Tiny Heroes, Giant Fears

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

Transcript

Welcome, Grape Juice, And Setup

Sheree 0:27

Hello, folks, and welcome to another episode of Cup of Terrific. I'm your host today, Shri, and today I'd like to welcome my very special co-host.

William 0:40

It's her daughter, a son.

Sheree 0:45

My son William. And we're going to discuss his dream, which will be pretty cool, I think. Is it cool? Is it scary? So is it actually a nightmare or is it a dream or a nightmare?

William 1:03

Nightmare.

Sheree 1:03

Okay, great. So we'll delve into that here shortly. But before we do, before we do, I always like to tell everybody, what are we drinking today? We what are you drinking? We're drinking grape juice. You're drinking grape juice. Yes. And please tell me, how's your grape juice? It's good. Yeah. Is have you ever had it before?

William 1:28

No.

Sheree 1:28

No? Would you want to drink it again? Definitely. Definitely? So I should definitely put that in the mom bank upstairs that I need to get. Okay. Alright. I will put that in the mom bank upstairs that I need to buy the grape juice again because the William likes the grape juice.

William 1:48

Yes.

Sheree 1:49

Alright. I'm drinking my go-to orange tangerine Mio because it's a good standby.

William 1:58

I like grape.

Sheree 2:00

You like grape?

William 2:01

Yes. Anything purple.

Sheree 2:04

Anything purple? That's true. Because purple's your favorite color, right? Just like me. Yes. How about that? I wonder what's up with that. Alright, William. So you were telling me a little while back ago that you had a really interesting dream.

William 2:22

Yes.

Sheree 2:23

And I was pretty blown away. If you want, I could go through and ask you some questions about it. Or if you like, what I generally like to do is I like to tell the listeners a story about my dream. So I just tell them the dream as if they're having the dream. Like it's a story, like it's a storybook. So they get to kind of experience it as if they're having the dream. And then afterwards, I get to look up what those different parts of the dream might mean.

William 2:59

Okay.

Sheree 3:00

And we can talk through those together and maybe figure out if there's any cool things about the dream if you want.

William 3:06

Oh, yeah.

Enter Dreamland: Tiny In A Garden

Sheree 3:08

Alright, I'll ask questions and kind of help you through. Alright, let's set the scene. So you laid down that night and you finally fell asleep. And you started to drift off into dreamland. Hold on, let me silence my phone. Because otherwise, this is gonna distract us the whole time. And that's no good. Oi. Okay. Let's start over. Okay. Okay, so you finally start falling asleep, and you're drifting off into dreamland, and you start to come to, and the scene starts to come into focus. Tell me about the setting you're in.

William 3:57

Uh inside a ramshackle shackle. And and it made of made of Twindle and we go outside, you and me. And we we start picking huge tomatoes. We're tiny. They were just cherry tomatoes. Little did we know. They were huge normal tomatoes, way overhead. So we go and we pick the cherry tomatoes.

Sheree 4:49

But we're like tiny.

William 4:50

Yes.

Sheree 4:51

And the cherry tomatoes are big.

William 4:53

As big as mulch.

Sheree 4:56

So we're like as big as mulch?

William 4:58

Yes.

Sheree 4:58

Okay, so we're like little people, so we're like smaller. But the cherry tomatoes are like normal size cherry tomatoes.

William 5:06

Yes.

Sheree 5:07

So they seem to be pretty big to us. So they're like us holding a big giant like beach ball.

William 5:13

Yes.

Sheree 5:14

Wow. That would be cool. Okay, so we're helping each other try to carry cherry tomatoes.

William 5:21

Yes.

Sheree 5:22

Cool.

Scorpion Attack And Crow Escape

William 5:23

And out of the quarter of my corner of my eye, I see this this pincer like thing. I don't notice it. I noticed it, but I was too busy picking up cherry tomatoes. You found a ripe one. And it looked pink red. So and after that, then we hear a hiss. And we look behind us. There's a gigantic scorpion. But you had a plan for this. Um, we're running. The scorpion's pinching us, trying to. It picks up mulch and is throwing it like bombs. Oh my gosh. And after that, you go to the you go to a giant crow and he has a collar on named Al the Second.

