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Non-Drug Controls, n=25 |
Polydrug users, n=7 |
Ecstasy users, n=70 |
|||
|
|
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
|
Usual sleep quality 1 |
2.20 |
0.50 |
2.00 |
0.00 |
2.44 |
0.71 |
|
Sleep length on nights of keeping diary (hrs) |
7.71 |
0.76 |
7.80 |
0.90 |
7.48 |
0.93 |
|
Proportion of diary nights in which a dream was recalled |
.64 |
.26 |
.73 |
.25 |
.65 |
.25 |
|
Emotional intensity of diary dreams |
51.15 |
18.45 |
57.22 |
13.86 |
57.21 |
19.66 |
1Scale: 1=very good to 4 = very bad.
Table 2 shows that ecstasy use decreases dream recall, but does not affect dream emotional intensity. For the 37 ecstasy users who had instances of dream recall/non-recall, sleep was significantly shorter after ecstasy use (mean sleep length = 6.85hrs (2.50)) than after non-use (mean = 7.70hrs (0.88)), p<.05.
Table 2 - Presence or absence of dream recall for regular ecstasy users as a function of ecstasy/MDMA use or non-use before sleep during the diary period (n=37, within-subjects design), and dream intensity for dreams recalled on nights after taking ecstasy and on nights after not taking ecstasy (n=24, within-subjects design).
|
|
Dream Recall (n=37) |
Dream Intensity (n=24) |
|||
|
No |
Yes |
Mean |
SD |
||
|
Ecstasy use |
No |
92 |
154 |
57.04 |
20.80 |
|
Yes |
25 |
27 |
56.88 |
26.59 |
|
Discussion
The findings are supportive of the neurochemical modulation of dream recall, as proposed in the Activation-Synthesis and AIM models.
References
Allen, R.P., McCann, U.D. & Ricaurte, G.A. (1993). Persistent effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'ecstasy') on human sleep. Sleep, 16:560-4.
Hobson, J.A. & McCarley, R. (1977). The Brain As A Dream State Generator: An Activation Synthesis Hypothesis Of The Dream Process. American Journal Of Psychiatry, 134, 1335 1348.
Hobson, J.A., Pace-Schott, E.F. & Stickgold, R. (2000/2003). Dreaming and the brain: Toward a cognitive neuroscience of conscious states. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2000, 23, 793-842, and Chapter 1 (pp.1-50) in E.Pace-Schott, M.Solms, M.Blagrove & S Harnad. (2003). Sleep and Dreaming: Scientific advances and reconsiderations. Cambridge University Press.
Huxster J.K., Pirona A. & Morgan M.J. (2006). The sub-acute effects of recreational Ecstasy (MDMA) use: A controlled study in humans, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 20, 281-290.
Jones, K.A., Callen, F., Blagrove, M. & Parrott, A.C. (2008). Sleep, energy and self rated cognition across 7 nights following recreational ecstasy/MDMA use. Sleep and Hypnosis, 10, 16-28.
McCann, U.D., Eligulashvili, V. & Ricaurte, G.A. (2000). 3,4-Methylenedioxymeth amphetamine ('ecstasy')-induced serotonin neurotoxicity: clinical studies. Neuropsychobiology, 42, 5-10.
Pace-Schott, E.F., Gersh, T., Silvestri, R., Stickgold, R., Salzman, C. & Hobson, J.A. (2001). SSRI treatment suppresses dream recall frequency but increases subjective dream intensity in normal subjects. Journal of Sleep research, 10, 129-142.
Parrott AC, Sisk E, & Turner JJD (2000) Psychobiological problems in heavy 'ecstasy' (MDMA) polydrug users. Drug Alcohol Depend, 60, 105-110
Emma Bell and Mark Blagrove, PhD
Associations of lucid dreaming frequency with individual differences in focussed attention and reaction time
Introduction
Lucid dreams are defined as dreams in which one knows that one is dreaming. Some researchers add the requirement that one must then control aspects of the dream. We have hypothesised 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 2008 conference presentation, Wilkerson and Blagrove used the Stroop task as a test of attentional ability. This task 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 increased if the word spells out the name of a different colour. Various explanations have been given to explain the Stroop effect (see Cox et al, 2006). They found that frequent lucid dreamers were faster at stating the colour of words which spell a different colour than are non-lucid dreamers.
