 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Age group |
Studies |
Sample size |
Females/Males |
Estimated effect size |
|
Children (£ 10 yrs.) |
29 |
42119 |
20829/21290 |
0.031 |
|
Adolescents (10< x < 18 yrs.) |
20 |
35333 |
19269/16064 |
0.219 |
|
Young adults (18£ x < 30 yrs.) |
43 |
40247 |
24279/15968 |
0.266 |
|
Middle-aged adults (30£ x < 60 yrs.) |
19 |
61174 |
33852/27322 |
0.147 |
|
Older adults (³ 60 yrs.) |
8 |
8351 |
5095/3256 |
0.095 |
The study clearly demonstrated a gender difference in three age groups. Levin and Nielsen (2007) enumerated five factors which might explain this gender difference: (1) tendency in women to report distressing events more often, (2) more risk factors present in women like sexual abuse, insomnia, depression, (3) risk factors which explain the gender difference in depression like low instrumentality, (4) different coping styles like emotion-focused coping, and (5) biological differences in emotional brain processes. Research linking one of these factors directly to the gender difference in nightmare frequency, however, is completely lacking.
References
Levin, R., & Nielsen, T. A. (2007). Disturbed dreaming, posttraumatic stress disorder, and affect distress: a review and neurocognitive model. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 482-528.
Schredl, M., & Reinhard, I. (2008). Gender differences in dream recall: a meta-analysis. Journal of Sleep Research, 17, 125-131.
Richard Schweickert, PhD; Zhuangzhuang Xi, BS, BA; Hye Joo Han, MS
Tutorial on Computer Analysis of Social Networks of Characters in Dreams
Analysis of a single dream often gives insight into a relationship. But just as relations between friends in waking life combine to form the larger structure of a social network, a social network of characters emerges in the dreams of an individual over a few years. As in waking life, different people have different roles. Some people are central, some people form the only contact between two groups, and so on. The overall structure is too complicated to discern by reading dreams one at a time; systematic analysis of an entire series of dreams is needed. Fortunately, free software can be downloaded from the World Wide Web for social network analysis.
Presenters will demonstrate and provide hands on experience for three things: (a) using the Schneider and Domhoff DreamBank website as a source of dream reports, (b) coding characters with the Hall-Van de Castle system, and (c) social network analysis using software from the web. Participants will gain experience in coding their dreams, or dreams from DreamBank. Presenters will show how to format the coding for the social network software. Participants will learn how to use the software to draw the social network for a dream series, and to calculate and interpret statistics describing the network.
Approximately equal time will be devoted to demonstrations by presenters and computer use by participants. Questions and discussion will be encouraged throughout. Computers will be provided, but to ensure there are enough participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops.
Monique Séguin
Dreams for the Great Crossing Over
Monique Séguin is working as a nursing assistant full time since 2002, at the West Island Palliative Care, Kirkland, Québec. She learned to use her dreams for herself several years ago, attending different workshops with Nicole Gratton from l’Ecole de Rêves, Montréal, Canada. When she started to work in palliative care, she started to wonder if patients at the end of life had special dreams. The philosophy of palliative care is that we should have an approach that covers physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects. Mlle. Séguin asked patients if they were dreaming, and what dreams were like at the end of life. She soon realised that patients have dreams close to what they were going through, and learned dream scenarios that offer guidance to patients, family and caregivers.
In this presentation we will see where the patient is in the “Here and Now.’’ Since dreams don’t lie, the patient is giving us the right time. When a patient is able to recall a dream, it’s a gift. We have to realize that that we may have the privilege of witnessing to their final gift.
Alan Siegel, PhD
Cultural Issues in Understanding and Working with Dreams
Exploring dreams in psychotherapy can transcend cultural barriers, build rapport in therapy and provide a vehicle for exploring sensitive issues related to acculturation, cultural identity, biculturalism and bilingualism, and discrimination of individuals who are minorities in a culture. This workshop is geared to psychotherapists but open to all, and will provide clinical practice guidelines for dreamwork with individuals whose cultural, religious, or other beliefs are different than the therapist’s.
Concepts and findings from anthropology such as culture pattern dreams, journey dreams, the Dream Time of the Australian Aborigines and other examples will be used to illustrate unique ways of understanding and interpreting dreams. Relevant concepts from the dream work and psychotherapy literature will be presented to provide a basis for introducing ethical practice guidelines for working with cultural dimensions of dreams.
