ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book intends to de-mystify and encourage the use of dream work in clinical practice by providing a road map to doing dream work with clarity and confidence. One of the essential pieces of knowledge that helps us and our clients to benefit from the unique form of consciousness that dreams are is a basic understanding of the dream’s manner of communicating. Despite what Freud wrote about the subject, modern dream workers tend to believe that dreams do not deliberately distort their messages but instead are as clear and straightforward as it is possible for them to be given the particular constraints of dream consciousness. Far from being standard practice, the use of dreams is now rarely taught to new clinicians unless they are specifically pursuing a modality, such as psychoanalysis, Jungian or depth psychotherapy, where dream work remains central.
