Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:14) - Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is the place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. And let us start today's episode with a quote. Dreams awaken us to different aspects of ourselves, different dimensions of reality, and allow us to interact with our spirit through these unique experiences. That sounds like something I would say, and I actually do support those words wholeheartedly, and I wish I wrote them, but they're not my words. They were written by my guest today, a master teacher of higher consciousness, Susan Zummo, and I'm glad she did so as part of her book Mapping the Inner Landscape, because it gives me another reason to devote an episode to my favorite subject, the power of dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:18) - Susan has over 30 years’ experience teaching us how to focus on a deeper connection to soul, and one of our main methods of doing so is through Dreamwork. So with that, let's talk about dreams. Welcome to Dream Power Radio. Susan. Something that struck me about you is that you've been a dreamer all your life. In fact, it was common with you to discuss your dreams with your father when you were a child. What I found remarkable is that he never said anything back. He didn't say, oh, it's just a dream, and dismiss it. He allowed himself to be a neutral observer and let you express yourself. How did that affect you? And shouldn't this be the way that all parents react to their children's dreams?
Susan Zummo (00:02:26) - Oh my gosh, we would hope so, wouldn't we? Yeah, I really appreciated that in my father. He was very casual, very nonchalant. He always said, 'Oh, that's nice.' And that was really all he ever said to me, which encouraged me, of course, to tell him my dreams every morning before he left for work. So I've been dreaming since a child, and I love my dreamscape. It's a place where I can escape, I can learn, I can serve, I can grow, I can test myself. It's just a wonderful place. I wish everybody would delve into their dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:02:45) - Oh, you know I do too. In fact, one of the reasons I started this program was to expose people to the idea that we all dream and if we all started paying attention to our dreams, think of all the miracles that could happen.
Susan Zummo (00:02:59) - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's nothing to be afraid of. Even the frightening dreams have a message for us. And you know that they're really not about frightening events, but more about looking at our fears. And so I would encourage everyone not to be afraid to remember their dreams, but to encourage that in themselves.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:22) - I know the unfortunate part is because most of the dreams of people remember are their nightmares. They say, oh no, no, keep that away from me. Keep that away from me. And then we're trading our brain: Don't pay attention to it.
Susan Zummo (00:03:36) - That's exactly right.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:38) - But tell me, are dreams the only way that our soul communicates with us?
Susan Zummo (00:03:43) - Oh my gosh. Now everything in life is talking to us all the time. And the way that it works and the way that I learned is that it starts outside of us. It's so in a life event, then the soul will whisper in a life event, and if we don't pay attention, it'll talk a little louder by giving us something that happens to our house or home. If we don't pay attention to that, then it'll talk a little louder and give us something in our car or a vehicle. If that doesn't work, then it will hit the body and once whatever it is hits your body, you have to pay attention. There is no getting away from it, right? Because it's in your body. So things happen to us all the time that our messages and whispers of the soul. If we can only listen and interpret them, we can get it before it comes right into the body.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:43) - Right, right. So tell me, what would be some of the daytime symbols that indicate that our soul is communicating with us?
Susan Zummo (00:04:50) - Oh, that's a good question. I would say, for example, let's say that and I actually had this happen for one of my clients, the oil burner in her house went out. The furnace. Well, what does the furnace do? What is the oil heater do? It's the heart of the house. It warms everything. Right. Well, she went and had it fixed. Didn't think anything of it. And then the engine on her car went. Well, what is the engine on the car? That's the heart of the car, right? Well, she went and got the car fixed. Didn't think anything about it. And then her husband had a heart attack. And then she called me up and said, oh my gosh, what happened? And I said, there's some heartache there. There's some pain in the heart that needs to be looked at. And because they shared the house, they shared the car. It was him instead of her, but still the same symbolism. So that's a good example.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:05:56) - I see that, and was she able to learn from that and his experience? I mean, hopefully he recovered from that.
Susan Zummo (00:06:07) - He did actually. And she was so shocked at it that the two of them went to marriage counseling and were able to heal their relationship.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:19) - So it wasn't just his heart that was being broken, it was both of them. And that was the thing. And it's absolutely. Yeah. It's so amazing the synchronicities that happen when they're out there, when we pay attention to them and actually change our lives. I want to go back a second to our nighttime dreams. There's a quote in your book that I love. It says that a dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read, and that speaks so well to the insights that we get from our dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:56) - So let's get down to talking about the dreams themselves. And I believe that you have two basic roles for dream interpretation. So what are they?
