Welcome to the Dream Room. We want your experience here to be a positive one and, to this end, we make the following recommendations:

1. The Dream Room is a place to learn about dreams. It is a place to learn how to approach your own dreams and the dreams of other people. The dream room is not intended to provide you with therapy. It is a training room rather than a therapy room.

2. The work of this dream room is based on the theoretical structure of the Psychology of Selves and an understanding of the Voice Dialogue process. If you know nothing about the Psychology of Selves we strongly recommend that you look at the material (including articles and book excerpts) available elsewhere on this website. We would recommend two basic books: Embracing Our Selves and Partnering. For CDs (or tapes) we would recommend our basic introductory 2-CD set: Making Relationships Work for You. There is a chapter in Partnering devoted entirely to dreams as well as a two-tape set of audiocassettes called Making Your Dreams Work for You. There are many other books, tapes, and videos that can be helpful as well. To see what's available, check out the Book Store on this website.

3. When you post a dream here in the Dream Room, be sure that you include your personal associations and feelings about the dream. For example, if you have a dream about an old friend there is no way for anyone to provide guidance if we know nothing about this friend. Who is she? What is her personality like? What are her primary and disowned selves? Notice your feelings in the dream. How did you feel at various times during the dream? How did you feel when you woke up? What were you (the dreamer, or the dream ego) like during the dream? What was the energy or self you were in? The personal work you do on your dream makes you a real participant in the dream process.

4. We have a group of dream monitors who will be helping you develop ways of thinking about your dreams and different approaches you might consider. We cannot guarantee that every dream will be covered. This is all volunteer time and it is the monitors' choice to determine how much time they spend with the dream work.

5. Since the Dream Room is not a substitute for individual therapy it is possible that a monitor will recommend therapy based on the dream you have recorded. The monitors are senior teachers who have a good deal of experience in working with people. A recommendation for therapy just means that the content of the dream is too complex to deal with in the setting of this kind of Dream Room and the issues lend themselves to seeking professional help.

6. Send in short dreams or a shorter version of your longer ones. If you have a very long dream, just send on one part of it that you want to focus on. It takes a long time to read these dreams and without the focus of what you want us to deal with, it is very difficult for us to know where to step in. The more focus you bring to the dream you present here, the more you will get back in return.

7. We invite you to include questions about dreams as well as the dreams themselves. We see this as a place to learn about the dream process.

8. As a visitor to the Dream Room, you are welcome to comment on another person's dream, but please do so with respect. Remember that the dreamer is the person who knows the most about his/her own dream. The dreamer knows what the different parts of the dream mean to them personally and how this connects to their waking life.

Please make your comments open ended to help the dreamer think better about their dream – a good beginning many of us use is something like: “If this were my dream I would wonder about etc., etc.” This leaves the door open for the dreamers to listen to your ideas without feeling pushed to agree with your way of looking at their dreams.

As you become more familiar with dreams, you'll notice that you don’t need to be an expert to feel another person’s psychic reality. You'll find that you can offer valuable comments about dreams without having to try to dazzle people with your expertise. We find that some theories about dreams and approaches to dreams can be very cerebral, and then what you say about the dream tends to become more dogmatic. This, in turn, is likely to result in your becoming a "teaching parent." Our job is to help empower each other, not become parents to one another.

9. If you are someone who knows a good deal about dreams but who knows nothing about Voice Dialogue and the Psychology of Selves, we very strongly recommend that you read Embracing Our Selves which you can find in the Book Store on this web site. Without some basic knowledge of selves, your attempts to help people on this site will be much more difficult. The people that use this site are here because they have some connection to the Psychology of Selves. Once you have read this material you will have a better sense of the context of our work.

We hope that these ideas are helpful to you as you use the dream room. If you have ideas as to how to make this site more effective please let us know.

Our warmest wishes

Hal and Sidra Stone