Kate Adams, PhD
Finding Meaning in Significant Dreams: The Use of Spiritual Intelligence?
Throughout history people have reported dreams which have made an impact upon their spiritual lives. As Carl Jung observed, these dreams can make a long lasting impact upon people, and are "the richest jewel in the treasure house of psychic experience (Jung, 1948, p. 290). Some of these dreams offer reassurance or resolution to problems which have been concerning the dreamer. This paper draws on several accounts of significant dreams to offer a synthesis of dream theory with the theory of spiritual intelligence in order to explore the processes which the dreamers may have undertaken to find meaning in their dreams.
The theory of multiple intelligences has been highly influential in many fields. More recently, theorists including Emmons (1999, 2000) and Zohar & Marshall (2000) have argued for the existence of a spiritual intelligence (SQ). They argue that SQ is the mental aptitude used by human beings to address and find solutions to problems of meaning and value in life. This paper explores their ideas and applies them to the ways in which adults and children may be utilizing spiritual intelligence in their response to dreams which have a spiritual impact upon them. It does so by considering the nature of the dreams reported and the nature of the meaning found in them. The dream reports considered in this presentation are from people of different ages and different cultural backgrounds, i.e. Christian, Muslim and secular backgrounds. The examples illustrate the similarities in responses to dreams which transcend those different upbringings.
The paper concludes that the theory of spiritual intelligence can be synthesized with dream theory to offer insights into the meaning-making processes which people undergo as they seek solutions to problems of meaning and value in their lives.
Rosa Anwandter, MA
Dream Societies in South America
This is a cross-cultural study of three of the many ethnic groups from South America. This essay analyzes the Shuar, Guarani, and Mapuche societies, inhabitants of South America and describes how these communities have ruled their lives through the wisdom of dreams and visions. These three ethnic groups have many similarities in their dreaming approaches. However, the Shuar society is the one that places the dream responsibility for interpretation on each person, and tends to raise individuals that are more independent. These communities assign the same importance to precognitive dreams, telepathic dreams, and lucid dreams, and to the significance of drives as well.
Guarani, Mapuche, and Shuar communities have the common belief that every living being has good and bad spirits. These three cultures consider dreaming as a tool to obtain a sense of direction in life. For instance, at early hours every morning, they meet in a semi-circular space and often because of a dream, they change their common issues. They move to another territory usually because of a dream announcing future natural disasters.
Every morning dreamers will tell their dreams to the tribe and the interpretation will be the solution to the present or coming problems. They are convinced there is a link between the messages of dream content and the moment they are living now. Their belief is that what is most important is now and here .
These three South American "primitive" societies consider that the true Self of every Human Being is within their own dreams.
Sheila Asato, MA
The Visual Nature of Dreaming Art, Neuroscience, Color and the Tarot
Dreaming is a highly visual state of consciousness which has challenged, delighted and inspired those in the arts as well as the sciences. In this inter-disciplinary panel, four IASD members from diverse backgrounds will share how the visual nature of dreaming has informed and enriched their work in the fields of art, neuroscience and therapy.
In the first presentation, The Nature of Imagery and Color, Robert Hoss will present a unique perspective on the nature of imagery and color in dreams and how they combine to enrich dream images. His talk will reflect on neurological research, Jungian and Gestalt theory, as well as his own research into the occurrence and significance of color in dreams.
Next, Lauren Schneider will show how the rich symbolic imagery of Tarot, Dream Cards, Soul Cards, and other visual tools can help us explore the archetypal and universal nature of dream images, the mechanism of projection and association, and how images connect to meaningful patterns in our waking life in her presentation entitled Dreams and Tarot - Innovative Approaches to Dream Work and Depth Therapy.
David Kahn will then share what neuroscience and brain-imaging studies have to offer in helping us understand different ways of seeing in his presentation entitled The Neuroscience of Seeing. In this presentation, David will focus on the neurobiology of seeing with an emphasis on seeing while asleep and dreaming. He will then compare this with seeing while awake with our eyes closed when we are imagining a scene, and ordinary vision when awake with our eyes wide open.
The panel will conclude with a multi-media presentation by Sheila Asato entitled The Dance of Creativity which will show how the visual nature of dreaming has influenced her work as a visual artist. Through dream incubation, in particular, Asato is able to gain invaluable visual and spatial insights into the creative process which then informs, guides and choreographs the movement of her work in the arts.
Sheila Asato, MA
Healing Collage Dream Group
This experiential dream group will focus on the Healing Collage!" process as a means of working with dreams on a daily basis. By working visually, first thing in the morning, participants will see how the dream influences the unconscious placement of imagery in their collages, creating a kind of visual dream journal.
Healing Collage!" is a non-verbal, creative way of accessing, interacting with and deepening one's relationship with dreams, even in the absence of dream recall. Like the collage artist in the studio, the dreaming self loves to cut, paste, and move imagery around in a number of surprising and occasionally shocking ways to get our attention. In this morning dream group, participants will have an opportunity to directly experience the relationship between waking creativity and dreaming in a way that stimulates further creative work with their dreams after the session has ended.
Dreaming is a highly emotional and visual state of consciousness. Upon waking, as one moves into the world of words and linear thought, it is only natural to try to articulate the dream experience in words. After all, verbal fluency is one of the great strengths of waking life. However, as useful as words may be in waking life, the dream itself remains an essentially non-verbal experience. When one relies primarily on words to bring dream content into waking life, a great deal is unnecessarily lost in translation. It s hard enough to recall dreams without the additional burden of immediately translating them into words upon waking.
The Healing Collage!" offers a non-verbal means of bringing dream material into waking life through the language of form and feeling. As artists throughout time have known, it is possible to bring dreams into waking life through the use of shape, texture, position and color. When one trusts the eyes and hands to guide the way, it is possible to transcend the specific cultural limitations of words. As Jung said, Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Once dream material has been embodied visually in a Healing Collage!", it is then possible to begin the separate task of translating that material into words. Through demonstrations, participants will learn how to create a meaningful dialogue based on the tendency of particular issues to cluster together in specific areas of a collage. This will open up new ways of interacting with dreams, as well as deepening one's relationship with the inner world.
At the last session of this dream group, there will be a brief discussion on the Healing Collage!" as a unique synthesis of graphic design techniques, Japanese collage therapy methods, the Watchword technique and Kaplan-Williams' approach to dream cards, followed by an explanation of the underlying compositional principals that guide the unconscious positioning of images. Participants will leave with a deeper awareness of how dream imagery can emerge visually into waking life.
All forms have an underlying structure which holds them together. The dream is no exception. Like art, the dream has a structural integrity that can be observed visually when given free access to a two-dimensional surface. The Healing Collage!" offers a direct, non-threatening approach to dreamwork that requires no background in art. Because of its accessibility, even people with little or no dream recall will find a way to begin working their images in a meaningful way.
Umberto Barcaro, Associate Professor
Dreams Reported During Therapy: Examples of Memory-Source Analysis
The memory sources of dreams can be present concerns, abstract assertions, or memories of past episodes. These sources are closely interconnected; the study of the links among sources can evidence interesting features of the dreaming phenomenon.
Possible links among dream sources can be identified by the automatic detection of word recurrences in text files including dream reports and the associations with the various dream items. A graph representation of the links can be helpful, because of its visual impact and its capacity to provide quantitative parameters.
In this presentation, we give examples of application of source analysis to dreams reported during therapeutic sessions. We have found that the study of the links among dream sources is helpful in therapy. When the patient reports a dream, the therapist exploits ideas, images, and recollections provided by the patient as associations with the dream, thus obtaining an initial assessment of the dream significance. An application of the method proposed can evidence new aspects of the dream content and can allow the therapist to review his first analysis and to discuss the new aspects with the patient. Furthermore, it often happens that the patient re-activates the dream contents in a later session and adds new items or details: in this case, our method can provide a confirmation of the initial analysis or suggest modifications to it.
Deirdre Barrett, PhD
Using Hypnosis to Work with Your Dreams
There are a variety of ways of combining hypnosis and dreamwork for the mutual enhancement of each. One can use hypnotic suggestions that a person will experience a dream in the trance state--either as an open ended suggestion or with the suggestion that they dream about a certain topic-- and these "hypnotic dreams" have been found to be similar enough to nocturnal dreams (Barrett, 1979) to be w orked with using many of the same techniques usually applied to nocturnal dreams. One can also work with previous nocturnal dreams during a hypnotic trance in ways parallel to Jung's "active imagination" techniques to continue, elaborate on, or explore the meaning of the dream.
Research by Charles Tart (1964) has found that hypnotic suggestions can be used to influence future nocturnal dream content, and Joe Dane (1985) demonstrated that hypnotic suggestions can increase the frequency of laboratory verified lucid dreams. Many people have also utilized hypnotic and self-hypnotic suggestions for increased dream recall.
The workshop will cover all of these techniques and include experiential exercises with several of them. It would be appropriate for both individuals interested in working with their own dreams and for professional therapists interested in acquiring more techniques for helping clients to explore their dreams.
