This Jungian Life Podcast

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ Boundaries define limits in relationships, work, and the psyche, balancing autonomy and connection. In relationships, they prevent enmeshment and detachment, fostering respect. Professionally, they maintain ethics and prevent burnout. Intrapsychically, they regulate self-cohesion and unconscious influences. Cultures shape boundary norms,...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ Carl Jung considered visions extraordinary intrusions of the unconscious into waking life, moments when hidden psychic contents press forward with striking intensity. These phenomena do not represent mere hallucinations or idle fantasies. They reflect purposeful eruptions from Psyche’s deeper strata, often evoked by personal crisis or cu...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ Join us this week to explore the results of our grand experiment in dream telepathy. A few weeks back, Joseph transmitted an image our listener volunteers were primed to receive, with the hope that it would appear in their dreams.  The results? Intriguing, if not conclusive.  On today's episode: Joseph shares some uncanny experiences...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ *Content warning: contains references to sexual abuse, animal cruelty, self-harm, and cult exploitation* This is Shadowland, a new podcast experience from This Jungian Life that explores the lives of people who work and take refuge in the hidden places of our culture. We hope our work will bring insight, compassion, and understanding to...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠ Travel speaks to something far deeper in us than simply going from one place to another; it’s a powerful metaphor for inner change. In our dreams or daydreams, the drive to “hit the road” or venture overseas often signals Psyche’s desire for growth and transformation. Instead of just showing us new sights, these journeys hint at unexplo...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them! Facing Rejection forces us to confront what we fear losing—belonging, recognition, identity. Rejection alters how we see ourselves, engage with others, and interpret the world. It shapes unconscious complexes, creates projections, and influences attachment. It appears in myths where exiled figures return transformed, in dreams where locked...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ With Deb and Joe out this week, Lisa speaks with Gary Clark, a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide, about his book Carl Jung and the Evolutionary Sciences . The discussion delves into the influence of indigenous cultures on understanding consciousness, the role of anthropology in Jung's work, and the implications...

⁠ DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ Transformation isn’t about muscling through change—it’s about loosening the grip on rigid perspectives so energy can move. Resist, and the unconscious will find a way forward anyway—through symptoms, dreams, and compulsions that shake up the illusion of control. Neurosis is just a traffic jam in the psyche—energy stuck where it no lo...

⁠ DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ Fire strips everything away, leaving only what truly matters. In the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, homes have become ash, familiar streets are unrecognizable, and life feels uncertain. But fire is not just destructive—it is also transformational. Pamela Power, a Los Angeles Jungian analyst and author, joins us to explore the ten...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠ What do the choices we make about the things we carry and wear reveal about who we are and the paths we take in life?   Shoes as Symbols connect identity, culture, and creative adaptation. Shoes reflect our movement through life and mark pivotal transitions, helping us hold the tension between vulnerability and agency. They appear in my...

⁠ DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ What do our earliest dreams reveal about the hidden forces shaping our lives? Childhood dreams offer unmediated access to the collective unconscious, revealing symbols that shape lifelong development. These dreams often dramatize psyche's early encounters with polarities, fostering individuation through the integration of opposit...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ What gives life meaning and guides us through times of emptiness and uncertainty? The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living explores the processes of self-discovery, purpose, and transformation. Along with James Hollis, Ph. D., we examine how meaning shapes our lives through symbolic living, midlife transitions, dreams, and nav...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them! 'Tis the season to join Joseph, Lisa, and Deb in a Jungian romp through the holiday in all its complex splendor. 1. Scrooge on the Couch: How the Numinous Transforms Something's going on in Scrooge's soul.. and it's tired of waiting for an invitation. Pull up a chair and ponder the universal story of a man whose trauma was t...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ We have looked to the stars to navigate our ships across night-shrouded seas. We have studied the stars to find their qualities in our character and divine our destiny. We have yearned for the stars as the gates of heaven where we hope to reside one day. Mysterious and inscrutable, humanity has ever projected the arcane depths of its c...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams is a practical guide to interpreting your dreams. It is the fruit of our collective experience analyzing thousands of dreams and collaborating to create our podcast and Dream School. It is an answer to the collective call to know and be more. Jung understood the next stage of human develo...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ Stoicism and Jungian psychology are a natural fit. The first invigorates and organizes the reasoning mind, and the second ensouls it. The amalgam of Stoicism and Jungian Psychology generates a natural resilience. It offers a frame to understand the interplay of reason, emotion, and imagination in service to inner growth. Integrated philo...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠ When we betray ourselves, we abandon our values, needs, or truths to gain approval or avoid discomfort. This leaves us disconnected, fragmented, and unsure of who we really are. These patterns often start in childhood, where conditional love or invalidation teaches us to hide our authentic selves to stay safe or gain acceptance. We see th...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠ What does it mean to depose the ego and encounter the dismantling joy of the Self?  Ecstatic transformation challenges our understanding of ourselves and breaks the boundaries of ordinary experience, leaving us questioning a lifetime of assumptions. It shatters our ego’s illusions of separation, shifting the foundation of our identity....

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ How does one reconcile and integrate opposing forces within to achieve wholeness? Wedding dreams symbolize the union of opposites that spans psychological, spiritual, and alchemical dimensions. Encountering the wedding archetype in dreams constellates an inner marriage that calls for synthesis of known and novel traits and attitudes—depi...

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠ How do we navigate the forces within us to make choices that reflect our authentic nature? Every decision acts as a bridge between the conscious mind and the unconscious depths, connecting archetypal patterns to individual choices that define human experience. Each choice reveals inner conflicts and values, compelling us to confront both p...

What drives us to seek meaning in the shadows, and how do we discern the real from the imagined when fear and faith converge? The rise of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s drew upon ancient archetypal fears of evil embedded in the collective unconscious, merging with societal stressors like the emergence of fundamentalist Christianity in American politics and women’s increased participation in the wo...

What is the ultimate path to inner wholeness, and how do we reconcile the tension between the spiritual and material aspects of our existence? Jung’s exploration of Gnosticism enhanced his vision of the human psyche. In the Gnostic myths, Jung recognized the modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness we all seek, mirroring the Gnostic Anthropos, the complete human being. Individu...

How does the dream maker help us when we’re lost and alone in the wilderness of our lives? We love dogs, and they love us. For millennia, they have held deep symbolic meaning in mythology, religion, and literature, often serving as protectors, guides, loyal companions, and a connection to our instincts. When it comes to dog symbolism in dreams, they can embody emotional support, intuition, or boun...

Do you need a map to chart a massive inner transformation? Jungian alchemy provides a symbolic framework for individuation, connecting ancient alchemical traditions with analytical psychology to illustrate the psyche's transformative process toward individuation. CG Jung saw alchemical imagery as symbols for inner psychological processes, where the work of transforming base metals into gold pa...

Across the globe and through the ages, dragons lurk in our myths and dreams, haunting us as primal forces of terror and transformation. Found in almost every culture, these creatures are potent symbols of the instinctive unconscious, embodying both the dangers of the natural world and the depths of our psyche. In Western mythology, they emerge as fearsome enemies, threatening to drag us back into...