EP87: Lucid Surrender & The Influence of Carl Jung

Many Worlds of Lucid Dreaming Online Event Oct 26-Nov 9 2024

Today's guest, Melinda Powell, an expert in lucid dreaming, discusses her early interest in dreams, her journey with lucid dreaming, and her experiences in using dreams for personal guidance and healing. Powell shares insights from her books 'Lucid Surrender' and 'The Hidden Lives of Dreams,' highlighting the therapeutic and transformative power of dreams. She also references her work at the Dream Research Institute (DRI) in London, advocating for dream research focused on well-being. The conversation touches on the influence of Carl Jung and the integration of his theories into dreamwork. We emphasize the importance of developing a personal relationship with one's dreams as a pathway to inner guidance and healing.

Melinda's links
Website
Lucid Surrender Book
The Hidden Lives of Dreams Book
DRI London
Dream Boat Podcast

Transcript

Amina: I'm really excited to announce that I will be presenting a paper about shared dreaming at the fourth annual Many Worlds of Lucid Dreaming online conference. It starts at the end of October. My goal is to propose the idea that we share dreams with each other all the time without even realizing it. And I want to encourage people to share their dreams with their friends and family and perhaps see what patterns and similarities pop up.

This is not about making hard scientific claims. It's about expanding our minds and what we think is possible. So check out the many worlds of lucid dreaming link in the description There's going to be so many awesome talks presentations and conversations going on. It's all online They have a student and low income tickets available for like 60 And for two weeks straight you can interact with awesome lucid dreaming experts.

So please check it out. Today's guest is melinda powell An author, speaker, dream guide, trainer, and pioneer of lucid dreaming. She co founded London's Dream Research Institute, which promotes research into the connection between dreams and well being from a spiritual perspective. The institute supports a synergy of research to advance our [00:01:00] understanding of dreams.

So I'm really excited for today's episode, and please give a warm welcome to Melinda Powell. 

Melinda: Thanks for having me, Amina. It's good to be here and have the chance to meet you. to talk with you on your podcast. I've always had an affinity for dreams. So when I was a child, I was really interested in the dreams that I came across in my Sunday school of Daniel in the Old Testament and Joseph.

Some of you, some of your listeners will know about the dream of the coat of many colors and the story of Mary and the Annunciation and seeing the angel Gabriel. So all of that really resonated with me. I also had very vivid dreams as a child and quite lucid dreams. I would write them down and make them into stories.

But when I was a child, about seven, I got called in for a teacher's conference with my mother, and the teacher was quite concerned about maybe I had copied this, or where did, where was I getting these ideas? And I was quite mortified about that, so. I stopped sharing my dreams. So unfortunately, I'd rather put a lid on my dream exploration for outwardly, but inwardly, I still paid attention.

I kept a journal, um, ever since my teens. And I also really started following my dreams for dream guidance in my early 20s and made some major life decisions like, um, you know, leaving the U. S. I made that decision following the dream. So dream guidance has always been really important to me, but getting to your question about lucid dreaming.

So, as I said, I was frightened of those dreams, the repercussions of them, so I'd stopped them, but I started having them again against my will. Rather in my late thirties, they were hard to ignore at the time. I was. It's doing a training in counseling and psychotherapy education in London, where I had moved some years before.

And so the dreams were, they were well received there. People had an open heart towards dreams. So I felt more confident about accepting them really and exploring them. So I allowed them to unfold, and when I did, well, my dreams changed, and I changed, and my life changed, so. 

Amina: Yeah, wow, I can't believe the teachers when you were young, you know, kind of dimmed your light a little bit, but I'm glad you found a place where people allowed you to explore that openly.

I think that's really important. 

Melinda: Yeah, I think that's, you know, why the work you're doing is important because it's, it's just putting it out there. People come across it and feel supported and, you know, they have a safe place they can explore it. 

Amina: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's really important at a young age.

