Your Dream Session
Your dream therapy session will typically span 60mins where we journey back into your dream to experience it from various forms and perspectives. Depending on your dream these could include human, animal and other living and non-living states.
The encounters we experience within these states offer valuable information that are often beyond language and can impact the whole mind-body system in intangible ways. We become affected by dream and touched by these intelligences.
When embodied, a vulgar dream villain becomes a source of swagger and within a beastly sea monster the process of moulting is felt.
Expect to experience the unexpected. Sensations can feel very different from your usual field of perception as habitual consciousness and everyday self constructs (gender, socioeconomic status, education etc) are suspended temporarily to allow for complete immersion with other intelligences and bodily forms.
Depending on the form, complete transits can come easily or we may experience some resistance particularly if the form is frightening as with nightmares or very different to our everyday modality. Sometimes buried emotions can surface or sensations are difficult to hold.
Below is a step by step guide to your dream therapy session.
If you have any further queries about your session or dream therapy in general, please feel free to contact me.
Body scan and hypnogogic meditation
We’ll spend a few minutes attuning to the body and exploring any tension or sensations that arise. This form of meditation facilitates body awareness, allowing us to maintain dual consciousness as we prepare to enter the hypnogogic or alpha state.
As our brainwaves tune into alpha or hypnogogic frequency, we slip into a state between sleeping and waking where reality ceases to be objective and becomes fluid. We gain access to the subconscious and become more receptive to information. In this state, a sense of timelessness is experienced as it warps and folds, just as it does when we are dreaming. This will be our primary state throughout the dream therapy session.
Re-entering the dream
When hypnogogic or alpha brainwave frequency is attained, we’ll re-enter your dream in the present and explore associations and connections that lie within your field of awareness. This can include associations with dream characters and places or connections to themes and emotions within the dream.
Transiting into dream phenomena
Once established within the dream, we’ll explore the dream phenomena living within the dream. This process involves an encounter with other and depending on your dream, could take human, animal, living or non-living form.
Jung referred to these dream phenomena as archetypes and symbols, Harpur refers to them as daimones – spirit entities that want to experience our physical form as much as we desire their soul.
We begin by observing and mimicking these various forms with the objective of experiencing through the perspective of other. While attuning to another state of being, we remove ourselves from everyday habitual consciousness and become receptive to the intelligence and physical sensations within this form.
Some sensations may be difficult to hold or very different from our everyday experience however all are a gift bestowed by presence. The villain is not just a symbol of cunning and power, the eagle of freedom and flight, the prostitute of sensuality and sexual prowess; when we embody these symbols they bestow their power upon us.
This is the magic of dreamwork.
Creating a composite
Together we’ll explore and embody at least three dream phenomena and create a composite of sensations to hold simultaneously. As you experience holding these states, an emerging new state may arise that creates a shift in the body. This is the emergent phenomenon. This can take place during our session, during your practice as homework or may not emerge at all for this particular dream. In this case, the composite is enough for the body.
Re-entering the room and discussion
We’ll now begin to emerge from the alpha or hypnogogic state and return to beta frequency, our general state of being. We’ll discuss your dream therapy experience, including any questions or comments you’d like to share.
Homework
Homework will be assigned to practise the composite and monitor any changes in your life or evolution of dreams as a result of your work.
Get in touch
If you have any further queries about your session or dream therapy in general, please feel free to contact me.