Creating a container for attending to dreams is at the heart of this work. This looks like attuning to the relations, to what or how you are being drawn, and opening senses to the dream as it presents itself: to the landscape and elemental qualities, to all forms of creaturely figures, human and otherwise, to emotional tones, to the familiar, and to the strange all of which may spark an idea or an association rich with sensorial material and may activate a movement.

With this work, there’s no agenda, or certainly not the kind we’re expecting. The work is not to fix the dream in place or stabilize it with meaning. Instead, it is to notice the unrecognizable, as this opens new worlds, and we need these worlds with their diversity and boundless multiplicities.

Diving into context and associations, images laden with archetypal significance, and the dream's morphological impulses is all possible. My aim as a dreamworker is to let go of any insistence on theory or quick answers, yielding instead to “a modest ambition and a daring practice” of image-centered dreamwork.

How can I begin working with my dreams?

There are many ways to engage in this work. Writing your dreams down is the first step. Dreams are ephemeral, and writing them down helps us remember them. Many people say they have trouble remembering their dreams or that they don’t dream at all. But you do dream up to five or seven times per night. Here are a few suggestions to help you begin or rekindle your relationship with dreams.

• Ask for dreams.  Tell Dream Maker that you would like to start remembering and working with your dreams.  Place a pencil or pen and a pad of paper next to your bed before going to sleep.  Some people prefer to make an audio recording of their dreams if they wake up in the middle of the night with one; this is an option as well. 

• In the morning, upon waking and before sitting up, let yourself notice any dream material that has arrived on the shores of waking awareness.  Is there a feeling, a word, a dream image, or a whole episodic story? Whatever you have, let yourself linger with it by going over the dream material from this position.

• Once you're up and about, take a few minutes to jot down the dream so you have it to work with in the moment or later on.  Write the dream in the present tense, using verbs that end in “ing”.  This will provide you with a sense of nowness and action.  Date the dream and give it a title.

• Naps can also provide an opening for dreams to emerge.  

• If you’re waiting for dreams to come, consider keeping a journal to write in first thing each morning. Just start by writing three pages entirely in stream of consciousness.

• Keep in mind that dream recall is reduced by such things as fatigue, lack of sleep, loud interruptions (including alarm clocks), vitamin B deficiency, and drugs (including alcohol, sleeping pills, antihistamines, and stimulants).