Like, one thing I'm interested in is teaching lucid dreaming to children so they know that, you know, it's normal to share dreams and, you know, they can learn these skills and that come naturally to them and they can harness them very young. So, yeah. I mean, 

Melinda: it's a gift. [00:04:00] I mean, it's part of our human inheritance, so it ought to be, it's, uh, encouraged, really, but I think in, in terms of the actual lucid experience for myself, I really wasn't familiar with lucidity.

I didn't really know the term lucid dreaming when I got into it. Um, as I said, the dreams just, started pressing in on me as it were. And when I went to one of my lectures, I, the lecture was on dreams. And I said, well, I have these dreams where I am aware that I'm dreaming in my dream. And I asked, what, what would you do?

And the instructor who, uh, was a colleague and now is a friend. And Nigel Hamilton suggested that I meditate, so for me that meant take a prayerful stance in the lucid experience or wait expectantly, let's say, a kind of active receptivity that I've [00:05:00] come to call lucid surrender. So that was really the major shift.

And that was in 2005 and probably also in response to major changes in my actual waking life. 

Amina: What happens in the dream when you meditate from inside the dream? 

Melinda: Literally, that is my primary experience in lucid dreaming. I've got about 500 pages of single spaced typed write ups of lucid dreams that I've had since then.

So yes, I've had a lot of practice in the dreams, but the curious thing is there's always something more to learn. Because what happens is always a bit rather unexpected, I would say. I mean, there are obviously the kind of familiar signposts along the way, but there's such infinite variety. I'm constantly surprised, really.

Amina: Yeah, I love that about lucid dreaming. It's like you, you never know what's going to happen, even as an experienced [00:06:00] lucid dreamer. Is there like, um, a certain dream that you can think of that has impacted you or that, you know, is really one of your favorites that you're willing to share? 

Melinda: Yeah, I mean, it's probably helpful to set the context by saying, when I say meditate, it's not something really esoteric or complicated.

It's just, you know, Taking a quiet stance within the dream and perhaps repeating a sacred name or a sacred word. Or even for me that would mean singing a sacred song. A very simple song with repetition. So it's not as if it's a really mind bending meditation at all. Something that helps me focus my mind and contain my emotions.

Basically, before sleep, that's usually my practice, is I'll have a period of quieting my mind and let's say opening my heart to a more focused and [00:07:00] still silent space. So that's the kind of practice that I do before the dreams and so within the dreams as well. But yes, a dream that really affected me powerfully that I had in about 2005 or so, place shortly after I'd attended a Sufi retreat and in that retreat we had meditated on qualities of the divine, but using Arabic terms.

So there was an expression, Majid, for, um, majesty, and that was the meditation that I'd been practicing. So it makes its way into my dream in kind of a curious way, which is why I'm sharing it. But, um, In that dream, I don't quite remember how I became lucid, actually. 

Amina: So many dreams, it's hard to keep track.

Melinda: Yes, so in the dream that I'm thinking of, I'm walking down a London street. It's just an ordinary street. I see a door that's partially [00:08:00] opened on the left. And I think, well, I'll go in there. And it's a shop, a jewelry shop, and the man is sleeping there. And he wakes up as I come in. And he, it seems he's been waiting for me and he says, Oh, I have a piece of jewelry that belonged to your mother.

And he says it's, it's just a bauble, you know, something small and he holds it up and it's this golden chain with these large squares of gold on it. And I think my mother, you know, I, I, how could she afford this? And, uh, he said, well, don't worry about that. Your mother's. already paid the price. He said, and what was her name?

And he said, was it something like Margit or Margaret? And I said, yes, Margaret. And I think I'm becoming more lucid as it goes on. And, and I noticed the time is 6 30 AM. And I think to myself, well, it's actually 6 30 AM probably in waking life. And that's when I become lucid. Uh, so, uh, immediately [00:09:00] with that, I just really pause, I, I remain still, and then the dreamscape falls away.

and opens to this expanse of intense, um, intensely bright darkness and a very strong, powerful wind. Uh, it feels like I've come out of my body. At the time, that was very strange and novel experience for me. So I was repeating the name Gabrielle. A name of an archangel to calm me. And, uh, we cross this expanse, and then there's a, a ring of what I think are stars, but it, it seems that they're sentient beings of light, quite intelligent, and they're slowly circulating around this vast, uh, inner circle of, kind of clouds of this luminous darkness.

