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Terror and excitement are not so far apart

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Nervous system hybrid states and how they show up in dreams 

Not all dreams are pure fight/flight, but much like our complex nervous systems they can express hybrid states. We are all familiar with the nightmares of being chased (flight response) or weighed down with helpless immobility (dorsal vagal response). These are fear-based dreams, but they take on a very different tone when imbued with a sense of safety.

At its most basic level safety allows for social engagement, a sense of being at home in the company of those we love and trust. There are also hybrid states, where how safe we feel can mediate how our nervous system responds. When we are immobilized with safety, this allows for stillness, intimacy and bonding. When we are activated with safety, this allows for excitement, sport and play.

The genius of the polyvagal theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges is that it takes us beyond the simple categorization everyone rattles off without much thought – the well-known fight/flight/freeze paradigm. When naming and understanding our autonomic state, Porges puts safety first.

A neuroception of safety is automatic, not intellectual

What does Porges mean by safety? His polyvagal theory is referring not to literal safety, but rather, bodily-sensed safety. Many who experience activated nervous systems, fear responses and nightmares are not in any real, physical danger, but there is no way to convince them of this, at least not by simply saying so.  Porges’ model stresses the neuroception of safety, that full-body sense which happens automatically, beyond conscious control, that allows our system to relax and repair.

When we are not experiencing rejuvenating embodied safety (a ventral vagal state), our dreams come as nightmares, as being chased or in aggressive encounters (fight/flight) or as helplessness immobility (often called freeze, those this word is not quite accurate). When our bodies feel safe, we dream of social encounters, of intimacy, adventures and play. Our dreams depict how safe or endangered we feel. As such, they can be a doorway to shifting these states at a deep level.

Autonomic state shifts are common — our nervous systems are always working to balance the need for safety and self-protection with those of social engagement, healing, digestion and the achievement of homeostatic balance. When our system perceives threat, things like digesting food or making love are luxuries our bodies senses we can’t afford… whether or not this is actually true.

Our sense of safety or danger is not always accurate

How do our bodies get this wrong? Much of the mismatch comes from early programming, from chronic exposure to neglect or trauma that creates nervous system responses that are either too sharp, too dull or a mixture of both. Those with complex trauma histories, for example, can perceive danger where none exists, or be blithely unaware of actual threatening situations and walk into danger without knowing it. Our dreams can provide both clues and solutions as they reflect our unconscious ANS responses.

During typical sleep, we shift states many times, alternating periods of deep restorative sleep with progressively longer period of dream-rich rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. In these state shifts, we are most likely to become aware of our dreams and to be awakened by those that are particularly intense. Nightmares can disrupt sleep and affect mood, but they can also open the door to autonomic state shifts that can be lasting.

If we approach our dreams with curiosity, and begin to cultivate mastery and degrees of lucidity, we may be able to shift our dreamscape from a pervasive sense of threat to one of safety, changing our whole experience of the dreaming. This is easier to do that one might think. One chronic nightmare sufferer I worked with was able to turn a face her pursuers and discovered they were far less threatening than expected, and this changed the nature of her dreams. The chase dreams still visit at times, but now they have taken on more of an adventurous feel, one of excitement rather than terror – a similar activated state, but with more of a sense of safety.

Hybrid states show us that the programming our nervous systems received early in life may be tenacious, but it is also malleable. Change is possible, and dreams are one pathway to understanding and altering our habitual responses.

For more on this topic, join Dr. Leslie Ellis for a workshop on Nightmares and The Nervous System October 13, from 9:30-noon (Pacific)

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Slippery Fish: How to remember your dreams

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When I tell people I work with and write about dreams, often the first thing they say is, “I don’t dream.” Or sometimes, more accurately, “I don’t remember my dreams.”

We all dream what is in essence a feature film worth of dreams every night, but the vast majority of these nocturnal movies are not merely forgotten, but not laid down in accessible memory in the first place. Dreams are like slippery fish: at night they rise from the depths of implicit memory and most of them slip back into this subconscious realm before we have a chance to catch them. But there are some reliable ways to improve your dream recall.

Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of your dreams are not finished? They tend to end right in the middle of something that is striking or scary enough to wake you up. I think this is why dreams tend generally to have such a flamboyant way of expressing themselves – it often takes something quite dramatic for a dream to break through to consciousness. Some dreams are so vivid and engaging, we wake up with their images still resonating in our minds and bodies.

