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Ever wonder why certain conflicts keep resurfacing in your relationships, or why you wake from a vivid dream feeling shaken without understanding why? Sometimes, the real roots of our struggles with loved ones aren’t just out in the open—they're buried in the deeper layers of our own subconscious. When we ignore these internal signals, challenges can feel insurmountable, and solutions remain out of reach.

In this episode, listeners will explore how dreams and moments of inner reflection can act as a mirror, revealing hidden emotions and unresolved patterns that shape the way we connect with others. By diving into the interplay between our inner world and our daily lives, practical techniques are shared to help harness the wisdom of dreams and self-inquiry—so relationships can become more creative, connected, and resilient in the face of recurring challenges.

Bonnie Buckner, PhD, is founder and CEO of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery®, author of THE SECRET MIND, and Program Lead for George Washington University's One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification Program, where she uses dreaming and imagery work to develop coaches.

Episode Highlights

04:37 How nighttime reflections illuminate daily life and relationships.

08:52 Emotional processing: Recalibrating through dreams.

11:39 Dreams as personal mirrors: Identifying patterns and insights.

14:06 Creativity, imagination, and the value of contemplative states.

16:25 Applying dreamwork principles to relationship challenges.

19:31 Inner conflict, projection, and energetic shifts in relationships.

24:05 Linking inner awareness to relationship dynamics.

28:53 The essentials of effective dream journaling.

30:58 Benefits of detailed dream recall and handwriting practices.

35:11 Shifting relationship patterns through dream awareness.

39:45 Perspective-taking and empathy through dream-inspired creativity.

42:31 Navigating mystery and uncertainty in relationship communication.

48:18 Best practices for couples exploring dreams together.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

• Record Your Dreams: Write down your dreams in detail as soon as you wake up, resisting the urge to edit or judge the content.
• Reflect Without Editing: Practice non-editing and non-judging by documenting all aspects of your dream, including emotions, images, and phrases, to foster honest self-inquiry.
• Identify Emotional Themes: Look for recurring emotions or patterns in your dreams, such as anger or anxiety, which may point to unresolved inner conflicts.
• Apply Dream Insights to Waking Life: If you notice yourself using strong language (e.g., “nightmare boss”) in daily life, pause to examine your emotional response and recalibrate internally.
• Practice Waking Dream Exercises: Revisit challenging dream scenarios while awake, imagining new responses—like facing a monster instead of running—to shift internal dynamics.
• Acknowledge All Facets of Self: Recognize that different dream symbols represent multiple aspects of yourself, helping you better understand your reactions and behaviors.
• Share Dreams Mindfully With Partners: When discussing dreams with your partner, speak from your own perspective (e.g., “If it were my dream…”) and avoid interpreting their experience as fact.
• Embrace Curiosity and Mystery: Approach both your dreams and your partner with openness to not knowing, allowing for shared exploration and growth even through uncertainty.

Mentioned

The Secret Mind (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification (*George Washington University) (program)

Jeremy Taylor (dream worker) (article)

DreamSenseMemory – a Gestalt-based dream-work approach embracing all our senses (National Library of Medicine) (article)

Relationship Map To Happy, Lasting Love (free relationship guide)

Connect with Dr. Bonnie Buckner

Websites: bonniebuckner.com | institutefordreamingandimagery.com

Facebook: facebook.com/drbonniebuckner/ | facebook.com/institutefordreamingandimagery

Instagram: instagram.com/bonniebucknerdotcom/ | instagram.com/dreamwithiidi

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bonniebuckner/ | linkedin.com/company/international-institute-for-dreaming-and-imagery/posts/?feedView=all

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Doctor Bonnie Buckner, it's so lovely to have you on the show. Thank you for joining us. 

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. 

Yeah, I know that this might be a little bit of a different topic as it relates to intimate space, but when we start to dive in, I think we'll realize how much it's a part of our everyday life, which includes loving and living. And I appreciate you bringing a lot of like neuroscience brain functioning, just helping people understand how we function as humans and how it relates to the sleeping dream state, but also the waking dream state. So before we get started, for people who are just orienting to how you perceive dreams, maybe even the one who doesn't put a lot of emphasis on their own dreams, doesn't really remember or recall their dreams. Where would you like to start? How are they meaningful and significant? 

