EP102: Dream Empowerment & Sacred Portals

In this soul-nourishing episode, I speak with Megan Mary about how dreams empower our waking lives, the deep connection between feminine energy and dream recall, and her four-step Dream Mirror method for personal dream decoding. We explore lucid dreaming as a tool for spiritual awakening, healing from nightmares, and the universal wisdom embedded in symbolic dreams. 

About the guest: 

Megan Mary is an award-winning metaphysical author and dreamworker that specializes in the analysis of women's dreams to promote transformative personal growth and enlightenment. Founder of Inner Realms Publishing, Women's Dream Analysis and the Women's Dream Enlightenment podcast, she is an intuitive, introvert and mystic. After being diagnosed with three chronic illnesses, she experienced a spiritual awakening. She now works with women all over the world offering dream interpretation, transformative journeys and enlightened guidance. She holds a BA and an MA in English Literature, is pursuing her PhD in Metaphysical Sciences and is a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. She lives in Idaho with her husband and two cats. Her debut fiction novel, The Dream Haunters: A Metaphysical Mystery of Magick, Book 1 of Witches of Maple Hollow Series, became an international bestseller in October 2024. Book 2, The Dream Mirrors, will be released in May 2025 and Book 3 in October 2025.

Transcript

Amina:
I love how dreams and the waking life connect. Do you think that dreams affect waking more or waking affects dream more? Or how do you think they are related? I think they are so inextricably intertwined and they really do influence each other so much. And so part of the dream work that I do, and I think I heard you say it before, I call it dream empowerment.

00;00;24;05 - 00;01;01;24
Unknown
And I really I call it that because I feel it's important to give people the tools to be able to do this work themselves and to understand the importance of dreams and how they can move forward and integrate them into their lives. And really, what happens when you start to do that is that your dreams start to change, and then your understanding of them starts to change and you start to look at reality different.

00;01;01;26 - 00;01;19;10
Unknown
Cool. Well, welcome Megan Mary to the Dream World podcast. It's nice to meet you. As you know, I love talking to other people in this dream work field. And you are also giving a presentation at this year's Iasb online conference. So we will get to that because I'd love to hear about it. But let's start from the beginning.

00;01;19;11 - 00;01;47;16
Unknown
Take me to how this started. What is your personal journey that led you to begin dream work for women? Yes. Well, it started really when I was a child and I used to have amazing flying dreams and also recurring nightmares, and I really wanted to know where we were going when we are dreaming and why we were spending all of our time there and what purpose they held, if any, because we really weren't taught about them.

00;01;47;16 - 00;02;13;15
Unknown
And I found them always so fascinating. And I was always interested in everything beyond the five senses. So let's put it that way. So anything mysterious, esoteric, supernatural, all of those things were very intriguing to me. And one of the first books I bought was Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Barish, and I was obsessed with figuring out how to do it.

00;02;13;15 - 00;02;48;05
Unknown
And then when I figured it out, I was like, okay, what's next? And I just kept going from there. I think that there was a period during which I started to ignore my dreams and just, you know, kind of subconsciously forgot about them. And then I was reminded I experienced a sort of a medical crisis, really? And that led me to do a whole bunch of inner work and healing that in the process, helped me rediscover the dream world.

00;02;48;05 - 00;03;20;13
Unknown
And when I walked back into that world, I started receiving all this different guidance and really got the directive that this was what I was supposed to be doing out in the world, and that I had to hurry up and get to it. So that was really what led me to starting to do the dream work with women, and also led me to become an author and write the trilogy fictional trilogy that I've created to also teach about dreams.

00;03;20;15 - 00;03;42;23
Unknown
That's awesome. That's very exciting. I can definitely resonate to that. I have a similar journey, you know, of of rediscovering my love for dreaming and sharing that passion with the world. So I think that's really awesome. I'm curious why, did you choose to focus on dream work for women specifically? Well, being a woman myself, I felt that most comfortable in that space.

00;03;42;25 - 00;04;11;14
Unknown
But I also then found out that it turns out women are really high. Dream Recolors. So it actually works out really well. And I discovered through reading many of Patricia Garfield's books that our estrogen plays a really big role in Dream Recall. And so that just reinforced the path that I was going down. And I also just wanted to create a place.

