All Categories - Lucid Coaching, LLC

Podcast Interview: Dreams About Soulmates and Counterparts

4/26/2024

At the 2023 annual conference for the International Assoc. for the Study of Dreams, my wife and I had the chance to share a lunch table with Amina Mara, the host of The Dream World Podcast. Amina recently invited me to be a guest on her podcast and we discussed my personal dream research about soulmates and counterparts. I first learned of the concept of "counterparts" (an expansion of or variation of the idea of soulmates) for reading the Seth books by Jane Roberts. See YouTube link below for the full interview.

Blissfully Speaking Podcast Interview

9/4/2023

I was excited to recently be one of the first guests interviewed on the Blissfully Speaking podcast, a new venture of Bliss Spiritual Co-op.

Podcast Interview with The Dream Journal (Katherine Bell)

7/18/2023

On July 6, 2023, I was honored to be a guest on The Dream Journal radio show, hosted by Katherine Bell. The interview is now available in podcast format. You can listen to the interview at this link:
https://ksqd.org/doing-the-opposite-with-chris-cunniffe/

Podcast Interview with the Typical Skeptic

6/7/2023

I was recently interviewed by Robert Kalil on his Typical Sketpic podcast show. Rob has done a great job building an audience, with over 10,000 YouTube subscribers. In the interview, I discuss dreams, manifesting (law of attraction), emotional guidance, and my approach to coaching, among many other topics. Rob's audience is interested in UFOs and I explained how I view these encounters as being "extra-dimensional" rather than "extra-terrestrial".

Rock n’ Roll Déjà Vu

5/1/2023

Do you occasionally take notice of the fact that there is a song playing in your head? When this happens to me, I can sometimes quickly connect the experience with a song that I recently heard on the radio, at the gym etc. But, on other occasions, I find that it is a complete mystery. Through my dream journaling practice, and especially a recent Billy Idol dream (described below), I’ve come to realize that the original source of the song in my head at least occasionally comes from a dream.

Over the years, I’ve recorded dozens of dreams that involve rock stars or concerts.

In one of my Billy Joel dreams, Billy appeared as a much younger version of himself. Concluding that I had traveled back in time, I walked up to Billy and hilariously told him: “I’m from the future”. The sheer absurdity of the situation eventually triggered me to become lucid in the dream.

I once dreamed that I was in a church, with none other than James Brown seated in the pews not far from me. As the service came to an end, James suddenly bursts into song. I’ve encountered Michael Jackson several times in my dreams. In one dream, he exited the scene by doing back flips and cartwheels. In another, Michael started breakdancing in front of me. For me, I think both James Brown and Michael Jackson represent the idea of spontaneous creativity.

I once dreamed that I was talking with Axel Rose (such a symbolically potent dream figure name!). We decided to exchange contact info and he gave me his cell phone number. However, I could not remember this phone number upon waking. If I had, it would have been cool to “honor the dream” and try the phone number.

I’ve had several Bono dreams including one where Bono appeared as a very sharp dressed tailor, with a tailor’s measuring tape wrapped around his neck. Thus, for me, Bono may represent the idea of the precise execution of one’s art form.

Sammy Hagar is my most frequently recurring rock star dream figure. I’ve come to understand that he represents the idea of being authentic, “singing my heart out” and not being afraid to “get on a stage” and express myself to others (like I am doing with this website). Sometimes, however, I think that I dream about Sammy simply because I love his music. In one dream, I was at his show and singing along to I Can’t Drive 55.

Looking over my dream journal, some of my other rock star dream encounters have included Pit Bull, Ice-T, Bruce Springsteen, Weird Al Yankovic, Darius Rucker, Jon Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Eddie Van Halen, Taylor Swift, David Lee Roth, Susanna Hoffs, Stephen Pearcy, and Rod Stewart. Quite a roster!

Just this week, I dreamed that I was attending a Billy Idol concert at a small club. This was Idol’s first appearance as a dream figure in my 12+ years of active dream journaling. About 4 years prior to this dream, I listened to Billy Idol’s brutally honest autobiography. It’s a wildly entertaining book, filled with tales of the birth of the punk rock movement and, of course, Idol’s over-the-top indulgences with sex, alcohol and drugs. Not surprisingly, some of Idol’s superabundant debauchery filtered into my dream.

While not X-rated, the dream became NC-17 when Idol’s band was joined on stage by a group of topless women. Attempting to record as many details as I could upon waking from this dream, I tried to recall, without initial success, the song that was being performed at the show. I then suddenly realized that I already had Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell playing in my head. This led me to conclude that Rebel Yell must have been the song being performed in the dream. This experience caused me to speculate about how frequently my dreams are the source of the otherwise unexplainable songs that I find playing in my head.

