My first experience of Dreamwork happened when I started doctoral studies at Pacifica University in 2012. I had to be in therapy with a Jungian Analyst as part of the doctoral programme in Clinical Psychology. I was in long-term therapy with two other therapists before this time, and neither one had used dreams regularly as part of their practice. However, the subject of dreams was brought up by both. My first therapist was concerned I would have dreams revealing past trauma as we got into some of my history, and the second therapist told me that if I journal about my dreams every night, it might be some of the best therapy I ever do!
I took her advice and started a dream journal. I found the meanderings of my nightly dream escapades entertaining. But beyond that, I didn’t discover too many insights. While working as a substance abuse counsellor intern in 2009, my attention was drawn to people in treatment suffering from PTSD nightmares. The psychiatrist at the centre talked about how gaming consoles were being developed to assist people with these nightmares. This was in 2009 and those gaming consoles are starting to become more known about now; therapists are in the early stages of being trained to assist people with these devices, and I’m pretty sure we will see more of these immersive, virtual reality treatments. The point is I became aware that clinicians were working with people’s dreams; perhaps this could be an area of potential interest for me as I progressed with my studies.
Fast forward to my time in therapy with my Jungian Analyst. She was stoic and very well educated. This analyst was licensed as a Marriage & Family therapist in addition to being an analyst. I met with her once a week and we started sessions in the same way each week. I would have written down a dream and presented it to her in present tense. She wrote down the dream and then interpreted it. Sometimes I gave her associations to parts of the dream, and other times she launched in with an interpretation. Whether or not the interpretations fitted my life at the time did not seem to matter. Despite the fact she didn’t specify, I knew it was up to me to decide if there was a fit between my dream and her interpretation or not. The interpretation would lead to a discussion of relatively recent events that were relative to our process. At some point the work began to get into past stuff, and I think I would have needed to be in analysis longer than a year to have reaped the full benefits.
What impressed me the most though was that our discussions were never planned (by me). The work I did with dreamwork allowed for my unconscious mind to lead the therapy process. Consequently, the work went deeper and allowed me to get to material I wouldn’t have volunteered to process. As a therapist myself now almost a decade later, I appreciate the benefit of this approach. I recognise the potential healing that can come about for my clients if we work with their dreams and are able to access subjects or patterns they are not consciously aware enough of to bring up during the course of their sessions. These benefits do not begin to tap into another potential more controversial aspect of dreams, which is that they can reveal material that has been repressed or simply forgotten.
I did not continue my studies at Pacifica. I was drawn to the depth psychology, but the programme was not a match at the time. I continued in analysis despite the fact I withdrew from the programme. Four years later, I joined the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now known as Sofia University) to start all over again with doctoral studies. My introduction to the programme was a one week seminar in northern California. My first seminar (that I remember) was with Rev Jeremy Taylor, who later became my mentor. I hadn’t heard of him before and I wasn’t familiar with any type of group dreamwork and yet here we were, all 60 of us in the biggest group process I’d ever participated in. There was no pomp and parade, no great introduction, no theory, no warning and it was one of the best group experiences I ever had.
Looking back over my education, which spanned from 2008 to 2021, my best experiences (meaning the ones in which I learned the most) were experiential. We just jumped in and did it. I may have had moments where I thought “what is the point of this, not much is happening?” But it’s a little bit like the space between breaths…that space matters. Space for process, space for insight, space for integration. The group dreamwork process is a sneaky method to get at all kinds of latent material both in the dreamer and in the dream workers.
Group Dreamwork
I fell in love with group dreamwork and was fascinated by all these things I knew nothing about like Lucid dreaming, shared dreams, pre-cognisant dreams and I could go on. When it came time to do my research, which I conducted in 2021, I was excited to see if the group participants would report on positive aspects of group dreamwork – and they did. The potential for healing in those participating in group dreamwork was fantastic. I could not and still cannot understand why dreamwork had not been a part of my mainstream graduate or undergraduate programmes. I think dreamwork is an overlooked treatment protocol and I look forward to promoting it as a wonderful way for therapists to work with clients. It’s another tool for the clinical toolbox. Contact me with any questions, or join me for a dream group either as a participant or as a clinician wanting to learn how to run dreamwork groups.
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