Still, it takes a deliberate effort to recall even some of the most fascinating dreams. Many dreamers have the experience of a stunning dream that wakes them up. They think, “Wow, this is something I will not forget,” only to find that by morning all they remember was the experience of having a big dream but not the dream itself.

Our most vivid, emotionally-toned and complex dreams happen later in the sleep cycle, toward morning. I find that if you are able to wake up naturally and have some time to linger in the dream world before you leap out of bed and start your day, you have a better chance of catching hold of your dream before it slips away. If you lie very still when you first wake up, the dream is more likely to stay with you. And if you rehearse it in your mind a few times and then write it down before you get on with the business of your day, you will find that you have not only captured this dream, but others will come.

The more we pay attention to our dreams, the more they are likely to respond back to us. I have worked with psychotherapy clients’ dreams for about 20 years and found that even those who profess not to dream were able to recall dreams once I started asking about them and talking in depth about the dreams they did bring. At first people who don’t profess to dream much might capture only a snippet or two and not think much of it. But even little scraps of image can reveal themselves to be significant if they are inquired into with deep curiosity and respect.

To sum up, to remember your dreams, begin by taking an interest in them and going to bed with the intention of recalling them. Keep a dream journal by your bedside. When you first wake up, don’t move, but linger in the space in between waking and dreaming and see if you can recall anything at all from the night, even images or fragments that seem tiny. Rehearse what you can recall in your mind a few times – dreams are like slippery fish wanting to escape back into the deep waters of our unconscious. Once you have the dream clear in your mind, write it down, ideally before you do anything else.

If you tell your dreams to someone else, work with them in a group, draw the images they bring you, reflect on them and enjoy them, more will come. You will start to see patterns and appreciate their startling creativity and complexity. They are like an honest friend who is not afraid to tell you the truth, even if it’s painful. They can become your great ally.

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Nightmares and the nervous system: How the content of your nightmares can guide recovery from disturbed dreaming

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The content of our dreams offers clues about the state of our nervous system. As we know from current research on recurrent dreams, these often depict being chased, feeling helpless or, if positive, represent ways of being socially engaged. Anyone familiar with the polyvagal theory will recognize these states as the some of the main expressions of different states of autonomic nervous system (ANS): being chased is fight/flight, helplessness is immobility and social engagement corresponds with the ventral vagal state the body enters when feeling safe.

A new wave of somatically-oriented trauma therapies has swept through the field of trauma treatment as a result of what we now know about the nervous system. I love that these new approaches view ANS responses as adaptive rather than pathological. I am also impressed at how neatly such constructs map onto dream content. Clinicians can use this information from dreams to inform diagnosis and treatment, and to map clinical progress. For example, when recurrent dreams change, this is can indicate clinical progress as it coincides with increased well-being.

My upcoming journal article, Solving the Nightmare Mystery: How Polyvagal Theory Updates Our Understanding of the Aetiology and Treatment of Nightmares, takes Porges’ polyvagal theory and the nervous system into account when considering the causes and treatment of nightmares; it is in the final stages of production for APA journal Dreaming. The article articulates both a theory and treatment approach that I will cover in more detail in my upcoming workshop on October 13 (participants will receive an advance copy). One of the practical take-aways is the matching of dream content with autonomic states. Here is an excerpt from my article:

“It is possible to map the hierarchy of threat responses onto the content of nightmares. Virtually all fear-based nightmares contain material that represents either an activated fight/flight response or a helpless immobilized response in the face of threat. A recent study to determine the main themes in nightmare content (n = 1216) points to a strong, though not perfect, correlation between most common nightmare themes and the polyvagal response hierarchy. In order, the most frequent nightmare themes identified by Schredl and Goritz (2018) were failure or helplessness (immobility), physical aggression (fight), accidents, being chased (flight), illness or death (immobility), and interpersonal conflict (fight).”

In my doctoral research, I conducted a related qualitative study (Ellis, 2016), looking at changes in recurrent nightmare content after treatment using a protocol that is a precursor to the Nightmare Relief protocol I now use and teach.  The recurrent nightmares of study participants changed after treatment toward more empowered responses, moving up the polyvagal hierarchy of threat responses — from immobility to flight to fight. Also, the dreams that came after treatment began to weave in current settings and characters from the dreamer’s life shifting away from a focus in past trauma. The progression of dream content from replicative and recurrent toward dreams with strange twists and temporal anomalies (ie more normal dreaming) often coincides with trauma recovery.