Principles for introducing and working with dreams in therapy will be reviewed with a special focus on sensitivity to cultural issues. These include clarifying the dreamer’s cultural identity and cultural beliefs about the meaning and interpretation of dreams with a special focus on nightmares, big dreams, and PSI and metaphysically oriented dreams.
Vignettes for participant discussion will be presented from existing literature and from the presenter’s clinical experience. Vignettes will be solicited from participants during discussions and exercises to make the workshop more relevant to the needs of the participants.
Issues to be explored include interpretive versus non-interpretive models, how clarification of one’s own cultural beliefs and interpretive philosophy is crucial and how the IASD Ethics Statement addresses issues of cultural sensitivity in dreamwork.
G. Scott Sparrow, EdD, LPC, LMFT
Middle-of-the-Night Meditation and Dream Reliving: A Powerful Catalyst to Spiritual Awakening and Healing
Rumi once wrote, "What nine months does for the embryo, forty early mornings will do for your growing awareness." In a similar vein, the practice of middle-of-the-night meditation (MNM) was recommended by Edgar Cayce, in one of his clairvoyant readings, as a way to experience "a peace you're never known." While Cayce made no reference to the impact of this practice on subsequent dreams, I engaged in an intensive practice of MNM––first as a college student almost forty years ago and continuously since then––and have discovered that the dreams that follow these meditation periods are often characterized by greater dreamer reflectiveness, the presence of Light, and encounters with embodiments of higher power. Indeed, the publication of Lucid Dreaming: Dawning of the Clear Light in 1976, and two subsequent works on religious experience, were direct outgrowths of MNM––a practice that I believe has been the principal catalyst for my lucid dreams, experiences of light, and my encounters with embodiments of higher power.
While no systematic research has been conducted on the effects of MNM on subsequent dreams, meditation research has ascertained that the effects of meditation on the brain correspond to the phenomenology of dreaming that immediately follows MNM. Tibetan texts also provide a perspective that helps us to understand the psycho-spiritual processes at work when one juxtaposes meditation with subsequent dream periods. While Tibetan texts make distinctions between meditation as a "formless path" from dream yoga as a "path of form," it is easy to see how, once again, the juxtaposition of the two "paths" serves to enhance one's spiritual unfoldment and healing.
The addition of "dream reliving" to a regimen of MNM seems to further enhance the dreamer's ability to experience greater reflectivity, to confront recurrent problematic issues that have arisen in previous dreams, and then to experience light and ecstasy on the heels of profound conflict resolution.
In my presentation, I will present an array of anecdotal accounts from my own journals and the lives of several other people, review the meditation research that supports the apparent effect of meditation on the dream state, introduce a perspective based on Tibetan texts that accounts for the effects of MNM, and lay out a practical regimen that combines MNM with a simple pre-sleep exercise called Dream Reliving as a way to foster psychological integration, enhanced dreamer awareness and resilience, and intense mystical experiences.
Bonnelle Lewis Strickling, MA, PhD, RCC
Jung, Jaspers, The Transcendent Function and Dreams
In his book The Transcendent Function (SUNY, 2004), Jeffrey C. Miller argues that Jung describes the transcendent function in several ways which can be reduced to two: the “narrow” transcendent function, which unites the opposites of conscious and unconscious, and the “expansive” transcendent function, which is a much broader use and is, as Miller says, “Jung’s root metaphor for psyche itself and is the wellspring from which flowed much of the rest of Jung’s imaginal, depth psychology.” (Miller, p. 78)
In my book Dreaming about the Divine (SUNY, 2007), I argue there is a connection between the Jungian notion of individuation and Karl Jaspers’ concept of Existenzhellerung, the elucidation of Existenz. It is my view that Jaspers and Jung are natural philosophical partners. Though Jaspers did not care for Jung’s treatment of some aspects of myth, their ways of looking at life as developmental, as essentially a struggle to not live on the surface and to deepen, and to stay in process are very similar. Jaspers believed that we are forever unfinished, forever unknowable, and that we are forever in the process of elucidation, of discovering ourselves through the exercise of our freedom. However, just how that takes place outside of the exploration of the boundary situations and the exploration of ciphers (Jaspers’ way of talking about symbols) Jaspers describes is not entirely clear.