Yeah, I'll start sort of simple, which is that

One is very outside oriented, which is the things we do. Like right now, I am talking to you, so I'm doing something, but while I'm doing something and my eyes are looking outward, and my attention is focused outward, I'm having some kind of inner response to what's happening. And then you're going to say something back to me, and then I'm going to have a response to that. But what happens is we get so focused on the outer doing that it's hard to keep track of the inner response to that. And very few of us let's speed up because our days are sped up these days. 

Very few of us then take those moments in the day to just kind of pause, look inside, reflect, and catch up with ourselves and see what happened. 

I love that, that's a place to start, let's say. 

Yes. And it sounds as though you also encourage people to do in waking life, if they can devote time to maybe this contemplative, reflective, self-inquiry, being more present and mindful. Does that overlap with what you're saying? 

Absolutely. Because 

So people will say to me like I had the worst nightmare last night. I have no idea where it came from. Okay. And maybe 15 minutes later in our session, we're talking about something, and they say to me, I mean, I have a nightmare, boss. Okay. So we do use those kinds of speech. And when we're in that situation, and we're confronting the nightmare boss, we're also having a nightmare. Anger, anxiety, or whatever our feelings are that make us think that the boss is a nightmare. But we have to. We kind of suppress it, we sit on it. We're not giving voice to it in that moment. 

So 

So in the dream, it puts us in some kind of scenario where something barges in, or there's a big tsunami or something, so that it's like, whoa, I really feel that now. Think about it and put the pieces together. So if I start to become conscious of that and I start to pay attention to the phrases I use, the kind of speech I'm using, if I catch myself saying nightmare boss, I can pause right there, see what kind of emotions I'm feeling, and do a little recalibration within myself. And that changes the whole dream, waking and sleeping. 

I love that you're mentioning this. “Let me just check out what I'm saying. That if we begin to pay attention to things that are like the dream state might exaggerate. And I think it is a little bit more symbolic and metaphorical. So it's a different language. But if we're paying attention, then the message, it doesn't have to be that loud. Like, it can help us engage and interact with that material just more consciously. Thus, it doesn't have to be so nightmarish.” 

“It won't be a nightmare. If I recalibrate myself, I'm going to learn different ways to shift those situations. If I can shift my own inner experience, I'm going to enlarge my perspectives. I'll see ways to handle those situations differently, and I'll have a whole different dream.” 

“Yeah, I love that. Thank you, I so appreciate it. I'm relating to this personally, so I'm going to try not to just go into kind of my understanding.” But as for one listening that might not have as much experience with some of what you're describing around the recalibration and the information that comes to us in words during waking life, that we might not be putting a lot of emphasis on, or the dream state. Because I do remember coming across research, and I was like, I could see that being true, that some of what's happening in the dream state is our brain pruning and processing and metabolizing the day's events, which is not that different than what you're saying. But does that. What's your experience, or what's your understanding? 

Does it also intersect with what you're saying around certain highlighting or exaggerations for getting more attention to be processed? 

Well, there is a lot of research these days that talks about how neurologically, dreams are a way of sort of, let's keep it simple, like turning the volume down on emotions. And we all already know this because what did our grandmother say? Go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a different day. So now science is saying, and here's why. But grandma was right all along. So one of the ways that happens is because in the dream, we are interacting with it. We're interacting with those emotions. We're the ones recalibrating ourselves. We're the ones who are coming through an event because we live through our dreams. There's a monster. We deal with it. We wake up the next day. If we don't deal with it's kind of lingering there. But one of the things that I show people is the waking dream exercise. 

So if there's a monster in my dream and I run from it instead of dealing with it the next morning, I can go back into that dream. 30 Seconds, close your eyes, go back in, and instead of running away, turn and face it. Everything is going to shift because it's about an energy I've been running from, and now I'm going to face. And that will totally shift our entire inner landscape. 

So interesting. Okay, so I will share one personal example, and I'm sure we could go into exploring, which I don't want to do. I'm just how I am. Tell me if this sounds right to you. I used to have this somewhat recurring dream, which I no longer have because I think I gained understanding around what it was telling me, my projection of it. But I would go. In my dream state, I was. I needed to go to the bathroom, and I was trying to go. And there were these public spaces, and they were never appropriate for going to the bathroom. Either there's no. It's unclean, or there's no privacy, or there's no real facility to help actually allow me to go to the bathroom. So it was always this very uncomfortable sensation. 

