We were lucky to catch up with Layne Dalfen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Layne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I have been interpreting my own dreams for fifty years and for these last 26, I have helped others do so as well. I’ve had my fair share of adversity in my life and analyzing my dreams has pointed me to the appropriate response or solution to whatever the current issue and/or people in my life are presenting.
One of the difficult circumstances in my life, happened two weeks after my twenty-first birthday when I gave birth to my first daughter, Tina, who was born with Down Syndrome, a condition I had never heard of at the time. It was the story about Tina, and more importantly, the analysis of a dream, that turned out to be my defining moment and marked the beginning of my career.
Fifty years ago, most people didn’t bring their Down Syndrome babies home, and perhaps it explains why at the time, my parents didn’t advise us in that regard. The message I got was “If you want to take Tina home, we support you. And if you decide to have her placed, we support you too.”
My general practitioner advised my husband and I against bringing Tina home, and he recommended we start trying to have another baby right away. Because he had been our family doctor since years before I was born and I had tremendous respect for him, I had Tina placed in special care. Although I later met the angel who became Tina’s 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, 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 as was typical for me, I 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 work, and the following dream along with its solution, is the beginning of what set me on this path.
The Freight Elevator Dream
Fifty years ago, in July 1973, a few months after I had placed Tina in an institution, I started having a series of what I call my “freight elevator dreams”. In psychoanalysis at the time, it was one from this series, using my associations to the freight elevator symbol, that had me describe in my journal as “quite a shaky ride.” I had also written that “the space was too big” and “the floor was wobbly.” Finally, I saw my note saying, “There is nothing to hold on to, and I am alone.” Employing a “feelings” point of entry, I asked myself, “What situation in my waking life is this reflecting?” or “What is currently happening to make me feel insecure, unsupported, alone, and ungrounded in the face of change? Am I in a situation where I feel uncomfortable about my lack of control?” The key question being, “Do I have to be alone?”
The answer to my questions revealed to me I was thinking about Tina. You see, when she was four months old, I certainly had the power to ask for support, yet I did not. While some elements of my situation were not in my control, I could have made things easier on myself by asking for help. I could have felt less alone, maybe more grounded. I realized that I couldn’t stand to go another minute without seeing Tina. Where did the doctor arrange for her to be placed? What did Tina look like? Who exactly was looking after her? The whole idea of never seeing my child again simply wasn’t working for me and it was exactly that, that triggered my Freight Elevator dreams.
One approach I use is part of the list I developed of eight methods I teach for the solution-finding aspect in dreams. I call this method, “Take the story outside.” That’s when we take the story of the dream outside to waking life and find a solution there before going back inside the image the dream presented. If I could speak to each of you who are reading this, I appreciate there would be a host of ideas for what the solution to the freight elevator dream is. Working as I do, in the language of metaphor, some of you might say I should push the emergency button. Perhaps you would advise me to sit down on the floor to stop the wobbling, or would you use the phone in the elevator to call for help? For me, the answer to the freight elevator dreams, was to bring people in! By bringing people into the elevator with me I would succeed in having the extra weight on the floor to stop the wobbling. By asking people to join me I am also closing the too-big space up. I am no longer alone.
Who will I invite into the elevator? The sophisticated link to memories stored in my unconscious brought me to my childhood. When I was a little girl, my father used to take me to his warehouse sometimes on the weekend. There was a huge freight elevator there, and while inside there it made me feel anxious, I was always calmed because I was with him; hence my decision to share how I was feeling about Tina, and further to invite my parents to come with me to see her.
While I never brought Tina home to live with us, she was most certainly a part of our lives. Tina was also the happiest person I have ever met. She had an ability we can all wish for; a life lived in the present moment, where peace resides. She had no anxiety which all rests in future events, and she had no regrets, which all rests in the past.
At now 71, I have the gift of hindsight. I am not the same personality style as Tina’s foster mom and, in my heart, I know she was with the best person who gave Tina a certain care I know now I wouldn’t have been able to.
