Lauri’s Blog

…in his dreams he is! 

Tom Jones revealed a recurring nightmare he has on The View this week, that he has murdered somebody, hidden the body and the police have found it. 

Countless people have reported this very same dream to me.  This is indeed a guilt induced dream, but not over something as severe as murder!  Remember, emotions are exaggerated when dreaming.  Most often, these dreams are triggered by guilt over something we have put an end to, such as a relationship, a diet, a project, something that is causing us to second guess ourselves.  That is where the police come in.  They represent our ability to “police” our actions and behaviors, our ability to do the “just” thing. When we go against what we know is right, our “dream police” will show up to set us straight!

So what do you think ol’ Tom is feeling guilty about?

Nightmares are the most important dreams of all because they are alerting you to something in your life that needs correcting, something that needs your immediate attention.  Understanding your nightmares can save you from a lot of needless pain in waking life. Nightmares are fully covered in my book So What Did You Dream Last Night? Demons, murder, corpses, blood, it’s all in there!!

It’s Monday again, which means another naughty dream to interpret on the blog Em and Lo: Sex, Love and everything inbetween Okay, this one’s not so naughty…

My husband and I have been separated for two years now and all of a sudden I am having dreams where we are back together. I thought I was over him and he even has a new girlfriend. They leave me so confused.

Lauri:  These dreams are not so much about him, but rather what the two of you used to have: happiness, friendship, commitment. At one point in time you had all of these things together, so he has now come to represent these things to your dreaming mind. One or all of these is missing from your life now, so your dreaming mind is saying to you, “Remember this?  We want this sort of thing back.” Yes, when you look at this dream and try to understand it with your literal waking mind, it can be confusing.  But when you can look at it in its symbolic form, it makes sense. These dreams are good for you because they help you realize what you’ve been needing lately.  Alas, your ex was not the right man for the job — especially the commitment part — but someone out there is.  If you are with someone now, ask yourself if he is capable of providing these things to you. If not, may I suggest brushing up on your flirtation skills, checking out online dating, and maybe even letting your friends set you up?

Taking a cue from my blogging friends at emandlo.com , I thought I would share the strange things people searched today that brought them to my site thedreamzone.com …

1. ugly baby
2. man crying
3. turtle on its back
4. shooting spouse but wont die
5. messy bed
6. pregnant twins
7. mass grave
8. false dream chicken

This morning I was a guest again on FM 100 in Memphis with Dana Fox and Ron Olson.  A woman called in who had been plagued with snake dreams her whole life.  The audio below is a great example of how those pesky recurring dreams are actually good for us, if we would just listen to them…

Every Monday I get to analyze a sex dream on the blog “Em and Lo – sex, love, and everything inbetween”

This week’s dream is by a gal whose ready to leave her boyfriend and dreams she gets knocked up by an old friend!

I’m 21 years old and I’ve been with my boyfriend for a year and a half. Lately I’ve been feeling like I don’t want to be with him anymore: I realize I’m just not happy with him. So then I have this dream and it’s a strange one: I’m with this guy, a really good friend of mine who in real life I used to like but with whom nothing has ever happened; we’re watching movies at his house and then we start kissing, and kissing passionately, and even though it’s a dream it feels so real. It’s been a long time since someone has kissed me like that. Anyway, after a moment of kissing, we’re having sex…  Read The Rest

I recently did a survey (of over 5000 people) through my site thedreamzone. And the dream that was reported the most was the cheating dream! Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought it a good time to explore what this upsetting and all too common dream is REALLY about.  Below is an excerpt from my illustrated  book So, What Did You Dream Last Night?

“Affair dreams,” like sex dreams, are also about uniting with a quality, opinion or behavior… BUT, to the dreamer it is an unwelcome union! We may dream our mate is cheating when we feel he or she has taken on a behavior or attitude that is taking away from the marriage, such as spending too much time at work or on the computer. In these instances the subconscious mind feels “betrayed” and will respond with an affair dream in order to get our attention so that we will deal with the matter at hand.

“Husband Having an Affair”

I dreamed my husband was having an affair. I know he’s not cheating in real life because his office is in the house and we are very happily married. In the dream I went to the hotel they had been meeting at to confront them. I caught a glimpse of the back of “the other woman” right before I woke up. She was wearing a huge sun hat and had a big lizard tail!   – Maurine 35, Cheektowaga, New York

Even though Maurine’s hubby is as faithful as a Labrador, her subconscious mind does not see it that way. It feels “betrayed” by his new golf buddies. Maureen and her husband had just moved to a new town, so when her husband befriended some men in the neighborhood who also had an interest in golf, Maureen was actually happy for him. That is, until he spent all his free time with his new friends and adopted their silly slang as his own and used it a little too often. Maureen didn’t want to burst his bubble and therefore became very lonely. Her dreaming mind then intervened and said, “He may as well be having an affair! You need to do something!”

