I work as a practitioner of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method ® (RSM), a body-centred psychotherapy, where I both talk to my clients and touch them. When I touch my clients or lead them mindfully in connecting with their body through touch or movement, pathways of connections begin to open up. These connections become a “conversation” between body and mind, heart and soul that leads to an integrated, holistic approach to healing and life. It might be said that I help my clients dream themselves. As a Synergist (that’s what the practitioners of RSM are called) who works extensively with dreams, I’ve witnessed that body, mind and emotions are all present and reflected in my client’s dreams. We awaken from a frightening dream and our body is tense, our heartbeat is rapid and our respiration is elevated. Dreams have the ability to produce strong emotional reactions and express the passions, joys and fears of our soul that we may not be consciously aware of.

"One of the quickest ways to get to know ourselves is through our dreams."

"This turns everything we might have thought about dreams, including the last one hundred years of psychotherapy, on its head!"

In the work of Connie Cockrell Kaplan, the Woman’s Book of Dreams we learn about a shamanic, woman-centred approach to dreaming. Kaplan says that women dream from their wombs and that “The relationship between the womb and the moon controls every aspect of dreaming. A woman’s cycles and her dreaming are inextricable. Even women who have had hysterectomies, or for any other reason no longer bleed, still have the cyclical relationship to the moon….” So, according to Kaplan, learning the rhythms and cycles of our own body is the key to manifesting our dreams and unlocking the patterns and meanings of our dreams. She writes “In the white man’s world, we believe we dream about our waking life at night, and through dreams we gain understanding. This is backwards. In women’s teachings, first we dream the dream, then we bring the dream into manifestation, and then comes understanding.” This turns everything we might have thought about dreams, including the last one hundred years of psychotherapy, on its head! And yet…..perhaps as women dreamers this resonates somewhere in our “knowing”, our deep ancestral understanding of ourselves.