Deidre Barrett, PhD
Dali's Dream of Venus at the 1939 World 's Fair
Dreams received a major forum when Salvador Dali was commissioned to design a Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair. Rising from World War I and the Great Depression, America and much of the world expected prosperous times ahead, so this Fair had an optimistic tone. There were only a few foreshadowings of what was to be the actual course of history. When the Germans petitioned to build a Nazi Pavilion, the Fair board declined, but halfway through the construction of the Czechoslovakian Pavilion, that country fell under Nazi control also. Nevertheless, most of the fair went on in light-hearted, pre-war, pre-code gaiety into which the young but already wildly popular Dali fit perfectly.
First conceptualizing a surrealism Pavilion, Dali gradually focused on visions of the night and titled his work Dream of Venus. His building s stucco fa?de was covered in protrusions, some irregular like those of cor al reefs, others shaped like female bodies. Fairgoers purchased their tickets from a tollbooth shaped like a giant horned fish. They entered the building between two giant, garishly stockinged female legs. The main hallway was lined with Dali's trademark dripping clocks and one could peer into glassed-off rooms filled with oneiric scenes. In one, a young woman slept in a 36-foot bed while voices recounted dreams perhaps hers, perhaps those of others. Another was a giant aquarium through which topless women in spiky rubber caps swam above mannequins and plaster cows chained to the ocean bottom. Outside it, a parked taxi rained constantly on the passengers inside the cab while beautiful weather prevailed everywhere else.
Dali fought with his wardrobe and design assistants throughout over matters like their thinking mermaids should have fish tails rather than fish heads. When everything was completed, instead of attending the opening of his pavilion, Dali flew back to Europe, airdropping a manifesto over Manhattan as he departed: In the nightmare of the American Venus, out of the darkness (bristling with dry and umbrellas) the celebrated taxi of Christopher Columbus discovered America and another Catalan, Salvador Dali, has just rediscovered Christopher Columbus. New York: You who are the half cup flour of heaven and! You are as mad as the moon... I go and I arrive; I love you with all my heart. Dali
This talk will show slides of the Dream pavilion and discuss the extent to which it utilized actual dreams.
Dominic Beaulieu-Pr?ost
The Transformation of Dreams across Time and its Implications for Dream-related Practices and Research
Although various dream-related practices and research appear to focus on the same object of knowledge (i.e. dreams), they in fact often differ in this respect, and ignoring these differences might have a detrimental effect on both research and practice. It is argued that dream-related experiences should be divided into three categories: (1) dream production, i.e. the dreams experienced by individuals, whether they are remembered or not upon awakening; (2) morning dream recall, i.e. the dreams as they are recalled upon awakening (or the experiences recalled upon awakening that are attributed to dreams experienced during the previous night and the verbal productions based on these experiences); and (3) long-term representations of dream life, i.e. the experiences of reminiscence attributed to dreams experienced a long time ago and the verbal productions based on these experiences including memories, beliefs and attitudes.
The transformation of dream content from the initial nightly production to the long-term representation of these dream experiences will be described and factors influencing these transformations will be described.
By means of a critical review of the literature, it will be argued that the difference between dream production and morning dream recall consists mainly in a loss of elements due to (a) the characteristics of the dreams themselves, (b) factors influencing the accessibility of the dream experiences, and (c) factors influencing the motivation in recalling one s dreams. Differences between morning dream recall and long-term representations of dream life involve losses, transformations and additions of elements and depend on both cognitive and social factors.
Generally speaking, long-term memories of dreams appear to be affected by the same factors as long-term memories of waking events while retrospective evaluations of dream content appear to be affected the same ways as are other forms of social judgment.
One of the main consequences of these transformations is that the relation between dream content variables and external variables depends on the category of dream-related experiences being examined. For instance, while people s retrospective evaluation of their dream recall frequency (DRF) is moderately related to their scores on scales of attitude towards dream, absorption and psychological boundaries, prospective dream log measures of their DRF are not substantially related to these scores. Thus, correlates of one category of dream-related experiences cannot be automatically assumed to be correlates of the other categories. Finally, implications for dream-related practices, research and theories of dreaming will be discussed.
Ann Bengtsson
Jung, Reich, Moore and Bertelsen: Symbolism, Body Armour, Chakras and Transformation
First of all I will describe Jung's personality model, including the I, the personal unconscious (the shadow and animus/anima) and the collective unconscious dividing it into a lower and a higher part. Then I will describe the symbols related to Jung s universe. Reich's body armour model of blocked segments will be described in relation to the chakra system with its colours and transformation symbols. In this way we can look for transformation. Finally we look at different aspects of the dream building a dream key for revealing the message of the dream.
Ann Bengtsson
Mandala Drawing Techniques as a Method of Understanding Dream Symbols
Mandala drawing technique is a creative method of opening an energy-laden powerful dream symbol. We will begin the workshop by studying Mandalas from different cultures. For thousands of years the Mandala has been used all over the world to focus awareness. Jung used the Mandala drawing technique to come closer to the Self showing itself. This workshop gives you an amazing method of revealing the meaning of your most energy-laden dream symbols in a creative way. The method is quite simple: We begin to look for the most energy-laden symbols of the dream. By constructing a circul ar "window" surrounding the symbol we study the intensity of the symbol, transforming it by making several drawings until it reveals its true self. The process by which this happens describes a transformation process and awareness development. The workshop will be limited to approximately 20 people. The technique requires no specific creative skills, just a wish to express oneself!
Sheila Benjamin, DM, DD, PsiD
Night and Daytime Dreams of those with Schizophrenia and Psychosis
Throughout history there have been cases where individuals have been denied sleep for periods of time, altering the hormonal chemistry within the brain. This alteration often manifests images that individuals see that physically they are not able to touch.
Many individuals who experience visual and audio hallucinations are labeled schizophrenic or psychotic. These people are often challenged with remembering and recalling their nighttime dreams; in fact they often have a difficult time sleeping at all. Their dream state is experienced while awake. When we open ourselves to receive the images, which these individuals are, experiencing and we learn to interpret them as we would a nighttime dream, this can give us insight into the minds of those considered insane. This knowledge can help us to remove the obstacles that separate us from them and them from us.
The College of Metaphysics has researched the meaning of dreaming and the mechanics of the mind since 1973. With the understanding of how to use the conscious outer mind to its fullest through the development of concentration, there is a balance that occurs within the body and the mind. This balance can produce a productive communication between the pituitary and the pineal gland and result in a good night's sleep.
Susan Benson, BA, MSC
Dreaming Across Boundaries and Borders: Meeting at the Edges
This paper demonst rates how 8 participants in 2 dreamgroups, meeting over 6 years, explored aspects of self-identity, change and transformation in the context of their own personal dreaming and shared dreamgroup processes. The paper provides a rationale and argument for engagement with group dreamwork processes as an appropriate medium of critical social/cultural inquiry as well as for personal psycho-spiritual exploration.
The assumptions underpinning this work:
- Dreams have a potential for creative problem solving, and guiding function for reflection on past action as well as preparing, signaling even anticipating our future actions;
- Dreams reflect both personal and collective conscious and unconscious processes and as such are useful for exploring personal, societal and spiritual experiences;
- Dreams are spontaneous and cannot be controlled or predicted but can be intentionally invited;
- Dreams suggest a range of form and function for example; archetypal, numinous, compensatory, wish-fulfillment and are best engaged with through a range of imaginal, intuitive and embodied awareness approaches.
The study grew out of a pilot study which began in 1998. This initial project involved 4 women in a short-term 8 week dreamgroup process. From this initial stage, an intentional learning group was formed and continued to meet and share dreams and reflections until the death of one of the members in 2002. A second intentional learning group with 5 women members commenced in 1999 and remained active until 2005.
The initial guiding questions of the study were concerned with exploring with mature-age women who had experienced a long-term marriage the questions of what keeps us in marriage or what prompts our urge to remarry. How do we consider those choices we are making and reflect upon how are our experiences, similar or different? To what extent do we see our cultural conditioning as having been prescriptive or valuable? How would we effect change? How do we locate our visionary selves?
In this paper I explore questions of meaning and understanding emerging from context and dreamgroup process. I reflect on the evolving dreamgroup processes and consider how new levels of understanding arose as individual themes and group patterns unfolded and revealed themselves often occurring together with synchronicities. These patterns and synchronicities wove together personal stories, cognitive awareness, somatic knowing, intuition, aesthetic sensibility and empathetic resonance. Such awareness required sensitivity to the felt, embodied experience as well as an imaginal mode of engagement which was both receptive as well as interpretive.
Within this study relatedness emerges as a multi-faceted phenomenon, with intersubjectivity emerging as a central focus. The strongest meaning of intersubjectivity implies that relationships are primary and that our sense of individuality is secondary arising from a larger network of relationships. Within the dreamgroups, a significant outcome experienced by all participants has been the increased awareness of interconnectivity and intersubjectivity. This increased awareness has contributed to an expanding sense of the possible nature of relationships and subtle levels of relatedness, beyond that which was previously understood. This experience of the non-local, direct presencing or perceiving has been the most surprising outcome for participants in terms of a discovery process.
Walter Berry, MA
Dreams and Projection Crossing the Borders Between Us
Projection is the externalization of thoughts, feelings, impulses, or desires that we don t recognize in ourselves. Sometimes we find it hard to recognize our own greatness or foibles and so we put them onto others and see it in them. In this workshop we will explore our own projections on other people s dreams and see what th ey can teach us.
