Dream Tending and Deep Imagination Immersion Program 2026
January 9th – June 28th, 2026
The interactive certificate program will occur online.
The Dream Tending and Deep Imagination Immersion Program supports advanced skill cultivation at the cutting edge of Dr. Stephen Aizenstat’s work in Dream Tending and the Imagination Matrix. This program includes a time of creative incubation—a time to imagine, innovate, and build skills in tending dreams as portals into deep imagination. The work will be deeply personal as well as community-oriented. As part of this new cohort, you will journey into the universe of the dreamtime.
Participants dive into imaginal intelligence and sustaining states of access to deep imagination and expand, from the personal to the collective to the universal. Dream Tending expands from sleeping to waking life and toward possibility and innovation. Deep shifts in consciousness are elaborated into the ongoing lived experience. Contexts of applying illuminated consciousness and the five-fold gifts of the Imagination Matrix System to relationships, community, workplace, and world. Insight processes extend from awareness, visitation, and moments of epiphany toward sustaining an imagination-centered life. Sustained states of immersive imagination also nurture self-care, healing, and well-being.
Throughout the four sessions of this program, along with vibrant experiential mid-module gatherings, you will have access to individual and group mentorship within online and experiential mediums. Over the months of the program, particular attention will be given to creating and deepening our heartfelt Dream Tending community. In fact, community building and networking will be a primary emphasis of our gatherings. With this protection and care, we will embrace the generativity that emerges with tending dreams and deep imagination.
Prerequisite: Having completed Certificate I or having participated in a previous Dream Tending Program or Journey
Schedule
January 9, 2026 – June 28, 2026
The Dream Tending and Deep Imagination Immersion Program will take place over four modules with three mid-module check-ins.
If you are curious to learn more or register for the program, please reach out to the Dream Tending team at: hello@dreamtending.com
Module One
Into Illumination – Skills for the Deepening Journey
January 9th, 10th, and 11th
Imaginal journeyers hone additional skill sets while moving through the known methodologies of association, amplification, and animation. In Module One we engage the additional praxis of illumination. We expand beyond the personal, collective, and world unconscious into the Web of Deep Imagination. Individually and in community participants gain tools and methods of journeying in the realm of the autonomous psyche. In this expanded realm of consciousness, we journey in the presence of guides and guardians. As we befriend the imaginal realms, we access the hidden gifts of both the beautiful and the challenging. In gaining flexibility and freedom in this realm of consciousness insight awakens and well being increases. Through artistic expression, informed guidance, and somatic experiencing each participant designs individual practices to anchor the transformations that are unfolding. This module sets a vocabulary of core skills in motion for the work of deep voyaging.
Among other luminaries in the field, the work of Joseph Campbell is highlighted in this module.
Friday, January 9th: 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm PST
(including two short breaks)
Saturday, January 10th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Sunday, January 11th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Module Two
Soma Gaia Emergent – Sourcing Deep Wisdom and Healing from the Body, the World, and the Underworld
March 27th, 28th, and 29th
How can the psyche of place and vibrant earth fields open access to the body’s innate healing powers? In Module Two, practices of somatic and emotional well-being are enacted. Evolving from historic traditions and contemporary systems, participants learn the craft of formulating and applying dream “temple medicine.” Resilience strengthens through the praxis of deep perceiving, making offerings, and embodying the generative energies of Earth. We discover how the gifts that sometimes visit through situational or personal affliction facilitate the healing powers within the wounds.
In working with the world psyche, we welcome visitations from the underworld. We move from asking “who’s visiting now?” to “who’s journeying now?” As we cultivate our abilities to witness the generative evolution of nightmare figures, we experience how our growth is linked in many ways to their procreative journey. In so doing we are called and capacitated to tend the planetary challenges of our times. In community we experience how journeying in dream and deep imagination serves as guiding principles for planetary healing, and thus our own.
Among other luminaries in the field, the work of Maria Gimbutas and Marion Woodman is highlighted in this module.
