EP99: Dream Patterns in Trauma Recovery

In this episode, Amina sat down with Jesse Lyon (@lyonmentalhealth), licensed therapist and hypnotherapist, to talk about his upcoming presentation at the IASD Online International Dream Conference, happening June 21–25, 2025. Jesse will be presenting “From Trauma to Empowerment: Mapping Dream Transformation in Complex Trauma Recovery” — a deep dive into the evolving symbolism of nightmares and how they mirror healing in clients with complex trauma.

Whether you're a dreamer, healer, or mental health practitioner, this conversation is a powerful look into the psyche’s way of healing through dreams. Register for the IASD Conference here: https://www.iasdconferences.org/2025/

Links Jesse Lyon | Lyon Mental Health

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:13:27
Unknown
welcome back to the Dream World podcast. I have so many cool updates for everybody. Lots of awesome, dreamy events coming up this spring. First one coming up, as you've heard me talk about before is the IAC conference this year.

00:00:13:27 - 00:00:22:19
Unknown
It is 100% online, so there is no travel necessary. You don't have to worry about lodging. You can literally join from the comfort of your own home, which is great.

00:00:22:19 - 00:00:37:22
Unknown
It means lower conference fees and more accessible. So please, please join. There's going to be so many amazing presentations. If you've seen my videos of me traveling around the world to check out these conferences, this is your opportunity to really experience it for yourself in the comfort of your own home.

00:00:38:01 - 00:00:50:26
Unknown
Definitely check that out. Today. We're going to be talking to one of the presenters about his presentation. But really quick. There's a couple more events that I want to share with you guys. These are more local in-person events. If you are in Atlanta, Georgia

00:00:50:26 - 00:00:59:00
Unknown
every month, I do a free dream sharing circle where we get together and share dreams with each other, do different analysis techniques.

00:00:59:00 - 00:01:06:21
Unknown
Sometimes we make art and it's really a fun, intimate, small group where we just share dreams and our love for a dream. Work.

00:01:06:21 - 00:01:09:05
Unknown
But if you are not local to Georgia, no worries.

00:01:09:10 - 00:01:19:06
Unknown
Check out my website. I have a lot of free resources on there, and a lot of things that you can, you know, access from the comfort of your own home. So let's get to it. Welcome. My guest today, Jesse Lyon.

00:01:20:28 - 00:01:25:19
Unknown
All right. I'm here with Jesse from Lyon Mental Health. Thanks for joining me today.

00:01:25:21 - 00:01:30:05
Unknown
we're going to talk about the Iasb online conference this year, which is in June.

00:01:30:12 - 00:01:32:17
Unknown
Thanks, I mean it. Thanks so much for the introduction.

00:01:32:17 - 00:01:44:18
Unknown
presentation is going to be about the way that I've started to utilize dreams inside of mental health counseling to help people overcome trauma. So my background is I own Lyon Counseling.

00:01:44:19 - 00:02:04:08
Unknown
We've got four locations in Central Florida. All across Central Florida. We actually recently won best practice in Central Florida. And so I'm really proud of the work that we've done. But I in particular and many of the members of my team, we specialize in complex trauma, which is kind of an emerging field and something that we're learning a lot more about.

00:02:04:10 - 00:02:27:00
Unknown
It's very different. And the treatment is very different from PTSD. There's a lot of different modalities that treat PTSD. I think one of the most common that you hear about is eMDR, but eMDR and some of those others, like art, can really struggle to address complex trauma and complex trauma for those who maybe aren't familiar, are situations where somebody has a traumatic experience.

00:02:27:00 - 00:02:46:00
Unknown
Maybe when they're little, they've got a really terrible childhood experience. You know, we call those aces adverse childhood experiences, and then they go on to high school and they're bullied, and then they go on to college and they have some kind of assault, and then they go on and they have a car accident. And so there's a series of events that start to create a story that a person believes about themselves.