Relevant to polyvagal theory, I also noticed that the dreams post-treatment tended to move toward greater social engagement: “When dreamers were asked to rescript their dream endings, they almost invariably imagined ‘home.’ The quality of home is similar to Porges’ ventral vagal state: not necessarily a literal place (especially for those whose actual homes were unsafe), but rather a sense of safety in the company of trusted others.” This is a clue about how to help with nightmares – assisting dreamers to reimagine their dreams in ways that feel safer can shift them, and reduce the aversion nightmare sufferers tend to have toward sleep and dreams.

In my upcoming seminar, I will present the most salient aspects of this material and focus mainly on introducing the Nightmare Relief protocol. I will be able to offer more detail, clinical examples, demos and experiential practices than are covered in the academic paper. I would like those who take this workshop to be able to put these ideas into practice right away with clients who suffer from nightmares and disturbing dreams.

To sum up, I have arrived at the idea that the nervous system is deeply implicated in nightmare suffering, and that using newer embodied trauma treatment methods that instill a sense of safety and connection are the starting points for treatment. I have incorporated what I learned in my doctoral research, and also what I have learned from existing evidence-based treatment to develop an individualized, embodied approach to treatment. This is described in my paper and upcoming workshop. I do hope you’ll join me.

 

Workshop: Nightmares and the Nervous System: How to treat disturbed dreaming
October 13, 9:30 to noon Pacific
LIVE online via Zoom, recording available to registrants
Cost: 140 (plus GST) = $147 USD

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Addictions recovery chaplain says dreamwork practice is ‘transformative’

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Dr. L.A. McRae offers impressions of their experience in the Embodied Experiential Dreamwork program

 

Sometimes a class can be truly transformative, and in this case Dr. L.A. McCrae, an addictions clinician and recovery chaplain feels this way after graduating from our year-long Embodied Experiential Dreamwork certification program. (A new cohort begins Sept. 21 and it’s not too late to join.)

L.A. noted that the dream program brought many helpful changes, both personally and professionally. “I am able to keep more of my dream content and really work through many underlying issues and concerns. Also, I have been able to integrate dreamwork with my individual clients and with my intensive outpatient groups. I now also keep a regular dream journal in my personal life. This has helped me to process trauma, grief, anxiety, and other uncertainties. I have found that I feel more alive in the non-waking life and am having meaningful connections and breakthroughs.”

I asked participants about the change in their comfort level in working with dreams. L.A. said, “At the beginning of the training, I felt that I was really in touch with my dreams. One of my spiritual gifts is dreaming and seeing beyond the veil. However, knowing what I now know, I would have put this competency at a 3. Since completing the program, I would say I am now an 8 and have a clear understanding of my growing edges.”

L.A. said their use of dreamwork in clinical practice has increased ten-fold and has shifted away from philosophical discussions to more experiential and focusing-oriented dreamwork. “With my individual clients, we always hold space for at least 15-minutes of dreamwork in every session. My clients really resonate with this practice and look forward to it. In my Anger Management outpatient group, we spend a significant amount of time with dreamwork and I have witnessed pretty amazing results. For instance, one participant was able to make the connections between the darkness he saw in his dream and the physical abuse from his father. This completely changed his demeanor and orientation towards healing. My Intensive Outpatient (IOP) group loves the opportunity to start the week with dream focusing in small groups. We went from no dreamwork to dreamwork almost every day.”

When asked what L.A. would say to those considering taking this program, they said, “DO IT! The experience in Dr. Ellis’ dreamwork course has changed both my personal and professional practice. The impact on/with my clients has been transformative. I have been able to access healing as an individual and hold space for healing with others. I am truly grateful for this experience and wish I could do it again! This dreamwork course was the best investment I made for professional development in the last decade.”

For more information about the program, visit https://drleslieellis.com/embodied-experiential-certification/.

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Recurrent Dreams: What are they trying to tell us?

