Masterclass with Dr Peter Levine: Imagination, Dreams and Somatic Experiencing®

"A dream which is not understood is like a letter which is not opened" — The Talmud

Without imagination, we are constrained to constantly relive the past. It is only with imagination that we can envision a future different than the past. A future that brings us nourishment and more positive life experiences. Dreams are what allows access to the collective unconscious and to experience the rich border-realm between sleep and wakefulness.

It seems like everybody has a different theory of dreams. In this class we will explore the possibility that dreams exist on their own merit. Carl Jung observed that most of the neurosis today, along with the feeling of isolation, and fragmentation, arises from the disconnection between the "ego-mind" and the unconscious. He also wrote that the most important question that anyone can ask is what myth am I living? Dreams are a royal road to discovering our myths, and living them in our lives.

This workshop is not just about understanding our dreams (which can be revealing) but is primarily about bringing the dreams to life in our wakeful imagination. This way we can be enriched by this source of collective wisdom.

Overview

This first-ever Australian workshop with Dr Peter Levine is designed especially for Somatic Experiencing® students and graduates. It offers a rare opportunity to expand your clinical lens by exploring how imagination, dreams, and symbolic processes can deepen the effectiveness of SE™ work.

By attending, you will:

• Enrich your SE™ practice by learning how dream material and active imagination can reveal implicit patterns, themes, and archetypal forces beneath your clients' somatic experience.

• Strengthen your ability to track meaning-making alongside sensation, helping clients integrate the symbolic and the somatic with greater coherence.

• Explore dreams as an expression of the collective unconscious, broadening your understanding of what moves through your clients beyond personal narrative alone.

• Learn how imagination supports forward movement, allowing clients to shift from repeating old survival patterns into envisioning and embodying new possibilities.

• Understand the role of myth and archetype in healing, and how these deeper currents can provide orientation, purpose, and momentum in trauma resolution.

• Develop skills to bring dream imagery into conscious awareness, inviting clients to engage with these images in ways that support regulation, integration, and transformation.

• Gain clarity on the relationship between the ego-mind and the unconscious, and how restoring connection between the two promotes wholeness and reduces fragmentation.

Dreams – and active imagination – can be sources of guiding transpersonal experiences, knowledge, and wisdom. By working with dreams, we have the possibility to uncover these profound archetypes and to discover how they direct the forward movement of our lives. Once we become aware of these inner-energetic forces, we have the option to change the direction of our lives.

This workshop goes far beyond dream interpretation. It invites you to work with dreams as living experiences—resources that can animate your clinical work, expand your perceptual field, and support clients in accessing their own inner wisdom.

Who Should Attend

Somatic Experiencing® Students and Graduates ONLY