The Opposite of Depression is Expression with Alyssa Spungen

Dreams bridge the ordinary and the mystical world. Working with them can be alchemical. Today we welcome special guest poet, dream priestess, and counselor-in-training Alyssa Spungen. Alyssa starts by describing a lucid dream that opened to her the mystery of dreaming in which she was ritually presented with red and black squares. She talks about how difficult it is to express dreams in words and says that’s why she started expressing them in poetry. She talks about the alchemy of dreams and how they hep us recognize our inner mystic. She then talks about how writing poetry helped her get through her depression and after the break shares with us a poem about the seductiveness of depression. We talk about Natural Dreamwork, Embodied Experiential Dreamwork, and synchronicity and take a call from Elizabeth from Bellingham who shares a dream-inspired poem about her own growth and insight.

BIO: Alyssa Spungen is a writer, a dreamer, and a counselor-in-training. She was born and raised in Lake County, Indiana and currently calls the Sonoran Desert home. Her first book of poetry will be published in May by the Phoenix esoteric publishing house White Stag Press. It’s called Spiral Staircase: A Meditation on Alchemy.

Find our guest at: IG @youdreamfish or @alyssaspungen.author

This show, episode number 305, was recorded during a live broadcast on April 5, 2025 at KSQD.org, community radio of Santa Cruz.

Intro and outro music by Mood Science. Ambient music new every week by Rick Kleffel. Archived music can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick for also engineering the show and to Tony Russomano for the answering the phones.

The Santa Cruz Festival of Dreams is coming October 10-12, 2025! Mark your calendars now. Check our landing page at FestivalofDream.net and FB group page HERE or follow #KeepSantaCruzDreaming on FB and IG.

SHARE A DREAM FOR THE SHOW or a question or enquire about being a guest on the podcast by emailing Katherine Bell at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow on FB, IG, LI, & YT @ExperientialDreamwork #thedreamjournal. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams go to ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The Dream Journal aims to: Increase awareness of and appreciation for nightly dreams. Inspire dream sharing and other kinds of dream exploration as a way of adding depth and meaningfulness to lives and relationships. Improve society by the increased empathy, emotional balance, and sense of wonder which dream exploration invites.

A dream can be meaningful even if you don’t know what it means.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Pacific Time on Saturdays. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/.

Closed captioning is available on the YouTube version of this podcast and an automatically generated transcript is available at Apple Podcasts.

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