Friday, March 27th: 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm PST
(including two short breaks)
Saturday, March 28th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Sunday, March 29th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Module Three
The Heart-Web-Portal – Become the Tapestry at the Doorways of Imaginal Becoming
May 15th, 16th, and 17th
The matrix of imagination opens doorways. In Module Three, we explore the extraordinary confluence among deep ecology, depth psychology, new technology, and Indigenous cosmology. Doors open at the intersections. Through these portals you enter the cycle of the deep imagination matrix. You participate in a working laboratory, complemented by individualized supervision. By learning the ways of journeying through the four quadrants of the web of imagination, you discover the potency at the convergence points. Our journeys become ever more deeply felt as we arrive at thresholds where universe, myth, body, and method interact with one another. You experience both an integration and an expansion of being alive. In community, we deepen the tending of our own imaginal journeying, while we nurture and support the deepening journeys of others. A quality of “high play” animates our community. Wonder and joy become present. Particularly in times of challenge and suffering, the beauty and dance of journeying in dream and imagination feed the soul. Inner and outer resources offer themselves to our health and to our life’s work.
Among other luminaries in the field, the work of Russel Lockhart and Jean Houston are highlighted in this module.
Friday, May 15th: 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm PST
(including two short breaks)
Saturday, May 16th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Sunday, May 17th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Module Four
Oracles of the Possible – Clarion Illuminations of the Worlds in Becoming
June 26th, 27th, and 28th
For centuries, dreams have held the mythos, histories, and storylines of cultures. They have been at the forefront of evolution and discovery. Especially in trying times, we are called forth to incubate and articulate possibilities that can inspire and sustain. In Module Four, we look toward dream and imagination to open new possibilities and to address daunting dilemmas that defy resolution by present forms of knowing. In community, we pay attention to the possibilities suggested in the dreamtime. Working in collaboration with one another, we consider exploring the future as it is unfolding through dream and imagination. We listen as prophetic figures from the dreamtime announce themselves and ask for our attention. Through deep synchronicity, kismet, and resonance, you begin to experience the expanded imagination as both an inheritance and a call of the future. In doing so, you reconnect somatically and imaginally with the playful states of your and the world’s becoming. Hosting the Oracles of the Possible, opens curiosity and ignites an enthusiasm for the becoming.
Among other luminaries in the field, the work of James Hillman is highlighted in this module.
Friday, June 26th: 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm PST
(including two short breaks)
Saturday, June 27th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Sunday, June 28th: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm PST
(including an hour and a half lunch break)
Earn 40 Continuing Education Credits
40 continuing education credits are available for MFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs through the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (provider #67021), for RNs through the California Board of Registered Nurses (provider #CEP 7177), and for psychologists through the California Psychological Association (PAC014). Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Full attendance at the program is required to receive a certificate. A $40 fee will be charged for each certificate requested.
Schedule a time to talk
If you are curious to learn more or register for the program, please reach out to the Dream Tending team at: hello@dreamtending.com
Meet Dr. Stephen Aizenstat
Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D., is the Founder of Dream Tending, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and Academy of Imaginal Arts and Sciences. He is a world-renowned Professor of Depth Psychology, an imagination specialist, and innovator. He has served as an organizational consultant to major companies, institutions, Hollywood films, and has lectured extensively in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He is affiliated with the Earth Charter International project through the United Nations where he has spoken. He has collaborated with many notable masters in the field including Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, and Robert Johnson.
General Information
Schedule a Time to Talk
To learn more about the Dream Tending Certificate program, please email hello@DreamTending.com to discuss questions, program price, and payment plan options. One of our Program Coordinators will get back to you shortly.
*Continuing Education Credits
40 continuing education credits are available for MFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs through the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (provider #67021), for RNs through the California Board of Registered Nurses (provider #CEP 7177), and for psychologists through the California Psychological Association (PAC014). Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Full attendance at the program is required to receive a certificate. A $40 fee will be charged for each certificate requested.
Continuing Education Credit Details
This program meets the qualifications for 40 hours of continuing education credit for Psychologists through the California Psychological Association (PAC014) Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing education for psychologists. Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Full attendance is required to receive a certificate.
This course meets the qualifications for 40 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (#60721) to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs. Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content. Full attendance is required to obtain a certificate.
For Registered Nurses through the California Board of Registered Nurses, this conference meets qualifications of 40 hours of continuing education credit are available for RNs through the California Board of Registered Nurses (provider #CEP 7177). Full attendance is required to obtain a certificate.
Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs. Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for each program and its content. Full day attendance is required to receive a certificate.
Continuing Education Goal. Pacifica Graduate Institute is committed to offering continuing education courses to train LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs to treat any client in an ethically and clinically sound manner based upon current accepted standards of practice. Course completion certificates will be awarded at the conclusion of the training and upon participant’s submission of his or her completed evaluation.
