Certified Dream Therapist, Teacher & Poet
Rodger Kamenetz
Move beyond dream interpretation — and recognize how your ‘sacred encounter’ dreams can enrich your waking life with more imagination, love & joy.
Access the deep feeling in your dreams to uncover and transform old reactive patterns... and unveil your soul’s wisdom.
Receive powerful experiential practices to help you recognize your ‘sacred encounter’ dreams.
When you experience a gripping dream… do you try to interpret the “symbols” and piece together a narrative to make sense of it?
Or, maybe you approach it as a riddle to be solved, connected to a challenge or event in your waking life...
These are useful approaches to working with dreams, yet they can deprive you of a more organic experience of your dream images and the feelings they evoke.
That’s why, in Natural Dreamwork, the emphasis is always on what you feel in your dream. Instead of trying to figure out what a dream means, Natural Dreamwork invites you to ask yourself, What did I see… hear… sense? What do I feel in my body… in my heart?
At a time when there seems to be a drug for every form of emotional discomfort, dreams offer their own natural medicine...
The Healing Power of Natural Dreamwork.
After decades of experience leading people through their dreams in more than ten thousand hours of sessions, Rodger Kamenetz, bestselling author and certified dream therapist, created Natural Dreamwork…
… an empirical approach to dreams in which YOU act as a guide to the unique terrain of your dream — and identify the images and presences that have the most potential to help you heal.
This powerful approach to personal and spiritual growth is rooted in Carl Jung's perception of dreams as natural experiences...
… and asks you to delve so deeply into a dream image that it comes alive in you.
A central aspect of Natural Dreamwork is what Rodger refers to as a “sacred encounter” — recalling events and images within the dream, such as a person, animal, or aspect of nature, and feeling it so deeply that the ego dissolves any sense of separateness.
In this “sacred encounter,” loved ones, teachers, and healers can emerge to help and inspire you.
Sacred encounter dreams help you uncover and transform old reactive patterns in your waking life — liberating you from past conditioning, unveiling your soul’s wisdom, and opening you to a deeper connection with yourself and others.
In Natural Dreamwork & the Sacred Encounter, you’ll learn to recognize the sacred encounters in your dreams, embody the powerful emotions they evoke, and use this embodiment to feel more deeply, love more deeply, and live more fully.
As a Natural Dreamer, you learn to open to your senses to distinguish between a reaction, imposed by the ego, and what you’re feeling beneath that reaction…
… a nudge from your soul — to reach beyond the limitations of your waking mind and open to deeper levels of healing, imagination, and creativity...
— Rodger Kamenetz
In this soulful, transformative, and practical video training, you’ll discover:
- How to move beyond dream interpretation — and see your dreams as transformative experiences, guided by your feelings and senses
- Where to look in your dreams for the moments of greatest feeling
- What defines a sacred encounter in your dreams, and how these profoundly healing connections with a living presence elicit feelings of awe, wonder, and pain
- Why it’s important to distinguish between facts and fantasies in your dreams
- How dreams reveal old reactive patterns by personifying them, as well as ways to shed these patterns — to feel more deeply
- How to live with more imagination — from the revelations in your dreams, and from the experience of the primary imagination of great poets and artists
- A powerful experiential practice to help you recognize your sacred encounter dreams
- How to reframe your life with greater imagination from the point of view of the dream — a liberation from past conditioning which opens you to the reality of love
- Ways to develop profound connections with the teachers and healers in your dreams, so the relationships with your loved ones in your waking life can be stronger
- What the “facts” of a dream are — in the field of “feeling-space-time” — and how to use this new knowledge to distinguish primary imagination from mere fantasy... both in dreams and in waking life
- How the dream field is responsive to the thoughts and reactions of the dream ego — and how every image and presence in the dream is aware of what’s happening within a dream
- How your dreams teach you how to transform early-life programming — though the recognitions can be painful at first
- How you can become the child to the parent, the student to the teacher, or the wounded person to the healer — in your dreams
- And more...
Receive Guidance From a Celebrated Dream Therapist & Teacher
Rodger’s book, The History of Last Night’s Dream, sparked his appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s Soul Series program.
