The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Edition, defined healing as, ‘. . . restoration to health; recovering from sickness . . . mending, reparation; restoration of wholeness, well-being, safety, or prosperity; spiritual restoration, salvation’ (n.d.). As we travel through life, we experience physical, spiritual, psychological, and cultural wounding that can range from obvious to subtle in nature. The need for healing has historically made itself known to individuals in dreams (Duran, Reference Duran2006; Krippner, Bogzaran, & de Carvalho, Reference Krippner, Bogzaran and de Carvalho2002; Van de Castle, Reference Van de Castle1994). In particular parts of the world, under particular circumstances, people have gathered in groups to share dreams with the intention to heal individuals, and the community as a whole, to restore balance, feelings of safety, health, and well-being.
Coming from a particularly Western point of view and indirectly acknowledging the powerful influence of Freud's (1900) theories, Bourke (Reference Bourke2005) wrote in Fear: A Cultural History, ‘. . . the defenceless child, the nightmare sufferer and the phobic individual have all been central to psychological and psychiatric understandings of emotions, particularly in the early decades of the twentieth century’ (p. xi). Clearly, there would be no need for healing if so much suffering did not exist in the world. Yet because we experience destructive forces that lead to pain and suffering, the need for healing persists. For example, war is an ongoing cultural dilemma we are exposed to either directly ourselves, or indirectly in the media:
In the twenty-first century we must consider the possibility that the most frightening peril is the one we are in the process of forging. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have reminded us that we are perpetrators of violence against others, as well as being the victims of terrorist brutality. (Bourke, Reference Bourke2005, p. x)
Duran (Reference Duran2006), an Italian and Apache-Pueblo psychologist who wrote, ‘Much of the clinical work that I have done for 2 decades is an alchemical amalgamation of Western theory and Traditional Aboriginal theory and practice’ (p. 1), stated his belief concerning the collective wounding in American society:
In essence, we have all internalized much of the personal and collective wounding of our culture. Our culture has been affected by a long history of violence against other cultures, which continues to the present. The wounding that is sustained by the collective culture has an impact on the psyches of the individuals in the society. The fact that the soul has been eradicated from our healing circle is indicative of a collective wounding process that has never been grieved or healed (p. 20)
There are many forms of healing in the world. Dream sharing in community is only one of them, and it may not work for everyone, especially if they do not feel safe in a context where personal issues are discussed. It is important to identify however, that the potential for powerful healing on many different levels of body, soul, and spirit does exist in varying capacities within dream sharing groups worldwide. No matter how diverse the cultural contexts are of dream sharing communities, it is a format that severely contrasts any cultural context based on fear. Bourke (Reference Bourke2005) wrote,
A spectre is haunting humanity: the spectre of fear. Death stares unblinkingly at us. Danger dallies in everyday environs. Sometimes a scary person or menacing object can be identified: the flames searing patterns on the ceiling, the hydrogen bomb, the terrorist. More often, anxiety overwhelms us from some source ‘within’: there is an irrational panic about venturing outside, a dread of failure, a premonition of doom. There often seems no limit to the threats. (p. 1)
How we react to fearful situations in life is unique to individuals, and impacted by the cultures we live in (Feinstein & Krippner, Reference Feinstein and Krippner2006). How we heal from fear in dreams, or not, is also unique to each individual's dream education which may or may not be lacking in one's family and/or society.
At age 4, my first dream mentor was my father who had been inspired by the work of Kilton Stewart. He taught me to confront my fears and transform my fears using Stewart's (Reference Stewart1954, Reference Stewart and Tart1969) Senoi Dream Theory. Later, at the age of 15, I was mentored by Edwardo Duran, an Apache-Pueblo shaman, who gave me tools to work with my dreams from another perspective of the life-world. When I was 19 years old, I became a regular member of a dream group led by my next mentor, Clara Stewart Flagg, who was the widow of Kilton Stewart. Stewart, as many dream enthusiasts are aware, was the person responsible for introducing Senoi Dream theory to grassroots dreamworking communities in the United States after his life-changing experience with the Senoi Temiar tribe in the 1930s (Stewart, Reference Stewart1954, Reference Stewart and Tart1969). Clara's group had been meeting regularly for 15 years before I joined them.
At the time, I was a Theater and Film major, and also a student of Visual Arts and World Arts and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. I felt my commitment to a disciplined focus in the arts was supported from the inside out when I attended that particular dream group and participated in their dream community. Those were creative, competitive, and challenging times in my young artistic career. In contrast, I felt more safety and support than competition between myself and other members in the dream group. One of the results of group dreamwork for me was that I became more empowered, resilient, and supportive to others in the tumultuous artistic community I was studying and working in.
The respect and empowerment I internalized from working in this dream group allowed me to restore feelings of emotional, physical, and spiritual balance, health and well-being, that had been constantly tested by the competitive environment I was working in, and which made itself known to me in my dreams. Colleagues of mine in theatre and film studies relied upon my emotional health and steadiness, which is rare in that field, and in that way, social healing occurred. Although mysterious to many at the time, my dream group experience at that young age opened doors for conversations with other artists about dreams, and made people I knew feel safe around me. In that way I was able to give back to my community, and contribute some cultural healing to a traditionally competitive, dramatic, and often emotionally wounding environment.
For the past two decades, I have facilitated dream groups and dream circles, interviewed members of dream groups in the United States of which I am not a member, and witnessed first-hand the multi-level healing power of dream sharing in many different communities whether I have been a participating member, a guest mentor, or a phenomenological researcher (Morgan, Reference Morgan2008, Reference Morgan2009, Reference Morgan2010). Although I have read as much scholarly work related to dreams and dream sharing in community as I could find, I am writing primarily from my own experience with this topic, admitting and embracing my own subjectivity (Giorgi, Reference Giorgi2009), and relating my perspective to the global conversation started by so many previous writers.
Comparing healing experiences within indigenous dream groups to those within grassroots dream appreciation groups in the United States, and considering the views of previous researchers that have reported on these groups, it is easy to see that there are many aspects of dream sharing in community that are potentially healing for people. There are a few potential problems as well, that can be avoided with proper communication, education, and appropriate dream group leadership.
Dream Sharing in Cultural Context
It is very important to acknowledge that the experience of healing by dream sharing in community is qualitatively unique depending on the cultural context and worldview. Krippner (Reference Krippner2009) wrote, ‘A culture is a particular group's shared way of life’ and, ‘such practices as healing, teaching, and dreaming are an important component for many cultures, both past and present’ (p. 35). There are reasons why such important practices as healing, teaching, and dreaming have been neglected, even if they are not satisfactory reasons according to those of us who – knowingly or not – suffer from their absence. For example, many people will admit that in the world today, healing as in healthcare, and teaching as in education, are important components, even if they are lacking. Dream sharing, in Western societies, has not fit into what we call healthcare or education, although many forms of dreamwork in groups have included powerful healing and educational outcomes.
Although this is changing, one of the reasons dream sharing in Western culture is not as commonly accepted as it could be, roots back to a very specific brand of fear. During medieval times, in much of Europe, one could be literally tortured or executed for talking about dreams.
As Van de Castle (Reference Van de Castle1994) described it:
. . . dreams provided a bountiful hunting ground for inquisitors seeking evidence of Lucifer's cloven hoofprints . . . a suspect was in grave trouble if it was determined that he or she had dreams ‘significant of future events,’ containing ‘obscene’ imagery, ‘full of cruelty,’ or displaying ‘impiety.’ Since sexual and aggressive imagery have apparently always been prominent in dreams, and since precognitive dreams are not that rare, there was a strong probability that any individual reporting a dream would be found guilty under these ‘devil-detecting’ guidelines. (pp. 83–84)
Due to the fact that common medieval punishment for revealing such dreams ranged from torture to burning at the stake, ‘It is understandable that people would not want to risk such disastrous consequences by talking about their dreams and would fervently hope they would not recall even the slightest trace of a dream’ (p. 84). This problem still exists today for many people, though perhaps unconsciously. As Van de Castle (Reference Van de Castle1994) stated, ‘The mistrust of dreams has remained fairly persistent in many western Christian denominations, particularly Catholicism’ (p. 85).
