Leslie Ellis 

Can you start by letting me know what you learned from the program… what you went in expecting and how it turned out?

Shauna

Sure, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I really just wanted to be part of a program that was focused on dream work to give me a structure and an understanding. Before this I had been in a dream group for two years, and working with dreams was so helpful, I wanted my clients to have a similar experience. So I was looking for ways to work with dreams one on one, for tools to help me help them unlock what they need from their dreams.

Leslie Ellis 

So you were doing your own group dream work, but you hadn’t really translated this into your clinical practice.

Shauna

Yeah, it was really difficult to do that. I tried it. And it just kept falling really flat. Yet I know dreamwork can be really helpful because I had that experience personally. I just needed to understand how. And I had been wanting to really focus on more embodied work as well. Your course sounded like exactly what I wanted — it’s embodied, experiential — and so I signed up.

I think the most pleasant surprise for me was how much the experience — when you worked with one of my dreams, where I was in the swimming pool — was so soothing, and healing for me. I think was the biggest gift I got from the program personally: the sense that our dreams hold such healing and power if we just listen to them. And we can feel it in our bodies and keep it with is. That was such a new thing for me.

Leslie Ellis 

Probably that’s because I do a lot of focusing, which entails finding the help in a dream, and looking for what gives you that good feeling. I know dreams can also make you really uncomfortable. But searching for what feels good is definitely an emphasis I put into the way I work with dreams and teach others.

Shauna

To me that is the most interesting thing that you do, other than you’re just a warm and welcoming presence. I’ve been in other trainings for dreamwork, and I don’t know that anybody else has that. You have this ability to put everybody at ease so very quickly. And at no point was I really stressed out about exploring harder images.  And I think that dream in particular had a hard image at the end. And so having that to carry through the dream has been just so helpful.

While I was still in the program, I was able to use this learning with a client on their PTSD nightmare. And it was so powerful to see them transform. They went from being so afraid and waking up four and five times a week for six years, to having a nightmare maybe once or twice a month. And even that wasn’t as scary. It wasn’t the same dream because we had worked through it and they came to understand the nightmare on their own. It wasn’t something I gave them, it came to them from within themselves. I think that too was a huge gift from this program. I was able to see how to work with nightmares in such a way that you can keep the client company in the dream material so that it’s not scary or overwhelming. And we can release the hold the nightmares have on them.

Leslie Ellis 

And I’m so happy to hear that happened for you and your client. Because my experience in working with nightmares that when you accompany someone and make them feel like safe going into what is usually pretty difficult, their nightmare is never the same after that. Sometimes the dreams just stop and almost always they will change. I don’t want to overstate it, but I’ve had that experience every time someone’s brought me a nightmare, and we’ve really been able to work with it. I’m so glad you had that experience and I’m glad for your client.

Shauna

Thanks, this case really stands out because this client who had a specific trauma that haunted them so badly they attempted suicide. I started seeing them after they were released from the hospital and for them to be released from that trauma was the biggest gift.  We worked with their dream about three times, with each iteration of it, because it kept changing. The way that you taught me enabled us to go back into the dream, and let them dream the dream forward and the dream shifted. It took a few workings of it to really shift it. And then they had his aha moment, and now it’s gone.

Leslie Ellis 

Wow, that’s wonderful. But yeah, I guess yeah, sometimes it may take more than once. But it sounds like the realization just came to him spontaneously.

Shauna

It was in one of our last sessions together. They were doing his morning meditation practice, and thay just got it. They said, I almost called you because I couldn’t wait to tell you.

That was the most powerful example. In another one, in finding help in a dream, I asked a client to embody this feeling of being the ‘super spy’ from the dream, and after that, their confidence level just went way up. They were able to get employed, and to do things that they weren’t able to do before. They has been just so disconnected from that part of themselves. They described the spy as brave and capable, and they just didn’t feel that way. But when they embodied and finally accepted it, they said, I felt like I used to feel like before all this stuff happened.

Leslie Ellis 

You’re telling me that this client embodied the spy and regained the confidence that he had lost? And that when he felt that from his dream, he was able to carry it into his life and get a job and all kinds of wonderful things happened as a result?

Shauna

Yes. I think what’s interesting about it is that they never experienced anything like that before. And they trusted me enough to try this. They told me specifically it was something about that character. They said, I remembered a part of myself that I’d been forgetting. And I said, yeah, it’s been chasing you down in your dreams for like months.