I believe an application of the notion of both the narrow and broad notions of the transcendent function to Jaspers’ views could go some way towards explaining how the elucidation of Existenz takes place. Literally, in terms of language, the elucidation of Existenz involves something being brought to light. It is ourselves we are both creating and discovering through this elucidation, and the transcendent function, both through uniting the opposites of conscious and unconscious and, as Miller says, “through the fundamental psychic activity of interacting through the unknown or ‘other’” (Miller, p. 79) is the process that allows us to accomplish this. I believe it is important and useful to connect Jung and Jaspers because it emphasizes psychic life as a lived whole, the imaginal life as the ongoing elucidation of Existenz.
In this paper, I discuss this theory in greater detail, and also show how this takes place through a series of a client’s dreams about the divine in several forms.
Gunnar Sundström, MA
The Montague Ullman Approach of Working with Dreams in a Group Setting: A Workshop.
A workshop will be presented where ten persons can join and work with a dream in the way outlined by Montague Ullman. The Montague Ullman method of working with dreams in a group setting can be described as a four-step-process in a group of people gathered to share dreams with themselves and the others.
The work goes as follows:
I, One person, the dreamer, shares a dream with the group. The group listens to the dream as told and memorizes it.
II, The group pretends it is their dream, and: 1, identifies and connects to the emotions aroused in ’their’ dream; 2, The group members also search for metaphorical meanings of different parts, images, actions, etc., in the dream.
III A, The dream is given back to the dreamer who is free to give as much or as little response as he/she wants to.
III B 1, If the dreamer would like to, the group starts a dialogue with the dreamer around the dream, with the purpose of further connecting the dream with the dreamer’s life situation. The group asks the dreamer of recent whereabouts, thoughts and feelings experienced in the evening before the night when the dream was dreamt, and/or the days before.
III B 2, The dream can be read to the dreamer, who has the opportunity to make further connections in the light of what has been discovered during the process so far.
III B 3, If the dreamer wants, the group members can share their conclusions of the meaning of the dream, or parts of it in a so called ’orchestrating projection’.
IV, In a group which meets on a regular basis, a session starts with looking back on the session before, and the foregoing dreamer can share thoughts with the group that might have arisen since the last meeting.
Connie Svob, BA; Don Kuiken, PhD
Dream Remembering: Theory and Measurement
Literature on dream remembering has mainly focused on dream recall frequency (Blagrove & Akehurst; 2000, Schredl, 2008; Schredl & Reinhard, 2008; Schredl, 2007). Correlates of dream remembering frequency, such as personality traits (e.g., openness to experience) and biological states (e.g., REM sleep), have extended investigations of dream remembering and have pre-supposed a uni-dimensional theory of dream remembering that centers on frequency. By focusing on the frequency with which dreams are recalled, the specific details, nuances, and processes by which dreams are remembered have been overlooked. Nightmare research has differentiated between nightmare frequency and nightmare distress (Belicki, 1992; Levin & Nielsen, 2007), suggesting that the lived remembering of nightmares goes beyond mere recall of their recurrence. Similarly, research on lucid dreams (Gackenbach & LaBerge, 1988) and impactful dreams (Kuiken, Lee, Eng, & Singh, 2006; Kuiken & Nielsen, 1996; Kuiken, Busink, Dukewich, & Gendlin, 1996; Kuiken, 1995; Kuiken & Sikora, 1993) have shown that dreams, as remembered, contain the power to influence self-perceptual shifts, spiritual revitalization, etc., in ways that do not seem reducible to mere recall. However, very little research (e.g., Schredl et al., 2003) has explored the specific ways dreams are remembered, and how they may follow the dreamer into waking consciousness. The question remains: In what ways and in what forms do dreams continue to be remembered days, weeks, and even years later?
To investigate the phenomenon of dream remembering beyond frequency per se, we designed a new questionnaire to measure and explore the dimensionality of dream remembering. We anticipated that a uni-dimensional model of dream remembering would be insufficient to reflect the concept of dream remembering. Rather, we expected that a multi-dimensional model would more accurately depict the different forms of dream remembering. In an initial study, we administered a dream remembering questionnaire to 512 participants. Using exploratory factor analysis (Principal Components, Varimax rotation), we identified nine dimensions of dream remembering. The nine-factor model includes the following dimensions: (1) vivid dream revisualization (including recall frequency), (2) affective and motivational carryover, (3) the frequency of disturbing dreams (e.g., nightmares), (4) liminal dream re-entry, (5) dream/reality blending, (6) cued daytime dream recall, (7) lingering sensory acuity, (8) persistent paralysis, and (9) dream recall consistency. Based on the findings of this study, we propose a theoretical shift that allows for the articulation of a multi-dimensional model of dream remembering.