Many people may feel afraid to discuss their dreams whether or not they are aware that their feelings have their source in a piece of history much larger than themselves (Duran, Reference Duran2006). Although no one I know is being tortured or burned at the stake for sharing powerful dreams, this particular collective memory could still be a factor preventing some people, whether Catholic or not, from feeling comfortable to share their dreams with others. This is an example of cultural trauma that needs healing (Duran, Reference Duran2006), and one more reason there is potential for healing through dream sharing in communities. What a relief it could be for those who feel connected to this past cultural trauma for whatever reason, to share powerful inner experiences, and have them validated rather than attacked.
Dream sharing in community has happened for healing purposes all over the world, within various cultural contexts that embrace varying worldviews. A good starting-place for the Westerner to consider this reality is the insights of Duran and Duran (Reference Duran and Duran1995), of Apache-Pueblo, and Seminole heritages.
. . . the native temporal approach to the world is different from that of Western people. Western thought conceptualizes history in a linear temporal sequence, whereas most Native American thinking conceptualizes history in a special fashion. Temporal thinking means that time is thought of as having a beginning and end; spatial thinking views events as a function of space or where the event actually took place. (p. 14)
Duran and Duran stated, ‘Thus the Native American worldview is one in which the individual is a part of all creation, living life as one system and not in separate units that are objectively relating with each other’ (p. 15). Although worldview is not consistent from culture to culture, the practice of dream sharing is something many indigenous cultures from all over the world have in common, from one time or another, depending on the spiritual and political landscape of that era. To share dreams one needs to feel safe to do so (Duran, Reference Duran2006: Taylor, Reference Taylor1992: Ullman, Reference Ullman2006). One troubling habit anthropologists, dream psychologists, and other researchers have fallen into, is placing certain cultures into some stereotypical time period of the past, partially due to ‘pre-literacy’ even when these cultures are practicing many traditional ways in the present-day. Tedlock (Reference Tedlock1991) wrote, ‘The use of typological time, which fictively places some people in an earlier time frame than ourselves, functions as a distancing device’ (p. 1). Tedlock noted that one of the natural remedies for this distancing tendency in research, is to personally move toward the dream practices of the culture about which a researcher wants to learn.
Today, fieldworkers are participating within native contexts and learning not only the local cultural use of dream experiences, but also paying attention to their own dreams. This latter practice has helped them to become aware of their unconscious responses to the people and culture they are attempting to understand and describe. (p. 11)
Although the changing ways of time have noticeably had an impact on many indigenous cultures, to truthfully understand these realities, it is important to understand the cultural worldview to make a proper relationship with them (Duran, Reference Duran2006). Tedlock (Reference Tedlock and Jones2005) stated, ‘. . . in order to understand what a person's dreams reveal about his or her personality it is necessary to learn the language of dreaming within that individual's culture’ (p. 2482). Therefore one cultural group may have dream sharing practices that are healing for them, but that might actually be detrimental to members of another culture (Krippner, Reference Krippner2009).
Research that is insensitive to cultural context is not a healing form of dream sharing. Duran (Reference Duran2006), of Apache-Pueblo descent, has worked with Native American people during his entire career, and has taken issue with the way most research has been done in these communities.
Researchers go into communities equipped with Statistics 101 through 505 and use this hammer on everything in sight. Not only that, but after they have hammered the psyches of the community with irrelevant instruments, they fly off to crunch their data and to publish their work in journals that most of the communities don't even know exist. This type of research has been categorized by some community members as ‘helicopter research.’ Just as a helicopter touches down, takes off vertically, and disappears as if no one had ever been there, the researchers come and go, with few positive effects for the research ‘subjects.’ (p. 113)
Tedlock (Reference Tedlock and Jones2005) also wrote about the problems that result when researchers have not immersed themselves in a culture compassionately, or opened themselves personally to the experience of a particular culture enough to understand it before claiming to. For example, regarding Charles Seligman's (Reference Tedlock and Jones1923) cross-cultural Freudian research Tedlock commented:
His store metaphor points to the objectifying notion of dream symbolism as a simple trait that might be measured or weighed by colonial officials. It ignores the importance of communicative context both within these cultures and in the negotiation of reality between colonial administrators and indigenous peoples. (p. 2483)
It is because of problems such as distancing oneself through language, linear time, and ‘Helicopter research’ (Duran, Reference Duran2006, p.113) that some indigenous dream sharing cultures may not have been completely open or even honest with researchers about the nature of their actual practices. However careful some people may be about sharing their dream practices with researchers, cultural context-sensitive researchers such as Tedlock (Reference Tedlock and Jones2005) have concluded that generally, ‘Informal dream telling upon awakening with members of one's immediate family is found in all societies. More formal public dream sharing, although it is far less common, also occurs in many places’ (p. 2483). Diversity within dream sharing practices has been observed globally.
In some societies people place a high value on both the personal and the public use of the many forms of dreaming, including waking dreams, lucid dreams, visions, and nightmares. In other societies dreaming is regarded as insignificant and is given limited importance or even ignored. (p. 2483)
Tedlock (Reference Tedlock and Jones2005) illustrated how some indigenous people have felt the level of trust and safety necessary to share their relationship to dreams with Western researchers.
Many Amerindian societies, for example, honor dreaming and construct personal biographies around dreams and visions. The Lakota holy man Black Elk, when he first met his biographer John Neirhart (1932), immediately shared his power dreams with him. Likewise in Chile, when the Mapuche shaman Tomasa first met Lydia Degarrod (Reference Degarrod1990), she shared her power dreams and visions. (p. 2483)
Dream sharing has been instrumental in Tedlock's personal healing (Reference Tedlock1991); she wrote, ‘In 1976 when my husband, Dennis Tedlock, and I traveled to highland Guatemala to undertake a year of fieldwork with Quiche-Mayans, we also found ourselves, early in our stay, consulting a diviner about our own disturbing dreams’ (p. 7). She described, ‘During this four and a half months of formal training, timed according to the Mayan calendar, we were expected to narrate all of our dreams in order for him to interpret them’ (p. 9). The result of trusting, opening, and deepening of her dream experiences within this specific culture was very meaningful for Tedlock, who explained, ‘After our initiation we were consulted as dream interpreters by Mayan people and we have continued to pay attention to our dreams’ (p. 11).
Another researcher who has earned the trust and respect of his research participants in many countries around the world is Krippner (Reference Krippner2009). Similar to Tedlock, Krippner has personally immersed himself in the traditional ceremonies of many cultures while he has conducted his research. His findings (e.g. Krippner, Reference Krippner2009) have informed us that dream sharing is an active part of daily life for some cultures.
