Marta's upcoming book combines her approach to dreamwork as a psychotherapist for 30 years and her own dreams and transformative life experiences, demonstrating the power of dreamwork to heal our most painful situations, including those passed down through generations.
Her stories weave a lifelong tale of fears, mysteries, clues, imagination, visitations and healing. The book encompasses the personal terrain of inner struggles, the context of family dynamics, ancestral and collective experience, and our interconnectedness with all beings. Her journey shows how we can receive gifts for our own healing, and then offer our gifts to others.
If you are already a dreamer, you'll learn new ways to interact with your dreams. If you'd like to increase your recall or find your way back to a part of yourself you've forgotten, this book will inspire you to deepen your relationship with the amazing world of dreaming.
Her stories weave a lifelong tale of fears, mysteries, clues, imagination, visitations and healing. The book encompasses the personal terrain of inner struggles, the context of family dynamics, ancestral and collective experience, and our interconnectedness with all beings. Her journey shows how we can receive gifts for our own healing, and then offer our gifts to others.
If you are already a dreamer, you'll learn new ways to interact with your dreams. If you'd like to increase your recall or find your way back to a part of yourself you've forgotten, this book will inspire you to deepen your relationship with the amazing world of dreaming.
Dreaming in the Night Forest: Pathways to Personal, Collective, and Ancestral Healing
"Each night we fall asleep and enter the dark, uncharted territory of the night forest, densely populated by creatures not seen in the light of day, conjured by our wildest imagination and waiting to be cast into the stories playing out for all who venture into their tangled woods. Dreamers travel into the liminal realms through the psychic systems of tree roots, underground caves and rivers to meet the ones who spin the webs of interconnection.
Each morning we bring back clues as to our whereabouts during the night, a little mud on our feet, a small stone in our hand, but things look different in daylight. We squint our eyes and tilt our heads trying to bring back the clear visions, but the morning mist has risen and obscured our sight. Dreamwork offers a pathway back into these strange lands. We re-enter the mysterious realms of our nighttime ramblings with our flashlights and compasses, our questions and our journals, knowing that the journey will give us valuable clues for understanding the challenges of our daytime existence."
"Each night we fall asleep and enter the dark, uncharted territory of the night forest, densely populated by creatures not seen in the light of day, conjured by our wildest imagination and waiting to be cast into the stories playing out for all who venture into their tangled woods. Dreamers travel into the liminal realms through the psychic systems of tree roots, underground caves and rivers to meet the ones who spin the webs of interconnection.
Each morning we bring back clues as to our whereabouts during the night, a little mud on our feet, a small stone in our hand, but things look different in daylight. We squint our eyes and tilt our heads trying to bring back the clear visions, but the morning mist has risen and obscured our sight. Dreamwork offers a pathway back into these strange lands. We re-enter the mysterious realms of our nighttime ramblings with our flashlights and compasses, our questions and our journals, knowing that the journey will give us valuable clues for understanding the challenges of our daytime existence."
It's almost here...!!
Publishing date coming soon...October 2026
My book will be available in paperback on Amazon as well as an alternative site,
and in local independent bookstores.
More details on where to get your copy soon...
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Praise for Dreaming in the Night Forest: Pathways to Personal, Collective, and Ancestral Healing:
"Marta Aarli has given us a powerful memoir of her personal journey through her dreams, contextualized within her family history, and woven it with a rich and comprehensive overview of dreamwork from multiple perspectives. Her unique process provides an in-depth look at dreams from an integrated multi-faceted approach that highlights her somatic, spiritual, and cognitive perspective, as well as research into dreamwork that is both personal and universal. Quite a full plate for one book!
In Dreaming in the Night Forest, Marta shares her knowledge and respect for world-wide traditions of dreamwork, both ancient and modern. Her poetic use of the metaphor of trees; their roots and branches, is also applied to ancestral connection and healing. As a psychotherapist, she shares her knowledge of somatic therapies, parts work, and most importantly, the power and centrality of relationship and connection in healing; and is careful to add the suggestion as to when to seek professional guidance for the reader. One chapter that stands out is Marta’s exploration of one dream through multiple approaches, finding more juice in that dream than any one method could have extracted.
