And the group dream work facilitator has lost her voice. Eight weeks of group dream work. 25 fantastic participants. 25 post-study interviews. Dream journals, mood journals, problems acknowledged, problems solved. Dreaming with intention. Projections. Connection. Excitement. Mystery. Mysticism. Alchemical. These are just a few of the buzz words to have emerged from the eight-week journey.

So what is group dream work? Well, it’s a space where people from all walks of life come together and appreciate one dream at a time. Appreciations of the dream content are unpacked one layer at a time. Each group participant accepts the dream as if it were their own, and appreciates it, or projects onto it. It doesn’t matter if a projection is “right” or “wrong.” It’s a little bit like yoga or meditation: you can’t do it wrong!

The dreamer absorbs all the projections. The co-dreamers own parts of their own experience, which can include conscious or shadow material. The experience is rich, revealing and enhances a sense of connection between group members. There is an excitement brought to the night-time world of dreams and dreaming. Anticipation is in turn brought to the dream group, and group participants feel free to exert their experience and imagination.

Following the projections from co-dreamers onto the dream of the session, questions are asked to establish any links between the dream and waking life of the dreamer. The process goes deeper, or as the facilitator (yours truly) would encourage the co-dreamers to “get nosey.” Deep connections were made not only between the dreamers, but also between the dreamer and their dream.

In subsequent weeks, dreamers would find themselves in each other’s dreams. In the moment the dreamer owned the dream as their own, they seemed to open a possibility for re-entering that dream space. This experience served to reinforce connection and increase empathy between dream members. It was also experienced as “mystical” or “trippy” by those who found themselves immersed in another’s dream space.

Group participants found they felt more empowered to deal with nightmares. This emerged in part because group members realised dreams come in “the spirit of health and wholeness” a term coined by Jeremy Taylor. Nightmares wake us up to the possibility we have an important matter at hand, something which requires our attention. Group participants also experienced other ways in which they could work with their dream content to make any challenging aspects easier to look at…

All in all, it’s been an incredible journey. I found myself humbled by 25 humans willing to share the workings of their inner night-time world; a place that is rarely experienced by other humans. A time of deep introspection that many shrug of as “it’s just a dream.” I speak for the group of 25 dreamers when I say it may have been “just a dream” but the unpacking of multiple layers of dream space led to many insights, realisations and a deeper appreciation for the dream world.