Episode 62 - Grief and Dreams
INTRO: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Friends Missing Friends. Today, my guest is Alejandro Salinas. He is the current president and one of the co-founders of the Chicago Death Doula Collective. He's hosted death cafes for six years, and recently created the Coffin Cards, a deck of 115 questions about death, dying, and grief. And he's the host of the Coffin Cards Podcast.
Today, we talk all about grief and dreams, including dreams we've had about dead loved ones, connecting with our dead loved ones in our dreams, how dreams can help us to process emotions, and lucid dreaming and how to practice that and get better at it. It is so interesting. If you've ever wandered about dreams, you don't want to miss this episode.
HANNAH: When it comes to dreams and grief, what is your favorite aspect of it to talk about?
ALEJANDRO: All of it. I don't know. All of it. You know they’re healing, I think. They're just special. They're special dreams when someone who has died visits you. And even in terms of grief, not even people who have died, but you know, exes, like breakups. Those will also show up and start processing in the dream. And you can really see, I mean, I have really seen how that has really facilitated and helped the whole healing process.
And it's super reflective within the dream. And even similarly with, you know, I have different relationships with people who've died in the dreams and like a breakup, for example.
HANNAH: And do you have any, like, examples from your own life of dreams that helped you to process either, like, the loss of someone or even a loss of a relationship?
ALEJANDRO: Yeah, I mean, after my dad died, one of the first dreams that I had was him, he had, like, an entourage of, like, security guards, you know, and I was kind of watching that from a distance, but the fact that he had this, like, security team, you know, was like, he's safe, he's protected, he's with people, you know, he's not alone. And another dream I had with my dad, we were, I was at my, our family's kitchen, you know, discussing our dinner reservations, and we're counting everyone up to see how many people to reserve for, and we were like, oh, is, like, is, you know, will dad be there, like, should we count him? And in the dream, he was there, and he was like, yeah, of course I'll be there.
And I've had other dreams where I've just been in the back of a car, and he's, someone else has been in the passenger seat, and they were just sharing stories and shooting the shit, and we were just on a drive, you know? A lot of things like that. And my grandma has showed up in my dreams, and that’s a dream. I don't remember right now exactly what led up to it, but I was in my parents' house again, and my grandma and my mom were there. And my grandma said something to me that just like triggered lucidity.
HANNAH: Oh, yeah.
ALEJANDRO: And yeah, and I normally just take off flying. I have to stop myself sometimes, but I'm like, no, no, I’m lucid. So my grandma kind of helped me there. And I've even tried in the past to contact, I have a brother who died before I was born. So I never knew him. I've seen pictures of him.
His name is Jose and he's buried here in Chicago. And I like, will go visit him at the cemetery. And I've heard some stories about him and he was seven years old when he died. And I haven't tried in a really long while, but there was like about a month where I was trying to reach him. And the closest that I got during that time was being in a basement that felt like a really vintage basement of like an aunt or uncle's house. And it was kind of dark in there.
And, you know, it looked like an area where like the kids would go play in the basement, you know, with all the toys in the center. And I didn't see him, but I felt the sense that he was just behind a corner or a door and felt really shy to come out. And that's the closest I'd ever gotten there and haven't really tried since then.
HANNAH: May I ask what you did when you were trying, like how you tried to reach him?
ALEJANDRO: Mostly purely intention. Yeah. You know, just like, hey, I want to meet Jose. Like I want to see my brother. I'm kind of imagining as best as I could what that interaction might be like. Nothing too complicated, you know. Just writing an intention down in a dream journal, setting that intention, kind of like going to sleep with that in mind. And then as far as like breakups go, I had a really big breakup over 10 years ago now, I think.
Where it ended pretty abruptly, I feel like. And over the course of many years, I had a series of dreams periodically, not like all the time, you know, but every once in a while. That started, you know, really more aggressive, you know, of like the frustration, the anger. It was like the windows shattering in the dream.
And over time, you know, it became like a kind of cold passing glances at some other kind of event. And to just kind of being like, hey, hi, OK, cool, you know. And eventually, meeting in like the last one that happened in that kind of series was like being in a record shop. Oh, no, it's not the last series, second to last maybe. It was in like a record shop and we were kind of, I don't want to say flirty, but it was kind of like friendly, you know. And then leaving the record shop, we end up in the same like Uber or something together and like was pretending to be her boyfriend.