If I were being more accurate with my borrowing from the French language, I should have titled this blog post Rock n’ Roll Déjà Rêvé instead of Rock n’ Roll Déjà Vu, as the French language actually offers us two separate but closely related ideas. Déjà vu translates as “already seen” whereas déjà rêvé translates as “already dreamed”. I note this because I’ve come to understand that many of my déjà vu experiences can be more precisely and accurately understood as déjà rêvé.

I had an interesting precognitive dream experience in 2011 that illustrates the déjà rêvé principle. In waking life, I was out running errands on a Saturday. My wife texted me with the suggestion that we reactivate our Costco membership, and I added this task to my agenda. As I was walking into Costco, I crossed paths with my friend Stacy* as she was exiting Costco with a full cart. Stacy was a commercial banker that I had known for many years. It was a seemingly random encounter and she mentioned to me that this was her first ever trip to Costco. After a brief conversation, we went our separate ways. But, the encounter triggered a strong sense of déjà vu for me. Then I suddenly experienced a dream download. That morning, I had recorded two dreams in my journal. I now spontaneously remembered a third dream and this one featured Stacy. In the suddenly recalled dream, Stacy was looking for a new banking job and I had walked into the office of another banker with a copy of her resume.

A couple of takeaways from this experience at Costco:
• It reminded me of the importance of having a steady dream journaling practice. By journaling my dreams on a regular basis, I am effectively exercising my dream recall muscles. I am building a bridge between my waking mind and my subconscious mind. If I had not been journaling my dreams, I think my experience at Costco would have simply left me with a vague and unexplained sense of déjà vu. Instead, I was able to have a fuller experience by recalling the dream that triggered the déjà vu feeling.
• This experience was different than my other precognitive dreams. On the one hand, you could say that I dreamed about Stacy and then I encountered her at Costco. But, as far as my waking mind was concerned, I first encountered Stacy at Costco and only afterwards recalled that I had dreamed about her that same morning. As with my other precognitive dream experiences, I’m led to question the true nature of time, as there was another part of me that appeared to know about my encounter with Stacy prior to my waking reality encounter with her.

Dream on and rock on, my friends!

* Named changed for privacy purposes

The Secret Door . . . A Precognitive Dream

4/2/2023

In late November of 2022, I recorded a very short dream about a secret door. It later became apparent that the dream had precognitive qualities. Here are my original dream notes:

November 29, 2022 (Tuesday)
Dream 1 (6:30 AM). A room has a secret door on the floor. Later, however, this area is shown again and there is no longer a door on the floor. But then it appears again.

That was it. A very short dream. A few days later, I received a call from a woman who, with her siblings, had inherited an old commercial building located less than a mile from my real estate shop. When she called, she and her sister were at the building. I offered to meet them at the building right away. No time better than the present in the real estate business. It was a very interesting old building that had once been owned by a telephone company and had subsequently been converted into a large workshop.

The sisters informed me a couple of days later that they had decided to list the building with a different real estate company. When the property hit the market, a friend of mine (and a potential buyer) requested a tour of the building. Thus, within a short period of time, I got the chance to tour the building again.

In the midst of this second tour, I turned around and saw that my friend had pulled up a hatch on the floor. A secret door! As soon as I saw the open hatch, I immediately thought of my secret door dream. See photos below of the floor hatch in both its closed and open positions. When closed, there is a camouflage effect because the top of the hatch has floor tiles that match the surrounding floor. Once you know it is there, the floor hatch is very easy to spot. But, during my first tour of the building, I was in the building for about 30 minutes with one of my colleagues and neither one of us noticed it.

I would like to highlight a few notable elements of this precognitive dream experience:

In the dream, there is an experience where the secret door is sometimes there and sometimes not there. In my waking reality experience, there was a similar pattern. During one visit, it was "not there", in the sense that I never noticed it. During the second visit, it was presented to me in a very obvious way.
I think it is amazing that the dream was specific about the secret door being located in the floor. Waking life secret doors are most commonly in a wall. They could also theoretically be in a ceiling. Thus, the dream experience and the waking experience matched up very exactly in this respect.

Was this a meaningful experience for me? Yes, it was meaningful for me in two ways.