00;04;11;16 - 00;04;36;02
Unknown
And this is also the reason I started my podcast, a platform for other women to share their stories of spiritual awakening, to discover how they may have rediscovered or entered into the dream world, and how they're using that knowledge that they're discovering there in their real lives for this life. Yeah, of course, you know, waking life. I totally agree.

00;04;36;02 - 00;04;56;13
Unknown
Yes. Yeah, that's very powerful. I mean, I think as a woman, I understand that we are very innately spiritual and we're dreamers and we have that creation energy. So I think that's really, really awesome. And do you also do work with dream analysis? And how do you approach working with people in analyzing the dreams and breaking down the symbols and things like that?

00;04;56;18 - 00;05;23;05
Unknown
I do, and I have a method that I've developed called the Dream Mirror method, and it has four steps to it. And it really is a entry point for people that want to start doing dream work and understanding their own dream language, versus utilizing a dream dictionary, or having someone put the meaning on their dream and tell them what it means.

00;05;23;05 - 00;05;53;15
Unknown
And that method is relatively simple. And its steps. The four steps are memory, mood, mirror and metaphor. And the memory is really just remembering the dream, which for some people I found out is quite difficult. I didn't realize that is a high dream recall or myself, but that is the first stage really is cultivating the practice of remembering your dreams and dedicating time to that space in between the worlds.

00;05;53;15 - 00;06;24;04
Unknown
When you're waking up that transitional brainwave moment and harnessing that into recording it in your dream journal and then reflecting upon it. So that's really the first step. The second step is mood. And that's for me, because our dreams are so powerfully, emotionally driven. And that's really because we experience them with active parts of our brain that are the same capacity as when we are awake.

00;06;24;11 - 00;06;47;27
Unknown
And so we process dreams on that emotional level in the limbic system, as if we experience them in real life. And that's why they can be so impactful. They can leave that feeling once we wake up that sticks around. And so looking at those emotions, the ones that we had before we went to sleep, the ones that we had during the dream, and then the ones that we had upon waking.

00;06;47;27 - 00;07;28;04
Unknown
Because that can be different to really help us understand the messages in the dream. Yeah, that makes so much sense. So the third, the third step I call Mira and and that's really named that way because it is about our subconscious being the mirror of our consciousness. So in that step we look at all the little pieces of the dream, the, the people, the places, the actions, the landscape, the numbers, the weather, the colors, all the things that make up the story of the dream and interpret really looking at all of those things small and big.

00;07;28;06 - 00;07;52;07
Unknown
So we want to not miss any detail. We don't want to gloss over something, but we do also want to take the thousand foot view. So we don't want to just take one piece and look it up in a dictionary and take that meaning. We want to look at all the pieces and we want to look at those pieces as having come from your own association, your own experience, your own meaning.

00;07;52;12 - 00;08;20;13
Unknown
So what it might mean in Greek mythology, or what it might mean to your sister, might not be the same as what it means to you, because your experience, both in this life and beyond is unique to you. And every everything that you have compiled in your library of your subconscious has certain associative meanings for you. So then lastly, we look at this dream as a metaphor.

00;08;20;21 - 00;08;46;18
Unknown
We look at the stories in your dream from a metaphorical standpoint to say, okay, what is this dream telling me about my current existence? How can I see this as a story that's bringing a message now there is another way to look at some dreams. And that's the prophetic, the visitation, the lucid, these other types of dreams where it can be a message.

00;08;46;20 - 00;09;13;20
Unknown
And that message sometimes can be a very spiritual in nature message. And that's part of what I'm going to be presenting about at the conference, is that dreams are that bridge to that universal wisdom. Yeah, that's that's true. They they are. And I love how, you know, these four steps really are a personal approach and give the power to the dreamer to really, you know, guide them through figuring out their own dream.

00;09;13;26 - 00;09;41;09
Unknown
I think that's super important. So I love that. I'm excited to hear about your presentation. Tell me a little bit about that. What's the title of it? What can we expect from your presentation? This year? Yeah. So the title is called Dreams as Sacred Portals Unlocking the Path to Spiritual Awakening, and it really is at the underscoring what we just talked about, that I feel that dreams aren't just regurgitation of the day.