And again, and the last one was us meeting and sitting down and having a conversation and having like a big hug after that. And that that felt like the resolution. And that series of dreams kind of stopped after that. And we weren't talking at all during that time frame. So it's just purely just me processing all that stuff.
HANNAH: That's so fascinating. I it's interesting because I've heard so many different types of grief loss dreams from people. There are some where like it's very comforting, like you were saying, you know, with your father and that last dream, you know, where you kind of resolve it.
And then I've heard the opposite where someone's like, I cannot stop having dreams where they like don't recognize me or they die again. And it's extremely traumatic. And it's like their brain and they can't figure out how to get out of the cycle. And it's weird. Most of my dreams about my friend who has died have been not very healing. They've actually been upsetting.
And I feel like in some ways, it's my brain. It was my brain like trying to figure out like the suddenness of the loss. Like, especially in the beginning, I was having a lot of dreams. And a lot of them were like, I found out she was alive. But then like she didn't know who I was. And then she ran away again. Yes, I haven't actually had a resolve in my dreams and it's been like eight years. So, yeah, I don't know.
ALEJANDRO: How often do those dreams come up for you?
HANNAH: In the beginning, they were all the time. Like in the very beginning, probably every day and then, you know, less often. And even now, like I would say a couple times a month, I'll have a dream where I'm like back at camp with her because we met at summer camp, but like things are slightly off or like it's, she's hanging out with a lot where she's hanging out with other friends. And I'm like, oh, she's no longer my friend. And it's like really heartbreaking. And that's just like been a repetitive thing. I can't figure how to get out of it. It's weird.
ALEJANDRO: How do you feel like in waking life in terms of how she felt about you?”
HANNAH: Yeah, I mean, I think that it changes every day. I've had a lot of healing over the past several years, but I especially in the beginning, I had a lot of insecurity about like the fact that our friendship didn't have an official label and it's like she's not alive to reciprocate anymore. So it's like I have to convince myself that she did care about me, but there's no more present like evidence, you know? So yeah, it's almost like my insecurity was playing in my dreams or something.
ALEJANDRO: You know, to me, I feel the like sense in that camp dream where she's got other friends feels very much like, you know, the dead being with the dead.
HANNAH: Oh, I didn't even think of that.
ALEJANDRO: And, you know, they are with other people now. And there's only so much interaction the living can have with the dead. You know, and a huge part of that is, like, letting go. And not to say, like, letting go is, like, you know, giving up or forgetting about it or moving on, but letting that person have their journey wherever they may be. And the beautiful thing is that they can visit us and we can kind of call them, in a way, for their presence.
And in some ways, I feel like the dead are always present with us, not in, like, a ghostly kind of way, but just through the process of interacting, of all the interactions we've had being integrated and carrying that, their impact with us. Their words, their actions, their feelings don't leave us, really. Even if sometimes we do forget about them, maybe. Or sometimes we don't forget about them at all. You know, sometimes they're very present with us in that sense.
HANNAH: That actually blew my mind a little bit because I never, I hadn't made that connection that it's like, it's like your dad with the bodyguards, you know, like he's with other people. Like I didn't see it like that for some reason. I saw it as like, yeah, but in a way that's like more comforting than the spin I was putting on it, where it's like, she forgot who I was, you know, it's like, she's okay, she's having fun.
I just, I can kind of like, and be like where I'm sitting at another table and she's like at one table over with another group of friends and I can see her, but I can't really interact with her. But she was having fun. So maybe that's what I should, like, I don't know, but it is also really heartbreaking because like, oh, you know, I want to be at that table with her. Like, I don't want to be dead, but like, I want to be interacting with her.
ALEJANDRO: There's something called dream bridging. Where basically it's having a dream. And based on that dream, taking an action in the waking life. That is an action you would want to take in the dream. So it's kind of a way of practicing dream work without being lucid, necessarily. And sometimes this looks like, you know, if you have a dream of someone who's not dead, like giving them a call or something, or listening to the advice or the words or the actions you saw in the dream. And for the dead, you know, sometimes we can like write a letter.
And we don't have to send the letter. But in some ways, writing it, and even you can, you know, burn it, have a ritual with it, incense, say chants or prayers, whatever you are practicing spiritually, if you have a spiritual practice, to send sort of that letter up. And some people are like, yes, you're literally sending it. Some people, it's like more for yourself. And I don't know, you know, the dream world, the astral plane, the consciousness itself is such a weird, unknowable kind of.