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My main recurrent dream is of falling or diving from a precipitous height down a very steep cliff or slope. I wonder if it reflects all those years in university when I was competing for the diving team and spent hours each day falling fast and with a variable level of control. From a symbolic perspective, it could mean a fall from grace, and coming-down in some way, a loss of control. But these ideas are speculative. I prefer to spend time with the dreams themselves and their unique details – to open up to the dream so the felt sense it brings can unfold.

When someone brings me a recurring dream, I always ask not for general themes but the most recent or representative dream of its type. Recurrent dreams are important to pay attention to. They reflect more disturbed dreaming and I believe, represent themes or issues that are unresolved in some way. The classic version is the recurring nightmare after a trauma that has not been fully metabolized. There is a continuum of increasing severity and clinical concern that Domhoff (1993) identified as: repetition of dream elements, repetition of specific themes, exact repetition of dream content, repeated dream that resembles a trauma and repeated dream that replicates a trauma exactly. The research suggests that recurrent dreams coincide with decreased well-being, and that a positive shift often coincides with the cessation of such dreams.

Most adults have at least one recurring dream in their repertoire. I have been asked about these often lately (hence this blog post). A recent study by Schredl and colleagues (2022) reports that most recurrent dreams are negatively-toned, and the most common themes are ‘failure or helplessness’ and ‘being chased’. Interestingly, this supports my contention that dreams reflect the state of the nervous system – these themes could be seen as reflecting the classic immobility and the fight/flight responses to threat. Schredl wrote, “Overall, recurrent dreams seem to reflect waking life.”

However, for those who wake up many mornings feeling the aftermath of a dream depicting the same familiar challenge or fear, such generalizations are not helpful. In working with such dreams, I ask for details and particulars, and also how the dream situation feels to the dreamer. For example, Patty always had dreams of being trapped in a building, a kind of labyrinth, always being pursued and a sense she would be kidnapped. We entered this dream in her imagination, and she could see, to her surprise, that her pursuers were family members. She reflected that she was often the problem-solver and the emotional ballast for her family and this was a heavy burden. She spoke about setting better limits, making some changes, and as she did so, these dreams began to shift and fade.

Another dreamer I’ll call John always dreamt of being in a minefield, or a spy-like scenario where he had to go through all kinds of intricate traps and obstacles, and was always terrified of making a wrong move and detonating an explosion. These dream situations were like being Indiana Jones on a mission, but without the lightness. In feeling into a particular minefield dream, I asked John to notice the specific emotional flavour the dream brought, and wondered if it felt familiar. It quickly dawned on him that this was exactly what it felt like growing up with a narcissistic father prone to explosions of rage. Indeed, it felt like home was a minefield where it was easy to randomly put a foot wrong. He also reflected on his current relational patterns, and sensed into times with his partner that he felt he was walking on eggshells.

Understanding the possible source of such dreams brings some immediate relief, but insight doesn’t necessarily put an end to them. I have noticed that working through the challenging feelings they represent and then making life changes to address these dynamics is the most effective way to put recurrent dreams to rest – if that’s what’s desired. In my case, the falling dreams usually turn into something more fun than perilous: I am suddenly skiing with great skill, or can fly. Schredl noted that about 25% of recurrent dreams are positive: social, sexual, pleasant, interactive.

For those who have recurrent dreams of the unpleasant or downright terrifying variety, you might want to pause and consider what they could be about. I believe dreams reflect deep emotional processing, and if they repeat, there may be something that needs daytime attention. The further toward the severe end of Domhoff’s continuum (ie. replicative nightmares), the more the dreams are of clinical concern. The good news is that if the dreams and the life situations they reflect are worked with and metabolized, the more likely it is that the unwanted dreams will show up less often, and may even stop altogether.

 

References

Domhoff, G. W. (1993). The repetition of dreams and dream elements: a possible clue to the function of dreaming. In A. Moffitt, M. Kramer, & R. Hoffmann (Eds.), The functions of dreaming (pp. 293-320). SUNY Press.

Schredl, M., Germann, L., & Rauthmann, J. (2022). Recurrent Dream Themes: Frequency, Emotional Tone, and Associated Factors. Dreaming, OnlineFirst, 1

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Experiential dreamwork program doubles student confidence in exploring dreams

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I am always trying to improve my programs, so I asked my most recent cohort how their comfort level and ways of working with dreams have changed over the past year as a result of participating in my Embodied Experiential Dreamwork program. It is so gratifying to hear how many deepened and freed up their relationship to dreams. On average students started with a comfort level of 3/10 in their dreamwork practice, and ended up at 7, more than doubling their collective confidence in working with dreams.