00:02:46:00 - 00:03:08:04
Unknown
And the way that you have to treat those is very different than just I had one bad car accident, and I need eMDR to help me through. And that's why many of the members of my team and I, especially myself, utilize hypnotherapy to help people overcome their trauma. And so for me, hypnotherapy really was the start of my work into the dream space.

00:03:08:06 - 00:03:34:25
Unknown
You know, when somebody is in that altered state of consciousness, it's very similar to the altered state of consciousness everyone experiences while they sleep, particularly the part where you're falling asleep. And that's the part where you really have some spontaneous images and thoughts come into your mind. And so in this presentation, what I'll be doing is sharing over the ten years of work, more than ten years of work that I've done, helping people overcome trauma.

00:03:34:27 - 00:04:05:19
Unknown
I've started to identify a pattern. And I'm very excited about dreams and the interpretation of dreams for mental health counseling, because the number one predictor of traumatic response, PTSD, are the post-traumatic nightmares that they start to experience. And so if you can identify the patterns of post-traumatic nightmares that begin to develop in an individual who's experienced trauma, you can intervene much earlier than when you wait for them to develop the full symptomology they might experience later on.

00:04:05:22 - 00:04:27:01
Unknown
And so it's like an early intervention system. And so what I'm going to present about is the way that there's a very predictable pattern that the brain goes through as it heals from trauma, and the specific signs and symbols that you want to look for in their dreams, to tell exactly where they are in that recovery journey, and then intervene effectively with tools that are going to meet them exactly where they're at in that recovery journey.

00:04:27:01 - 00:04:48:22
Unknown
And so, for me, the motivation for this is very much a call to ask people. It's like, you know, I've, I've done like almost qualitative research. Right? Like this has just been my personal experience, my personal practice, watching this pattern unfold over and over. But I think it lends itself enough that there's enough evidence to say we should probably do some greater research.

00:04:48:22 - 00:05:11:19
Unknown
And so I'm very excited to present to the International Association on the Study of Dreams, to network with other professionals, other universities, other researchers, to maybe start to add an even more, diverse set of data to these experiences so we can see, wow, this is a way that we can start to treat trauma much more effectively than the current modalities that are out there.

00:05:11:19 - 00:05:16:28
Unknown
what are the different stages? And maybe give some, like, examples of, like, what that looks like in a dream.

00:05:16:28 - 00:05:34:19
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. So if anyone's familiar with, like, a bell curve, right. Like, I think the one that's most common is like when you, when you look at, ICUs, they follow a very predictable bell curve. Right? So it starts down here, it goes up, and you got most people right here in the middle, and then it kind of goes back down.

00:05:34:21 - 00:05:55:12
Unknown
Dreams follow that same sort of bell curve pattern. You know, if you've got on one side you've got their recovery journey right. You've got unhealthy on this side all the way to healthy on this side. And then you have on sort of the, the y axis, you've got lateral to metaphorical people follow a journey of four points.

00:05:55:14 - 00:06:20:19
Unknown
They start with literal trauma rehearsal. And so when somebody experienced a traumatic event, they will often report that they rehearse those events inside of their dreams. They're very literal. It's almost like identical to the experience that they had. But as they progressed through their recovery journey, the mind, the subconscious starts to abstract those ideas. And so you start to see these nightmares that are much more abstract.

00:06:20:19 - 00:06:50:11
Unknown
They're fighting a dragon. They're running from the boogeyman. You know, they're trying to trying to run away, but their feet are moving through quicksand or like their feet feel like they're made of lead. But then we cross over. Right? So it goes metaphorical, metaphorical nightmares over to symbolic growth, like metaphorical growth. And you start to see the dream patterns change to where they're actually able to get out of the quicksand, or they're actually able to find a place to hide from this monster that they're running from.

00:06:50:14 - 00:07:12:11
Unknown
And as they continue through that process, through mental health counseling and hypnotherapy, they finally come out to the other side where they get back to growth rehearsal, which is a literal dream about the outcomes that they're looking for in their life. So starting with literal negative, metaphorical negative, metaphorical, positive, literal positive. And so you watch them follow this journey.

