Creating Soundtracks for Dreams: The Healing Power of Music with Dr Michael Mollura

Today’s guest composes music to his patient’s dreams, capturing feelings and moods and deepening the psychotherapeutic process. Dr. Michael Mollura is a PhD licensed clinical psychologist and also an award-winning music composer for TV and movies. Michael started by scoring music to his own dreams and later found out how valuable the practice was in deepening the healing for his psychotherapy clients.

We play a clip of one such piece called Scary Path Dream. Michael describes the process of scoring the piece including using cello to represent the waving branches of the trees. He also describes the effect that listening to this creation had on his client in deepening her process and even bringing up waking life memories that she had forgotten.

We take a call from Steven Ernenwein who describes his own experience scoring music for the dreams of guests on his podcast The Dreams that Shape Us.

BIO: Dr. Michael Mollura is a licensed clinical psychologist with a Ph.D from Pacifica Graduate Institute and a Master’s Degree in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He composes music to the dream reports of his psychotherapy clients as a way of accessing unconscious material to provide healing pathways on neurological and collective levels. The therapy draws a bridge between Dr. Mollura’s work as a professional award-winning music composer and as a clinician and is an innovative way to promote healing and well-being for his clients.

Find our guest at: DrMichaelMollura.com

Show aired on July  29, 2023.

Intro music is Water over Stones and outro music is Everything both by Mood Science. Ambient music is created new every week by Rick Kleffel. The audio can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick Kleffel for also engineering the show, to Tony Russomano for answering the phones and to Ewa Malady for audio editing.

 

Contact Katherine Bell with feedback or suggestions for future shows at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow her on FB and IG @ExperientialDreamwork to find out about upcoming shows. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her go to ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific Time. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms and are released the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/.

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