What happens when we share a dream with a group of supportive people? Out from the unconscious come bubbling symbols, emotions, body tremors, puns, humorous thoughts, words, smells, tastes, spiritual awakenings, etc. These all get laid out in front of others, and in the telling, each of the group forms their own personal version of the dream.
An example: I had a dream about a black rhino. I thought it was about my stubbornness. My Dream Group saw it differently. Mike (going through a job change) thought it was about power I need to claim. Deborah (just out of a long-term relationship) thought it was about being armored enough to get through my aloneness. Leslie (in the early stages of a new promising relationship) thought it was about being too armored, a sign that I should drop my defenses. Ruth (getting in touch with her inner-magic) thought it was about my need to being open to falling in love, citing the fact that rhino horns are an aphrodisiac. Kay (who prides herself in thinking outside the box) made up an animated movie in her head about a powerful charging rhino that trades in his armor for the chance to fall in love with a unicorn.
In this example, not only are each of these people projecting on my dream, I am projecting on them my ideas of what is going on in their lives that spurred the projection. Projection is often looked at in a negative light, an obstacle to truth or progress. I see projection as a positive force for deep and lasting change. There are cross currents of import going on here and I believe that middle ground where our projections cross is a place of healing and communion, a place where dreams are without borders. This workshop will look closely at that point of crossing.
We will attempt to use projection to show us how to open up deeper connections between each other and the dream itself. We will start with a short dream, then invite comment on the dream, then explore the source of those comments, m aking the observer the observed. We will project intentionally all over the dream in an effort to flush out our own views of ourselves, and in turn our connection to each other and the dream itself. All of this will be undertaken with a sense of humor and lightness that will
add further depth to this fascinating dance of thoughts, emotions and spirit.
Barbara Bishop, PhD
Text as Dream in Kafka s Metamorphosis
In a letter to Oskar Pollak, Franz Kafka wrote that we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves . . . a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. Kafka s novella, Metamorphosis, certainly qualifies as a jolt, similar to the way a striking dream might threaten, disturb, and even banish us from the world we experienced before the dream. My paper explores the dream-like elements in Kafka s Metamorphosis ; Kafka invites such a comparison in his opening sentence: When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. The notion that the dream world might not only unsettle a person but even transform him into an entirely new species reflects Kafka s tendency to literalize metaphors, and then examine the metaphor from every angle. Kafka s story sets forth how metaphors act upon us, both consciously and unconsciously, and suggests that an awareness of the metaphors that operate in and through us our lives is preferable.
I am particularly interested in what Kafka implies about dreams and their possible effects upon the individual, and, in contrast, what his story seems to suggest about the non-dreamer, the philistine who never imagines beyond the literal or invites the dream world to impact him or her. By including the dream world into his examination of what it means to be human, Kafka e xpands definitions of the self beyond I think therefore I am to something like I dream, therefore I imagine and expand beyond the isolated island of waking consciousness. That Kafka s examination of what it means to be human occurs through the ruminations of a bug indicates the playful, bizarre ways we might explore, through the metaphors in our dreams, below and beyond the boundaries of self we have unconsciously constructed or that have been culturally constructed for us.
This paper also looks at the ways in which Kafka s story operates, similarly to some dreams, outside of time, as a prophecy of historic events which occurred many years after Kafka wrote Metamorphosis.
Bjorg Bjarnadottir, PhD
Hearts Full of Dreams Icelandic Fishermen and their Dreams
For ages, fishing has been one of the main sources of income for Icelanders. Other European nations have been fishing at Iceland s shores as well. A French writer who once studied the life of French fishermen in Iceland described Icelanders as a nation with their hearts full of dreams. Skuggsja dream center in North Iceland recently conducted a qualitative research into the dreams and precognitions of Icelandic fishermen. On the one hand, old dream accounts of fishermen were investigated; on the other, presently living and working or retired fishermen were interviewed.
Belief in dreams scores fairly high, or over 75%, and so does belief in precognitive dreaming in Icelandic dream studies. These scores have proved consistent in the face of many cultural and socioeconomic changes over the past decades. According to Skuggsja?s Gallup findings in 2003, nearly 40 % of the population have themselves experienced precognitive dreaming, and over 75% believe that such dreams do exist. These are strikingly similar findings to those of Haraldsson in 1978 albeit 25 years apart.
A whole store of dream beliefs, dream practices, and dream symbolism exists i n the old Icelandic fishermen culture. There is strong indication that this knowledge has been intuitively learned and has served as a safety net in dangerous circumstances at sea. Further, that fishermen who adhered to the way of the dream, developed a form of self-reliance rooted in the nature of their job helping them cope. Backed by culture at large and folklore sharing many features with similar dream traditions among other Northern nations.
The findings indicate that fishermen did indeed rely on their dreams for guidance at sea until the last quarter of the 20th century. Whereas findings from present day fishermen indicate that modern technology, new equipment, and the recent quota fishing system have affected both their dreams and their dream beliefs. How much modern technology has affected this old way of the Dream, or how lasting its effects, is still an open question, which raises some very interesting cross-cultural implications among Northern nations.
Mark Blagrove, PhD and Amy Wilkinson
Associations of Lucid Dreaming Frequency with Attentional Ability and Extraversion
Introduction
Lucid dreams are defined as dreams in which one knows that one is dreaming. Some researchers add to that requirement that one must then control aspects of the dream. We propose here that frequent lucid dreaming requires the ability to focus attention on the dream, such that one detaches oneself from being immersed in the scenario and instead has the meta-cognition that one is not awake. In a previous study (Blagrove & Tucker, 1994) we used a task (finding embedded figures) to assess this attentional ability, but did not find that lucid dreamers performed better on this task.
In the present study we use two other tasks of attentional ability. One is the Stroop task, which involves stating the colour ink that words are printed in. The Stroop effect is that the time needed to state the colour of a word is incre ased if the word spells out the name of a different colour than that of the ink. Various explanations have been given to explain the Stroop effect (see Cox et al, 2006). The second type of task was to detect changes in photographs by repeatedly flashing two alternate versions of the photograph. The phenomenon here is that of change blindness, which is an inability to detect large changes in the visual field (Rensink, 2002).
We also assessed extraversion, as this has been related to selective attention (Althaus et al, 2005).
Method
Definition of lucid dreams and of experimental conditions:
We used the following definition of lucid dreams: Lucid dreaming happens when you re having a normal dream, then within that dream you realise that you are dreaming.
Participants categorised frequent lucid dreamers if this happens more than once per month, occasional if it has happened less than this, and as non-lucid dreamers if this has not happened to them.
Participants:
Frequent lucid dreamers (5 male, 8 females, mean age = 20.7 (SD = 1.3)); occasional lucid dreamers (6 male, 7 females, mean age = 21.3 (SD = 1.8));
Non-lucid dreamers (4 male, 8 females, mean age = 20.6 (SD = 1.4));
Measures
" Stroop task 36 colour words presented, 5 in congruent colours, 31 incongruent. Scored as time to answer all correctly.
" Change blindness - after one demonstration, 6 PC presented CB photos presented for 20 seconds each. Scored as percentage of changes spotted correctly.
" Eysenck s EPQ s Extraversion scale
Results
Table 1 shows the mean scores on each task for each of the three conditions.
Table 1
| |
Frequent lucid dreamers |
Occasional lucid dreamers |
Non-lucid dreamers |
| |
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
| Dream recall per week |
2.65 |
1.87 |
2.86 |
2.07 |
2.81 |
2.36 |
| Change blindness items correct |
3.85 |
1.99 |
3.31 |
1.32 |
3.25 |
1.76 |
| Time to complete Stroop task |
40.16 ab |
1.78 |
45.19b |
4.40 |
48.72 a |
8.55 |
| Extraversion |
18.15b |
3.36 |
15.38c |
3.31 |
12.25 bc |
5.59 |
Mann-Whitney a & b p<.001
Dunnett t test b p=.001, c p=.06
Conclusion
Frequent lucid dreamers are better able to focus their attention when awake. In accordance with the continuity hypothesis, there is thus an association of lucid dreaming with cognitive style when awake. There is also an association of lucid dreaming with extraversion.
Mark Blagrove, PhD (Celia Morgan, Prof. Val Curran, Dr. Leslie Bromley and Dr. Brigitte Brandner not present)
The Occurrence of Unpleasant Dreams after Subanaesthetic Ketamine
Ketamine is a widely used anaesthetic that is an NMDA receptor antagonist with psychotogenic effects. Its neurochemical effects have been used as a model for schizophrenia. There have been diverse reports on whether pleasant or unpleasant dreams result perioperatively during anaesthesia, postoperatively, or after subanaesthetic use.
Objective: To assess in healthy volunteers the incidence of unpleasant dreams over the three nights after receiving a subanaesthetic dose of ketamine, in comparison to placebo, and with retrospective home nightmare frequency as a covariate.
Method: 30 subjects completed questionnaires about retrospective home dream recall and were then given either ketamine (n = 19) or placebo (n=11). Dream recall and pleasantness/unpleasantness of dream content were recorded by questionnaire at home for the three nights after infusion.