I have gathered some representative comments from the recent exit survey. These might be especially useful for those of you considering taking this program – the next cohort begins September 21, and there are still a few spaces.

One student, who prefers to remain anonymous said that as a result of taking the program: “I have been more motivated to dive deeply into my dreams, to spend extra time with them, to come back to them. It is now easier for me to explore a dream from the felt sense as opposed to analyzing and interpreting. Perhaps what I appreciate the most is the concept of how dreams have a life of their own, and that working with them changes them… Now it is easier for me to make space for whatever shows up.”

She continued: “The videos, podcasts, and articles were well organized and very clearly presented. The materials offered were very generous, over and above expectation. Class time was amazing, and it was good to have most of it be experiential. Leslie is a master at working with dreams and facilitating the group experience, in addition to having a solid basis from an academic perspective… This course was more than I hoped for, and I can’t imagine it being any better!”

Carrie Moy, a focuser in training, wrote: “This program teaches you a powerful way to work with your own dreams and those of others.  My connection to my dream life has deepened considerably as result of this program.  I have developed reverence for and love of my dreams, and I feel this has had the secondary impact of me increasing compassion and tenderness towards myself. I also have enjoyed working with others’ dreams in group processes.  It has brought heart-opening connection during these uncertain times.”

Michelle Carchrae, a registered clinical counsellor, said: “Now that I’ve had direct experience of doing dreamwork as a client, I know that it works and I have a sense of what it feels like when it does work. I have more trust in the process as well as an intellectual framework and steps in a process that can guide me when doing this work with clients.”

Markel Méndez, a Jungian oriented art and psychodrama therapist, said, “Now I am less worried about meaning or interpretation and more focused on experience and body sensations. In this new path, I found more creativity.”

Walter Smith, a retired minister and spiritual director, said: “This class gives particpants the ability to feel at ease in dealing with their own dreams while at the same time opens many different ways dream workers deal with dreams. It is an exciting way to become engaged with the larger dream world.”

Regarding quality of instruction, Smith wrote, “Leslie has a beautiful gift of creating an open and safe place for people to share dreams. Her presentation skills are top-notch. She never seems rushed, and presents in a clear and concise manner. This class was worth every penny. Not a single minute or dollar was wasted. Taking this class was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Rocio Aguirre, a coach and meditation teacher tells prospective students: “You will increase your confidence to work with your own dreams and the dreams of others. You will have a greater understanding of trauma-related nightmares and how to work with them… and you will be in the hands of an expert in dreams and dreamwork. Leslie is always looking for new research and keeping us updated during the course.”

Head of PhD Studies at University of California, professor Anthony Kubiak summed it up by writing: “I would recommend this course without reserve. It gave much more confidence going forward with my own and others’ dreamwork.”

Spiritual director Nancy Finlayson commented on the extensive online materials that come with the course: “Loved it. I really appreciated the quality and content. It helped me grasp the concepts and bring them into practice… Leslie is an excellent instructor whose passion for dream work is contagious!”

There is more… and I am so humbled and pleased that everyone gave me the highest rating as an instructor. There were also some ideas for improvement, and I will be adopting these in the next cohort, which begins Sept. 21 and runs from 9:30 to noon on Wednesdays for the coming year (skipping December). Robbyn Peters Bennett will also be teaching the class with me. We do hope you will join our amazing dream study community.

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Nightmares and the nervous system: a new approach to treatment based on polyvagal theory

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At long last, my article that takes Porges’ polyvagal theory and the nervous system into account when considering the causes and treatment of nightmares, has been accepted for publication in the APA journal Dreaming. Although it could be many months before it is actually published, I am happy to share some of the main ideas and invite you to an online workshop on nightmare treatment based on this research. Those who sign up will receive an advance draft copy of the article, Solving the Nightmare Mystery: How Polyvagal Theory Updates our Understanding of the Aetiology and Treatment of Nightmares.

