Layne Dalfen - Have a Great Dream: Book 2; A Deeper Discussion

M y book titled Dreams Do Come True; Decoding Your Dreams To Discover Your Full Potential was first published in 2002. Today, in 2018, this second edition is titled, Have A Great Dream, Book 2; A Deeper Discussion: Decoding Your Dreams To Discover Your Full Potential. Its companion, Have A Great Dream, Book 1; The Overview provides the tools you need to decode and understand why you had that dream last night. While you get the step-by-step approach here too, you will find a more in-depth discussion about the power your dreams give you to actually change your life.

I prefer the new title because all dreams are great, especially, as you will discover reading this book, nightmares. I have tremendous faith in the power of dreamwork, for I have seen its positive effects on my own life and the lives of others. There is nothing like seeing the face of a dreamer, connect to their dream. Ill start by telling you a little bit about who I am and how I came to dreamwork.

My name is Layne Dalfen. I am 65 years old, and have been interpreting my own dreams for 45 years. As you will discover through reading my book, like most people I have had my fair share of adversity. I am a happily married mother of four: Tina, who was my eldest, passed away two years ago at forty-two, Lisa is forty-three, and Chelsea, forty-one, from my first marriage to Murray; and Emma-Jo, who is twenty-four, from my present husband Andrew. We also enjoy our wonderful son-in-law, Joshua, and our two delightful and intelligent granddaughters, Marlee and Sophie. Circumstances in my life have not always been as pleasant as they are now.

One of the difficult circumstances in my life, and the one that triggered my study of dreams, happened two weeks after my twenty-first birthday. My first child Tina was born with Down Syndrome, a condition I had never heard of. My general practitioner advised Murray and me against bringing Tina home, and he recommended we start trying to have another baby right away. Because he had been our family doctor since before I was born and I had tremendous respect for him, I had Tina placed in special care. Although I later met the woman who turned out to be Tinas foster mother and I had a wonderful relationship with her and with Tina, at the time I felt like I was giving up my child.

Not surprisingly, a few months after Tina was born I became depressed. I was fortunate to obtain the care of a very intelligent psychiatrist, and for the next eight years I underwent Freudian analysis. During that time I had difficulty articulating my feelings but often recalled my dreams; about eighty percent of my analysis revolved around dream interpretation. The experience gave me my first inkling of the power of dream analysis.

With this taste of self-examination, I was hooked. I enrolled in The Gestalt Counseling and Training Center, and in my early thirties I earned my Certificate in Gestalt Counseling. Through my studies at the Center, I learned to interpret dreams from a Gestalt perspective. But I still wasnt satisfied with the limited perspectives of Freudian and Gestalt dream interpretation, so I took courses at The Alfred Adler Institute here in Montreal and studied dream analysis from an Adlerian perspective under the American Dr. Leo Gold. I later became a member of The C. G. Jung Society of Montreal and the International Association for The Study of Dreams (IASD). IASD comprises doctors, researchers, and a host of artists, and dreamworkers, from all over the world. It is always an eye-opening experience learning and discussing with people from such a wide variety of different philosophies and approaches to understanding dreams. Our annual conferences, regular correspondence and magazine give us the opportunity to learn from one another. *Throughout the book you will find the initialism ASD, which since this books first publication became IASD.

I have found over the years that there is no single, right approach to understanding dreams. Each different school of dream theory has had something new to teach me, some new opportunity for me to change and grow through dreamwork. When I created The Dream Interpretation Center in 1997, I felt it was important to teach other people how to use different approaches to dream interpretation. I have been teaching the counseling students at Concordia University since 2007 and I encourage my students and clients alike to try out many avenues when analyzing a dream. This leads to greater flexibility in behavior, increased self-awareness, and, ultimately, enhanced fulfillment and life satisfaction.