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The hallway is blinding, the lockers familiar, and the crowd loud enough to make you feel invisible because don't we all feel that way in high school? For one reason or another, we do feel that way. In this episode, we step into a powerful back-to-school dream where an adult self watches a younger self try to join a circle, get ignored, and smile through the sting. From that small moment, the story opens into something bigger: how early social pain can turn a talkative kid into a careful introvert, and how an unexpected glance from an old friend can still trigger jealousy, longing, and the urge to be seen.

We break down the dream’s core symbols—hallways as life corridors, lines as boundaries, school as a testing ground for identity—and trace how they map to real decisions about voice and belonging. The conversation gets honest about perfectionism, low self-esteem, and the paradox of how analyzing everything also causes one to hesitate to start (if they ever get started at all!). We talk through why naming emotions reduces their power, how joy differs from happiness, and why connection acts like a handrail when the corridor feels endless. There’s a revealing moment about a “smile that wasn’t his,” which becomes a cue to trade borrowed expressions for true ones. No fake people, please!

By the end, the walk matters more than the applause. Moving with ease signals steady progress, not performative success, and the adult self’s choice to keep walking reframes the past without denying it. Own it because it has brought you to where you are today.

If you’ve ever felt unseen in a crowded room, if you wrestle with envy or past experiences that make you question your worth, this conversation will gently nudge you to reframe those thoughts by offering practical language and grounded insights you can use today. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves dream analysis and personal growth, and leave a review containing a lesson from your younger self or school dream you'd like to share.

Show Notes:

This episode was originally recorded and released as "Back to School" in Feb 2022 with my brother, but I removed it, along with a few other episodes of the podcast for personal reasons. As I have restarted the podcast, I have released it again in Nov 2025. Hope you enjoy!

Episode: Ghost In The School Hallway
Podcast: Cuppa Terrific
Host & Narration: Sheree & Chris
Episode Concept & Dream Narrative: Sheree & Chris
Writing & Script Development: Sheree
Symbolic Analysis & Interpretation:

• Dream symbolism traditions inspired by:
  • General Jungian concepts of archetypes and the unconscious
  • Personal interpretation unique to the storyteller
  • 12,000 Dreams Interpreted by Gustavus Hindman Miller
  • Dream Moods A-Z Dream Dictionary
  • Dream Dictionary

Production Tools:

• Edited in: Audacity
• Hosted on: Buzzsprout

Contact & Links:

• Website: cuppaterrific.buzzsprout.com
• Email: cuppa.terrific@gmail.com
• Instagram / Facebook / X: @CuppaTerrific

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

We explore the theater of sleep through clear science and quiet wonder, from brain waves and spindles to deep cleaning and the dream workshop that shapes memory, emotion, and skill. We share simple habits, a guided visualization, and trusted resources to help you protect your nights and brighten your days.

• redefining sleep as intelligent nightly work
• beta, alpha, theta, delta waves and cycles
• stage two sleep spindles and K complexes
• deep sleep and the glymphatic cleaning system
• REM dreams for emotion processing and learning
• impacts of sleep loss on mood, memory, focus
• simple tools: dream journal, bedtime ritual, consistency
• gentle visualization to reconnect with inner wonder
• resources from National Sleep Foundation and AASM
• shout-out to Matt Walker’s sleep science podcast

🌙 Show Notes

🧠 Brain Basics & Neurons

• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep
  
  A clear overview of how the brain regulates sleep and dreaming through different stages and waves.
• Bear, Connors, & Paradiso (2020): Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain
  A foundational textbook explaining how neurons communicate and why their rhythms matter for consciousness.

🌊 Brain Waves and Sleep Stages

• American Sleep Association: The Four Stages of Sleep (NREM and REM)
  
  Explains how our brain cycles through light, deep, and dream sleep every night.
• Carskadon & Dement (2017): Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine
  The go-to scientific reference for understanding sleep architecture and brainwave patterns.

💫 Sleep Spindles, K-Complexes, and Memory

• Fogel & Smith (2011): The function of the sleep spindle — Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
  Shows how spindles protect your rest and strengthen memory.
• De Gennaro & Ferrara (2003): Sleep spindles: An overview — Sleep Medicine Reviews
  Explains how K-complexes and spindles help us stay asleep while still processing sounds around us.

