Transforming Nightmares Through Creative Dream Work

I've been rereading Stephen LaBerge's book, Lucid Dreaming because of my strong interest in dreams in general, and lucid dreams in particular.  One of the recommendations he makes about dealing with nightmares is that, rather than avoiding them, to deal directly with nightmarish figures in dreams, which is a creative form of dreamwork to help overcome unconscious aspects that crop up in our dreams.

 Nightmares

Transforming Nightmares Through Creative Dream Work

For most of us, our usual reaction to waking up from a nightmare is to be glad we've awoken and want to immediately avoid thinking about it. But I agree with Dr. LaBerge that avoiding the unpleasant aspects of dreams and thinking we're now off the hook is, as he states, a little like a prisoner who digs his way out of his prison cell only to find that he's in the cell next door.  You haven't escaped. You've merely exchanged one cell for another, and whatever unresolved issues you might be having remain unconscious for potentially more nightmares.

Lucid Dream Work with Nightmares While Asleep

Dr. LaBerge has recommendations in his book on how to do dream work with nightmares while in a lucid state in the dream as well as strategies for dealing with nightmarish figures while awake.  The main focus of the book is how to achieve lucidity in dreams while asleep, which can be a very exciting and useful state to achieve.  But learning to transform nightmarish figures after the dream by having a "dialogue" with them can also be a creative solution to overcoming nightmares.

Dr. LaBerge recommends that, even in a waking state, we can use our imagination to create this dialogue with the figure from the nightmare by asking this figure who s/he is and what message he or she might have for you.  This can be done with paper and pen (or on computer).  In order to do this, we must suspend disbelief while we're doing this exercise and not worry about looking silly.  Anyway, you're likely to be doing this on your own, so why worry about what other people might think?  You'd be doing this to overcome an unpleasant experience so it doesn't continue to recur.

Dream Work and Hypnotherapy

This same type of dream work can also be done with a skilled hypnotherapist who works with dreams and who can help you to get back into the dream state to do the work. It often feels safer to do dreamwork with a trained therapist, especially for recurring dreams, rather than trying to do it on your own.  It all depends on how comfortable you are doing the work.

Lucid Dreams

In any case, I recommend the book, "Lucid Dreaming" by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, which can be obtained in either paperback or as an e-book.  The advantage of the paperback is that you get a CD with helpful suggestions.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR clinician, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I work with individual adults and couples.  I have also helped many clients to find creative solutions to their problems.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, please call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

You can also read my article about Dream Incubation.

Creative Imagination and Dream Work for Writers

In my prior blog post, I wrote a post entitled, "Working with Dreams to Develop Your Creative Imagination" (http://www.psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot.com/2011/07/working-with-dreams-to-develop-your.html).

Creative Imagination, Dream Incubation, and Dream Work to Overcome Creative Blocks:
In this blog post, I will focus on how creative imagination and dream work can be a source of inspiration for writers. As I've mentioned before, among the clients that I work with in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, I work with writers, actors, musicians, composers, and other people who are in the creative arts.

Creative Imagination and Dream Work For Writers

In any creative endeavor, it's not unusual to develop a creative block that gets in the way of doing the work. Dream incubation and the subsequent dream work that is possible from incubated dreams is often very helpful for writers who are experiencing creative blocks or at an impasse in their work.

For instance, if a writer is struggling with a particular character or a scene in a story, he or she can incubate a dream to overcome this impasse. As I mentioned in prior blog posts, to incubate a dream, you can either give yourself a suggestion before going to sleep that you want to have a dream to overcome this impasse or you can work with a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist who is trained in Embodied Imagination dream work (developed by Robert Bosnak) to help you.

When we do Embodied Imagination dream work for incubated dreams, we not only have access to our own experiences in the dream, we also have access to the experiences of the other characters in the dream.

As I've mentioned before, in Embodied Imagination dream work, we start with our own experiences, but we don't stop there. We also access the experiences of the other characters in the dream. Now, I realize that this might sound odd, but one of the basic concepts of Embodied Imagination is that we make no assumptions about where the dream is coming from or who the other characters are in the dream.