And my learning or how I related to it was like, Oh, you know, in my profession, I'm meeting with people, and I'm under. Like, I'm engaging with them and their difficulties and helping them process. So it's like I'm holding a lot, but if I haven't done enough to allow myself to process or transition or do something with that, discharge that. And I've never had the dream again. But it had been years since I had that kind of dream of not being able to eliminate. And usually it was number one. But still, regardless, that metaphor of not being able to go.

Yeah, that's super right on. And I even say in the book, if I had a dollar for every time people had a dirty toilet dream, because that's the equivalent that also comes up. People tell me I'm standing in front of a toilet that's so right at the top and is full. 

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Right? 

Yeah. 

And again, this is a nightmare that is so easily repaired. You go back in. What's the necessity? Flush it. That's it. Flush it. 

Yeah. 

And we all know that, you know, it eliminates exactly as you said. And when I even just say it to people, they're like, oh, I already feel relief. 

Yes. 

So, you know, 

So if you think about it, another easy way that I like to explain it, we don't know what the back of ourselves looks like. Know what the back of our hair looks like. When we go to the hairdresser's, the only way to see that is through multiple mirrors. We can't just hold one mirror behind us. We also need another mirror. 

I so love this. Okay, so I have done some graduate work around dreams. Not a lot, but I remember coming off, coming across the gestalt, where you are everything in the dream, which totally maps on what you're saying. And also, just in waking life, what's our association with the things that appear in the dream? So we can be able to connect how we associate certain symbols or characters, and that can help us illuminate further in this more rational state. Okay, again, I could talk and get curious about your dream work. And I know you've written a book called The Secret Mind that really gives such a wealth of knowledge around how to navigate this landscape, how to utilize these principles, and an exercise to really help people. Do you want to say anything about the book before we pivot to the intimate relationship? 

You know, just that the book takes people from A to Z, from starting with how you remember your dreams? How do you start a dream practice and then all the way through to more deeply unpacking the dream, so you don't have to have any experience whatsoever to pick it up? It's going to kind of lead you through and give you different practices in each chapter to help you develop a practice for yourself. 

And I just want to say, in reading your book, I haven't finished the whole thing, but I felt such normalizing for I remember being in grade school and daydreaming, and I feel like there's such helpfulness to that state of contemplation and just being in this creative pondering, and you really validate how important it is. And yet our school system typically doesn't provide us a lot of space for that or put a lot of value on that. So I think that, and as you point out in your book too, in more leadership roles where or if we're entrepreneurial or various, we really need to be creative. We need to be able to strategize and think outside the box. And there are so many ways in which those thinking that contemplation and creativity are such an asset in our lives. 

Not only in leadership, but also in our relationships. If you want to pivot to relationships, we always need creativity because what happens Families have to make decisions. What do we do if someone in the family has to take a new job? What if that new job is in a different city? What happens if couples come to an impasse? We can butt our heads together as we've done for X number of years, or we can employ many of the dreaming tools and creativity to expand our perspectives, to step in each other's shoes, to step away from how it's been before, and imagine new ways of how it can be. There are so many things that those very same skills can help us to become more successful in our relationships. 

I couldn't agree more. I often reference, I think it was the Gottman Institute. They've done a lot of research in a couple of romantic, intimate spaces. And I remember hearing something about seven to eight. Every couple has seven to eight irreconcilable differences. Not so much that their relationship is doomed, but that you have very different character differences in partners. And it's. There's no seeming resolution; likely, they will never get resolved. But it's how we get creative and work together and negotiate that is actually really the juice of intimacy, being able to work together to overcome these. Whether or not it's a life event, like you're saying, that we have to negotiate our differences, that we want to learn how to work together and have each other's back, and we're both getting some of what we need. It's a very creative endeavor. 

It's not nobody gives us the solutions or the manual. 

