Volume CXXV – Applied Methods of Dream Tending

Dear Dream Tending Community,

During my career as a clinical psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, the founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute and Dream Tending, I have tended the dreams of thousands of people around the world. From my time in the field, I have crafted a three-step orientation of working with a dream that I find particularly generative.

• First, Dream Tending views the dreaming psyche as multidimensional. Dreams are perceived as portals, opening the doors to the personal, collective, and universal realms of consciousness.

• Second, to tend a dream is to extend beyond the causal methods of interpretation. To “animate” a dream is to experience the figures as embodied. These visitors of the night come with imaginal presence and pulse.

• Third, as we learn the ways of animating dreams it becomes possible to experience their intelligence and listen to their stories. These wisdom offerings originate both in the psyche of persons and in the psyche of Nature.

“DreamTending” puts us in direct connection with the deep psyche – the timeless source of the soul. Dreams are not just a code we decipher in order to understand our daily lives, or something we analyze or interpret to fix ourselves. Dreams are, in addition, a living reality with which we can engage to revolutionize every area of our lives.

Dream Tending provides caregivers, counselors, and members of the helping professions with applied skills that enhance well being. Added to existing models of treatment Dream Tending provides access to the healing resources found in the timeless wisdom of the deep psyche. In the world of today, including such resources add valuable support when attending to life challenges, heartaches and opportunities.

Warmly,
Dr. Stephen Aizenstat