However, that study was flawed in that only this incongruous Stroop condition was assessed. In the current study the congruous condition is assessed, here the colour ink is the same as the colour that the word spells. A further control condition was also used, where several Xs are presented in coloured ink. For all three conditions the performance measure was the time taken to state the colour ink on a series of words or Xs presented on a PC monitor.
Results
Table 1 shows the mean scores for each lucid dreaming group for each of the three Stroop conditions. Errors were rare, the modal number of errors for all conditions was 0, and the groups did not differ significantly on errors. An adjustment for errors was made in obtaining the time to complete task scores.
In order to compare the three groups across the three conditons, a repeated measures ANOVA was performed. The difference in speed between the three task versions was significant (F(2,84) = 145.70, p<.001), the groups differed significantly (F(2,42) = 3.23, p = .05), and there was a significant interaction between group and task version (F(4,84) = 2.96, p=.024).
Table 1
|
|
Frequent lucid dreamers |
Occasional lucid dreamers |
Non-lucid dreamers |
|||
|
|
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
Mean |
SD |
|
Time to complete congruent Stroop task |
35.45 a |
5.66 |
41.87 a |
7.01 |
39.74 |
5.51 |
|
Time to complete incongruent Stroop task |
41.49 b c |
5.74 |
47.27 b |
7.05 |
47.49 c |
5.98 |
|
Time to complete XXXX Stroop task |
34.12 |
5.48 |
37.68 |
8.55 |
35.81 |
5.04 |
LSD test a a p<.01
LSD test b b p<.05
LSD test c c p<.05
Frequent lucid dreamers were significantly faster than non-lucid dreamers on the incongruent task but were only marginally faster than non-lucid dreamers on the congruent task (p=.06), both groups were comparable on the XXXX control task.
Conclusion
We have replicated the previous finding that frequent lucid dreamers are faster on the incongruent Stroop task than are non-lucid dreamers. However, lucid dreamers were marginally faster than non-lucid dreamers on the congruent Stroop task, although they did not differ on the XXXX version.
The present results give some support to the hypothesis that lucid dreamers are better able to focus their attention when awake than are non-lucid dreamers. This would accord with the continuity hypothesis, there being an association of lucid dreaming with cognitive style when awake. However, a cautious interpretation of the current results is that the main difference between lucid dreamers and non-lucid dreamers is in general reaction time.
Such an interpretation would accord with the finding of Blagrove & Hartnell (2000), that lucid dreamers have a higher need for cognition than do non-lucid dreamers. It is arguable whether this simpler reaction time explanation for the Stroop results is more, or less theoretically interesting than is the attentional interpretation.
References
Blagrove, M., & Hartnell, S. J. (2000). Lucid dreaming: associations with internal locus of control, need for cognition and creativity. Personality and individual differences, 28, 41-47.
Cox, W. M., Fadardi, J. S., & Pothos, E. M. (2006). The addiction-Stroop test: Theoretical considerations and procedural recommendations. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 443-476.
Wilkerson, A. & Blagrove, M. (2008). Associations of lucid dreaming frequency with attentional ability and extraversion. Paper presented at the 2008 conference of IASD, Montreal, Canada.
Greg Bogart, Ph.D, MFT
Animal Symbolism in Therapeutic Dreamwork
This presentation describes a series of case examples of therapeutic dreamwork featuring animal symbolism as a central healing factor. In one example, a series of animal dreams (wild horses, camels, snakes, buffalo) aided a man grappling with sexually compulsive behaviors and difficulties sustaining a committed relationship. Another example illustrates how a dream of a ram and a pregnant horse helped a woman suffering from depression and emotional changes related to parenting. Other examples discuss the dream symbolism of dinosaurs, pigs, rabbits, cats, bears, and lions.