Results: Frequency of dreams did not differ between the gr oups. Ketamine resulted in significantly more mean dream unpleasantness than did placebo. The ketamine group also had a higher incidence of unpleasant dreams, but only when retrospective nightmare frequency was controlled for. Odds ratio showed the effect of ketamine was to increase the likelihood of an unpleasant dream by 3.0 over placebo. Retrospectively assessed nightmare frequency was a predictor of unpleasantness of dreams after ketamine use.
Conclusions: Ketamine caused unpleasant dreams over the 3 postoperative nights, the incidence of which is related to individuals usual incidence of nightmares at home. Individuals who are being given ketamine as an anaesthetic for surgery, or those who use ketamine as a recreational drug, may need to be made aware of this negative effect on dreaming.
Fariba Bogzaran PhD
Dreams and Lucid Art of Remedios Varo
The paintings of Remedios Varo, a surrealist who was interested in dreams, alchemy, magic and science, constitute a lucid art morphing the enigmatic space of creation with symbolic dream imagery. Ten dreams of the Remedios Varo were sent to the author for analysis. Upon working with these dreams, studying the paintings, and Varo s biography, it appeared that Varo used the modality of painting as a way to deep inquiry and brought some of her dreams or elements of her dreams in her paintings. Varo was not interested in illustrating her dreams as some of the surrealists did. Her paintings instead suggest a complex dream-like but conscious narrative with great range of possibilities often experienced in lucid dreams. Visual imagery in her paintings also suggests phenomena appearing in other dream states such as hypnagogic impressions, dreams within dreams, shamanic initiations, alchemical transformations, spiritual, and visitation dreams. Varo also incorporated dream imageries of her friends in her paintings.
In this presentation, a summary of the common themes in these ten dreams w ill be presented. In addition one highly archetypal dream, Dream #10, will be explored in depth. In the surrealist tradition, the author created an innovative research method to work with Varo s dream by sending her dream to 12 well-known authors and dream expert in the field for their reflection into the dream. The result of these reflections and themes will be discussed. The presentation also includes a pictorial biography of the artist through her paintings and highlights some of paintings reflected in her dreams.
Ghazaal Bozorgmehr, MA and Hooshmand Ebrahimi, MA
Harry Potter, a Power Creature for Helping Children Overcome Nightmares
Kids Skills, developed by psychiatrist Ben Furman at Finland Brief Therapy Institute, is a solution-focused method by which children overcome problems in a positive and pleasing way by learning new skills. Through Kid s Skills the child s parents and instructors can convert the child s problem into a corresponding skill and teach this skill to the child in order to solve his/her problem. The Kids Skills method comprises systematic tasks. It begins with the task of converting problem into skill and after exploring the benefits of learning the skill as well as naming the skill by the child, is followed by choosing a power creature. In addition, there are also other tasks to be accomplished such as building confidence, practicing the skill, dealing with frustration and, celebrating success.
Converting nightmare into goodmare is one of the skills which the child can learn with the help of the Kids Skills method. In the process of learning this skill, choosing a power creature is very important because, as Patricia Garfield, the internationally known dream researcher, points out, a child who has nightmares needs help and must find someone to get help from. Harry Potter is a power creature who can help the child to learn the skill of converting nightmare int o goodmare. The media got everyone interested in Harry Potter. Harry Potter, according to William Glasser the founder of Reality Therapy, lives in an external control world that pushes him around. But what makes him a hero is it fails to control him. Harry Potter uses both his brain and magic to escape the external control that surrounds him.
This proposal discusses the power creature from a Kids Skills perspective and reviews the characteristics of Harry Potter as a power creature. Then it shows how Harry Potter can help a child reclaim his or her resources and overcome nightmare.
Mary J. Brill, LCSW
The Art of Dreaming
Main principles
a. Participants will learn how to identify and use their unique, artistic abilities to further a dream, an image, a life event, or synchronicity.
b. Participants will learn how to develop a creative set of tools to convey their personal artistic expression in furthering their dreams.
c. Participants will learn how they can utilize their individual artistic expression as an alternative method to make life changes, break free from old patterns, and for self-empowerment.
d. Participants will learn how they can explore the creative process of self-empowerment by accessing and developing their innate artistic abilities and personal resourcefulness in contrast to seeking the answers from outside themselves.
Examples and Studies
A. A brief history of the use of Art, Image, and Dreams for exploration, healing, and guidance.
b. A PowerPoint presentation of Case studies that illustrate the process of art and dream mapping, and demonstrating the clients process of making life changes, breaking patterns, and identifying shadow.
c. Art pieces demonstrating various processes of furthering dreams, images, and life events.
Experiential Learning
a. Particip ants will take part in a presentation of art that has been created by past dreamgroup participants to further a dream, an image, a life event, or synchronicity.
b. An exploration through lecture, discussion, and guided experience of how this process can then be used to guide decisions and choices.
c. A discussion of the participant s experience.
Nicholas E. Brink, PhD
Morning Dream Group: Dreaming Postures: A Replication of Felicitas Goodman s Life Time Work
Felicitas Goodman, who before her death spent many years as an anthropologist studying the body postures found in ancient and primitive art and contemporary shamanistic practices of healing, identified several dozen postures that she found produced specific dream experiences. As a teacher of anthropology at Denison University and founder and director of the Cuyamungue Institute, she presented her workshops at the Institute and around the world and collected the dream experiences of a large number of participants. From these experiences she found commonalities in the dream experiences of individuals standing, sitting and lying in specific postures. She also found that in being true to the posture, including the use of costumes and facial or body paint used by the dreamer, the dream experience would become more vivid.
Goodman suggests that certain postures produce an experience of a spirit journey, either into the heavens, the earthly realm or into the underworld. Other postures produce divination experiences to provide answers to specific questions held by the dreamer. Other postures provide healing and birthing experiences and healing specific to women. Shape shifting, celebration, death experiences and life after death are the dream experiences for other postures.
Goodman typically had the dreamers hold a posture for 15 minutes, timed by as long as she shook her rattle. Using this time frame and sharing dream experiences, one p osture can be experienced in an hour. The four day morning dream group will allow for experiencing four postures.
Nicholas E. Brink, PhD
Quantum Dreaming and the Effect of Body Posture on Dreams
Gebser (1949) attributes changes in thinking or consciousness to the mutation of consciousness while Capra (1975) attributes these changes to the need to find new ways to describe such universal phenomena as the relativity of time, subatomic motion, space warps and black holes, but Capra also recognizes that this thinking has existed over the millennia in Eastern thought. Gebser calls this new way of thinking aperspective time-free transparency. Capra sees these changes in accepting such Eastern concepts as the unity and inseparability of all things, of form coming from emptiness, and the relativity of time and space.
Dreaming and the processes of the unconscious mind are time-free i.e., whereas in conscious thinking A comes before B, in the unconscious mind as seen in dreaming, A can come before B and at the same time B can come before A. Similarly they are causality-free i.e. A can cause and be the cause of B (Raynor, 1981). In dreamwork, a dream can predict change, support the process of change, and reflect change. A dream can have many levels of meaning at once. A person who is stuck in the rationality of consciousness cannot appreciate or understand such processes of the unconscious mind, but as we move into this new era of conscious a whole new world is opening up to us.
This new thinking and consciousness can provide understanding for the power of lucid and group dreaming and for PSI experiences. One area of dreaming that I have been working with that shows great potential for understanding life and the process of healing is the use of shamanic dream postures, postures I have been using in two on-going groups at home and in a morning dream group at Sonoma. The anthr opologist Felicitas Goodman identified several dozen postures from ancient and primitive art that she believes were used by shaman. She had individuals stand, sit or lay in these postures while she induced trance by beating a drum or shaking a rattle. She found that each posture quite consistently produced one of several dream/trance experiences, including spirit journeys, divination, healing, shape shifting, celebration and death and rebirth experiences. I have been amazed at the power found in my experience in using these postures, another example of the power of dreaming in a higher dimension.
Kelly Bulkeley, PhD
Political Psychology and Dreaming: A Study of American Conservatives and Liberals
This presentation reports the findings of a two-pronged empirical study of the sleep and dream patterns of political conservatives and liberals in the USA. In the first project, ten people (four men, six women; youngest 24, oldest 80) from different political perspectives recorded their sleep and dream experiences in journals for a period of five to thirteen months. A detailed content analysis and narrative evaluation of their dreams reveal intriguing correlations between their dream patterns and political beliefs. Those correlations are strengthened by the second project, in which 705 demographically representative US adults were contacted for a random-digit dialing telephone survey and asked a series of questions about their sleep, dreams, and political beliefs. Taken together, the evidence presented in these two studies indicate that conservatives tend to sleep better than liberals, with less dream recall and more mundane dream content, while liberals suffer more sleep problems and remember more dreams with a wider range of imagined possibility.
Kelly Bulkeley, PhD and Jane White-Lewis, PhD
First-Timers's Dream Group
Jean Campbell, MA; Nick Cumbo; Yvonne Gonz?ez-B? z; Lana Nassar, MA; Valley Reed; Fred Jeremy Seligson, JD
Dreaming Without Borders On The World Dreams Peace Bridge
Spend an evening exploring the discoveries of the World Dreams Peace Bridge, the world's longest-lasting group dreaming experiment, and a virtual United Nations of dreamers.