Susan Zummo (00:07:08) - Well, the first rule is: What does it mean to you? And the second rule is: What does it do? What's its function? But I prefer for everyone to create their own dream dictionary rather than going through when using mine, because symbols mean different things to different people. I can't swim, so when someone says picture yourself on the lake floating, all I'm thinking about is drowning. I'm not thinking about peaceful thoughts. So I learned early on that symbols are very personal. And so when you're looking at a dream symbol, you want to look at it in context of the dream, of course. And what does it mean for you? And that's always going to give you the right answer for you.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:07:58) - I tell you, that is something that I learned also very early on when I started this practice. One of my first clients had a dream that involved chickens, and I was consulting a dream dictionary at that time to see what a chicken meant.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:08:14) - And it told that it was fear and that there's sort of a negative connotation to it but didn't make sense to the dream because it was a happy dream for her. And I'm like, well, what's going on here? And I said, 'Well, what does a chicken mean to you?' And she says, 'I love chickens. I raised chickens, say they're my pets.' So of course it changed the entire meaning. And that was a wake-up call to me to see what it means to the person themselves. However, because people have been dreaming ever since we've had minds, that were thinking minds over the thousands of years, there are symbols that that do have sort of commonalities to a lot of people and can start off as jumping off points when we're trying to figure out what the dream mean to me. So let's talk about some of the more common dream symbols and talk about, in generalities, what it may mean, so that when you're getting there, you could sort all this out.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:09:14) - So first of all I want to talk about house.
Susan Zummo (00:09:18) - Well love the house. So if we look at everything in the dream is us, the house is us. So the upper level of the house or upstairs is your higher mind, your higher self, your higher consciousness. The main floor is your personality. The basement or lower form floors are usually subconscious or hidden things. Right. And then we generally look at what room we're in. So if we're in the kitchen, that's usually a place where we create food, we nourish ourselves. But again that's general. If a kitchen is where you got yelled at when you were a kid, it's not going to be a nourishing place, right? The living room is basically where everybody entertains. That's where people live together. Bathrooms always have to do with elimination, right? Getting rid of junk. Bedrooms can either be places to rejuvenate, to rest. They can be intimate places, depending upon where you are in your life and what your relationships look like.
Susan Zummo (00:10:23) - And then whatever is in the house, we have to look at what it does. So if you're dreaming about a coffee maker, coffee makers have thermostats, and they get hot. So how's your temperature regulating? How's your mood, right? Are you dealing with anger? Those kind of things. So that's some general things about a house.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:10:44) - Right. And into that, as I'm hearing you talk about it, it also brings up another very important point when you're looking at a dream, which is the emotion inside the dream. So talk a little bit about that, how important that is.
Susan Zummo (00:10:57) - It's really important because sometimes what you see in a dream doesn't match what you feel. So you may be inside a beautiful house, but it doesn't feel right, it feels uncomfortable or you're feeling unhappy. And so that could be talking to you about what's different in you. So the outside and what you're showing to the outer world may be very different than what you're feeling on the inside. And that's an indicator as well.
Susan Zummo (00:11:25) - So emotion always is important. Good that you brought that up. Thank you.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:29) - Well I find sometimes for me it's a starting point. Especially when I say the emotion doesn't fit what you might call the narrative in a dream. They feel good. Why doesn't it fit what's going on there. And that often is at the heart of the insight that's that you're looking for.
Susan Zummo (00:11:50) - Why is a good question to ask, always.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:55) - And asking questions. Asking questions all the time. I certainly believe that in my role, it's not my role to tell the person what the dream means. My role is to ask those questions so that they get that aha moment.
Susan Zummo (00:12:12) - Absolutely. And you just reminded me of Edgar Cayce. A lot of his work was dream interpretation, right? People would come to him and tell them their dreams, and he would go into trance and give them advice. Life advice.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:12:34) - Absolutely. Well, let's get back to talking about these common symbols. Another very common one is car. So let's talk about that.
Susan Zummo (00:12:45) - Well, as an intuitive I love cars because I don't need to tune into someone, so to speak, to know everything about them based on what's going on with their car. So the front of the car is where we're headed. The back of the car is, of course, the past. The right side is generally masculine or male, the left side is generally feminine or female. And then again, we look at what's going on in the car. Right? The car itself. So many years ago, I had a car, and something tapped the windshield and the windshield cracked right across my line of vision. And so I went and replaced the car and got in the car. Oh, and by the way, the door handle pulled off on this car as well. Got the new car and it had a little divot in it.