Greg Bogart, PhD, MFT
Exploring the Dream Mandala
The Dream Mandala is a diagrammatic representation of the dream as a circular drawing. It allows us to map out the contrasting characters, scenes, or feelings within a dream, depicting the paired opposites that constitute the conflict and tension of that moment. It is a means to unify opposing forces within us.
The feeling of intensified psychic energy resulting from the construction of a dream mandala becomes a catalytic force in our personal evolution. In this workshop you will learn to practice this method with your own dreams, and the dreams of clients and loved ones. After introducing the philosophical basis of the dream mandala in the writings of C.G. Jung, the presenter will lead you through the process of creating the dream mandala as a means to contain and intensify the feelings and energies evoked by the dream so they are harnessed for intentional change. By taking this workshop you will gain a deeper understanding of one of your own dreams and have the opportunity to share your insights with the group. Please bring pens, pencils, and paper.
Nicholas E. Brink, PhD
Quantum Dreaming: The Dream's Place in the Universe
Scientific thinking has taken a turn over the last thirty to fifty years. Two writers who have chronicled this change in thinking have been the German philosopher-historian Jean Gebser (1949) and the physicist Fritjof Capra (1975). This new thinking or way of consciousness provides a more central place for dreams in understanding life and the universe. I will first summarize the thinking of Gebser and Capra, two writers whose books I have reviewed for the journal Imagination, Cognition and Personality over this last year. Then I will seek to show how dreaming fits into this thinking before pushing limits to describe where I think dreaming can go.
Gebser attributes these changes in thinking or consciousness to the mutation of consciousness while Capra attributes them to the need to finds 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 for 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 in Sonoma. Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman identified several dozen postures from ancient and primitive art that she believed were used by shamans. She had individuals stand, sit or lie 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.
Nicholas Brink, PhD
Dreaming Postures: A Replication of Felicitas Goodman's Life Work
Felicitas Goodman spent many years as an anthropologist studying the body postures found in ancient and primitive art and contemporary shamanic practices of healing. She identified several dozen postures that she had found produce specific dream experiences. As 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 fifteen minutes, timed by as long as she shook her rattle. Using this time frame and sharing dream experiences, one posture can be experienced in an hour. The four-day morning dream group will allow for experiencing four postures.
Jean Campbell, MA
DreamWork/BodyWork Workshop
DreamWork/BodyWork is a bioenergetic approach to the interpretation and understanding of personal dreams, developed by Jean Campbell after eight years of study of Energetic Metatherapy, in which she is certified. Jean Campbell has been conducting dream groups and dream studies since 1973.
Participants in this workshop will be asked to move and feel themselves in their selected dreams. After an initial warm up exercise involving selection of a dream character and movement with music, participants may be asked to work individually or in pairs to process dreams through movement, breath work, dance and other body-oriented exercises.
After each exercise, time will be allowed for discussion of the exercise and feelings which may come up about the dreams. Approximately one third of the workshop will be discussion and explanation of the techniques involved in DreamWork/BodyWork. A paper, presented at the 2000 IASD conference on DreamWork/BodyWork is available online at; www.imageproject.org/dreamworkbodyworkpaper.htm
Participants should wear comfortable clothing to this workshop.
Jean Campbell, MA
Listening to the Earth Dreaming
Presenters: Jean Campbell, Jody Grundy, Wendy Pannier, Valley Reed, Teresa MacColl
Five of IASD's leading experts in the area of listening deeply to dreams of the Earth and its creatures will present this panel, telling of their adventures with Earth Dreaming. Jean Campbell, Jody Grundy, Wendy Pannier, Valley Reed and Teresa MacColl report on a series of widely divergent dreams and experiences, all developing from the same perspective: that it is possible, as our ancestors of all cultures have taught us, to hear the Earth's messages and act on the Earth's advice, through listening to our dreams.
In Dreams of A-Bun-Dance panel Chair Jean Campbell will talk about the creation of wealth from taking lessons from dreams. She and other members of the World Dreams Peace Bridge have shared over $50,000 in the past five years with children traumatized by living in wartime conditions.