Listen, I have been using a doctor of Chinese medicine for the last, like, 30 years. And he said to me, nobody has a perfect body. There's always a little something. And that little something is our ability to grow because it becomes a space for us to think about, meditate on, and move beyond. And the same thing was said to me once by a Vedic astrologer. He said, ” You know, there's always something in someone's chart that's off this little part that is going to be just like an oyster. It's that little grain. And how we work it determines what kind of pearl we're going to end up with.” And I see relationships in the same way, and our own personality, if we want to call it that, in the same way. You know, there are certain patterns. 

People come to me often because they recognize a pattern. I'm always filling in the blank, dating somebody that can't commit or I can't commit, or whatever it is, that's exactly where we want to go. Because that can be our greatest shift. And that can be ours. Instead of running from it, our greatest canvas for painting and creating ourselves. 

Yes. Years ago, in my dissertation on conscious intimate relationships, one of the themes that came out of that was relationship as teacher. So sometimes on this show, I'll mention some of the challenges our curriculum for developing intimacy, and also individually. So I absolutely appreciate what you're saying. Great. Okay. So, for someone who is thinking about the dream state and how that might reflect what's happening relationally, can you say a little bit more about how this might? Our dream state might reveal relational dynamics or even things, as you're saying, that we might be ignoring or not wanting to deal with? 

Yeah, absolutely.

And so one of the things that my teacher, Dr.Catherine Shainberg, and she taught me is a long lineage of dreaming that goes back to the 13th century. I happened to learn it from her. She talks about seven different kinds of dreams. And four of those dreams, nightmares, one of them is unresolved. There's still something that needs to be done. So what that's speaking to is an imbalance in us, something that's not whole. Whereas the last three great dreams, light, dream of union are resolved. They're whole. Wholeness and peace are the same thing. So in Hebrew, in fact, shalom means peace, and it also means whole. Because if I have two, that's a conflict. It's hot, cold, left, right, he said, she said, or whatever that happens to be, night, day. 

So conflict arises in duality. Also, coupling arises in duality. So how am I going to perceive my own inner contradictions? That's my first step. Because all of us have within ourselves many different facets. Like a jewel. I'm one person with a lot of different facets. Those facets show up as these different objects, places, people, and things. In my dream, when we get to a dream, the, you know, last dream of union, I've brought all those in, I've integrated all those. I'm one again, and I'm whole. We don't stay there forever. We move around because life changes. Everything changes. But if I have different pieces inside me and I haven't resolved those, we tend to project them onto the people out in front of us. Whether it's our partner, it's our work team, it doesn't matter. We throw it out there. 

So, 

Thank you. I want to just see if this fits with what you're describing. One way of saying this is if there are parts of me that are underdeveloped or I have been ignoring or unconscious of, I might attract a partner that exhibits those very traits. And then, like, for example, if I'm attracted to a partner that has a temper, but I suppress my own anger, is that kind of an example of what you're referring to? 

Okay, that's a great example, and you know it. Our patterns work in that way as well. And it's kind of like, you know, there's this form. One form like two puzzle pieces, and the. It opens a vacuum for the other form to fit in there. And if I'm thinking the whole time that it's that other person, nothing's going to shift. But here's what's so fascinating. I've seen it for years. When people do dream work and begin to integrate those aspects of themselves without ever having a conversation with their partner, the whole relationship begins to shift. Because patterns have a certain energetic resonance. And if I'm that puzzle piece. And I begin to shift the shape of my puzzle piece. I'm shifting the energetic resonance, and the whole construction has to change. 

We can't relate in the same way. So if I'm gonna participate differently, the dance is gonna be different. 

Totally. 

Okay, so one of the things, and I'm curious what you would say as far as how to work with dreams as it relates to the material of things that we're struggling with, an intimate relationship that we might actually be able to recognize, there's some inner conflict with. So, another example, almost now, not quite two years ago, my husband and I embarked on a renovation project. And it was in a certain timeline, and I was driving hard. He was with me, but he was also like, ” This is too much. And he needed all this to say I was feeling a bit irritated with him around his pacing at one point, and I was like, okay, if I can. 

I remember I was kind of in the liminal space before going to sleep, and I was just contemplating, okay, so what is this? If he were doing what I wanted him to do, which is like driving hard, just as hard or harder, what would that allow me to feel? And I was like, ” Oh, I could relax a little more. And I was like, oh, like, I'm not giving myself that relaxation. I'm not. But it's easy to project on him that he's doing something that is impacting me. But that shifted. Like, I was able to recognize I needed to take a few more breaks and incorporate a bit more rest, and that shifted that dynamic. Is that an example of what? 