💧 The Glymphatic System & Brain Cleansing

• Xie et al. (2013): Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain
  — Science
  The landmark study revealing how sleep “washes” toxins from the brain.
• Nedergaard & Goldman (2020): Glymphatic failure as a final common pathway to dementia — Science
  Follow-up research connecting sleep loss and long-term brain health.

🔥 The Amygdala, Emotion, and Dreaming

• Maquet et al. (1996): Functional neuroanatomy of human REM sleep and dreaming — Nature
  Pioneering fMRI research showing which brain regions light up during dreaming.
• Walker & van der Helm (2009): Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing — Psychological Bulletin
  Explains how REM sleep helps rebalance emotions and process fear safely.

🌠 Dreaming and Learning

• Wamsley et al. (2010): Dreaming of a learning task enhances memory consolidation — Current Biology
  Harvard study showing that dreaming about a task improves performance the next day.
• Cai et al. (200

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Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

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A campfire, a cold night, and a cup of cocoa set the stage for Bruce’s unforgettable dream—one that starts with spooky stories and turns into a living ritual of birds, gates, and golden eggs. The scene is pure folklore: a hawk, a crow, and a vulture step in as leaders, form a dome of feathers around him, and present a test. An elder crow with clouded eyes lays an egg, signals a water ritual, and reveals a rule of the dream world: roll it, gild it, think with intent. The egg bursts like confetti into what the heart hopes for.

We follow Bruce as he carries the crow home, opens a window to welcome the other leaders, and learns how wishes become structures—an animal pen built in a blink, then a golden chicken that hatches instant chicks. The story widens from a single gift to an ecosystem of abundance, inviting a conversation about stewardship, family, and what we do with the good that shows up. Along the way, we decode symbols—camping as change, birds as messages and prosperity, domes as protection and transition, fire as surprise and connection—and consider whether this dream is also a rehearsal for moving, new friends, and belonging.

There’s a quiet triumph here, too: Bruce’s small moments of lucid influence, nudging fear toward kindness and choosing wishes with family in mind. That shift—turning a near-nightmare into a map for hope—anchors the episode’s heart. If you’re navigating change, craving meaning, or just love a great story told with warmth, you’ll find insight and wonder in this one. Subscribe for more dream journeys, share this with a friend who needs a little magic, and leave a review to help others discover the show. What would your first golden-egg wish be?

Episode: Birds, Wishes, And A Halloween Dream
Podcast: Cuppa Terrific
Host & Narration: Sheree & Bruce
Episode Concept & Dream Narrative: Sheree & Bruce
Writing & Script Development: Sheree
Symbolic Analysis & Interpretation:

• Dream symbolism traditions inspired by:
  • General Jungian concepts of archetypes and the unconscious
  • Personal interpretation unique to the storyteller
  • 12,000 Dreams Interpreted by Gustavus Hindman Miller

Production Tools:

• Edited in: Audacity
• Hosted on: Buzzsprout

Contact & Links:

• Website: cuppaterrific.buzzsprout.com
• Email: cuppa.terrific@gmail.com
• Instagram / Facebook / X: @CuppaTerrific

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

A hiss in the garden, mulch bombs flying, and a crow with an anklet named Owl the Second—this story starts small and gets huge fast. We shrink to blade-of-grass size, wrestle with scale and fear, and watch a jumping spider named Fluffy outthink a giant scorpion. Then the ground collapses into a wormhole and the scene cuts at the last second, leaving a delicious cliffhanger that sets up a sequel dream.

We walk through the dream like a story you can step into—tiny hands lifting beach-ball tomatoes, a helpful crow taking us skyward, and a quick spider turning panic into protection. From there, we decode the symbols with care: tomatoes as domestic joy and health, scorpions as threats to prosperity, crows as omens that can still become allies, spiders as both fear and defense depending on your stance. Along the way we highlight the real superpower here: lucid dreaming. Becoming aware in the dream lets you rewrite the mood, add allies, or disarm a monster with a single, playful twist. Give the spider high heels, put the villain on roller skates, or name your protector and watch the fear soften.

We also sit with empathy. Maybe the scorpion wasn’t evil—maybe it was guarding its own tomatoes. That question changes everything, because choosing perspective is part of the lucid toolkit. The conversation shows how to remember details, name what matters, and practice tiny edits that build confidence and calm, both asleep and awake. If dreams are stories, you’re the writer.