But the actions that we do take do have consequences, you know. And the beautiful thing I think about dreams is that it doesn't even really matter if it's real or not. Because at the end of the day, the experiences that we have through the dreams, the emotions that we get to experience and process, the integration that happens are all for our own selves, just as profound and effective and valid. Without theorizing like, oh, like, is there an afterlife? Is there ghosts? Is that the real presence of someone?
And some traditions, Sergio Magaña, who's a Mexican teacher in the Toltec Dream tradition, and one of his books, The Toltec Secret, which is a really cool book. I recommend that one. It's really cool because you don't hear a lot about like, indigenous traditions sometimes in the dream dreaming books. So it's really fun. But he says that you can tell in a dream if someone is like the real presence. If their eyes are red versus like our dream imagination. Yeah. And I, you know, haven't personally had an encounter where I felt like I saw someone's like red eyes.
And again, like the dreams are also super informed by your own beliefs and your own expectation and willpower. So for me, I say it's hard to say, you know, I think it's fun to go on that journey and to be like, who knows and to feel and to have the experiences that we have without getting too caught up in all the practical, theoretical, logistical aspects of it because we can't know, you know, there's no way of really knowing. And there, I would say there is.
You can run, you know, we can apply, you know, scientific logic and rigor to experimentation on these kinds of things. But that again can only still go so far, I think.
HANNAH: Right. Right. I've never had anyone in my dream whose eyes were red. And I don't think I've ever had a dream where I, unless I'm forgetting but I feel like I would remember, where I was like, where I woke up and I was like, whoa, that felt like them. It's always felt like there was a bit of a disconnect. Like I was saying, where she's on the next table or she doesn't know who I am.
And even other loved ones who've passed away, I haven't like sat down with them and talked to them and been like, whoa, it really felt like I was talking to them. But maybe I haven't set a strong enough intention for that. I don't know.
ALEJANDRO: And again, you know, I think even in waking life, we feel that way sometimes where we're with someone and they are at a table across from us. And it does feel like they're not entirely there, you know, like how present they really are or how present they really can be sometimes.
And so at the end of the day, I feel like all we really do have is our own minds and emotions to work with. And as far as our practice goes, sometimes that is most important. And the cool thing about dreams is that the meaning we extract from them is our own to make at the end of the day, which is also true of waking life.
You know, like what do we make of any given interaction? What spin do we put on any given interaction? Have you done anything to feel like have a ritual or try to contact or like write letters or anything of that nature? What was your friend's name?
HANNAH: Her name was Lauren. And I've written her letters not in a while though. And I feel actually more connected to her in waking life than I do in dream life. Just in that like I have felt signs from her in real life, or waking life. And it's not as many signs as I would like, but I know it's not up. One, it's not really up to me. And two, if I got it my way, I'd have signs every single day. And that's probably more than I need. And I'm also very like, I tell her, I'll be like, please send me a sign.
But also I know it might take a lot of energy. So like, do whatever is right for you. Like, because I don't know how it works on the other side. You know, I don't know if it takes a lot of energy or not. And I don't want to be like selfish. So I always like preface that when I'm like, you know, if you can, if you want to.
But it's weird because I felt the biggest sign I felt for her was through—so I started writing a memoir about my friendship with Lauren. And then I signed up for this program where I get an editor. And I get this assigned this random editor. And then the bulk of my book takes place at the summer camp that I met Lauren at, which was at Interlochen in 2009. My first meeting with the editor, her face goes white.
She was like, “Hannah, I was at Interlochen in 2009.” And that serendipity is probably the biggest sign where I just felt like, okay, that can't be a coincidence. That's crazy. So through this woman that never knew Lauren in real life and when Lauren was alive, I feel more connected to Lauren through her than I do through any mutual friends. We've had. It's really kind of crazy. But yeah, that's kind of the biggest like where I feel like she's somewhere. You know, she's connected somehow.
ALEJANDRO: Yeah, that's beautiful. I know it's like, what are the odds of that? It's such a small world sometimes and the universe just like takes you for a ride all the time. What kind of signs do you get? Do you feel like they're kind of the same signs or they feel different every time?
HANNAH: It's like, so that was one that felt like a sign. Then and then I was I've been wanting to go back to Interlochen for years and years and years, but didn't want to go by myself. The same woman was like, oh, I live 20 minutes away from Interlochen. So then I was like, that's crazy. So then I go with her. That kind of felt like a sign that she just happened to live like literally right next to Interlochen.