He’s guided thousands of people, including rabbis, deacons, and Buddhists in the art of Natural Dreamwork. He’s worked with hundreds of healing practitioners as well, teaching them how to weave Natural Dreamwork into their work with clients.
Natural Dreamwork asks us to sift fact from fantasy to identify what actually happened in a dream... instead of relying on a narrative created later by the waking mind...
Dream images provide us with honest, useful mirrors of ourselves. This Natural Dreamwork process requires a level of honesty that forces us to face profound and difficult feelings — illuminating the places of hurt (and joy!), and bringing healing…
And the beauty of Natural Dreamwork is that the more you walk the actual ground of dreams and practice immersing yourself in the feelings arising in them, the more sacred encounter dreams you experience.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules
In this 7-part transformational intensive, Rodger will guide you through a wellspring of wisdom to help you dissolve your ego, embody deeper feelings, and receive your soul’s wisdom through Natural Dreamwork.
This course will feature step-by-step teachings and experiential practices with Rodger. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need receive the healing power of your dreams.
Module 1: The Sacred Encounter in Our Dreams
Natural Dreamwork is not about dream interpretation. Rather, it teaches you how to bring your dreams to life — allowing them to affect you more intensely.
It’s in that place of deepest feeling that you discover powerful moments of healing... and a new vision for your waking life.
In this opening session with Rodger, he’ll introduce you to Natural Dreamwork — an approach designed to help you engage in the “sacred encounter”... which enables your deepest feelings to emerge.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- Where to look in your dreams for the moments of greatest feeling
- That the medicine of the dream is carried in the most powerful emotions it evokes
- How the dream is a nightly experience of primary imagination — providing you with confidence to access your imaginative capacity
- Access to the creative ability to reimagine your waking life
- How to live more deeply in the feeling state by deeply experiencing the images in your dreams
- Ways to develop profound connections with the teachers and healers in your dreams, so the relationships with your loved ones in your waking life can be stronger
Module 2: Feeling as the Pathway to the Sacred Encounter
Feelings in dreams are so important because they lead you to sacred encounters... while reactions take you out of the dream, and out of relationship.
In this session, you’ll discover the difference between a feeling and a reaction — using vivid examples from dreams.
With the sacred encounter as your destination, this session begins the exploration into the
In this module, you’ll discover:
- How the dream ego often misses sacred encounters — and the possibility of deeper feeling or engagement — to preserve its old stories
- How to bring dreams to life and understand the deeper feelings under your habitual reactions
- How dreams vividly reveal both reaction and feeling to help you learn how the waking life ego can become less reactive and more receptive to feeling
- What the “facts” of a dream are — in the field of “feeling-space-time” — and how to use this new knowledge to distinguish primary imagination from mere fantasy... both in dreams and in waking life
- How dreams present you with a useful image, and critique, of waking life
Module 3: The Ego Is Always at the Wheel
Dreams in which you’re driving a car help you understand how “the ego is always at the wheel.”
Watching the dream ego drive past miracles and wonders reveals how the ego functions as a story-making mechanism, operating out of an unfelt terror — and responding with stereotypical reactions instead of spontaneous feeling.
In this session, you’ll see how sacred encounters in dreams enable the dream ego to soften and loosen its grip on the wheel — allowing the internal feelings to arise, and creating deeper relationship and connectivity with the sacred presences in your dreams.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- How the dream field is responsive to the thoughts and reactions of the dream ego — and how every image and presence in the dream is aware of what’s happening within a dream
- How the ego — so often at the wheel in waking life and in dreams — can cause numbness, indifference, and reactivity in your waking life
- That the dream, over time, can loosen and soften the grip of the ego on your experience and allow you to be more open to feeling and relationship
- A harmonic of feeling underneath your control and reaction... much richer than any single note
- How dreams uncover the ego as a narrative mechanism, constantly making up stories and interpretations to preserve its old story about itself — and how you can break out of mechanical reaction
Module 4: Working With Images — Sacred Encounters With Things
As you discovered in the previous session, something as ordinary as driving a car in a dream has a much deeper significance.
In the same way, things you encounter in your dreams — especially remarkable things — can evoke a deeper response to them.
