COURSES ON DREAMS AND FOCUSING

Products at a Glance

Courses for Clinicians

1 Year Course

This program is a deep dive into the world of dreams, and a clear path to learning how to engage yourself and guide others in embodied experiential dreamwork practices.
Applications are open for the September 2025 cohort. Space is limited so book early, as these cohorts do fill up.

NEW! 30% DISCOUNT

Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, especially among young people. We are not getting better at treating or predicting it. What is not well-known is that there is a robust and treatable link between nightmares and suicide. 

The complete online course for clinicians. Learn why treating nightmares is both essential and surprisingly simple in this online course for mental health professionals, dreamworkers, and anyone who supports those with nightmares.

This self-paced course covers the basics of focusing founder Eugene Gendlin’s own steps for those new to focusing.

Dream Circle for graduates of my dreamwork and focusing programs, a chance to meet every season to learn a new dreamwork practice and share the appreciation of dreams with like-minded co-participants.

 Are you intrigued about the dreams that stay with you… the ones that linger in your mind and body for hours, week, even years after you have dreamt them?
I believe such dreams hold a special power for insight and transformation, and in a recent talk, I discuss why this is and offer an example of how I worked with such a dream.

2-Year Course

The curriculum of our 2-year training program is made up of 4 separate and complementary courses. If you take all 4, you are eligible for professional certification.

You commit to only one course at a time. In fact, we welcome people who just want to take specific courses as well as people who take the full training for FOT certification.

 There are many reasons to talk about your nightmares, to rescript them, and to seek treatment if they cause you significant distress. These intense dreams can be seen as your own body’s attempt to integrate the trauma you have suffered, but to realize this helpful effect, you must work with the dreams rather than avoiding them. 

SELF-PACED

Treating nightmares is imperative

3 CLASSES

$97$57

As expected, the pandemic has brought with it heightened anxiety levels. This has resulted in a sharp increase in nightmares and anxiety dreams. Left unattended these dreams can leave the dreamer feeling uneasy and fearful. Yet, equipped with the right skills and insights, these dreams can serve a positive purpose, guiding the dreamer towards healing and wholeness.

This course has been created with a view to helping people grapple with nightmares and anxiety dreams. It is intended for anyone who has a nightmare or anxiety dream and wants to deal with that. It will also be beneficial for therapists who work with their patients’ nightmares.

Courses for Everyone

A self-paced course with 14 bite-sized prompts for engaging with your own dreams.

Designed by nightmare expert Dr. Leslie Ellis, this self-paced user-friendly and accessible online course covers the very latest in science and research about what nightmares are, what they’re not, and what you can do about them.

NIGHTMARE PACKAGE

Get the Nightmare Relief complete course plus the workshop recording bundle for only $199 and SAVE $261.

Webinars and Presentations

This workshop describes a new paper by Dr. Leslie Ellis that describes current literature and her clinical experience linking nightmares and the autonomic nervous system. Porges Polyvagal Theory has been applied to many therapies, but until now, not to nightmares. This webinar is a great companion to her paper: Solving the nightmare mystery (Dreaming, March 2023)

Dream Webinars: A Series of Talks on Deepening the Felt Sense of Dreaming

Each of these recordings covers a specific aspect of experiential dreamwork. Classes typically include an experiential guided session, brief talk, demo and Q/A. These webinars are friendly and informative on their own or as a sample for those considering the dreamwork certification program. They are free (pay-what-you-can) to attend live, or $20 for the recording and speaking notes/powerpoint.

Dreams have famously been described as ‘picture metaphors’ of the dreamer’s most salient emotion (by Dr. Ernest Hartmann). Embodying the specific feeling constellated in a dream image promotes the processing of emotion initiated by the dream itself. Learn how to understand and engender the experience of allowing dream emotion to flow and change through embodiment of elements of the dream

This session introduces you to how to apply experiential focusing to dreams, and specifically how to locate and embody the ‘life-forward’ energy in a dream. This can be applied personally or professionally and includes a poignant demo of how finding ‘the help’ enables the dreamer to go forward in their dream.

Learn Gendlin’s simple way to avoid interpreting the dream as something you already know! This session describes a bit of Gendlin’s ‘philosophy of the implicit’ as applied to dreams, and then offers an experiential and live example of how to use ‘bias control.’

As is true of anything alive and in process — like a beautiful garden or our own life story — dreams are unfinished. They continue to evolve, and we can bring our curious attention to participate in their evolution. Recurring dreams will move forward if we engage with them in this way. In this session, I will discuss the transformational practice of re-entering a dream and allowing it to carry forward.

Disturbing dreams can be among the most important and transformative. They can also be a warning sign, or your mind-body’s attempt to metabolize trauma memories. Dream and nightmare expert Dr. Leslie Ellis is offering a free seminar to guide you through these important questions — for mental health professionals, and all interested dreamers.

Get all 3 recordings for $50

My Book

By Dr. Leslie Ellis (Routledge 2019/2020)

This is an accessible yet deeply informative guide to working with dreams in clinical practice – intended as a one-stop primer for those who want to incorporate dream engagement into your practice. It is also an informative, clear and entertaining book for anyone interested in dreams.

Jung Platform Courses

Focusing is a method of getting a sense of yourself from the inside. I (Dr. Leslie Ellis) have decades of clinical experience using this gentle way to access the body’s wisdom. Focusing is a method of inner exploration that emphasizes each person’s directly-felt experience. What you feel bodily is the most important guide to a focusing session.

In this course you will learn an engaging, experiential way to talk about dreams with your clients. We will also look at the clinical benefits to dreamwork, and how the current science of dreaming supports its use.

In this course you’ll learn how to use the focusing and embodied dreamwork methods of Eugene Gendlin to reach into this wider way of knowing.

This course has been created with a view to helping people grapple with nightmares and anxiety dreams.

Services, Sessions

Leslie Ellis, PhD, RCC offers dreamwork supervision, training within organizations (ie treating PTSD nightmares) and dream/nightmare sessions/consultations (contact leslie@drleslieellis.com for rates and availability). 

Robbyn Peters Bennett, LPC is also available for dreamwork sessions and supervision, and is able to see clients long-term. She is located in Portland, Oregon.

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"This course is equipping me with the tools to work with a wide variety of clients on a much deeper level. Moreover, I have found it to be personally helpful as it has provided me with a platform to further engage with myself"
Testimonial image
Julie Martin
Mental Health Professional