The Guarani Indians in the south-east part of Brazil also have a venerable dream tradition. The tribal legends hold that in primordial times native people divided themselves into three groups, People of the Sun, People of the Moon, and People of Dreams. The Xavante and the Guarani are members of this latter group; some communities hold Dream Circles, or morning dream-sharing sessions. Often, a dream is told that begins to give direction to the daily life of the village and it is not necessarily the dream of a paje or shaman. Indeed, a child can have a dream that indicates a new direction for a community. (p. 34)
Krippner (Reference Krippner2009) wrote about the dream practices of the Chilean Mapuche tribe, ‘Dreams considered to be negative (wesa peuma) are shared as soon as possible, and the interpretation is usually communal, within the family. This allows dreamers to intervene in each other's problems, and may facilitate healing’ (p. 37). Although he reported, ‘Most Mapuche dream interpretation is conducted within the family each morning and before important events’ (p. 37), Krippner also described some ways in which dream reports make their way into the greater Mapuche community: ‘There are informal gatherings at which these dream reports are narrated as part of four different types of oratory: ritualized speech, improvised emotionally-toned songs, accounts of heroic deeds, and narratives of folk tales’ (p. 37). He concluded,
It is apparent that the Mapuche dream legacy is a complete model of dreaming and dreamworking even when described in Western terms. However, unlike Westerners, Mapuches integrate their dreams into every major facet of their waking lives. For them, there is no rigid division between dream life and waking life. The same can be said for many Native American dream models, especially those practiced before the arrival of the Europeans. (p. 38)
Another culture that integrates dreaming into every major aspect of their waking lives is the Senoi Temiar tribe in Malaysia. Tedlock (Reference Tedlock1991) wrote, ‘. . . Marina Roseman (1986), through her active participation as a singer within an all female chorus in Temiar society, learned the precise manner in which local dream sharing through song connects the musical and medical domains of knowledge and practice’ (p. 3). Moss (Reference Moss2009) stated,
For peoples who live close to the earth, like the Temiar, dreaming is a way to communicate with the earth and all that shares life on it. Everything is alive. Everything will speak to you – and speak through you – if you will pay attention. Dreaming is not only about what goes on in the night; it is also about being attuned, at every turning, to the speaking land. (p. 4)
With a similar dedication as the Senoi Temiar and the Guarani, the Mapuche have their own unique practices of healing through dream sharing in community. Tedlock (Reference Tedlock1991) described some of Degarrod's (Reference Degarrod1990) research with the Mapuche:
During her research among the Mapuche Indians of Chile, she gathered dream accounts and various interpretations of these narratives from several members of two families who were coping with serious stress caused by witchcraft and illness (Degarrod, Reference Degarrod1990). Through dream sharing and interpreting, the afflicted members of the families were able to directly participate in the healing of their loved ones. (p. 4)
Some Mapuche beliefs about the nature of dream sharing; being able to heal illness caused by witchcraft for example, would not be shared in every culture or by individuals with personal mythologies that do not allow for this possibility (Feinstein & Krippner, Reference Feinstein and Krippner2006). ‘Degarrod hypothesized that these . . . were possible due to both the nature of the communal dream sharing and interpreting system . . . and the general belief that dreams facilitate communication with supernatural beings’ (Tedlock, Reference Tedlock1991, p. 4).
Krippner, Bogzaran, and de Carvalho (Reference Krippner, Bogzaran and de Carvalho2002) wrote,
For the Mapuche, a dream can serve as a channel of communication between the dreamer and other people, as well as the spirit world. What Westerners consider to be anomalous dreams (such as those felt to be clairvoyant), the Mapuche see as one of many common types of dreams, made possible by the dream's capacity to link the dreamer with other people, other time periods, and distant places. Mapuche shamans use dreams in their work, but in Mapuche society all dreamers are thought to have this potential. (p. 107)
Moss (Reference Moss2009) gave an example of dream sharing that is directly influenced by one tribe's cultural belief that three soul parts leave the body while dreaming:
The Chiquitano of eastern Bolivia believe a human has three souls, called the breath soul, the blood soul, and the shadow soul. During dreams, while the breath soul stays with the body, the blood soul (otor) can wander a little. The shadow soul (ausipis) can make longer journeys, leaving the body and blood soul far behind. In the morning, it returns and gives the other souls an account of its adventures. (p. 5)
Australian aborigines are another example of a culture that believe they travel outside the physical body at night, to share something of benefit to the community upon return:
The five-hundred-plus Aboriginal tribes of Australia share this understanding: a dream is a journey. When we dream, ‘the spirit goes on walkabout,’ says Nungurrayi, a wise woman of the Kukatja, a people of the Western Desert. A powerful dreamer, she explains, is a person who knows how to open the tjurni, travel – in spirit – to interesting places, and bring back a ‘good story.’ (p. 8)
Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) wrote,
The incorporation of dreams into social life is common to many cultures. Bob Randal, my Australian aboriginal friend, tells me, ‘Dreams give us direction, so we share them, especially if it's prophecy-type dreaming. But in that case, the elders will discuss it, examine whether the person is someone who's shown proof of his accuracy. Say this person had a true dream the last four times, maybe they’ll listen to him the fifth time.’ (p. 173)
In some cultures, including many households in the United States, it is common for loved ones and especially couples to share their dreams with each other. Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) stated, ‘My own dreams about my parents, grandparents, children, ex-wife, lovers, and close friends have been so striking that I no longer hesitate to phone them upon wakening from a significant dream’ (p. 132). Considering the way in which some American couples relate their dreams to each other, Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) described,
John and Michelle might well be said to be a dream couple. ‘We talk about our dreams first thing in the morning, before we’re fully awake, so they can't slip back into their hidey-holes.’ Their dreams lead them to ‘our little secrets and passions, our dark sides, our sexual history: it's like marriage therapy in bed.’ (p. 143)
This example focuses on working things out from the past, together. In contrast, Moss (Reference Moss2009) described the Canelos Quichuan practice of married couples, which is oriented more in the present moment, possibly moving more actively toward the future:
Among the Canelos Quichua of Ecuador, husband and wife sleep on either side of the center of the house, and take off on their dream travels from their respective sides. They frequently wake during the night and talk about their experiences . . . It is not unusual among indigenous dreamers for two or more people to find themselves, like the Canelos Quichua, having adventures together inside the dreamspace. (p. 6)
The difference in dream sharing practices of intimate partners between cultural contexts is evident in these examples. While the ‘John and Michelle’ example has a personality-centric flavour to it reminiscent of Freudian or Jungian analysis, the Canelos Quichua example has a more communal, spiritual feeling to it. However, the fact that both couples share their dream experiences with each other is testament to a shared healing process, which is potentially healthy for any couple regardless of cultural or personal beliefs/worldview.
Duran (Reference Duran2006) wrote,
In Western approaches, dreams are within the personality, which makes it possible for an ego-centered personality to arise. In traditional ways of understanding dreams, the personality is within the dream itself, which makes it difficult for the personality to become ego-oriented and easier to be part of the greater cosmology. (p. 41)
In Duran's view, ‘Problem's of community addiction, sadness, abuse, and violence are manifestations of many individuals. Through the healing of individuals, the groundwork can be laid for the greater healing of the community’ (p. 123). Duran's approach to helping the individual centre in a non-egoistic manner for the sake of the community is connected to the Native American worldview. Referencing Black Elk (Neihardt, Reference Neihardt1988), Duran (Reference Duran2006) wrote, ‘Black Elk believed that the center of the universe was everywhere and that all people were at the center, with some actually realizing that they are at the center. Black Elk understood cosmology in a transcendental versus a historical manner’ (p. 46). Duran has led many dream groups for the purpose of shared healing in community, and has approached dreams from a traditional perspective with many suffering people at various stages of acculturation. He wrote,
I tell patients that the dream or dreamtime is a living entity and therefore requires that the patient display appropriate etiquette and manners. Patients are told that when they have a dream, they should acknowledge it with a gift. . . tobacco, food, water, cornmeal, or some other offering they deem appropriate. This type of intervention is purely of Native origin. (p. 41)
Moss (Reference Moss2009) wrote, ‘The Egyptians believed that the gods speak to us in dreams’ (p. 11). Since ancient times,
The universally recognized source of divination is dreams. The dream interpreter is never likely to lack business. . . because people know that their dreams are important, but need help in three important ways: to figure out the meaning of dreams, to determine appropriate action to be taken, and to disperse or ward off bad energies that may be operating during the night. (p. 29)
Ullman (Reference Ullman2001) observed, ‘The Oneirocritica of Artemidorus . . . is the most complete narrative account to come down to us from the Greeks. It offers both a system of classification and a guide to interpretation’ (p. 1547).
No matter what time period or geographical location we are talking about, if people always knew what their dreams meant, without having to consult with anyone else, there might not be as much potential for healing to occur by working with dreams socially. Could one of the social purposes of dreaming be to bring people together? Moss (Reference Moss2009) wrote, ‘. . . we may need help in reading dreams because, as Artemidorus maintained, “the gods love to speak in riddles”, sometimes to test us and to goad us to expand our understanding’ (p. 29).
Yet it is interesting the way sharing dreams has not always been supported from a religious or political perspective. People healing and socially unifying through dream sharing was probably a threat to controlled leadership in the past.