Loved this adventure into lucid dreaming and symbolism? Follow, share with a friend who fights nightmares, and leave a review to tell us the wildest change you’ve ever made mid-dream.

Episode: Tiny Heroes, Giant Fears
Podcast: Cuppa Terrific
Host & Narration: Sheree & William
Episode Concept & Dream Narrative: Sheree & William
Writing & Script Development: Sheree
Symbolic Analysis & Interpretation:

• Dream symbolism traditions inspired by:
  • General Jungian concepts of archetypes and the unconscious
  • Personal interpretation unique to the storyteller
  • 12,000 Dreams Interpreted by Gustavus Hindman Miller

Production Tools:

• Edited in: Audacity
• Hosted on: Buzzsprout

Contact & Links:

• Website: cuppaterrific.buzzsprout.com
• Email: cuppa.terrific@gmail.com
• Instagram / Facebook / X: @CuppaTerrific

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

A cottage at dawn. Shelves that hum with memory. A giant teacup at the center of a circular parlor, where Dinah—part guide, part grandmother of presence—stirs bone broth and reads soft letters to a loyal Great Dane by the hearth. The dream we share isn’t about spectacle; it’s about the quiet magic that happens when attention becomes a ritual and the ordinary turns sacred. We travel through autumn light and steam, noticing how a chipped rim glints like a small autobiography, and how a single swirl can bend time just enough to let grief and love sit together.

We unpack the symbols with care. Dinah emerges as an archetype of attentiveness and soul time, a keeper of continuity who shows us that life gathers meaning in the smallest acts: stir, sip, spin, read, pause. The oversized teacup and saucer become a world axis, a stage for intimacy, a playful logic where the domestic becomes mythic. Bone broth anchors the theme—ancestral, alchemical, nourishing—turning endings into sustenance and memory into something we can hold. We talk about transformation, self-mothering, and the patient alchemy of fire and water that makes heaviness digestible.

The Dane’s gentle passing reframes loss as a shift in warmth rather than a tear in the fabric. Ritual continues, not to deny absence but to carry essence forward. Along the way, we offer practical ways to ground your days in small rituals that feed the spirit: read a letter aloud, stir with intention, witness a room until it answers back. If you’re drawn to dream interpretation, grief integration, ancestral healing, and the sacredness of the everyday, this story will meet you where you live—at the edge of light, where attention is enough.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a warm cup today, and leave a review to help others find the circle. Then tell us: what tiny ritual will you honor this week?

Written & Hosted by:
Sheree Cheshinski
(Creator & Host of the Cuppa Terrific Podcast)

Story Development & Dreamcrafting:
Sheree Cheshinski
with creative assistance from ChatGPT

Narrative Voice & Dialogue:
Sheree Cheshinski
(Featuring Dinah, the Elder Guide & The Great Dane)

Episode Structure & Script Composition:
Sheree Dawn Jolley Cheshinski
with narrative collaboration from ChatGPT

Editing & Production:
Sheree Dawn Jolley Cheshinski

Publishing & Distribution:
Cuppa Terrific Podcast
Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms
Hosted on Buzzsprout

Contact:
cuppa.terrific@gmail.com

Website:
cuppaterrific.buzzsprout.com

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

A dream opens like a pilgrimage: a purple dress that feels like identity, a glowing wall of fog that invites courage, and a forest lodge built on offerings—tokens of what’s been surrendered and transformed. We follow that path with open eyes and a steady pulse, planting flowers on the far side of uncertainty and learning why release can be the most creative act we make.

Inside the lodge, a gnome as old as soil points to a trophy wall that isn’t about conquest but about letting go. That insight reframes resilience: the bones of who we are are shaped by grief metabolized, lessons integrated, and beauty honored without clinging. The courtyard hums with comedians and musicians—joyful, magnetic, yet missing women. Naming that absence becomes a call to balance, a return of feminine energy and intuition to the creative room. Later, when play turns to snarls between dogs and kids, the body’s protective reflex rises fast. The stillness that follows teaches a hard truth: love can slip into control when it tries too hard to predict; peace asks for grounded release, not passive retreat.

We thread these scenes with the High Priestess—pillars of duality, the veil of mystery, the intelligence of intuition—connecting dream symbolism to everyday choices in creativity, parenting, and personal growth. If you’re navigating transitions, seeking balance between strength and softness, or curious how surrender becomes structure, this story-driven analysis offers practical reflections you can carry into your week. Listen, journal a symbol that stuck with you, and share your own dream. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: which moment changed how you see your inner lodge?