In the sacred encounter, images carry strong feelings. Certain images in our dreams can actually restore the impaired imagination... which is at the root of anxiety, numbness, and despair.
In this session, Rodger will introduce poets and artists who can open up effective ways to respond to images in your dreams... with more imagination...
... and he’ll guide you through a practice of dream contemplation to take you from one dream into a deeper experience of the next.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- The deeper fact of dream phenomenology... that things and presences in our dreams are conscious and aware and respond to feelings and reactions
- A deeper appreciation of the responsiveness of people and things in the living dream of waking life
- How to live with more imagination — from the revelations in your dreams, and from the experience of the primary imagination of great poets and artists
- Methods for bringing the images in your dreams to life... enabling you to find more feeling in everyday experience
- That the contemplation of images from dreams can nourish and restore the impaired imagination and the resulting anxiety, worry, depression, and numbness
Module 5: The Fateful Triangle — The Dream Ego Caught Between Imagoes of Conditioning & Imagoes of the Soul
In this session, you’ll explore living personified images... known as imagoes.
You’ll first discover the imagoes of conditioning — personifications of reactivity that represent what’s hindered you in the past, and all the conditioning that made you who you are.
In order to access the deeper, imaginative version of yourself the dream wants to offer, you have to first see these how these imagoes are personifications of pride, rage, worry and anxiety, and accusation and shaming — all deeply rooted in our past conditioning...
In this module, you’ll discover:
- How your dreams teach you how to transform early-life programming — though the recognitions can be painful at first
- Imagoes of soul — often appearing as children whose presence can inspire you to become more youthful in your attitudes, full of wonder and joy
- How imagoes of conditioning can show you the difficult truth of your own reactivity and conditioning, and how you can begin to separate from habits and attitudes that block feeling and imagination
- Why your reactions to children in your dreams reveal the presence of your past conditioning
- The possibilities that dreams present to move from seeing the soul to being the soul — leaving old conditioning behind and becoming more vulnerable and more capable of feeling
Module 6: A Love That Heals — Dream Soul in Sacred Encounter With the Archetypes
In this session, you’ll explore how, as your dreams turn away from conditioning and merge into soul, you become the child.
You can then observe the sacred encounter with a new set of imagoes — the archetypes.
In the reality of the dream, you’ll have sacred encounters with these stunning, brilliant, playful, highly imaginative, and often radiant archetypes...
In this module, you’ll discover:
- How you can become the child to the parent, the student to the teacher, or the wounded person to the healer — in your dreams
- How the archetypes produce deep feelings of joy, pain, awe, and terror... AND a growing sense of being loved
- How the boy in your dreams personifies joy, initiative, confidence, and a knowledge of being loved
- How the girl in your dreams personifies the need for love, and understands the importance of love and relationship
- Dreams in which identification with the boy or girl can help you feel the love of that archetype
Module 7: Beyond the Sacred Encounter — The Sacred Relationship
In this session, you’ll return to the sacred encounter — recognizing, at this point in the course — the depth and detail of its purpose.
You’ll explore more powerful, transformative moments of encounter and see how these encounters are reflected in images from art and in poetry.
Rodger will show you how, instead of looking to dreams for messages to interpret, you can look to the feelings that transform. The primary imagination of the dream produces ever-evolving sacred experience.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- What a dream arc is — and what develops as one dream connects to another
- How the weakening of conditioning, combined with the emergence of dream soul, open you to an arc of sacred encounters which make up a sacred relationship
- The power of the primary imagination in your dreams offers you a sense of being loved — and how it carries over into waking life
- How to reframe your life with greater imagination from the point of view of the dream — a liberation from past conditioning which opens you to the reality of love
- A powerful glimpse of what lies beyond the sacred encounter — the arc of the sacred relationship
The Natural Dreamwork Bonus Collection
In addition to Rodger’s transformative 7-module virtual course, you’ll receive these powerful training sessions. These bonus sessions complement the course and promise to take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
How to Write Down Your Dream the Natural Dreamwork Way
Video Dialogue With PDF Companion From Rodger Kamenetz and Kezia Vida
Using the same guidelines for recording dreams that Rodger uses with his Natural Dreamwork clients, you’ll discover how to most effectively write down your dreams — so you can best use them as stepping stones to a richly felt, heart-centered life.
