EP66: Somatic Dreamwork

Somatic dreamwork is an approach to dream analysis and interpretation that emphasizes the integration of the physical body and bodily sensations into the exploration of dreams. It recognizes that dreams are not only products of the mind but also expressions of bodily experiences, emotions, and energies. This approach acknowledges the interconnectedness of mind and body and the role of the body in processing and expressing unconscious material revealed in dreams.

Susan Ackerman Joseph is a lifetime dreamer, a certified somatic practitioner, a trained psychotherapist, and a multi-media artist. Her album is called “Songs of Dreams” and is available on CCMixter, iTunes, bandcamp and other platforms.

Susan's Website

Our deepest wisdom is sensation based: fluttering in the belly, a heavy heart, an open heart, the sensation of electricity running through the veins.  Through sensation, we renegotiate the boundary between receptivity and resistance. Through sensation, we activate our inner resources and mobilize transformation.  There are many names for this way of knowing: inner voice, inner wisdom, intuition, gut feeling, inner truth, felt sense.  

In other dreamy news...

Catch Amina LIVE on the radio on the Dream Journal podcast with host Katherine Bell from Experiential Dreamwork talking about some of her favorite dream-related topics. You can tune in to the live conversation on Saturday, May 25 at 10 AM Pacific Time (1pm EST). It will be broadcast in the Santa Cruz area at 90.7 FM or can be heard streaming live at KSQD.org

New Book on Amazon: Divine Dreamers
All proceeds from this book sale will be donated to the IASD, an organization dedicated to the research and understanding of dreams and their impact on our lives.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;29
Unknown
Dreams are poetry. They have poems in them. There's there's a poem in every dream. You just need to listen for it. There's a whole new generation, like you, coming up with with this curiosity and interest and real dedication to dreams as a valuable resource. So that's really exciting to see. Working with sensory awareness is a way of connecting thoughts and emotions to enhance wellness and facilitate healing.

00;00;31;02 - 00;01;04;23
Unknown
Sensory awareness engages the nervous system to mobilize our inherent healing capacity. This is the first step in becoming an embodied human being. Today's guest, Susan Ackerman. Joseph uses somatic practices in her dream work. She teaches people how to involve all of their senses in working with their dreams for greater healing and creativity. She is an amazing person, very joyful, very creative, and I'm so excited to talk to her today about some of her dream work experiences and just chit chat about dreams.

00;01;04;25 - 00;01;23;04
Unknown
Hi Amina. I listened to some of your podcasts and I just love your enthusiasm. thank you. Yeah, I love doing it. I just love talking about dreams. So I was always a dreamer as a child. I remember dreams I had when I was five years old, and I remember themes and recurring dreams I used to have as a child.

00;01;23;04 - 00;01;44;27
Unknown
I was a really big dreamer and I was always a creative person and interested in all kinds of things, mysterious and esoteric and dreams fell into that category for me. And I always wrote them down. Like, I don't remember when I started writing down my dreams, but maybe when I was as young as a teenager. I mean, I've always written down my dreams.

00;01;44;27 - 00;02;08;28
Unknown
I've always noticed my dreams, and at some point I don't remember exactly when it was. I just started working with my dreams. And there's a place where it really started for me, big time. And that's when I started working with Ed Carruth as a creative collaborator and that was in about 2008. So before then, dreams were always part of my life.

00;02;09;01 - 00;02;33;11
Unknown
You know, I would share dreams with people, talk about dreams, I would read dream interpretation books, I would think about dreams. But I didn't know that dream work was a thing that you could do. And I met a teacher and we just had that instant kind of connection with each other. Our kids were in school together. It was a parochial day school, so she and I were like the two arty moms, right?

00;02;33;11 - 00;02;57;25
Unknown
Everybody else was really religious. And she and I kind of recognized each other as the arty moms. And each was a dream worker and an artist. And at the time she had just completed or was studying embodied imagination with Robert Pasternak, and she invited me to collaborate with her on a play she was doing, and she needed somebody to do the music and sound.

00;02;57;27 - 00;03;21;22
Unknown
So that was my first foray into working with dream specific vocally for a creative project. And this play was called Box Window Door. And I worked with Escher and her director, Angela Carillo, who's another fabulous dream worker. And the three of us together, we would our rehearsals would be dream sharing. And then she was the writer. So the material mostly came from her dreams.

00;03;21;22 - 00;03;43;03
Unknown
But in our process, either there might be recurrent images or there might be things in our dreams that related to the three of us. I think one of us had a dream about three women in a boat, and so we just started working with our dreams and using our dream and material to create this theatrical production that involved words and music and imagery.

00;03;43;08 - 00;04;15;22
Unknown
And through that I was introduced to embodied imagination as a type of dream work. They familiar with embodied imagination? Yes. But I would love for you to explain it, just like the listeners can like, know what you mean by that. Yeah, well, I'm not the expert uninvited imagination, right? I'm just the recipient of great practitioners. And it's it's a dream work modality that that invites you to really sense into elements of the dream in a way that you can embody that.

00;04;15;24 - 00;04;37;29
Unknown
Right? So if you have an animal in your dream, you know, let's say there's a cat in the dream, what does it feel like to be the cat? Can you sink in to that? The physicality of the cat, The mood of the cat, Right. What does it feel like to embody the cat? And through that process, right there is insight from the dream itself.

00;04;37;29 - 00;05;09;17
Unknown
You get gifts of the dream and it's very powerful. And the irony of that, and this is a little digression, is that many years later in my personal journey, I ended up becoming a somatic practitioner. So part of my work is I'm a somatic healer and I credit my my discovering that and connecting with that very much with having learned about embodied imagination and this embodied practice of working with image for deeper understanding and healing.

00;05;09;21 - 00;05;36;13
Unknown
So that's like, you know, one of those our life has an arc and it's just amazing how certain milestones help guide us along. And so I would have could never have told you in 2008 when I started working with Etienne, that in 20 and 23 I would be a somatic experiencing practitioner. And yet maybe, you know, it was meant to be because of all the science kind of guided me to this embodied way of practicing the drapes.