From a life mission dreamed at age twenty-one through a key Golden Era Seeds dream which directed her later-life work of cultivating and transmitting heritage seed forms, key Earth dreams have shaped panelist Jody Grundy's life vocation. This presentation will show how vocation emerges from deep listening to Earth dreaming over a life span.
Valley Reed will present the World Tree as it appears in myth and culture, while presenting her own dreams which have brought her closer to the core of collective dreams. She will discuss the role of shamanic experience of sacrificing self in order to experience the collective Earth consciousness.
For panelist Wendy Pannier, Dream imagery that has healing potential in our lives can also have healing potential for the planet, as dreams have many layers of meaning, often having cultural as well as personal implications. Wendy will explore how we can take the imagery from dreams and put this into constructive action for ourselves and the Earth.
And finally, Teresa MacColl's title, Dreaming the Otherworld, Dreaming the Sidhe, says it all when it comes to the beliefs of this adjunct faculty member at Naropa Institute's Indigenous Mind Program. We are far from being the only inhabitants of a joyful, wonder-full planet, whether awake or in dreams.
Neil J. Canavan, LCSW
Dreams of Descent and Renewal
Many earth-bound processes reflect the cycle of death and rejuvenation. The mythic realities that underscore dreams of descent and renewal contain the very blueprints of what we experience in our own individual lives. Dreams regularly reference earthbound qualities either through tasks to be accomplished or resources to be found and used. Dreams of descent and renewal will be presented in three distinct phases.
The first phase will contain dreams that indicate a threat of the loss to the personal Temenos. Temenos is a Greek word that means the area surrounding a sacred area. A personal Temenos is descriptive term referring to all that constitutes an individual's life.
The second phase happens when the initiate bears the confusion, despair and sorrow felt by the loss or partial loss of what has constituted a personal Temenos. During this time dream images of containment and protection reflect the archetypal Temenos acting as a temporary carrier for consciousness. The archetype of the Temenos serves as an essential concept in understanding how consciousness is carried by the dreamer during periods of loss, change and transition. This is especially true when outcomes are unclear and undefined or even when death is anticipated. This phase includes a range of tasks, wonderings, and incubations.
The third phase includes dreams about the reconstitution of a new or renewed personal Temenos. These dreams reveal the transformative state that occurs when change and renewal has occurred.
The mythic story of Psyche and Cupid describes a journey that includes descent, containment and isolation, tasks accomplished, a second descent and a resulting sacred marriage. This myth will be used to assist in understanding the dreams presented.
The presentation will include a discussion of what constitutes a personal Temenos. What range of conditions or events causes a descent? How could the dark side of this archetype be reflected in individual's life? How does one identify the tasks associated with descent? What changes indicate an ascent and mark a shift in seeing life differently? What conditions prevent a reconstitution of a personal Temenos? The outcomes are manifested when the personal Temenos is renewed or reconstituted.
Arianna Cecconi, PhD
Dreams come from outside:" An ethnography of the night in the Peruvian Andes
The paper I am presenting here is the result of two years of ethnographic fieldwork (from 2004 to 2006) in the rural area of Ayacucho, in the Peruvian Andes. The central focus of this research is the analysis of the value and social use of dreams in two rural and bilingual communities (Quechua-Spanish).
In my research I explored the importance of the dreaming dimension, the links between dream and action, the prophetic power ascribed to dream experience and the political consequences of the social narration of dreams. During the 80s and 90s the region of Ayacucho had been the theatre of an armed conflict between the leftist Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Peruvian army. Therefore the dreaming dimension has been colonized by the war; this is way the research focuses on the relation between dreams, war, memory and trauma. Parents who were desaparecidos during the war are still present in the dreams of the campesinos, in some cases increasing surviving parents' anguish, in other cases helping them in the delicate process of mourning. Some dreams act in a very performative way on the bodies of dreamers by engendering forms of illness or recovery, or sometimes dreams can help to forget.
In this context, the expression to dream can also be related to visionary and imaginative practices experienced while being awake. Even these kinds of dreams are recognized as legitimate forms of knowledge that are able to act on reality. Through the oneiric activity I analyzed some experiences of life and some practices linked to Andean religiosity , especially the Divinity of the Mountain (Apu) who plays a very crucial role in the lives of these communities. I considered the different characters in which Apu appears in the dreams (such as a condor, a bull, a gringo - the white man - a military man) as icons useful for the analysis of the social and historical context in which the dreams are produced.
