PRODUCTIVE SLUMBER
A single dream can change the entire course of a life.
Something reaches out to you from darkness. It tugs at your shirttail. It taps on your shoulder with an irregular beat. Conditioned by tales of horror, you may shrink from revelations that emerge from shadowy places. When in a new found spirit of adventure or perhaps out of curiosity, desperation, or some unnamed hunger, you turn toward rather than away from this inner insistence, you discover new sources of illumination. Only inspiration is tugging, only love is tapping. Only Dreamers Awaken.
Whether you realize it or not, you count among your most generous and loyal friends the world's greatest and best connected healer, headhunter, realtor, researcher, financial adviser, career counselor, psychic, matchmaker, muse, business guru and artistic collaborator. The source of your nighttime dreams, your unconscious, comprises all of these and more. Be a generous receiver and let your dreams help you out. Accept the gifts of clarity, healing and wisdom they wish to bestow.
Lael Gold, Ph.D. provides dream-based counsel to clients worldwide along with dream classes, workshops and teleseminars. Working from her own intuition and her skills as a dream decoder, she turns up the volume on her clients' and students' connection to the unerring inner guidance that urges them on toward wholeness. Lael's singular gifts as a dream interpreter and counselor have helped individuals facing specific, practical health, career and relationship decisions as well. Deeper Being, Soul, Spirit, Atman, Intuition, Self, whatever we call it, there is an aspect of ourselves that connects us to the whole of life. As we attend and respond to its promptings, we begin living more authentically, from the inside out. Moving freely and joyfully in the world, we begin living the life of our dreams.
Specialties: All those suffering from ailments and injuries not readily remedied by conventional means. Also, intellectuals seeking to live more intuitively; artists wishing to reconnect with inspiration that wells up ceaselessly from within; anyone desiring, after deep dives through exhilarating waters, to resurface triumphantly in breathless delight with precious, long-lost treasures in hand.
ABOUT LAEL
"When asked what my Ph.D. in comparative literature has to do with working with dreams, I explain that it's essentially the same field but with a twist. Rather than working from books, I now help people compare the story they are telling themselves moment after moment, day in and day out with the much larger story that the deepest, truest, most fearless part of themselves is telling. What if you consider yourself a limerick when you are really an expansive, playful, poetic, seemingly endless yet utterly compelling, charming and brilliant postmodern novel?! May you never again miss out on the powerful, wonderful, sometimes very funny wisdom that emerges from within." --Lael Gold, Ph.D.
A compassionate dream intuitive, lively speaker and informative teacher, the founder of Productive Slumber, Lael Gold, Ph.D., provides individual healing guidance and group programs to clients worldwide. A 2001 Mellon Fellow and award-winning writer and educator, Lael created and taught literature, film and writing courses for over eight years at U.C. Berkeley where she earned her doctorate in 2004. She delights in assisting others in deepening their connection with the smartest, most loving part of themselves. Humor and play are hallmarks of her work.
"My gut instinct led me to Lael when I was facing difficult life decisions. It was immediately clear that such decisions were best entrusted to my unconscious. Once I invited my dreams to speak to me, and invited Lael to guide me through them, I was flooded by night after night of memorable dreams full of powerful symbolism. Her insights into possible meanings, which came like quick silver, were offered with grace, wisdom, humor, and humility. And they were right on! In a short time, I had a way forward. It was a path I’d been too scared to consider previously, but courage comes in the night. Postscript: Time has passed, and there’s been no question in my mind that I made the right decisions. Also, there were beautiful ripples of synchronicity that flowed as I worked with Lael.… not only for me, but for friends who welcomed the reminder to trust their unconscious realms."
Katrina Browne, filmmaker and nonprofit executive, director and writer of PBS POV documentary Traces of the Trade
"Lael Gold's work is vital to anyone who wants to lead a fully productive life because she is uniquely qualified to interpret the language of our dreams. Her extensive knowledge of the humanities and her gift for the discernment of meaningful patterns and interpretation of symbols, combined with her uncanny intuition, make her an exceptional counselor. Her singular gifts have had a profound effect on my life."
Duncan North, creator of the Sundance Award winning film The Tao of Steve
"I can't recommend Lael's dream workshops highly enough. She is such an erudite, passionate, funny, and profound respondent, and your own dreams--even small fragments--will sing to you if you let her (and the other workshop members) share them. It's like if psychoanalysis was kind and generous and optimistic. It's also like a really smart, lively literature class, where the topic is (finally!!) you!"
Jane Glaubman, Ph.D., English Faculty, Cornell Univeristy
In the Productive Slumber dream course, I wove disowned parts of my psyche back into my soul and experienced a surge of creativity. Guided by the wisdom of my dreams I am now learning to play the guitar! I have taken many dream classes and this has been my favorite for the masterful way Lael incorporates her original thinking with the best dream work teachings. I have more of me available for my life now.  I am so grateful to have experienced this magical course that has re-enchanted my life in myriad ways.
Samantha Sinclair, Creativity Coach, Creatrix Studios
Individual Work
You will share a dream of yours, and we will consider it together. Though thinking is generally involved, sometimes to a high degree, we will likely feel and reimagine our way through the dream as well. Simple presence with the fleeting, usually neglected stuff of dreams can have a profound effect on our lives. Sometimes, time allowing, more than one dream is covered in a session. Â But we avoid rushing and trust that we are attending to the dream as needed and that it is the quality of our attention that counts.
Night Muse
Writers, connect to the deep rhythm and deep narration that undergird your waking hours to infuse new life and new depth into all that you write.  In this lively, experimental dream and writing workshop, we will connect with our dreams and we will write.  We will take fascinating journeys to the interior, bringing back, as much as possible, just the riches our art and our lives require.
Deep Well
Question: What’s worse than false hope?
Answer: False despair.
"When I was gravely ill with late-stage (4b) cervical cancer, Lael Gold's presence and counsel were a tremendous gift that I am convinced contributed to my healing." --Ellen MacDonald, vocalist & choir director
Sometimes encounters with doctors, however well-intentioned, lead to feelings of discouragement and even despair. Deep Well offers support and guidance to those suffering from injuries and ailments not readily remedied by conventional means. It provides support in tuning in to what their body is trying to tell them and also in instituting practices that prompt and allow healing. Our bodies know more about their own needs and situations than most of us realize, and dreams along with other forms of intuition can provide amazingly targeted and effective prescriptive and diagnostic information, what some might call "a second-to-none opinion."
​
Healing is possible. I am living proof and so is Ellen MacDonald and so, if you think about it, are you.