As you listen in to Rodger’s dialogue with Kezia Vida, (his daughter and Dreamwork Summit 2019 co-host), you’ll learn exactly which parts of your dreams to pay attention to — and which essential elements of dreams are easiest to overlook.
Kezia Vida has been working with and studying dreams under the Natural Dreamwork tradition for close to a decade. After receiving a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Yale University, she dove into intense dream study, working with a wide variety of teachers to develop a unique perspective on dreams. Her work with dreams led her to deeper studies of shamanic and Indigenous perspectives on reality, with teachers like Nina Palmieri and Jose and Lena Stevens of the Power Path. She’s focused on how nurturing our dream lives can lead us to our life's purpose and connect us with each other and the larger community of living things.
Dream Poetry
Video Teaching With PDF Companion From Rodger Kamenetz
If you’re like most people, in your dreams you’re a Picasso, a Beethoven, a Toni Morrison, or a Shakespeare. And then you wake up...
In this video teaching, Rodger shares how to write about your dreams, imaginatively and vividly. You’ll discover what it means to write not about your dreams, but from your dreams.
This powerful teaching also includes dream-inspired sample poems and suggestions for further reading.
What People Are Saying About Rodger Kamenetz...
“Working with Rodger has helped me to discover an inner life within me.”
Working with Rodger has helped me to discover an inner life within me. A life that before now I barely knew existed... I see it as teamwork. Rodger, the dreams, and I work together to open the door to my inner life... Rodger has an ability to see further into the dream than I can. He hits on aspects of my life that I hadn’t realized I needed to pay attention to. It is uncanny how “right on” he can be... With every session, connection to my inner life and my inner world grows. With this connection, I continue to move toward a more fulfilled life with incredible depth and feeling.
— K.S.
“... opened a portal into a new and unknown inner world.”
The History of Last Night’s Dream and its contents has changed my life! And I’m NOT exaggerating. I have begun to dream as if my life depends on it. This book has opened a portal into a new and unknown inner world. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who is interested in their dreams and the life-changing messages they have to give us.
— Sarah
“... a great guidepost to show you your many options for spiritual growth.”
Mr. Kamenetz is personal. He pours his heart and soul into his work. His journey becomes an inspiration for us to continue our journey. What can I say, this is a greatguide post to show you your many options for spiritual growth.
— James Bearman
“... [Rodger] handed me a toolbox...”
I love to dream. I have always believed dreams are important but never knew quite what to do with them besides record them in journals. I feel like [Rodger] handed me a toolbox when he wrote this book. I could have floundered on my own for years and never come to one-tenth of these conclusions on my own. I especially appreciate Rodger's intense honesty and openness in sharing his own dreams and life experiences.
— Amanda C. Bosky
“... a chance to finally hear what our dreams have been trying to tell us all along.”
[The History of Last Night’s Dream] may well change our collective view of dreaming forever. Even more phenomenal, though, is that Kamenetz has given each of us — dreamers all — a chance to finally hear what our dreams have been trying to tell us all along.
— Patsy
“ The compassion I feel from Rodger is genuine....”
The compassion I feel from Rodger is genuine... This is extremely rare, especially when combined with blunt honesty, and I can tell the difference now. Thus, over time a deep level of trust has developed for me. My profound sense of relief at not having to hide or pretend any longer about my most painful and shameful self, and to be told at the same time I’m not the bad person I’ve spent a lifetime concealing — it’s hard to put this experience into words. And to have this occur not just once, but week after week, is radically transformative — my own inner Big Bang and expanding universe. Along with this goes Rodger’s intense engagement in each session, his excitement, and encouragement.
— M.E.
“... opened up a whole new way of working for me.”
The History of Last Night’s Dream is a wonderful book — the warmth of Rodger Kamenetz glows through each page. I have been a dreamworker for many years but this book opened up a whole new way of working for me. I highly recommend it.