Sheree 6:36

Oh, really? Wow, you he had a name. That's cool.

William 6:41

And wow we get on Al the Second.

Sheree 6:46

Okay.

William 6:47

And the scorpion uh pinches and tries to sting Al the second.

Sheree 6:58

Oh my gosh.

William 6:59

But luckily, where right where when we were flying, the scorpion stinged Al the Second's ankle anklet. Basically, he doesn't have a collar. He has his anklet tells his name.

Sheree 7:15

Oh, okay. She's got like a brace and anklet, so it's like a little silver thing on his face. Yeah.

William 7:21

Okay. So and we're flying. The scorpion, we can see it fly trying to catch up from below.

Sheree 7:31

Wow, so he's still chasing us.

William 7:34

Yeah, he's a smart scorpion. Oh my god. And then there is another, and when the crow when Al II can't fly no more because he's too tired, we hop off and take ride on and we don't take ride. We're sitting behind blades of grass.

Sheree 7:57

Okay.

William 7:58

And then, out of nowhere, a giant spider comes along. Okay.

Sheree 8:05

Where did the scorpion go? Or you don't know.

William 8:08

And the spider and the scorpion started sparring.

Sheree 8:11

Oh. So we're hiding.

William 8:13

Yeah, we're hiding. Okay. They start sparring, and we are basically trying to tiptoe away.

Sheree 8:20

Okay.

William 8:21

They're having their battles. The spider is quick, small, and agile.

Sheree 8:27

Okay.

William 8:28

Like about our size. Gotcha.

Sheree 8:32

So he so he's a little small guy.

William 8:34

Yeah, he's a jumping spider.

Sheree 8:36

Oh, gotcha. Okay. And then we've got this big s scorpion that's like big tough guy. Yeah. Okay.

William 8:43

And the big the big tough scorpion, as you would like to call him, um, he tries to he tries to grab the spider and bring him up to sting him. The spider, instead of getting grabbed, jumps up and as he's jumping, bites his stinger so it's numb, so he can't move it. And then just goes down and starts just karate chopping him.

Sheree 9:11

With his big legs, with his many legs.

William 9:14

So he's just on the back.

Sheree 9:16

And he's kicking him with lots of things.

Spider Vs Scorpion: Fluffy Wins

William 9:18

And after that, we name him. And after the scorpion starts to run away, we name the spider Fluffy.

Sheree 9:27

Oh, so the spider's a nice guy? Yeah. Oh. Spider is So the Spider kicks the scorpion's butt. Yeah. Oh, did the scorpion run away?

William 9:38

The scorpion started crying and running.

Sheree 9:40

Oh, he ran away. Yeah. Oh. So what is what is that the end of the dream?

William 9:47

No. Oh. Apparently we were standing on a wormhole.

Sheree 9:53

A wormhole?

William 9:54

And it was been covered up by sand and stuff. Oh. And it caves in. Oh. We fall in. Okay. And we can't wiggle our way out. Oh no. We're stuck there. A mole comes and it tries to eat us and it just blanks there.

Sheree 10:16

Okay, that's where you f you Oh, okay, that's where you wake up. Okay, geez.

William 10:23

Not joking, it just blanks there. Wow, okay. Well. If there was two seconds more, we would have been either fighting for our lives or in the belly.

Sheree 10:34

So did you have what overall did you think it was what kind of dream do you think this was?

William 10:40

A dream that I could control stuff because I was thinking in my mind s something would come and save us.

Sheree 10:48

Do you know what that's called?

William 10:49

Uh no. I don't, but there was a video I watched that told me about dreams, but I forgot.

Sheree 10:59

Oh, really? I'm pretty sure that that's called lucid dreaming.

William 11:03

Yes. Oh, now it's coming.

Sheree 11:05

Oh, yeah? So you watched something about this? Yes.

William 11:08

Normal dreams, happy dreams, are basically you can't control anything, just happy ending. They just happy nothing bad happens.

Sheree 11:16

Yeah, it's just like you're dreaming.

William 11:18

Nightmare. Something bad happens. It doesn't recover.

Sheree 11:21

Yeah, you're just scared.