So basically, anyway, I end up dropped in the center of that. Uh, I'm quite afraid at first. And again, waiting, um, singing a sacred song to calm [00:10:00] myself. And then it occurs to me that actually I'm safe. Nothing bad is happening. And suddenly I feel a deep joy go through me. I do a yoga pose, which is the dancer's pose where you put one arm up and one leg behind you and hold it at the knee bent.

And I feel very much loved and known. And I feel like I can know and love. And then, um, almost as suddenly the entire dream happens in reverse and I end up back on the London street and wake up. So, I think that dream hit me quite profoundly. I mean, when I woke up I was actually, moved me to tears at the end of it.

And remind me a bit, you know, have you seen pictures of worshippers around the um, Kaaba in, in the Arabic um, 

Amina: pilgrimage 

Melinda: site? Yeah? 

Amina: Yes. 

Melinda: It reminded me of that because the white ring against around this black [00:11:00] center and in that tradition it houses, I think, a meteorite stone, a dark black meteorite stone.

So in any case, Yes, that dream, after that dream, so happened, I was just starting IVF treatments just at that time. And, uh, the next day or so, I took the medication, whatever they give you to start that process. And it's, uh, I had an allergic reaction, and it was very severe. I was very ill. And actually, that dream helped me to, uh, Reel my soul back in as it were it helped me to get through that very hard time.

Amina: Wow. That's really profound dream I appreciate you sharing it. It's really interesting how it Impacted you moving on in the coming days. That's really cool. 

Melinda: Yes Yeah, I mean probably you found it too. I mean not not only the coming days But I think that even now as still the ramifications, you know unpacking the dreams 

Amina: Oh, yeah, [00:12:00] definitely.

I cherish my dream memories for years, like just as much as my waking life memories. They're very special to me. So I understand that. So you were in London at that time. And then you also co founded the Dream Research Institute in London. How did that come about? Um, I know you mentioned you met Nigel and how did you guys start the institution?

Melinda: Yeah, I had gone through the training. It's a five year qualification, postgraduate work in psychotherapy, transpersonal psychotherapy. I've been working as a therapist and I had ended up directing a counselling centre that was a placement centre for therapists at the centre where I trained, the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education.

And Dreams, as I mentioned, had been a part of that training. I worked with Dreams with my clients and Dreams were very important in my own life. It was As it happened, just when I started really intensely lucid dreaming, I [00:13:00] also started this job directing the counselling centre. And I think my experience, uh, evolved in tandem with the dreams, the lucid dreams.

I found they gave me the energy for what was really intense work, they gave me ideas, inspiration for fundraisers, dealing with people, all kinds of guidance. And, um, I was always, at the same time, I, I still continued attending dream workshops. I had my own, uh, different, uh, dream guide. I worked on dreams for a couple of hours a week with a dream guide named Sajita Taylor.

Lovely woman. And I knew that, um, Nigel had gone to an international association for the study of dreams conference. And that's where I first heard about the organization. I thought, I'd love to go to a place like that. Out of my own experience, my professional work, my training, also my interest. In well being, I thought, well, in therapeutic practice, [00:14:00] we say that dreams help our clients therapeutically, but there isn't a lot of evidence to support that.

And a lot of the dream research at the time, back in 2011, was really focusing on dream pathologies and nightmares and hallucinatory aspects of dreams. So, I was noticing how mindfulness and the yogic traditions were using research to support their claims for health benefits, and thought that would be a good idea for dreams.

And Nigel and I talked about that and we shared a lot of similar ideas around that. So, um, suggested we set up the center, Dream Research Institute, which is really a dream study center. And I ran that, I directed it for seven years and now it's handed it over to Dave Billington, who's the current director.

And I still am a senior advisor there. 

Amina: Wow, very cool. What studies and projects [00:15:00] are currently going on there? 

Melinda: Yeah, well, we offered trainings in, in dream guidance and working with dreams therapeutically, not only for therapists, but also for the wider public. Currently, Nigel's doing specific research on directional movement in lucid dreams.