00:07:12:16 - 00:07:30:14
Unknown
And if you can tell where they're at in the journey and intervene effectively, you can help them bridge that gap just so much more effectively, because you don't want to miss certain things that the brain needs to recover from, and so much more rapidly, because you can tell exactly what their brain is doing, without any of the barriers in the way.

00:07:30:14 - 00:07:40:22
Unknown
And I think that's the power of dreams, is you get the raw emotional data without that subconscious or social or shame pressure that keeps people from telling the full truth of their story.

00:07:40:25 - 00:07:50:08
Unknown
have you noticed, like any outliers, like dreams that skip stages or cycle back, or do you feel like in your experience with your clients, it's usually pretty linear?

00:07:50:13 - 00:08:16:12
Unknown
That's a wonderful question. Yeah. The way that I'm presenting it is very linear. But as many of us know, the recovery journey is often not very linear. And so I think where I see the most sort of back and forth is the brain will process through that trauma in layers. And so as it uncovers, a new layer and solves it, it goes from metaphorical negative to metaphorical positive, but then it hits a roadblock.

00:08:16:15 - 00:08:41:26
Unknown
It's like, oh, okay. Well, I've identified something about myself that is true and have recovered from that layer. But now I'm at a deeper place where I'm really questioning my identity. So now I go back to the metaphorical negative, in order to try and solve that problem and then move through again to metaphorical positive. So they they often bounce back and forth between those and especially an individual who may be triggered.

00:08:41:26 - 00:09:00:19
Unknown
Right. Like maybe they had a car accident and they get back into a car and there was a situation where they had to swerve. I might expect that night that they go back to, like a literal nightmare dream. So you do see them bounce around. But even that bouncing around, like when you identify which of the four stages they're in shows.

00:09:00:19 - 00:09:17:15
Unknown
Okay, today in our counseling session in our mental health therapy, we need to revisit this because there's a missing step in the foundation of your mental health that we need to go fill in so that we've got a platform upon which to continue to live your life in an effective and healthy way, and it's going to last for

00:09:18:01 - 00:09:32:24
Unknown
Yeah, that makes total sense. And I know, you know, you have ten years worth of clients and anecdotes. But what does this look like on, like, a larger scale study or a longitudinal study? Do you have any ideas of, like, how one could go about, researching this?

00:09:33:03 - 00:09:56:16
Unknown
Yeah. You know, I think the more that I learn about research, as as somebody in the field of practitioner, the idea of research can feel a little bit scary to me, because, it's just outside of my day to day life. You know, I don't work in a university. I, I find myself being very independent and a very divergent thinker.

00:09:56:19 - 00:10:16:25
Unknown
And so, the idea of university and academia can feel a little bit intimidating to me just because I don't feel like I fit in. And maybe that's some of my own trauma sort of showing through. And so, I think I'd be very open to feedback. Like I try and be a very humble guy. I'm open to suggestions and ideas, because there are certainly things that I do not know.

00:10:16:28 - 00:10:49:09
Unknown
I know the things that I know, but I don't know the things that I don't know. I think very simply, it could be taking a cohort of individuals who are diagnosed with PTSD and tracking their dreams through their recovery journey and counseling, and starting to note some significant markers, and then comparing those dream pieces and those recorded dreams with some validated studies like the Q9 and Gad seven, but validated, sort of sort of mental health markers, like assessment tests.

00:10:49:12 - 00:11:01:09
Unknown
I think starting to connect to those because there's so much research behind the, validity of those assessments. I think it would be a great place to start and then launch into future research as well.

00:11:01:13 - 00:11:07:27
Unknown
Yeah. I think that's awesome. And, I mean, you are totally fit for academia. I know it's, daunting. I relate to that as well,

00:11:07:27 - 00:11:19:03
Unknown
so I see that in the future in terms of research study. And then I also see the future of how can other clinicians like, incorporate this model into their own work with their clients, you know, or patients, whatever you call them?

00:11:19:03 - 00:11:40:01
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, how could they do it? I think it definitely should be. And it's been so just wonderfully effective for me that I hope that many other people do use it. I think it's very simple. I think most of the presentation that I'm going to give is very much data. I don't think it's a very advanced technique.

