Go Play Inside: Cultivating a Compelling Inner Life, Three Ways
Chasing external sources of happiness may have failed you, as ultimately our deepest satisfaction comes from within. But often when people turn their attention inward, they don’t like what they find. Dr. Leslie Ellis offers three ways to constructively engage with your inner life. We all know the road to greater life satisfaction has more
Daydreaming is Our Baseline State, Not Something to Avoid
We spend half of our waking lives daydreaming. This may or may not be a good thing – it depends what your daydreams are like. A Harvard study on daydreaming entitled ‘A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind’ may be giving daydreaming a bad rap. In a culture dominated by a drive for productivity, there
To Sleep Better, We Need to Surrender to Our Dreams
A podcast review by Dr. Leslie Ellis The main reason people don’t sleep is that they have a bad relationship with dreaming. – Dr. Rubin Naimin I was so inspired by a recent conversation between Nikos Patedakis and Dr. Rubin Naiman on the Dangerous Wisdom podcast, I want to share some of their surprising
Our state of mind and body prior to falling asleep can affect the way we dream, and this can be a target for treatment for those who experience frequent trauma-related nightmares. If you are someone who has trouble falling asleep because you can’t quiet your mind and body, you are also more likely to have
Dream Wisdom from Montague Ullman, Master of Dream Group Process
Montague Ullman developed what is likely the most popular and democratic method of working with dreams in groups. Working with dreams in a group can open multiple avenues in a dream, deepen our capacity for empathy and illustrate how all dreams have archetypal dimensions that speak to us all. (Sign up here if you want
Active Imagination: How and Why
For Those Who Don’t Dream, Invite Waking Dreams If you are someone who doesn’t recall many dreams, and yet would like to engage with your dream life more deeply, there are a couple of solutions. I typically offer tips for improving dream recall but another option is to cultivate waking dreams. If you are persistent
Befriending the old hag: A primer on sleep paralysis
Folklore, causes and approaches to treatment and prevention In Newfoundland, they tell stories of her: a terrifying creature said to live in the ocean and torment those who dare to sleep near the shore. In a typical account, a fisherman returns home exhausted from a long day at sea, lays down to rest and starts
New study shows altered nervous system activity for those with frequent nightmares
New study shows altered nervous system activity for those with frequent nightmares In a recent paper on nightmares and the autonomic nervous system (ANS), I described how polyvagal theory might inform clinicians seeking to understand and treat those with frequent nightmares (Ellis, 2022). A new paper, desceribed below, offers further evidence that nightmares are implicated
Dream engineers work on promising ways to improve nightmare treatment
A group of dream researchers I met with this past month are focused on using technology and engineering to tackle big questions about dreams. February’s session was focused on improving treatment for nightmares. Consistent themes were: adding sensory triggers during dreaming to augment existing treatments; and the clear need for effective nightmare treatments to be