Dreamwork — what is it and what is it good for?
Our dear awarenow guide Katherine Lawson sat down with us to talk about dreamwork, as a comprehensive approach for deep transformation and breakthrough.
You can watch the interview on our Youtube channel.
Katherine is a remarkable practitioner of the embodied imagination method. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in integrative mental health and already has a master’s degree in psychotherapy. During her studies, she developed an interest in dreamwork, and she wrote a thesis on the use of dreamwork for healing and how to use this practice to complete the hero’s journey.
Dreamwork is different from dream interpretation. Dream interpretation wants to assign specific meaning to dreams, while dreamwork aims at exploring the images present in dreams and the feelings they evoke, without attempting to come up with a single meaning. Katherine believes that dreams can help us heal from traumas, and show us our calling in life.
During the practice, you become the images that you see in your dreams and they tell you the reason why they are there. Dreams come in service of dreamers. Their message is that there is something to integrate into your waking life. The images you see in dreams often show up in real life — and it’s not a coincidence. Doing this work I learned not to believe in coincidences.
Dreamwork may seem in contrast with the mechanical and dry environment where tech people spend most of their time, but in reality, this work condition is the reason why many tech people get hungry for spiritual experiences. Katherine believes that we are all creative because the images we see in dreams are created by and for us.
Katherine told us that people often reach out to her because they have recurrent dreams that evoke certain emotions. They feel that these images are carrying an important message that they have to transfer into their waking life — but they don’t know what it is. Katherine helps them capture that message using the embodied imagination method.
But how does dreamwork begin? The practice usually starts with the general description of the dream and the feelings it evokes in the dreamer. Then, the guide asks the person to describe the specific features of the images. As people describe the experience in more detail, they slowly become absorbed into the image.
Katherine explained that dreamwork provides people with tools to put in a spiritual toolbox, that they can use in their waking life. Leaders at work, for example, can take out these tools when they want to help their team focus and find a balance. Thanks to these tools, managers can create a state of mindfulness to bring everybody back to presence.
What follows is an example of embodied imagination. In the video, you can see Katherine guiding our CEO Alina through the experience. Here you can have an idea of the different steps that Katherine uses during a dreamwork session:
- Sit comfortably, and put both your feet on the ground.
- Breathe naturally.
- Close your eyes.
- Familiarize yourself with the voice of your coach.
- Take a couple of breaths and notice the energy between the two of you.
- In your imagination, create a bubble of energy around the two of you.
- Take another couple of breaths.
- Let the bubble rise up until it’s resting on the top of your head.
- Let that energy drop into your head and bathe your body.
- Keep on breathing.
- Start your body scan: What do you feel? Just notice. Feel the energy bathing your body, visualize it running through the entire body until you reach the sole of your feet. The voice of your coach will guide you through this process, counting 1 to 10.
- Once the energy gets to the feet, describe the image you see.
At this point, your guide will ask you to notice and describe all the details that you see in the image, the feelings it evokes, and in which parts of your body you feel these sensations. As you get more in touch with the image, you will start to become it and the message will become clearer.
In Alina’s case, this dreamwork session helped her to understand her own psyche better, to get in touch with her deeper callings. And get clarity about the message that kept coming up in her dream.
If you’re looking for a profound help with your dreams, your inner world — request your 1:1 with Katherine here:
