Session 1: Interviewing Dreams, Life Issues, and Transpersonal Experiences Why it is important:

Interviewing is the foundation of IDL. It teaches you to suspend your assumptions, worldview, and identity and become alternative perspectives, expanding your empathy and cognitive flexibility.

How it works:

By disidentifying from your normal waking identity you increase the flexibility and adaptability of your default habits, beliefs, thoughts, preferences, and scripting. As you identify with dream elements or personifications of life issues, you access autonomous creative and relevant perspectives that are less scripted than you are. This neutralizes disowned aspects of yourself, with which you may find yourself it conflict, while reframing your problems, worldview, and identity from broader, often wiser viewpoints.

Interview to Engage:

Interview a recurring dream/nightmare figure or a current problem personified, such as “My Anxiety” as a rat chewing intestines,  “My Workload” as an elephant sitting on your chest, or “My Child’s Anger” as dodging arrows.

Application/Homework:

• Read over the interview pre-sleep to incubate/internalize its reframings.
• Apply one recommendation from the interviewed perspective in your daily life, starting tomorrow.
• Share your application with your practice partner.