And then also with numbers, like I feel signs with numbers where it's like something significant will happen. And then I realized it's her birthday. Like I wrote a one woman show about our friendship. The day I performed it, I realized, oh, today's her birthday. And that was like I didn't plan that. And that felt very like a sign. So yeah, like numbers, dates, people, those are probably the biggest, the biggest ones that I felt.
ALEJANDRO: In the dream practice, there's these things we call reality checks, which is a little test to see if we're dreaming or not. And you may have heard people are like, oh, pinch me, I'm dreaming, which is kind of a reality check in some ways, but also a terrible one because pain is in the mind. And so is not a good reality check to be using because if you pinch yourself in a dream, you might still actually feel that pinch.
So one of my favorites is to take a little hop, kind of jump, and because gravity works pretty well. Most of the time I've experienced it in waking life here on earth. And in a dream, gravity does not work quite as well every single time. You can even toss something in the air. Some people kind of hold their nose, try to breathe to see if you can breathe through or even just looking at your hands. Sometimes I'll just find my hand in a dream and that's enough to kind of trigger lucidity.
And you pair these reality checks with dream signs. And you could even use the signs that you feel are from, Lauren, and pair those with the reality check. And over time, you get in the habit of doing this, where if the sign shows up in your dream, you get into the habit of performing the reality check and increasing your chances of becoming lucid in the dream.
And you know, sometimes the signs aren't consistent enough. It's easier to pick something more reliably consistent, like walking through a door or, you know, anytime you see a red car or personalized. And one of the cool things about having a dream journal is to look at your dreams and see what makes your dreams dream-like.
What about them is different than your waking life. And really, basically anything other than waking up in the bed that you fell asleep in, in the room you fell asleep in, it should tell you that you're dreaming, you know, at the end of the day. But even then, there's false awakenings where you wake up in a room and it's still a dream. Maybe something's still a little off about it.
So, and it's not all about getting lucid, but it is nice to be able to practice these things. And at the end of the day, it's just about being more aware, increasing awareness wherever, however we can. That's all lucidity is.
HANNAH: Once you're lucid in a dream, does that just help you remember the dream better when you wake up? Or what do you do once you're lucid?
ALEJANDRO: Whatever you can and have the capacity to do. And basically, the experience of becoming lucid should alter the experience of the dream. And more people have had the experience of being kind of sub-lucid, of like in a nightmare, where you feel like I have to wake up. That is so like frustratingly close sometimes. To say I have to wake up implies that you know you're dreaming.
But we don't go that little extra step to be like, wait, this is a dream. And so we're overtaken, kind of blinded in a way by the fear in a nightmare. And wanting to run away from it, which we do in real life. You know, how often do we run away from pain, emotional or physical, by dissociating through social media, you know, drugs, sex, all the vices people have, you know, just burying ourselves and work, whatever it is that we choose to run away from, instead of just sitting, being present, acknowledging and feeling all that suffering, you know, even the grief, like we run away from our own grief sometime. And so that's a practice in and of itself. And once we're lucid, you know, maintaining that lucidity takes time and practice.
For most people, in the beginning, we get super excited and that wakes you up. You're like, I am lucid, and then pop out of the dream.
HANNAH: I was thinking you start flying or something.
ALEJANDRO: Well, you can. When I get lucid, because I like to do the hopping reality check more than others, I tend to just take off flying, which is fun. It's also how I learned how to start lucid dreaming when I was a kid, to just start running and jumping for longer and longer periods of time until you feel like Neo in The Matrix where he's like, no one makes the first jump.
But by the end of the movie, he's just like full Superman up and out of there. Attaining stability is a practice and there's a lot of tips and tricks. Again, the hand, I've found for me, just having my hand in the focus of the dream helps, which is really similar to a tip.
There's a series of books, but there's one book in particular by the author, Carlos Castañeda. He's got a book called The Art of Dreaming, where they talk a lot about this stuff. Again, from the Mexican tradition, and there's debate about whether or not it's written like an account of someone who's visiting a Nahuatl, which is like a Mexican medicine shaman.
Again, whether or not it's real or not, the information in there you can take or leave whatever you want from it. One of the tips he says in there is to just keep looking around the room, and focusing on different things in the room to, again, keep the stability of the place that you're in. Meditation, just meditating. Again, the more focused, the more calm, the more still the mind is, the more stable we'll also be in the dream. What we find now, we find then.