00;05;36;16 - 00;05;59;10
Unknown
So that was my box window door, and that was really my first introduction. 2008 and 2012. We took a piece of that play to the Dream Conference in Berkeley, and that was my first introduction to Asti, and that was a life changing experience for me, for sure. I'm sure you can appreciate that. Yeah, that's awesome. I loved it.

00;05;59;10 - 00;06;15;28
Unknown
Like when I went for the first time. I was just so shocked to see that. Like there's so many people that are starting to take interest in dreams and research dreams. And I love how it was like the science, the art and the spirituality all combined. It was honestly so beautiful. And so I love that they have that and that we're kind of building this community.

00;06;15;28 - 00;06;42;05
Unknown
And I was surprised to see that dream work is still so new and so nice. So I'm excited to see what happens in the future with all of that. Yes. And it's so much less niche than it used to be. Yeah, I can imagine there's a whole new generation, right? Like you coming up with with this curiosity and interest and real dedication to dreams as a valuable resource.

00;06;42;05 - 00;07;07;19
Unknown
So that's really exciting to see. It's really and I think that's in large part due to just technology, social media, the way that people just connect with it, you know, the fact that there are multiple, even multiple dream podcasts now, I mean, that's amazing. And it used to be nothing. There used to be no resources. There were dusty books that you could go to, Right.

00;07;07;24 - 00;07;39;17
Unknown
That tell you that, you know, when you dream of a pipe, it's a penis. Mean, right? It's not like that anymore. Freud is Exactly. Yeah, That's funny. Yeah. You know, And they laid the foundation for what we're doing today. So I still value, like, you know, the progression of dream research and understanding. It's kind of interesting. You know, I've noticed, like in Freud and Young's time, it seemed like there was some interest and even beyond that, like in ancient Egypt and, you know, cultures used it for like spiritual practices and then it kind of fell off.

00;07;39;17 - 00;08;04;13
Unknown
And Western culture and like modern science kind of didn't really give it much validity. And now it's kind of starting to come back again. So that's quite interesting. Yeah, it's funny you should mention that because so I'm Jewish and every week there's a story from the Bible that we study, and this week's story was the story of, well, the past couple of weeks are about Joseph the dreamer and all about his dreams.

00;08;04;13 - 00;08;28;11
Unknown
So that was the big story This this week in our study is was about Joseph the dreamer. Yeah. In fact, my husband and I were joking that, you know, I'm into dreams and I married a man whose last name is Joseph. So that's a mystery. But the story and I'm really like, not the expert on the story of Joseph at all, but he was one of 12 brothers.

00;08;28;13 - 00;08;47;00
Unknown
His father was Yaakov, and Jacob's father was Abraham. His brothers were jealous of him because he was the father's favorite. And they took him and they threw him in a pit to try to get rid of him because Joseph was a little bit of a braggart and he actually had a dream where, like the the stars are bowing down to the moon.

00;08;47;00 - 00;09;10;15
Unknown
And this really might be slightly inaccurate. I might not be remembered correctly. And he interpreted as his brothers would one day be bowing down to him. And so they didn't like that. So they threw him in a pit and told their father that this boy was eaten by wild animals. So his father, Yaakov, spent his whole life grieving for this boy.

00;09;10;17 - 00;09;36;14
Unknown
Meanwhile, Joseph is rescued by a courtier of Pharaoh and ends up coming to the attention of Pharaoh because of his ability to interpret dreams. And there's lots of details in the story. There's like a whole other piece to the story that I'm not going to get into because I don't want to get it wrong. And eventually Pharaoh retrieves Joseph from jail.

00;09;36;15 - 00;09;57;18
Unknown
He had been imprisoned and he retrieves Joseph from jail, hearing that, there's this this interpreter of dreams. And Pharaoh is having these horrible dreams. There was one dream where there were seven fat cows and then seven lean cows who then ate the fat cows. And then there was one where there were seven ears on the stock of corn and then seven shriveled ears on the stock of corn.

00;09;57;23 - 00;10;18;16
Unknown
And Barrett was very upset about these dreams. So he retrieves Joseph from jail and, you know, says, I hear you're an esteemed and renowned dream interpreter. Tell me, where did these dreams made? And Joseph says, Well, there's going to be a famine in the land and you need to prepare the famine to last for seven years. And as long as you're prepared, you're so right.

00;10;18;23 - 00;10;41;10
Unknown
And that's what happened, is there was a famine in the land. And so after that, Joseph became one of Pharaoh's esteemed, but he was his right hand man. He was like the vice pharaoh. He was the big boss in the land. And then the story goes on about how his brothers come back and he reconciles with them. But the interpretation of dreams is both what got him into trouble and also saved him.

00;10;41;17 - 00;11;04;11
Unknown
Some people didn't like his interpretation and other people the pharaoh, like, really relied on it. And I guess nothing's really changed with Graham. Dream work can't make everybody happy, I guess. That's right. I wonder what his methods of dream interpretation were for Joseph. It was divine. It was his communication with the divine. So it was. It was a gift from God.

00;11;04;18 - 00;11;32;15
Unknown
And it was. These messages are come from the divine, the dreams. I think that's the most beautiful relationship with dreams, to consider them as. As a spark of divinity that comes to us with information. Yeah, that's true. I definitely relate to that. I think some dreams that I've had are just they feel so much bigger than me that I'm like, There's no way I could have thought of this or get ideas like this or, you know, and I've had dreams, you know, heal me from things and things like that.

00;11;32;15 - 00;11;50;01
Unknown
So I think we all have a little bit of that. I believe that some dreams are, you know, our daily life processing things and some dreams are more divine. So I see it as definitely there's different types of dreams and we can all experience that too, for sure. I used to be I used to be a daily dreamer, and it got to the point where it was exhausting.

00;11;50;07 - 00;12;09;09
Unknown
Like it would be exhausting to remember my dreams or write down my dreams because it was just like too much. And what's happened over time and I don't know why is I'm not I mean, I know I dream every day because I wake up with with the vestiges of my dreams, but I really only remember I feel like the big dreams now.

00;12;09;11 - 00;12;36;01
Unknown
Like when I remember a dream, I feel like, okay, I'm remembering it for a reason. There's a reason. I'm remembering this dream. And I also find that my dreams are almost like episodic, or where I'll have the same dream or the same quality of dream over a period of time as as I'm negotiating, whatever I'm negotiating. And so that's really changed my dream work practice because I don't get into the details every day.