That's awesome. 

Example. Okay. 

Yeah, absolutely. 

So, is there anything else you want to say around? I mean, it sounds like your bigger message could apply to any domain, but if we're looking at intimate space, that what might come up, the material that might come up in dream state or even in a daydream state, if we catch ourself, you know, in thought Train or in a place around just imagination, that if we can actually pay attention to the material or the substance content of that might help us have insight about our intimate relationship. If it's a relationship-related. Yeah. 

And again, everything is somehow relationship-related because I bring myself into my relationships. And so whatever that me is, if that me is out of order right now, that's one kind of experience I'm going to bring into those relationships. If I'm balanced right now, that's a different experience. It will absolutely change the whole experience because not only do you know, but we often think about relationships as being stagnant. And what I mean by that is, I show up my way, they show up their way, and either it works or it doesn't. But that's not how it works. It's way more fluid and malleable. How I show up brings out a certain aspect of the other, and how that person shows up brings out a certain aspect of me. It's really like, I referred to us as a jewel of many facets. It's like turning the jewel so a different facet can come forward. So in a way, how I show up, I have to take a little bit of responsibility for that. 

I had a client who was angry and didn't realize the extent of her anger. And she was one day in line at the bank, and it was all calm, totally calm. And a guy walked in, and there was a line. And he goes, I just want to ask one quick thing. And she just, like, Whoa, went ballistic on this guy. And the bank manager asked them to walk outside every day. And she came back to me, and she said, ” You know, I finally get it. She said, ” You know, I'm so angry that instead of dealing with it in me, I pick fights. 

And then I think, oh, well, that guy shouldn't have tried to cut in line. He actually wasn't cutting in line. He was going to ask, ” Is this the right line? So it became this realization of, like, wow, I'm actively creating events in my life because of something I'm not dealing with in me. So we can see very easily how that whole situation could have had a whole different story had everybody just been calm and let the guy say, ” Is this the line I should be standing in? 

Are you willing to say, I know your book goes over so much of how to help someone enter into this work. Is there anything you want to say about what helps someone recognize how they might be participating or how to take a little bit more accountability for that facet, or how they might be? 

Yeah, the first thing, I mean, this is so key, is to write down everything from your dream. And that sounds like the world's simplest thing. But I have so many people say to me, ” Yeah, here's my dream. And it's like three sentences. And so then I start to ask them a few clarifying questions, and all of a sudden, paragraphs come out, and I'm like, why didn't you write that down? Oh, I was too embarrassed. Or, oh, no, that didn't seem important. You know, we edit so much, so if we can take our own dream space, which can remain completely private to us, we don't have to show our dreams to someone else. We don't want to. And use that to practice. Non-editing, non-judging, non-criticizing, just put it all out on the page. 

Okay, these are parts of me, but also there's a big Aha moment that comes with people in that way, which is these are parts of me, not the whole. I am not a whole angry person. I have a part of me that is. But look, this dream also has a different part of me that is super healing and super revelatory. 

“Yes. And my experience of writing out a dream I have had resonated as I was writing it around what felt meaningful or what felt like a message in it. And I would have probably. Well, I know I would never have gotten that insight or that understanding without the process of writing something down around what that, like, learning was.” 

“Yeah, it's really important to write these things down.” 

“Do you think it's important to handwrite, or can one be, for the sake of just comfort or time, people who are more comfortable typing? Do you have a preference or recommendation?” 

“I do. I strongly advocate writing it down. And there are a lot of reasons why. And one is the editing process. There, there are, you know, on purpose, misspellings, images, drawings, puns, things like that spell check, autocorrect, all these things will get rid of on your phone or an app and you'll miss really important parts of the dream because especially if you like, speak it into your phone and then, you know, later in the day you look at it and you're like, I guess that's what I said, but maybe it wasn't, but it just corrected it, you know, I got it.” 

Yeah. The technology and the auto-correcting of editing, plus it pulls. 

Us out of our. Yes, the neurological processing system that is of dreaming is the default network. And it pulls us out of that into the executive network. And so it's already. We're losing something there. 