That's true of the dream and that's true of our experience of dying. They're dissolving the sense of being in the future in the dream. You're right now recognizing is no different than being in a dream. How stable is your waking self? How often do you go to the fridge or walk into a room and you're like, what was I getting here? What was I doing in here? That's no different than being in a dream and forgetting that you're in a dream. It's really common to be in a dream and people try to talk you out of being lucid.
Like dream characters, if you're like, oh my God, we're in a dream, they're like, what are you talking about? Like, maybe not.
HANNAH: Oh my gosh, they're trying to sabotage.
ALEJANDRO: Or we kind of rationalize ourselves out of the dream. There's another reality check of like a light switch, flipping a light switch on and off. To see if it goes on and off. I've had an experience where I'm like, oh, the lights must just not be working, like maybe the electricity is out.
Just being so close and those moments can be kind of frustrating, but they're also encouraging that you're closer to getting there. So those are some common close encounters with lucidity.
HANNAH: I feel like I had more lucidity when I was young. I remember there was a period of time where every night I had a nightmare, but I knew I was dreaming and I knew I wanted to escape, and I was able to escape. I was like, okay, I'm going to wake up 3, 2, 1, and I'd snap my fingers and I'd wake up. And then another time where I apparated like in Harry Potter, I was like, I want to wake up and then I'd spin and then I'd wake up. But I haven't had that power since the age of 12 or whatever it is.
I've had sublucidity where I'm vaguely aware it's a dream. I'm walking around, I'm like, yeah, this is a dream. But then I don't like use that knowledge to do what I want. I'm still like kind of at the whim of just whatever happens. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's kind of scary to have like complete power, where you can literally fly anywhere, do anything, see anything, make anything happen. I think part of me is like, that's too much power.
ALEJANDRO: And, you know, I'll say it's not, I often discourage people from, and I avoid using the term of like “control” in the dream. One of my favorite quotes is from an author Robert Wagner, who also has a really beautiful book. And his quote, he says, “no sailor controls the sea, no dreamer controls the dream.” And to recognize that the dream is a collaboration between your own will, intention, focus, beliefs, and the unknown power of the dream, which is to be treated as its own entity, with reverence and respect, and to build a relationship with.
HANNAH: Oh, I love that.
ALEJANDRO: Yeah. And for some people, that can be the idea of like God, or the universe, or just your deep subconscious, substrate mind, or whatever it may be. Even our thoughts are not entirely our own thoughts. Sometimes the thoughts just arise.
And it's our ego that battles with the thoughts, or it tries to change the thoughts. And we often identify with those thoughts, but the thoughts just arise spontaneously, and dreams even. And it's not like we're also in control of all the processes in our own body.
We're not in control of how we are interpreting light and color and sound. But even our judgments of those things is sometimes reactionary. And it takes the sort of meditative, lucid mind to take a step back and make space between that and to reinterpret that. And that is also a lot of practice.
Which is closer to what we refer to. You know, oftentimes people refer to karma as like what goes around comes around, etc. And I've learned, I've found that karma is more basically like habits. You know, karma is the, yes, consequences of your actions, but also, you know, the total, the result of those actions, not in a way that like what you put out will come back to get you, but if you practice being angry, you're going to get good at being angry. And if you practice loving kindness, you're going to get better at loving kindness, you know. And then, yes, you do receive those things, but it's because you're practicing them more.
HANNAH: Oh, I see. Yeah.
ALEJANDRO: Which maybe might feel like a very subtle difference, but it's not like there's some karmic force of the universe, like that's some revengeful principle that's out to get you, you know. And we think of like cohabitation is like shared karma, our shared actions, and so there's shared karma and this like collective dream. You know, I think of waking life as like a shared dream, where we also don't have full control of like what is in the dream. Like yes, we can control our own actions, our own words, develop good thought, all those things, and you know, the eightfold path and Buddhism. But there's still so much in waking life that's also again, completely out of our control.
HANNAH: Okay. No, that makes a lot of sense. I think I was, I like that interpretation of dreams being, like you were saying earlier, a collaboration. Because I think maybe I don't have not known much about lucid dreaming until talking to you. And I was like, that means I just like, you know, then change the landscape with my brain. And then it's just a lot of work. I gotta figure out what I want to have.
ALEJANDRO: And you can, you know, some people can. And like that is also advanced practice of dreaming too. There's a couple of things they do in dream yoga that is like, altering the state of something, you know, like turning an apple into, you know, a synthesizer or whatever, like changing things and, or practicing changing the shape of things, you know, to then take an apple and change the apple to be really big, change it to be really small.