The Wormhole Drop And Cliffhanger Wake

William 11:22

Yeah. Lucid dreams, you could give yourself superpowers. You could make the make the thing you're fighting or thing that's happening really just not scary. Like if you're fighting a giant scorpion, just give no, if you're fighting a giant spider, give it give it high heels. The spider just falls falls over.

Sheree 11:45

Yeah, you know what that reminds me of? Is like uh that one that one thing from Harry Potter. Yeah. It reminds me of that cabinet in Harry Potter. Yeah. Where they let out the the one monster that like turns into whatever your like biggest fear is. Nobody knows what that creature looks like.

William 12:05

Actually, it looks like the um mist, apparently.

What Is Lucid Dreaming

Sheree 12:28

All right. Now we're back and we're gonna talk about the elements that we had in this dream, or that we've identified in the dream. So what what elements did we kind of pick out together?

William 12:44

Uh spider.

Sheree 12:47

Yes. The spider, thank you. Mega mind.

William 12:52

And the um crow. Okay, yep, the crow. And the scorpion and tomatoes.

Sheree 12:58

And tomatoes, yep. Yeah, and the scorpion. Yep, and the scorpion, yep. Okay, so those are the ones we'll go over. Um, let's go over the ones in order as we saw them. That's probably the best way to go about it.

William 13:12

Okay, then scorpion.

Sheree 13:14

I think the first one we see is the tomato, actually. Yeah. So what did we figure out that the tomato would signal?

William 13:23

Uh to it uh good health. Mm-hmm. And I will enjoy. I will have enjoyment and happiness.

Sheree 13:36

Yeah, it denotes domestic enjoyment and happiness. So, like, you know, having a personal garden. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So and that's what we have. We have a nice garden in the backyard where we enjoy those things.

William 13:50

It is very healthy food. We have bell peppers. As we just ate.

Sheree 13:55

As we just ate, yep, we sure did. And okay, so we did the tomato. What was the next element that we picked out?

William 14:07

Uh scorpion.

Sheree 14:09

Yeah, what did this let's look, let's see. What did we figure out? Where was it? There it does, yep.

William 14:16

What did we figure out that the scorpion false friends will intake will take advantage of opportunities to deter undermine your prosperity?

Sheree 14:29

So we're happy in the garden, enjoying our domestic happiness and prosperity, and other people may try to capitalize on that and take it away from us.

William 14:41

And get a weed whacker out.

Sheree 14:46

So we try to run away, and what's the next element that we come upon?

William 14:51

A crow.

Sheree 14:52

A crow. And what does a crow typically tend to denote?

William 14:56

Misfortune and grief.

Sheree 14:58

Yeah, tent usually it means that, but it doesn't always. Sometimes today it was very helpful. It was because he he represented an opportunity to get us up off the ground and away from what was attacking us. Yes. Right. So maybe he was more misfortune for himself because he got stung. He almost got stung. Oh, he almost got saved. But but we were okay. We were able to get away and be safe.

Symbol Talk: Tomatoes, Scorpion, Crow, Spider

William 15:28

Al the second had had the best.

Sheree 15:31

Yeah. Then the spider. And then the spider. So we ran away and we hid in the grass, and you started lucid dreaming, and you found a way to find a spider. And instead of the scorpion conquering you and taking away your prosperity and defeating you, spiders showed up, and a lot of times, if you see a spider that you're running from in your dream, a large spider that's chasing you, it can denote that you will lose fortune. But we're gonna use an inverse logic here, and we're gonna say that we were hiding from the scorpion, and a small spider stepped in and was actually protecting us. So he was a symbol of protecting our fortune.

William 16:27

Yes, so it was very helpful out of Fluffy.

Sheree 16:33

Yeah, so Fluffy helped you.

William 16:36

Yeah, he helped both of us.

Sheree 16:38

Right. So in your dream, you lucid dream, you were you created something that was powerful enough to overcome what was terrifying you, and you you set things you set things straight.

William 16:55

Yeah. And also it was very after since we went over the story without the tiny little details, uh, since the like the things in the corner of my eye. I only said the corner in my eye of my eye once. But there were many things I saw at the corner of my eye.

Sheree 17:18

Like what?