Rather than assuming that the characters are a part of ourselves, as we might in Gestalt or other types of psychotherapy, we make no assumptions. We allow the other characters to have their own "lives" in the dream. This frees us up to experience these characters from their own perspectives. Needless to say, I'm not referring to the type of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia or some other delusional or psychotic disorder might have. All I'm saying is that, for the purpose of doing the dream work, we suspend disbelief in the service of doing the creative dream work and using our imagination. For a fuller explanation of this phenomenon, I recommend that you read Robert Bosnak's book, Embodiment.

So, for example, a writer might incubate a dream about a particular character that he or she is not satisfied with in the story. The dreams that are the result of this incubation would include valuable information about the character, sometimes coming from the character's own mouth.

When we're dreaming, generally, we're in a more relaxed state than in our regular waking experience. This allows us to have access to a deeper sense of our imagination than when we're awake. In these dreams, characters and scenes "come alive" in ways that they often don't in our usual waking consciousness. And it takes no extra time since we would spend the same amount of time sleeping whether we incubated dreams or not.

I also find that, like with most things, maintaining a sense of humor helps with the creative process.

About Me

I am a licensed psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist. I am also a hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and an EMDR therapist.

I work with individuals and couples, and my office is convenient located in Manhattan.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Working with Dreams to Develop Your Creative Imagination

Dreams and Your Creative Imagination:
I love working with dreams, my own dreams as well as clients' and friends' dreams. Dream work provides us with a unique opportunity to access our creative imagination in ways that are often not accessible to us in the normal waking state.

Working with Dreams to Develop Your Creative Imagination

What Do We Mean by "Imagination"?
The word "imagination" has gotten a bad rap in modern times, especially for adults. Often, when we hear the words "imagined" or "imagination," it has a negative connotation. We often think of these words as meaning something that is false, as in: "It was just his imagination." 

But the word "imagination" has a much broader meaning. When we can open up to our imagination, we open ourselves to our internal world of images, ideas, emotions, and our felt sense about ourselves and the world around us. 

We use our imagination to learn new things and to understand and develop new concepts. We also use our imagination to come up with creative solutions to everyday problems and in our creative endeavors. Most inventions were created with the inventor using his or her imagination to come up with new ideas. Often, these inventors came up with creative ideas through their dreams.

Children are usually much better attuned to their imagination and can enter into and out of imagined states or play with ease. They know the difference between imagination, play and everyday waking reality. But, somehow, for many of us, when we become adults, we often get the message that imagining and play are things that are left behind in childhood for the logical reality of adulthood. Even for some children who are scolded for daydreaming or "making up stories" from their imagination, they lose this precious skill early in life.

Remembering Your Dreams:
In order to do dream work, you must first remember your dreams. For most people who are motivated to remember their dreams, a simple suggestion before going to sleep as well as keeping a note pad and pen close at hand to jot down dreams is often enough to help you remember your dreams. It's important to write down your dream in the present tense as soon as you wake up.


We often think that we'll remember a dream only to have it slip away like vapor as soon as we focus on something else. Even if what you remember is only a snippet of part of a dream, write it down. By writing down even a snippet of a dream, you're giving your unconscious mind the suggestion that dreams are important. Usually, over time, snippets will develop into more in-depth memories of dreams.

Keeping a Dream Journal:
I recommend keeping a dream journal where you record your dreams. Keeping the dream journal in a safe and private place will allow you to feel free to write down your dreams without censoring yourself. Giving each dream a date and dream title and keeping an index is also very helpful in many ways. 

First, by giving titles to your dreams, you're giving your unconscious mind the suggestion that dreams are meaningful stories that you want to remember. Second, having an index of dream titles helps you to look back on particular themes.

How Does Dream Work Help Us to Access Our Creative Imagination?
When I do dreamwork with clients, I help them to get back into the dream state (also called the hypnogogic state) of the particular dream that we're working on. In this dream state, you have access to the images, emotions, and the felt sense of the dream.

A psychotherapist who is experienced with doing this type of dream work, such as Embodied Imagination, can help clients to access not only their own experiences in the dream but also tap into the experiences of the other characters in the dream. I've written about Embodied Imagination and Robert Bosnak in prior blog posts: (http://www.psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot.com/2011/01/dreams-and-embodied--imagination.html). I also recommend reading Robert Bosnak's book, Embodiment, available in paperback.

