Inside Your Dreams Interview

Have you ever woken from a dream and felt that there was meaning to it? We often brush these thoughts aside and waste an opportunity to dig deeper, but learning to decipher what our dreams really mean is a skill that you can learn.
In the new book, Inside Your Dreams: An Advanced Guide to Your Night Visions, best-selling author of Dreams, Rose Inserra, has written a practical, advanced guide into all aspects of dreaming.

Rose's unique dream interpretation techniques offer awareness about your inner self and healing through actioning your dream images in your waking life. She shows how to unlock the mysteries of your dreams and the messages they hold for greater insight into your conscious waking life, your subconscious and the collective unconscious. Readers discover:

• common dreams & how to interpret them
• how COVID has impacted the way we dream
• the different stages of sleep and dreaming
• how to avoid sleep paralysis and deal with nightmares
• how to recall your dreams and understand them
• guided meditations and step-by-step exercises on how to remember your dreams
• a list of Children's most prevalent dreams & night terrors
• a mini dictionary of universal dreams
• + chapters covering Lucid and Shamanic dreams

Inside Your Dreams is a comprehensive guide to help you climb inside your dreams, connect more deeply with yourself and become an awakened dreamer.

About the author 
Rose Inserra is the author of the recent book Dreams by Rockpool Publishing. Drawing on her experience as an author and researcher, she has written over 60 children's books and her books are published and marketed internationally. Rose is a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and appears regularly as a columnist in print media and as a guest speaker on radio. For a review copy or to speak with Rose please contact me.

Inside Your Dreams
Rose Inserra
Rockpool Publishing
ISBN: 9781925924503

RRP: $29.99

Interview with Rose Inserra

Question: What originally inspired the idea of Inside Your Dreams?

Rose Inserra: I felt there was so much more to dreaming than it being simply a place where we dump repressed emotions from our waking day. There is no doubt in my mind that dreams help us to process our emotions – from anxiety and fears to creative and inventive ones. But, I also wanted to take my readers to an advanced level of how we can utilise dreams to make sense of our lives and create a spiritual connection with ourselves.


Question: How did you develop your interest in dreams?

Rose Inserra: I grew up in a family where sharing dreams was done regularly, so I developed a sense of dreams being regarded as a tool in helping to explain or make sense of our waking life. After researching and writing my first dream book, I was fascinated to discover that we collectively share dream symbols and dream scenarios in all cultures of the world. I was able to work out a pattern in dream meanings, despite individual differences in dreamers' experiences. I just love it when I can decode the dream pattern and people tell me, 'It makes total sense.'


Question: Did you learn anything about yourself, whilst writing Inside Your Dreams?

Rose Inserra: That's a great question. I find that as author I need to distance myself from the research and present the information objectively, but this was actually quite difficult to do when I wrote Inside Your Dreams. It made me realise that I resonated with so many of the topics that related to how we live our lives. The more parts of ourselves we can integrate, like our unloved parts with our acceptable qualities, the more we can live an authentic life. I am now aware that self-compassion is the key to living out my life on my own terms.


Question: What's the main message you hope readers take from Inside Your Dreams?

Rose Inserra: The most important message in the book is simplistic but rings true: if you learn to understand your dreams, you begin to understand your life journey. Dreams shine a light on your interior emotional landscape. Once revealed, your waking life takes on new meaning and opens up to new awareness of the world around you.

Question: Can you share some tips with us, featured in the book?

Rose Inserra: Before going to bed, set the intention to remember your dreams. Write a note and place it under your pillow.
Use meditation, visualisation techniques or relaxing music before going to sleep. This will help you to get in the mood to dream.
Keep a dream journal. Write down the dream as soon as you wake up, using as many details as possible including the date.
Connect common images to specific situations in your waking life. What does the dream theme remind you of? What emotions were felt during the dream? Check against your daily journal and see if there is a correlation.


Question: What research did you do, prior to writing Inside Your Dreams?

Rose Inserra: There is a lot of research in the book and only 50 percent of it made it in. For referencing I used the most respected and up to date experts in the specific such as lucid dreaming, shamanic principles, archetypes and dream related scientific data. I belong to an international dream study organisation (IASD) that shares the latest dream information and data. Most importantly, I analysed over a hundred dreams especially during the Covid restrictions and lockdowns that provided fascinating insights into collective dreaming.


Question: What advice do you have for aspiring writers or artists?

Rose Inserra: Follow your natural interest in a topic – whatever that may be for you – and immerse yourself in it. Mine was broader than dreams – it was understanding the inner child, myths and fairy tales, pop psychology, ancient magic and earth-based traditions, metaphysics, organic farming, and so many more passions. This led to me writing and publishing over 70 children's books, producing Avalon mythical oracle cards and of course, writing my third dream book which contains all of the above interests. In my view, interests lead to passion which then result in achievement (personal, commercial or both).


Question: What or who inspired your love of reading/writing?

Rose Inserra: I had a lonely childhood, and my parents didn't have money for books. This rather sad combination was a blessing in a way as it led me to spending as much time in the local library as I could. It saved me. I read extensively on every topic imaginable and if the library was closed, I would write my own stories. This skill fuelled my imagination and it served me well as preparation for becoming an author.

Question: What's next, for you?

Rose Inserra: Ideally, I'd like to have like to have a break and enjoy the pause. This quiet space invites new inspiration for my next project. But realistically, authors and creators can't rest for long if the creative muse gets her way. It's a cold winter in regional Victoria where I live and the quiet, chilly nights by the open fire beckon me to begin writing that novel that has been on the back burner forever. That's the plan, but it can all change at any moment.


Interview by Gwen van Montfort