latest by jen
The Gift of the Dream: An Introduction to Dreamwork
If you live in the South Jersey / Philadelphia area, you are invited to come learn some basic principles to help you listen to your dreams’ wisdom. December 12, 2023, 7:30 – 9 pm I will share experiences from my own dream journey and guide participants through a dreamwork exercise that can be practiced at home. Please bring along one dream, written or typed out on paper. If you’ve been curious about dreamwork, how it ...
What Dreams Teach Us About Love
Let me get this out of the way upfront. The title of this post (and maybe any blog post ever) is misleading. There is no way I’ll be able to encapsulate in an 1100-word blog post what dreams teach us about love. But boy, do they teach us about love. What I’d like to do in this post is express one way dreams teach us about love. If we are lucky, at least once in ...
Why You Should Write Down Dreams You Don’t Quite Remember
I’ll tell you a secret. Even though I’m a high-yielding dreamer and a dreamwork practitioner, there are mornings I convince myself that my dreams are too distant or too hazy or too jumbled to bother writing them down. I turn over and go back to sleep. And … every time I listen to the voice in my head that tells me that’s the truth, I regret it later. Have you ever taken on a regular ...
Dreamwork to Prep for the End of the World
Last night, before bed, I found myself discussing with my boyfriend which film or TV show I want him to watch to better prepare him for the end of the world: The Last of Us? The Walking Dead? Station Eleven? Bird Box??? I settled on The Handmaid’s Tale because, as I explained to him, “it’s the one that seems closest to our current reality.” I’m not sure that’s true anymore, since I stopped watching The ...
Dreamwork in and for Times of Crisis
It’s been a painful and heart-wrenching few weeks. Unable to read or write or work much since the massacres on Israeli civilians on October 7, I wasn’t sure I would be able to show up for my monthly audio chat on Patreon. But a good talk with a fellow dreamwork practitioner and a few juicy dreams compelled me forward with renewed inspiration and dedication to this research and work. The episode I ended up recording ...
The Magical Side Effect of Writing Out Your Dreams
I am a morning person and a dreamwork practitioner, and still sometimes I don’t feel like writing down my dreams. It’s okay to go through a stretch when you don’t record your dreams, especially if it’s a stressful period, or if you’re struggling with getting high quality sleep. First and foremost, I very much encourage you to protect your sleep. That aside, writing down your dreams in a notebook or in a notepad app on ...
Why Are My Dreams So Vivid?
A very common first response from individuals who learn I am a dreamwork practitioner and dream researcher is, “Oh, I have such vivid dreams.” Often the conversation may continue, and the individual will tell me how lifelike their dreams are sometimes — how colorful or rich with sensory experience. The person is typically amazed by this, or confused. The implied question is: Why do my dreams feel so real? In Natural Dreamwork (the method I ...
How to Remember More of Your Dreams
For years, I was always surprised when friends or family would claim to not remember their dreams. I would be even more incredulous when someone would say to me, “Oh, I don’t dream.” What? How could that be? My dream life was always so active, rich, and plentiful. I had so many dreams, even as a child, and dreams inside of dreams. How is it that someone else had none? Since I started researching dreams, however, ...
Is Dreamwork a Cure for Nostalgia?
You may not want a cure for your nostalgia, and that’s okay. I’m not sure yet I want to “cure” mine. It’s served me well across many years and many stages of life, as has my capacity for daydreaming. But I am strongly considering the possibility of giving it up. Like the other coping mechanisms we developed in childhood and adolescence that enabled us to survive loneliness, awkwardness, abuse, or cruelty, nostalgia and daydreaming allow ...
Should I Listen to What Dream Characters Say?
Have you ever noticed how in dreams, we tend to “know” someone has told us something or we get “the idea” of a certain verbal exchange between ourselves and a dream character? It turns out, it’s actually quite difficult to remember word for word what a dream character said. Pay attention the next time you have a dream that includes dialogue or conversation. What words can you recall for certain? Would you bet something valuable ...
Smell, Sound, Taste, and Touch In Dreams
As I have given more attention over the years to recalling my dreams, I’ve noticed changes in a few areas: Most notably, I remember more dreams, more details of dreams, and I can retain the memory of the dream longer. I’ve also experienced more lucidity in dreams, as well as more episodes of precognition. Another increased capacity has been my sensory experience. Or, at least, my ability to recall sensory experiences from the dream. In ...
Healing the Nervous System: Dreamwork Is Required
I don’t remember exactly when I first started experiencing the symptoms of anxiety, but I’ve suffered from panic attacks since the age of seven. I didn’t know that’s what they were then, nor did my parents, nor my doctors. Back then, I may have been described as “sensitive,” or “overreactive.” A doctor may have said once after examining me and finding “nothing wrong,” that I had a “nervous belly.” It’s only looking back now that ...
Recurring Dreams: Airport Dreams
Have you had an airport dream recently? Did it leave you energized and excited? Or anxious? My guess is that for many of us airport dreams are often stressful and highlight areas of our lives where we are highly reactive. It’s not surprising. Preparing for and checking in at the airport are not the most peaceful of activities, nor is navigating the airport. It’s understandable then that airport dreams, like airports, are often saturated in ...