00;12;36;03 - 00;12;54;18
Unknown
I'm really into the whole arc of a story, the whole arc of development. I think that comes from being an older person to like being able to track things over time and see how they evolve over time is really fascinating. How do you think your dreams have changed over time, other than the fact that you remember the bigger ones now?

00;12;54;18 - 00;13;17;10
Unknown
Have you noticed a change in like the type of dreams that you have or like the feeling? Yeah, well, I know that when I was young, I used to have a recurring dream of not being able to see clearly, which is was developmentally appropriate as an adolescent. Right? We don't see anything clearly. I don't have that recurring dream anymore.

00;13;17;13 - 00;13;40;04
Unknown
I feel like my. My dreams are, in a way, like, more settled and mundane, but I'm also more settled and mundane. I guess my dreams are so much just a part of my everyday life that when I do remember a dream, it's really exciting. Like I have a big dream and I have so many resources for working through dreams.

00;13;40;04 - 00;14;02;25
Unknown
I'm in collaborative groups and I'm friends with dream workers, so dreams are just such a normal part of my life that it's they're integrated in a way and because I have become more of an episodic dreamer and also as my other practice have expanded, I don't just rely on dreams for the kind of information I would rely on dreams for.

00;14;02;28 - 00;14;33;19
Unknown
So I have a lot of practices that support the whole treasure chest that comes from from unconscious material, right? So I work with dreams, I work with the chain, I work with tarot, I work with just what I observe outside in the world at right The Waking Dream. I work a lot with the waking dream as well. And so I feel like this holistic approach relieves me of that burden of remembering and working through my dreams every day.

00;14;33;22 - 00;14;56;14
Unknown
Because it can be, it can be burdensome, it can feel exhausting. I went through a period before last year for about over a year where I literally had the same dream all the time of going to conferences or being in hotels, being in these public spaces and teaching. And last year was a big year for me in that regard.

00;14;56;15 - 00;15;22;19
Unknown
I went to the DREAM Conference. I taught two workshops and I did the sonic art installation, and that was a lot, right? That was a lot of space holding, which I was really excited to do, and I had to travel to go there. Right? And in addition, this past year in my work as a somatic practitioner, I've been doing my own training and also assisting trainings out of town.

00;15;22;21 - 00;15;48;07
Unknown
So I've been doing a lot of traveling and teaching and those dreams have softened since the summer when all of that traveling and teaching settled and I had a whole year of it. I'm not having those dreams anymore. So that's like a big relief because those dreams, I was like, my God, I'm having this dream again. I feel like dreams can push us in the direction that, you know, our life needs to go.

00;15;48;07 - 00;16;04;16
Unknown
And then it kind of, you know, kind of holds our hand and then checks in on us. And like, it kind of reflects what we're going through at the time. So, yeah, that makes sense. And I knew it consciously. I'm like, okay, I have to have this dream again. I know I'm going to be traveling, I know I'm going to be doing these things.

00;16;04;18 - 00;16;24;09
Unknown
I want to hear a little bit about your creative projects, how have you like taken inspiration from Dreams and what's your process like into turning that into art or videos or music or whatever creative projects you're working on? So depends whether I'm working on my own or collaboratively. So I do a lot of creative collaboration as a creative.

00;16;24;09 - 00;16;48;15
Unknown
That's like my big thing. I love to collaborate. I think what we make together is just so much more exciting than what I can do by myself. Also, when you're working with Dreams collaboratively, it deepens the process very much, right? You get perspectives and you get doors opening and you get support, right? You get a whole lot of other stuff that happens.

00;16;48;15 - 00;17;13;23
Unknown
And especially when dream material starts connecting into collective material. And I think it's easier for me to just talk about this going chronologically backwards than forwards. So I wrote to you and I said, I really enjoyed your interview with Will.i.am because he spoke about dream sharing, which is part of this. So one of the biggest and most like satisfying projects I've done.

00;17;13;25 - 00;17;39;22
Unknown
I've been doing these sonic installations for the art show at the at the Dream Conference where we basically create the soundtracks. So when you go to see the art and you hear music playing in the art space, I produced that not by myself. I could never do that by myself. But so how that worked, the last one we did was The Dreaming Together Sonic installation, and it's all about the value and importance of sharing dreams.

00;17;39;29 - 00;18;07;01
Unknown
That project was inspired by the work of Tony Ten Fingers. He's a Lakota elder and activist, and he teaches about sharing dreams, and he teaches about the practices of his community that they wake up in the morning, they share their dreams or the practice of their community of they will go outside at night and dream together. And we recorded Toni sharing some of his dream stories.

00;18;07;03 - 00;18;31;12
Unknown
And then I also invited Dreamers from the estate community to send me vocal recordings of their dreams and then I'm part of a music community, an international online music community called Sissy Mixture. And we have a sister site called Mr. Mixture Plus we share the vocal recordings of these dreamers and their dreams, and then our community members remix them to music.

00;18;31;14 - 00;18;50;19
Unknown
And so we create this beautiful body of music that's diverse, sonically diverse. There's all kinds of musicians and producers who are part of this community. And then we streamed it. And, you know, when you do that kind of collaborative work, I think it was Bob Dylan said, I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.

00;18;50;24 - 00;19;20;23
Unknown
Right, You join the dream. And then the dream also becomes something bigger, both as a creative, right? You get the inspiration from the dream. But then for the dreamer, for the dreamer to hear their dream set in music, the tone right? Music changes the feel of everything. So you have one dream. It's set to something upbeat. It sounds like it's going to be like an escape caper, or you have some kind of ambient down tempo and all of a sudden it becomes dark and scary.

00;19;21;00 - 00;19;52;02
Unknown
So music is really, really powerful for dream work and working with dreams because it resonates in our bodies. And once you have that resonance, then something different can emerge, right? When you can feel into what does that feel like? What's the sense of the dream? It goes beyond language. And even trying to explain a dream with words can be very restrictive.