Initiated by Jean Campbell in October, 2001, the World Dreams Peace Bridge quickly grew into an online community, with over 150 members from all points on the globe. Many members of the Peace Bridge are also members of IASD, because all members of the Peace Bridge are dreamers.
Connected by their mutual interest in exploring the potential of utilizing dreams to create world peace, the dreamers of the Peace Bridge soon discovered that they were sharing their dreams--not only in written form online, but sharing them in dream state as well. Peace Bridge members ascribe to the goal of honoring their dreams with creative action, so dreams often inform waking life.
Join us as members of the World Dreams Peace Bridge share a mixed-media presentation of their experiences of dreaming across borders.
The Narrative
Members of the Peace Bridge will tell or read their stories of dreaming across borders, and how they have honored these dreams with action. These stories will be connected with integrating narration from Peace Bridge founder, Jean Campbell.
Jeremy Seligson - Seoul, South Korea - will read from the Children's Peace Train book he created from his original Peace Train dream in 2001. The Peace Train was the first group project of The World Dreams Peace Bridge and has involved children in over thirty countries around the world.
Yvonne Gonzales-Baez - Mexico City, Mexico - will read from her award-winning book Historia de Luz, how a precognitive dream connected with the Peace Bridge in 2002.
Nick Cumbo - Melbourne , Australia - had a lucid dream in 2002 in which he received a message to "Teach the Children". He didn't know what to make of it until a year later, by which time he was a member of the World Dreams Peace Bridge and had become increasingly involved in projects involving dreams, peace and children. Nick will explore how his dreams encouraged him to quit a five-year degree midway and begin a course in primary school education. He will also talk about his hopes and visions of working with dreams and children in the future.
Jean Campbell - Portsmouth, Virginia - will tell the story of "Drum Dance and Dream for Peace," an event which began with dreams and became a global drumming ceremony in 2007. Drum, Dance and Dream has included children from many cultures and a drumming circle at the World Children's Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Funds raised from Drum Dance and Dream events support the Peace Bridge Aid for Traumatized Children Project, sending aid to the children of war-torn Iraq.
The Dance
Lana Nassar - Amman, Jordan/Oakland, California - will present a performance art piece, honoring the series of dreams that led her to singing and dancing. It is the first chapter of her dream of dancing around the world barefoot for peace: singing without words, praying for peace, celebrating life, and honoring the dream that inspired her to sing, which also coincided with her joining the peace bridge in 2006.
Valley Reed - Dallas, Texas - will present The Crow and the Phoenix, a dream dance journey from the lower and upper realms, joined by Lana Nassar. The original story of the Crow and the Phoenix was inspired from the yearnings of Valley's then six-year-old daughter Delaney to have a library of dream stories. The story was shared with members of the World Dreams Peace Bridge, who encouraged the creation of a dream dance. Through the support of the World Dreams Peace Bridge this dre am dance was created and performed at the IASD Regional Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003. The Crow and the Phoenix have risen again with new energy, and the story continues as the dreams go on.
In 2007, Lana learned about this dream story on the peace bridge. She empathized with the crow and wanted to dance its part. Lana and Valley decided on a collaboration. Living in different cities, but with dance and dreaming (and e-mail) on their side, their dream characters meet for the first time in this dance at the conference.
Manlio Caporali, MD; Barbara Centini, MD; Marco Zanasi, MD; Alberto Siracusano, MD
Dream and Delusion: Transformative Potential of Images
Delusion is one of the ways of being of people who live psychotic experience. Psychosis invalidates the relationship with shared reality and with the Other.
The therapeutic approach today makes use of effective pharmacological tools. Nevertheless, they are unable to give a biographic dimension of persons living the delusional state.
Through analysis of selected films of Federico Fellini, the authors show the transformative and creative possibilities that psychotherapeutic work offers by the analysis of images, visions, delusions and dreams. Viewed through oneiric images, psychotic symptoms show a transformative potential which in selected Fellini movies go from the temptation of the death to the poetic of the moon.
Methods: Jungian, textual and narrative analysis of sequences selected among Fellini s movies. Analysis of the delusional, hallucinatory, visionary and oneiric contents of the psychotic symptoms introduced by movie s characters with the purpose of identifying a transformative run of oneiric and psychotic contents. Short study of Federico Fellini s psychological structures before and after his meeting with the Jungian analyst Ernst Bernhard. Comparison of the themes delineated in Fellini s movies with the oneiric material and psychopathological of psychotic patients submitted to Jungian analysis.
Results: It is possible to identify a common transformative run of psychotic symptoms through a Jungian analysis of oneiric, hallucinatory and delusional images. Psychoanalytic work allows the person suffering chronic psychotic symptoms to face and to give sense to his/her own way to be to the world.
Conclusions: Admitting the effectiveness and utility of the pharmacological and other psychotherapeutic treatment of psychotic patients, the authors underline the importance of Jungian analysis of dreams as a creative, irreplaceable tool of treatment and of deep psychological transformation.
Laura Cariola
A Proposition for a Structural Analysis Model for Dream Narratives
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Meela Chen, MS
Dream Time as Play Time: Rehearsing Post-feminist Superhero Mythology Cross-Culturally
Jungian archetypes are employed in cross-cultural analysis of dream character roles within the wounded female psyche, where they play house with the dreamer. This paper draws on dream insight to theorize about the potential use of filial therapy as a form of play therapy in the context of inherent symbolic interaction in dream function. The female dream protagonist may be alone in her struggle, aided but not rescued, or rescued in recognizable fairytale discourse, but the central theme always points to her autonomy, not relationship per se. The small but densely revealing dream samples excerpted illustrate what is known as attachment injury in adult relationships with a wounded childhood past. In a broader sense, the dreams taken together speculate about a superheroic relational self unconsciously determined to wake up to a brighter reality. The paper concludes with an integrated perspective on the feminine and feminist co-existence of healing female dreams.
Dr. Laurel Clark, DM, DD, PsiD
What is the Effect of the Moon on Our Dreams?
For many years, scientists have postulated that the moon affects the thoughts, mood, and behavior of human beings. The word lunacy is defined by Webster s Dictionary as intermittent insanity once believed to be related to the phases of the moon. To date, most research on the influence of the moon on human behavior has focused on criminals, the mentally or physically ill.
For example, a study in the 1970 s found that homicides in Dade County, Florida, rose during the full moon during a 15-year period studied. This was replicated in a study in Cleveland, OH. A Philadelphia Police Department studied psychotically-oriented crimes and found that they increased during times of the full moon. A 1987 report in the Journal of Emergency Medicine found that 80% of emergency room nurses and 64% of physicians agree that the moon affects patients behavior, to such an extent that the nurses asked for bonus lunar pay on the full moon because of their increased hours!
What implications does this have for dreaming? Is it possible that the full moon is a time when there is an open door to enter the subconscious mind? Is the veil between waking consciousness and the inner levels (the place where we go when we dream, perhaps the same place from which hallucinations originate) thinner during the full moon? Could the full moon influence our ability to induce a state of lucid dreaming or affect the quality of our dreams?
The College of Metaphysics in Missouri, USA, has been researching dreams and human potential since 1973. The Global Lucid Dreaming Experiment began in 2007 to explore the premise that lucid dreaming is a universal experience and to prove that it occurs around the world, across cultures, religions, races, ages, and nationalities.
The Experiment asks the questions: Who dreams? When? Where? Why ? How often? When do we become lucid, and why? What influences our dreams?
In 2007 the Experiment explored what happens when people intentionally dream at the same time and record their results. Can we influence each other s dreams with our intentions?
In 2008, the study asks, What effect does the moon have on our dreams? It will occur on three dates, during the time of the new moon, the full moon, and the lunar eclipse. These dates occur in January and February 2008. Participants around the globe will be given instructions to train the mind to prepare to enter the dream state consciously. They will be given instructions to induce a state of lucid dreaming at a designated time and to record the results of their experiences. By the time of the IASD Conference in July, this study will have occurred and results will have been tabulated.
The study is open to anyone and we encourage participation from people of all backgrounds with a variety of experiences with dreams. For the 2007 experiment dreams were classified into four categories according to their level of dreaming: no dream recall, occasional recall, occasional lucid dreams, frequent lucid dreams.
Dr. Laurel Clark, DD, DM, PsiD and Dr. Sheila Benjamin, DD, DM, PsiD
The Universal Language of Mind
For eons, humanity has sought ways to communicate. In today s society there is a lot of attention given to diversity, that is, what makes us different from one another. There is not as much attention given to what unites us, what we have in common, what links us to one another.
What if there was a universal language? Could it help us to understand one another, to find ways to build bridges, to bring about peace? The inner mind, or subconscious mind, does speak a universal language. This is a language of symbols or images. When people do not speak the same physical language, they draw pictures or make gestures to communicate. Children who are pre-verbal and even adults who do not have strong verbal skills often draw pictures as a means of communication. Pictures are a universal way to understand the self and others.