What Does It Mean When You Dream of…?
What does it mean when you dream of your teeth falling out? What does it mean when you dream of spiders chasing you? What does it mean when you dream you are pregnant? What does it mean when you dream of someone who died? Most people who come to the internet to learn more about dreams come to discover the meaning of a particular type of dream. It’s natural that once we start paying more ...
Dreamwork Reaches to Where Memory Can’t
Last night, another dream of water. This time, I was tossed a rope by my father and encouraged to hop along lily-pad-like buoys across a pond. From there, I swung on the rope like Tarzan and landed in a deep, clear pool. It was a backyard pool; perhaps it was even the swimming pool in the yard behind my childhood home. Except the pool water was very crisp and clear, and the deep end into ...
Precognition in Dreams: Best Practices for Cultivating Psychic Dreaming
In 2018, I interviewed scientist and author Dr. Dean Radin upon the publication of his book Real Magic. At the time, I was occasionally interviewing authors for a newspaper, but I was super excited for this one as it was the first time I would interview a parapsychology researcher. On a more personal level, I was looking forward to the opportunity to talk precognition and psychic dreams with Radin, who has studied the phenomenon and published papers with ...
The Reality Behind Reality
There is a reality behind reality; of this I am certain. I’m not the only one. Mystical traditions and practitioners of magic teach of this “more real” reality, and about ways in which we humans may lift the veil of this one. Why does it matter, how real this reality is? I don’t know. What I know is that when you’ve had experiences your whole life that indicate there is something “else,” something “more,” or ...
New author interview with Kabbalah scholar Zvi Ish-Shalom
I recently interviewed 47-year-old Kabbalah scholar and teacher Zvi Ish-Shalom for The Times of Israel, following the publication of his most recent book, The Path of Primordial Light. (Excerpt below. Full article here.) “Reality reveals things,” he said. “Downloads come through that [meditative] space. It was in these contemplative spaces these teachings were revealed to me.” … There is an ancient Hebrew text that speaks of a “Torah Kedumah,” a “Primordial Teaching,” Ish-Shalom writes, that ...
- Events |
The Gift of the Dream: An Introduction to Dreamwork
If you live in the South Jersey / Philadelphia area, you are invited to come learn some basic principles to help you listen to your dreams’ wisdom. December 12, 2023, 7:30 – 9 pm I will share experiences from my own dream journey and guide participants through a dreamwork exercise…
- Dreams |
What Dreams Teach Us About Love
Let me get this out of the way upfront. The title of this post (and maybe any blog post ever) is misleading. There is no way I’ll be able to encapsulate in an 1100-word blog post what dreams teach us about love. But boy, do they teach us about love. …
- Dreams |
Why You Should Write Down Dreams You Don’t Quite Remember
I’ll tell you a secret. Even though I’m a high-yielding dreamer and a dreamwork practitioner, there are mornings I convince myself that my dreams are too distant or too hazy or too jumbled to bother writing them down. I turn over and go back to sleep. And … every time…
- Dreams |
Dreamwork to Prep for the End of the World
Last night, before bed, I found myself discussing with my boyfriend which film or TV show I want him to watch to better prepare him for the end of the world: The Last of Us? The Walking Dead? Station Eleven? Bird Box??? I settled on The Handmaid’s Tale because, as…
- Dreams |
Dreamwork in and for Times of Crisis
It’s been a painful and heart-wrenching few weeks. Unable to read or write or work much since the massacres on Israeli civilians on October 7, I wasn’t sure I would be able to show up for my monthly audio chat on Patreon. But a good talk with a fellow dreamwork…
- Dreams |
The Magical Side Effect of Writing Out Your Dreams
I am a morning person and a dreamwork practitioner, and still sometimes I don’t feel like writing down my dreams. It’s okay to go through a stretch when you don’t record your dreams, especially if it’s a stressful period, or if you’re struggling with getting high quality sleep. First and…
- Dreams |
Why Are My Dreams So Vivid?
A very common first response from individuals who learn I am a dreamwork practitioner and dream researcher is, “Oh, I have such vivid dreams.” Often the conversation may continue, and the individual will tell me how lifelike their dreams are sometimes — how colorful or rich with sensory experience. The…
- Dreams |
How to Remember More of Your Dreams
For years, I was always surprised when friends or family would claim to not remember their dreams. I would be even more incredulous when someone would say to me, “Oh, I don’t dream.” What? How could that be? My dream life was always so active, rich, and plentiful. I had…
- Dreams |
Is Dreamwork a Cure for Nostalgia?
You may not want a cure for your nostalgia, and that’s okay. I’m not sure yet I want to “cure” mine. It’s served me well across many years and many stages of life, as has my capacity for daydreaming. But I am strongly considering the possibility of giving it up.…
- Dreams |
Should I Listen to What Dream Characters Say?
Have you ever noticed how in dreams, we tend to “know” someone has told us something or we get “the idea” of a certain verbal exchange between ourselves and a dream character? It turns out, it’s actually quite difficult to remember word for word what a dream character said. Pay…