It was winter 1979 in Edinburgh, and as usual the wind off the North Sea cut to the bone. A group of eight of us huddled in a circle around an electric bar heater in Winifred’s front room. Although we met weekly, we knew little of each other’s outer lives. Our only task was to explore the workings of our inner worlds through sharing dreams.

Dr. Winfred Rushforth sat in an overstuffed armchair, a gently commanding presence, her snowy hair forming a halo around a strong square wrinkled face framed by oversize glasses. At 96 she had been practicing as a psychoanalyst for over 50 years and her owl-like gaze could penetrate any dream to its most obscure depths. [Read more…] about Appreciating Dreams

This is the first of a two-part article on how to work with dreams. Tongue-in-cheek, I explore different aspects of dreamwork using the metaphor of fish and fishing. In this section, I deal with how we catch, hold on to and recognize different kinds of dreams. A second article will address how to prepare, cook and digest these strange creatures of the unconscious.

Dreams are slippery fish—hard to catch and difficult to hold. They don’t give up their nourishment without a bit of a struggle and some resolute cooking. [Read more…] about Fishing for Dreams: Part 1

This is the second of a two-part article on dreamwork using the metaphor of fishing. We have caught our dream-fish and held it tight so it does not slip through the fingers of our mind. Now comes the really interesting part: How to prepare and cook our dream so that it provides nourishment for our hearts, minds and souls.

Lay out the fish
Our dream-fish lies fresh in our minds-eye. We examine it carefully to see what we need to do next. This is when we write down the dream. [Read more…] about Fishing for Dreams: Part 2

I had a vivid dream recently. In it I was visiting a friend who looked vibrant and told me he had started working with a new kind of therapy offered by a very special therapist. My friend turned to me and asked, “Would you like to make every little change you ever thought of?” [Read more…] about Dreaming of Change