First, I think all my precognitive dream experiences are intended to cause me to question the nature of waking reality. The experience reminded me that time is a relative, rather than an absolute, concept. Dreams come from the inner self. From the perspective of the inner self, time is an illusion. Thus, my inner self could see the likelihood of my encounter with the secret door before I experienced the event in waking reality.
I also think that the idea of a camouflaged secret door is very interesting as a metaphor for spiritual exploration. In the Seth books (by Jane Roberts), waking reality is specifically described as a form of camouflage. Although it appears strictly physical, these teachings suggest that there is much more to physical reality than meets our physical eyes. There are deeper levels of reality that cannot be perceived if we rely strictly on our outer senses, including our outer physical sight. In this sense, the secret door represents gaining deeper experience by relying more upon the inner senses. To the inner self, physical reality is understood as a psychological environmental that features meaningful symbols. This experience thus served to remind me that my spiritual path is one that requires a high level of attentiveness and use of my inner senses.

A precognitive dream is a unique form of synchronicity because the two related events happen in different states of consciousness. The experience of a precognitive dream often makes me feel like I'm interacting with a playful/trickster aspect of my consciousness. For more examples of precognitive dreams (and coincidences), see the The Inner Self at Play section of my website (link below).

The Inner Self at Play

How to Hear Your Body Talk

10/19/2019

“Let me hear your body talk (your body talk)”
- Olivia Newton John, Let’s Get Physical

This is a blog post about dreams, diet and physical health. But, worry not, I’m not here to offer you any dietary or other health advice. To borrow a phrase from Lloyd Christmas (Dumb and Dumber), the sound of unsolicited health advice is, to my ears, “the most annoying sound in the world”. Instead, my purpose here is to illustrate one of the most practical applications of dreamwork – receiving health advice from your own Inner Self.

DISCLAIMER: We all have different tolerances when it comes to food and drink. The fact that a food or drink causes me problems does not mean that it causes problems for you.

My little case study starts in early 2013. I was dealing with some sinus and respiratory issues, which ranged from uncomfortable to painful. I was a mess nearly every day – sniffling, sneezing, and dripping all over the place. I was embarrassed by the nearly constant nasal sound of my voice. Most concerning, I often awoke in the early morning hours in a fit of wheezing.

Around this time, I had a dream about the HVAC system of a house. In the dream, a technician showed me how the air ducts of the house were stuffed with a thick, blanket-like material, making it extremely difficult for air to travel through the ducts. The HVAC ducts represented my own respiratory system, which was under duress. The depiction in the dream was confirmed, in waking life, by a CT scan. My ENT doctor told me that I had one of the worst sinus infections he had ever encountered. His recommendation: sinus surgery. Hesitant to go under the knife, I found myself searching for an alternative solution.

By this time, I had started to take notice of some recurring food/beverage themes in my dream journal. One of the steadiest drumbeats was alcohol. The following dream seemed designed to catch my attention:

February 16, 2013 (Saturday)
Dream 4 (3:20 AM). I’m driving on I-26, with a cocktail drink in my center console. There is a lime (or similar cocktail fruit) in the drink. I’m driving slowly in the far right lane. I’m driving behind a slow moving car. I realize it is not wise to drink the cocktail while driving, but then I decide that there is no harm in having one more sip.

As quick background, I should share that I completely abstained from drinking alcohol throughout my teens and all the way into my late 20s. During my 30s, I was an occasional social drinker. As I transitioned into my early 40s, I got into the habit of having one or two beers at home at the end of the work day. This transition was subtle, such that I had not really taken conscious notice of the change.

As dreams often do, this dream presented me with a cartoon-like exaggeration of my circumstances. In waking life, I had never consumed alcohol while driving. But, I was consuming more alcohol than at any prior period of my life. In dreams, cars often represent the physical body since the physical body is the “vehicle” we use to manipulate in waking life. The dream was showing me that my alcohol consumption was causing my body to “drive in the slow lane”. In another alcohol themed dream from 2013, I was inside an old tavern. A lawyer walks through the tavern, announcing that he is representing people in a lawsuit related to health issues caused by the tavern. Even during the dream itself, the lawyer’s statement caused me to wonder if my own health issues were related to the tavern.

At the time of these dreams, I did not understand how alcohol was contributing to my respiratory issues. It was just clear from the dreams, and some waking experiences as well, that alcohol was at least contributing to my health issues. I decided to significantly cut back on my alcohol consumption. For the first time since the chronic congestion issues had emerged, my symptoms began to gradually ease.

I’ve learned that alcohol is just one of many sinus congestion triggers that I need to monitor and moderate. In Appendix I below, I’ve included three examples of dreams where my Inner Self has helped me identify another possible area of food/drink overconsumption. In my case, these additional triggers include (when consumed in excessive amounts) coffee, chocolate, fast food, and carbohydrates. As of the time of this writing (2019), my sinus congestion issues have by no means completely gone away, but they are no longer chronic in nature. When I have a bad congestion episode, I’m typically able to associate it with the overconsumption of some food or beverage during the preceding days.