If you want to develop your creative mind while dreaming, you can also give yourself a suggestion before going to sleep to have creative dreams about the issue that you want to work on. This takes some practice, motivation, and patience. Using evocative imagery just before going to sleep is often helpful to incubate dreams on a particular issue.

When I work with clients who want to incubate dreams to come up with creative solutions for a particular problem or issue, I help them get into a relaxed state to use their imagination. This might involve having them focus on their emotional experience and desire related to this issue. 

I help them to sense into their experience using their five senses, as well as their imagination, emotions and felt sense. Then, before they go to sleep, they practice what we did in our therapy session for a minute or so before going to sleep in order to incubate dreams. Often, these experiences can be revelatory, accessing a deep sense of creativity that is not usually available to them in normal waking life.

I recommend working with a psychotherapist who has a psychoanalytic background and who has experience using Embodied Imagination to get the full experience of using your imagination and developing your creativity. But you can also benefit from paying attention to your dreams on your own to develop your creativity.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Dream Incubation - Planting Seeds

During a recent dream intensive training with Dutch Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak, I learned an extraordinary technique, which is part of Mr. Bosnak's Embodied Imagination technique, called dream incubation. In a prior blog post Dreams and Embodied Imagination, I wrote about his Embodied Imagination mind-body psychotherapy.

 

Dream Incubation - Planting Seeds

What is Dream Incubation?
Dream incubation has been used for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks visited the Temple of Asklepius in Epidauros, Greece to have a healing dream to cure themselves or loved ones from illness. 

Asklepius was the god of healing. The cult of Asklepius was very popular around 350 BC. Many people came to the Temple of Asklepius in hopes of incubating a healing dream, which they believed to be sent to them from the god Asklepius. If they had dreams, temple priests helped them the next day to understand the dreams and the healing messages from the dream so they could cure their illnesses.

Embodied Imagination Dream Incubation:
In Robert Bosnak's Embodied Imagination, if you want to incubate a dream, you work with a dreamworker who has been taught this technique. 

The purpose of incubation is to have dreams about something that you really want and use what you learn from those dreams to attain your goal. You are more likely to have dreams related to your incubation if it's something that you really desire. 

In his private practice in California, Mr. Bosnak works with clients who have chronic illnesses (cancer, AIDS, and other chronic medical problems). But dream incubation can be used for problems related to your relationships, career, creative endeavors, or any other areas where you might feel stuck and need help or inspiration.

Embodied Imagination and the Mind-Body Connection
There are many different types of dream incubation techniques. Most rely solely on the power of suggestion using cognitive methods. What I really like about Embodied Imagination dream incubation is that, like its name suggests, it incorporates the mind-body connection.

As previously mentioned, to use the Embodied Imagination mind-body technique of dream incubation, you need to work with at least one person or a group of people who know the method and can help you to "plant the seed" for the dream incubation. Even if you know the technique, it's hard to do for yourself. To start, the dreamworker asks you to remember a time when you really desired and were most in touch with the thing that you're trying to incubate.

The following fictionalized vignette will give you an idea of how Embodied Imagination dream incubation works:

Donna:
Donna is an artist in her mid-30s. Up until a year ago, Donna was passionate about her artwork. Her paintings had been shown in NYC galleries, she has received very favorable reviews, and she has been able to support herself through her art. But during the last year, following a very successful art show, she has felt "stuck" and uninspired. Whenever she has tried to paint, she found herself staring at the empty canvass for long periods of time feeling anxious and frustrated. At first, she was not overly concerned, but as time went on and she was unable to overcome her creative block, she began to wonder if she would ever be able to paint again.

When a year had gone by without her being able to paint a thing, she decided to see a psychotherapist in NYC who was familiar with Embodied Imagination dream incubation technique. Since she had always been a very visual person with vivid dreams, Donna decided to see if she could overcome this unconscious creative block through Embodied Imagination dream incubation after hearing from a close friend about how well it worked for her to overcome issues in her relationship.