I agree. Okay. So for relational dynamics or things that might be occurring in the intimate relational space, that likely, if one's writing, they'll be able to engage with or confront a little bit more through this process. 

Paying attention and writing, or even just the first step, is becoming aware of it. It's difficult for us. I go back to the mirror example. We only see a part of ourselves, and that is so human, and it's okay. Like, that's how we're built. And so dreaming helps us to see more of ourselves, to see these different facets. You know, I'll give an example from the book, because following up on the anger thing, this woman dreams that she goes into a stadium and has a flamethrower and just blasts the whole stadium. Yeah. A lot of energy there. And here's the other thing. Unlike what you mentioned, the Gestaltists and Fritz Perls, earlier, one thing about this particular tradition is that it doesn't look at symbols at all. It understands that images are putting form to inner energies. 

So when we start to think about these, are energies that big flame throwing is an energy. It's not like this person, like, had a little candle in front of somebody. It's a flamethrower, and it's a whole stadium. 

Right. 

So that energy can be. It's just energy. It's neutral right now. It's aimed at something we call anger. It could just as easily be aimed at something we call creativity. So when we start to recognize that these are just places that we're putting our energy and moments in time, it becomes a lot easier to transform them. So when I talked about this dream with this person, she was kind of shocked because she heard it as we're. I'm saying it back, you know, blasting the whole stadium. She's like, I'm blasting out my anger on everybody. She said, I had no idea. She said, I'm angry about something, me, inside me. And I thought I was keeping it to myself, but now I see that I'm blasting out at my family. I'm blasting out at work. 

And, we also use the word lashing out. But the dream gave the blasting out this heated outburst. 

Yeah. 

Recognizing that was the game-changer for her because she just had no idea it was so big. 

Yes. 

Yeah. 

Thank you. Okay. So one of the things you also help people with. I forgot what you called it, but it's like a waking dream method to approaching conflict. Is there. How can the dream material be in the dream? Okay. 

Yeah. 

Okay. So that's not conflict in intimate relationships, but it sounded like you were saying dream. Working with dreams can really help with conflicts in relationships. 

Well, it can. I mean, if we think about that last dream. 

Yes. 

What is going to be the outcome of that realization? I mean, first of all, we can go back into the dream and do a waking dream exercise and do Something different. Redirect that energy of that flame blaster, and that's already going to shift everything. But the other thing is, you know, 

And people forget, they think that when you suddenly get together with a whole group of people, things happen, and nobody has any control over it. But we're all capable of being conscious creators of those dynamics and situations. 

And so dreaming helps us to wake up to that, our role in that, and we can shift our role in that. 

Yes, I'm sure you get this question or encounter this quite a bit, where people might have some fear or apprehension about doing this work because it's like, what's going on, what is that going to ask me to look at, or what might I be like? Like perhaps a lot of times, in an intimate space, people have been attempting to create harmony by means of not bringing something up that, like rocking the boat. So they might just conceal or go along with what their partner wants to minimize conflict, and thus, turning towards being more conscious about what's happening for them can feel really scary. 

It can. And that's 

And I've seen people dramatically transform really intense things by being playful with them. Because there's also something about dreaming that is a sort of, you know, scenario, and these images that feel some kind of a little bit distant from us. I'm not a gorilla, I'm not a flame blaster, so we can set it on the table in front of us and sort of play with it, knowing it's me and it's a part of me, but it's less heavy-handed, you know what I'm saying? 

Yes. 

If someone were to point a finger at me and say, ” You know, you're a flame blaster, I would lock down and get super defensive. But if I'm feeling it in the dream and I'm doing it, then, you know, even this caused giggles in our conversation because it's like, I mean, I came into the stadium, I blasted it out like, just like you. And I've giggled about it because we've all been there, A.

Yeah. 

And B, by putting it in that kind of scenario, it's like, okay, you know, now I can shift it. It's not quite so intense. Somehow. 

This reminds me of Art therapy, the modality of whatever, the modality, whether or not it's clay or painting, varies. That the process, therapeutically, of getting whatever's inside, outside, to manipulate it outside can help with perspective. As you're saying, we get to see it differently. We get to kind of walk around and have different angles. Also, we're not so overly identified with it. So when we're so overly identified, it's in us. It's hard to be playful, it's hard to be creative because we're. Our identity is so tightly woven versus, like, oh, it's this playful thing. And like, can I get curious, and can I exactly play with this? 