Here is the abstract: “Current theories about the aetiology of nightmares and mechanisms of action that account for their successful treatment have not yet taken the polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011) into consideration. While the polyvagal theory’s updated and multi-faceted view of the autonomic nervous system’s (ANS) response to threat has begun to transform the field of trauma treatment, most of these ideas have not yet been applied to nightmares and their treatment. This paper outlines how the theory may provide a missing link in understanding specific ways that trauma and adversity lead to chronic nightmares, and it offers a way to make sense of the heterogeneity of trauma-related symptoms and concomitant responses to nightmare treatments. A review of the literature demonstrates evidence of links between measures of ANS and physiological responses to nightmares. Content similarities between threat responses described by polyvagal theory and common nightmare themes provides an additional avenue for assessment and intervention. Theories of nightmare aetiology and treatment are evaluated with respect to polyvagal theory, and lastly, a proposed treatment protocol, Nightmare Relief, offers a polyvagal-informed, process-experiential approach to treating nightmares, with links to clinical examples.”

This sounds like quite a mouthful. In my upcoming seminar, I will present the most salient aspects of this material and focus mainly on introducing the Nightmare Relief protocol. I will be able to offer much more detail, clinical examples, demos and experiential practices than are covered in the academic paper. I would like those who take this workshop to be able to put these ideas into practice right away with clients who suffer from nightmares. Students of mine who have learned this way of working tell me it has stopped the nightmares of some of their clients.

What inspired me to spend the last couple of years on this enormous project? It stems from my experience as a trauma therapist, and many forces have converged to lead me to this focus on treating nightmares. In my 25 years working with posttraumatic stress injury and complex trauma, I have watched the practice of trauma treatment evolve, bringing more embodied practices and deep empathy into the work. I have enjoyed the move away from pathologizing stances toward a deeper understanding of the nervous system’s response to threat and ideas about how to help clients understand and befriend their bodies.

In the past few years, I completed a PhD with a focus on using focusing-oriented therapy, a gentle embodied approach to psychotherapy, for treating the nightmares of refugees. Encouraged by the results, I have continued to study nightmare treatment and was alarmed to discover two things: how few clinicians are versed in this important skill, and how imperative it is to treat nightmares. They are robustly linked to increased suicide risk, and associated not only with posttraumatic stress, but virtually all forms of mental health disturbance. The available treatments appear to work, but not necessarily for the most severe cases, and there is room to understand more about what works and why.

I have arrived at the idea that the nervous system is deeply implicated in nightmare suffering, and that using newer embodied trauma treatment methods that instill a sense of safety and connection are the starting points for treatment. I have incorporated what I learned in my doctoral research, and also what I have learned from existing evidence-based treatment to develop an individualized, embodied approach to treatment. This is described in my paper and upcoming workshop. I do hope you’ll join me.

Workshop: Nightmares and the Nervous System: How to treat disturbed dreaming
October 13, 9:30 to noon Pacific
LIVE online via Zoom, recording available to registrants
Cost: 140 (plus GST) = $147 USD

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Potential dangers (and benefits) of herbs that help you dream

By 4 on Potential dangers (and benefits) of herbs that help you dream

Clinical herbalist Sky Richarde says she is often asked about plants that can bolster your dream life by giving you more vivid or lucid dreams. However, few people are aware of the potential dangers of taking an herb without knowing about things like side effects and possible interactions with other medications.

“A lot of people have a misconception that just because it’s a plant, it’s very safe. It can be very safe for some people and can be very dangerous for others, especially for those who are taking medications or who already have other sleep disorders,” said Sky.

Sky is a student in my Embodied Experiential Dreamwork certification program and this presentation of her expertise was given at one of our final class meetings. (A new cohort begins this September). She has been working with medicinal plants all her life, and has also received formal training as a clinical herbalist, from Pacific Rim College in Victoria BC, where she now teaches several courses on herbal medicine.
Sky says that any herb can be helpful for promoting dream life if it is taken with that intention. Two of her favorites include lion’s mane (a fungi, not a plant) which increases mental clarity and can promote dream recall and lucid dreaming. She also likes holy basil or Tulsi, a pleasant tasting tea that can also help with certain sleep disorders and their physiological consequences. Herbs for sleep and dreaming are not a one-size-fits all but ideally are matched with what a person wants to achieve and take their unique sleep and dream life into consideration.

