When I was living in Chicago, about to turn thirty, I began recording my recurring nightmares — what I now know to be a symptom of my post-traumatic stress. They were confusing, shame-filled, dysregulating, and very women-centered in their themes.
I sought out a well-known “medicine woman” psychotherapist, the one all my fellow yoga teachers adored. I came into her office tearful, a total mess, and shared my dreams with her — and she promptly said, “You know dreams are just nonsense, right?” and offered me an Akashic records session instead.
I left feeling unseen and invalidated. But with a whisper in the back of my mind — or maybe the back of my womb — that said: dreams are not nonsense. This is important work. And women deserve more than that.
That experience is what propelled me into this work.
The treasure is already yours
There is treasure in our dreams — messages from our past, and whatever our subconscious has been mulling over in the background all day long. Dreams are tugging at our sleeve, and they will keep tugging until we listen.
But here’s the part that surprises people: this work is not about interpreting your dreams. Honestly, I don’t think anyone really wants their dreams interpreted by someone else, or wants to read a stranger’s interpretation of someone else’s dream. What’s actually helpful is learning to find meaningful interpretations of your own dreams — and learning to listen, in your body, when someone else shares theirs.
A dream comes from the unedited material of our subconscious. It’s a language only you can speak. The work is staying fluent in it across a lifetime.
Where the body comes in
This is called somatic dreamwork because it lives in the body, not the head. Instead of reaching for a dream dictionary, we move. We breathe. We drop back into the felt sense of the dream and let it move through us — with curiosity, and with care for the nervous system carrying it.
You don’t need to be a “dreamer” to begin. You just need a way to catch the dream before the day sweeps it away, and a willingness to listen.
If you’d like a place to start, the Lunar Dream Map is a simple morning practice for catching your dreams and how they land in your body.