00:11:40:01 - 00:12:15:19
Unknown
I don't think it's a complicated technique. I think when you know what markers to look for, it can help inform your mental health treatment that you're probably already doing, but just make it that much more specific and effective at the situation they're in. And that's one of the things that I'm so excited about this presentation, and I hope that it generates collaboration with others, because when I look at the dream space, having been on social media and in this field for so long, one of the things that I see is people often dismiss dreams because there's such a spiritual and metaphysical bend to that, to that topic.

00:12:15:19 - 00:12:53:04
Unknown
And so a lot of the academic community will dismiss dreams because it's like, that's that spirituality, right? You know, that's for as for the gurus and the shamans and all of this stuff. So I think by by putting effort and energy into this topic, into this idea, and connecting it with an already established medical model, it will lend credibility to dream research and the dream space that I think it's currently struggling with, because I see such a huge difficulty with finding funding, with finding investment, with finding just even time for people to listen to this topic about dreams and the way that it affects people's life.

00:12:53:08 - 00:13:14:26
Unknown
But if you can start to show that dreams can be a diagnostic tool in a medical model, I think you're going to have a lot of people jump on board and people open up their wallets, and people invest in research because we're finally showing this isn't just spiritual and metaphysical. There are some hard facts behind this dream stuff.

00:13:14:26 - 00:13:34:23
Unknown
I mean, that's how the field of psychology started was with dream research. And so it's just crazy to me that we're not continuing that legacy that's been inside the mental health and psychology community, because there's so much funding and so much money in this new emerging field of psychology. But we're just not continuing to integrate the subconscious like it really should be.

00:13:34:27 - 00:13:55:08
Unknown
Yeah. You're so right. I mean, there's a lot of work that needs to be done in order for dreams to be taken seriously. I mean, luckily, you know, at ESD, we we value dreams, and we see the research potential and the clinical potential, but it's still so niche outside of our little bubble of dream lovers and researchers. So yeah, I do think the future is heading in that way though.

00:13:55:08 - 00:14:06:03
Unknown
I think that this is still very early stages of society adopting, you know, dreams as something, you know, as a marker for mental health and, and all sorts of things. So that's awesome.

00:14:06:03 - 00:14:26:07
Unknown
Absolutely. And I think you see that through the test of time. Like. Yeah. Spirituality is always giving answers to things that science hasn't yet understood. And so, like, I'm so proud of the spiritual community. I don't I don't necessarily proclaim to be a pastor or a shaman or a guru myself. Like, I'm very much a clinician and a scientist.

00:14:26:10 - 00:14:45:22
Unknown
But I have to give credit. Like at least they're attempting to answer these questions. Where's the scientific community answering these questions? And you see that through history. It's like always been religion, spirituality that has shot for the stars trying to answer these questions, waiting for science to catch up with the actual hard data behind, okay, this is actually how it works.

00:14:45:22 - 00:14:54:07
Unknown
And so I think we see the same golden opportunity of like religion and spirituality answering these questions. It's time for science to do its work and

00:14:54:24 - 00:15:16:07
Unknown
Period I agree, I think it's happening. Very well said. And yeah, you know, I that's part of what I do on my podcast is like, bridge that gap between science and spirituality. And spirituality to me is a very personal journey. You know, studying consciousness in general is a very subjective experience, which can be difficult in a research setting, you know, valuing the subjective experience.

00:15:16:07 - 00:15:21:11
Unknown
So let's go back to the model really quick because I want to talk about the markers that you were mentioning.

00:15:21:18 - 00:15:47:05
Unknown
So you have these four stages, right? The story and acknowledging the trauma, replaying it, the emotions, experiencing the emotions and different types of, scenarios. And then you have, you know, uncovering the lie and recovering, you know, the lies we tell ourselves, the beliefs about the experience, start to come up and then we have the replacement belief part where we establish new narratives and integrate those lessons.