After getting Donna's history, the psychotherapist asked Donna about the last time that Donna felt most in touch with her desire to paint. Donna had to think about this for a few minutes, and then she remembered a specific memory of a day when she was immersed in her art work, feeling passionate and creative. At that point, the work flowed for Donna. She felt that it was almost effortless.

As Donna described this memory, the psychotherapist helped her to slow down so Donna could enter into a waking hypnogagic state. Hypnogagic states are states that we all experience just before falling asleep or waking up. We might not always be aware of it at the time, but the hypnogagic state is that in-between state between being asleep and awake. People have often described the hypnogagic state as a feeling of floating. (Lucid dreams, which are dreams where you know you are dreaming, occur most often in the hypnogagic state. But that's a topic for another blog post.)

The therapist helped Donna to experience the time and place of this memory, which happened to be in an art studio that Donna shared with several others artists. As part of this memory, Donna remembered that another artist, Susan, who shared the space, stopped by to see what Donna was working on. Donna talked about how she had always admired Susan and her work. She also liked how passionate Susan was about the creative process. Susan was 10 years older than Donna. Donna considered her to be a mentor of sorts. Donna knew that Susan had gone through her own creative slumps, but Susan seemed to always find a way out of them. In Donna's eyes, Susan was very energetic and she had a positive attitude most of the time.

Using Embodied Imagination techniques, first, the therapist helped Donna to bring herself back to the art studio and sense what that felt like in her body. She helped Donna to really feel her emotions from that memory of doing her art work that day (the passion, happiness, excitement, and creativity) and feel into where she felt those emotions in her body. As Donna closed her eyes and felt into her body, she felt the happiness and excitement in her chest, and she felt the passion in an area just below her navel. The therapist worked with Donna to help her to deepen and amplify these feelings. She also helped Donna to anchor these feelings as trigger points in her chest and lower abdomen.

Once these feelings were anchored in Donna's body, the therapist directed Donna back to the memory and asked her to observe Susan in her mind's eye. When Donna had a clear picture of Susan, the therapist asked Donna to describe what she saw starting with a basic description of Susan (what she looked like, what she was wearing, how she was standing, etc). Then, she asked Donna to sense into Susan emotionally. At first, Donna began telling the therapist what she thought, but the therapist redirected her away from her thoughts and more into her sense impression.

Embodied Imagination is not about your thoughts--it's about your sense impressions or sense memories from your body. This is similar to what actors do when they use sense memories to embody a certain character or role. (As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Embodied Imagination is used with actors, including the actors of the Royal Shakespeare Co.)

When we're asked to sense something, we tend to go to our thoughts, since that's how we usually relate to the world. But in Embodied Imagination, going with your thoughts can lead to unintentional fabrication (just making it up or making up what you think it should be). This defeats the purpose of Embodied Imagination.

So, Donna took a few moments to go back to her sense impressions and she felt into her experience of Susan from the memory of that particular day. As she looked at Susan in her mind's eye, she sensed Susan's enthusiasm, excitement, happiness, and her inspiration. Now that they were back on track, the therapist helped Donna to get closer and closer to Donna's experience.

At a certain point, the therapist helped Donna to "transit" into Susan's experience. In Embodied Imagination, transiting into another person's experience is sensing into that experience until you feel embodied by it. All the while, Donna maintains a sense of dual awareness, much in the same way that a person maintains dual awareness in hypnosis. In both methods, the person maintains a sense of the here-and-now as well as the there-and-then.

According to Robert Bosnak, who describes himself as a phenomenologist, transiting in Embodied Imagination is very different from Gestalt therapy. In Gestalt therapy, Donna's sense of Susan's experience would be considered to be a part of Donna. In Embodied Imagination, we do not consider Susan's experience to be a part of Donna. In fact, we have no preconceived ideas about this phenomenon. We just experience it.

Once the transit is complete and Donna feels embodied by her experience of Susan, while maintaining dual awareness of the here-and-now, Donna describes her experience of "Susan-ness." With the therapist's help, she is able to sense into the experience and identify Susan's various emotions and where she feels these emotions in her body.

All the while, the therapist is helping Donna to deepen and immerse herself in this experience. Generally, the waking hypnogagic state is a relaxed state. Accessing the hypnogagic state deepens and strengthens the experience more than just "thinking about" the memory.