Sky warns against simply doing an internet search on dream-promoting herbs because side effects and dangers are rarely listed. Mugwort, for example, is often listed as an herb that can boost dream recall. However, most people burn mugwort in a room and allow the scent to promote dreaming rather than drinking this very bitter brew, which is not recommended if you suffer from acid reflux.

In general, Sky says an internet search on dream herbs typically yields a list of highly stimulating plants that are not conducive to sleep. Some can even induce psychosis. Blue Lotus Flower, for example, was used in Egyptian times, steeped in wine to induce euphoria. But some people have been inhaling it with vape pens and going into catatonic states that require hospitalization.

Another plant, with the common name African dream root, was used by certain tribes to communicate with their ancestors. But it was taken as part of a ritual, and vomiting is expected. “A lot of these plants are often taken out of the context of their culture and people are using them recreationally without understanding their properties or potential interactions with other substances.”

In terms of potential drug interactions, Sky offers two examples: People might take St. John’s Wort for stimulating dreams, not realizing it can completely disrupt how their birth control medication works. Passion flower is not compatible with anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication.

It is impossible to cover all of the possible benefits and dangers of dream-inducing herbs here. The main point is to treat plants as you would any other medicine or substance. Sky points out that you would not take another kind of drug without consulting a doctor and understanding its proper dosage and use, and if it has side effects. The same should be true for plants.

Sky recommends that if you’re wanting to explore the rich world of dreams with the assistance of plant allies, that the best course of action is to choose one plant to work with and research how it functions in the body, being sure to do a separate search for potential side effects and herb/drug interactions as well as herb/condition interactions, and try not to neglect learning about the cultural significance of the plants you want to use. Be fully informed before you consume any medicine.

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The dream text is not so sacred: Dreams as doorways to possibility

By 1 on The dream text is not so sacred: Dreams as doorways to possibility

“A dream is alive.” Eugene Gendlin wrote this in his book, Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams to describe the ongoing, in-process nature of dreams and how much potential they possess because of this. He said dreams are ‘unfinished’ and therefore they represent a huge possibility space. Rather than dismiss what may at first feel like fragmentary nonsense, we can sink into our dreams experientially and flesh them out. This idea, that dreams are alive and rife with possibility, also means that they are fluid and responsive to our attention, rather than fixed. I see them as a doorway to the larger imaginal world of the dream, an opening to something larger.

In the early days of dream interpretation, a dream text was taken a little too seriously, as if it were sacred. I do have a deep respect for dreams. But when you think about what a curious mix of image, temporal anomaly, strangeness and confusion a dream is when you wake up…
and when you think of how much more comes (and how much more escapes) when you attempt to capture the dream in words as you write it down or tell someone about it…
and when you sense how much of the dream was not quite captured, how much more there was than you can recall… you realize the dream text you have written is not so sacred. Rather, it is a memory jogger, a leaping-off place into the world of the dream itself, which like a felt sense, contains so much more than you can actually say about it.

This is why I have adopted such an experiential approach to dreams. And why I like what Gendlin says about dreams needing ‘careful but irreverent handling.’ It’s okay to play with them and to engage with them. What feels unhelpful is to try to pin them down too soon, or to confine them to a particular meaning. That way of working with dreams can be a fun, intellectual exercise, but ultimately one that takes you further away from the dream itself. To borrow the words of another of my mentors, Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, a dream likes to be met in the way of the dream. The way of the dream is through imagination, play, creativity, and wonder.

This is the introduction I gave to my day-long pre-conference workshop at the Person-Centred and Experiential Psychotherapies world conference this month in Copenhagen. It was truly an honour to be among a new tribe of like-minded therapists and share my approach to dreams. It feels like another step forward in my mission to bring a modern, collaborative and experiential form of dreamwork more widely into clinical practice.

Why Work with Dreams?
Dreamwork (according to the research) is implicated in regulating our emotions – and one of the reasons sleep deprivation leaves us cranky and out of sorts is that we have missed out on the activity in REM allows for processing of our most salient emotional concerns. Dreams have been shown to help us work through grief and the impact of trauma while we sleep. They bring depth, meaning and creative solutions that may not be as available to our busy waking minds. With all input from the outside world shut out, and with our logical processing faculties dampened down, dreaming is a state conducive to associative play with images that depict our deepest concerns.