Her motivation in this dream was to confront her husband. In her attempt to do so she was able to see “the other woman,” the thing that was taking away from the marriage. The message from this dream lies in what she saw. The giant sun hat indicates something is being covered up – Maureen kept her loneliness “under wraps.” Backs and tails are both things that are “behind” us and will often symbolize the past. Lizard lady is letting Maureen know that she needs to confront hubby so that the issue can be put “behind” them and made like the lizards of long ago… “extinct.”

“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss…” Or is it?

Not in the dream world!

As with just about everything else in our dreams, even a kiss is not what it seems. So if you’ve been swapping spit with someone in your dreams and it’s got you a little creeped out… fear not!

Check out the audio below to find out what kissing in dreams REALLY means. This is from this morning when I was on the air with Corey an Laura on Mix 108 in Duluth, MN.

If you have a child who wakes up screaming and is inconsolable, read on…

Dear Lauri,
Would you ever consider writing a newsletter about babies’ dreams? My 4 month old has terrible nightmares; you can see they’re nightmares from watching his face asleep between screams. What are they dreaming about? How can we help them? -Mary, Chicago

Lauri: My goodness Mary. What a horrible thing for you to witness. It sounds like your baby could be having night terrors… but, I’ve never heard of a child that young experiencing a night terror. Night terrors usually begin around age 3.

None-the-less, a night terror is different than a nightmare in three ways…
1. a child doesn’t fully wake up from a night terror. They scream and scream and, despite your efforts, just don’t snap out of it easily.
2. Once awake, they can not remember what was so terrifying.
3. Night Terrors do not happen during REM sleep (when we dream), which explains why the child can’t recall the dream that was so frightening… because there usually is no dream!

Night Terrors are still a mystery, but research seems to indicate that the cause is due to
a rough transition in sleep cycles. The brain goes through many cycles while sleeping, 5
stages actually. Night terrors seem to happen in stage 4 sleep, right before entering REM,
when dreaming takes place. When these transitions do not happen smoothly, a night terror
can happen. And the reason the child is so hard to wake up, is becuase stage 4 sleep is
the deepest and most unresponsive to outside stimuli.

Here’s what you can try: Have your baby sleep with the light on, not a nig ht light but an
actual light. This has proven to prevent night terror episodes in many children. Also,
try putting a wave machine near the baby when he is sleeping, something that makes the rhythmic sound of the ocean. This seems to help balance out those precious little brain waves and will help ensure a smooth transition into each cycle, therefore preventing a night terror episode.

I would also like you to ask your pediatrician about this. He or she may be aware of other cases
of night terrors in such a young child and can better direct you on what you can do. But rest
assured, it is not harmful at all… only extremely upsetting for the parents! If he is having
night terrors, he will grow out of it and there are things you can do in the meantime, such as what I have suggested above.

One final question, did you or did anyone else in your family suffer from Night Terrors? It tends to run in the family.

Mary: Oh yeah. me. I had night terrors in college and would wake up with bleeding lips and my sheets all across the room. At the time I was away from home and my mom had cancer and my boyfriend had depression. Perfect setup for bad sleep! And at the time, I didn’t know about you or I might’ve called you and asked you to translate the dreams and help me out– it would’ve been well worth the money, that’s for sure!

I can’t believe you wrote such a detailed response to me personally! Thank you soooo much and I’ll try everything you suggested!

Lauri: Awe… you’re very kind.

I’m glad you grew out of ‘em! Now that your son seems to have inherited that lovely gift, you’ll need to work on managing it. And just remember, it’s harder on you than on him. He’s going to have no recollection of these episodes.

And if he continues to have them when he is older, I suggest trying to snap him out of it by saying something completely silly and off the wall like, “Look at the furry pink elephant in your doorway!” If that doesn’t work, for your sake, just toss some water in his face. He’ll snap out of it pretty quick! It’s not harmful, just makes him a little wet. And this could save you many many torturous minutes of trying to get him to wake up.

Good luck to you.

If you’ve ever dreamed your teeth were falling out or that you were back in high school searching for your class, this post is for you!

Last week I was a guest on The Sandbox moring show on WFNX in Boston, MA.  The first two dreams thrown at me were two of the five most common dreams we all get… teeth falling out and being back in school.

You can finally find out what these common dreams REALLY mean by checking out the audio below.

Losing Teeth is first
Back in High School is at 3:03
Ghosts and Bears is at 5:20
Fishing is at 6:55
And a cool dream about a child with no legs is at 10:22

Sweet dreams!