Dream Consultation: Walk within Your Inner Cosmos, Heal through Dreaming
What Dreamwork Has to Offer
CONNECTION WITH YOUR INNER WORLD
Dreams are a mirror, reflecting your whole self and the world of your subconscious. Dreams give you an opportunity to interact with your internal world, parts of yourself that you may have cut-off or discounted, and ultimately to integrate those parts and honor their wisdom so that you can live your life wholly and authentically. Sometimes, dreams also provide an opportunity for you to connect to the wisdom of your ancestors. Through dreamwork, you are developing an active dialogue with your unconscious.
DISCOVERY OF YOUR INNER HERO
The archetypal value of dreams is phenomenal. Our dreams connect us to a collective unconscious– the stories and archetypes of being human. Story and feeling is what makes us human, what differentiates us from other mammals. Ever wonder why Harry Potter, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings are capable of moving you so profoundly? It’s because these stories, at their core, are stories of the hero’s journey (as well as other important archetypes), showing us our own capacity to overcome adversity. Attending to your dreams will show you where the ‘water of your life’ wants to flow– and will show us where you are refusing ‘the call,’ or the purpose of your life. Dreamwork will allow you to work through inner conflict that holds you back and find the courage to accept and boldly pursue whatever is calling you.
DEFUSING OF NIGHTMARES
Nightmares are often disturbing, unsettling, and linger with us when we wish they’d just leave us in peace. Sometimes, especially for survivors of trauma, they are debilitating. Because aspects of dreams often represent aspects of the self, nightmarish figures in dreams often represent parts of us, our feelings, or our past that we are struggling to acknowledge, understand, validate, or show kindness toward. Running from or attacking a monster or a bad guy in a nightmare is often (though not always) analogous to fleeing or attacking a part of yourself that desperately wants to be heard, seen, or cared for. It is not uncommon to experience immense psychological relief and improved sleep quality if there is a willingness to hold tenderness and curiosity toward what emerges in your nightmares.
DREAM INTERPRETATION
Please do not google symbols from your dream :) You are the authority on and dictionary for your own dreams! Part of the process of dreamwork is exploring your personal associations; for example, when fire shows up in a dream, one person may associate this to campfires or positive outdoor experiences, and we may perhaps amplify that into the alchemical process of burning. For another dreamer, fire may be associated with a traumatic experience of a house fire, and the need to process underlying trauma, in which case the meaning of the dream is very different. Dream interpretation isn't about being told explicitly what your dreams mean, but about holding curiosity toward your own surprising associations to your dream symbols and understanding how they connect to your waking life.
submit a dream
I provide one-time and package consultations of dreamwork, working from a theoretical foundation of Jungian and archetypal psychology, involving methods of association, amplification, embodiment (influenced by dreamwork strategies developed by Robert Bosnak), and expression through artistic mediums. Dreamwork has been a fundamental tool used to understand the unconscious since the development of psychoanalytic psychology by Sigmund Freud, and has been in use for centuries in time honored cultural traditions around the world long before the West appreciated its value. The dreamwork consultation services I offer are not therapy, nor should it substitute for therapy. Consultations include receiving an introduction to dream work and education that will enable the dreamer to begin working with their dreams on their own. This can include working with one dream, working with a series of dreams, working with recurrent dream patterns, or working with nightmares.
Sometimes, dreams are best explored within the context of long-term psychotherapy– this is usually true if there is profound suffering in your life. I may refer you to therapy if content from a dream suggests that therapeutic services are warranted. However, since the dream is the language of your own Self and inner wisdom, I regularly encourage therapy clients to develop the practice of dreamwork into something that can be meaningfully practiced independently. Thus, I am able to offer dream consultations for non-therapy clients who are curious about their dreams or who want to learn more about dreamwork in general. Dreamwork might be for you if you are interested in developing an active dialogue with your unconscious, if you are looking for a deeper self-understanding and self-awareness, or if you are hoping to use your dreams in your creative work.
Dream Ethics
While there are incredible benefits of dreamwork, there are also potential risks, similar to those found in therapy: exploring dreams will often mean confronting difficult feelings or finding that the dream is asking you to make significant changes to your way of being in the world. Sometimes, though this is uncommon, we may not come away with meaning from a dream; the dream meaning may not become clear until months or even years after having it, when the long awaited revelation can have a larger impact on the psyche. At a minimum, dreamers will leave their consultations with skills and practices that will deepen their understanding of their dreams and themselves, allowing them to begin or deepen their own dreamwork.
I uphold the ethical position taken by the International Association for the Study of Dreams, in that I support an approach to dreamwork that respects the dreamer's dignity and integrity, and which recognizes the dreamer as the decision-maker and authority regarding the significance of the dream. The following is the ethical statement to which I adhere laid out by the IASD:
“Systems of dreamwork that assign authority or knowledge of the dream's meanings to someone other than the dreamer can be misleading, incorrect, and harmful. Ethical dreamwork helps dreamers work with their own dream images, feelings, and associations, and guides them to more fully experience, appreciate, and understand their dreams.
Every dream may have multiple meanings, and different techniques may be reasonably employed to touch these multiple layers of significance. A dreamer's decision to share or discontinue sharing a dream should always be respected and honored. The dreamer should be forewarned that unexpected issues or emotions may arise in the course of the dreamwork. Information and mutual agreement about the degree of privacy and confidentiality are essential ingredients in creating a safe atmosphere for dream sharing.
Dreamwork outside a clinical setting is not a substitute for psychotherapy, or other professional treatment, and should not be used as such.
We recognize and respect that there are many valid and time-honored dreamwork traditions. We invite and welcome the participation of dreamers from all cultures. There are social, cultural, and transpersonal aspects to dream experience. In this statement we do not mean to imply that the only valid approach to dreamwork focuses on the dreamer's personal life. Our purpose is to honor and respect the person of the dreamer as well as the dream itself, regardless of how the relationship between the two may be understood.”