. . . in the Middle Ages, particularly as Christianity took a central role . . . Ecclesiastical authorities, ever on the alert for evil influences, bore down on the growing popular interest in dreams, a trend that ultimately led to the Inquisition and the persecution of witches. (Ullman, Reference Ullman2001, p. 1547)
Ullman (Reference Ullman2001) believed that it is important for Westerners to balance out polarized perspectives between the ancient world and present day. He wrote,
The ancients failed to develop the internal or subjective pole of the dream by embedding the dream in their religious belief system, but, by our focus on the subjective pole, we isolated dreams from their roots in society. Dreams contain social as well as personal referents. (p. 1547)
He continued this reflective cultural critique and said, ‘The concept of the superego as internalized social values was not an invitation to further explore the foundations of society. In a way, we have been as one-sided about dreams as the ancients were’ (p. 1547). I agree with Ullman that one-sidedness should be avoided, especially in the West where individuals can feel extremely alienated by the internalization of their feelings, and a lack of integration with society. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that although they are not ancient Greek societies, many cultures still exist that continue practicing ways that have also been termed ancient (Tedlock, Reference Tedlock1991). To be fair, Ullman's reading audience was probably made up mostly of Westerners, and his critique within this cultural context was justified.
Spindler and Spindler (Reference Spindler and Spindler1984), a married couple from Stanford who researched the Menomini tribe of Wisconsin, wrote, ‘The Menomini were dreamers and people of power . . . Their dreams told them of the future, instructed them about the meaning of events, gave them roles and purposes in life, and provided them with access to power’ (p. v). Here we see that the Menomini were another dream society that was researched by Westerners. The Spindlers lived near Menomini lands in a tent, almost every summer between 1948 and 1970 before releasing their book Dreamers With Power in 1971.
Spindler and Spindler wrote that for the Menomini, ‘No dream is casually dismissed. Aside from the dreaming done during the fast periods, night dreams frequently carry great import’ (p. 49). Similar to the Guarani of Brazil and Senoi Temiar of Malaysia, for the Menomini of Wisconsin, ‘Even songs are acquired in dreams. In fact, most significant innovative behavior or important individual decision making among native-oriented Menomini is based on a dream experience and its interpretation’ (p. 49). For healing, according to the Spindlers, ‘One pervasive theme in Menomini tales and myths is that the hero is helpless without his particular dream-bestowed power, and that he may lose it by abuse, neglect, or lack of constraint’ (p. 53).
One form of healing that occurs from dream sharing in certain communities is a result of dramatizing the dream.
It has been noted by healers that in many cultures dramatizations of dreams are a highly effective treatment for disoriented and alienated persons. The psychiatrist Wolfgang Jilek (Reference Jilek1982) observed that Northwest Coast shamans who encouraged their clients to perform their dreaming in public are 80 percent effective in healing, compared with the 30 percent effective rate for psychiatrists using the private representational techniques favored by depth psychology. (Tedlock, Reference Tedlock and Jones2005, p. 2487)
The practice of dream dramatization, in my experience, is powerfully healing for those involved, whether due to the transformation of disoriented or alienated feelings – or from the joy of creativity and laughter stemming from a group effort. Both of these phenomena have occurred in my dream drama courses, and in 2010 when I led a few dream dramatizations with graduate students in a Saybrook seminar, The Exceptional Language of Dreams: What They Tell Us and How (Krippner, Richards, Pritzker, & Blum, Reference Krippner, Richards, Pritzker and Blum2010).
Some Western dream workers have independently come to similar conclusions about the presentational power of dreaming. . . Consequently many of them no longer interpret dreams but instead focus on reenacting and re-experiencing the feelings and images of the dream as fully as possible. Others take the position that the healing power of dreaming requires both experiencing, for energy, and interpretation, for meaning. (Tedlock, Reference Tedlock and Jones2005, p. 2487)
Within a modern European context, Scategni (Reference Scategni2002), an Italian practitioner of Jungian psychology and Moreno's psychodrama, wrote about what can happen when dreams and drama merge in a group:
Forgotten dreams and memories return enhanced by new memories or fantasies. In this way, the room where the group is gathered gradually takes on new meanings. It is symbolic space and space that is really being experienced at the same time. As such, the space appears enriched and transformed in the group members’ dreams. (p. 27)
Scategni described,
Internal images, dream projections, and dream characters cross over to become real people – the participants and conductors – in the same way that the very presence of the participants makes internal images reflect and refract the others’ images, strengthen them in turn, unite with them, and sometimes open up new pathways. (p. 140)
Regarding some of the healing attributes of dream psychodrama, Scategni wrote,
In fact, the unconscious, with its knack for showing up suddenly in the group, enables the group members to focus spontaneously on entirely unexpected elements – as happens in dreams – during the dramatic play. These elements can lead participants to differing perspectives, to new openings, and often to different conceptions of reality and existence itself. (p. 141)
Although Scategni's perspective is Italian/European, in the United States, I have experienced what she detailed with these descriptions in every dream theatre or dream psychodrama course I have been involved with as teacher, student, or performer. I have personally found dream dramatization to be a powerful tool for healing in community.
Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) described, ‘In Healing Dreams, we dream of each other, to each other, even for each other’ (p. 131). This statement indicates that in order for real healing to occur out of dreamwork, we need other people; we cannot truly heal from dreaming without some involvement with community. Expressing a worldview integrating a Native American perspective (Duran & Duran, Reference Duran and Duran1995), Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) wrote, ‘Perhaps, in the end, there are no dreams intrinsically more healing than those that demonstrate that our separation is an illusion; that we are part of a living web that extends beyond our own skin and skull’ (p. 132). He stated,
. . . the privatization of the dream remains a particularly Western practice. Dreams in many cultures – the Plains Indians, for example – are key components in social problem solving, with vital public and even political implications. My Cree Indian friend Sylvia . . . For her, a dream is often a social occurrence, to be shared with her own extended kinship network and sometimes with the entire tribe. (p. 161)
Obviously, ‘Dream-sharing customs vary from culture to culture’ (p. 163). In my documentary film, Linked: The Dream-Creativity Connection, American actor-director Michael Goorjian says, ‘No, guys at the gym are not saying, ‘I had this dream last night . . .’ – but if that same guy had an extreme dream, it could be very impactful on who he was’ (Morgan, Reference Morgan2010). If that ‘same guy’ wants to share his experience publicly in the United States, he might not know where to go with it, for fear of being judged by an under-dream-educated society. If he is lucky, that guy will find a partner, a dream group, or a therapist, to help meet his desire to integrate his dream in waking life.
To emphasize cultural differences regarding what dreams can be shared and how, Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) wrote,
The Zuni people of New Mexico have a tradition of making public their ‘bad’ dreams, while ‘good’ dreams are sometimes withheld even from close relatives. Among the Quiche of Guatemala, all dreams, even small fragments, are shared immediately with family and tribe. An Australian aborigine told me, ‘We have a saying, ‘Share it out before the next sunrise.’ We tell our dreams to the group, because different people have different gifts and might help understand it.’ It reminded me of the informal dream groups that have sprung up in Western societies over the past several decades – until he added an intriguing comment: ‘We often meet each other while we’re sleeping.’ (p. 163)
In the twenty-first century, ‘Decades of research have revealed that many tribal cultures give dreams a central role in their collective lives’ (p. 167). Yet another example of dream sharing in community within a specific cultural context:
The shamans of Siberia's Yakut tribe conduct an evening ceremony using the shoulder blade of a deer, then ask participants to pay close attention to their dreams. The next morning, dreams are recited and interpreted for guidance – not only for the dreamer himself but for the other members of the group. (pp. 163–164)
Krippner and Dillard (Reference Krippner and Dillard1987) wrote about one more culture that encourages dream sharing of children within the safe family environment. This is something parents can guide, only when they feel educated enough and informed enough about the meaning of dreams for themselves. When dream sharing is a tradition in the family and/or culture, this knowledge can be passed on to children.