And what about this? 

What happens if I do that? Like, very exploratory. And then we can feel the internal, as you were saying at the beginning of this interview, noticing what happens internally when we're adding a therapeutic element. What are we experiencing as we're doing the art? I'm not an art therapist, but this is my understanding. 

Yeah, exactly. And you know, I do a lot of. I don't work with couples. I work with individuals. And I also work. We do dream work in a group. 

Aha. 

And dream work in a group has been just the most beautiful thing to see because very quickly people realize, ” Wow, we're all going through the same thing. And it reminds us of that place of being empathetic to. Sometimes relationship issues arise because we want that person who's standing in front of us to be as we want them to be at that exact moment in time. And we forget that, you know, this is one moment, but maybe in a month it's going to be a different moment, and it's going to shift, or even in a day. You know, we all have times in our lives where, you know, the moon is full, and the moon appears to be gone. You know, we wax and wane, and our own growth waxes and wanes. 

And sometimes we see things clearly, like the full moon, and sometimes we kind of are dark ourselves. And when we start to get that, it allows more space too, for the other. And the other thing I find is that people start to give. Have expanded the timeline, you know. Yeah, a lot of people get into arguments because it needs to be decided right now, or else, you know, I can't live with this kind of tension between us. But expand the timeline. Maybe right now is like a new moon. Wait, because the moon is always changing, because we're more moon-oriented than sun-oriented. So, you know, get into that kind of rhythm, which dreaming can help us to do. 

Yes, that's what I was going to say. One of the things I appreciated was what you were saying. This contemplative creative state, it can help us with empathy. It can help us with entertaining the perspective of our loved one, our intimate partner, and in conflict, which can be incredibly useful in at least the understanding of feeling heard and seen. “I think often, once there's a grounding of really getting why something matters or what each person needs or feels, we can get more creative about solutions. But most of the time, people argue about what's right or like, the recreating reality of, like, whose narrative is correct. And that is an endless argument that will never be resolved.” 

“And so there's no correct.” 

“There's no correct.” 

“There are just two different subjective experiences. Exactly.” 

So I have found over and over and over again that when I can slow down and get into this wonderment that I do not know, and I am kind of bumbling around in the dark trying to understand, like my husband's choices of language, or sometimes what he chooses to do is so vastly different than what I would do. And I legitimately don't get it and don't understand the points of tension. And if I can stay interested and contemplative, I will at some point start to get of like, and it's so deeply healing for me to connect with what was driving or what mattered. And it's also, I think, really helpful for him to feel understood and received. And there we can move. Even if I don't agree or I don't, it's not my thing or whatever. 

I feel like there's so much more alignment with at least that fundamental understanding that it's not easy to get to sometimes. 

Yeah. And, here's another little tip from Dreamland. 

A mystery. 

Yeah. 

You know, and by the way, because we're a mystery to ourselves, that means at that moment they may be a mystery to themselves. So there is no way to put everything on paper really clearly because maybe they don't know either. We don't know, they don't know. So that doesn't isn't the basis of a relationship. Other things form the basis of our relationship. 

And that's what I think the connectivity of really having each other's back, creating that emotional safety that we can in those unknown question mark places that we can still have that level of regard and nurturing the bond even in those uncertain times. Like it's hard to tolerate. Okay, I know we don't have a ton of time with you. How would you like to encourage people who are interested in incorporating this, and perhaps our partner is game to explore any way that couples might be able to work together to explore their dreams? Because I think it's easy to misconceive or get confused or project, and I guess that could be challenging. But any guidelines or supportive because it sounds like you do a lot of the group work and imagine. 

One of the really key things when we work as a group that has been a wonderful teacher of boundaries is if it's your dream we're working on, each of the other dreamers becomes a secondary dreamer and says, ” For me, as a secondary dreamer, the dream, I feel we never say you, we never point a finger. We don't even look at the original dreamer while we're working with the dream. And when we finish, we say, I give the dream back to you and it's done. The other person can comment or not. That's so important because another flashpoint in relationships is to ambush with something that happened or was said three months ago or a year ago. You know, that was that dream. 

