Ansonia’s Ilene Wolf of Ansonia owns Healing Wolf Tracks, a life-coaching practice that promises to help clients “find the joy in their journey.”
She is also the founder of HEAL — Healing Emotional Abused Lives — a path to wellness for emotional and physically traumatized individuals.
She interprets dreams as part of her practice.
On Saturday, Jan. 29, she will offer a workshop on dream interpretation and “writing to heal” at Derby’s Valley Center for the Arts.
The workshop runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The cost is $55.
Valley Indy: You are conducting a workshop called “Dream Wise.” What is that all about?
Wolf: “Dream Wise is the title, to help describe what you can do if you pay attention to and explore what comes to you, whether it’s in the night when you’re asleep, or half asleep, or sometimes even when you’re awake.”
Valley Indy: We asked our readers to submit recurring dreams for you to interpret. Reader Kathleen McNamee dreams her teeth have fallen out.
Wolf: “If they dream of losing their teeth or being toothless that typically means, unless they have actually had a lot of dental work lately, they feel they are at risk in a cold, cruel world. Our teeth help us digest the world and take it into us. In a dream, when our teeth fall out, we have been encountering lots of frustrations. Interacting with the world up to now has been okay, but suddenly things aren’t going well, we aren’t able to break off pieces and be okay.”
Valley Indy: What about that dream of showing up naked at work or school?
Wolf: “It means several things. The fear of being unprepared is one. Another is not feeling competent enough, not covered enough. It’s very common to dream of being naked at work or school and it usually means we don’t feel safe in a situation.”
Valley Indy:. How do dreams fit into your practice of helping people overcome personal issues?
Wolf:. “Dreams are rich in information. Sometimes it is coded information, sometimes it is obvious information, sometimes it is what could be paranormal. But for most of us, it is pieces from our knowing mind, and our intuitive mind. To ignore what comes out in these movies, these personal movies that we direct and produce, would be wrong.”
Valley Indy: Reporter Jodie Mozder constantly dreams she’s running from a giant tsunami.
Wolf: “Well, who wouldn’t run? Hello! It’s self-protective. Running from it is the life force saying get your butt up on higher ground. Animals do it instinctively as do we. Tsunamis are forces we cannot control barreling down on us. In life we all have periods where we can have one crisis, and we manage it, but then have two crises, and say ‘oh, come on.’ When they start piling up we begin to feel threatened in an existential kind of way. It’s a tsunami. You’re going to be okay when you get to higher ground. Follow that life instinct and take a deep breath, things will work out.”
Valley Indy: Reader Teresa Gallagher dreams of being stuck in line at the grocery store.
Wolf: “Being stuck in a line, note where it is, in this instance, it is a line waiting to check out things that will nourish us, feed us, support us going forward. We have the money, we want to get to the ringer, but we’re stuck in traffic. What next? Obviously it’s
frustration. Perhaps there are things in this person’s life that make them feel stuck.”
Valley Indy: Reader Laura Garrity dreams that she’s falling asleep in a car, but wakes up right as it crashes.
Wolf: “I would have asked the dreamer, in the dream, was he or she driving or a passenger? It’s reasonably clear that the dreamer may have experienced something traumatic, at some point in the past, recent or distant, and been left wondering, “How on earth did this happen?”
Valley Indy: What do you say to those people who think dream interpretation is nonsensical and has no place in emotional healing?
Wolf: “They are not using all the resources that are available. Our emotions are processed in our sleeping mind, so it is wrong to ignore this data when it comes to us. Many people don’t remember any dreams. Most of us don’t remember every dream. If not, you say, okay, not today. But when I get it, it is like a door and you better look back before it closes. The first thing I do is write it in my journal. It is the first thing that goes into my journal.”
You can also visit her on the Web at www.healingwolf.net.