00;09;41;16 - 00;10;16;01
Unknown
They are not just Nancy sense, right? They hold a lot of meaning. But in addition to that, they are communications from a universe of wisdom that we are all part of. Some call it the higher self, some call it the universe, some call it spirit guides. Whatever you refer to that as, it's larger than our physical existence in 3D reality, and we can access that information when we are in the dream state.

00;10;16;08 - 00;10;48;09
Unknown
And I'm also going to talk about visitation, dreams, the symbolic type dreams, and then spirit guide messages. And it's going to combine the psychological viewpoint, but also a lot of metaphysical and esoteric thought in terms of how we're going to conceptually think about the dream world, and also how that can be a tool for personal growth and healing and really aligning with one's higher purpose.

00;10;48;09 - 00;11;13;23
Unknown
Once we can attain that, that information, that's great. That's really exciting. I hope that people definitely check that out because this is valuable stuff. And I'm curious, how long have you known about ESD? Have you gone to other conferences? In the past, I've been a member for a couple of years. The first year I think I joined right after the I think it was the Oregon Conference, and then the next one was international.

00;11;13;23 - 00;11;34;21
Unknown
So I was really excited to see that it was going to be virtual this year. And I was like, oh yes, I'm definitely signing up. So yes, I'm excited to be part of it. I love that. Yeah. The Oregon 2023 conference, that was the first one I went to and I absolutely loved it. It just felt so amazing to be around people that are researching dreams and making art about dreams and all these different angles.

00;11;34;21 - 00;11;54;04
Unknown
So yeah, it's cool that it's online because we can reach so many more people, which is important, I think. Agreed. Yes, I entered the Arctic exhibition as well, so I have two pieces of artwork in that this year. Oh that's awesome. Tell me about that. What how do you, you know, make art inspired by dreams. What's your process like?

00;11;54;04 - 00;12;21;16
Unknown
Do you have anything that you can show somewhere? I do, yes, I do paintings and so I have two different ones that I entered that were both created from dreams that inspired my novels. So yes, that's awesome. If you want to like, send me a picture of them later, I can just like put them over the the recording.

00;12;21;16 - 00;12;42;18
Unknown
I think that might be cool. Oh, definitely. Yes. Awesome. Yeah. Then what about. So what? Tell me about your novels. What are they about? Where can people find them? Yes. So the trilogy is called Witches of Maple Hollow, and the first book is called The Dream Hunters that came out last October. And the Dream Mirrors is coming out the end of this May.

00;12;42;20 - 00;13;15;01
Unknown
And then book three of the Dream Dimensions will be coming out in, in this October. So all in quick succession. And they very much are the I call it fictional self-help. So it's very much like the celesta and prophecy in that it is a fictional story, but you are following the trajectory of the main character, Hannah Skye's spiritual awakening journey and her discovery of her long lost family, long lost powers, and in the process, the power of dreams.

00;13;15;01 - 00;13;45;01
Unknown
And so throughout the stories, we're constantly going in between her waking and dream life, and her dreams very much are a centerpiece of each one of the novels, so they really include so many metaphysical themes. There's too many to list, but it's, everything packed in there inside a basically a cozy, clean fantasy mystery. That's exciting. I love a good story.

00;13;45;01 - 00;14;02;07
Unknown
I love a good fiction. And especially when you bring dreams into the mix. So I'll definitely link that so people can find it. And I'm also wondering if you have any dreams to share, like a dream that really stood out to you in your life, or one that kind of stuck with you, or even an extra ordinary dream?

00;14;02;10 - 00;14;35;27
Unknown
Yes. There's a number of them that I have experienced, and many of them made it into my books, but you'll have to read it to figure out which ones. Let's see. One that I often share is a story that I had about. It was basically what I call a middle message. So messages that I receive in the liminal space between waking and sleeping, and that I like to hang out in that space as much as possible.

00;14;35;27 - 00;15;11;26
Unknown
And that's where I get a lot of some people call them download, some people call them communications. And one of them was take the string from your mitten that broke and fly a kite with it. And so I had to really sit and think about what that meant to me. And so I took every part of it, and I gave it a title, and I said, okay, I'm going to call this set sail, because for me, I really had this vision of this string floating up in the air and becoming a kite.