Among the Northern Algonquian Indians, mothers may ask their children if they dreamed that night. This practice encourages children to pay more attention to their dreams. In return, future dreams supposedly will favor the dreamer with more accurate information and on more frequent occasions, just as a friend would supply more and better guidance if listened to and respected. (p. 115)
The cultural context will determine what is taught to children about dreams, ranging from ‘It's nothing, just a dream’ or an honest appreciation of the dream, to serious consideration of the dream's meaning. For example, ‘In California's Diegueno and Luisano tribes, future shamans can be selected in childhood on the basis of their dreams’ (Krippner, Bogzaran, & de Carvalho, Reference Krippner, Bogzaran and de Carvalho2002, p. 137). No matter what the cultural context, children learn from the adults in their communities, who serve as role models. In one historical case of adult role modeling through social dream sharing:
A spirited instance of the dream in Iroquois social discourse was the mid-winter ‘dream-guessing rite,’ a sacred game in which groups of men and women would run through the village, bursting into dwellings and upending furnishings while posing riddles about dreams that contained a ‘soul wish.’ . . .[C]elebrants would not leave until the wish – whether for food, a beautiful ornament, or a sexual liason – had been guessed. The desire had to be either enacted through ritual or bought off with an appropriate gift. Here was a ceremony whereby the dream literally invaded social space, insisting on being heard and acknowledged. The ‘hidden and forbidden’ elements of the individual psyche were unequivocally expressed. (Borasch, Reference Barasch2000, p. 171)
As far as we know, these rites no longer find expression due to historical circumstances. However, Krippner, Bogzaran, and de Carvalho (Reference Krippner, Bogzaran and de Carvalho2002) observed, ‘The “dream festivals” of the Iroquois have their modern-day counterparts in dream groups. These groups can provide a safe environment in which to work with initiatory and other extraordinary dreams’ (p. 144).
Barasch (Reference Barasch2000) described a way in which some Jewish people have shared dream experiences whether lucid or not, while still dreaming.
Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi speaks of a Jewish ritual called a ‘dream assembly.’ A group of people says a prayer together at a certain time of night, ‘when the Shekhinah [divine wisdom] removes her veil.’ They close their eyes when the evening prayer reaches the words ‘Guard our going out and our coming in.’ Then, he says, ‘Those who joined in prayer together will be joined together in a dream.’ (p. 164)
According to Krippner, Bogzaran, & De Carvalho (Reference Krippner, Bogzaran and de Carvalho2002), ‘. . . as dream group members share their dreams and obtain interest and support from other group members, rapport and acceptance are enhanced . . . “[G]roup dreams” are sometimes reported that reveal conflicted issues and that improve relationships among group members’ (p. 145). A particular projective method used within American dream groups has spread internationally because it works well within many cultural contexts.
Montague Ullman has developed a dreamwork procedure in which members of a group respond to each report with the statement, ‘If this were my dream. . .’ The process ensures a multiplicity of interpretations for the dreamer to consider. The procedure is used internationally; for example, a dream group forum was established in Sweden in 1990. (p. 145)
The Discovery Channel's (1994) The Power of Dreams, Part III: Sacred Sleep, is a documentary that covered considerable ground regarding the healing power of dream sharing in community, inclusive of many cultural contexts. The beginning of the film showed an Australian aboriginal culture, where dreamtime is part of everyday reality. Children were shown dancing in a natural setting with minimal clothing and wearing face paint, learning about Dreamtime through storytelling – that the world was created in ‘The Dreamtime’ long ago through story, dance, and song.
The film cuts away to show Kelley Bulkeley telling stories about Native American dream catchers, as well as Jacob's ladder dream from the Bible, to a group of children at his son's American nursery school. Bulkeley explained that dreams were frequently prophetic in Christianity until they became associated with witchcraft, and that dreams were also prophetic in Islam, which according to Bulkeley, led to the Q’uran's ‘call to prayer’ five times a day, because Muhammed dreamed it. Then, as the documentary continued, Reverend Jeremy Taylor advocated dreams as ‘the doorway to spiritual experience for everyone,’ and psychotherapist Alan Siegel was shown leading a special dream group created to tend to men's emotional experience during pregnancy. In a cross-cultural moment, we were told by the narrator that the belief in Australian aboriginal culture is that when a baby spirit comes into the dream of the father, he or she wants to be born. Siegel said the men's dream group was meeting a previously unmet need for men going through the experience of pregnancy in Western culture.
Jungian analyst June Singer explained archetypes, saying that the symbol in dreams grows out of an individual's consciousness, concerns, and cultural background. Psychologist Edwin Stronglegs Richardson explained that the ceremony of the sweat lodge prepares mind and body for dreaming – purifying the person to hear and respond to dreaming. The film depicted his therapy session with Sergeant Ursula Roach, a Hopi Indian who had a dream reflecting her inner conflict between Hopi people's beliefs and her call to fight in the Persian Gulf War. Richardson introduced Sergeant Roach to a sweat lodge ceremony for the first time in her life, which led to some cathartic and healing dreamwork on that issue.
Although this session was ‘private’ between therapist and client, Ursula Roach agreed to film her healing session and share its benefit with those who would ever watch this film. The healing power of her dream sharing may have healing benefit for others who have had similar experiences, or help inform other therapists how they might integrate some healing of cultural trauma with individuals through dreamwork (Duran, Reference Duran2006).
Next, we were shown dream practices in Tibetan culture. Some 10-year-old boys in a monastery told their dreams to the abbot, who listened to the dreams as a spiritual barometer that depicted the condition of their souls. The nature of their dreams told the abbot what teaching they were ready to comprehend. Tibetan monks train their students’ and their own dream awareness so they can be more aware in waking life, and in the bardo state after death. Tenzin Wengyal described some dreamwork he did for his late mother who came to him in his dream.
The fourteenth Dalai Lama recalled a dream he had in which he met with the fifth Dalai Lama, and said he sometimes called on traditional guardians to help him in dreams. He said he believes that many dreams are not as important or significant as others, but that the important ones deserve more attention. In Tibetan culture, lucid dreaming is a prerequisite for enlightenment, and thoughts are all mental illusions (Wengyal, Reference Wengyal1998).
Toward the end of the film, Jeremy Taylor was shown leading a dream group for elderly women who wish to enrich their lives, and prepare for the experience of death. Eleanor Brooks, an aborigine woman said, ‘We all die and go back to the dream.’
Healing Dream Groups in the United States
In the United States, the work of Jung has been very popular, yet methods practiced of Jungian dream analysis have not always facilitated empowerment within individuals who sought therapy (Kaplan-Williams, Reference Kaplan-Williams1992). The power within Jung's ideas is that his approaches to dreamwork were meant to empower us all. Jung created what others may have never imagined, and his creations were meant to inspire others to do the same – to find one's own authentic expression as a creative individual (Jung & Jaffe, Reference Jung, Jaffe, Winston and Winston1989). Other methods of dreamworking have emerged since Jung's contributions, in response to this problem, such as Jungian-Senoi dreamwork, developed and practiced by Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams1985, Reference Kaplan-Williams1992) in the 1970s at The Jungian-Senoi Dream Institute in Berkeley, California.
Responding to people who had felt disempowered from Jungian analysis, Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams1985) wrote regarding Jungian-Senoi dreamwork, ‘The meaning of a dream comes from the dreamer's re-experiencing the dream and not from what someone else may say about it’ (P. 28). Referring to the analyst taking on sole responsibility to interpret his or her client's dreams, Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams1985) stated,
This can be a dangerous story, repeated many times with many people. In contrast, if we teach people to actualize dreams, if we give others the skills to re-experience their own dreams, we will be freeing ourselves to better live our own lives and not other people's lives as well. (p. 29)
He wrote,
Until quite recently, those interested in working with dreams have not seen the need for a dreamwork methodology since the chief method for understanding dreams has been the interpretive one, whether the system be Freudian, Jungian, or any other ‘this symbol means this.’ (p. 29)
Nowadays, many people place authority in their psychotherapists, if that is what they choose. Others embrace their own personal authority and practice dreamwork in a variety of ways. Some choose both, and benefit from therapy in addition to the dream group process (Ullman, Reference Ullman2006). A popular approach currently practiced in dream groups in the United States is Ullman's (Reference Ullman2006) method, which requires a projective technique using the words, ‘if this were my dream . . .’ and a process leading to the dreamer always having the final say about the meaning of her or his own dream.