Approaching the experience of dreams enabled me to explore the ambiguity of the boundaries between the categories of body and soul, between interiority and exteriority, between individuality and collectivity, and to analyse the circular nature which is often established between narrations of dreams and myths, ritual practices and historical and social events.
Laurel Clark, DM, DD, PsiD
The Law of Attraction: The Art and Science of Dream Incubation
Dream incubation is a well-known tool. People incubate dreams for specific purposes: lucidity, visiting the deceased, mutual dreaming, past life recall, healing, guidance in relationships, scientific discoveries, inventions, or artistic inspiration. Sometimes dreamers report that the harder they try to incubate a dream, the less it seems to work. By learning how dream incubation works, dreamers can develop greater mastery of the process.
What causes dream incubation to work? Visualization! Visualization is a step-by-step process of communication between the conscious, waking mind and the subconscious mind where dreaming occurs. The specific steps can be identified, understood, practiced and taught. When dreamers apply this art to dream incubation, with practice they become more effective at incubating questions and receiving the answers they seek from their dreams.
This presentation describes the difference between the metaphysical definition of the mind and the physical brain. The thinker, or dreamer, is like a computer operator with the physical brain being like the computer. The mind involves the whole Self; in this context, the mind includes the spirit, soul, intuition, reasoning, emotions, and conscious ego. The physical brain is the organ that processes information received through the physical senses and the mental attention. The physical brain and senses are necessary for creating clearly visualized images. The clearer the thinker (or dreamer) can be when defining and imaging a dream-question or dream-incubation, the more clear is the resulting dream-response.
The conscious mind and subconscious mind have specific duties and purposes. The conscious mind's power is reasoning and the subconscious mind's power is intuition. The step-by-step process of visualization can be described as a relationship between these two divisions of mind.
The conscious mind's duty is to create a clear mental image of the desire (for example, visiting a deceased loved one, solving a scientific problem, meeting a soul-mate). The subconscious mind's duty is to fulfill the conscious mind's desires. The Law of Attraction functions in physical, waking reality by attracting people and conditions that match our visualized desires. This law also operates when we sleep. The subconscious mind responds to the conscious desires with a dream message. The conscious mind's response is then to receive the dream, remember and record it, and act on the message.
To effectively incubate dreams involves creating clear, specific images in the conscious mind to ask for what is desired. It also requires developing conscious receptivity to remember and record the dreams. In this presentation, specific methods for visualizing the dream-desire and for receiving and recording the answer will be described.
When the conscious mind visualizes a desire, it is like planting a seed in the fertile soil of the subconscious mind. A visual diagram of the mind will be presented, showing this process of planting the seed-idea of desire, how it develops in the inner, subconscious mind, and then how the conscious mind receives it upon awakening. This visual diagram clarifies the process of dream incubation.
Laurel Clark, DM, DD, PsiD
Intuitive Dreaming 2009
Dreams can give us intuitive insight beyond the scope of the waking brain. This paper presents some precognitive dreams that enabled the author to be a healing presence for her husband as he struggled with life-threatening illness, and a visitation dream offering a healing message for humanity after 9/11/2001.
In our modern society, many people live separated from one another. Rather than connecting face-to-face, people rely on computers and cell phones to communicate. Although it gives us the illusion of connection, in truth, many people are lonely and afraid, feeling disconnected from one another and from their own inner source.
Dreams offer us a different kind of reality. In dreams, we can visit with those who have passed on to the other side. We can meet friends who live in other places. We can experience mental telepathy and precognition. Dreams give us intuitive insight, offering knowledge and wisdom that is beyond the scope of the conscious mind.
Precognitive dreams, visitation dreams, and telepathic dreams awaken us to the reality of existence beyond the physical body. It is one thing to believe that there is an afterlife; it is another to taste the experience. People who have had near death experiences report a sense of peace, comfort and bliss, absence of pain, and a feeling of compassionate love on the other side. People who experience dream visitations from deceased loved ones report similar feelings.
