The Power of Dreams - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 3/10/23

We're not quite sure what the source is. I mean, we have ideas. Certainly there's some manifestation of the activity in the brain. You know, it's called paradoxical sleep. So the dreaming sleep, paradoxical sleep is when we're doing kind of let's say, daily activities where it's much more like our daytime, often with visuals, sometimes I guess with the music. So during this phase there must be something happening in

the brain. But there's the source of the info can definitely come from, would say the mind or perhaps beyond. Exactly how to track it or prove any of those it's a little bit tougher, but I can say some interesting research shows that there's specialized neural networks in the brain which are distinct from other functions. That's say that you know, even speech and non musical sounds are processed

by different parts of the brains. Even although both sides of the brain process sound and music, there seems to be a bit of a distinction between perception of speech and music and sort of like singing versus even singing versus talking, and even the it extends to the ears. To the right ears a little bit better at perceiving verbal sounds, the left ear a little better at nonverbal sounds.

There could be some corolleries in the brain. As for the source of the inspiration, it seems sort of be like who wants it the most kind of taps into the internet and gets it. I have seen and in my book there's quite a number of documented songs that are this is sort of in parenthesis, gifted by non

physical beings. In other words, Jimi Hendrix came and inspired a number of waking artists, but in their dreams, and that a few of the other classical artists, et cetera, had mentors, teachers, family members were taken them Sarah for those who know them are Sarah, Yeah, Sarah and Tagan.

I found them on which order they say their name is, but their grandmother came and some other inspirations Elsie on the Big Montreal artists who work with Sark to Slay and others have let's say relatives, maybe beings that are not physical anymore come and help them with the music. So there's a few ideas and maybe it'd be interesting to get the listeners take on where it comes from. What do you what would you say, Richard? Oh? Wow? I mean I think I think Paul McCartney is writing.

I think it comes from Paul McCartney. When when we're talking about him, um, I think he's being maybe very very generous and humble when he talks about the songs writing themselves. But I think they come from deep inside him. Yea. And people are subconscious or something like that. There's an interesting principle it says it's probably not you know, certainly not our fully conscious stelf. For Lucid, maybe it's closer. But there's a number of artists, not just musicians, who's say, wow,

I didn't write this. I don't even know how I got it or where it came from and in the dream they believe it was somebody else's hit, like Roy Orbison. He dreams this song, oh my gosh, that's an amazing new Elvis hit, and then he woke up saying, in Dreams, by the way Orbison song, that's that's not an Elvis hit.

I don't think there is any hit in Dreams. And he started putting together a melody, and so we can say in Dreams was inspired by dreams and perhaps a little bit by Elvis, but he thought it was Elvis' is in the Dream and that's happened. Even McCartney actually thought one of the songs came from the Stones, but then when he woke up, a wait a minute, that's not the son. James Cameron had the same idea for his movies. He goes out, these aren't mine. Let do

these come from? Richard back with his book Illusions or Excuse Me? Jonathan Siegel, he had a big series of dreams that he said, I don't know, it didn't come from me. I'm not sure where they came from. It's not even mine. So there's an interesting sort of identity or maybe ownership question. My guess is it's a little bit deeper part of the subconscious, maybe the collective unconscious,

so not necessarily the conscious mind. We've talked before fairly recently, and I remember vaguely a story involving a precognition dream that involves a shipwreck. Oh yeah, that's one of my fascinating dreams. Now, the song is probably not going to be number one hit. I was one of the charts there, but stories the number one hit like I put it near the start of the book just because it has so many interesting aspects. It's Canadian folk composer CBC radio

host also Clary Croft. A little salutation out to clary who who told me this very interesting story and sings and talks about it when he when he does presentations. But the story is about the Anti m Pride. It's actually a schooner background in eighteen eighty nine in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and it was going to go sail on its maiden voyage about I guess five years later after it was built and to my boo, Nova Scotia. So

this is all document in track. So it's a true thing that actually physically happened, and you know, you can actually pull up stories about it in papers and stuff.