00;15;12;03 - 00;15;36;07
Unknown
So I had to start at the beginning and say, okay, well, what are mittens to me? And to me? Mittens are something that you usually wear as a child. Adults can wear mittens, but I associated them with childhood and particularly the kind that are connected with a string. And then I thought, okay, well, what are strings? Well, strings connect things in my mind.

00;15;36;09 - 00;16;03;05
Unknown
Okay. So then I thought, all right, well what are kites then? What's the purpose of kites? Well, for me again that's a childhood thing. It's something you do just for fun. And the whole object of it is to get that kite up, flying in the air and blowing in the breeze. And it's usually very colorful and beautiful. And so the message was to take the string from the mitten that broke.

00;16;03;05 - 00;16;45;26
Unknown
So I'm thinking, okay, this is like a connection to my childhood that has been broken somehow that I need to rekindle. And then I see this kite as really the the freedom of that realization of set, letting it set sail, letting it really bring that, that warmth that a mitten might bring from that cold exterior and really allow it to become this beautiful flying kite and after I had that realization, I tell this story occasionally and it's it's part embarrassing and part just funny.

00;16;45;28 - 00;17;10;15
Unknown
I was shopping for a toilet bowl brush of all things on Amazon and what comes up first, but a toilet bowl brush and the name of the brand was set sail. And I thought, you gotta be kidding me. That's cool. And so it's just like, I knew that's the one I'm going to buy. And it was the most beautifully packaged, came with a bow on it and a nice box.

00;17;10;15 - 00;17;33;05
Unknown
And I was like, this is this is very strange. But it was just one of those things where I was like, the irony, the synchronicities are thick. And so I really pay attention to the middle messages as much as I do the dreams, because they're they're threads that come across that space and they can be so profound. Yeah, I love I love that description.

00;17;33;05 - 00;17;51;26
Unknown
And I think it's really cool how you approached, you know, breaking down all the different elements of your dream and, you know, kind of found associations of what they could possibly mean to you. And that can be a process. You know, sometimes it takes me a while to understand a dream. So yeah, that's that's really cool. I love how dreams and the waking life connect.

00;17;52;03 - 00;18;12;28
Unknown
Do you think that dreams affect waking more or waking affects dream more, or how do you think they are related? I think they are. So in strikingly intertwined and they really do influence each other so much. And so part of the dream work that I do. And I think I heard you say it before, I call it dream empowerment.

00;18;12;28 - 00;18;38;27
Unknown
And I really I call it that because I feel it's important to give people the tools to be able to do this work themselves, and to understand the importance of dreams and how they can move forward and integrate them into their lives. And really, what happens when you start to do that is that your dreams start to change, and then your understanding of them starts to change and you start to look at reality different.

00;18;39;04 - 00;18;57;15
Unknown
And I'm sure you know that when you experience lucid dreaming, you definitely start to look at reality different because you have to start doing those reality checks all the time. Asking yourself, is this a dream? Is this a dream? Well, all of a sudden you realize that it's so much like the shamans used to say, this is just the waking dream.

00;18;57;17 - 00;19;23;27
Unknown
Yes, true. They're they're so connected. I mean, lucid dreaming has shown me that, you know, that they're both real, valid experiences. And speaking of lucid dreaming, I'd love to know, like, what are your lucid dreams like? How often? Like, what do you like to do in them? Yes, I love to gather information. So as soon as I realize that I'm dreaming, I.

00;19;24;03 - 00;19;52;29
Unknown
I do get pretty enthusiastic about it and say, okay, show me a newspaper, give me a, a TV screen. I'm looking around at the walls. I'm trying to figure out what year I'm in or where I am and, really trying to go on a almost like detective mission. I would say there's been other times where I say, well, you know, it's a moment of empowerment.

00;19;52;29 - 00;20;09;03
Unknown
It's a moment of like realization, right? Where you say, well, I don't have to be doing this. I could be doing anything. And all of a sudden really just completely change the scene. I had a dream where I was sitting in the back of a limo, and we were just waiting and waiting and waiting because we're waiting for the driver.

00;20;09;03 - 00;20;29;10
Unknown
And then all of a sudden I realized that I was dreaming and I was like, we don't have to wait back here. We can get in the front and drive ourselves. We can go anywhere we want. We don't have to wait. And so that was, again, one of those realizations that you actually have the power to create your own reality to to move forward.