He's got a series of research projects around that. He talked about it at the ISAD conference recently with Robert Wagner. And we also have people working on looking at the therapeutic benefits of dream re entry techniques in therapy. So, Dave also started a Dreamboat podcast, so I'll give a plug for that.

He does it with our DRI associate, Laura Payne. So you can have a listen now, a series, it's really a great series on dreams and lucid dreaming. 

Amina: Awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely put the links to the Dreamboat podcast and to your books as well on the website and all that. So that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Great, [00:16:00] great podcast.

I love connecting with other dreamy podcasters. 

Melinda: That was, it's a dream become reality just over time. So it's good to, to hear it and to see it. 

Amina: So I understand from your IASD presentation that Carl Jung was a big inspiration to you. Can you tell me a little bit about how his work has guided you and how you integrate it into your work today?

Melinda: Yes, yes, I have a debt of gratitude towards Carl Jung. I think my first official book on dreams was written by John Sanford, who was an Episcopalian priest who had trained as a Jungian analyst, and he wrote a book, God's Forgotten Language. And I read that as part of my, strangely enough, my literature training back in my early 20s.

So that kind of set me off in my interest in Carl Jung. And I think why I'm really drawn to his teaching is that he's looking at, uh, You know, a [00:17:00] psychological and spiritual transformation, uh, through his process of what he calls individuation. It's something that we get from the inner experience of the soul, from our own inner guidance, rather than really seeking external validation or external sources of knowledge.

And so his, uh, his teachings on alchemy, his alchemical model, and the creative imagination, they are all ways. of understanding this process of transformation that I see very much mirrored in dreams and lucid dreaming. 

Amina: Yeah, I love that. Um, he's inspired me a lot as well. I'm currently reading men and his symbols officially thoroughly through cause over the years I've read snippets and sections of it.

So I'm finally reading the whole thing. I love how he, how often he talks about dreams. So it's really interesting. 

Melinda: Yeah, it's a wonderful overview, really, of his um, as he calls it, you know, we each need to create our [00:18:00] own symbolic life. That's what gives our life shape and, uh, he would say meaning. And so, you know, dreams and working with dreams helps us.

to do that. I think Carl Jung, although he didn't talk overtly about lucid dreaming, the term was around, uh, when he was writing. He talked about visionary dreams, big dreams, numinous dreams, and dreams of light. But I think what he describes in his experience, in his red book in 1913, 1917, this really intense, um, confrontation, as he would call it, with the unconscious, or touching the depths, you know, of his own inner experience, and what came out of it, in terms of teachings around creative imagination, or active imagination.

All of that has a lot of affinity with the kind of research that we see going on in lucid dreaming, you know, related, say, to imagery rehearsal therapy [00:19:00] or dream re entry and changing the dream. If he were born now, he'd probably be doing what you're doing. You know, um, working more directly with lucid dreams.

But I think, um, it's also important to understand the context in which he was working. And I think the way, let's say Jungians very much regard or tend to regard lucid dreaming now with a bit of weariness. Or suspicion because, uh, um, the emphasis let's say in the West is very much on controlling the dream or manipulating the dream.

I think from a therapeutic point of view, a Jungian might see that as an attempt for the ego to only strengthen its defenses or to strengthen its sense that it can do whatever it wants to do. So there'd be some wariness around that. Um, What I wanted to show though is in the talk was that Jung himself had a deep trust in that encounter with the [00:20:00] unconscious.

But the trick was that one had to Really enter it in a spirit of surrender and also treating the dream reality Let's say with respect as if it had its own existence And to me that really has echoes of the lucid dream experience. I mean doesn't it sound like it to you? 

Amina: Oh, yeah, definitely the dream has like a mind of its own.

Sometimes I treat it like its own intelligent entity 

Melinda: That's right. Yes. I think it's Jung said, and now famously that he, you know, wasn't sure if he dreamed or was being dreamed. So I think when we lucid dream, we have that, I mean, very often we can have that same sense that we're being dreamed and the dreams have their own intent.

