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It started out as an innocent field trip -- like dozens she had taken her young students on for years. So when the kids got all excited about something they had found, she didn't think much of it. Until she saw it.

There, stretched between trees, was a massive web with a monster spider lifting each one of its spindly black legs along the whisper threads. Then she spied the eagle splayed like a stuck butterfly on a pin board. She shuddered with a mixture of grief, remorse, regret and finally terror.

"I woke up sobbing and I carried that same emotion for days. I was a completely shattered human being," says dream therapist Kathleen Sullivan. She realized that she was the eagle, and she vowed to spend the rest of her life getting the eagle out of the web. After that dream, Sullivan left her life as a teacher and immersed herself in dreamwork.

The road to dreamwork was a long one for Sullivan. She took some courses in transactional analysis and soon found herself flooded with dreams -- sometimes as many as 22 a night. Sullivan has worked with over 3,000 people in her dream groups and on her radio show.

"It's the only work I've ever done that energizes me," she says. "People who come to dreamwork are extraordinary people. They're positive. I get to see the best."

Sullivan spends an average of four years with each of her dream groups. "It's just astonishing how people come and stay and stay and stay," she says. "The group is food to their souls. It's really important work."

Alan Siegel is one of the few men to have embraced dreamwork. A clinical psychologist and vice-president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, Siegel delved into dreams for the first time as an undergraduate in university. As is often the case, he had discovered the writings of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

In his spare time, Siegel began participating in dream groups to satisfy his own quest for personal exploration. Now he does significant work with children's dreams.

Dreams are like a microphone for your inner voice, Siegel says. "It gives you a sense of when you're getting out of touch," he explains. "It helps you stay tuned into your deepest feelings."

But Siegel, who is working on a book on children's dreams, has seen dreams waken creativity in his clients, too. "They feel more confident and inspired," he says.

He's also seen dreams act as a healing mechanism. "I remember one woman who had an ulcer and was having trouble with her business," he says. "In all her dreams, she was enraged at the employees. In real life, she saw herself as a pacifist, but she saw her rage in her dreams. She realized she had denied her own assertiveness and it helped to understand her illness."

One of the difficult parts in working with dreams is clients with pre-set interpretations. "What dreams give you is the unknown -- what you don't know about yourself, " Siegel says. Then there are the people who are quick to spin out their long dreams, but don't want to talk about them in any kind of depth. "Every dream is potent with insights," he says.

Jayne Gackenbach teaches about dreams at a university. Her work came out of a few near-death experiences that spurred her to examine her own dreams and do a PhD dissertation on the subject. Later, she became interested in native culture -- where dreams have great importance.

During her research, Gackenbach recalls asking a young native man whether dreams were important to him. "He looked at me like I was crazy," she says. "I had to repeat the question two or three times. Then he scratched his head and said, 'That's like asking me if I brush my teeth.' He couldn't imagine why I asked such a thing."

While many people scoff at metaphysics, Gackenbach says it's hard to shrug off dreams like out-of-body experiences.

"I like dreams because it's one of the most concrete parts of metaphysics," she says. "Everybody dreams every night. You've got no choice. It's part of the natural phenomenon of being human. When you're looking at an out-of-body experience, you're not so certain. But the experience of dreams is always magical."

Gackenbach now offers an online dreamwork course and finds that it's a perfect venue for people reluctant to share their dreams, or even admit that the subject interests them. "It's a tremendous opportunity for personal and spiritual growth."