Quick Start Guide to Dreamwork

Here's how to start gathering and working with your dream material:

First you need to remember your dreams:

The best way to do this is to keep a means of recording your dreams right next to your bed, so that you can capture them straight away. When you wake up, aware of a dream Â? remain still in the same position, with your eyes closed. Mentally run through and remind yourself of the dream action you have just experienced. Now record brief notes and key words Â? these will remind you of the rest of the dream later.

If you woke in the night, you can go back to sleep at this point Â? your notes will bring back the dream action later.

Keeping a Dream Journal will encourage you to remember more dreams and more details of your dreams.

Remembering dreams

• Keep a pad & paper or recording device by your bed to make dream notes immediately on wakening.
• Before going to sleep, relax your muscles, breathe slowly and deeply, mentally state your intent to have a dream and remember the dream. (After achieving this, you can move on to stating that you will have a dream in answer to a current problem, that you will become lucid within the dream etc.)
• When you awaken, stay lying down in the same position and recall the dream. Then immediately note the main images, characters and emotions briefly in order to help you remember the dream later.

Dreamwork presuppositions:

• that dreams reflect the person's personality, current concerns, deeper level issues/life themes, beliefs and ways of processing information.
• That dreams reflect the person's unconscious processes.
• That dreams may have different layers of meaning Â? surface, medium, deep, reflecting self etc.
• That dreams use current daily life material, interwoven with deeper level symbols, metaphors and archetypes.
• That dreams can be used to aid learning, problem solving and creative thinking.

Dream interpretation pointers:

1) look for the literal / surface interpretations

2) look for symbolic references and metaphors

3) creatively free-associate links to your life

4) take the perspective of characters and elements in your dream and free-associate on the meaning of the dream from their perspective (Gestalt approach)

Interacting with dreams Â? facilitation for self and others

Recall the dream in a relaxed state, eliciting all the sensory information Â? what you saw, heard, felt, smelt, tasted.

Ask open questions Â? who, what, when, where, how to gain information and to ask the person to explore different perspectives, eg. different characters/objects in the dream, different courses of action, different endings.

About the author:

Susanna Bellini runs Dreamwork and Dreamweaving seminars in York, UK.

Website: http://www.bronze-dragon.com/dreamweaving.shtml

Author: Susanna Bellini
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Copyright © 2023 Susanna Bellini. All rights reserved

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