As a non-traditional means of resolution to some inner conflict or pain or as a formal acknowledgement of events too difficult to put into words, healing dreamscapes have a number of important applications in the life cycle:
Identity
Acceptance
When all channels of communication appear closed; including email, voice mail and letters, artwork can open doors often for the simple reason that it is too beautiful to throw away. Joining a faith tradition despised by family, or coming out as gay or lesbian, we need a powerful non-verbal messenger to reach deep into hearts and minds. Melding the familiar (family photos, for example) with an individual's new lifestyle (such as posing with a role model, or a life partner at an LGBT event) can bridge the gulf.
Adolescent Angst
Issues of their relationship to parents, to God, new crushes, tough-as-nails coaches and teachers can put a teenager into a tail spin. Yet if you present an adolescent with all they've already achieved or dreamed of in their young lives, teenagers begin to feel the burdens of maturity lightening. The best messengers of a healing dreamscape are grandparents, who faithfully record everything that's good in their grandchild's life.
Adoption
Should adoptive parents reveal the facts of their child's adoption when first asked? At puberty when the child's own sexuality comes into play? When they want to see adoption records? A healing dreamscape commissioned by the birth mother to her biological child is pure poetry. An album tracing the journey made by the adult adoptee and given to his adoptive mom on Mother's Day is pure catharsis.
Memory Loss
Healing dreamscapes as a stimulus to memory can work miracles in the hands of a caretaker, nurse or social worker. One dreamscape shown over and over can elicit an oral history that goes down in family lore.
Hurt
Broken Heart
When there's adultery or abandonment, one side of the couple may see hopelessness; another only the faintest glimmer of hope. Sometimes it's a concerned friend who steps in to do damage control and restore trust. Whoever initiates a healing dreamscape for the walking wounded deserves a special place at their vow renewal ceremony.
Roast
A gift that is a roast has a secret subtext that no one will "get" but you. A way to save face and do something nice for someone, even when they still make your blood boil or drain from your face. Think of it as harmless voodoo, but without the ill effects.
Sickness
Recovery
Sometimes there are miracle recoveries and quick cures. For those other times when we are forced to ride the bumps in the road of life, a carrot and 40/40 hindsight inside a healing dreamscape can keep us moving through the pain, frustration and "Why me?"
End of Life
As the patient cocoons in the hospital or at home with daily visitors, they often struggle with the fact they will soon be robbed of precious memories of time spent with family and friends. The healing dreamscape actively gets chronically or terminally ill patients engaged in the process of remembering tall or true tales, distracting them from their psychic pain.
Loss
Infant Death
A child dies before her parents can even forge a bond. All that's left may be a hospital photo taken with a cell phone. An untimely death also leaves family and friends in a state of shock and awkwardness, unable to broach the subject for fear of "making things worse." For these delicate situations, the wishful reality in the healing dreamscape encourages mourners to forge new stories about those they've lost, making them relevant to their current lives.
Memorial
Sometimes all we have to cling to after death is an out of date photo. Or maybe a fabulous photo, but you (the surviving family member, partner or wife) or that person's descendents (granddaughter, niece or nephew, for example) are not in the photo with them. What then? I can fashion a photo collage portrait for memorial services that conveys the powerful bonds that will always be there (or would have been there), as long as you live.
Pet Loss
Pet sympathy gifts are rarely emotive art pieces that do justice to their subjects. How do you convey all that two-way flowin' love... the fact that you were the highlight in their day? In all probability, you probably have few, if any, pictures of the two of you together. But did you know that if we can find a terrific photo of each of you separately, I can combine them, creating an artistic collage portrait you can wear as a photo purse or frame for your home or office?
Diplomacy
Peacemaking
When words won't suffice or communication is at a standstill, the healing dreamscape uses symbolism, humor, and above all - a creative process - to reopen dialogue among far flung and estranged family members or friends to repair the relationship.
Gratitude
Gratitude can take many forms. The aunt who stepped in to mother you. The doctor or therapist who saved your life. The nanny who shaped your three sons. These are dreamscape opportunities to convey thanks in a tribute montage, or sent as a gratitude card.
Gratitude can also take the form of a photomontaged recognition award to a corporate sponsor. Consider the effect of a corporate recognition award that seamlessly collages all the finest photographs taken at your sponsored event. As if by magic, every photograph is optimized so that only the headiest moments of the day remain.
Additional Resources