Return the dream, the person can say, and be done, and let each day, each moment be a different dream, a different moment, a different time. So I do have a lot of people who say to me, oh my gosh, my partner and I have totally loved to just kind of lie in bed and tell each other our dreams in the morning. That's fantastic. So first of all, that and keeping, you know, light and fun is wonderful. If you want to work with each other on your dreams, become a secondary dreamer. 

So, one of the dream classes that I took, I don't know if you know who Jeremy Taylor is. He's since passed, but he had a dream work, and he would invite people similarly if they were going to comment on somebody's dream. They said he would ask us to say if it were my dream. Then you basically own all your projections around if it were my dream or as a secondary dreamer. This is what I'm noticing or experiencing as I try it on myself. 

Yeah, okay. 

So then it gives a Real, like you're saying, delineation of what is being, like what is projection. And then also that the person, the original dreamer, gets to discern what's useful and helpful, or what they take from that or contemplate. Is that right? 

Yeah. And by the way, I have a couple of family members who do this dream work as well. And we use that when we're having just a conversation that has nothing to do with dreams. If they're saying something and I hear something instead of saying, ” Oh, you're blaming, or you're doing this. Never, never. I say, you know, for me, as a secondary dream, something I'm hearing is, or what I'm feeling is, and then that's it. Just say it, and then the other person can pick it up or not. 

Yes, I agree. 

So helpful. 

Yes, I even use the word projection, like my projection on that, or, you know, if it were me, you know, I would try to acknowledge. And I'm sure I'm not perfect at it, but it is nice to stay in one's lane. It's so much easier to receive. Okay, so any other guidelines or tips you want to recommend on how people can start to practice this together, or ways to create more safety? Because sometimes dream content can be activating, as you said, and can feel a little threatening. And so, how tolerate some of those moments? You've given us a lot of indicators already around just holding the mystery and staying with it a little longer. But anything else you want to say about how to create some safety for dream work and couplehood? 

Yeah, maybe I would start also just me start with my own dreams and be that, very courageous explorer that's willing to look at me as I show up in my dreams and then to start to think about, okay, I'm showing up in the dream this way, like the example we gave earlier, you know, am I blasting out with my family, too? I'm doing it in the dream. Am I doing it with the family? And start to just be conscious of what I am bringing to this relationship. 

Lovely. Wonderful. Was there anything else you wanted to say before we wrap up about dreams? Whether or not it's the waking state or the dream, sleeping dream state, and how it might be useful for one as they're negotiating an intimate relationship. 

Yeah. And just remembering that we all have many different facets, and we can allow for a facet when we recognize that there are many others as well. And just holding that space to let our partner be multifaceted, and that some of those Facets include things that are both mysterious to us and to them that they haven't discovered yet either. And being able to just hold a bigger space for each other. 

I love that. Thank you. Well, you do so much to support people in using dreams and imagery. How can people connect with you? Obviously, say a little bit more about your book and where people can find it. 

Yeah. The book is called The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life. And you can find it on Amazon, wherever you buy your books. And I teach all of the dream work through the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery. And so you can Google that we have classes. We have classes for exploring different topics through imagery. We also have dream classes where we just work with dreams, each time something for everybody, and also for people who've never done it before, it doesn't matter. So you can find us there. And you can also access that through my website. Also, bonniebuckner.com. My social media accounts: Instagram, instagram.com/dreamwithiidi; Facebook, facebook.com/institutefordreamingandimagery#, and LinkedIn, linkedin.com/company/international-institute-for-dreaming-and-imagery.

Excellent. I'll make sure to have the links to your book, your website, and the institute on today's show notes. You also help lead a coaching program? 

Yeah, so I'm the program lead of the George Washington University's One Humanity Leadership coaching program. So we bring dream work and some imagery into helping coaches to look inside themselves in order to prepare them to help others. 

Oh, that's so great. I mean, in any domain, usually when we're creating something, whether or not it's a business or family-like, it's often the case that it is as well. I don't know how to say this exactly, but sometimes the unresolved things of the leaders will be visible in the system. 

It always is. I work with Ina Gjikondi at GW. She always says, I am the system, we are the system. And as soon as we really understand that, then we can start to shift the systems we find ourselves in. 

Beautiful. Thank you again for joining us today. 

Thank you so much for having me.