Gaia Goddess CEO, Maria Marshall Shares How to Awaken and Communicate with Your Higher Consciousness

Maria Marshall, founder and CEO of Gaia Goddess Lifestyle, has always been fascinated by her dreams and the messages they hold. Through years of dreamwork, she has developed a powerful method for interpreting dream symbols and uncovering their deeper meaning. “When you pay attention to your dreams,” says Maria, “you can unlock insight, emotional healing, and spiritual guidance that enriches your waking life.”

What are Dreams and Where Do They Come From?

Dreams are not just random images flashing through your mind as you sleep. They are living messages, a pathway to communicating with the higher realms of your consciousness. Dreams offer you guidance, reassurance, and sometimes gentle warnings.

They are your higher self speaking to you in symbols that often don’t seem to make sense. That is where dreamwork comes in. As you begin to journal and track your dreams, you’ll start to see that they speak to you in a code that can be deciphered.

Dreams as Soul Communication

Dreams are like mirrors. When you begin working with your dreams, you often see parts of yourself that have been hidden. Carl Jung called this Shadow Work: the decision you, or your soul, makes to turn inward. You are ready to face what hurts. Your trauma, pain, and unresolved grief can finally be uncovered, understood, and healed.

In his famous book, Man and His Symbols, Jung reminds us that the psyche is alive, always speaking in its own mysterious language. Dreams point to patterns, beliefs, and psychic wounds that are asking to be released so you can grow spiritually and emotionally.

He believed that each symbol, each odd moment in a dream, had something to teach you about who you are and what you need to heal or understand.

Maria’s Relationship with Dreamwork

“When you pay attention to your dreams,” says Maria, “you can unlock insight, emotional healing, and spiritual guidance that enriches your waking life.” Years ago, Maria was working with someone trained in dream interpretation and began to consistently record her dreams. She quickly started to see recurring patterns and symbols emerge. Maria tried to study Jung directly, but as she now jokes, “There was no way I was going to get through that whole book!”

Instead, she began recording her dreams as phone voice memos in the middle of the night or immediately upon waking. She started transcribing those recordings and reflecting on them more deeply.

Eventually, she began sharing her transcripts with AI tools like ChatGPT to help her analyze their meaning. She was surprised to find that Chat’s interpretations aligned very closely with Jungian symbolism and were a lot faster than reading his entire works.

“I call this my dream hack,” says Maria. “This dream hack doesn’t replace my intuition or meditation practices, but I’ve noticed that once I started tracking my dreams, I opened the door for my higher consciousness to communicate with me more and more.”

If you say but I can’t ever remember my dreams this hack is the way to start.

Three Examples from Maria’s Dreamwork Diary

I had a dream that I was walking through Central Park with my ex-partner, following the interior loop around the interior loop around the buildings. The buildings formed a wide circle, and along them were stairs that went up and down. As we moved through the park, he and I climbed and descended the stairs together. At some point, I realized I wanted to complete the entire loop, but he didn’t and stepped off halfway. I felt sad, but I also knew it mattered that I continue on my own. So, I did, and I completed the full loop without him.

What the symbols mean:

The loop symbolizes both of their journeys in this life.
The stairs represent the transition between levels of awareness and ascension.
Her ex-partner stepping away wasn’t rejection. It shows their paths were no longer aligned. Maria, though sad, knew from this dream she had to continue and trust her own path.

The Loss of a Friend

When my close friend Greg passed away unexpectedly, my grief was heavy and ever-present. The loss was difficult to process. A week later, I had a dream about him. In it, he was radiant, happy, and peaceful. He said to me, “Do not mourn me. It’s so much better up here!”

The next morning, I woke and felt my grief had lifted overnight. I knew this was a genuine spirit visitation, one that healed the heaviness and comforted me beyond words.

Dreamwork and Ancestral Healing

I had been working with a Shaman, using specific herbs along with dreamwork, to delve into my feminine lineage and inner child wounds. When it came to addressing my masculine lineage, for some reason, I felt hesitant to go there.

By staying open to dream communication, I had an extraordinary experience. I dreamt of my grandfather weeping at his own funeral and knew this was a message. It was confirmation of what my inner spirit had already set in motion, and my generational healing was finally processing.

Common Dream Symbols and Their Meaning

Water: Reveals how you are feeling beneath the surface. Calm waters symbolize peace, while waves or turbulence are signs of inner turmoil or emotional overload.

Flying: This is your desire for freedom, or a sense of empowerment. It can also show you are breaking limits and seeing your life from a higher perspective.

The color red: Red depicts passion and vitality. It can signal intense energy, anger, or strong feelings you have toward someone or something in your life.

Ex-partners or old friends: These dreams are rarely about the person themselves, but usually represent feelings or memories you have about them: closure wanted, memories or even aspects of yourself that need attention.

Homes and rooms: Dreaming of your house, inside or out, is often a symbol of you. The kitchen can mean nourishment, the bedrooms, intimacy and rest. Different rooms can hint at your inner world. What are you exploring? What are you avoiding? What are you anxious about?

Preparing for Dreamwork

Creating a gentle ritual each night will help you as you begin your dreamwork. You are telling your soul, your inner self, that you are ready. You are listening. Before bed, pause. Breathe. Release the day. Set a simple intention: “I welcome the wisdom of my dreams. I am open to what my soul wants me to learn or remember.”

Keep your phone nearby and record whatever you remember if you awaken in the night or first thing in the morning. Keep this intention in your nightly routine and soon you will see your inner world unfold one symbol at a time.

“Dreamwork and AI tools have been a wonderful way for me to keep a digital diary. I can look back and reflect on all that I’ve learned and how far I’ve come in my healing journey,” says Maria. “It’s like a living library of my psyche’s evolution.”

Download – The Dream Hack: How to Decode Sacred Sleep Symbols

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