It has been my experience . . . that sharing and working in dreams in a supportive and stimulating group setting is the most natural and effective method. It is as if our dreams require this level of socialization to bring out their full healing potential. (Ullman, Reference Ullman and Krippner1990, p. 127)
Hartmann (Reference Hartmann1998) wrote,
A dream group can add a number of other people's views of our dreams. Montague Ullman, who is considered the ‘father’ of group dreamwork, has provided a very useful outline for groups or other people who want to share and help each other understand their dreams. (p. 146)
Hartmann emphasized, ‘The dreamer's associations and insights must always play the primary role, and the dreamer, whether in therapy or in a group, must be allowed to develop her own insights and interpretations’ (pp. 146–147).
Hartmann (Reference Hartmann1998) stated,
The ‘dreamworking movement’ – learning about oneself through one's dreams, usually with informational help from others – is very modern and yet very ancient as well. It is a widespread grass-roots sort of movement; there may be several hundred thousand Americans participating in some form of dreamworking with partners or, most commonly, in groups – yet it has had to make its way against two very different sorts of powerful cultural opposition. (p. 147)
The opposition Hartmann referred to was first, the scientific establishment, which has historically placed low value on dreams, and second, psychotherapists who believe the domain of dreams should be left to them. He wrote,
However, there is a revolution in progress against these dominant forces. The people are on the march! As I see it, the people have always loved dreams, and the people in one fashion or another generally get their way. There are now thousands of small dream groups or dream workshops springing up with a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints, but all sharing a fascination with dreams. (p. 147)
Hartmann is fortunate to have been a long-time member and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and many of the people ‘. . . on the march!’ (p. 147) were probably at this association's dream conferences held annually, with dream researchers and dream enthusiasts. A great number of people in the United States do not know dream groups exist, or do not know what occurs in dream groups.
What Happens in Dream Groups
Ullman's (Reference Ullman2006) ‘Instructions to the Dreamer’ (p. 32) were:
The group is going to make your dream its own. They are going to work with it as their dream and try to do two things. First, they are going to see what feelings they can bring to the imagery of the dream. Then, they are going to see what possible meanings they can think of that would fit the imagery. They will, in effect, try to bring out some of the potential metaphorical meaning that lies embedded in each image. Whatever feelings or meanings they come up with are to be considered their own projections and are to be seen as such by you. (p. 32)
A very important instruction given by Ullman, as well as many other dream group leaders including Clara Stewart Flagg was, ‘Remember that you have the freedom to accept or reject anything we come up with’ (p. 33).
Taylor (Reference Taylor1993) is another American dream group pioneer who has taught a projective technique that requires dream group members to explicitly take responsibility for their interpretations by consciously projecting, ‘if it were my dream . . .’ (Taylor, Reference Taylor1993). Taylor initially experienced sharing dreams with his wife, and noticed, ‘Sharing our dreams, particularly our dreams about the annoying, unconscious sexism we were both still heir to, seemed to help us stay actively and creatively committed to the often painful and difficult process of defining our evolving relationship’ (p. 3).
Taylor wrote, ‘The first piece of formal group work that I ever did was in 1969. I was part of a community organizing project dedicated to overcoming racism, . . .’ (p. 1). He had been fulfilling his ‘obligation to perform two years of “alternative civilian service” as a conscientious objector to war’ (p. 1). Following his intuition, he suggested, ‘Let's shift our attention to concentrate on telling dreams to one another – particularly those dreams that have overt racial feeling in them . . . as a way of maybe getting at the deeper psychological roots of racism?’ (p. 3). He noticed a remarkable shift in the group after they took up his suggestion for a while.
Suddenly, the people in the seminar began to take notice of one another in a new and more personal and vulnerable way. No longer were people responding primarily with preprogrammed ideas about themselves and each other. The change of focus to dreams suddenly had the effect of awakening in us a much greater interest in one another as unique human beings. The exotic new symbolic material we were sharing caused us all to slow down and make fewer unquestioned assumptions about each other. By sharing our dreams, we began to inquire much more carefully into the deeper reasons why we each thought and felt and behaved as we did. (p. 4)
Taylor (Reference Taylor1992) said, ‘I believe that people in Western society do not sufficiently value their dreams. Our dreams are more important, more useful and interesting than we generally acknowledge’ (p. 4). However, he noted, ‘In order to work successfully with dreams, either one to one or in a group setting, it is absolutely necessary that the people sharing their dreams feel safe’ (p. 1). Strict confidentiality can also feel too restrictive according to Taylor (Reference Taylor1992), so anonymity is usually agreed upon and feels safe enough for those involved in his dream sharing groups. He said, ‘Thousands of people have discovered that working with dreams in voluntary groups builds community, intimacy, support, and understanding’ (p. 10).
As long as his dream group participants understood, ‘It is an absolute waste of time and energy to argue with anyone about the meanings you see in his or her dreams’ (p. 7), Taylor asserted, ‘This universal language of dreams unites us all, even across the barriers of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, conviction, and social/cultural background that we habitually use to separate ourselves from meaningful contact with each other’ (p. 9).
What makes up ‘safe’ and ‘ethical’ dream group work in the United States has been a subject of conversation and debate. Most facilitators of dream groups have formed an opinion about what they feel is required of dream group leaders and members. While Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) advised, ‘Dreamwork is not to be undertaken lightly. It requires a certain commitment, a respect for the precautions that are necessary, and a realistic assessment of both the limits and the benefits that can accrue’ (p. 237), Taylor (Reference Taylor1992) stated.
Working with dreams in a group does require a certain amount of courage, good humor, emotional honesty, and trust, but virtually all human beings are easily capable of the creative openness and risk required. People working in dream groups generally do not find the revelations of their own or other people's dreams ‘too horrible’ to bear. On the contrary, the vast majority of people are strengthened, liberated, revitalized, and deeply supported and affirmed by their experiences in dream groups. Group work with dreams regularly generates ongoing relationships that become sources of deep emotional and psychological support of tremendous benefit to all involved. (p. 130)
Taylor's opinion regarding virtually all people being capable of dream group work has certainly been influenced by his own experiences. One memorable instance he recalled was, ‘Several years ago, I ran a “drop in” dream group inside San Quentin prison. We met every Wednesday night, except when the whole prison was “locked down” in response to riots, murders, and attempted escapes’ (p. 140). It was a very risky situation for Taylor, who remembered,
As we worked, I made the point over and over again that when the aha of recognition comes in working with a dream, it means not only that some of the dream's message is ‘getting through’ to consciousness, but also that the dreamer is changing inside at that moment, as the psychological and emotional energies get reorganized and smoothed out in the work with the dream. (p. 149)
He recalled, ‘A great deal of grief and pain was re-experienced that night as the dreams and the boyhood stories came out. Eventually, the guard himself shared a dream . . .’ (p. 149). This unpredictable healing experience for both prisoners and guard led Taylor to assert, ‘Exploring the multiple meanings of dreams in the company of others in a nonauthoritarian setting regularly leads to a positive transformation of thought, feeling, and behavior’ (p. 152). It should not go unmentioned that the success in this situation was due in good part to Taylor's own temperament and intentions.
All leadership, in the final analysis, is effective to the precise extent that the leader is able to set and sustain positive and productive tone. The facilitator's ability to set and maintain such a tone grows directly out of his/her intellectual and communication abilities, knowledge, life experience, and emotional maturity. (p. 161)
Healing Benefits
Expanding a dream group's healing benefits even further, Taylor (Reference Taylor1992) observed, ‘The dream not only embodies creative energies and possibilities for individual dreamers, but cooperating in the exploration of dreams also provides a unique opportunity for those gifts of dream energy and insight to take form and practical shape in community’ (p. 10). He said this is important because, ‘Working with dreams in groups helps us overcome the sense of isolation that we all feel from time to time, bringing us into more meaningful contact with one another. This renewal of community has an effect on the shape of society as a whole’ (p. 10). Ullman (Reference Ullman2001) wrote,
Dream sharing can and should fill an unmet social need. Over two decades of group dream work have convinced me that all of us have a need for a place where we can explore and resolve residual tensions and begin to free ourselves from the constraints they impose on our present behavior. None of us grow up perfect. Dream work can lighten the emotional load we carry from our past and lead to a greater degree of freedom in our relationships with others. (p. 4)
There are common benefits of group dream work, and it is often felt directly by the community. Yet in the United States, there has also been a great deal of diversity regarding the style, intention, and members of each group formed. Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams2001) wrote, ‘. . . as some have said, if you go to a Freudian you have Freudian dreams and if you go to a Jungian you have Jungian dreams and if you go to a Lucidian you have lucid dreams’ (p. 2).
