Dreamwork Certificate Program 2025

Course Description

Class 1: Introduction to the world of dreams

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.

Class 2: Jungian dreamwork 

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.

Class 3: Jungian dreamwork

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.

Class 4: Dream Incubation

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.

Class 5: Facilitating dreamwork

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.

Class 6: Embodied imagination

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.

Class 7: Shamanic dreamwork

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.

Class 8: Active Imagination

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.

Class 9: Lucid dreaming

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. 

Class 10: The dreamers’ goodbye

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.

There will be two supervision sessions of 30 minute each with Machiel. One is between class 4 and 5, and the other is between class 8 and 9.

This certificate program is ideal if

• 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.

By the end of this course, you will be able to

• Establish a deep and meaningful connection to the world of dreams.
• Have an expanded worldview from these different dream perspectives.
• Apply several tools and techniques from diverse dreamwork traditions.
• Function as a conduit for connection to the world of dreams.

How you will benefit

• 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.