Dreamwork Certificate Program

You will gain foundational dreamwork skills through a blend of theoretical insight and experiential practice. The focus is on cultivating a meaningful relationship with your own dreams. These skills can also support your work with others, particularly for therapists, counselors, and coaches. For those without prior training, the program offers an enriching starting point for personal exploration.

Upon completion, you will have a basic understanding of these deep dreamwork traditions. The unique strength of this program lies in combining the profound insights of these traditions with a depth-psychological orientation and the ability to apply best practices to your own circumstances.

The heart of dreamwork is your relationship with dreaming. The creative spirit of dreams moves uniquely in each person. The traditions in this program help you deepen that connection and embody it into daily life.

As your relationship with dreaming matures, you become more grounded and attuned to its presence. From there, you can begin to support others in their dreams as well.

This certificate program focuses on building that relationship. It offers tools to help you become effective in dreamwork.

Machiel Klerk is a seasoned psychotherapist, international speaker, and dreamwork teacher with over 30 years of experience. His passion for dreams began in his early twenties and has shaped both his personal life and professional path. In this Certificate program, Machiel’s teachings draw from his own experience and study of these dreamwork traditions.

He is the author of Dream Guidance (Hay House, 2022). The Jung Society of Utah and Jung Platform—two respected platforms for depth psychological education—were both founded by Machiel, following the guidance of a nighttime dream. Through his online courses, Machiel has taught thousands of students worldwide.

Program overview

On the first day, we focus on building connection and creating a sense of camaraderie. We begin by exploring what it is to experience a dream. A dream is not a series of fleeting images. It is a world we find ourselves in during sleep. We move through it, interact, and are awake within it. These dream worlds exist alongside the world of daily life. The skill we will practice is embodied dream re-entry.

This class focuses on a Jungian approach to dreams. We begin by reviewing and practicing embodied dream re-entry. Then we explore key Jungian ideas, including the individuation process and the psyche’s structure. Our dreamwork and skill-building center on Jung’s view of the dream as a theatre play.

We continue practicing Jung’s technique of working with dreams as a theatre play. We will explore his method of amplification. Then we bring together the key building blocks of Jungian dreamwork and apply them through practice in dream interpretation.

In this class, we will explore the practice of dream incubation. This is an ancient and powerful method to receive guidance from dreams, it comes back in almost any dream tradition around the world. Dream incubation is the art of asking a question before sleep, inviting the dream to respond. You will learn how to craft a clear question, create a ritual, and open yourself to the wisdom that may come through the dream that night.

This class focuses on you as the dreamworker. What attitude, presence, and skill are needed to support someone else’s dream? We explore how your body can serve as an instrument in the process. How do you meet the dreamer—and the dream figures? We also look at how to begin a session, create a safe space, and stay open rather than rushing to interpret. You will learn a structure for short-term work: eight dream sessions around one theme. This is called brief depth dreamwork. The goal is to deepen the dreamer’s relationship with their inner world.

Embodied Imagination is an experiential way of working with dreams and imagination. It uses the body to sense and feel into the states of consciousness within a dream. Developed by Robert Bosnak, this method integrates body, mind, and imagination. Rooted in Jungian psychology and influenced by somatic practices, it invites the embodiment of dream images and figures. You have already practiced embodied dream re-entry. Today, we will explore transits—the capacity to sense and feel the dream energy of others within the dream.

We explore a Shamanic approach. In these traditions dreamwork and ritual offers an experiential path into the world of dreams, where each image or figure may carry the voice of an ancestor, a spirit, or an unseen ally. Drawing from the teachings of Malidoma Somé, as well as personal initiations into South African dreamwork and healing, we learn to listen to the messages of the dream beings and respond with reverence.

A core focus of the class is learning to create ritual prescriptions: meaningful, symbolic actions that help shift habitual patterns and open new paths of transformation. Inspired by African traditions and the guidance of dream figures themselves, you will learn how to craft rituals, for yourself and others, that honor the dream’s message and activate change. Through practice, you will begin to sense how ritual invites the sacred into the everyday and how dreams are living invitations to reconnect with soul, nature, and the unseen world.

Active Imagination is a powerful technique developed by Carl Jung to consciously engage with the unconscious through direct dialogue with dream figures. Rather than interpreting from a distance, this approach invites you to return to a dream image and enter into a living conversation with it. This method bridges waking consciousness and the deep psyche, allowing a figure to speak in its own voice. Jung considered it a vital tool for individuation, and scholar Sonu Shamdasani has called it his greatest contribution to psychology. The technique also echoes how indigenous healers relate to beings in the Other World.

In the ninth class of this course, we are exploring lucid dreaming; being aware while in the dream state. Lucid dreaming offers space for exploration, co-creation, play with, healing in the dream. Lucid awareness allows for profound exploration of the dreamworld and its close relationship to the waking world. Lucid dreams can be very helpful to treat nightmares.

On this last day, a shorter class to celebrate and say goodbye. We will be reflecting on the course’s end and new beginnings ahead. We will be celebrating our achievements in a certificate ceremony.

Keep a dream journal and engage in your own dreamwork to deepen the practice.
Pair with a classmate for weekly practice sessions (flexible for a bit more or less).
Required and suggested readings and videos will be provided. (Dedicate at least a few hours per week to these materials, or dive deeper if you wish).
Dreamwork assignments during classes.
Dreamwork assignments between classes.
There will be three supervision sessions with Machiel. The first 30 minute session is between class 2 and 3, and the next one is an hour between class 5 and 6, and then another 30 minutes between session 8 and 9.
Toward the end, write a report on two dreams you worked with.
In the last class, you will make a 5 minute presentation about your journey.

You are curious about dreams and want a structured way to deepen your understanding.
You wish to develop or strengthen foundational dreamwork skills.
You are a therapist, coach, or guide looking to add dreamwork tools to your existing practice.
You want to access the creative and healing potential of dreams.

Deepen your relationship with your own dreams.
Experience the guidance, healing and creativity from dreams.
Explore six major dream traditions and their core perspectives.
Learn practical tools to work with dreams.
Build confidence through journaling and regular practice.
Learn in a supportive and structured environment.

Pricing

Machiel is a licensed mental health therapist, international speaker, dreamworker and social entrepreneur.

He has been a therapist since 2006, and currently has a private practice in Salt Lake City. Machiel has traveled extensively to South Africa, Europe and North America to give lectures and workshops about dreams. He has written many articles on dreams, released a CD about dreaming titled Rumi and the World of Dream and also developed a course on Dream Incubation for Jung Platform.

Machiel is fascinated by healing traditions and has studied many of them. Because South Africa is his country of birth, he is especially drawn to African healing traditions. He was initiated into this tradition in 2016 when he became a healing diviner.

Machiel founded the Jung Society of Utah as well as the Jung Platform as a result of a night-time dream. He now spends most of his time building on his dream of the Jung Platform. He has received several awards from his local community for these contributions.

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Dreamwork