizing things, like telling people like, Hey, it's okay. You're not weird. Like, you know, you're not messed up in the head. Like these things are normal and they happen.

And like, it's just a part of it. Yeah. 

Marta: Right. And if we really follow this belief that dreams are here to help us. Then we can ask that question, well, why am I being sent this creepy thing? Because in these incest dreams, a parent or a family member might be acting in ways that is not loving and kind. It might be intrusive or abusive or, or whatever, lecherous.

So how do we deal with those creepy energies? And I also want to say, what if. Someone has actually been incested in their waking life. And if they're having a dream like this, again, it comes to help with the healing process. So, you know, with our family members and especially our parents, we want. healthy role models that we can [00:45:00] emulate and we identify with our parents, their energies flow through us, right?

That's the lineage. And so if we were hurt by them, that is something that we hold as part of our identity, right? If I'm hurt by someone in my bloodline, that can bring up shame and, and disgust. Like, well, then that's part of me, right? If my mother or my father did this to me, well, then that makes me a really gross.

Disgusting person. So these are really, really painful experiences that we need to heal. And so can we again, transform that maybe abusive or lecherous energy into what's the, what's the positive aspect of that person, that archetype, mother, father, family member, that I actually want to embody. And embrace to create a healthy identity around that for [00:46:00] myself so I can carry it forward.

This really is it. wraps into ancestral healing, right? I want to heal this so that I'm not carrying that shame and repulsion into my life and into the next generation. So it's here to help us transform it. 

Amina: Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean, that makes a lot of sense, honestly. What else? So shifting to like a little bit of a lighter note, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about, or maybe this is a good time for you to kind of like, Share, you know, where your book will be coming out and where people can find it.

And that kind of stuff. 

Marta: Yeah. I could say just coming back to this theme of transformation. One question we can ask nightmare figures or scenarios is how can I transform this situation or transform this relationship or this character? And this is where we can be creative and [00:47:00] invite our active imagination.

So we, we take a situation or a character and we imagine into it and we let it transform. And we even bring that intention to say, what's the healthy aspect of this shadow character, right? Cause that's a word we haven't really been using today, but you know, we're, we're, we've been talking about shadow characters and shadow aspects of ourselves.

So how do we take the shadow and see the other side of it. Because a shadow is always a pair, right? We can't have a shadow without light shining on something. So we want to bring in the transformed or the healthy aspect of this and start to relate to it. With that also, not that we want to shun the shadow or block it out because that's, that's what happens when we then, you know, we're [00:48:00] bypassing or we're not accepting that these are also parts of us.

So the shadow is part of who we are, and they always have a light side that we want to invite in as, as a partner or as a pairing for our shadows. 

Amina: Yeah, that's, that's a great point. I love that you bring up the shadow and thinking back to like all of my unpleasant nightmare dreams, I can always find that there's that sort of pairing, like there's something that I love, whether it be family or, you know, something that I enjoy paired with something that I don't enjoy, which is what makes the nightmare so jarring is this polarity between happiness and not happiness.

Mm-Hmm. like colliding, you know? Mm-Hmm. . Completely turn your world upside down. So that's a really interesting point that you bring up, um, of the shadow. I think that's important. 

Marta: Yeah. Like I might, if we want to just sort of come full circle, if I [00:49:00] come back to the dream that I shared about being shot in the stomach, if I were to open that up to active imagination, I might invite in a midwife and a healer Who can help me, who can tend to this injury and check on my pregnancy and help this creative project that's in my womb.

I can imagine it growing and coming to full term and being born, but I need to bring in a healer and a midwife and maybe someone to help the, the man clean up the blood. So he's not so, you know, angry, we're not in conflict anymore. So, you know, here's where I can get creative and. See this pregnancy coming to full term and birth.

Amina: Yeah, that's such a good technique to look at dreams that way. And this is kind of helpful for lucid dreaming too. It's like, if you have a dream that's disturbing you and you go [00:50:00] back and you rewrite it, whether you do it in your head or you write it out, you can kind of come to terms with how you want the dream to end and you reframe it.

Change the ending for yourself, um, and just doing this a lot of times can help you become aware next time you have a similar dream. You might remember like, oh yeah, you know, I want to do it differently this time. So I always encourage people to try lucid dreaming. Um, but even, even if you're not a lucid dreamer, you know, write down your dreams.

Don't be scared of them. Don't run from them. And I know how unpleasant it could be sometimes, you don't want to remember these dreams, but you know, I feel like the more we run from our shadow, it's not going anywhere. It's still going to be right behind us. No, 

Marta: it's going to get bigger. Yeah. So that's a great message to say, if you're having nightmares, talk to, uh, a skilled dream worker about it and they are here to help you.

So work with them. 

Amina: Yes, exactly. And, [00:51:00] um, I mean, you are a skilled dream worker. We have one right here. So where can people find you? Um, and what do you want to kind of share? 

Marta: Well, I'm, I'm a psychotherapist, like I said, and I, I'm in Colorado. My website is inspiral psychotherapy. com and I know you can, you'll put a link to that.

I'll be publishing my book at the, either by the end of this year or early, uh, you know, spring of next year. So either end of 24 or early 25. And I'd be happy to talk with people about their dreams or teach about it. I'll, I'm hoping that you and I will meet in person. person at the conference this year, uh, that will be in the Netherlands and that's the IASD conference.

I'll be teaching a workshop which will be an experiential ancestral dream work. 

Amina: Awesome. I will definitely be there and I'm going to be doing a morning group as well. 

Marta: Wow. Great. You'll be doing a dream group there. 

Amina: [00:52:00] Yeah. 

Marta: Fantastic. Yeah. Great. 

Amina: If you like the podcast, please leave a review. Check out my website.

I have a lot of cool blog posts on there and free resources. And if you're listening on Spotify, there's actually a new feature where you can send a text message and leave me some feedback. Be honest. What do you like? What do you not like? What do you want to see more of? Keep the feedback coming because I really appreciate it and I'm just kind of winging it.

So let me know what you guys like or what you want to see and sweet dreams.