00;19;52;02 - 00;20;21;24
Unknown
It can prevent the gift of the dream from from being clear, because the words may not necessarily comport with the feeling of the dream music. Nonverbal ways of expressing the dream circumvent the inhibition that language can create for us. Of course, language also helps us connect things, and it's how we communicate with each other in a very specific way.

00;20;22;00 - 00;20;47;16
Unknown
And it also helps bridge, right? It helps bridge that understanding from the sensory experience to the cognitive experience. So language is important, but music and image also help expand the experience. Yeah, sometimes if I don't have like a full picture of my dream and it feels like very important or it has a certain emotion to it, I'll just draw.

00;20;47;21 - 00;21;08;08
Unknown
I mean, I don't have any musical talents, but, you know, I'll do the latter, like add colors or do something abstract to honor the dream. And sometimes that fits the dream better than just writing it down in words. Absolutely. Yeah. Drawing, sketching, or drawing a dream is really, really helpful. So I do that to my notebooks, have words, they have sketches.

00;21;08;11 - 00;21;34;25
Unknown
What about some of your personal creative projects that you have brought forth from Dreams into waking reality? Yeah, well, the biggest one is the album that I released, Songs of Dreams that were I can't believe that was five years ago that I released that. And a lot of those songs were even right from before that time. You know, personally, when I work with dreams, I use image and and language.

00;21;34;27 - 00;22;00;10
Unknown
I am a writer and so language is accessible to me. Dreams are poetry. They have poems in them. There's there's a poem in every dream. You just need to listen for it that's there. And songs are poems sent to music. Because of my involvement with this community, I've had a way to make music out of my dreams, my dream poems.

00;22;00;13 - 00;22;27;08
Unknown
That's awesome. Which elements of the dream do you take? Is it like the melody itself or the lyrics or both its lyrics and sound and sometimes the lyrics are about the dream itself, and sometimes they are about what I understand from the dream. Like I had a dream and the first song on my album is called Breathe and in the dream I'm in a speedboat and I'm driving.

00;22;27;08 - 00;22;49;03
Unknown
I'm going in a spit into a cave in the speedboat. And I did some work with a dream worker at the time, and she helped me understand the boat as a sensing vessel. And that became a lyric in my in my song. Right. A sensing vessel. What a beautiful image for this boat. It's a sensing vessel on the water.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;15;27
Unknown
What is the water? But but the emotional realm and the unconscious and the depths. And here I was, the sensing vessel like, that's so beautiful. So that became a lyric. And the song is which was all about sensing into the dream. You know, sometimes it's a waking dream. Sometimes I'll just be out and then all of a sudden there's some bird that doesn't belong in my neighborhood.

00;23;15;29 - 00;23;39;18
Unknown
You know, all of a sudden I'll see a heron or an egret. Like what are you doing here? So to me, that's like a waking dream. And so that becomes a lyric. I had one dream once. So this is from turning into normal. The song turning into normal. What once felt strange Red. The dream was being in the desert and driving down this dusty road.

00;23;39;25 - 00;23;57;19
Unknown
And that was the dream image. But in waking life, I'm just walking in the park and there is a tree route and there is like a chain embedded in the dirt. And now I know the chain at some point was used to hold a trash can that didn't get stolen, but it was just this chain in the dirt.

00;23;57;25 - 00;24;20;22
Unknown
And somehow the image of the chain and the dirt, the colors of the dirt, the quality of the dirt, the way there was, like the roots made a channel. It reminded me of my dream. And so that was like another waking dream moment. And so that became a lyric in the song, right? That the chains So it's this in and out of what do I see?

00;24;20;22 - 00;24;47;09
Unknown
And then what are the words? What's the poetry of what I see? Most of my music starts with the words first, while most of my writing starts with the word first, the words first. That's so beautiful. I love how you have that connection between the waking world and the dream that's constantly flowing, and it really makes me think about how important it is to just be mindful in your daily life.

00;24;47;09 - 00;25;05;08
Unknown
Because like you said, you know, you might notice something beautiful that's inspiring, that reminds you of a dream and a waking life feels like a dream sometimes. Do you ever have lucid dreams? I am not a lucid dreamer. I noticed you do a lot of lists and I like to ask people because I'm just curious. Some people ask this.

00;25;05;08 - 00;25;24;20
Unknown
Some people are, you know. Yeah, I'm not. I might have had a couple of lucid dreams when I was younger. When I was younger, my dreams were had a lot more, you know, magic to them in ways like I had dreams where I would speak French and I studied French, but I was not never fluent, but I would be having conversations in French.

00;25;24;23 - 00;25;42;06
Unknown
I mean, I would guess maybe it was a past life dream. You know, I don't really know what I believe, Right? I'm like the least spiritual, spiritual person you'll meet, Right? So was it I don't know. But I did speak French in my dream. That's cool. I've done that, too. And I'm not fluent in French. I'm like you.

00;25;42;06 - 00;26;03;17
Unknown
I studied it. I speak a little bit. I could understand, but I had, like, a dream goal of wanting to practice in my dreams. And so sometimes I would have dreams where I was just talking French to people and they were talking back to me. And I feel like I was actually getting better and like learning some words, or at least honing in the pronunciation and like wiring that into my brain and things like that.

00;26;03;17 - 00;26;29;11
Unknown
And I would wake up being like, I just had like a whole fluent conversation. I can't speak that much French in actual waking life, but I feel like I just did. So I feel like I practiced well. That's really cool. So that I think that I really admire that you can have that intention and have that happen. I'm pretty open minded in stuff and I like to look at the research, but I do believe that like dreams can help you practice skills and like, you know, burn things into your brain, you know?

00;26;29;11 - 00;26;49;15
Unknown
So I was kind of playing around with that, like, maybe I can get better at French. So I don't know. I still need to practice by French. So earlier you mentioned somatic dream work. Can you tell me a little bit about what that is? Dreams have information for us. They're gifts that we give to ourselves when we're asleep.

00;26;49;17 - 00;27;25;07
Unknown
And especially for nightmares. Right? The somatic work of working with dreams is a process to help connect with the gift of the dream. And if it's uncomfortable, if it's a nightmare to get past the discomfort, then to be able to receive whatever that dream is there to offer. So I work with the physiology resistance in the body using, you know, various somatic techniques to soften the resistance in the body, to not be afraid of or apprehensive of what might be coming next.

