Trauma Dreams

Dreams are our psyche’s response to trauma. This video explores trauma dreams through the therapeutic lens of embodied and somatic dreamwork and how this method can trigger the body’s self healing response.

Dreams offer a safe space to work with trauma because the images have already been digested by the brain to make the traumatic experience more palatable. This metabolising work of imagination which begins to play with reality in order to dissolve hard-to-digest chunks of experience makes it possible to work with trauma without ever working on trauma itself.

One of the natural functions of dreaming is to integrate traumatic experiences into the larger tissue of the psychological system where new narratives can be created and recontextualised. 

Robert Bosnak

Somatic and Embodied Dreamwork creates shifts when working with trauma as dream images are worked deeply into the body to stimulate repair.  This dreamwork expands awareness and psychological flexibility allowing for something new and transforming to unfold. Through embodying images we gain new perspectives which lead to revelation as opposed to interpretation. Complex feelings such guilt and self-blame which have been carried for decades can be shifted and alleviated. 

When dreams change, it’s a sign of recovery. New neural pathways are formed, increasing brain plasticity and the opportunity for post traumatic growth. The worst of trauma can be helped by turning to dreams.