CECs and Online Program Attendance: Participants requesting Continuing Education Credits (CECs) for Online programs must attend all live sessions (offered via Zoom) in order to receive CECs. Please make sure that your Zoom account name matches the name of the attendee requesting CECs.
Payment Plans
Payment plans have been created to make the Certificate Programs more affordable. Dream Tending will keep payment methods on file that can be changed. On each payment date, the payment you have chosen to keep on file will be automatically deducted. If for any reason payment dates need to be changed due to extenuating circumstances, the participant agrees to alert Dream Tending one-week prior to the payment due date. Appropriate alterations can only be made upon both parties agreement and must be placed in writing. If the payment is more than 5 days late, a $50 late fee will apply. No refunds will be given after the start date of the Certificate Program. If payments are not completed according to the agreements of this document, or mutually agreed upon arrangements have not been made, the participant will no longer be permitted to participate in Dream Tending programs. By entering a payment plan you are committing to the entirety of the Dream Tending Certificate program. Therefore, you are agreeing to make all four payments in full which will be auto-deducted seven days prior to the start of each module. If you are unable to complete the program, you are still required to make all payments. If you wish to make-up a module at a future date, please contact the program coordinator.
Enroll in a payment plan
$500 Deposit – Remaining balance divided into 4 or 8 equal payments
Grants
The mission of our grant program is to extend accessibility of Dream Tending to those committed to learning the Dream Tending method who may not otherwise be able to afford it. Grants are awarded based on factors such as financial need, unique life circumstances and community-based involvement. Please reach out to our program coordinator at hello@DreamTending.com, to receive more information on how to apply.
Location
All Modules will be held online via Zoom.
Cancellations
Deposits and full tuition payments made towards Dream Tending Certificate Programs can be refunded 21 days prior to the start of the program. After that, any payments made can be put towards future Dream Tending programs. Dream Tending reserves the right to cancel any program or expel participants at any time. In the case of an unforeseen canceled program, you will be refunded in full. In the case of program expulsion, possible refunds will be examined on a case by case basis.
Refund Policy
Refunds will be given 21 days prior to the start of the program. After that, any payments made can be put towards future Dream Tending programs. No transfers will be given after the start date of a Certificate Program.
Confidentiality
The Dream Tending and Deep Imagination Certificate program is a professional training program offered under the auspices of the Continuing Education Program of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Participants are encouraged to present material from their personal dreams for discussion during seminar sessions with the understanding that the ensuing dreamwork is part of an educational opportunity. The Program is not psychotherapy and will not provide the “container” of the therapeutic consulting room. Thus, there is no legally protected confidentiality for a “psychotherapist-client” communication. Although the presenter is a Clinical Psychologist and licensed psychotherapist, he will be working as seminar leader and instructor in this training program. While there will be a continuing relationship among the participants over the nine months of the seminar series, the focus of this experience is educational rather than therapeutic. Participants will want to keep this in mind in deciding what to share during seminar sessions.
As a part of this training, seminar participants will work with their own and each others’ dreams in meetings of the entire group as well as during triad and small group sessions. Triad and small group sessions have their own confidentiality, and participants must reach a mutual agreement before sharing material from these smaller meetings in the general sessions of the entire group. What participants share and learn from each other must remain within their agreed upon limits of confidentiality and does not fall under the responsibility or liability of Dream Tending.
Seminar participants who wish to include case material from their clinical practices in this training program may do so. If you choose to do this, you must present the material in a manner which obscures the client’s identity and otherwise preserves the client’s confidentiality rights.
Disability Support
It is the goal of Dream Tending to make programs and experiences accessible to all members of the community. It is the participant’s responsibility to contact Program@DreamTending.com directly if accommodations are desired. Each person, disability, and situation is unique, so needs will be considered individually.
All reading materials in the Dream Tending Certificate program are formatted to be compatible with read-aloud programs.
Anti-Discrimination Policy
Dream Tending will not discriminate against any individual or group with respect to any service, program or activity based on gender, race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, age or other prohibited basis. Dream Tending does not require attendees to adhere to any particular religion or creed in order to participate in its programs.
Grievances
We want to ensure your experience in the Dream Tending Certificate programs is educational and enjoyable. The Dream Tending Program Coordinators will respond to complaints in a reasonable, ethical and timely manner when submitted by program attendees in writing to hello@DreamTending.com or call (805) 770-0195.
FAQs
Who can I contact with any questions?
If you are curious to learn more or register for the program, please reach out to the Dream Tending team at: hello@DreamTending.com