00;27;25;08 - 00;27;52;01
Unknown
As you explore the dream. That's how I use somatic work. Dr. I don't know if you're familiar with Leslie Ellis's work. She's an amazing somatic train worker. She did a dream a morning dream group this year at Esty. She teaches a lot about this. I have a I did a dream group with her. And the idea is that getting into the felt sense, starting with the felt sense, that's an idea that comes from you in general and focusing.

00;27;52;01 - 00;28;21;07
Unknown
And I learned more about it through my training as a somatic, experiencing practitioner and starting with the felt sense as the guide for where to go in exploring a dream. And it's very rich when in my workshops I've done I've done this workshop a couple of times. ESTY And it's never ceases to amaze me how courageous people are and how deep people will go.

00;28;21;10 - 00;28;44;10
Unknown
You're connecting with your truth. Our truth is a felt sense. What we know, how what we know is right for us is a felt sense when we're afraid might be hard to know. Right? So when if there's any apprehension or resistance to what a dream might be telling us might be hard to get to it. We settle into a comfortable relationship with the felt sense.

00;28;44;10 - 00;29;20;29
Unknown
Then we can receive it. Somatic means body based. So somatic healing means healing is body based healing and somatic practices as as a modality tend to rely on your sense of what you feel. So it's about having a relationship with your sensations. But you know, any body work is a somatic practice, right? And suggests a somatic practice. But somatic healing, as I'm talking about it, are these practices that come from regulating the nervous system, basically nervous system regulation.

00;29;21;02 - 00;29;52;29
Unknown
How would somebody approach dreams like, let's say they're having really negative content in their dreams and like negative emotions and nightmares and, you know, have a lot of fear regarding their dreams. So there's a couple of things. If it's really scary, find somebody to support. You always start by writing it down, and if it's too hard to write it down, draw it right, But make a record of the dream, one that helps externalize it and to the act of using your body in, that helps dispel some of the charge.

00;29;53;01 - 00;30;16;23
Unknown
So movement just generally movement is a great way to help us regulate. If there's if there's some anxiety or stress or fear in the system, that would be the first thing to do. If you're working by yourself, then maybe list, you know, see if you can identify the helper in the dream or the resource as and if one doesn't exist, bring one in.

00;30;16;26 - 00;30;36;21
Unknown
We're working in the imaginal realm, but do you have a dream? Do you have a dream? A dream to share? Yeah, I'm sure I could find one man. We could do it. We could. We could do a somatic dream work. Okay. Sure. Should I pick, like, a recent one or like a negative one or what kind? Any certain kind of dreams.

00;30;36;28 - 00;30;58;17
Unknown
Any dream that you want to know something more about. Okay, Let me look at my dream journal really quick. I wasn't prepared, but I'm excited for this. Okay? So I had this dream the other day. I'm playing video games, but it's kind of like fully immersive, like I'm in the game. I'm not really lucid or anything, but I'm, you know, I'm flying around and doing certain unrealistic things.

00;30;58;24 - 00;31;22;01
Unknown
I'm holding three controllers like game controllers, and I'm kind of using them to manage myself. And it's like I'm controlling other characters too, that I can't see in the field of vision. So I'm trying to manage all these controllers and like juggle them. So I fly into this building and I'm staying with this girl. She looks like Eugenia Cooney, who, if you don't know who she is, she's this girl online who says, okay, so she looks just like her.

00;31;22;01 - 00;31;38;28
Unknown
Maybe I was watching her videos before bed. I don't know. But these bad guys, I know who she is. I do. I'm surprised you do want me. She's pretty famous, So. Yeah, there's these bad guys chasing me in the dream. And so I go to her apartment. It's like I'm staying with her or something. So I'm, like, talking to her a little bit.

00;31;38;28 - 00;31;50;16
Unknown
And then I remember that these guys are like, looking for me. So I'm like, I got to go. I'm about to jump out the window. But before I go, like, do you need me to help you with anything? And she's like, I'm glad you asked. Actually, I have all this laundry. Can you do some laundry for me?

00;31;50;16 - 00;32;05;27
Unknown
She has, like, all this messy laundry in her room. It's messy. She has two dogs. And I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll just do it before I go. So I go grab. I'm like, like, which what's dirty? What's clean? And she's like, just here. She hands me some laundry, I go to do it, and I'm like, trying to help her out.

00;32;05;27 - 00;32;21;06
Unknown
So I'm like separating the whites of the colors or whatever. She's like, Yeah, I thought you, you would ask like, it's helpful. I'm like, Yeah, it's the least I could do. You're letting me stay here, whatever. And then it's a random dream element. She has all these colorful children's books that belong to her dog. And then I was like, okay, I got to go.

00;32;21;06 - 00;32;44;13
Unknown
So I, like, flew out the window. So yeah, that was the dream. Okay, so first I'm just going to invite you to notice how you feel sharing the dream with me. Just take a minute to check in what's happening in your body. It's really exciting. I love you. I love sharing my dreams. Yeah, and I so what I noticed was, like, I noticed your excitement, and then when I invited you to.

00;32;44;20 - 00;33;01;19
Unknown
To notice, right. You kind of settled and you took a big swallow. Yeah. So if I was doing the workshop, I would invite you to write it down again. But we're not going to do that here because. Because a time. And so I'm just going to invite you to just think about who is the helper in your dream.

00;33;01;19 - 00;33;20;27
Unknown
Is there a helper or a resource, an element of the dream that that can be like your home base or safety? Yeah. Me staying in her apartment felt safe. It felt like she was doing me a favor by like, letting me stay there for whatever reason. But I was helping her with the laundry, so I don't know, maybe me or her or both.

00;33;20;27 - 00;33;47;01
Unknown
I don't know. Okay, well, let's just go back to the. You felt safe in the apartment because you named us first. So I'm just going to invite you to sense into that sense, that sense of safety. Just see if if anything softens in your body or you land or you're just taken in for a moment. The sense of safety and knowing that that's there for you as you explore the dream, you can always come back to this place, this sense of safety.