This book is clear and comprehensive enough for the beginner in dreamwork to enjoy and also contains enough depth and research that the seasoned practitioner will find new perspectives. Her courageous use of self-disclosure to share her nightmares and struggles as well as her professional knowledge make this a book well worth reading. Bravo on this first book from a deep dreamer!"
~ Linda Yael Schiller, MSW, LICSW, author of Ancestral Dreaming, PTSDreams, and Modern Dreamwork
~ ~ ~ ~
"Marta Aarli’s Dreaming in the Night Forest: Pathways to Personal, Collective, and Ancestral Healing drew me in from the very first handful of pages. In her introductory chapter, Aarli writes, “Dreams tell the stories we don’t want to tell” – inviting her readers to engage with curiosity and vulnerability. As a fellow dreamer and psychotherapist, I relate deeply to both the author’s inclusion of the natural world (a theme running throughout the book) as well as her meaningful dreams, as if they were my very own.
Dreaming in the Night Forest is more than an educational guidebook for understanding dreams and nightmares in our personal lives, as Aarli infuses soulful storytelling, dream-sharing, and relationality throughout its pages. I admire her sensitivity and the respect given to dreams throughout the book, which inspires readers to attend to this part of their daily, or rather, nightly lived experience."
~ Kimberly Mascaro, PhD, LMFT, author of Dreaming with the Earth-Mind, Dream Medicine, and Extraordinary Dreams
"Marta Aarli has given us a powerful memoir of her personal journey through her dreams, contextualized within her family history, and woven it with a rich and comprehensive overview of dreamwork from multiple perspectives. Her unique process provides an in-depth look at dreams from an integrated multi-faceted approach that highlights her somatic, spiritual, and cognitive perspective, as well as research into dreamwork that is both personal and universal. Quite a full plate for one book!
In Dreaming in the Night Forest, Marta shares her knowledge and respect for world-wide traditions of dreamwork, both ancient and modern. Her poetic use of the metaphor of trees; their roots and branches, is also applied to ancestral connection and healing. As a psychotherapist, she shares her knowledge of somatic therapies, parts work, and most importantly, the power and centrality of relationship and connection in healing; and is careful to add the suggestion as to when to seek professional guidance for the reader. One chapter that stands out is Marta’s exploration of one dream through multiple approaches, finding more juice in that dream than any one method could have extracted.
This book is clear and comprehensive enough for the beginner in dreamwork to enjoy and also contains enough depth and research that the seasoned practitioner will find new perspectives. Her courageous use of self-disclosure to share her nightmares and struggles as well as her professional knowledge make this a book well worth reading. Bravo on this first book from a deep dreamer!"
~ Linda Yael Schiller, MSW, LICSW, author of Ancestral Dreaming, PTSDreams, and Modern Dreamwork
~ ~ ~ ~
"Marta Aarli’s Dreaming in the Night Forest: Pathways to Personal, Collective, and Ancestral Healing drew me in from the very first handful of pages. In her introductory chapter, Aarli writes, “Dreams tell the stories we don’t want to tell” – inviting her readers to engage with curiosity and vulnerability. As a fellow dreamer and psychotherapist, I relate deeply to both the author’s inclusion of the natural world (a theme running throughout the book) as well as her meaningful dreams, as if they were my very own.
Dreaming in the Night Forest is more than an educational guidebook for understanding dreams and nightmares in our personal lives, as Aarli infuses soulful storytelling, dream-sharing, and relationality throughout its pages. I admire her sensitivity and the respect given to dreams throughout the book, which inspires readers to attend to this part of their daily, or rather, nightly lived experience."
~ Kimberly Mascaro, PhD, LMFT, author of Dreaming with the Earth-Mind, Dream Medicine, and Extraordinary Dreams
Writing this book has been an amazing experience:
"My dreams have made it clear they want to help me write this book, by offering their counsel and gathering into constellations that amplify their messages. It’s been a profound surprise to find that as I write this book, it is rewriting my life, with characters and experiences coming into clearer view and weaving into bigger stories.
We are mutually unfolding, my book and I, in the reciprocity of co-creation. When I began, I didn’t know that my dreams, written down over all these years, would be collaborating so richly in my project of commingling memoir and teachings on dreamwork. Ten years of psychoanalysis set the groundwork for this intensive dream synthesis, going deeper and wider than I'd previously imagined.
My dreams are gathering around me, holding this community of parts together in a circle of support as I sit at my writing desk."
~ Marta Aarli