Layne, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Back then, once I realized the power our dreams have to problem solve, along with my 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 wasn’t 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 dreams 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 dream workers from all over the world, each with a different philosophy and approach to understanding dreams.
I have found over the years that there is no single, “right” approach to understanding dreams. I became eclectic in my approach because each different school of dream theory has had something new to teach me, some new opportunity for me to change and grow through dream work. In fact, I developed a method; what I refer to as my 6 “Points of Entry” anyone can use to uncover what specific incident you were discussing with yourself when you had that crazy dream!
The 6 Points of Entry are: The Feelings, The Action, The Symbols (people, places, and things), The Play on Words or Puns, The Repetition, and finally, The Plot
Reading this, I realize it is not surprising to me that I am a huge “puzzle-doer” and lover, nor am I surprised to say I have been collecting miniatures since all the way back to 1971. It’s my affinity and my connection to the act of putting together…..the putting together of small things.
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 encourage my clients to try out many avenues, because this leads to greater flexibility in behavior, increased self-awareness, and, ultimately, enhanced fulfillment and life satisfaction.
My method, and my focus on bringing it out to a wide audience resulted in my books, titled Have a Great Dream, Book 1; The Overview, a 100-page, easy-to-understand presentation about our dreams in general and my method. Along with The Overview is Have a Great Dream, Book 2; A Deeper Discussion, which I wrote for those who want to look deeper into the meaning of a dream; also, the place where you will find the tools for effecting deeper, long-term change in the way you respond to the people and situations that come up in your life.
Along with my books, I created a Dreaminar® the lecture/workshop name for my speaking engagements. There is nothing that gives me greater pleasure than speaking to groups of people teaching a company’s employees, a group of people at your library, or as a keynote, the language of metaphor and the sophisticated responses we are sent right from our unconscious mind, every night as we sleep.
I would say my two proudest moments in my career so far are my columns:
Psychology Today – Understanding Dreams
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/layne-dalfen
OprahDaily – Dream Catcher
https://www.oprahdaily.com/author/249174/Layne-Dalfen/
I just finished filming an interview with Cosmopolitan in New York on the subject of sexual dreams. The interview is launching in the Fall. I am very excited about having been given the opportunity and I am looking forward to seeing what develops!
Finally, I wouldn’t be able to close any discussion about my work without calling attention to over 80 one-minute clips I call Dream Tidbits. Each Tidbit gives viewers a peek at sometimes a theory, sometimes a dream, or sometimes just a fun fact about dreams and their meaning. Here’s a few of my favourite examples.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu4OSQIOAkf/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu-PmmhtVtz/
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I guess the three biggest differences between myself, and other dream analysts is firstly, that once a dream is understood it marks the beginning of the analysis for me. Where other analysts might stop there, for me once we know the specific subject the dreamer was discussing with themselves inside the dream, since we know the solution to what you want to do about something that’s bothering you appears in your unconscious before you get it consciously, we can then investigate from this new perspective. Another thing that helped build my reputation, is that I share examples of dreams from my own life as teaching tools. I am not always using “case” examples, which can feel removed or distanced from an audience. People typically get comfortable with my presentation because I’m comfortable. Finally, I speak with both clients and audiences in plain English. My message, as so many have said about me, is down-to-earth and easily relatable.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Since I have been on over 250 radio shows and podcasts, along with dozens of television appearances including NBC, CBS, and ABC, in the United States, and Breakfast Television, and Global, together Canada’s largest national morning shows, it is those media appearances that have been by far the most effective way for growing my clientele and my social media following. I have recently started working with Presbourg Speakers agency as my hope is to increase my income with speaking engagements. What I have also started to do very recently is presenting my Dreaminar® at libraries. I am hopeful these new endeavors will translate to generating more income along with more exposure to the incredible value of understanding your dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.thedreamanalyst.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/layne_thedreamanalyst/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedreamanalyst
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/layne-dalfen-27b391/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dreamanalyst
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9xDZla9hJIIVXCGDc3jvwA
- Other: • TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedreamanalyst
Image Credits
Global TV, City TV