William 17:20

Uh like in one part of the story you will see a giant person. I'm not gonna reveal who the person is until the end. Until the end.

Sheree 17:29

Okay.

William 17:31

So and many very small things that uh that kind of played a part. So at the end, I'm gonna tell this stuff.

Sheree 17:47

But right now, we basically well, we're pretty much at the end. Oh, because we just went through we went through the story. You told the story of your dream, and then we went through the analysis of you telling us how you were having a nightmare. You explained what it was like to go from having a nightmare to using your powerful ability to lucid dream, and and you were able to affect it in a way that you were able to have a positive impact on that. Which that man, that that a lot of people they really wish they could do. So that's great, bud. I hope, I hope that you continue to talk about things like that so that you can remember your dreams and talk about them.

William 18:36

Yeah, I wish to be in this way more times than just today.

Sheree 18:41

Mm-hmm. That way, if it's like uh it's like an exercise, you know, the more you do it, just like when you play your sports, the better you get at it. Yes, and and you you won't suffer, you know, if you have a difficult time sleeping, you're able to kind of, you know. Lucid dream. Work through it, yeah, exactly. That's pretty cool.

William 19:03

Yeah. And so what was so if you don't mind actually oh go go ahead. What quick thoughts do you have, William? Quick thoughts. Um Was the tr scorpion trying to run from something and found food? Us? Was this was the scorpion what did we steal the scorpion's tomatoes that it was growing?

Sheree 19:24

Oh, I love that you have this feeling of empathy for the other thing in your dream.

William 19:29

Did the was the scorpion just trying to play with us?

Sheree 19:34

And and you were just overwhelmed with your own fear you couldn't see from his perspective?

William 19:38

Yeah, okay. And was the spider the actual bad guy?

Sheree 19:44

We'll never know. Actually, the only person who can know is you because it was your dream.

William 19:50

Honestly. So you get to make that decision. I thought I think the spider would be the actual bad guy.

Perspective, Playfulness, And Rewriting Fear

Sheree 19:58

You get to make that decision. So you wrote the story, so you can make that decision. Yeah. But you could write the book both ways.

William 20:06

Actually, my mind made the story.

Sheree 20:08

That's true. Your mind did make the story.

William 20:11

My mind is a famous writer writing known for writing silly stories. Isn't that great?

Sheree 20:17

I love that we all get to be a writer by the dreams that we have. Yes. I love that.

William 20:23

Many times.

Sheree 20:24

I love that. I love listening to other people's dreams because they get to be a writer.

William 20:29

Lucid I have done lucid dreams many times.

Sheree 20:33

Yeah. That's really cool. I know a lot of people tell me that they wish that they had that ability.

William 20:40

Sometimes uh I dream about a terrible thing that could never be stopped.

Sheree 20:47

Yeah.

William 20:48

But I think through it and basically just if there are put roller skates on it. If it's never orange roller skates. Yeah. Um then like if you see a giant spider that's terrorizing Earth that already conquered six continents, then just get and you just sweat and put a drop of water on it and just just and die.

Sheree 21:20

Just straight right and then we can all just start living on him.

William 21:24

Yeah. He's the world spider.

Sheree 21:28

It's a world spider.

William 21:30

We're gonna have good steak tonight.

Sheree 21:34

Spider steak.

William 21:35

I actually I've I want I want I've heard people that say it tastes it says they say it tastes like bacon.

Sheree 21:44

Oh, okay. So same with ants. I wonder if we could I wonder if we could make some really interesting clothes out of the spider silk.

William 21:52

Well we can't we can't just extract it's all based off of our imagination. Extract it. We just we have to get spider to open the valve.

Sheree 22:01

Or even better, what if their spider silk could be used to make some kind of spaceships? That would be so great.

William 22:13

Metal spider. Just like a metal mage. Yeah.

Sheree 22:21

Well, William, I'm dying to know what was the giant thing that you saw out of the corner of your eye? This is the end of the podcast. Please tell us. Um, basically. Okay, so in your head, um, think was it the giant spider?

Sequel Dreams, Giant Dad, And The Feather

William 22:40

No. Sorry that you're teasing me. No. So in your head, basically think of a gigantic you're you're as small as a blade of grass. Yes. Think of a dad riding a horse. Okay. And the horse is tiny, but dad is like riding the horse like a battery. That's that's what I saw.