00;33;47;04 - 00;34;07;18
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Felt good. It felt like I had friends there, even though I was stressed about people chasing me. It's kind of like when I was there. It paused like they weren't immediately coming to get me. But then I like, remember, like, yeah, I got to go because they're chasing me. MAF We were in the workshop there would you would be invited to write down everything you already know and understand about the dream.

00;34;07;25 - 00;34;23;27
Unknown
And actually I'm going to invite you to think about it and not tell me, but think about it as if you were writing down. If you want to take a couple of notes. Okay, Yeah, a couple of things that I could think of maybe, But even then I'm like, I don't fully know if I really do understand it or not.

00;34;24;00 - 00;34;52;01
Unknown
That's okay. But. But I'm sure there are things you already know and understand that. Yeah. Pressions associations. Yeah, definitely. And is there a specific element or character or piece or feeling about the dream that you want to know more about in this moment? The gaming controllers were interesting. I almost like wanted to attribute it to me playing a lot of video games lately that one felt.

00;34;52;06 - 00;35;19;16
Unknown
Yeah, that one feels like there's more there for me to understand. Okay So let's I'm going to invite you to drop back in and imagine yourself back in the dream space with the game controllers in your hands. Take your time and slow it down. So that's a really important part of somatic practice is slowing down. It starts with noticing, noticing as the first thing and then slowing down.

00;35;19;19 - 00;35;39;28
Unknown
And what emerges as you slow down with the game controllers in your hands, is it comfortable or uncomfortable. It was definitely a little uncomfortable. Although I was managing, I was like struggling a little bit. I was like trying to control mine and control the other ones. And I was almost like, Could it hold them all at the same time?

00;35;40;00 - 00;35;57;21
Unknown
Yeah. So let's slow that down. Just think about what you just said, right? I'm holding three controllers trying to manage them all at the same time. Controllers? How are you holding them? It was kind of like one of them was in my left arm. One of them was in my right arm. And then I had some in my hands.

00;35;57;23 - 00;36;19;05
Unknown
So I was kind of juggling all of them, trying to push buttons on different ones, and it was kind of chaotic. Okay, so I'm going to invite you to do that with your body. You're pressing your poking. Do that a little bit and exaggerate it now. So if there's tension in your hands, exaggerate it. If there's poking, don't poke hard.

00;36;19;05 - 00;36;40;10
Unknown
But like, would you really go in? And after you do that for a moment, right, you're engaging your muscles, take a moment and rest and see what happens. I mean, it definitely feels and I kind of had this thought as well, and I had that dream like kind of like symbolic for just all the different things I juggle in life and trying to control.

00;36;40;13 - 00;37;00;29
Unknown
But it felt like I was like controlling other people or like other parts of myself that I'm not consciously aware of. Like almost as if I'm like living other lives at the same time other than just me. But I couldn't see the other, like the game play or whatever. I couldn't see them, so I don't actually know what was going on.

00;37;00;29 - 00;37;23;25
Unknown
I could only see my own controls, like my own game, I guess. But I had the control, so I knew I was controlling them. I did. They just weren't in my field of view. And so what is happening inside? Yes, I'm a confused. I don't know. Yeah, there's confusion because you're controlling something you can't see. Yeah. And I'm like, How do I know what I'm doing?

00;37;23;29 - 00;37;50;14
Unknown
Where are they in this game or are they in another game? Or like didn't fully get it. But in the dream I was like, Yeah, it's good. I got it. This is what happens if you drop into that sense of I got it. Yeah, it's definitely like a faith of like even when I don't consciously know what's going on, that there's a bigger plan that like, my Higher self is aware of and I'm just kind of going with it consciously in the waking world.

00;37;50;17 - 00;38;14;23
Unknown
I'm going to invite you to sense into that faith that I got this. It feels comforting and motivating as well to going to let it land, right? So I heard there's still some, but there's also faith. Yeah, I mean, that's what life is. Yeah, that's true. I'm just noticing, like, some movement came into your body right just happened organically.

00;38;14;24 - 00;38;34;03
Unknown
What are you noticing? Just the fact that I don't really pay attention to, like, the feelings of what my body does, what I'm thinking about a dream. So it's interesting to pay attention to it. Yeah, like, it almost makes me a little bit nervous, which makes sense because, like, I'm nervous sometimes in life and like, I'm always thinking about like, is this going to go right or not?

00;38;34;04 - 00;39;01;15
Unknown
You know, trying to control all the things. But then I just tell myself, like, don't worry, you got it right? So that's a negotiation, right? That's a negotiation with your pattern of wanting to control everything and your your confidence goddess. Yeah. I mean, this was just a little tiny, teeny taste. I definitely like it makes make me understand how that how powerful this can be.

00;39;01;21 - 00;39;42;10
Unknown
And I think even the mini version of it, you know, people can really understand it. There's so many ways to look at dreams and feel your dreams and understand them. So it's really cool. The value of working semantically is that are emotional experiences bound in our physiology. And when there are issues by working with our physiology, we help untangle some of the complexities we facilitate clarity, and we also free up energy so it's bound in our anxious energy, then becomes released and we can use it for our creative energy, right?

00;39;42;16 - 00;40;00;26
Unknown
It's our life force. Our life force gets bound in our trauma, and when we can free it up, then it's there for us to to have. Yeah, this made me want to, like, maybe I'll reenter this dream if I can one of these nights. Because now, now you got me thinking about it. And I think there's more there for me to explore.

00;40;00;27 - 00;40;20;14
Unknown
So maybe if I can, I'll go back to it. Yeah. What don't you find to, like, if there's something unfinished, it'll come up in a dream again. yeah, for sure. Like, I mean, I do. I totally have recurring themes in my dreams. That's so fascinating to me. Also, to see how they might evolve over time. How are you doing?

00;40;20;14 - 00;40;36;23
Unknown
Are you feeling sufficiently complete for that with that little piece, or do you feel like there's more attending for your dream or your body? Right now? I'm happy with it. I'm happy it actually I have a good mood right now. Like, I'm excited. I love you know, it was very like a good surprise to talk about a dream.