Dreams, mythology, and scripture give us keys to understanding our universal nature. We are essentially divine spiritual beings living in a physical world in physical bodies. Our dreams come to us from the soul, the subconscious mind or inner Self. Myths also originate from a universal subconscious awareness. Scriptures and myths from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds reveal to us the universal nature of our humanity. Although written in different words, with slightly different characters, there are stories that are the same across these physical differences.
We can learn to understand the universal language of our dreams, myths, and scriptures, a language of symbols or images. The School of Metaphysics has been researching dreams and their meaning for people around the world for 35 years and has discovered a Universal Language of Mind. This is a language of function. For example, you as a soul use your physical body as a vehicle to move through your everyday life experiences. In your waking life, a car, or a rickshaw, or a small boat, or a carriage, is a vehicle used to transport you where you want to go. The School of Metaphysics has found that this image of a vehicle in a dream symbolizes the dreamer s physical body. In any individual s particular dream, only the dreamer can determine what the specific message is that the dream is communicating, and how it relates to his or her life. Learning the Universal Language of Mind can offer a key to understanding dreams from the perspective of the dreamer as a spiritual being rather than a physical being.
This workshop is designed to introduce participants to the research concerning the Universal Language of Mind, and to educate participants so they can test out this method of understanding dreams for the mselves. Ultimately the dreamer is the one who makes the decision concerning what his or her dream means and how to apply its message in his or her life for greater awareness.
Guy Corneau, PhD
Dreams of Meaning, a Personal Experience
All my life long I've sought the meaning of dreams and finally found out that dreams give meaning to our lives. This lecture is devoted to the meaning of illness and dreams that come along. Every illness of the body is a soul illness as well. The link between the psyche and the matter is weakened and the suffering body makes it clear. To find meaning in our dreams is not always an easy task. Dreams are helpful when attempting to understand what was constellated at the psychic level that has sink into the body.
This lecture will not bring up any studies results nor will it state any laboratory research. It will be about my own journey through cancer and focus on some significant dreams that came along with it, giving meaning to the illness and to the treatments when sometimes there didn't seem to be any. I will also talk about conscious visualizations that helped me to heal as well as imaginary reality that I've used to transform my inner states during this dangerous journey.
Richard Coutts, MS
The Adaptation of Schemas by Means of Emotional Selection: A New Dream Theory
A process is described that helps a person adapt to a social environment (as first published in the April 2008 issue of Psychological Reports). This process executes a set of dreams during sleep with social content that schemas tentatively incorporate by self-modifying. Due to the vast interconnectivity that exists amongst social schemas, such modifications may introduce accidental, maladaptive conflicts. Consequently, a second set of dreams is executed in the form of test scenarios in order to evaluate the schema modifications effected by the first set of dreams. The proce ss monitors emotions generated during these latter dream tests. If prior, tentative modifications alleviate anxiety, frustration, sadness, or in other ways appear emotionally adaptive, they are selected for retention. Those modifications that compare negatively to existing, unchanged schemas are abandoned or further modified and tested.
Social schemas are crucial for evolutionary success, while being riddled with conflict and ambiguity. We strive for independence, for example, yet find solace in the company of others; we place a high priority on our personal safety, yet quickly jeopardize it to help those in need; we are sexually attracted to many people, yet seek loving, monogamous relationships. Schemas help us strike the balances necessary for navigating the complex, often contradictory landscape that comprises life. This new dream theory explains how schemas are modified and tested during sleep, greatly increasing a person s ability to meet social needs during wakefulness.
Layne Dalfen
Solution-Oriented Dream Decoding: Therapeutic Dreaming
Attempting to understand a dream's meaning is exactly like trying to do a puzzle. You try one piece. It doesn't fit, so you try another. I call these attempts different points of entry, using the theories and frameworks of Perls, Freud, Jung and Adler with each try. I will explain the different points of entry I use, with the goal of better understanding the dream's meaning. Participants will learn how to discover what point of entry works best for a particular dream, or is the most comfortable for the dreamer. I will teach ways to look at and work with symbols, emotions, and noticing the atmosphere in the dream space.
Once the current issue the dream is addressing is uncovered, solutions to the problem as they may be presented in the dream become the focus of discussion. In this section, I have two goals. As we so often focus on the negative or frightening aspect of a dream, one goal is to show participants how to recognize and apply the strength in the dream. Very often the dream actually discloses the solution to the problem. I will also look at polarities that present themselves and how we might benefit from noticing and working with them. My second goal is to help dreamers see the solutions our subconscious introduces before our conscious mind catches the message.
In my use of an eclectic approach to understanding our dreams, I strongly emphasize practical methodology and individually directed results over abstract theory. For example, I will ask the dreamer questions such as: What familiar stories, fables, movies, or characters come to your mind when you think about the story and people in this dream? What do these stories or characters have to teach you about your current situation?
We will then attempt to understand the dream of a volunteer from the group with the participants using an If this were my dream format. The group will help define the layers of the dream using these different approaches, as the dreamer connects to each level of the dream.
Betsy Davids, MA
Literary Books of Dreams in English and French
The last seventy years have seen the emergence in literature of what we might consider a new genre (or proto-genre): literary dream collections. These are full-length, single-author books that are not fiction nor poetry nor exactly memoir, but rather texts written directly from the author s dream experience,
usually without interpretation, presented in the context of literature rather than psychology or personal growth.
The Belgian-born Marguerite Yourcenar, best known for M?oires d Hadrien, and for being the first woman ever elected to the Acad?ie Fran?ise, wrote one such book of dreams: Les Songes et les sorts, first published in 1938, finally translated into English as Dreams and Destinies in 1999. Perhaps the most directly p ersonal work in her voluminous oeuvre, Les Songes et les sorts narrates with rich sensory detail and resonant feeling 22 dreams from a time of lost love.
Michel Leiris, one of the early Paris Surrealists of the 1920s and later an innovative ethnographer who directed the Mus? de l Homme, culled for his dream collection some 100 of his elegantly distilled dream accounts from a 37-year period, as well as a few dreamlike experiences from waking life. The
book was published as Nuits sans nuit et quelques jours sans jour in 1961, translated into English under the title Nights as Day / Days as Night in 1987.
Jack Kerouac s Book of Dreams (1961), written concurrently with Dharma Bums and The Subterraneans, applies his legendary spontaneous prose process to dream journaling.
This paper presentation discusses the contribution to literature and to dream studies of these and other literary books of dreams by such writers as Georges Perec, William Burroughs, Dominique Rolin, David Rains Dahl, Naguib Mahfouz, and H??e Cixous.
References:
Yourcenar, Marguerite. Les Songes et les sorts. Grasset, 1938 (o.p.). Included in Essais et m?oires. Paris: Gallimard, 1991.
Yourcenar, Marguerite. Dreams and Destinies. Tr. Donald Flanell Friedman. New York: St. Martin s, 1999.
Leiris, Michel. Nuits sans nuit et quelques jours sans jour. Paris: ?itions Gallimard, 1961.
Leiris, Michel. Night as Day / Days as Night. Tr. Richard Sieburth. Hygiene, Colorado: Eridanos Press, 1987.
Kerouac, Jack. Book of Dreams. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1961. 2nd expanded ed. 2001.
Perec, Georges. La boutique obscure : 124 r?es. Paris: ?itions Deno?, 1973.
Hill, Pati. Dreams, Objects, Moments. New York: Kornblee, 1976.
Davids, Betsy. Dreaming Aloud. 2 vols. Berkeley, California: Rebis Pr ess, 1985 and 1989.
Wolkstein, Diane. Dream Songs: Abulafia part of my heart. New York: Cloudstone, 1991.
Greene, Graham. A World of My Own: A Dream Diary. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994.
Rolin, Dominique. Train de r?es. Paris: ?itions Gallimard, 1994.
Burroughs, William S. My Education: A Book of Dreams. New York: Viking Penguin, 1995.
Dahl, David Rains. The Blue Deer and Other Dreamtales. Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1998.
Mahfouz, Naguib. The Dreams. Tr. Raymond Stock. Cairo and New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004.
Cixous, H??e. R?e je te dis. Paris: ?itions Galil?, 2003.
Cixous, H??e. Dream I Tell You. Tr. Beverley Bie Brahic. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
Basso, Eric. Revagations : A Book of Dreams / Volume I : 1966-1974. Raleigh, N.C. : Asylum Arts Press, 2006.
Joseph De Koninck, PhD
Development of an Automatic Analysis Technique for the Classification and Modeling of Dreams Emotional Content
Authors: A.H. Razavi, R. Amini, C. Sabourin, J. Sayyad Shirabad, D. Nadeau, S. Matwin, J. De Koninck
ABSTRACT NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Teresa L. DeCicco, PhD and David King, BSc, MSC Candidate
Meditative Dream Re-Entry: Discovery and Experiencing Emotional Shifts
Meditative Dream Re-Entry (MDR) is a method that was designed and scientifically tested (DeCicco, 2008). This method has been found to significantly predict discovery and shift both waking day and dream emotions from negative to positive when used as per the protocol (DeCicco, 2008). The method has also been tested with a control group. Results found that the method predicts discovery in a statistically relevant manner. Most importantly, the method has been found to shift negative emotions from the dream into positive ones in discovery. Furthermore, negative emotions in the waking state are also shifted to positive ones after MDR.
