RUMI
It is true: dreams hold “secrets,” and yet they come every night to share what they know so that we may take and use their communications to balance our personalities and our attitudes toward life. Every night brings new opportunities to be in relationship with our inner wisdom.
There are differing perspectives on what the importance of dreaming is. My perspective is based not only on the theory that speaks to me most, but also on my experience of dreams, both personally and professionally. Dreams speak a symbolic language, very similar to poetry, and they clearly communicate in symbol and metaphor to the individual dreamer.
Dreams come directly from the unconscious realm in the human psyche. What is in the depths of our unconscious powerfully influences our thoughts, emotional life and behavior. Dreams give us a window into those depths, allowing us to examine those unconscious influences. If we are willing to pay attention and put in some effort, we can learn a lot. What we learn gives us new choices, deepens our experience of life, and broadens our consciousness.
Dreams reach out to us on many levels, from the practical to the spiritual, illuminating our blind spots as well as our inner resources. While we sleep, our dreaming psyche filters through the mountain of issues and experiences from our busy life and reliably zeroes in on whatever has top priority in the present. The very specific guidance dreams provide, which I have experienced time and again in myself and others, seems to come from a source of wisdom and healing. This is what Carl Jung taught. Dreams have a healing function. Working with dreams is a beneficial and creative way to grapple with personal and relationship conflicts as well as with the deep existential and spiritual questions at the center of our lives.
Your dreams are your “inner therapist,” who will always be with you. When you bring them into our work, they provide a wealth of what I like to call “intimate knowledge” which we would not otherwise have available to us. It is a privilege to bring my years of experience to helping you deepen your relationship with your own inner source of therapeutic “wake up calls!”
TIPS FOR REMEMBERING DREAMS
NIGHTMARES
DREAMWORK AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
DREAMGROUPS