The therapist assists Donna to anchor the embodied emotions that she senses from Susan. Combining Donna's anchored embodied emotions with Susan's, the therapist helps Donna to form a composite of this experience in her body so she can hold all of these experiences together. Robert Bosnak, who is a Jungian, uses the metaphor of the alchemist who combines and stirs all the alchemical ingredients to bring about a transformation.

Once Donna has all of these experiences anchored in her body, she returns to ordinary consciousness and the therapist gives her a diagram that she has made for Donna that represents the composite. The diagram is a body map consisting of the general contours of a body with all of the anchor points labeled with the location and the corresponding emotions.

The therapist instructs Donna to meditate on the composite with all of the corresponding emotions and anchor points in the body every night for a week to incubate a dream to inspire Donna to overcome her creative block. Donna will need to do more than just think about it--she will need to feel the feelings from the dream incubation in her body. Since her creative blocks is a problem that Donna really wants to overcome, she is highly motivated and she uses the composite every night just before going to sleep to incubate dreams about her problem.

Once Donna has incubated one or more dreams, she brings them to her therapist, who uses Embodied Imagination techniques to assist Donna with the dreamwork. Very often, people who have dreams after an Embodied Imagination incubaton don't always recognize these dreams as being related to their incubation, which is why it is important to work with a therapist who knows Embodied Imagination.

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York. 

I use clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and other mind-body oriented psychotherapy modalities. 

I work with individuals and couples.

I also enjoy doing Embodied Imagination dreamwork, which is a creative method to help clients overcome problems where they feel stuck.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my articles about Transforming Nightmares Through Creative Dream Work
and Dreams and Embodied Imagination

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

NIP Annual Conference: "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work"

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

I attended an intriguing annual conference at NIP (National Institute of Psychotherapies) called "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work" here in NYC. 

Their first speaker was the world-renown Dutch Jungian psychoanalyst, Robert Bosnak. Mr. Bosnak has developed a very exciting and innovative way of working with dreams that he calls Embodied Imagination.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak explained Embodied Imagination and then gave an amazing live presentation of his work. The woman who volunteered to present her dream was someone who Mr. Bosnak had worked with mostly through Skype, since she lives in NYC and he currently lives in California, for a short time, as preparation for the conference. He was not her primary therapist.

Borrowing from the early Greek healing arts involving healing incubation, where people who wanted healing went to the Temple of Aesklepius, prior to the conference, Mr. Bosnak asked this volunteer to focus every day on certain health symptoms that she was experiencing in order to "incubate" a healing dream.

As you may know, the early Greeks went to the Temple of Asklepius hoping that they would meet the healing god in their dreams so that they could be cured of their medical problems. In those days, people didn't think of their dreams as being symbolic--they believed that if they had a dream where they saw the healing god, Aesklepius, it was as real an experience as any waking experience.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak demonstrated his phenomenological technique of Embodied Imagination while he induced a hypnogogic state in the dream volunteer. (The hypnogogic state is the state between waking and sleeping.) His work is a very big departure from traditional or even contemporary psychoanalytic traditions of doing dream work.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

As he went over the dream with the dreamer, he asked her not only to embody her dream self in her imagination, but also to embody other people and inanimate objects in her dream. 

Rather than experience these people and objects as if they were parts of herself, as she might in parts work or in Gestalt therapy, Mr. Bosnak asked the dreamer to use her imagination to become each of these people and objects in the dream and related their experiences, including inanimate objects like a car.

Notwithstanding the fact that there were at least 300 psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the room, Mr. Bosnak and the dream volunteer did amazing work, which appeared to be healing for the particular type of medical problem that she was having. 

It is noteworthy that Mr. Bosnak didn't know anything about the dream beforehand. He was hearing it for the first time with the rest of us.

We could see how they both got to material in the dream that they probably would not have accessed if they approached the dream in the conventional manner. It was very exciting, to say the least, to observe this. For most of us in the room, it was a challenge and an invitation to consider how we work with dreams.

Mr. Bosnak has moved away from the conventional idea that dreams have a defensive structure. He also does not work with what is often described as manifest (what is obvious) and latent (what cannot be readily seen) content in his work with Embodied Imagination.