00;20;29;10 - 00;20;54;07
Unknown
You don't have to wait for that to be given to you. And I had another dream where I was being pursued by these women, and I realized that they they might be nefarious creatures, but instead I made them flip upside down and all hold hands. And that was just like a a wonderful way to choose your own ending, right?

00;20;54;07 - 00;21;30;20
Unknown
To just neutralize that negative energy. And and then, of course, I've always had those amazing flying dreams where you're just feeling that immense, immense, and joy and flying over some just fantastically beautiful landscape. And those are those are the best. Yeah. I love lucid dreaming. Flying is definitely a classic. I love, you know, talking to dream characters as well and just, you know, inquiring, asking the dream for, you know, advice and trying to gather information about the waking life.

00;21;30;25 - 00;21;45;18
Unknown
But sometimes I also focus on the dream scene and just gather information about that dimension. You know, instead of trying to find things that can benefit me in the waking. So I kind of have like different, different things I like to do. I go through like phases, but there's so many things that you can use. Lucid dreaming for.

00;21;45;18 - 00;22;12;26
Unknown
So I tell people that all the time it's it's such a fun, fun experience that I think everybody should experience at least once. Oh yeah, it can be transformational because it, it's it gives you that feeling of control and decisiveness that you might not feel in your waking life, but it does translate. It does come over once you've experienced that, because it's signals to your brain that it's possible.

00;22;12;28 - 00;22;41;21
Unknown
Yes, definitely. And I'm curious for people that are starting out, you know, they're not lucid dreamers and maybe they don't even remember dreams at all. Do you have any tips for how to get started with, like, the most basic dream recall? Get their foot in the door? Yes, definitely. So the thing I always say is, in that moment when you're waking up, before you get out of bed, or reach for your phone, or turn the light on, or do anything like that, try to think backwards about what you were just doing.

00;22;41;21 - 00;22;58;21
Unknown
And I equate this to when you walk into a room and you go, what? What I come in here for, what was I just going to do? And you completely lose your train of thought, and then you have to stop everything you're doing and trace your thoughts backwards to remember the train of thought that led you to walk into that room.

00;22;58;27 - 00;23;24;27
Unknown
Well, that's very much how the dream recall works for me. Anyway, is that you want to think back words, focusing until you get one little hit of, oh, I know I was in a library. Okay. And then you focus on that as much as you can until you get the next detail and the next detail, and all of a sudden the veil starts to peel back a little bit and you start to remember backwards what happened.

00;23;24;27 - 00;23;44;05
Unknown
So I tell people to write down at the bottom of the page, the first thing you can remember, and then is you start to remember more. You can write it above that number, above that, so that you end up with that linear recounting, because you're going to remember backwards essentially. Yeah, those are some good tips. And I do that as well.

00;23;44;05 - 00;24;00;16
Unknown
It's like if I just focus on the last thing that I was dreaming, you know, the rest of the dream kind of just starts to pull through like a thread. And yeah, that's that's a really helpful tip. So I definitely second that. A lot of times it takes some time to really start to train your brain to think about dreams.

00;24;00;16 - 00;24;16;21
Unknown
If you've never, you know, someone who hasn't thought about dreams or remember them in years or never made it a priority, you know, there's that's probably contributing to the reason that you don't remember dreams. So just starting to tell your brain, like, hey, this is something that we care about, let's get a dream journal. Let's keep it nearby.

00;24;16;23 - 00;24;37;09
Unknown
That's already starting the intention setting process. So yeah, I think all that is great advice. I think everybody deserves to remember their dreams and even people that have negative or disturbing dreams. Do you have any tips for nightmares? And like you know, how can we approach dreams if we're somebody that maybe is avoiding having these types of dreams?

00;24;37;12 - 00;24;59;18
Unknown
Yes, and lucid dreaming is one of the great that is. One of the great applications of lucid dreaming is dealing with nightmares. Because like the dream that I described to you, it gave me the opportunity to realize that when I attain the state of lucidity, okay, something bad is happening, but I have the power to change this, and I can really transform the direction that this dream is going in.

