The greatest myth that most people harbor about dreams is that dreams are not real. As this book presents and demonstrates, dreams are very real, in the sense that they communicate emotional truths. Listening for these emotional truths, incubated and encrypted in dreams, is a core practice of learning from the mystery of the soul. As co-authors, both psychotherapists and artists (Willow, a singer and songwriter; Eva, a visual artist and ceramicist), dear colleagues and trusted spiritual friends, we demonstrate and invite an integral path of awakening not only from, but also to and through dreams.
“This book is a genuinely artistic and inspiring masterpiece—deeply enriching and exceptionally well-written. Chapter by chapter, the authors guide us with creative vision and insight toward the emotional truths of dreams. By inviting the reader into their intimate conversations, they allow qualities of aliveness to emerge, and we are changed by it—both personally and professionally. This captivating work illuminates psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic thinking with brilliance, making it essential reading for anyone interested in exploring dreams as a path to self-inquiry. It also shows how, through engaging with dream dialogues, we come to nest ourselves—and others—more deeply.”
Jani Santamaría Linares, PhD
Editor of Bion, Dreamwork and the Oneiric Dimensions of the Mind
and co-editor of The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaría Association
“In an era of doom-scrolling social media feeds in order to instantly receive overwhelming artificial information from people we probably won’t ever meet, Willow Pearson Trimbach and Eva Tuschman Leonard offer us a calming, nourishing alternative: to attentively get to know ourselves through intimate psychic dialogue with another human being via the timeless wisdom of dreams. It was a transformative pleasure to accompany them on the co-reverie landscape of their elegant soul-touching text, and discover alongside their generous first-person-voices, the worlds of irreplaceable healing, connection, and understanding that open when we make time for dreaming together.”
Adam Shechter, LCSW
Author of “The Phantasy of the Socialist Heart
and The Uroboros,” Free Associations
Through contemplation of dreams of the day and night, we share our collaborative dream dialogues and further dream reflections. These are conversations between trusted spiritual friends, not psychotherapy sessions between a therapist and her patient, even as psychotherapeutic wisdom is engaged. Through this emergent apprenticeship, to our dream life and to the life of the soul, we hear the themes of our selected dreams—through a scream, a cry, song, art, time, love, death, divinity, otherness, music, animal companions, illness, and life.
Distinctively, this book is not about dreams, it is a book of dreams. It is about awakening to dreams (not only from them). Through example, we show how to cultivate the practice of deeply listening to our dreams of the day and of the night and the emotional truths they harbor. In turn, we reveal our own longings, inquiries, reveries and discoveries as we apprentice the grace of dreaming, individually and in collaboration.
Dreamlife—no longer relegated to the shadows—becomes an honored guest, an invited companion, welcomed into the light of awareness. Our hope is that this book may, in turn, inspire you, the reader, to apprentice your own dream life, opening you further to the mysteries and liberations of your own soul and our collective soul.
Chapters
Foreword, by Helen Marlo
Introduction: Learning from Dreaming
Chapter 1, Scream: Learning from Being Heard
Chapter 2, Watch: Learning from Time
Chapter 3, Song: Learning from Singing—Guru Bodhichitta
Chapter 4, Alchemy of Soul: Learning from Creativity and the Unconscious
Chapter 5, Others: Learning from Multiple Selves
Chapter 6, Surrender: Learning from Illness
Chapter 7, Wanting Out: Learning from Cats—Bardo and the Shoji Screen
Chapter 8, Circle Game: Learning from Cats—Chief and His Exercise Wheel
Chapter 9, Devotion: Learning from Nondual Love
Chapter 10, Departure: Learning from Goodbye
Chapter 11, Burial: Learning from Death—Île-à-la-Crosse
Chapter 12, Ascension: Learning from Divinity
Chapter 13, Grace: Learning from Living—Tara’s Promise
Chapter 14, Afterword: Sing the Dream that Wakes You Up