Through dream states, we can aid one another and communicate with one another in ways beyond the reach of our (sometimes limited) conscious mind and brain. People who are aware of these psi dreams experience the profound realization that there is much more to us than we can see, touch, taste, feel, and hear with our physical senses.
This paper reports some of the intuitive dreams I have had, and how they enabled me to help others, to relieve fears, and to be prepared for events that would have otherwise been shocking to my conscious mind. The presentation will describe the dreaming experience as defined by metaphysics, showing a diagram of the mind that illustrates the spirit, soul, and physical self. It will explain the terms superconscious, subconscious, and conscious mind.
In metaphysics, the subconscious mind is the place where dreaming occurs. This is also the realm of mutual dreaming, telepathy, precognition, and other intuitive experiences. The conscious mind is where reasoning occurs. Conscious attention, memory, imagination, and thought are the realm of the conscious mind.
How do we know when a dream is purely symbolic and when it is one of these direct intuitive experiences? The best answer I can give is: experience. By paying attention to dreams on a daily basis and keeping a dream journal, we have a record of the precognitions (dreaming of events which later happen.) We become aware of the dream experience itself. Most people report precognitive, telepathic, and visitation dreams as feeling very real. The people, places, and events match what occurs in the outer, waking life. Most people awaken from these dreams with the sense that something profound occurred in the dream.
This presentation describes the metaphysical perspective of how dreaming occurs and explain what intuition is. It shows why paying attention to these intuitive messages can aid us personally and collectively.
Rose Cleary, PhD
Dreaming and the Dead
The time must come when we no longer alienate ourselves from the dead, for it is our alienation that prevents them from spiritualizing the physical world.
Rudolf Steiner, 1917
Having contemplated the experience, written a dissertation, published articles and taught courses on death, dying and bereavement over the years while simultaneously studying Jungian and Archetypal psychology the points of connection seemed in place, well polished, and ready to receive the powerful jolt that came with my first encounter with Rudolf Steiner's talks and meditations on staying connected with the dead (1999). It was as if an arc of lightning flashed through my dream that night, transporting me into the highly pleasurable experience of dancing around a golden tree-trunk, the crotch of each branching, a center of exceptional pulsating energy. The dream recalls Jung's underground phallus though in this version feminized and brought up into the lobby of a hotel, a place of public communal gathering.
As if speaking from different sides of the great divide, Steiner's meditations seem to answer the call from bereavement scholars challenging the modernist notion that the purpose of grief is to sever the bonds between the living and the dead. Instead, researchers see survivors resolving their grief by finding ways of staying connected with the deceased. For example, Normand, Silverman, and Nickman conclude their study of the changing relationships with the deceased by observing, clearly, the world of the dead is not so remote from the world of the living. & Since grief has no end, then likewise parents become immortal within the hearts and minds of their bereaved children, not only as memories, but as witnesses and as guides for the living (1996, p. 110).
I explore Steiner's thoughts on being alienated from the dead and describe his view on how dreaming helps to heal that estrangement. My method is to illuminate Steiner's views by comparing them with those of Carl Jung and James Hillman: In what ways does Steiner's call for connecting with the dead echo Jung's discovery of a psyche peopled by ancestors? James Hillman sees dreams as a one way movement into the dark (1979, p.1). He casts all interpretation of dreams in relation with soul and soul with death, equating his depth psychological perspective with the perspective of death. I compare Hillman's views on dreaming to Steiner's notion that dreams are like surrogate clairvoyance (1999, p. 73)
References
Hillman, J. (1979). The dream and the underworld. New York: Harper & Row.
Klass, D., Silverman, P., & Nickman, S. (1996). Continuing bonds. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis Publishers.
Steiner, R. (1999). Staying Connected: Selected talks & meditations. Christopher Bamford, ed. New York: Anthroposophic Press.