Episode: The Lodge in the Enchanted Mountain Forest
Podcast: Cuppa Terrific
Host & Narration: Sheree
Episode Concept & Dream Narrative: Sheree
Writing & Script Development: Sheree, with creative assistance by ChatGPT
Symbolic Analysis & Interpretation:

• Dream symbolism traditions inspired by:
  • General Jungian concepts of archetypes and the unconscious
  • Common folkloric symbols (gnomes, thresholds, pilgrimage imagery)
  • Universal symbolic motifs (protection, identity, legacy)
  • Personal interpretation unique to the storyteller

Production Tools:

• Edited in: Audacity
• Hosted on: Buzzsprout

Contact & Links:

• Website: cuppaterrific.buzzsprout.com
• Email: cuppa.terrific@gmail.com
• Instagram / Facebook / X: @CuppaTerrific

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

A childhood game on abandoned steps, a late return from a car nap, a hallway lined with flowered offices, and the quiet announcement of an earthquake—this story moves through memory and status and lands on a question: what foundations are we really standing on? We share a dream called “Escort Earthquake” and break it down with a simple, grouped approach to symbol analysis so you can borrow the method for your own inner life. From hide-and-seek to office politics, jealousy to time scarcity, every scene points to belonging, self-worth, and the choice to rebuild.

We start with the early images—childhood innocence and an unfinished neighborhood store—as a metaphor for potential that never opened its doors. Then we shift to the office: the CEO’s passing glance, a team captain, carefully curated workspaces, and a pair of colleagues laughing in a low-status corner. That contrast reveals how comparison steals energy while supportive relationships restore it. We explore jealousy not as a flaw but as data, a compass to identify what we want more of—connection, ease, or creative play—without apologizing for it. A dream-within-a-dream returns us to a hometown carnival already over, tents bright and toys unguarded, and we ask what it means to stand across the street from our own joy.

The final turn is the earthquake: not a random disaster, but a long-anticipated shift that tests what’s load-bearing. We talk through practical takeaways—protecting time like a resource, choosing communities that nourish over rooms that impress, and reframing old stories that keep us outside the tent. If you’ve ever felt late to your own life, measured by the décor of someone else’s office, or haunted by the sense you missed something important, this conversation offers a grounded way to listen to your dreams and act on what they ask. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves dreamwork and psychology, and leave a quick review telling us which symbol hit home for you.

Show Notes:

This episode was originally recorded and released in Feb 2022, but I removed it, along with a few other episodes of the podcast for personal reasons. As I have restarted the podcast, I have released it again in Sep 2025. Hope you enjoy!

Credits for dream element analysis go to:

12,000 Dreams Interpreted by Gustavus Hindman Miller

https://www.dreammoods.com/

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.

Send us a text

Have you ever felt that quiet tug from a dream you set aside—that persistent whisper reminding you of something you once loved but stepped away from? Dreams possess a remarkable patience. They wait for us through career transitions, family demands, and the overwhelming busyness that often claims our attention.

After a three-year hiatus, Cup-a-Terrific returns with a powerful message about the nature of dreams and determination. True determination isn't about unbroken momentum; it's about the courage to come back—again and again if necessary. Like a garden that can flourish once more after periods of neglect, our passions remain viable beneath the surface, waiting for us to return and tend them with care.

The episode explores fascinating parallels between our sleeping and waking dreams. When we fly in dreams, perhaps our souls remind us we're meant to rise. When we fall, we might be processing fears of failure. Being chased often symbolizes running from growth or our own potential, while dreams of doors and keys represent opportunities awaiting us. These nighttime narratives frequently circle back to our deepest desires: stepping fully into who we're meant to become.

Rekindling dreams doesn't require grand gestures or perfect conditions. Small, consistent actions create sustainable pathways back to what matters. For this podcast, that means setting a simple bar—publishing weekly without demanding perfection. What might your small step be? Writing in a journal? Creating a vision board? Dedicating just ten minutes to reconnect with something that once lit you up?

Your dreams don't judge your absences or keep score of how long you've been away. They simply welcome you back whenever you're ready. What dream has been patiently waiting for your return? Join me each week as we explore life's meaningful moments over a cup of whatever brings you comfort.

Support the show

Until next time, may all your cups overflow.