Susan Zummo (00:13:42) - Drove it for a little while and all of a sudden, a crack appeared across the middle of the windshield. My daughter got in, went to roll down the window, pulled the handle off the door. And so by the time I got to the second car, I went, oh, what's going on? Well, what is the crack across the middle of the windshield? It prevents you from seeing. And then the door handle was being trapped. And at that time in my life, I was in a terrible marriage. And I didn't want to see what my spouse was doing, because I knew that I would have to change something, and I felt trapped. And so by the time it happened to the second car, and I was getting ready to get the third one, I decided I had better do something. So that's about it.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:14:40) - Oh for sure. And that's another point, is that once we get these insights, it's very important to take action on them to actually do something.
Susan Zummo (00:14:49) - Yes.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:14:53) - We are going to take a short break here; we are talking all about dreams with Susan Zummo and we'll be right back.
Announcer (00:15:29) - Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:35) - Yes, welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman, and we're talking about dreams with Susan Zummo. Well, Susan, right before the break, we were talking about the meaning of cars. And I tell you, for me also, one of the things I look at when I have dreams about cars, I'm talking about people with cars to see if the use of car as 'car ear' -- career. I had a dream about a week ago that really fit this bill. I've been having some discussions with somebody about a possible business cooperation that we were talking about doing. And I had this dream where two people who I admire a lot and they were totally unrelated to each other, but they were both driving cars. And the model of the cars was, Yes, they were driving the car.
Susan Zummo (00:16:33) - Oh my gosh, look at that.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:16:35) - So, having the dream, I'm saying, I never heard of a Yes car, a new model. And then I woke up writing that and I said, 'Yes.' Like how this relates to going on with me. Well, I think that was kind of a sign that maybe I should continue talking to this person. So that's what I love about dreams. I always look at them as a very practical means of getting to the bottom of things.
Susan Zummo (00:17:04) - I agree. If it's not going to help you in your waking life, then what good is it, right?
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:13) - Absolutely. Well, I want to talk about another type of dream that some people have, and let's talk about that meaning. When we have dreams about deceased loved ones.
Susan Zummo (00:17:25) - I love those dreams. And I have them quite frequently where I get to have dinner with my parents or visit with my grandparents because dreams of deceased. If you dream of someone deceased and they're still alive, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're about to die. It can mean that they're having a huge transformation. Because remember, the death of one thing is the birth of something else. So it's not necessarily a caution or a concern. It could be someone working through a fear of loss, so that a divorce is the same as the death when it comes to your emotions. So that could also play into it. But visitations from deceased people, that's how they can reach you in the dream. In the conscious mind. We want to put our head under the blanket if one of our deceased relatives shows up or we're too busy with other things to pay attention. So it's a good way to connect, to get messages, just to have a great meeting and feel that love once again.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:18:37) - And it's so true. I know it. I've done it myself. Being able to program dreams and say, I want to dream about this and have it. Can you program a dream to have that kind of dream?
Susan Zummo (00:18:52) - You really can. What do you need to do is set your intent before you fall asleep. You have to know that it can happen because nothing's going to override your belief. And then the important thing is, when you wake up the next morning, jot down anything. Even if you don't remember it. Jot down how you felt or whatever impression you have. And the more you do that, the easier it will be.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:20) - That is good advice. Good advice. Something you talk about in your book is night school. So you can explain what you mean by night school?
Susan Zummo (00:19:30) - Yes. Night school is where you go to learn new things. So night school is when your soul, your higher self, a guardian angel, Galactic being, will come and take you to a place of learning.
Susan Zummo (00:19:48) - It might look like an auditorium or a lecture hall. Sometimes you'll be in the middle of a scene, and everything looks real, but you know it's not. It's got like a TV quality to it. And that's a place where we go to get tested when we want to test ourselves, to measure our progress. Because in the dream, you can't fake who you are. So you may say, I'm a kind and loving person. I embrace everybody, and then you find yourself in a dream with someone that you really don't like. And you have a reaction, and then you wake up the next morning and go, okay, I really need to work on that so that it could be a testing. You can also be a place where you get new knowledge and lots of people. There are lots of examples of people who bring things through dreams, and those are real too.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:46) - And this is true. Would this be sort of like having Dream masters or people like that coming to us through our dreams?
Susan Zummo (00:20:55) - Absolutely, absolutely they are there. When we're in the dream state, most of our filters are off and we are much more approachable. And so when I want to work through something or learn something new, I just set that intention before I go to sleep and my guides come and get me and they'll start talking to me, I find them a little frustrating because sometimes they're hard to remember. They go in on a different level. So there are times where I've dreamt and, and I actually had a guide say, 'Okay, now I'm going to repeat it again, so you'll remember it. I want you to write it down. And I'm in the dream. I'm like, okay, I got it. I'm repeating it back. And then I wake up the next morning and it's gone. So we know that it goes in on a certain level, and when it's ready to come forward, it'll come forward in inspiration or information.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:21:53) - Let's say somebody is hearing about this or is interested in dreams.