In therapy, they are a doorway to deeper conversations. They open up topics the dreamer may be hesitant to broach, but offer these in images and metaphor so the dreamer can process difficult topics with the help of mediating images. What I mean by this is that the images in our dreams can carry important pieces of process forward without the need to retell a traumatic story or go around the same pain- or problem-saturated circles. You don’t even have to know how the dream relates to the dreamer’s story. Such insights often drop in later, on their own. In the meantime, my best advice is to follow the dream itself, dive deep and trust it.

Dr. Leslie Ellis offers online dreamwork training programs to mental health professionals. Her flagship Embodied Experiential Dreamwork certification program begins in mid-September, and there are still a few spaces left.

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Dream Emotion: A key to unlock their meaning and purpose

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By Dr. Leslie Ellis

Emotion is key to understanding and working with dreams. Many theories of dreaming suggest that emotion is what generates dreams, and that one of the reasons for dreaming is to process feelings. Dream researcher Ernest Hartmann famously called dreams ‘picture-metaphors’ for the dreamer’s most prominent emotion. For example, he found that in the aftermath of trauma, people would often dream not of the trauma itself but of an image that depicted the magnitude of their feelings, a tidal wave for example.

One theory of the purpose of dream emotion is to tag specific events that are important to us so they can be woven into the web of associated memories, and therefore, available when we need to retrieve them. Memory reconsolidation is a helpful notion here. It is a big phrase for the way our memories are updated. Emotion is what tags the memory as important, and until we undergo some kind of process to integrate these emotional memories, they will stay alive and infiltrate our dreams.

As a psychotherapist, I have found that dreams also bring up unmetabolized feelings because they need to be experienced and processed before the body can let them go fully. We can do some this processing in our dreams, but if the same images or themes recur, then we may need to do some deliberate daytime processing as well. This is especially true of trauma and protracted grief – these feelings are big and take time to integrate, and they can be so overwhelming the related dreams become nightmares that wake the dreamer up. This is a hallmark symptom of posttraumatic stress injury.

In my experience, the core of every dream is emotion — sometimes big emotion, sometimes underground feelings. They are in our dreams because they want to be integrated and transformed. Focusing creator Eugene Gendlin said that nothing can change until it is fully felt. This is why experiential dreamwork is so important, and why all modern dreamwork methods contain experiential elements. So when you are working with dreams, follow the feelings, and invite the dreamer to immerse in them, fully if possible, partially if necessary.

How do you find the emotional core of dream? Sometimes the dream is simply steeped in the feeling, and all you need to do is re-enter, revisit and engage with the dream images. Sometimes the feeling is hidden in a dream element or character. For example, in a dream I worked on where the landscape was dark and littered with corpses, the dreamer felt calm. In the dream, a nurse was able to bring one of the bodies back to life, and when I asked the dreamer to become the nurse, she started sobbing – the sadness in the dream was located in another dream character.

As you invite experiential exploration, visit all the corners of the dream, and hidden and contrary places. Watch for signs of striking an emotional chord, and when you do, slow down and invite the dreamer to drop in deeper. Ask into that felt sense: what did that just open up in you?

A good question from trauma work and focusing, to keep the emotion processing manageable: is this feeling mine alone or is it bigger than me? Some dreams can be about collective and/or intergenerational trauma. If so, it makes sense to enlist help from collective or ancestral sources – don’t go it alone.

Here is a trick I recently learned from expert dream tender Stephen Aisenstat: You can set up a dialogue where your helpful dream elements are the ones that turn and face the overwhelming emotions. This gives you, or the dreamer, a little bit of space to see what might otherwise be overwhelming from the vantage point of the observing self. This is a good way to help manage dream emotions that are too large or overwhelming to face alone. For example, a friend had a dream that included an image of Putin as a cold-eyed killer, and she needed to enlist the support of the archetypal mother to manage the terrifying image her dream had conjured up. She could imagine a face-off between the Great Mother and Putin so that much of the battle could take place outside of her, while she observed. This rendered the pain of the image much more manageable.

Dream emotions are not always so challenging, but they can be quite particular. It is as though our dreammaker wants to engender very particular feelings in us, and creates a scene filled with details that do just that, and just for us. This is what makes most dreams so very personal. Only the dreamer will react in a particular way to the strange collage of elements from past and present in their dream. Sinking into the emotions the dream evokes will carry the feeling forward to a new place, which is what the dream wants.