The interesting part that's not so documented is that you know, they were all loaded up with lots of expensive fish and things that would go bad, and I guess maybe some lumber and such, but they kind of had to get it in a certain pretty tight timeline, except that the first mates why awoke that morning and lots of tears, really upset because she's had a haunting vision of the ship with gray hull and all sails set but they were black and she sort of saw the whole I

guess a shipwreck. So she said to her husband, you're not going. It probably took a little discussion, you know. It's it's one thing to sort of just follow a dream, but it's another one. You're maybe your job and somebody else's whole career depends on the door quite as us. And eventually, a long story short, I went to the captain Pride, interesting name, but that's the actual name of the captain, and he said, I can't go with him,

so silly a and maybe lose my marriage. But you probably shouldn't go either, because my wife had this dream and she saw this big storm and it might be a shipwreck. Anyways, he was committed with the sale, and unfortunately he took his son as the first mate. And so sad story that did come true was the whole ship was shipwrecked, pretty much as as the wife saw a life saving dream. I guess the first mate, and

unfortunately not to the son. But another interesting aspect is Larry said, Annie m Pride, where have I heard that before? You know the name of the ship, and he said, wait a minute. He went back to his childhood wall from his I guess the house where he grew up, and his parents were still there, and he saw this half model of a ship, which I understand. I didn't know this, but when they make a ship, they actually make a small version that's half the ship, to see

if all the parts work. And I guess it fits well and balances. It's such a So all his childhood he'd had the half model of the Annie M Pride, the actual original one, on his wall, and he asked his mother where do we get this? And she goes, oh, that's because your maternal relative is Annie m Pride and her husband named Sadly, he died in a shipwreck and his son died, and he was like, oh my god, that's our maternal relative. Oh my god, I'm interesting a

premonition well followed by at least one person. Um if I mean, can people dream about specific things without necessarily being conscious? Interesting? Yeah, like intentional dreams maybe yeah, or like falling asleep. Sometimes it's called incubation. There's a whole bunch of different ideas of sort of names for people use it. But the experience is more or less starting with in my looser definition, starting to become lucid, in

other words, guiding the dream content a little bit. In fact, I bet you most of the lusers have done it. They just didn't necessarily name it. You know, if you certainly, if you go to sleep with a question mine, you know, I'll sleep on it. That kind of thing, you may well dream on it, like many of the inventions and songs and things. But sometimes if you're just watching a movie or reading a book, or you're wondering or worrying about something, that momentum of thought and maybe feeling will

carry into the dreams. So it's a little bit better when you're conscious or lucid, or choose I guess such a lucidity is. In other words, let's make sure that you choose wisely what you're thinking about it before sleep, and if you have a question and intention, I hope a dream you know, hey, teach me skiing skills like the German Olympic ski team they learn their ski skills

and their dreams or whatever. So it's possible. And then I guess when it becomes a little bit more lucid, more conscious, you start to realize during the dream you can guide it a little bit. And then the interesting part is harvesting. Let's make sure we get the content but are able to bring it back and act on it. So I usually encourage my students because I teleclasses online. I say, not just what does the dream mean? It's a good question. You can understand it intellectually interpret a bit,

but what does it want? Like it really does want something, There might be an action in the world. Let's say McCartney never acted on the musical inspiration for Yesterday. And also let it be I know, a huge beetle hit, right, we wouldn't have these amazing songs in their world. So make sure to kind of consider and maybe even ask yourself what does the dream wants? And just that question, they'll trigger some thoughts, maybe some actions or impulses. To bring it to our public world as a gift from

your your personal you know, inner subconscious, I hope. So I'd like to see more dreams come true out him. What does the dream want? So it's we're at or the dream is asking as something, or are deep subconscious is asking us something? So, um, I know this is a fairly common theme with dreams. And I used to have this dream, a recurring dream a lot. Not not anymore, but losing my teeth, I would start spitting out like I was spitting out chicklets, and I had that quite frequently.

So is what is the dream want when I'm spitting out chicklets my teeth? Well, before I go into that one, because these things get personal pretty fast, I should ask do you have that recurring dream anymore? No? No, um, I would say, I haven't had it probably in about ten to fifteen years. But I used to have it a lot. Yeah. Okay, good, so we can get a little more personal. By the way, this is actually according to a recent research study of looking up Google searches,

it's the most common dream in many countries. Wow, I've actually seen different statistics, but I guess for Google searches it's easy to type teeth falling out dream, but it is. It actually is multifaceted. So the big universal archetypal dreams are usually across cultures, so it's not just USA or Canada. It's actually many cultures worldwide. It's not the biggest one in all the cultures like in South America. I think it's snakes, you know, which probably makes sense, I guess