00:15:47:12 - 00:15:57:01
Unknown
So what are significant markers like that? You see? Maybe in a dream or like, what are certain symbols or themes to look out for for each stage?

00:15:57:01 - 00:16:31:01
Unknown
You know, a big part of trauma is this feeling of victimhood. And there's a lot of emotions behind that word of being a victim. And so I want. I want to treat it carefully and with respect. But the biggest marker that I notice when I'm working with my clients is when they move from literal, the literal rehearsal of the traumatic experience, and their brain starts to take some assertiveness, some initiative, some, some license, some space to start to change those things, to start to tweak things.

00:16:31:04 - 00:16:51:07
Unknown
That's when I see just, just this glimmer of hope start to return to my client's eyes and inside of their hearts, because they move from this is a thing that happened to me to this is a thing that I am changing. And so it's like, well, I was assaulted by this person. But my brain starts to change it too.

00:16:51:07 - 00:17:17:22
Unknown
Well, now in the dream, I'm assaulted by a snake or I'm assaulted by a spider or a wolf. Right. It's a very common, like, traumatic symbols. When somebody has been victimized by another person. And so when the brain starts to get up that courage and starts to feel some assertiveness and initiative to change the story, it shows me a sign that this person is ready to change the story for their life as well.

00:17:17:24 - 00:17:32:20
Unknown
And so that's that's a big one for me. I mean, there's there's other ones that we could probably go into, but I think if someone's going to listen to this like 30 minute piece, like watch out for that in your client, because that's a huge thing. And you want to foster and cultivate that because that's what recovery journey.

00:17:32:20 - 00:17:41:12
Unknown
Yeah. That makes so much sense. And I know this kind of might be a tricky question, because everybody's different. But is there, like, a time frame that you've noticed

00:17:41:14 - 00:18:03:29
Unknown
Sure. Yes. Great question. I don't know if I have a great answer yet. I, I think it's been too scattered in my personal experience. Some people take years. Some people progress very rapidly. Their brain is just very, very primed and ready to start to make these changes. And so, you know, I couldn't really put a number on it.

00:18:04:02 - 00:18:21:17
Unknown
Some it's fast, some it's slow. But, I'd be very interested to see if we could come up with like, like an average right to see that. I mean, I do see my clients typically weekly, which is pretty common for counseling. You know, you see a therapist once a week. And that's really, really kind of where we start.

00:18:21:19 - 00:18:47:02
Unknown
Unless somebody has some, like, like harm or, danger indicators like their home to themselves or others, and I'll see them a couple times a week. But that's, that's kind of what I've observed so far. But I'd be curious to see if we could find an average and then start to see comparing regular counseling to dream influence counseling to see if it does shrink, the amount of time it takes for the brain to recover from those processes.

00:18:47:02 - 00:18:52:03
Unknown
So I have one more question. I don't want to give away too much of the source, because people will have to come to your presentation.

00:18:52:03 - 00:19:10:13
Unknown
So in this work that you do with counseling, have you noticed, a lot of symbolic motifs, particularly in this like growth phase, the, the growth step, or is it more like deeply personal symbols for each person?

00:19:10:13 - 00:19:15:23
Unknown
symbols of hiding. Right? I'm hiding from the trauma. And then it transitions into.

00:19:15:23 - 00:19:47:20
Unknown
I'm confronting the trauma. And so that to me, you know, when they cross over that bridge, and, you know, the first one is I'm taking license to reinterpret this experience by making it metaphorical. And then they cross over that barrier to now I'm hiding from it. I'm. I'm exercising some agency. Right. I can I can try and get away from the monster, or I can try and set a trap for them, or I can hide under the blankets and then, even better, like, we even start to grow a little bit more when now I feel strong enough to fight back.

00:19:47:20 - 00:20:02:27
Unknown
I set a booby trap for it. Right? Or, you know, I ask a friend for help, or I find a giant sword to try and defend myself. Like those are some really great markers, symbolically and archetypally for returning to the dragon fight, right? I'm fighting this dragon in my

00:20:03:24 - 00:20:22:03
Unknown
Yeah. Cool. And so, from my experience, of course, I have to plug lucid dreaming in here. That's where the lucid dreaming would come in. Because lucid dreaming is all about confront the nightmares, change the scene, control the dream. Like, if it's scary, you know, turn around and ask the monster why he's chasing you or whatever it is, you know?