00;40;36;25 - 00;40;57;21
Unknown
Yeah, they're amazing. I had an amazing series of dreams recently I share with you. Yes, please. And these dreams I worked with, both with my own music and also with my creative collaborators, The Sonya Treaty, where we do music, videos of dreams. I had a series of dreams where I'm going along a road and I turned a corner.

00;40;57;23 - 00;41;22;25
Unknown
I had four of them. The first when I'm walking down a dry flood channel and to the left of me is nothing, just spaciousness light. And to the right of me is an embankment with small pebbles and right with the riverbed curves is a tree line all different kinds of trees to all different sizes and shapes and I realized that I got to get out of this.

00;41;22;28 - 00;41;44;24
Unknown
There's a flood's going to come and I'm going to. I'm going to be washed away. So I scramble up the embankment to the tree line because that the first that was the first dream secondary I had at the conference walking down the street. And I'm with a friend and a character who was the jester Joker, full character archetype rides a bike in front of me.

00;41;44;25 - 00;42;07;07
Unknown
I can't cross the street and eventually I get across the street and then I'm going to turn the corner. I wake up. So it was my second dream with turning the corner that was in a city street where the neighborhood I grew up. And then I had a third dream where my friend's husband is driving me in a van and he turned the corner into a hotel parking lot.

00;42;07;09 - 00;42;30;22
Unknown
Then I had a fourth dream. And this dream happened like right before, I think right before the war in Israel and Gaza is I'm on a on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It's supposed to be the Pacific Ocean. And I turn the corner. I'm going to go down the cliff and the water is rushing up the cliff from the ocean.

00;42;30;22 - 00;42;48;11
Unknown
It's going up the cliff. But all four of these dreams involve turning a corner. What was so interesting, the first two dreams, I couldn't see what was around the corner. And this happened over a period of months. The first dream with the tree line, I realized, this is me. I'm on my journey. I'm getting ready to turn a corner.

00;42;48;11 - 00;43;13;03
Unknown
And I was I was preparing to turn a corner professionally. And I, I recognized that the tree line, those are my people. I'm going to be safe. And it really spoke to me about the importance of community and collaboration, that that was going to be my safe space. And I had that dream before getting involved in a new way with my healing community, right, showing up as an assistant and training.

00;43;13;03 - 00;43;40;18
Unknown
So being part of a bigger community. Also my involvement with Ice-T was being part of a bigger community and my music community because this dream was in advance of this big sonic installation drew me together. So here, here's my train line for my community, and by the last two dreams, I can see where I'm going, even though I'm still turning a corner and, you know, these are still dreams that are with me.

00;43;40;18 - 00;44;03;18
Unknown
But it was just so beautiful to see the quality change, even though here I am turning a corner every time. And at first I didn't know what direction I was going in. I didn't know what was on the other side of that corner. There was apprehension, right? I was scared that Flood was going to come down that channel, but I knew that if it got to the treeline I would be safe.

00;44;03;25 - 00;44;30;11
Unknown
And once I got that, that opened up the dream. So the following dreams. At least I could see what direction was coming. Yeah, that's awesome. I love the progression of the clarity that you got in each parts. Yeah, and I attribute working with other people. I relate to that when I started sharing my dreams and hearing other people's stories and like joining the community, like my dreams kind of just skyrocketed.

00;44;30;11 - 00;44;53;03
Unknown
And my motivation for dream just really expanded from there. So it is really such a huge thing to be able to talk to people about dreams. Yeah, I mean, what else do you do? So I do graphic design mostly. That's like my day job. That's what I do now. But I studied psychology in college, so I was always into like, consciousness s and psychology.

00;44;53;05 - 00;45;09;00
Unknown
And now that I do the Dream podcast and stuff, I'm kind of shifting back towards that as like career path. But you know, it's hard because it's like so new and it's like, I don't know how to make money with this whole dream thing. I just do it because I love it. But yeah, I'd mostly just do the podcast.

00;45;09;00 - 00;45;29;06
Unknown
I'm just trying to be consistent with it and see where it takes me. I guess this path has led me to now become a certified, lucid dream coach, so I have personal classes for that. I do workshops and I have an online course, so I'm really just trying to expand my knowledge in this field and build a community.

00;45;29;13 - 00;45;48;13
Unknown
I plan on going back to school for my Ph.D., but for now I'm really just sticking with the podcast and doing what I love, which is talking to people about dreams. Now we've done a lot of episodes I have, and I wasn't very consistent. Like I would just kind of do it on my as a hobby in my spare time.

00;45;48;15 - 00;46;09;21
Unknown
And sometimes I don't give myself enough credit. I think that, like you said, there's not that many like podcasts and things. I mean, there's some, but I want to be like a reliable resource for people. So even if I'm not making money off of it, I'm doing it because I just love doing it. So, yeah, well, I'm sure you're talking to I mean, I know because I've listened to some you're talking to some very interesting people.

00;46;09;24 - 00;46;26;11
Unknown
Yeah, I love it. I love getting new guests and hearing different perspectives. And the SD conference helped me meet so many people that I'm just like, you should go on my blog. Yes, you should go podcast. I have to hear your story. So it's like, my God, I'm just like, so inspired. I have like so many guests that I want to bring on.

00;46;26;11 - 00;46;46;27
Unknown
So, yeah. What about you? What what goals do you have or like, where you going, planning and anything in the future related to dream work? We are hoping to do another sonic installation for the art show. I need to figure out the tech since I'm not going to be there to do it. So I need to see if I can find a way to stream it.

00;46;47;00 - 00;47;09;10
Unknown
Right. Maybe a friend can bring the speaker for me so that I'm hoping to be able to do that to coordinate another sonic installation for that. That would be the third one. The first one we did was the Ocean Dreams, where we had samples of whale songs recorded by a marine biologist who works with the whales in Baja, California.

00;47;09;10 - 00;47;29;18
Unknown
So he sent us recordings he made of whale songs, and we set those to music. And the theme for the Dreamers was Ocean Dreams. So people were sending dreams that they had about the ocean. So that was the installation we did in Tucson. my God. So you want to hear a funny dream story? Yeah. So this was.

