About Ilana

At 3 a.m. on a sleepless night in 2003, I was looking out over New York’s Hudson river at a flickering skyline of high-rise apartments. In every bedroom, I thought, someone is dreaming. And since I can see hundreds of windows, right now there are hundreds of dreams being weaved… dreams many won’t remember, and most won’t understand. I imagined the scene if all those dreams suddenly became visible, and I could watch them, and later tell the Dreamers what I saw.

My awareness of dreams had started years earlier when I ripped an article out of an abandoned newspaper in a cafe. The title was: Ask Not What Your Dreams Mean. Ask What Your Dreams Want. This is such a vivid memory, it really makes me wonder. 

The seed this article planted sprouted that sleepless night at 3 a.m. Suddenly, nothing interested me more. How much could I learn about how and why we dream? Can we use our dreams to better understand ourselves, and each other? And, the big question… if the person I know as “me” is sleeping, then who is creating the dream? 

Since that night, my life has taken many turns. I completed a Masters at New York University, enjoyed a creative career in  advertising, and spent three years in Asia studying eastern meditation and philosophy. In 2010, I returned to Melbourne to become a professional counsellor and psychotherapist, and met inspiring teachers who had studied Dreaming for decades. I also developed an academic crush on Carl Jung. (You laugh now, but you will too if you start doing dream work.) 

Today, I am the Melbourne Representative to the International Association for the Study of Dreams. I am also in private practice as a psychotherapist, and specialise in using the physical body to make connections, access memories, and release trauma – which, incidentally, is what many scientists believe dreams are doing while we sleep. 
 
I created Dream Lab to pass on what I have learned so far, and also so I could continue learning together with others who share my interest. Dreaming remains a mystery, however together we can explore further, go deeper, share more knowledge, and therefore have more to pass on to others. We may have forgotten how to use dreams in our waking lives, but we can and should bring this knowledge back. I believe our dreams want us to.

If you’re interested in experiencing the intelligence of your dreams for yourself, come along to a workshop. They’re your dreams, and only you can understand them.

Ilana

QUALIFICATIONS
MA, Counselling & Psychological Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne (2014)
MA, Media, Culture & Communication, New York University (2000)
BA Hons, English Literature, University College London (1998) 
Diploma Transpersonal Counselling, Phoenix Institute, Melbourne (2010)
Certificate in Emotion Focused Therapy (PEEFT) (2010)
Certificate in Sandplay Therapy for Children and Adults (2013)
Ongoing Dream Work & Symbol Work

EASTERN INFLUENCES
Buddhism
Advaita Vedanta (the Non-Dual path)
Meditation & Mindfulness

PUBLIC SPEAKING
Who Are You When You’re Free? 
Using dreams to discover the individual within

AWARDS
1st Place, Cancer Council Arts Awards (Short Story), 2011
3rd Place, Cancer Council Arts Awards (Short Story), 2009

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION
Member of the Australian Counselling Association, Level 2
Melbourne Representative to the International Association for the Study of Dreams