And they say, 'Boy, I would love to have a spirit guide come to me in my dreams.' How do you make that happen?
Susan Zummo (00:22:05) - You just have to invite them. Have free will. We are very powerful, and our unseen hell is always on standby. But they cannot impose themselves on us. They have to be invited. They have to be asked. And it's very important for us to do that. It's also very important for us to feel safe and to know that we are safe, and to know that we're protected. And so if you need to do that in order to get comfortable and bring them in, then do that. Put up your protection, go to sleep, invite the men, and then pay attention. They don't always talk to you in the dream. Sometimes they'll talk to you in life symbols.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:50) - And that's another important point to make, to be aware not only in our dreams, but to be aware in our living.
Susan Zummo (00:22:58) - That's right. If you want to learn, if you want to know, then everything in life is learning or teaching.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:06) - Absolutely, absolutely. Do you deal with lucid dreaming?
Susan Zummo (00:23:13) - I do, I do. I don't think it's as hard as everybody says it is. I don't feel that that it's something that you really have to learn so much as just being aware. To go back to that ex-spouse of mine, there were many, many times where I had dreams of us still married, still arguing, still working things out. And at one point I would look at him and say, 'Why am I doing this? We're not married anymore. I don't need to be having this dream. I'm waking up, you know?' So it's what I teach children. Children who have nightmares. And they're having, you know, a nightmare or a monster come. I teach them to hold a sword of light, or to put their hand up and to say, 'I am the light. You do not scare me.' And that's a form of lucid dreaming for children, for them to gain consciousness in the dream and take control of it. And then the nightmares go away.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:15) - And that is such a great way of empowering them. Make them see that they do have that power within themselves.
Susan Zummo (00:24:22) - Yeah, we all do. We just have to remember it.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:26) - Yes, but it gets programmed out of most of us when we're children. That's why it's so important to really reinforce it when they are children.
Susan Zummo (00:24:35) - Right. And to remember it when we're adults because we forget.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:41) - It is so true. Well, speaking about forgetting, the thing that I always stress when I'm talking about dreams is the importance of keeping a dream journal, so we don't forget our dreams. So tell me your thoughts about this.
Susan Zummo (00:24:56) - I love dream journals. I've got books all over the house filled with them. The way that I learned was to jot the dream down, and then on the opposite page in my journal, to jot down what each symbol meant so that I could interpret it right then and there. And then I've gone back and looked at dreams and they tell a story.
Susan Zummo (00:25:16) - They tell the story of your life. And it's really interesting to say, oh, yeah, I dreamt about that quite a while ago. New careers, new relationships, new ideas, movement. It's all in there. And so I think writing it down is good. If you're not a writer, record it. You know, get a recording and record it. Now we have speech to text on our phones, so do it that way.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:45) - Any way you do it is good as long as you do it. Because you're right. Over time you do see patterns emerging and that is great. Do you ever draw your dreams?
Susan Zummo (00:25:57) - Oh, gosh, I wish I was an artist. Yes, sometimes I see things in a dream or experience something in a dream, and I will draw out the most horrible looking stick figures in men. So simple. But when I go back and look at those things, I can see the dream again in my mind's eye. And it's very powerful.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:21) - It is, and I wish I could get myself to that state. I have this running argument with one of my friends who's an artist. I say my stick figures are so bad that they don't make any sense to me. That's why I write them down. I'm a writer so I feel more comfortable with words, you know? I think the point is whatever works for anybody is the thing to do.
Susan Zummo (00:26:44) - Yeah, the important thing is to trigger the memory of the dream so that you can bring it forward and examine it again.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:53) - Absolutely. Well, Susan, is there a final thought you have you'd like to leave this audience?
Susan Zummo (00:26:59) - I would say yes. Dream big. Dream, daydream, night dream. Dream your life into existence and have no limits. Because your soul is listening, and it is talking to you, and it will respond.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:17) - Wonderful. Susan, how could people find out more about you and your work?
Susan Zummo (00:27:21) - Very easy. All they have to do is go to Susanzummo.com, or they can email me at Susanzummo@gmail.com. Very simple.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:33) - That's fantastic. Well, Susan, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today.
Susan Zummo (00:27:38) - Debbie, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed talking to you, especially a kindred spirit in dreams.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:47) - Well, there are there are a lot of us out there and I think it's growing too. But thank you again so much.
Susan Zummo (00:27:53) - Thank you so much. You have a wonderful day.
Debbie Spector Weisman (00:27:56) - We've been speaking about dreams with Susan Zummo. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying sweet dreams everybody!
Announcer (00:28:11) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to Dream Power Radio dot com. This has been Dream Power Radio.