In recent years, I’ve come to understand that the primary cause of my congestion issues is acid reflux. If you are interested in learning more about how this can be, I’ve included some notes and resources in Appendix II below.

Appendix I:
More Examples of Dream Guidance for Health/Diet

Chips & Salsa

May 5, 2014 (Monday)
Dream 2 (6:43 AM). I’m participating in a free throw shooting contest. . . .The scene morphs and my shooting takes the form of flicking tortilla chips at the basket. I dip the chips in salsa before taking each shot. I’m also eating some of them. I’m lying down as I do this and I miss all of these “shots”. . . . Ann is there. She notices that it is now raining outside.
INTERPRETATION: At the time of the dream, I was in the habit of picking up lunch several times a week at Moe’s Southwest Grill. My lunches there always included a large serving of tortilla chips and salsa. Also, around the time of this dream, a family member had just participated in a basketball fundraiser where he had to sink as many free-throws as possible during a limited period of time. The inner advice I got from this dream was that I should moderate my rapid-fire consumption of chips and salsa. I understood the “rain” at the end of the dream to represent the generation of large amounts of mucus by my body after I overconsumed chips and salsa.

Chocolate/Coffee
January 26, 2013 (Saturday)
Dream 7 (7:03 AM). The setting is the backyard of a house. . . . I see a shovel situated on a table. On the blade of the shovel, I see some items that I associate as treats intended for Shadow (one of our cats at the time of the dream). I toss Shadow a chocolate covered espresso bean. Shadow excitedly scrambles after it. Then I pick up part of a Snickers bar. I break into smaller parts and toss them out for Shadow. Shadow is excited and eats them up.
INTERPRETATION: I re-read this dream several years after writing it down. It was only then that I came to understand that the dream was about my own diet and not Shadow’s diet. A chocolate covered espresso been might be the most acid-forming food that exists on the planet. The timing of this dream (early 2013) corresponded with the emergence of my chronic respiratory issues described earlier in this blog post. At that time, I was regularly consuming chocolate covered espresso beans as a treat. I was also consuming significant amounts of chocolate and coffee (often together) in many other forms. At the same time, Shadow was having a problem where he would throw-up around the house after eating blades of grass during his forays outside. Shadow’s body could not digest the grass. In like manner, this dream was advising me that my body was having trouble digesting the volume of chocolate and coffee that I was consuming, especially the chocolate covered espresso beans!

Convenience Food

July 7, 2019 (Sunday)
Dream 3 (7:47 AM). I’m driving past the Harris Teeter located at the intersection of Ben Sawyer Blvd. and Chuck Dawley Blvd. I’m surprised to see that the Harris Teeter has been replaced by a Circle K and that the Circle K has also expanded beyond the footprint of the Harris Teeter, to include some of the shops that used to be adjacent to the Harris Teeter. The color scheme of the building is now red to reflect to corporate color scheme of Circle K. The changed color scheme is extensive and strikes me as over the top.
INTERPRETATION: This dream clearly relates to my diet. For both of the days immediately preceding the dream, I had lunch at Five Guys Burgers. Throughout most of the day on Sunday (same day as the dream), I was dealing with significant nasal congestion. The dream was showing me that I had replaced the food that I normally purchase at Harris Teeter supermarket (which is typically balanced) with “convenience” food, represented by the Circle K.

Appendix II:
Acid Reflux Resources

When I first heard of the theory that acid reflux could cause sinus and respiratory issues, it made little sense to me. I thought: How can issues with my stomach relate to issues with my sinuses? But practical experience has shown me that, at least with my body, there is a strong connection. When I moderate my intake of acid reflux trigger foods and beverages, I experience less acid reflux and less sinus/respiratory congestion. When I overindulge in consuming my acid reflux triggers, the contents of my stomach encroach into my esophagus and then filter into my lungs. My lungs then create mucus to clean out the debris, which leads to my experience of congestion.

It is always helpful to supplement information gleaned from my dreams with waking life scientific resources. Below are two sources that have helped me sort through my acid reflux issues:

Susan E. Brown and Larry Trivieri, Jr.
The Acid-Alkaline Food Guide: A Quick Reference to Foods and Their Effect on pH Levels

Dr. Norman Robillard
https://digestivehealthinstitute.org/
Dr. Robillard’s theory is that the core trigger of acid reflux is pressure coming up from the intestines caused by the production of gas in the intestines. His studies have shown that the overconsumption of carbohydrates is a prime cause of this excess gas production. His recommendation for combatting acid reflux is a reduction in consumption of carbohydrates.