The purpose of MDR is to lead dreamers from their own dream imagery to discovery about waking day circumstances. The method provides safety because dreamers do not have to reveal any private or sensitive material to anyone, including the workshop leaders. Complete confidentiality is assured.
The method is easy to use and not time-consuming, which makes it easy to teach in research or practice. A package is provided to each participant with instructions, a journal, crayons for drawing the dream, and an instructional CD for the method. Once participants learn how to use the method, they can do so in a relatively brief period of time. This method encourages participants to continue dream work since it is so practical. Also, because successful discovery occurs so quickly, this will encourage participants to continue with their dream work long after the workshop is over.
In the workshop, MDR will first be explained to all participants in detail. Participants will be taken through the technique in a step-by-step format. Questions and queries from participants about the steps will be encouraged. Once the steps have been taught, each participant will then draw one of their own dreams. We will encourage them to draw a dream that is particularly difficult for them to understand or, has particularly negative content.
Workshop leaders will then conduct a meditation and guided imagery for dream re-entry. Leaders will be available to answer questions or guide participants through the process. Once dreamers have completed the visual imagery, they will be encouraged to write or draw any discovery they may have had. Again, privacy and safety are ensured, as the dreamer does not reveal any insights to the group with this method. MDR is a technique that can be added to any dreamwork practice and participants will be given the MDR package for future use.
Teresa L. DeCicco, PhD with Geoff S. Navara, PhD; David King, BSc, MSc Candidate; Carole Moran, BA, MSc Candidate; Heather Higgins, BA; Andrea Smit, BA
Dreaming About Major Life Issues: Pain, Relationship, Addictions and Breast Cancer
The Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation (TSM) (DeCicco, 2007) is a technique that significantly leads to discovery when the TSM worksheet is used. With this method, participants provide a full dream report and a discovery passage, which can be used for data collection. This panel will discuss dream content and discovery via TSM in terms of four major life issues: intimate relationships, physical pain, addictions and breast cancer.
In Study 1, an analysis of dreams centering upon intimate relationships such as romantic, parent/child, and peers will be presented. This study incorporated both the Hall and Van de Castle method of content analysis of dreams and an interpretive phenomenological approach of discovery passages. Presenters will discuss the ways in which dreamers make meaning of their intimate/close relationships and the relationship among dream imagery, discovery and relationship assessment.
Similarly, Study 2 will present content analysis of the dreams from people in the recovery process from alcohol and drug addiction. Discovery via TSM was also content analyzed and will be discussed in terms of coping with addictions as a life long issue. Finally, the relationship among content categories of dreams and content of discovery themes will be presented. The clinical implications for dream interpretation as therapy for recovering addicts will be discussed.
Study 3 will discuss the major life issue of physical pain as it relates to dreams. An analysis of several physical pain measures and the dreams of people suffering from pain will be presented. This work is an extension of the findings that people suffering from physical pain have significantly more animal imagery in their dream s (King & DeCicco, 2007) and, people in pain also experience more apprehension/fear in their dreams with animal imagery (DeCicco, 2007). Implications and clinical significance will be discussed in terms of coping with pain and using dreams as therapy for pain management.
Finally, the fourth major life issue to be discussed is the relationship between breast cancer and dreams in Study 4. This study examined the dreams of women with breast cancer and compared the imagery across the stages of cancer. The findings of both content analysis of dreams and of discovery passages will be presented. Furthermore, the discovery via TSM will be discussed in terms of coping with breast cancer and using the discovery process as a coping mechanism.
Discussion among presenters will then compare and contrast the trends and content of dreams across all four major life issues. Similarities and differences will be discussed. Furthermore, the relationship among the dream themes to the waking life events will be explored.
In terms of discovery via TSM, the analyses of discovery will be discussed and related to waking life situations for each life event. For example, the discovery about relationships is common across several studies and will be discussed in terms of intimate relationships, breast cancer and addictions. Finally, all 4 studies will be compared and contrasted in terms of clinical implications and for using TSM as a therapeutic tool.
Gayle Delaney, PhD
Dreams: Relationship Counselors Without Equal
Our dreams make regular and timely comments at every stage of our sexual, romantic, and marital relationships or lack thereof. These commentaries include extraordinarily perceptive analyses of the motives behind our wise and unwise choices of a partner, of our graceful and blundering moves in the early relationship and discovery phase, of the conflicts and strengths within the growing relationship, and of the need to restructure, enhance, or terminate the relationship. And, if end it we must, our dreams inspire us to start all over again, this time with more insight.
We shall discuss dreams that offer insight into the following stages of romantic relationships:
Seeking, finding, disappointment, rejection, development in the first three dates, development in the discovery stage over the first six months, confronting uncomfortable realities in the next year, making the decision to continue, terminate, live together, marry, divorce, start again. We shall consider how spontaneous and incubated dreams can help lovers deal with issues of trust, intimacy, emotional, practical, and erotic compatibility, and desired togetherness/separateness.
Throughout we shall see how, by interviewing ourselves about our dreams, we can tap into a surprisingly rich resource of insight that uses our past life experiences to recognize and hopefully change patterns that we repeat unconsciously to our own, and to our partner's peril!
Claude Desloges
Homer's Odyssey: A Map for the Inner Voyage
Myths, in the words of great mythologist Joseph Campbell, are mankind s big dreams in some way, dreams without borders ! During the presentation, we will explore the symbolic dimension of a universal myth as we would do for a personal dream. Dreaming with Homer, we will try to see what his Odyssey can tell us of our own odyssey through life and how it can guide us on our return voyage home, within.
Who are these characters, gods and goddesses, monsters, people with strange habits and doings that cross Ulysses path? Circe the enchantress, the graciously affable Lotus-Eaters, Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, son of Poseidon, the Sirens with their alluring, sweet, and deadly song, Calypso (she who conceals). What role do they play in my own life? Under what disguise do I cross them in the street, at work, in my own home and deep within? What about my o wn homeward return voyage?
During the presentation, we will follow Ulysses traces on his voyage home to Ithaca and will approach the symbolic dimension of the characters that he encounters. The presentation of The Odyssey as a metaphor for the spiritual journey will be illustrated with personal examples. The result of a survey showing the impact of working with The Odyssey will be presented. Participants will also be invited to experiment for themselves using one episode from The Odyssey.
An invitation to immerse oneself in the mysterious universe of The Odyssey, to marvel, to be touched and to explore this plus grand within the higher self).
Rita Dwyer, CPC with Kelly Bulkeley, PhD; Dr. Bart J. Koet; Dr. Krijn Pansters ;and Rev. Geoff Nelson, DMin
(Symposium)
Part 1 (of 2)
Christian Dreamwork An Ancient Tradition Flourishing Today Without Boundaries
Kelly Bulkeley: This presentation will describe the historical background to the dream teachings of Christianity, including the traditions of Judaism, Greece, Rome, and other Ancient Near Eastern cultures, along with the later tradition of Islam. The spectacular rise of Christianity from a small, persecuted Jewish sect to the official religion of the Roman Empire did not occur in a vacuum. Early Christian leaders were engaged in an active exchange of ideas and beliefs with members of other religious traditions. A mixed view of dreams appears from the very start. Consistent with the beliefs of other traditions, Christians acknowledge the potential of dreams to provide divine guidance, warning, and insight; but other aspects of dreaming experience were not consistent with emerging church teachings. Knowledge of this historical context enables a better understanding of Christianity s ambivalent approach to dreams in theology, church doctrine, and popular practice.
Bart Koet: Is Jerome the reason that the Christian Church is skeptical about dreams and visions? Since Kelsey s book on dreams, scholars often cite the authority of Jerome s translation of the Bible (the Latin Vulgate later churchmen s rejection of the Wisdom of dreams. It is the thesis of this presentation that Kelsey tends to downplay the fact that in the Old Testament, in the Hellenistic world, in the world of the New Testament and thus in Early Christianity, there were two complementary attitudes towards dreams. In the older layers of the Old Testament dreams were quite obviously divine, but already in the prophetic literature we can find attacks on those prophets who use false dreams. This is also the model for later biblical traditions. Jerome as a biblical interpreter is in line with this model.
In his inspiring book, Dreams: The Dark Speech of the Spirit. A Christian Interpretation (Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York) M.T. Kelsey claims that he deals with a long-forgotten aspect of church teaching and practice: the Christian understanding and interpretation of dreams (Preface VII). According to Kelsey, Jerome mistranslated the Hebrew verb for witchcraft: anan . The word anan occurs ten times in the Hebrew Bible. In a footnote Kelsey (p. 159) argues that in most cases in current (English) translations this word is simply (sic !) translated soothsayer or soothsaying . In this presentation, I will deal with these accusations and try to show that it is not so easy to deal with the art of translation.
Therefore, I will also discuss Jerome s famous dream, recorded in one of the letters of Jerome (Letter to Eustochium; epist 22). It will be quite clear that this dream narrative belongs to the first set of the conference relating to one s own death: Jerome s life is evaluated in light of the awareness that it will inevitably come to an end. That awareness affects Jerome s life-style as an ascetic monk. Before his dream he converted to monach ism. The judgment in his dream leads to a radical conversion. Finally he can accept that he can find the truth in non-civilized Hebrew and not in the classical, so called civilized literature. Although in this dream Jerome pleas guilty to the accusations of the Lord, at the same time this dream shows us, that the accusations of Kelsey and quite a few other American scholars are not solid.