If you have been reading my blog, you are probably aware that I'm very interested in the mind-body connection in my work, so I'm always interested in hearing new techniques for working in this way. Some of Mr. Bosnak's methodology reminded me of Somatic Experiencing, which is a modality I already use in my psychotherapy private practice

Most people who are familiar with Jung's work know that he worked with what he called Active Imagination. He also used Active Imagination in his Red Book. However, Mr. Bosnak seems to have gone beyond Active Imagination.

Robert Bosnak has traveled all over the world, and he has witnessed many different ways of working with dreams phenomenologically, including working with dreams shamanically. He reminds us that how we perceive dreams is very much tied to our cultural understanding.

Just before going to sleep last night, I began to read Robert Bosnak's book, Embodiment - Creative Imagination in Medicine, Art and Travel. I got up to Page 5 when I dropped off to sleep and I had the following dream:

I'm talking to Mr. Bosnak about his method of working with dreams. We're sitting face-to-face at close range. I'm mostly listening to him very intensely and thinking about how I can use this method of doing dream work with my clients. As I take in this new way of working with dreams, I feel very excited and slightly frustrated. Then, I realize and think to myself, "Time is the key. He slows everything down and gives the work lots of time."

When I woke up, I wrote down this dream as well as several other dreams that I had last night.

After I wrote down my dreams, I picked up Mr. Bosnak's book, Embodiment, and began reading again. I was surprised and delighted to find that when I resumed reading and got to the next page, Page 6, he talks about time and the slowness of time when transitioning from the dreaming to the waking state. I felt as if Mr. Bosnak and I had an actual conversation about Embodied Imagination and the nature of time in this work, and here it was confirmed when I resumed reading his book.

It's a fallacy when some people say that they either don't dream or they rarely dream. Everyone dreams at least five dreams a night, but not everyone remembers their dreams.

Whether or not you remember your dreams has a lot to do with how you wake up. If you're someone who takes a while to transition from the sleep state to the waking state, transitioning slowly so that you still retain the feeling state that you were in while you were sleeping, you're more likely to remember your dreams. However, if you tend to wake up suddenly without making that slow transition, you're less likely to remember your dreams.

If you're interested in learning more about your dreams, which are often a rich source of information, I recommend that you keep a pad and pen by your bed. Having a strong intention and telling yourself that you want to remember your dreams before you go to sleep helps to give your unconscious the message that dreams are important to you.

When you wake up, rather than jumping out of bed, take a few moments to stay immersed in the dream state. Especially, do not change your position. So, for example, if you're lying on your left side, don't turn around right away. Remain like that for a few moments and allow the details of the dream to emerge.

Then, write down your dreams in the present tense as if you're still in the dream. Even if it's a fragment of a dream, write down whatever you remember. Usually, you'll find that, as you begin to remember your dreams from the night before, you'll remember them in reverse order, with the last dream first (the dream closest to waking up) and then the next to the last dream, and so on.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

Very often, if you write down your dreams, over time, you begin to see interesting synchronicities between your dreaming and waking states. I believe that this isn't as unusual as most people think and that, over time, most people can tap into this inner resource. I believe it's a natural ability that most of us have if we're willing to develop it.

Several years ago, when I was working on my dreams every day, I saw very interesting synchronicities. I also had precognitive dreams where I dreamt about certain things happening before they actually happened. I didn't have any earth-shattering premonitions about world events--they were mostly personal incidents in my life. My point is that I saw a connection between paying attention to my dreams and the ability to tap into an inner precognitive resource.

If you want to find out more about Robert Bosnak's method of Embodied Imagination and his way of working with dreams, you can visit the website for the Embodied Imagination Institute: www.cyberdreamwork.com. You can also read his book, Embodiment, which is written in an accessible way.

Mr. Bosnak also heads up the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary, and you can visit their website at: www.sbhsanctuary.com.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and coupls.

I have been fascinated by dreams since I was a teenager and I enjoy doing dream work with my clients. Dream work often helps clients to gain a perspective of themselves and others that they wouldn't ordinarily otherwise have access to in other ways. 

I also enjoy using clinical hypnosis to re-enter the dream state, and I have found this to be very useful to clients.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.