00;47;29;18 - 00;47;53;12
Unknown
This happened in Tucson. So before I went to Tucson, I had this dream. And in the dream, I look under the bed and there were two cats, a tabby cat and a black cat kittens like little cats. And they had their prey under the bed. So that was my dream. And I was working with that dream. I actually went to an art workshop and I drew out the dream and I was working with that dream this day that this happened.

00;47;53;14 - 00;48;13;22
Unknown
Now this is at the hotel in Tucson, work. A conference is happening right filled with people. And I'm walking from from wherever the rooms are, you know, the conference rooms back to my room. Got to go all the way across the lobby. It's a long walk and I'm walking along the lobby and you know how it is at these conferences.

00;48;13;22 - 00;48;40;08
Unknown
You see all kinds of people all of a sudden walking in the opposite direction are two women. One of them works at the hotel carrying kittens, a black kitten and a tabby cat. Coincidence? It's a mystery why I don't believe in coincidences. So just saying I mean, that was so while I had had the dream, I'd just done the dream work around the dream.

00;48;40;08 - 00;48;59;28
Unknown
And here are the two kittens in the hotel. So to see him, do you have any, like, theories? You don't have to make any claims, but any ideas of how is that possible that your dream shows you an element of something you might see throughout the day? Because that's happened to me before and I just can't explain it, You know, coincidence or mystery.

00;49;00;05 - 00;49;25;02
Unknown
It's, you know, I'm okay with mystery. Being uncomfortable with not knowing is a skill. Yeah, that's true. And it's it's helpful. It's helpful to be uncomfortable, to be comfortable with not knowing. I'm okay not knowing. I mean, that's kind of the magic of life. Life is magical. Like it could be completely meaningless, but it's our nature to make meaning.

00;49;25;05 - 00;49;44;18
Unknown
That's true. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it really depends on the meaning we apply to things. And I think what you said is so important, because there's only so much that our human brains can fully grasp and understand about, like how the world works. And, you know, science can only know so much about what it's able to measure and replicate and stuff like that.

00;49;44;18 - 00;50;01;28
Unknown
So yeah, I think I've come to that point as well that like even though I'm excited and I believe in all these possibilities of things, like I'm okay with the fact that I don't know anything, I'm just a little human. Like, what do I know? So I'm going to invite you to take that statement in the context of your dream.

00;50;02;01 - 00;50;26;28
Unknown
Right there is the not knowing the not knowing about what the other controllers are controlling. That's true. It's like an inner trust and a trust in the higher power. Yeah, there's a myth that we think if we understand, something will be good. Yeah, that's true. And if anything, it brings more questions of things we don't know. Yeah, and it could also bring you to something you don't want to know.

00;50;27;01 - 00;51;03;20
Unknown
It's true, right? When you really know something, you know that's where the somatic work is really helpful because it helps us tolerate the not knowing and the knowing helps us tolerate the knowing. We spend a lot of energy trying not to know, not to feel, not to see, not to be with, but our capacity to be with even the discomfort and the uncertainty is also our capacity, you know, flex our capacity to allow in what is beautiful and life affirming and juicy and nice.

00;51;03;22 - 00;51;21;10
Unknown
I was actually talking to somebody today and they were like, Yeah, I don't understand what this means. And it's so scary. Like, but it but it's not that scary. It's just because I don't understand it. I'm like, yeah, exactly. It things we think things are scary when we don't understand them. Yeah they are. Yeah, they are scary when we don't understand them.

00;51;21;13 - 00;51;40;23
Unknown
First of all, thank you so much for inviting me to be here with you. I really appreciate it. You know, dreams like I said earlier, dreams are so much just a part of my life that they're integrated. Working with dreams is an integral part of my life. Whether or not I'm dreaming actively or not. And they're there for all of us.

00;51;40;23 - 00;52;06;21
Unknown
And dreams are an integral part of all of our lives, whether we're paying attention to them or not. I just appreciate the value of being in a dream community that I think is really important. Sharing dreams, finding people to share your dreams, where playing with dreams, art in dreams, that's play, right? It's that's fun. And just knowing they're going to change, too.

00;52;06;28 - 00;52;27;04
Unknown
Like if you're stuck in a dream pattern that doesn't feel good, it's going to change because everything changes. And then to be able to track the changes and the dreams is really fun to see where growth might emerge or how you might show up differently in your dreams, or how different symbols might show up differently, how your relationship to your own dreaming changes over time.

00;52;27;06 - 00;52;48;11
Unknown
Everything changes over time. Yeah, that's true. I love comparing my dreams over the course of years. It's always so fascinating. I notice things that I didn't notice before and then I compare it to my life at the time and it's always very, very healing and very cool. Yeah. Or dreams that like where something in your dream comes to pass, right?

00;52;48;11 - 00;53;07;08
Unknown
Just like this. Like all my travel dreams. And then I traveled. Yeah, exactly. That's why I tell people it's so important to write your dreams down. Or at least the ones that feel important because. Yeah, you never know. It might. You might not have remembered it otherwise. And then when you write it down, you can compare it to the events that happened in waking life and like, notice the connections easier.

00;53;07;10 - 00;53;31;08
Unknown
So where can people find you? I'll put all your links, everything in the description, but if you just want to say it out loud. So I have a website. My music name is Sector two and so my website is section 22 dot com and my music is, well, my creative communities where I share and create music are mixture dawg and mixture.

00;53;31;08 - 00;54;03;09
Unknown
Plus I'm on Instagram as Sector 22, but I'm a terrible I'm terrible on social media. I'm very intermittent. I'm around doing dream work and somatic healing and all the things as well. I'm excited to see you around more in the dream community. I appreciate your you and I love your enthusiasm and I hope you know everything you want The Dream World podcast to be becomes that.

00;54;03;11 - 00;54;22;24
Unknown
Thank you. That means a lot. I will share it on social media and so I probably should share more like I have so much work out there. I've done a lot of music, I've done a lot that's a lot of work out there and I'm just, yeah, your work is great. That's why I'm excited to share with people so I can guide them to it because I had it.

00;54;22;24 - 00;54;59;24
Unknown
I love watching the videos and stuff is really nice. thanks. Yeah, the sonic outreach is really fun. That's what that workshop was. Wild. Ameena, thank you so much. I really appreciate you inviting me to be on.