Amina: Yeah. That's very powerful. And I've noticed that as well, um, through just some books that I've read and, uh, modern practitioners that have gave me the idea of, you know, You know, interacting with the dream itself instead of getting lost in the little [00:21:00] details in the dream characters. So that's always interesting to see what comes up.

And sometimes it's powerful experiences that I feel like I could not have come up with myself. So it always feels like there's something bigger there. 

Melinda: Yes. I mean, one of the keys of Jung's teaching on active imagination was that you really need to allow the imagery to unfold. It's again that sense of waiting, um, not prejudging, or having a set expectation of what will happen.

So that's, that's a really important aspect that you're bringing up there. 

Amina: Yes, definitely. Expectations can definitely play a big role. It might, you know, the dream may or may not go the way that, you know, one is intending. Um, I like this quote that's like, You can control the ship, but not the sea. Because a lot of people think that lucid dreaming means you can control the dream, but that's not, that's a misconception.

It's, it's about the awareness and the control is only sometimes there. 

Melinda: That's right. Yes, I think that's one of Robert's quotes. Robert Wagner [00:22:00] is fond of saying that, isn't he? Yes. It's very, it's interesting to me to think of something like flying and lucid dreaming. I mean, it can be quite an exhilarating experience.

And we have the sense that, you know, we're, we're somehow making that happen. But of course, you know, in flight, it's not just about the plane going through the air through, you know, plane directing it, but it has the air and it's in relationship with the environment around it and having that energy. And so it's interesting to think again, you know, are you flying or are you being flown or are you being given.

An intimation of what it might be like to understand that we don't control the flight, we're being supported in flight. Think of it differently. 

Amina: Yeah, it's a very interesting question. It's quite mind boggling to me. Where do you think this greater awareness comes from? Is it part of this source universal energy?

Is it a part of [00:23:00] us, like a ver a higher version of ourselves? Um, do you have any personal thoughts on that? 

Melinda: Yes, it's an important question, man. What is it? What is that awareness behind the dream? Sometimes people will say, Is it just our minds or creation of our mind or an extension of our mind? I think what I've felt in my own dreams is always that it's something that in which I'm contained, it's larger than me, basically.

And what really interests me around it is how the soul is touched by that or awakened to something larger within itself. So we might use terms like a higher self, or the higher will, or the source, or just simply the mystery. In the Gnostic traditions, I quite like that they often call, refer to it as the great silence or the great stillness, you know, actually it's something then beyond our limited human comprehension, but certainly that's something that [00:24:00] communicates to us a feeling of wholeness and being in touch with a power that, has for us the qualities that we may lack and be able to impart those to us, whether that's emotionally or in terms of our own intellect.

So yes, something larger than ourselves and something that our soul recognizes and, and those is woven into the fabric of our being. There's a lovely Zen teaching is coming to mind around, you may have heard it, uh, You know, the Zen teacher is saying that, you know, first he, he, when he would see a mountain or a river, it was just a mountain or a river, was nothing special.

And then after he'd gone through his initiation, he saw that, uh, mountains were not mountains and rivers were not rivers. And then, you know, after all of his practice and years of experience, he. He saw again that mountains were mountains and rivers were [00:25:00] rivers, and it's a little bit like that, that, uh, the lucid dream opens up this whole new dimension, or dimensions in plural.

But then we come back to our waking reality, and we, we see it contained within this larger reality, so. It gives, it gives one a powerful feeling of wholeness and oneness really with the rest of creation. 

Amina: Yeah, lucid dreams have definitely brought me so much peace and, and guidance in my waking life as well.

Like it really integrates itself and guides me. So that's one thing that I love. And also another practical and. Good use for dream work and lucid dreaming is, you know, for healing emotional aspects and maybe even physical aspects and, you know, working through traumas and things like that from your experience, how can one use lucid dreaming for that?

And what is the impact that it has on healing? 

Melinda: I mean, definitely, yes, it's healing, psychological healing, physical and [00:26:00] spiritual. I think of my own experience, the physical side of it. In waking life, I was quite ill. I had a terrible sinus infection that threw off my balance. I couldn't walk for a number of weeks.