Barbara Condron, DM, DD, BJ
Emotion in Dreams: The Power of Fear
His Holiness the Dalai Lama says fear performs a function in our lives when we are in the presence of a threat. He also recognizes its ability to distort the mind. In the Gift of Fear, author Gavin De Becker teaches how to protect ourselves from violence and live without fear by listening to our instincts. Researchers from Freud to University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Aaron Beck have explored the purpose of fear in our minds and dreamstates. J. Allan Hobson, a leading investigator of dreaming and the brain, says anxiety is the most common feeling in dreams.
The impact of fear in our dreams has a powerful influence on dream recall. In over 1000 dreams received from people worldwide during 2008, approximately 80% included a fear factor, with the majority being described by dreamers as a nightmare. In each case, the emotion arising out of fear sealed the memory of the dream. The information in this presentation comes from multi-nation research conducted by the Global Lucid Dreaming Experiment (GLiDE) researchers at the College of Metaphysics in the U.S. and outlines three phenomena linked to fear and anxiety in dreams.
First, the four most common sources of anxiety for dreamers are reported. Death or murder ranks as #1 in this study. #2 Media images of life-threatening situations intruding into dreams, e.g. buried alive or other forms of torture. #3 The unexpected occurring in a dream, e.g. feeling lost or out of control. #4 Animals, particularly snakes. Case study examples of each will be discussed with steps taken to understand and reconcile the impact of the dream thereby turning it into a useful device for understanding mind patterns.
A second fear factor is a repeated description by many dreamers of a dark, shadowy figure that seems to cover, even suffocate, the dreamer. Some dreamers report temporary paralysis and all consider this a nightmare though many realize this is not a dream experience. The metaphysical implications of this phenomenon and a means to use breathing as a remedy will be discussed.
A third phenomenon arising in this research involves the dreamer's gender. The percent of respondents, approximately 70% female/30% male, proposes a connection between emotion and increased dream recall by females. This is consistent with studies conducted by researchers at the College of Metaphysics through coursework and over the internet with a global audience for the past decade. Research indicates a proclivity for emotional connection in females that may encourage dream recall. Differences between how the female mind and the male mind are structured will be proposed as well as linking concepts of anima/animus to gender confusion or shifting in dreams. The high incidence of betrayal appearing in dreams is shown to be a more emotional/mental presence in some fear-based dreams.
Fear will be presented as a means to draw the dreamer's attention to an area of thinking where the imagination can be harnessed to create fulfillment in the dreamer's waking life. Concentration, breathing, and visualization are explained as means to realize the power in fear and effect change. As Freud noted a century ago, dream content can be aimed to relieve the emotions and trials of everyday life, thus healing and benefiting the psyche.
Barbara Condron, DM, DD, BJ, project director for GLiDE
The Global View 2008: The Subconscious View of Life on Planet Earth
What do our dreams reveal about the consciousness of the human species? Responding to this query is the aim of the Global Lucid Dreaming Experiments (GLiDE) conducted by researchers at the College of Metaphysics in the United States. The premise of these experiments is that lucid dreaming is a universal experience for hHomo sapiens. The experiment enables a forum to prove that lucid dreaming occurs around the world across cultures, religions, races, ages, and nationalities.
By drawing on the resources of dreamschool.org, the dreams of people around the world are catalogued daily. This presentation zeroes in on a particular segment of the 2008 dreams. GLiDE 2008 produced a significant amount of data offering a global view of dream content and dream states. Among the 200 participants included in the moon experiments January 22 through March 7, twenty-four dreamers live outside the United States.
What did US dreamers dream? What did dreamers outside the US recall? By pairing these 24 participants with a sampling of U.S. participants who closely mirror the sex, occupation, and level of dream acumen, dream similarities and differences were studied. Dreamers range in age from 21 to 73, with an average age of 46. Slightly more than half are or have been married, with about 65% with children. The dreamers come from a broad spectrum of human life including a biologist, nurses, a restaurateur, artist, teacher, housewife, television programmer, storekeeper, psychotherapist, among others. One hundred and eight dreams were recorded and submitted, giving a subconscious snapshot of the inner consciousness of the people on the planet.