00:20:22:10 - 00:20:28:01
Unknown
So it's really about taking back control. So that's cool. I'll be in there giving some lucid dreaming tips to.

00:20:28:01 - 00:20:43:16
Unknown
love it, I love it. It's so funny the way that, everyone finds their own metaphor, you know, was working with this little kid, and it works for both adults and children. Like, I've used this model with children as well. This child is being chased by a monster. And, you know, I just introduced kind of,

00:20:43:18 - 00:21:08:16
Unknown
Well, they call it deep potentiation, right? So a therapist will introduce an idea that's so outside of the box that it forces the client to stop, because it disrupts the normal pattern of communication and then turn their attention inward. Right. If I say something so out of the blue, so off the wall that you don't know how to respond to it, it makes you pause for a second and look inside for an answer.

00:21:08:19 - 00:21:25:18
Unknown
It's a very big hypnotherapy tool. And so I did that with this child. I was like, well, what does the monster want to do? And they're like, what? The monster wants to eat me. And I was like, oh, that's like, well, that might be interesting being eaten by a monster. The child didn't expect that response as like, how would it feel?

00:21:25:20 - 00:21:39:15
Unknown
And that's like it might feel like a big, warm hug. I'm sure it's pretty warm in the monster's belly. And he smiled a little bit and he's like, yeah, I guess it would be. And I was like. And then. And then what would happen after you got eaten? And the kid looked at me and he giggled and I was like, what?

00:21:39:16 - 00:21:41:03
Unknown
He's like. Well, then he took

00:21:44:00 - 00:22:08:21
Unknown
like, how funny would that be to be pooped out of a monster? And he giggled and laughed and it just took this whole symbol and dissolved it, because now the thing that I was fighting from, I introduced a new frame of reference to say, wouldn't it be silly to get pooped out by a monster and maybe introduced to him this subconscious idea of yes, you may be attacked by situations in your life, but what if you're strong enough to just pass through and get pooped out?

00:22:08:23 - 00:22:19:03
Unknown
Because oftentimes that what happens in our life, you know, and sometimes you get a little dirty, little roughed up from life, you know, but you'll persist. You're strong enough. And that helped him a lot.

00:22:19:03 - 00:22:21:04
Unknown
Oh. That's deep. I like that.

00:22:21:07 - 00:22:23:11
Unknown
Yeah. It was a good one. It was a good one.

00:22:23:11 - 00:22:37:11
Unknown
well, this is awesome stuff. I'm really excited for your presentation. I'll definitely be there. Hopefully people come check it out. Sign up for the conference. And, you know, if they want to follow up with you after, you know, plug your website pages, all that stuff.

00:22:37:12 - 00:22:58:21
Unknown
Yeah. Honestly if you're a researcher and you know you want to collaborate on this, please just text me like I'm so eager to to connect with others. And it's (321) 430-5966 is my number. But, you know, I'm on all social media is you probably see it here at Lion Mental Health. Spelled like my last name, Leo. And mental health.

00:22:58:24 - 00:23:21:17
Unknown
I've got a counseling practice. It's called lion counseling Leo and counseling daycare online. But, yeah, I try and be very accessible. Send me a DM, send me a text message, send me an email. I really believe strongly in this, and I think it has the potential, to change what we're doing in the mental health community from a scientific and psychological perspective.

00:23:21:17 - 00:23:25:06
Unknown
And finally, bridge that gap between dreams and science.

00:23:25:12 - 00:23:35:28
Unknown
Awesome, I love it. I agree, it has so much potential. Thanks for dropping your information. He leaked his own phone number. Guys, you heard it here first.

00:23:36:00 - 00:23:43:17
Unknown
Let. Okay, good, good, good. All right. Awesome, I love it. Well, thank you so much.