from the corporation or her worry point of view. But the teeth falling out dream has a few levels. And I laughed a little bit with sort of a friendly good nature because I've had it too. It can have the level of, let's say, sort of publicly spewing out different words or maybe not always personally happy with or they just come out like I guess are I'm thinking

halle Berry has the teeth falling out dream. So maybe some of the things she said, or she's sort of worried about complex shouldn't losing our teeth or you know, as an actor, that's very important our look as a radio announcer, Yeah, the things that come out of our mouse. Who want to make sure that there's no biting words in there, and we're getting making sure that they sort of don't bite into people's minds too deeply unless we

choose it. I guess if we're making a new story, and then there seems to be a pretty interesting sort of sigh or psychic or maybe premonition level. This isn't actually a number of cultures that I've interviewed a number of people around the world, and forget all the countries Bahamas as one, Italy, a number of places like five or six, I can't name them all right now, but in the culture that it says, oh, if you dream about losing your teeth, and I means somebody close to

you is going to die. But first I guess as a scientist, as those that are like, oh, you know, skeptic, But actually, after hearing it quite a bit and seeing actual dreamers I work with having clear premonitions of someone close to them passing, and it usually seems to be when there's actual blood in the dream, so a slight variation when there's physical blood chicklists or chewing glass and people have glass. So the other level is another level is sort of grinding our teeth at night, which is

a little more obvious. I guess, you know, teeth falling out or crumbling. So we might be grinding our teeth and if we're not careful about it, or go to the dentist and do something about it, maybe get a bite place or something. They might have actual future permonition where we have like teeth bits or you'll lose teeth.

So the big lesson overall through all the different categories is learning having presents in peace with letting go because even in life, you know, we do lose our teeth as a child, growing up, maybe later our wisdom teeth and as a multi person, so letting go of I guess the permanence challenge of life and just allowing the body to do its transitions at times sounds easy to say letting go, but I can't say I've mastered that life lesson. No, that might be the toughest one. You

mentioned letting go. Are there some practical ways of dreams can help the living in the ying around around that transition around death? Yeah? Sure, deaths the big the end of our big dream that we you know occurs every day that we call life. I did a whole sort of audio CD which was the presentation I gave with the little pali of care contents all about that. So there's a number of ways that they can really help.

I guess one simple way that's maybe not obvious, but it's been hinted out a little bit here with the sailor dream. The first name is precognitive dreams can actually

help prevent death. So like the sailor didn't die, you know, or another researcher here actually one of the discoverers of a ram of sleep, of appatite movement sleep, which which tribute lots of research and the egs and everything of the sleep reportings, William Dement later had I guess, not dream about research, but later had a dream where a doctor was showing him an X ray of his lungs up on one of these I guess extreme viewing the screens,

whatever they are, and he had really thinking feeling and the doctor's organosis was unfortunately, you know, you have lung cancer and you're not going to get to see your children go up and just going to be a horrible, thinkful death. And you know, he woke up on oh my god, thank goodness, it was just a dream, but that he had the wisdom to sort of follow what I encouraged the listeners and my students say, what does the dream want not to So that's a bad dream

or just a nightmare? Well, yeah, nightmare, but not just one. He stopped smoking right away because it was a strong smoker, and he did live and leave leave a pretty long healthy life up until the end of his days, which wasn't by lung cancer stuff. We can't say that it would have come true, but the best predictions it was a negative type are the ones that don't come true.

So possibly it was a life saving So I can be one aspect, maybe helping people impalliative care at least I've seen that somebody who actually there was a patient in coma for many, many months, and I guess one of the characters, and he said, okay, maybe I can journey in kind of let's say an intentional dream, kind

of a sitting of the daytime. Lucia dreams sham on a journey, and she journeyed in sort of quote unquote met the being who was lying there in coma and said hey, And all of a sudden, the woman and coma grabbed hers, like where did everybody go? Why aren't they coming anymore to visit? And the caregiver says, oh, actually been a few months, so you know, they did come and she said, well, okay, and the caregiver in the dream still said, is there anybody you'd like to

see and then maybe you can move on? Or is there I think to help you sort of come back.

So yeah, I'd like to see. And so when she came back awake, you know, the caregiver was I guess practical and problematic enough to call up certain family members and having to come visit, and and very shortly after I'm not quite sure days, but let's say within about a week or so, after all the business the patient had had sort of peacefully passed, and I guess and some of level they sort of knew who was visiting and had their unfinished business a little bit finished, or

at least you've got a connection, and then moved on. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more