This study indicates the current state of awareness of those interested in dreams. How much of a factor is past history on these dreamers' present dream recall? Tracking the level of dreaming from rare recall to frequent lucid dreams, the percent who record their dreams, and the age of their first-remembered lucid dream, offers indications that dream access begins early and can improve with experience. Higher educational levels and professionalism appear as tendencies toward greater lucidity and active desire for dream recall.
From the Scottish financial advisor who notes how conscious knowledge of actor Heath Ledger's death and participation in the moon's affect on dreams GLiDE led to death and the moon in her dreams, to the civil servant from Bermuda who rarely remembers dreams and questions the unconscious decision making in dreams that does not mirror the person's conscious decision making or morals, these dreams provide a unique subconscious view of life on planet Earth in 2008 that can now arise from the collective unconscious.
Daniel Condron, DM, DD, MS
Extraordinary, PSI, and Repetitive Dreams
Repetitive dreams have been known throughout history and into the present. President Abraham Lincoln ascribed powerful meanings in his dreams. One of his recurring dreams in particular he considered foretelling and a sign of major events soon to occur. He had this dream the night before his assassination.
On the morning of that lamentable day, President Lincoln was discussing matters of the war with General Grant during a cabinet meeting and believed that big news from General Sherman on the front would soon arrive. When Grant asked why he thought so, Lincoln responded: I had a dream last night; and ever since this war began I have had the same dream just before every event of great national importance. It portends some important event that will happen very soon.
Is it possible to predict the outcome of events in our lives based on repetitive and recurring dreams? Forty years of studying thousands of dreams from hundreds of dreamers, at the School of Metaphysics and in private consultation, indicate repetitive dreams move towards a climax. Three common repetitive dreams, each with a different theme, will be examined. These themes are (1) being in school long after the dreamer graduated, (2) being in houses that keep changing, and (3) a deceased person who is alive in the dream.
Three main areas will be investigated in this presentation.
1. The beginning of repetitive dreams and possible causes.
2. The continuation of a dream for more than one night and the theme of the dream.
3. The conclusion of the series of repetitive dreams.
Do repetitive dreams reach a conclusion? The answer is, surprisingly, sometimes. Dreams reach a conclusion when the dreamer understands the message. Is the message in the dream resolved? The answer is, sometimes. Dreams are resolved when the dreamer understands the message and resolves to be different. Does the dreamer and the dreamer's life change as a result of or concurrent with the conclusion or final in a series of repetitive dreams? Yes, repetitive dreams reach a conclusion because the dreamer's own consciousness and awareness have solved, understood, or transformed the limitation, habit, fear, or doubt.
We explore the commonalities that exist in how this happens by drawing on the dream experiences of famous and not-so-famous people. Consider the case of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the great scientist and mystic from Sweden, who was born in 1688. During the years 1743 to 1744, he kept a journal of his dreams. A recurring theme is the women in his dreams. In Swedenborg's final dream in this series, he reaches a point of understanding. Wilson Van Dussen in his commentary on the journal describes it in this way:
He is addressing the women who had appeared variously in the journal. He knows what they are now. They are the feminine aspects of life and religion.
This indicates Swedenborg gained resolution with his repetitive dreams.
Repetitive and recurring dreams will be presented as a way to relieve anxiety of the unknown and arrive at meaningful answers. The process of drawing the dream sequence to a successful conclusion will be explored.
Richard Coutts
An animated introduction to the theory of emotional selection
The theory of emotional selection is comprehensively described in the April 2008 edition of Psychological Reports. This presentation introduces the theory in the brief, approachable form of an educational and entertaining animation.
The theory of emotional selection describes a process that 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 process would monitor emotions generated during these latter dream tests. If prior, tentative modifications alleviate anxiety, frustration, sadness, or in other ways appear emotionally adaptive they would be selected for retention. Those modifications that compare negatively to existing, unchanged schemas would be abandoned or further modified and tested.
Schemas are both crucial for evolutionary success and riddled with conflict. 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.
2009 Conference Contacts
Conference Host: Jacquie Lewis
Program Chair: Curt HoffmanOffice E-Mail (registration questions) - office@asdreams.org
Telephone 1-209-724-0889
Mailing address - IASD, 1672 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703