Hillman (Reference Hillman and Krippner1990) summarized the grassroots dream movement in the United States:
Dream groups range in size from three or four people to upward of fifteen or twenty. Sometimes they form on the basis of a particular shared core of experience, whatever similarities and differences might characterize their members in other ways. There are artists’ dream groups and women's dream groups, for example, and not long ago the Dream Network Journal advertised a dream group for ‘12-Step People,’ meaning those involved in recovery programs modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. (p. 16)
Duran (Reference Duran2006) has led dream groups for many Native American people who have had issues with the spirit of alcohol. He wrote,
Dream groups have been one of the most profound treatment experiences that I have had and continue to have in my work. Patients appreciate getting in touch with an aspect of their lives that is vibrant and ongoing. They are surprised that no one has asked them about their dreams in the past and are extremely grateful to have this tool that can assist them in their life. (p. 7)
Although the practice of dream sharing may be new to them, Duran said, ‘By the time one dream has been deciphered, tremendous energy has been created in the group and there are many dreamers who come forth’ (p. 77).
Hillman (Reference Hillman and Krippner1990) told of, ‘Jenny Dodd's warm account of the “mothers’ dream group” she organized in her suburban community. Originally seven women, they had grown to nine and after four years still managed to meet weekly’ (p. 16). She said,
Grassroots dream-appreciation groups . . . hold that dreamers themselves can appreciate the significance of their dreams without having to rely on the interpretive guidance of the experts. By thus widening the social framework within which we make dreams important, dream groups play a vital role in helping to raise our cultural appraisal of the dream. (p. 19)
Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams2001) gave an example of the way in which a dreamer working in one of his dream groups expanded her experience of the dream world, which affected the way others in the group perceived her.
. . . an older lady in the dream group complained that she only had ordinary dreams compared to some of the other members of the group. She would dream repeatedly of a simple farm with a fence around it and in that fenced in area would be a cow. Certainly she could not be classified as a great dreamer. But I did suggest one thing to her. If she wanted to dream of mythic creatures she should read a book about dragons before bedtime. She replied that she would do just that and bring the results in the following week. Well, in fact she came to the group beaming, for she now had her first mythic or archetypal dream. She dreamed of the same simple farm with its fence around the pasture. But this time instead of there being a cow in there she now had a dragon fenced in! (p. 2)
Hillman (Reference Hillman and Krippner1990) noted that dream sharing is beneficial to individuals, and the human science community as well. She wrote,
Dream groups can also help us in the scientific task of learning more about the phenomenology of consciousness. Regular work with dreams has a tendency to increase one's sophistication as a dreamer, bringing about a wider experience of the full range of consciousness possible during sleep. (p. 19)
In a Los Angeles Times article, Rourke (Reference Rourke2000) covered a story about a local women's dream group. She wrote, ‘Kaplan considers her dream circle part of a spiritual routine and compares each gathering, which can last more than two hours, to an extended prayer’ (p. 2). Rourke stated,
Members say that peeling back the layers of such dreams has led to startling results. One quit psychotherapy after her second dream circle meeting, one changed careers from TV costumer to masseuse, one fell in love at age 56 and married for the first time, one returned to school and is studying to be a cantor. (p. 2)
She said, ‘most women in the group might call the dream circle a part of their spiritual practice, but they don't relate it to a particular religion’ (p. 3). Rourke quoted Jeanne Dancs Arthur, who ‘. . . joined the circle 10 years ago’. She stayed because she found a safe, non-judgmental atmosphere. ‘I’ve learned to appreciate the tremendous wisdom,’ she says, ‘that comes of people working together in love’ (p. 3). Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams1985) recognized this value when he wrote, ‘Dream session is an experience of beauty and of numinous and meaningful powers at work in people's lives. Even many religious services may not give the introverted spiritual experiences which a full dream session can evoke’ (p. 246). Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) expressed a similar sentiment.
If spiritual implies a sense of communion that links each of us to each other and to the larger order that prevails in the universe, then this is precisely what surfaces in dream work. It kindles a kind of deinstitutionalized spirituality, a quality that is largely lacking in the world . . . Institutionalized religions have not yet succeeded in nurturing this sense of brotherhood on a broad enough scale to prevent the fragmentation of humankind. (p. 245)
In addition to ‘deinstitutionalized spirituality’ and a sense of brotherhood, Ullman recognized the intergenerational healing potential of dream groups. He wrote,
The visions of the young and old come out in complimentary ways in dream work. Each moves into the future from a different perspective—the young with energy, openness, and anxious concern, the old struggling to untangle the various strands of the past. Each needs a little of what the other brings to the work. Also, dream work exposes intergenerational issues in a way that is helpful to both (p. 203).
Ullman (Reference Ullman1999) said, ‘he or she has to go wherever that truth leads regardless of how painful it may be. That quality of honesty is what makes for the healing potential of dreamwork’ (p. 99).
. . . the dream sharing group, structured to ensure safety and help at the same time, is the most natural and effective way to make room for the full metaphorical power of the dream image in waking life. In short the goal is to ‘socialize’ the dream. The result is a felt response, often a deeply felt one . . . It has more in common with an aesthetic experience that a cognitive response. (p. 102)
Feeling better is a symptom of healing. Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) knew that members of a dream group do not need to disclose more personal information than they feel comfortable with, and yet the healing still happens. He commented,
The more I pursue dream work, the more impressed I am with how much help a group can be to a dreamer without knowing the relevant personal emotional context. I think that deeper and more subtle influences are at work, influences that elicit what might be called the healing potential of the group. (p. 41)
The healing power of working in a dream group is mysterious, yet some dreamworkers in the United States have explored this mysterious dynamic between internal healing and relationship to the group in a given community. Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) wrote,
The informational and emotional range of dream imagery is greater than our unaided waking resources have access to. The dreamer is the only one who can test the limits of the range, but it is a task that requires emotional and informational support from others. Only the dreamer can venture into this unknown territory, but the contributions from the group serve to make it more accessible. (p. 200).
Problems That Arise
Although dream groups in the Unites States have proven to have healing attributes, problems can always arise. Gendlin (Reference Gendlin1986) spoke to one of the more obvious problems:
The interpretation comes inside the dreamer or not at all. Some people think they can make up their minds as to what your dream means. It isn't too safe to tell your dream to people like that. They go away thinking they know a lot about you. But there are many conflicting theories about dreams. No one of them is right all the time . . . Similarly, you cannot decide about someone else's dream. (p. 24)
Gendlin (Reference Gendlin1986) asserted, ‘When someone tells a dream in my class, I don't permit others to put their ideas on it. If they insist, I become rude and talk right at them until they stop talking. I protect the dreamer's inward felt sense’ (p. 24). Although Gendlin's intentions might have been noble, this is an unfair, awkward approach that is preventable with some ground rules given to the group beforehand. It is better to educate everyone, rather than alienate those who are not sharing a dream of their own. The projective techniques of Taylor (Reference Taylor1992) and Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) help very much with this issue.