— Freckles
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-Minute Class Sessions With Rodger Kamenetz
Experience a rare opportunity to be mentored by and learn with international bestselling author, certified dream therapist, teacher, and poet Rodger Kamenetz — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session includes a streaming video option and guides you to discover specific skills and abilities to access the deep feeling in your dreams to uncover and transform old reactive patterns and listen to your soul.
Seven PDF Transcripts of Class Sessions
In addition to the high-quality videos and MP3 audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription in PDF format after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each lesson.
The Natural Dreamwork Bonus Collection
- How to Write Down Your Dream the Natural Dreamwork Way
Video Dialogue With PDF Companion From Rodger Kamenetz and Kezia Vida - Dream Poetry
Video Teaching With PDF Companion From Rodger Kamenetz
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Natural Dreamwork & the Sacred Encounter Virtual Training
We feel honored that Rodger Kamenetz has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive online training. This is a rare opportunity to learn from an international bestselling author, certified dream therapist, teacher, and poet whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
Through this powerful online format, you’ll not only save time and money on workshop costs (plus travel, accommodations, and meals — which would cost thousands of dollars), you’ll be able to benefit from Rodger’s incredible teachings and exercises from the comfort of your home — and at your own pace!
If you’re serious about recognizing your “sacred encounter” dreams as stepping stones to a richly felt, heart-centered life, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Natural Dreamwork & the Sacred Encounter with Rodger Kamenetz — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form 2 weeks from your date of purchase and we’ll happily issue you a refund.
More Praise for Rodger Kamenetz...
“... a manual for living the dream of life...”
Kamenetz has written a manual for living the dream of life through the real dreams of an individual.
— Andrei Codrescu, Poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio
“... profound, affecting, and deeply rewarding...”
A profound, affecting, and deeply rewarding book from a charismatic teacher.
— Jonathan Kirsch, Author of A History of the End of the World
“... brilliantly combines dream and soul, and offers an accessible understanding of both.”
Kamenetz’s new book brilliantly combines dream and soul, and offers an accessible understanding of both. I highly recommend it.
— Brian L. Weiss, MD, Author of Many Lives, Many Masters
“An enchanting and provocative book exploring a subject with profound implications about our very humanity.”
— Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain
“Kamenetz’s fierce honesty and unflinching self-revelation inspire both admiration and awe...”
Kamenetz’s fierce honesty and unflinching self-revelation inspire both admiration and awe... smart, funny, and revolutionary...
— Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune
“... a reliable narrator in unreliable territory...”
The History of Last Night’s Dream is at once affable and audacious; Kamenetz is a reliable narrator in unreliable territory... Kamenetz’s poetic eye is alive and well.
— The Forward
About Rodger Kamenetz
Rodger Kamenetz is an award-winning poet, author, and teacher. Of his 12 books, his best known is The Jew in the Lotus, the story of rabbis making a holy pilgrimage through India to meet with the Dalai Lama. The author of seven poetry collections, Rodger has been called “the most formidable of the Jewish-American poets.” His memoir, Terra Infirma, was described as “one of the most beautiful books ever written about a mother and a son.”
When The History of Last Night’s Dream appeared in 2007, Oprah Winfrey interviewed him on her Soul Series program, saying, “What’s so exciting about this book is that it talks about how there’s a whole other life that we are living when we sleep, and that our dreams are there as offerings and gifts to us if we only recognize what the dreams are there to teach us.”
Rodger was born in Baltimore and educated at Yale, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins University. He lives in New Orleans and is Professor Emeritus, retiring with a dual appointment as Professor of English and Professor of Religious Studies, at LSU where he was also an LSU Distinguished Professor and Sternberg Honors Professor.
He currently works privately with clients, using Natural Dreamwork in a process of spiritual direction. Kamenetz is married to fiction writer Moira Crone. He is the father of Anya Kamenetz, an author and NPR reporter, and Kezia Vida, a Natural Dreamwork practitioner who co-hosted The Dreamwork Summit 2019 with her father.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee for a full two weeks so that you can try out the course risk free. The deadline to receive a refund is 2 weeks from your date of purchase. To request a refund, please click here to submit your Refund Application Form. Your refund will be processed within five business days and we will send you an email confirmation when your refund has been completed. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at support@theshiftnetwork.com, and we’ll be happy to help!
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to your problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
