When the Night Speaks ✨

A workshop from The Moon Lab in association with Poetry Pharmacy (Poetry Therapy Dream Workshop)

When the Night Speaks

Between Sleep and Sky: Making Friends with Your Dreams Through Poetry

Online via Zoom

📅 Date: Monday 8th December
⏰ Time: 6pm - 8pm
⏳ Duration: 2 hours

Cost: £30

Dreams arrive each night - mysterious, strange, sometimes unsettling, always rich with meaning. In this workshop we’ll explore how poetry can become a bridge between the dream world and waking life. Using creative prompts, writing exercises and gestalt-inspired ‘poetry therapy’ approaches, we’ll discover how poetry can help us listen to, honour and integrate our dreams. No previous writing experience is needed✨ Bring your curiosity, your notebook or dream journal, and a willingness to explore the creative potential of your night world.

Workshop Goals

Experience a taster of a poetry therapy session, themed around dream work…

1. Explore new ways to recall your dreams
2. Make friends with your dreaming world
3. Discover the therapeutic benefits of turning dreams into poems
4. Learn how to transform dream images into poetry or prose
5. Practise writing exercises that support self-awareness and creativity
6. Discover how dreamwork and poetry can support wellbeing, balance and wholeness

What We’ll Cover

Using a mixture of didactic learning, writing exercises and discussions…

• Dream Journaling: tips for remembering and recording dreams
• Making Friends With Dreams: gestalt-inspired ways of meeting dream figures
• Poetry as Integration: turning dream images into short poems or love letters
• Dream Characters & Dialogue: writing from different perspectives
• Liminal Dreaming: using the threshold states of sleep for creativity
• Dream Incubation: setting an intention for tonight’s dream.

Notes

• You don’t need to be a poet - this workshop is more about expression, not literary accomplishment. In fact, the ‘poetry therapy’ stance offered in this workshop offers you the opportunity to explore more about yourself and processing your experiences from a self-growth point of view
• Though if you are also a writer or poet, many participants do come away with inspiration for their creative projects.
• Sharing your writing or experiences with the group is optional
• The workshop is designed to be safe, supportive and confidential.

Pre-Workshop Invitation

Keep a dream journal (if you don’t already). Record your dreams in the days or weeks leading up to the workshop. Just a few sentences with the key outline: setting, dream characters, a couple of sentences about what happens and how you felt in the dream is enough. Please bring your dream journal with you. (Sharing your dreams is always optional.)

About your Facilitator

Leah Larwood is a lucid dreamer by night and writer/poet, UKCP gestalt psychotherapist by day (currently in advanced stages of training / undergoing accreditation process). She is also a qualified mindfulness teacher and certified poetry therapist (CPT) (awaiting accreditation).

Leah is a freelance wellbeing writer and contributor to Breathe, Teen Breathe, Planet Mindful, Red mag and Female First. Her debut poetry collection, Oneironaut, published by Indigo Dreams is about dreams and sleep.