So there is a degree, but it is, yes, a lot of work to go fly somewhere and to think that we're in control of creating the entire landscape around us. Our brain is really good at filling in the space. And that same part of the brain is the same part that, you know, like sees faces and figures in the night, you know, it fills in the blanks. The mind likes to fill in the blanks of things.
And when we have enough pieces of a puzzle, like we're playing Jeopardy or, you know, see a distorted image, a pixelated image, if you have enough pixels, there's a point where you can guess what that image is going to be. And in that way, our brain is like, okay, yeah, we're in the library, even though the full details of the library may or may not be there, you know, and you'll often hear people talking about their dreams, like, well, it was kind of like a sort of thing.
I had a feeling that it was X, Y, or Z. And we just have that felt sense because that's the interpretation that we get, and I would say to trust that, you know, you don't need the full detailed picture all the time.
HANNAH: Yeah. So interesting. So how would you…let's say someone is experiencing, like, a really traumatic dream loop where it's like every week, every night, whatever, they have a really traumatic dream. Like, I heard someone I don't really know very well, but someone they love who just kept dying over and over again, and it was so traumatic. Can we use lucid, lucidity and lucid dreamings to kind of break that cycle or something like that?
ALEJANDRO: Yeah, absolutely. And you don't even need to be lucid, you know? I think lucidity, you know, in the Toltec tradition, really beautifully, they call a blossoming dream. You know, in the same way you can't rush the blooming of a flower, like lucidity will come by of itself, and there's a lot of dream work practices we can do that don't require lucidity to take action on. And it's actually really common for people who experience nightmares, especially as kids, to learn how to become lucid, especially when they're recurring, because then they're predictable. So that is actually an advantage to have something that you know is going to happen, because you can rely on that as a dream sign.
There is something you can do that's called dream planning.
HANNAH: Okay.
ALEJANDRO: And the first step is to write down the dream as you have it. The second step is to write down the dream as you want it to be altered. So you'll write in any actions or changes you want to take or to happen within the dream.
And the third step is to draw a picture, no matter how it can be stick figures, you know, is to just draw a picture, especially in the dream world, you know, and this is why like using tarot in association with dreams is also really cool because we work with images. And so drawing a picture of that playing out of like the peak moment. And this exercise I got from a dream teacher from London who's Buddhist, Charlie Morley.
And he has a book I always recommend to people who are struggling with nightmares, trauma, called Dreaming Through Darkness. And that book is all full of practices that, you know, essentially just shadow work. And he's also worked with a lot of people who've suffered from PTSD and becoming lucid. And the results have been really incredible because it only takes a moment. You know, it just takes one moment in a dream where it'll just click and it's just done.
And some people have that one experience and they never happen again. It's really incredible. It's powerful stuff. You know, you could spend years and years and years of therapy and then have one night of lucidity that is worth all that. You know, there's a lot of talk of embracing the shadow. And sometimes in a dream, that's very literal. And again, that can feel really scary. And I think the comforting thing is that the dream won't give you anything more than you can handle.
And again, so not just dream planning, but you know, what is your take? What is your spin? Your interpretation? What meaning are you drawing from the dream, the nightmare that you've had is also a huge factor. And often just changing our frame of mind will change what we're looking at, the experience of what we're looking.
And, you know, sometimes things are, like, horrifying, you know, some people have, like, extremely traumatic dreams and life experiences. And I'm not suggesting that, like, poof, you know, it's just like a magic wand to wave that it does take work. And you can do this in relation with a therapist.
If you feel that need to, and I recommend everyone have a therapist. But knowing that dreams aren't real and the experiences are valid, you know, we often wake up screaming, we wake up sweating, we wake up in fear, those things have a real physiological connection. But it's no different than watching a horror movie.
And I sometimes also recommend people watch scary movies as a form of dream practice and remind yourself it's not real. This is fake. And notice when your body is tensing up, when you want to look away. And that's a really safe way of approaching things that may be harder to approach that's not directly related to your life. And to notice your body and to really practice relaxing in your body, reminding yourself that what you're witnessing isn't real. You know, you might have a terrible fear of spiders, but looking at a spider on a screen is might elicit.