Leslie Ellis 

Fun, perfect. It makes me so happy to hear all of this. So it sounds like the course gave you a comfort level that you didn’t have before when people bring you dreams or nightmares.

Shauna

I would definitely say that this course gave me confidence to work with a dream and not fear that I was gonna mess something up. I just so desperately wanted to be able to do it for my clients because being in a dream group helped me so much. And I think that’s one of the biggest things — it gave me confidence, and it gave me like a springboard. I have those steps from your book. And if nothing else comes to mind, I rely on them. If one method isn’t working, we try another one.

Leslie Ellis 

I know what you mean. When people start to do work on a dream, and then it doesn’t open up, they’re not always sure where to go next. And then it just falls flat and they don’t want to try again. So I can see that. Because now, for me personally, I have a repertoire of at least a dozen avenues that could potentially open something up, and I don’t worry. A dream always has such a huge landscape, there’s always more to see. You don’t have to know what to do in advance, you’re just asking them to look around.

So, if I am a therapist that is considering taking this course, what would you what would you tell me about it? Pros, cons? What would I want to know?

Shauna

I would definitely say if you’re somebody who’s not comfortable with talking about being in the body, and you want a more analytical approach, this is not the program for you. But if you’re wanting to increase your skill set with embodied work, and learn about internal listening, I think this is probably the best place to start. Because I think this course is a great combination of pulling together methods that Leslie has found to be really helpful, that are quite complementary. Even if you just read her book, it’s a good overview of embodied and experiential dream work. It’s definitely a less intimidating way to approach dreams, and more meaningful to the client. So if you’re wanting something that’s going to be make it easier to help you tap your client’s dreams in a way that they can enjoy and grow from, this is the program to take.

Leslie Ellis 

So you’re saying this way of working with dreams makes it easier for everybody, therapist and client alike, an easier way in. Dream work can be kind of daunting, but you find this to be really natural approach.

Shauna

Yes, a natural and undaunting way to approach dream work for any level of clinician. And because it’s easier for me as a clinician to jump into it, because it feels doable and not overly complicated, the clients themselves are also more willing and able to pick it up.

It’s also easier for them because it’s not making it into an intellectual exercise. The other day somebody asked me, what does this specific dream image mean? Because that’s usually the first thing people ask is, what does it mean? And I always tell them, it depends on what it means to you. It’s like you’re teaching people to be a co explorer in an experiential environment. So you enter into what is almost like virtual reality, and you’re in that landscape with them, trying to see it with them. And I just think there’s something about that that makes the client more inclined to participate too.

Leslie Ellis 

So you’ve learned how to be really in it with them, searching together for what the essence is, or where the meaning is in their dream.

Shauna

Yeah. Which I think fits more with how we do therapy now. We don’t really approach therapy from the stance that I’m an expert, you’re not. We now approach therapy with a sense that we are figuring it out together. And I was really happy to find this approach to dreamwork: let’s do this together, let’s figure out what this means for you.

Leslie Ellis 

That’s a really nice way to put it. You are actually helping me understand and articulate what I’m doing as I teach about dreamwork, which is so helpful because it has evolved so much. Every time I teach something, it moves another step further because I’ve done so much more practice or thinking about it. So it’s always a work in progress. Before we stop, is there anything else that you wanted to add about these courses?

Shauna

If you’re on the fence, I would say, just do it. If nothing else, even if you don’t use it with clients, you are going to get the experience of working with a dreamwork partner, and you will know yourself better at the end of it. One of the most valuable parts of the experience was working with my dream partner, who I’m still friends with — we still work dreams. For me, the personal experience and figuring out things that really needed to be figured out helped me trust that the major life decision I was making was right, because it was coming from within me. It wasn’t a bunch of people telling me what I need to do, it was my inner voice. I trust that inner voice more now because I feel like I can hear it better having learned focusing and then being able to sit with myself in my dream. When it’s my own voice in the dream, I can hear it and trust it. That’s profound.

Leslie Ellis 

That’s really wonderful. I’ve heard this feedback from other other people as well, that the way of working isn’t just about working with dreams, but it’s a new way of being with yourself and your clients – that the experiential approach has infiltrated the rest of their practice, and this has changed the way they are with clients and with themselves. It has permeated other aspects of work and life.

Shauna

I will say that with the clients I took on after I started the program, I was able to feel their progress in a different way. Because I was so in touch with my own body, I could tune into what was happening in them. I think it made me a better clinician.