I was pretty miserable and I had a dream that I saw a figure that reminded me of this angelic Gabriel. I was standing opposite him in the dream and he raised his finger to my, just below my eyes and I had this feeling, you know, there's a sense that I would wake up healed. I could tell that in the dream and I was quite lucid at this point.

I, I realized who he was and what he was doing. But then he lowered his hand and I turned and I walked away. And just before I woke, actually woke up, I thought to myself, wait a minute, uh, maybe he can help me more. And I turned back to him and I said, could you heal my spirit? Because at the time I was feeling pretty low in my spirits and unsure of what to do in my life.

And he raised [00:27:00] his hand up to touch me between my brows, you know, the third eye area. And then he lowered it again just before he actually touched it. And I knew in the dream that it would be another seven years, uh, before I felt that inner, say, psycho spiritual healing in myself. And that really set me on my psychotherapeutic journey.

So, I think that's one example of how a dream works. can work on the physical level. But what's happened over the years in lucidity for me is that rather than say form based dreams in which a being is offering healing, the healing is coming in light. Light itself has a healing quality. And then, well, I mean, going back to Carl Jung, he said it was the encounter with the numinous or with something larger than ourselves, with the gods, that is the real therapy.

So that the lucid dreams very often [00:28:00] present us with experiences that have this numinous quality and it transcends our, let's say, what is causing this dis ease, whether it's physical or emotional or psychological. It helps, it provides a container that dissolves those issues, as it were, and I think that's why you'll find dreamers then.

Describe this kind of spontaneous healing after a lucid dream. I think you shared a dream, you shared a dream on one of the podcasts about an emotional experience you had that after, that was quite hard, but after a lucid dream of healing, you woke up feeling that you had found a resolution around that.

Amina: Yes. Yes. Yes. My dreams have brought me healing. And um, yeah, there's one in particular that I always share when I was going through something and then, you know, a dream character, which I seeked out in the dream literally just poured this healing energy into me and I woke up feeling healed and so much better.

And that experience really shocked me at how [00:29:00] much a dream can literally just change entirely physically, emotionally, the way that I was feeling. So it was super powerful. 

Melinda: Absolutely. And that's what, that's a great example where it's that encounter, that encounter with this numinous being, uh, with the energy was the actual therapy in the sense of the healing that you had.

So I think the lucid dreams facilitate, can facilitate that and accelerate it. But obviously there are other ways, you know, that we can have these kinds of experiences. It's rather, it's a spectrum, let's say of consciousness. But. It's what a lucid dream in terms of the intensity of the experience, it can help, I think, to facilitate or accelerate that experience of healing.

And say, uh, just instead of talking about something cognitively, you're actually experiencing it fully. This is an idea that I think Jung would find it interesting. A great [00:30:00] application of his own insights around the personality, really having these attributes of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.

Most of the time, you know, we tend to be in Western world in the head space, in the thinking space, and cut off from our emotions. Let's say in ordinary dreaming, emotional centers of the brain are more active. But in that lucid dream, then you have that opportunity to bring cognition and meta reflection back into the dream while you're still in touch with very deep feelings.

So you have this experience of the full way of being as a, as a human, really. They tend to be All very much present, including, I would say, sensation, because the subtle body is very much alive within the lucid experience. 

Amina: I think both ordinary non lucid dreams can be healing as well, but the lucid dreams are just like another level [00:31:00] because you have that conscious input, um, while you're in there, and it's, It's just so powerful.

Melinda: Yes. I mean, yes, say ordinary dream will have the healing and also you can work with the dream therapeutically through dream reentry. So I mean, in my own experience, I described that in my writings on lucid dreaming, lucid surrender. When I was learning. Or re learning, let's say, or, well, learning how to trust the lucid experience through dream re entry processes.

But going through a dream with a guide, that gives you a certain, the guide holds a position of objectivity, if you will, while the person who's re entering the dream is going back into the feeling quality of the dream. So, in a way, you have this opportunity for Both, um, lucid awareness, but also then being in touch with the dream consciousness as it unfolds in real [00:32:00] time, but using your active imagination or creative imagination.