Oh my God, a spider, but it's not a real spider. And over time, you're able to look at a real spider, just to use like a very, you know, more softer example, a very spider. And another example I love is in Harry Potter, where they're fighting the Bogart, which is that like creature that takes the form of your deepest fear. And they cast that spell Ridikulus, which is to make a joke, to, you know, put a silly spin on it. And that's also practice, you know, and a lot of people, you see a lot of comedians deal with their depressions and making light of things and putting a humorous spin on it.
HANNAH: Oh, yeah, yeah.
ALEJANDRO: And you can also do that in your dream plan, you know, like you can literally be like, well, how can I make this in a way where I would laugh or where I would be amused? And sometimes that does feel like, you know, amusement at the expense of whatever is haunting you, so to speak. And you can use any number combination of these practices. That book Charlie Morley has is full of them. It's a really beautiful book I recommend for a lot of people struggling with nightmares and things like that. Yeah.
HANNAH: That's incredible. This is like a whole realm I'm, because we, you know, like the general public doesn't really learn about this. I feel like the general public is like, dreams are silly. Don't talk about dreams. I don't know. It's weird.
ALEJANDRO: Unfortunately. And yeah, dreams are mirrors, you know? And I think the view of dreams in our modern culture is really a deep reflection of our own lack of self-awareness, our own lack of introspection, a lack of spirituality even.
HANNAH: That's so true.
ALEJANDRO: And a lack of awareness, you know, like to even, not even to be lucid, but to even remember your dreams. And dreams really offer a lot of information, can offer us a lot of guidance, can offer us a lot of comfort. They can show us what we're worried about most.
They can show us what to focus on. They can help us solve problems, you know, you can find a ton of artists, creators who like heard a song or found a solution or, you know, like the periodic table in a dream or like the Beatles writing like yesterday in a dream. I even heard the inventor and I don't know if this is true or not, but I've even heard the inventor of the needle.
Like a sewing needle came in a dream where he saw spears with like the loop on it and was like, oh, yeah, and so they invented the sewing needle. And there's a ton, there's a ton, a ton, a ton, the list goes on and on and on. But dreams are so powerful, so profound, and in the Tibetan tradition, prepare us for death and dying. In a lot of traditions, in the Toltec tradition, I have spent more time researching the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as ultimately preparing us to die.
And same, like having a nightmare in a dream is not unlike being so scared to die with fears, regrets, anxieties, worries, unhealed traumas, unhealed wounds, and being able to work through that, to process that, integrate all of that and practice. One of the biggest practices is loving kindness meditations, even practicing, which is hard when we have people who have been abusive, violent towards us. And again, there are steps to the practice, like to start loving kindness to someone we really care about, we're really fond of.
It's easy to send loving kindness to our best friend, to wish them well, to wish them the best. It's harder to send it to someone who we don't know maybe, like some random person on the street. And it's hardest to send to people who we maybe have feelings of animosity, hate towards. You know, and I've had a teacher who said it can be as simple as wishing, as simple as the energy of wishing someone a happy birthday.
As small as that, you know, like, and lately I've been using, you know, you can use our most despised political figures if you want to practice this with to be like, you know what, I don't disagree with you by any means, but I wish you a happy birthday. I wish you wellness and to further understand that the suffering they're causing comes from the suffering that they're also holding. And to wish the alleviation of suffering for someone causing you suffering is to alleviate your own suffering and is to wish the alleviation of suffering of everyone around them.
HANNAH: That's beautiful.
ALEJANDRO: Yeah. And it's not always easy, you know, it's a practice, it's a practice. And, you know, I always recommend people to practice like on the road where there are strangers and someone cuts you off.
And again, back to karma, we can practice our road rage and getting mad and upset about it. Or we can practice thinking about the other possibilities because, again, changing our perspective of the situation changes our relationship to the experience. Where if you knew someone in the car, you know, and maybe rarely, but like maybe they're rushing to the hospital to see someone who just got admitted that they loved or maybe this person, you know, like, whatever it is, like, you don't know the possibilities, what they're going through, what their suffering is like.
And at the end of the day, it's not even for this other person. But the practices are ultimately for our own self and our own peace of mind, our own calmness and clarity. And not necessarily, yes, the wishes for all sentient beings to be safe, happy, you know, at ease, healthy. But more than anything, we only have ourselves. And the idea is that through internalizing, through practicing within, that ripples outward.
HANNAH: It feels, it's different, probably in a lot of ways, but it reminds me of forgiveness. How it's like, I've heard forgiveness teachers say like, it's more about you than about them. For the most part, like letting go of that hate and anger might be kind of similar to like, the loving kindness that you give.
