Dreamwork
Why Should Therapy Focus On Dreams?
Many people view dreams as random firings of the brain, so mysterious and elusive that it’s useless to try and discern any meaning in them. Yet if we pay attention to our dreams, they reveal things about us that the conscious mind cannot.
Put simply, dreams are the quickest and most direct route to our deepest selves. They provide commentary on our lives and can offer guidance during difficult times. Dreams delve beneath the surface of our normal waking consciousness, alerting us to issues that we may have been unaware of. They show us what we’ve missed, forgotten, or neglected. They reveal our innermost longings, our deepest wounds, and our greatest gifts.
Dreams also highlight our main emotional concerns, aid in problem-solving, and help with emotional regulation. In fact, neuroscientists have proven that dreams create new neural pathways in the brain, helping us process painful emotions, consolidate memories, and enhance creativity.
The beauty of dreams is that they connect us to the bedrock of the human condition. By locating our story within a larger archetypal pattern, we feel less alone and can see examples of others who have undergone similar experiences. Our pain is given meaning and we can reframe our suffering as an initiatory journey. Sometimes a “big” dream can even change our lives by pointing us in a new direction or reminding us of a forgotten childhood passion.
Dreamwork is a form of therapy that uses the power of dreams to help you access your inner world and find a path to healing. Dreams are especially helpful in therapy because they bypass our instinctive defenses. People can spend hours talking about an issue without getting to the root problem. Dreams show you where the work needs to be done. They show you where the wound is and point the way to healing. Exploring dreams with an experienced therapist can help you deepen your self-awareness and increase your dreams’ healing capacity.
We spend a third of our lives sleeping and most of that time dreaming. Why not make use of this valuable resource?
“In each of us is another whom we don’t know. He speaks to us in dreams.”
- Carl Jung
My Approach To Dreamwork Therapy
Throughout history, people have been fascinated by their dreams and found meaning, wisdom, and guidance in them. There have been many theories and strategies for working with dreams, but it wasn’t until the late 19th century that Sigmund Freud introduced the idea that “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” After that, psychologists began to take dreamwork seriously and consider it an important part of treating patients.
My integrative approach draws from a wide range of modalities including Jungian, contemporary, and shamanic ways of working with dreams. I have a two-year Dream Tending Certificate and a background in depth psychology, which has its foundation in myths, literature, art, philosophy and comparative religions.
What Does Dreamwork Therapy Look Like?
Carl Jung used to say that a therapist needs to create a new treatment for each person, and I think the same applies to working with dreams. Dreamwork is uniquely tailored to each person. That said, I typically begin the dreamwork process by asking you to write down your dreams and explore your “gut reaction” to them. Together we will look at the setting, the characters, the action, the outcome, and the way the dream made you feel. What is your somatic experience of the dream? What was curious, surprising, beautiful or strange about it? What happened in the last 24 to 48 hours that may have influenced its events? What do you think is the essence of the dream’s message?
Dreamwork is much more than an intellectual exercise. It is an emotionally-involved experience. To deepen the process, we can go back into the dream and interact with the characters and explore the landscape to dream the dream forward, as Jung would say. In this way, we are actively engaging with the dream figures themselves. They often have valuable perspectives on situations that may have remained “stuck” in our waking life. The emphasis is on an active, “felt” encounter with the dream.
It is important to explore your unique associations to the elements in your dream. For instance, suppose you dream of a bear in your living room. The question we will explore is: what is your relationship to this particular bear? What kind of bear is it? How do you feel around the bear? Do you have a connection to a particular bear in a story, fairytale, or myth?
What’s more, dreams evolve in the telling and can have different meanings. Over time, dreamwork can become an intimate conversation with your deepest self where you develop a unique symbolic language. It is especially helpful to use some form of creative expression like journaling, art, dance, working in clay, or creating a ritual to integrate the wisdom of the dream into your life.
“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul…”
- Carl Jung
Using Dreamwork To Process Trauma And Heal Deep Emotional Wounds
Dreamwork is more than working with symbols. It can aid in healing unprocessed trauma and improving your mental health. Dreams can help you “metabolize” or digest painful experiences that you couldn’t in waking life.
Dreamwork is especially helpful with recurring dreams, disturbing dreams, and nightmares. Nightmares occur when there is “unmetabolized” trauma or when something in your life was too overwhelming to process. Dreamwork can help you access deep emotional pain and digest that pain so that it isn’t overwhelming anymore.
Dreams can also be diagnostic. They depict a situation as it is, rather than how we want it to be. At times, dreams can even point to an actual medical condition. There are healing dreams and through dreamwork we can find and use the medicine that they contain.
I Would Love To Help You Access The Wisdom And Healing Power Of Your Dreams
If you are looking for a form of therapy that provides a direct route to your deepest self, offers a path to healing, and enhances creativity, dreamwork may be right for you. You can email me or call 415-437-6002 to get started.
