The winter offerings cover a diverse set of topics.

For example, you can learn to sort through dietary supplements or discover the more esoteric Tao of dreaming.

“We try to offer a variety,” said Susan Russell, the director of certificate, community and continuing education at Bastyr University in Kenmore.

A center for the teaching of natural medicine, Bastyr has greatly increased its public offerings since the last academic year, Russell added. She said the school used to plan perhaps three community classes per academic quarter. That number has jumped to between 10 and 13, including new psychology based offerings.

Taught by K.P. Khalasa, the purpose of the dietary supplement class is straight forward, according to the class description, meant to teach participants to pick the basic supplements most people need from among the hundreds pushed by the media and sitting near the pharmacy of your local supermarket.

The Tao of dreaming might be described as for the more open minded, though clearly Russell doesn’t see that as any sort of negative. She said those taking Bastyr’s public offerings are a mix of professionals and those looking to expand their horizons.

“Some people are just exploring new ways of thinking,” she said.

According to the class description, the Tao course explores Asian techniques for awakening inner awareness and dreaming. Students learn to work with their life force, or “qi,” through the Asian technique of qigong, which springs from Taoist philosophy.

In this case, the instructor is described as someone who has traveled the world studying ancient cultures. Christina Bjergo also is soon to be an author, with a book on qigong dreaming to be released in February.

Incidentally, Bastyr’s community education instructors are a fairly varied lot, though most are local teachers or experts in their fields. Others travel, teaching courses around the country. For example, Khalasa apparently is well known in certain circles and Russell said he is a regular at Bastyr, “back by popular demand.”

According to Russell, Bastyr’s public course ideas largely come from, well, the public. Russell’s department receives proposals from would-be instructors and those proposals are evaluated on the basis of such factors as general interest, the expertise of the proposal writer and so on.

The department also seeks out classes on specific topics if officials notice a growing interest in that topic or a trend they believe the public will have an interest in.

• For more information, visit the Bastyr Web site at www.bastyr.edu and click on “continuing education,” or call (425) 602-3152.

Bastyr is located at 14500 Juanita Drive N.E.