Covering more problematic territory, Ullman (Reference Ullman and Krippner1990) wrote,
At least two serious problems can be anticipated. There is the danger that dreamwork may be pursued in a cultlike fashion, with one or another approach that promises more than it can produce being sold to the public . . . Then there are those who may be swept up in the dream movement who need more than dreamwork alone can give them. These people are in need of therapy, but have not or do not wish to face up to that need and seek a compromise solution through dreamwork. (p. 123)
He cautioned, ‘To maintain the dreamer's control, certain constraints on the group are necessary . . . the group must respect the privacy of the dreamer at all times . . . the questioning is never intrusive . . . it never goes beyond areas opened up by the dreamer’ (pp. 127–128). In his later work, Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) added:
Certain problems that arise. . . There is a tendency for group members to forget to talk about the dream in the first person. . . people will look at the dreamer and offer their remarks directly to him. Even though they may be using the first person, their intent is obviously to get something across to the dreamer. They are trespassing into the free space around the dreamer. . . The group should understand that no one in the group takes issue with anyone else's projections. (pp. 38–39)
In Ullman's method, timing is a very important factor. While the group is in the process of projecting with the dream, Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) wrote, ‘What should be checked. . . is any impulse on the part of the dreamer to begin giving her associations’ (p. 39). If the dreamer begins to share associations, it can give information to the rest of the group too soon, taking them away from accessing information from their own and/or the collective unconscious (Stanley Krippner, personal communication, January 2007).
One problem Taylor (Reference Taylor1992) noticed in the world of North American dream groups, is that ‘people of ‘like minds’ (for which read ‘similar patterns of repression, denial, and self-deception’) can sometimes join together in a group and end up colluding to avoid and suppress the more challenging and problematic messages in one another's dreams’ (p. 133).
There are other problems that can arise in dream groups if the group is made open to the public. Kaplan-Williams (Reference Kaplan-Williams2001) wrote of his experience with a very specific dream group:
I have also had extensive experience with psychotic teenagers in the former glory days of St. George Homes, Inc. in Berkeley, California. There also strong interventions through the dream state into the unconscious seemed to be a contributing factor in real shifts out of psychosis into healing. But of course with the mentally ill you have to often put a lot of energy into evoking the unconscious in the right way. (p. 6)
Kaplan-Williams had a very specific training that made him feel qualified to work with this group of psychotic teenagers, yet many people who lead dream groups do not have these qualifications. What is a leader to do if someone joins the dream group but is not able to handle the dreamwork? Some basic precautions are important because sometimes, unexpected issues such as these can arise in dream groups, especially if the group is not limited to an already established community, there has not been a screening process, and it is publicly advertised. Taylor (Reference Taylor19920 wrote,
On rare occasions, a person may show up at a dream group meeting with psychotic or prepsychotic tendencies. In such a circumstance, dream group members should be prepared to offer friendly and firm support to the troubled person in finding appropriate ongoing help. In a group open to all comers, the organizers should have a list of mental health professionals available for referrals. (pp. 130–131)
I could not agree more. I have not found any detailed accounts of situations such as this, although I did once observe a very unfortunate situation in a dream group that was open to all comers. I was invited to attend, as a colleague and mentor of the group leader. One of the members decided to tell a very disturbing dream that was difficult for the group to project onto. I myself, a seasoned dream group leader, could not wrap my mind around this one to the point that I could not imagine the dream was an actual dream. Something, my intuition told me, was off-base.
Finally, after we all painfully attempted to project onto the dream, the ‘dreamer’ admitted to us that the disturbing events he relayed to us had actually happened in ‘waking life.’ He said he had not remembered any dreams from his sleep lately, irrationally blamed the dream group leader for that, and stated righteously that he considered waking life to be ‘a dream.’ No matter how he tried to spin it to sound like an advanced spiritual perspective, the group felt palpably betrayed, even violated by his deception. He had attempted to use the group for his own clever ‘therapy’ – and lost the trust of his comrades as a result. He clearly needed more attention and therapeutic care than was fair or possible to receive from this particular dream group.
Unfortunately, the group's leader had not been prepared to direct the member to a list of local therapists. The group leader asked the member not to return to the group for his selfish behavior, but did not feel comfortable, or perhaps qualified, to direct him to a therapist. In my opinion, dream group leaders should be prepared to direct people who take advantage of others and need therapy beyond what a dream group can offer to a list of therapists – and understand that it is fine, even ethical to do so.
In my work with Dreambridge (Morgan, Reference Morgan2008) I have adopted the International Association for the Study of Dreams code of ethics as the ‘Dreambridge Code of Ethics.’ I have given copies of this code of ethics to participants of my dream groups on the first day, because it clearly states, ‘dream groups outside a clinical setting are not a substitution for psychotherapy, or any other professional treatment, and should not be used as such’ (IASD, 1997). This code of ethics also honours and embraces the fact that there is a diverse range of approaches to dreamwork, and an entire world of differing cultural perspectives, all of which are valid.
My Research on Dream Sharing
Duran and Duran's (Reference Duran and Duran1995) point of view is that ‘To assume that phenomena from another worldview can be adequately explained from a totally foreign worldview is the essence of psychological and philosophical imperialism’ (p. 25). I would extend that statement to say that each person has a unique worldview coloured by their heritage, cultural background, and experiences (Feinstein & Krippner, Reference Feinstein and Krippner2006), and therefore as a researcher, I am interested in honouring each person's subjective descriptions as the ultimate source of the phenomena they experienced (Merleau-Ponty, Reference Merleau-Ponty and Smith1962).
In my research so far, I have used Giorgi's (Reference Giorgi1985, Reference Giorgi2009) descriptive phenomenological psychological method to explore [the link between dreams and creativity] and the links within that link, for individuals in different communities in the United States. Giorgi (Reference Giorgi1985) stated, ‘Our procedure stays closer to the actual experience and hesitates to generalize in terms of abstraction or formalization’ (p. 74). He also concluded, ‘. . . there can be no description of human phenomena that lasts at least a relatively brief span of time that does not reveal social, historical, or meaningful characteristics’ (p. 75). This qualitative method is broader than quantitative empirical methods, because it includes the description and structural analysis of experiences that often transcend what can be physically measured, such as dreams, the creative process, and experiences of community.
In these phenomenological studies: Influence and Inspiration Between Dreams and Art Forms in Art Students Living in Community (Morgan, Reference Morgan2008), Influence and Inspiration Between Dreams and Creativity in Members of Dream Groups (Morgan, Reference Morgan2009), Effects of the Link Between Dreams and Creativity in the Work of Professional Creative Artists (Morgan, Reference Morgan2009), Investigating Experienced Links Between Dreams and Creativity in the Work of Professional Creative Artists (Morgan, Reference Morgan2010), and Investigating Experienced Links Between Dreams and Creativity in the Work of Professional Creative Artists (Morgan, Reference Morgan2011), I have found great insight and benefit from interviewing a total of 26 individuals aged 16 to 86, using an adaptation of Giorgi's method on the former three studies, and Giorgi's complete method on the latter two. Select footage from the first three of these studies was included in my documentary film, Linked: The Dream-Creativity Connection. Excerpted clips from this film are available to view on the channel www.YouTube.com/thedreambridge.
Vision
If dream education and social dream circling is a needed, and perhaps necessary piece to help support the survival of our species (Ullman, Reference Ullman2001) due to its ability to empower individuals with sympathy, understanding, self-esteem, and a sense of community, then we all need to cultivate more of it. All of the risks involved with dream sharing in groups are worth it for the benefits outweigh the risks. Ullman (Reference Ullman2006) wrote,
The commonality that results from dream sharing makes people feel better. In the words of a younger colleague of mine (Deborah Hillman), perhaps we are put on this earth to heal each other. Dream work moves us toward a more compassionate view of others. It is difficult to dislike anyone who shares a dream and honestly works at it. (p. 201)
It was Ullman's contention that ‘A place can and should be found for the contribution that dream work can make to emotional well-being’ (p. 241). Because I believe strongly in the importance of providing a physical space for dream group work/play and providing an interdisciplinary facility with the purpose of bridging dreamwork into creative physical manifestations of the waking world to be shared in community, I designed a prototype model for a Dreambridge Dream-Arts Community Center (Morgan, Reference Morgan2008).
It is my hope to see this vision materialize in the not-too-distant future, because in my experience, when people come together to bridge group dreamwork and create something artistic, musical, literary, dramatic, useful, or interdisciplinary – and share it with each other in community gatherings, it is incredibly healing, even beyond the healing that occurs from the group dream sharing itself. Many cultures have discovered this already.
I would like to see the Dreambridge vision, which has evolved from its roots in tropical Malaysian and other indigenous cultures, go on to heal, strengthen, and deepen communities in all parts of the world that are socially dream impoverished.