But I also love what you said about like, it can be as simple as wishing them a happy birthday because that feels so much more doable to the people I really hold anger and, you know, bad feelings about. I can be like, okay, but I can hope that you have a good birthday. So maybe that's a good place to start.
ALEJANDRO: Yeah, you know, I, I find a lot of a huge reason why I think I got even into this death and dying field is learning about the Holocaust and, you know, in grade school and, and having the chance to meet and hear Holocaust survivors talk about, you know, it's like when I think of like the absolute worst tragedies, atrocities that anyone could commit and hearing survivors forgiving, you know, the Nazis in some way, and that's not excusing them of their actions.
HANNAH: Right, right.
ALEJANDRO: You know, and like you said, like it is like allowing your own self to put that down and and an extension to understand, you know, that they're also suffering, which isn't easy.
HANNAH: And that's not it's not easy.
ALEJANDRO: And one of my favorite books is Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, who was a Holocaust survivor. And the way that he and others were still able to find hope and still able to find joy and meaning through their experiences is radical. And it takes a lot. But that hope and meaning is often what allowed them to survive.
HANNAH: That's really powerful.
ALEJANDRO: Yeah. And so you think like, well, what am I going through compared to that in itself? Itself is humbling. And also a really potent reminder of the capacity and capabilities of the human spirit.
HANNAH: Yeah, yeah.
ALEJANDRO: And in hospice work, they always say like, it's always too soon until it's too late. And a huge reason why I hold the death cafes is to have people talk and think about death and dying before they're in the moment where they really have to think about death and dying. And so to do these meditations, to do these practices, to do all this kind of work while we're not in so much pain or suffering. And sometimes if we're deep in it, we don't want to.
And that's also fair. Like, it's also fair to do what you need to do for you to survive. If you're like, you know what, I'm going through it right now. I don't want to think about this shit. I want to watch nature documentaries and videos of puppies and raccoons and whatever on Instagram. Like, if that's what you need, by all means, Lord knows I also took that kind of space.
But not to put it off forever, you know? So when you find a moment where you're like, you know what, okay, I think I can or I want to start small and to practice these things so that when it does come up or when inevitably life throws something at us, we're more prepared because we always fall on our worst habits. Oh, that makes always fall back on our worst habits. So building up the good habits as much as we can.
HANNAH: To go full circle a little bit, just because this is where my brain went. For the kind of not traumatic or nightmarish, but also not super healing dreams that I've been experiencing with my friend, I'm wondering what the next step should be. Like if lucidity will, like, I don't know, like maybe I could imagine a different outcome or I don't know if you have any recommendations. I'm just trying to think of like a next step.
Yeah, you know, based off what we talked about, even practicing that loving kindness for Lauren, like, hey, you're not here anymore. You're on your own journey, wherever you are, like, I wish you happiness. I wish you health. I wish you ease. And to just send those heartfelt, loving, kindness, feelings. And to maybe write out or imagine an interaction where that takes place or to hold a ritual of some ways. Rituals are interesting things because in some ways we make them up.
You know, artists are the ritual makers of society and dreams are metaphorical. And so I can't guide you so much there. I mean, like we could talk about creating a ritual, but you know, something that feels like releasing into a journey. I'm getting the image of like sending something out into the water.
You know, dream journaling and I would say you continue to write letters or anything that feels similar to that kind of communication. And I think an altar sometimes is a beautiful thing to have pictures of our loved ones. You know, it's like they're with us, but they're also free to be where they're at and on their own journey.
HANNAH: That's beautiful.
ALEJANDRO: And again, lucidity will come on its own. Yeah.
HANNAH: I'm definitely going to try the things that you mentioned to achieve lucidity like the hopping and the dream intention, because I haven't done any of that. I'm just like, I'm either semi-lucid or I'm not, you know.
ALEJANDRO: And sometimes just a regular dream journaling practice, a regular meditation practice and throw in some reality checks is sometimes really all you need. And there's more like advanced techniques and practices you can do, but sometimes that's perfectly sufficient if we're patient and don't get too frustrated or too caught up and wanting, you know, it's like, it's like watching again, watching and waiting and over watering a plant, expecting it to blossom, you just have to make sure that you got to make sure the soil is good and healthy and that there's sufficient water, it's not too little, it's not too much and just be patient and enjoy that process.