Guest Post

In my work with highly sensitive persons (HSPs), recognizing and interacting with their inner wisdom is fundamental. We receive messages constantly through all the interweaving dimensions of ourselves: our intellect, body sensations, intuitions, and the spiritual or mystical. Our inner wisdom uses whatever means available to communicate. For that reason, night dreams, waking dreams, or visions are important ways essential knowledge emerges from our inner landscape.

There are various approaches to unearthing the messages from this sacred inner dreamscape. You can do meaningful dream work on your own. A great resource to help with this personal approach is Robert Johnson’s book Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination For Personal Growth. Additionally, I have a chapter devoted to dreamwork in my book Soul’s Homecoming. You can also do individual sessions with a dream worker or therapist. And there is another deeply enriching way, offering invaluable insights. That is, through Dream Circles.

I love offering a non-therapeutic approach to Dream Circles in my practice. Dream Circles give participants, including the HSP, a safe place to process their nighttime and waking dreams. The small ongoing group is formed either in person or using an online platform. These groups may meet for months, perhaps years. Participants often experience aha moments that bring peaceful resolution, even healing. And then there are those moments of utter surprise when in the dream process, you discover an image or symbol that offers a message you didn’t expect.

In my online class, Dream Circle Facilitation, I teach a basic structure for how to form a Dream Circle. I explain what Dream Circles are and how they work. Bringing night dreams or waking dreams forward in Circle allows deeper awareness of our inner wisdom, thereby offering us an opportunity for greater health and wellness.

First, there are group agreements: confidentiality, approaching the group work with curiosity, understanding that this is not therapy, and, importantly, no need to fix it. As an HSP, we tend to over-help or need to solve a perceived dilemma that may arise in dream sharing. But, one of the key elements we learn is that only the dreamer can say what their dream means. How liberating this is for the HSP! This means we can calmly and safely focus on the dream’s message. We are relieved of any potential overwhelm by needing to “do” anything. Instead, we can fully pay attention and listen. Even as I write these words, I feel a relaxing sensation in my chest!

Participating in a Dream Circle, we learn a safe, non-intrusive way to associate life events with dreams, clarify what’s going on in the dream itself, as well as the skill of reflecting back on a shared dream within a group context. Dreams come packaged in their own language with images such as symbols, metaphors, archetypes, shapes, colors, sounds, and feelings. They are not literal narratives and don’t always have a direct correlation to what happened or will happen in our lives. It’s possible there may be a connection to our experiences, but, fascinatingly, the dream may present something else for us to consider.

The group process helps us to learn how to listen deeply. This means not jumping to immediate conclusions in our interpretations or yielding to the strong desire to tell the dream what we think it means. Instead, we reverently enter the dreamscape shared in the Circle—observing, waiting, noticing, and allowing whatever wants to come forward. We may ask how this shared dream is illuminating a greater awareness for us individually and the group.

In the chapter on dreams in my book, Soul’s Homecoming, I wrote, “Learning how we dream is another way of listening to our inner wisdom. As Carl Jung explained, it is like opening a small hidden door to your soul. We can tap into our dreams and visions by following simple steps to prepare and open ourselves to the possibilities awaiting us. Jung echoed the deep listening practices of the ancients when he said, ‘Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.’”

Katharine Donovan Kane is professionally trained and certified. Her work is Inner Wisdom Wayfinding and Dreamwork. She relies on her intuitive gifts to help highly sensitive clients access inner wisdom by tapping into their unique story and dreams with all their emerging sensations, symbols, and imagery. She recently published a book entitled Soul’s Homecoming: An Empath’s Journey to Inner Wisdom. To learn more, visit http://www.kdkane.com/

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Julie Bjelland is a psychotherapist specializing in high sensitivity, Author of The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person, host of The HSP Podcast, and founder of the Sensitive Empowerment Community. Her books, blog, online courses, and free Webinars have helped thousands of highly sensitive people (HSPs) worldwide reduce their challenges, access their gifts, and discover their significant value to thrive to their fullest potential. Her HSPs in Heart-Centered Business Group connects and supports HSP healers and practitioners. Julie loves connecting in her Sensitive Empowerment Community and warmly invites you to join this positive, safe, and welcoming space. JulieBjelland.com❤️🌈❤️ (she/her)