30: The Healing Power of Your Dreams with Theresa Cheung & Kelly Sullivan Walden - Episode 3030: The Healing Power of Your Dreams with Theresa Cheung & Kelly Sullivan Walden - Episode 30
UK Health Radio Podcast
Hosts Theresa Cheung and Kelly Sullivan Walden talk with Mark Nepo and Dr Kelly Bulkley about how dreams and language can support deep emotional and spiritual healing. Blending personal stories, science and humour, they look at cancer, grief, big dreams and the quiet power of words to wake people up to their own lives.
52:47•18 Apr 2026
Dreams, Words and Waking Up: Mark Nepo & Kelly Bulkley on UK Health Radio
Episode Overview
- Dreams are not random noise; they can act as wake-up calls to deeper truths and emotional realities.
- Writing or speaking from a genuine, heart-centred place can turn personal experience into something universally meaningful.
- Words carry forgotten roots and power; reclaiming their original meanings can support healing and self-understanding.
- Dreams tend to feature the people who matter most emotionally, offering a mirror for key relationships and unresolved feelings.
- Visitation-style dreams around bereavement may support ongoing bonds with loved ones and help process grief, whatever your beliefs.
“Miracle is a process, not an event, and everything is part of the miracle.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey, emotional healing, or just the chaos of being human? This conversation on UK Health Radio’s *The Healing Power of Your Dreams* brings together dream experts, poets, and a resident “dream diva” team to show how night-time stories can shake you awake. Host duo Theresa Cheung and Kelly Sullivan Walden keep things light, funny, and very real as they chat with poet and spiritual teacher Mark Nepo and dream researcher Dr Kelly Bulkley.
You’ll hear how Mark’s cancer journey dropped him “into the depth of life”, why he now says “miracle is a process, not an event”, and how his classic *The Book of Awakening* grew from writing only when he was in his heart, not his head. Language and dreams are treated like powerful tools rather than fluffy extras. Mark talks about words as “fingers pointing to the moon”, useful only if they lead you back to actual lived experience.
He unpacks how “genius” originally meant an “attendant spirit”, and how algebra once meant “the reunion of broken parts” – a beautiful metaphor for recovery, grief, and putting yourself back together after life blows you apart. Later, psychologist of religion Dr Kelly Bulkley takes things into the lab, describing what thousands of dream reports reveal about relationships, grief, and big life transitions.
He explains that dreams often highlight the people who matter most emotionally and that visitation-type dreams after a bereavement can feel like genuine ongoing connection, whatever you believe about the afterlife. With guest presenter Phil Webster adding candid questions about death, shared dreams, and Shakespearean ghosts, this episode suits anyone curious about using dreams as a gentle ally in mental health, spiritual growth, or sober living.
It might just leave you asking: what is your night mind trying to tell you, and are you ready to write it down at 3 a.m.?
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