Parking Ticket Pivot

6/20/2019

I went for a beach walk yesterday afternoon on Sullivan's Island, It started to rain as I was getting back to my car. When I turned on my wipers, they revealed a bright orange envelope with a $50 parking ticket inside. My initial emotional reaction was, not surprisingly, annoyance and frustration. Especially over the nature of the violation -- one of my tires was just barely touching the street pavement! A high crime!

I've been a student for many years now of Abraham-Hicks, the Seth books, and similar teachings that emphasize the idea that we each create our own reality. So, it did not take me long to pivot and pose the question to myself: "How did I create this parking ticket?"

The answer came to me so quickly that I laughed inside and smiled. I realized that I had been harboring some pent-up resentment against the Town of Sullivan's Island for several months. In 2018, one of the agents in my real estate company listed an ocean-front property on Sullivan's Island for sale. After my agent installed one of our company signs, the Town sent me a violation notice, advising me that my company had not registered for a business license with the Town. To resolve the violation, I ended up paying the Town about $600 in business license fees. At the time, I saw this as a petty shakedown, since the scope of our business activity on the island was so minimal.

When I arrived yesterday at Sullivan's, I drove past several real estate signs and the following thought went through my head: "I hope all of you guys are paying your business license fees!" The resentment about the $600 was still very active within me. Then I went for my beach walk.

So, how did I create the parking ticket? I created it within my own thoughts and beliefs. The Universe was attuned to my very active belief that the Town of Sullivan's Island is a petty place where you get nickeled and dimed. And the Universe created a physical object (parking ticket) that was a perfect match to my vibration. It perfectly captured the essence of my feeling tone toward the Town.

So, now, I'm thankful for the ticket. $50 is not a big deal. And the ticket provided me with a big opportunity to consciously change my thoughts and feelings about Sullivan's Island. The ticket reminded me that it does not serve me to harbor resentment toward any person or any town. Especially when Sullivan's Island offers me an abundance of other focal points for my attention that serve me better. I lived on the island for my first 3 years in Charleston and have great memories of my time out there. I remembered the bonfire parties that I hosted out on the beach during those years. I also recalled the moment that I proposed to my wife on the island, under the street lamps near Stella Maris church. As I shifted my thoughts to these positive memories about Sullivan's Island, I could viscerally feel my vibration rising. So, I'm thankful for the parking ticket because the resentment that was unconsciously residing within me has been transformed into appreciation of a wonderful place.

Shadow Says Goodbye in a Dream

12/14/2018

Earlier this week, Ann and I said goodbye to Shadow, our 17+ year old kitty. I've written before about Shadow's uncanny ability to enter my dream state. If interested, you can read (or watch) more here: the-cat-mama-and-my-telepathic-reality-straddling-cat.html

After consulting with his vet about a rapid decline in his health, we made the tough decision to schedule a euthanasia appointment. He had stopped eating and his mobility has declined to the point where he was essentially spending nearly all of his time sleeping in a corner of our master bedroom closet. The appointment was set for Monday morning, December 10. We appreciated the opportunity to spend a few final days with him over the weekend.

I dreamed of Shadow on that Monday morning, just hours before his expected departure from the physical world. This was a non-lucid dream -- meaning that I did not realize I was dreaming until I woke up from it. In the dream, I was lying in bed on my back. In this respect, the posture of my dream body in the dream was identical to the posture of my physical body in waking life. Then I was amazed to see Shadow jump up on the bed and approach me. I was surprised because he had been lacking such mobility and agility in waking life. He curled up on the left side of my body and I started to pet him. It was a tender moment. Then I woke up and realized that this was a dream. I knew immediately that this was Shadow's way of saying goodbye to me.

We love you, Shadow. Peace be with you, sweet kitty.

Robert Waggoner's Talk in Charleston

11/13/2018

I was excited to serve as the master of ceremonies for Robert Waggoner's talk on lucid dreaming to the Charleston Jung Society on Saturday, November 10, 2018. We had a great turnout. Check out the photos below (photo credit: Diana Deaver). I highly recommend Robert's book -- Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self. You can learn more about Robert's work and books here: https://www.lucidadvice.com/

NOTE ADDED 2-24-2019: A video of Robert's talk (posted immediately below) is now available for viewing courtesy of the Charleston Jung Society Youtube Channel. Slideshow video prepared by Diana Deaver.