Sheree 23:17

That's that's fantastic.

William 23:19

It's it's that's it's like a calf horse.

Sheree 23:23

And you know what? That's that's a perfect example of why some things in our dreams don't make any sense at all.

William 23:30

Yes, and he had a dream and he had a two-too.

Sheree 23:34

And not not everything in our dreams has to make sense. It's a dream in the dream world, anything could happen. Like, like we were just saying.

William 23:43

You could it it start starts out you fight you're fighting a very, very you're fighting a robot, and at the end the robot starts wearing tutus and is a ballerina's nicest to everyone. Yeah. Yeah, it could be. It's a dominating robot, and it's conquered all the seven continents and starts playing ballet.

Sheree 24:09

Yeah. Yeah, it could be all kinds of things. It doesn't have to be logical at all.

William 24:17

Yeah. So there's the giant thing, and now the tiny thing.

Sheree 24:21

Who's the tiny thing?

William 24:22

Okay, so I didn't want to tell you this because it would might freak you out without a second, but there was an ant on him that was like taking a feather off of him and giving it to me. I don't know why. But at the end, apparently I used it to like I don't want to tell you any spoilers of of the sequel dream that I have frequently. Frequently.

Sheree 24:59

Oh, you have a recurring dream, huh?

William 25:01

No, not recurring. Like two dreams, if they end off with a cliffhanger or something, then there will be a second dream based on that topic. And basically it's just scenes just flashing in my head, like pictures of the other dream. Uh-huh. That happens to me too, yeah. And then after that, it's like a differ where like the giant. A giant a giant mole trying to eat us, apparently.

Sheree 25:30

But somehow we're escaping.

William 25:32

And I did have it uh actually last night. The dream.

Sheree 25:37

Well, we'll save that for another episode, and that'll be an element for another episode, okay?

William 25:41

Yes.

Sheree 25:42

I love it.

William 25:43

And there was an ant that I got the feather, held on to it until the end. I'm not gonna tell you what.

Sheree 25:50

Okay, well, we'll like like you said, we'll save it for another episode.

William 25:55

But and also the other thing I saw out of the corner of my eye, like literally, if we were staring straight and it was like there and gone.

Sheree 26:11

What?

William 26:12

Obi. Oh, the puppy. He stole one of our tomatoes.

Sheree 26:17

And uh sounds about right. Yeah, yeah.

William 26:22

Darn pup.

Sheree 26:23

Well, thank you again, William, for joining me today on my podcast and sharing your dream with me and walking through um my encyclopedia of dreams and talking through what some of the symbols might mean. Um, and I love that you explain to the listeners what the difference between dreams and nightmares are, and also what it means to be a lucid dreamer. And I look forward to.

William 26:51

I will try to my best to make my own podcast about lucid dreams and stuff. Oh, that'll be cool. Entire things of dreams and lucid dreams and different ways it'll work.

Sheree 27:09

Yeah, well, I things. Like I said, I'm glad that you are a lucid dreamer and that you shared your lucid dream with me, and that hopefully you'll come back and you'll talk to me about others in the future, bud.

William 27:23

Yeah. And talk to you about the sequel.

Sheree 27:27

Yep. And you know, thanks for being my kid.

William 27:32

Yes, yes, so goodbye for now.

Sheree 27:37

Goodbye for now.

William 27:40

I will be back. This is not the end you've heard of me.

Closing Thoughts And How To Reach Us

Sheree 27:47

Goodbye. All right, that's the end of today's episode of Cuppa Terrific. Thank you again for joining me on another fantastic episode. That was uh quite an adventure with a really interesting kid. Um, I know I'm a little bit biased, but he is constantly surprising me with things. Um, and uh you can follow me on uh Facebook, Instagram, or on X, and feel free to drop me a line at Kappa Terrific, which is spelled c u p-pa.torrific t-e-r-r-i-f I c at gmail.com. Please feel free to give me your feedback on this episode or if you have any experiences on lucid dreaming or thoughts on this episode, I'd sure love to hear from you. Otherwise, guys, may all your cups overflows.