So, Again, really drawing on these Jungian ideas for working with dreams. And that's why I say it's a spectrum of consciousness. One can access this healing in a non lucid dream, but through the dream work as well, after a dream, through dream re entry, and then also within the lucid dream. But the lucid dream experience might feel, um, somehow complete in itself.

It doesn't need further investigation in terms of, of its resolution. It kind of is what it is, in that sense. 

Amina: Yeah, definitely and you mentioned one of your books called Lucid Surrender. I think that's such a beautiful name and really fitting for the topic Can you tell me a little bit about your book?

And I know you have other books as well. So feel free to share them 

Melinda: Yes, the title Lucid Surrender came out of a dream And one of the dream beings was asking [00:33:00] what are those dreams when those lucid dreams when I allow myself to be taken to God in the way that I do in, in lucidity, and I, I said surrender lucid surrender.

So that's where that came from, the title, but thanks for asking about it. As a book came out of the, really, the evolution of my experiences in dream lucidity, it's looking at dream, those experiences from a phenomenological perspective. So, you know, the types of experiences, the experience of light, and wormholes, and effects of what I call mirroring, but it's also looking at the dreams from a therapeutic perspective and bringing my professional experience working with dreams to bear on that and looking at their potential for psychological and spiritual healing.

Also, um, the title of it, Lucid Surrendered, The Alchemy of the Soul and Lucid Dreaming. It is expanding [00:34:00] on Jung's teachings in relation to what they might have been if he were writing about lucid dreaming. Um, so really looking at his alchemical model, how it speaks to lucid dreaming. And some of his notions about the empty center, which I relate to this experience of the lucid void or black light, I suppose it is more advanced or subtle lucid dreaming, but that that's been my experience.

And so my path has been the path of lucid surrender. And that, as the title suggests, is what the book is about. Fundamentally, it's helping people to really face the unknown with trust. Because that's, um, one of the primary lessons I've learned from Lucid Surrender. 

Amina: I love that. I have it in my Amazon shopping cart, so I will be ordering it and checking it out.

Yeah, 

Melinda: thanks. I did also, um, I think Lucid Surrender is really, you might say, the lunar consciousness aspect of [00:35:00] alchemy. And it is putting into play this idea of active imagination or a kind of conscious surrender. It's a real fundamental philosophical notion, not only in Tibetan Buddhism, but also in Western Gnosticism and Hellenic mystery traditions around learning to die before you die.

And so that's another important learning for me from lucid dreaming. So that's also something that I feature in the book. The other book, The Hidden Lives of Dreams, which I published first, much to my surprise, but I was commissioned to write it by a British publishing house to look at the connection between dreams and well being.

So that's more, you know, an introduction to ideas, related to dream studies and working with dreams, but also it's about, I mean, the way I wrote it was to help people develop a relationship to their dreams and to their inner world. So going through reading [00:36:00] the book, it's, it's, it's also deepening. intended to deepen one's own encounter with their dreams.

So there are many different approaches to psychology and therapy modalities. There have been lots of studies that show that it isn't really the method or approach that you use. What it is, is the relationship between the client and the therapist that really, you know, results in positive outcomes or potentially can.

So if someone has a good trusting relationship with their therapist, they'll have better outcomes really across all the modalities, right? And I think it's similar with dreams. You can take a Freudian approach, a Jungian approach to dreams. You can follow this or that teacher on dreams, but really what it comes down to is how you yourself relate to your dreams.

And how you develop that relationship more deeply. So I suppose that's the, the main thrust of my writing on dreams is [00:37:00] encouraging people to develop their own sense of inner guidance through their connection to their dreams. 

Amina: I love that you encourage people and inspire people from beginners to experienced lucid dreamers.

It seems like your books cover that whole range, so that's wonderful. And, um, Those are all the questions I had for you today. Honestly, I'm just thankful that you came out, made time to chat with me today. And hopefully I'll see you in London soon. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to check out all the links in the description, leave a review, check out the website, like, share, subscribe, whatever you got to do.

Love you guys and sweet dreams.