Select Bibliography
Five Studies on the Interpretation of Scripture in Luke-Acts (diss.; Studiorum Novi Testa?menti Auxilia 14; University Press Louvain/Peeters, Leuven, 1989)
Geloofwaardig dromen: over bijbelse en rabbijnse visies op dromen, [Dreams in the Bible, Talmud and in pastoral work] (Hilversum, 2002)
'Sag lieber dass er deinen Traum positiv deuten soll', Traumdeutung nach einem rabbinischen Traumbuch", (Babylonischer Talmud Berachot 55-57), Kirche und Israel 17 (2002) 133-149
Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts. Collected Essays (CBET, 43, Peeters, Louvain University Press, Leuven, 2006)
Krijn Pansters: Reading the oldest biographies of St. Francis, one notices the significant part that dreams play in his life. Again and again, they appear during crucial stages of his life. This fact has encouraged us to pay special interest to St. Francis dreams, but not in the strict sense of the word. With theologian Bertulf van Leeuwen, we are convinced that all situations in which St. Francis gains clarity of his life and grows spiritually through images (dreams, visions, parables), have to be included. St. Francis was a man of images, and the language of these images has to be understood to be able to understand the dreams of this saint, and the medieval interpretation of dreams in general.
Rev. Geoff Nelson: Martin Luther and John Calvin were the major figures of the Protestant Reformation in 16th Century Europe. They changed the direction of the Christian Faith from then until this day. Their attitude towards dreams
, though not a major part of their theological thinking, can be helpful for us as we work with dreams in our day. The principles they use to consider dreams are not greatly different from some of the principles used today among members of IASD. There may be some surprises for us as we examine their comments upon the dream texts of the Bible. The Bible contains several dream stories and this presentation looks at the comments of Luther and Calvin upon these Bible texts. We can gain some insight from their comments and move forward in our work using dreams in our spiritual lives, whether we are inside or outside of the Christian Church. Luther and Calvin remain major influences upon those Christian denominations descended from them, Lutheranism and the Reformed family of churches. Protestantism became the dominant form of Christianity in the USA. The attitude towards dreams of these two major figures continues to influence major segments of Christianity. Increased knowledge about Luther s and Calvin s perspectives on dream can help those in the dream movement spread the news and excitement about dreams and using dreams in our personal spiritual lives. We will also see some of the characteristics of Luther s and Calvin s personalities and styles of thinking as we look at their comments on the dream texts of the Bible.
Part 2 of 2 Rita Dwyer, CPC, (Chair); Rev. Joseph Sedley, CP, RC; Bonnelle Lewis Strickling, MA, PhD, RCC; Patricia M. Davis, PhD candidate; Mary Whitefeather Joyce, MA
Father Joseph Sedley: Dreams are messages that we send ourselves about things in our lives that bind deep feelings. Often we find ourselves dreaming scenes from our daily life. These scenes may be ordinary situations that make us anxious or they can be an event in our life that is dangerous or destructi ve. Our first response may be to numb ourselves so that we will not feel the fear or pain they provoke. We cannot escape because our dreams know that our nightmares are an outlet for feelings that we have chosen not to feel.
Our dreams will guide us if we honor them. In order to understand our dreams, we do not have to interpret every last detail of a dream. The symbols in our dreams are coded, and only we can break the code. When a dream brings us strong feelings, we must look deep within ourselves to determine what is the true meaning of our dream. Only then can we apply what we have learned from our dream to better our lives.
Bonnelle Lewis Strickling: Working as a spiritual director in the Christian tradition, I have found dreamwork a source of enrichment for many whose religious life has not previously involved inner work. Discovering imagery from other traditions in their dreams, connecting their own personal imagery to the liturgical seasons of the church, bringing fresh visionary material to their spiritual lives, dreamwork has proved a source of spiritual nourishment and even surprise to long-time Christians whose spiritual lives have been more external than interior. However, dream work has also been very help in spiritual direction to with another sort of directee, those I would call spiritual seekers.
I have had many directees who have had varied backgrounds, some Christian and some not, but have not found these backgrounds spiritual satisfying. For these people, dreamwork has provided literally a God-given path to their own spiritual inner homes. Through dreamwork, they have found their own authentic spiritual imagery in ways only dreams seem to be able to offer. Dreamwork has provided spiritual formation, which has sometimes led them towards a religious tradition and sometimes not, but has certainly led them inward, towards their spiritual centers.
Patricia M. Davis: This paper advocates the use of dream work as a focus of activity for church small groups and discusses the author s experiences leading church small groups in dream work.
Churches are rediscovering the importance of small groups for binding parishioners to the church and for the development of parishioners spiritual formation. These groups are often based on bible study or the study of a particular religious book. However, the dreams that people bring to the group can also be a useful focus for small groups.
Sharing dreams in a group and searching cooperatively for their meanings can be a very powerful way of strengthening the fabric of the community, helping people to meet their desire for belonging and connection. However, this requires trained leadership and a clear format to protect participants from abusive projections.
The Jeremy Taylor one-page Tool Kit for Group Projective Dream Work is highly recommended. The If it were my dream format has been used successfully to quickly teach participants to recognize and take responsibility for projections. As participants gain confidence in the safety of the group, they find that they begin to remember dreams and eagerly bring them to the group
As well as providing community, when church small groups engage in sharing dreams the activity becomes a form of group spiritual direction. Dreams are over-determined. Trained leadership can help participants to learn to recognize the patterns, themes and metaphorical layers of meaning in dreams. In addition to reflecting our daily concerns and the state of our body, dreams reflect our spiritual longings and concerns.
Dream group leaders should be well versed in the bible and alert to the metaphors from the bible that may be in the dreams brought to the church small groups. Recognizing the biblical metaphors in the participants dreams can particularly facilitate the groups exploration of the spiritual layers of dreams and further discernment and implementation of God s will.
Mary Whitefeather Joyce :
My father is a Native American (Passamaquoddy) who believes in Great Spirit. My mother is Irish who believes in God. For me, Great Spirit and God are the same. Great Spirit, God was my parent. God was my only parent. As a child I was always dreaming of the light the light that some people have experienced as the other side, the near-death experience of seeing and going into the light, the hand reaching out. I first dreamt of the hand of God and the light when I was somewhere between eight and ten years old.
I remember climbing up stairs (ascending) that are never ending, an amazing white iridescent glowing radiant stairway that reaches into this bright and beautiful white light. There are children with wings. They have a radiant glow. There is a huge angel at the top of the stairs, just floating above as far as you can see. It s almost like a magnet pulling me.
As I get closer to this light I hear a soft, gentle, tender, loving voice. This voice says, God is God. Great Spirit is God. God Is. God exists. I keep ascending up these soft, fluffy, floating, bright, white stairs. The higher I go, the brighter and larger the light gets. I hear all these things. I don t know where they were coming from, but they are very loud and clear. Our spirit is God. God is our spirit. Great Spirit God is our creator. God is all divine love. God is all divine dreams. God is so vast. God is so limitless. God is so far beyond human comprehension. Just be open . I keep hearing over and over, Just be open.
If only we can be open in our hearts, in our minds, in our thoughts, to let God s creative loving divine energy flow through us, grow in our hearts . . . It is there, even if only for a brief moment, that we can feel with every cell of our body, at the core of our being, our interconnectedness to God.
We are an extension of God s love. We are the energy flow of God s love. Our dreams remind us God is constantly communicating with us. We just need to be open to receiving. It s truly astonishing.
My grandmother Little Hawk taught me that Spirituality is a very personal and individual rite of passage. It is an experience that is private and sacred, and is between the individual and Great Spirit (God). Great Spirit is within us. Great Spirit is the eternal flame of love, the divine spark of life, and this constant creating energy is limitless.
Everything in this entire universe is connected to spirit. Great Spirit is the Creator of all, of everything. Our inner spirit is an extension of Spirit s (God s) love. The creator created everything in this entire universe from Love. Our divine earth mother, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the ocean, and all its vastness are a sacred constant creation, created from love.
Native Americans believe that everything in nature is sacred. There is sacred space and sacred energy that is always in constant creation, and of which we are all a part. Love, being loving and compassionate, increases our spirituality and even our creative energy. The love we feel, send out, share with others, continually reignites our divine spark. Great Spirit is the creator of the dreamtime, dreams or the dreamtime being another level of consciousness. All levels of consciousness are connected in dreamtime. Dreamtime is the intangible realm of universal consciousness where the communications between conscious and subconscious emerge.
I will share some of my personal dreams which seem to draw upon my mixed Celtic Catholic and Native American heritage, dreams which have informed me of upcoming events and instances in which I can provide assistance to others through my life and my work. For me, my dreams are not only about myself but often foreshadow actual events that will occur globally on our planet or personally to people I don t even know. I believe they are messages from God/Great Spirit, truly divine dreams!
Rita Dwyer and Robert Van de Castle A Conference Favorite: Annual Dream Telepathy Contest
No Abstract Required