00;24;59;24 - 00;25;25;20
Unknown
If that's not possible, one of the other things that I do in my dream work is that I take the Dreamers dream record their recall, and I say, okay, well, how would you like to change this if you could? So even if you can't go back into the dream directly, lucidly, how would you like to change this so that you feel more empowered in this scenario?

00;25;25;27 - 00;25;55;11
Unknown
And then what I'll do is I'll create a guided meditation for them that puts them back into that dream and with the ending that they want. And then I also overlay sound frequencies on it that help them change their vibration so that they can really accept that new ending. And it works both as a suggestion to the subconscious and also a pathway into that.

00;25;55;11 - 00;26;19;00
Unknown
The confidence of being able to create that alternate ending so that you don't have to be afraid of that reoccurring again, because your mind already knows a different ending. Yeah. That's true. I think that, that's one of the most well-established uses for lucid dreaming is working with nightmares. It is really empowering, and I love that, you know, there's so much research on it.

00;26;19;00 - 00;26;38;19
Unknown
So this is something that we just have established as a society. So it's something that people can get a lot out of. And changing the ending really can change the negative effects that we're feeling towards a dream. And it's good practice for incubating dreams and deciding what you want to dream about and the type of content that, you know, we want to see in our dreams.

00;26;38;24 - 00;26;59;26
Unknown
So yeah, it's really powerful. And I know that it can be scary for a lot of people to embrace these dreams full on and start to, you know, work with them. But it's definitely so rewarding. I see it all the time. So I definitely second that. And yeah, I'm really excited for everything coming up. You know, the online conference, you know, other dream events.

00;26;59;28 - 00;27;24;23
Unknown
What where can people find you. And also like what do you have going on that that you just want to share with people. Yeah. So everything can be found at Mega mary.com. And on there I have my books. So the trilogy of Witches of Maple Hollow, I have my podcast which is called Women's Dream Enlightenment. And on there I have women come on and share their dreams as well as their stories of spiritual awakening.

00;27;24;28 - 00;28;04;29
Unknown
I have online courses for women's dream decoding and yes, you can find all of that there on the site. And let's see what else. You can also get a dream mirror method template by signing up for my newsletter, and that gives you outline of the different parts that you can work into, your dream record. And yes, I'd love to have everybody come and check me out there and also see me at the conference, where I will be talking about the sacred portals of dreams.

00;28;04;29 - 00;28;26;04
Unknown
And, I will also have my artwork in the, artwork exhibition. That is exciting. I'll definitely catch you there. I will be at the conference online. It's, using zoom events, super easy platform. You know, all the recordings of of presentations will be available. Workshops will not because, you know, privacy and all that. So those of you got to catch live.

00;28;26;04 - 00;28;49;14
Unknown
But yeah, there's so many great presentations that it's always hard for me to decide what I want to go to. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And that's pretty much we covered all the topics that I wanted to ask you about, but I do want to give you a chance to maybe, you know, if you have anything on your heart, any word of advice for listeners, whether they're new dreamers or seasoned dreamers, any any final tips?

00;28;49;16 - 00;29;21;09
Unknown
Yeah. So I want to remember the the advice of one of the founders of Iasb, Montagu Allman. He really championed the field of dream appreciation. And his message was really that anybody can do dream work, that you don't have to be a psychoanalyst, and that it's important that we all integrate it as part of our culture and part of our world and our lives, because there is so much benefit to it.

00;29;21;09 - 00;29;51;12
Unknown
And that I found so inspiring because my career was not as a psychoanalyst, but yet I felt very drawn to dreams, and I felt very drawn to spread the word of their importance. And so we can all find our place with our different gifts of how we can share that message and continue to elevate our dreams in a way that we can really use them to connect with all the wisdom that's available to us.

00;29;51;14 - 00;30;10;22
Unknown
Yes, that's amazing advice. I think dreams and sharing dreams with each other is such a healing thing. You know, not just for individuals, but I think for society as a whole. You know, anybody can, you know, talk to their friends and family about dreams and just normalize this discourse, and make people, you know, in general, more comfortable telling people about their dreams and things.

00;30;10;22 - 00;30;34;19
Unknown
So I think that's amazing. And yeah, I really appreciate you just coming on here and chatting with me a bit. Yes. Well, thank you for having me on it. It was a pleasure, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you at the conference. Do. Yes, anytime. Of course. Same here. See?