Barbara Szmigielska, PhD
Parents' beliefs on children's and adolescents' dreams
The present study was designed to elicit parents’ interest and knowledge about their children’s dreams (both preschool children – mean age 4.11; and adolescents – mean age 15.2). The sample consisted of 240 parents (151 mothers and 89 fathers) who filled out a questionnaire designed for the present study. Participants were asked about frequency and spontaneity of their conversations about dreams with children, their opinions about usefulness of such conversations, properties of discussed dreams and factors influencing (in parents’ opinion) children’s dream content. Children’s sex and age were taken into account. Results are discussed in the light of previous research and literature on the determinants of dream content and dream sharing.
Michael Tappan MA, Irene Clurman
Dream Portrayal: Discovering Meaning by Playing the Part
This workshop is interactive and provides a method of staging portions of dreams so that the content of dreams and their meaning can be more easily understood and physically experienced. In this workshop, a dreamer describes a dream, and the dream’s landscape is clarified by questions and initially analyzed by other participants with the projective, “If this were my dream” format. The dream portrayal is then carried out when the dreamer identifies a particularly resonant, powerful or enigmatic part of the dream. The opportunity to re-enter the dream occurs when the dreamer sets the stage by choosing workshop participants to play various parts of the dream. It is always “dreamer’s choice” as to the level of involvement of the dreamer. The dreamer may choose to play himself or herself, direct from the sidelines, play a dream symbol or simply be an observer.
We bring to the workshop an array of objects including masks, hats and yards of colorful cloths and scarves to be used as props. We find that these materials are intuitively used to “flesh-out” the dream symbols, adding important information and fostering an imaginative understanding of the dream for the dreamer, the role-players, and the other workshop attendees. The dreamer will have the opportunity to play other parts of the dream, switch roles, or ask questions of the role-players. This enables the dreamer to experience the dream from an unfamiliar but often very meaningful perspective.
We find that the dream fragment has a life and power of its own. And though some dreamers report a sense of déjà vu as they initially set the scene of the dream, once the action begins there is a sense of physical involvement that pushes the dreamed scene into new (or newly recognized) emotional territory.
Marianne Tauber, PhD, LMFT
The Topic of Illness in Dreams: Physical and/or Symbolic Reality?
I met Anita Leuthold, from Switzerland, at the IASD conference in 2007. As we became more intimately acquainted, she took a keen interest in my late husband’s story (the Swiss surgeon, Jurg Tauber), so much so that she returned for an extended visit in the fall to learn more. With her particular focus on dreams foretelling illness, she read through his seamless series of dream journals (in my possession), dating from 1953 (age fifteen, encouraged by his parents’ involvement with C.G. Jung) to the moment of his first operation, in 1984. She presents her findings in the foregoing paper.
In my presentation, we examine the dreams my husband chronicled in the interval between the first and the second operation. Reading through his dream journals of that period is witnessing a profound struggle between (in Jungian terms) the ego and the Self. Filled with his sense of mission and an intense desire to pursue his career as a transplant surgeon, yet humbled and cautioned by the tumor and what he had experienced during the operation and recovery, Jurg sought to be guided by his dreams more than ever, observing a delicate balance between the literal and the symbolic. Not only did he record, paint, and carefully interpret every dream, he also danced them to a suitable music, involving me and often the whole family. Yet while he gained noticeable psychological gains, his body continued to suffer. His dreams (and his wife!) increasingly urged him to let go of professional ambitions and focus on healing the body. A year later, another MRI showed recurrent growth. After the diagnosis, Jurg wrote one sentence in his journal: “Now I understand!”
Anita and I plan on pooling our discussion time. Foremost is the question arising from the present material, as we walk the borderline between literal and symbolic interpretations: in the absence of a confirming medical diagnosis, how do we deal with dreams that point to illness? In more general terms, I would want to raise the following research inquiry: Considering Jung’s view of the psyche as comparable to the light spectrum, reaching from the infra-red (matter) to the ultra-violet (spirit) (Vol. 8, para. 343ff), what does this suggest about dreams concerning themselves literally with our physical body? Another question arises from the notion that dreamtime is different from waking, chronological time. If, indeed, as Einstein found, the distinction between past, present, and future is an illusion (see the two pertinent articles in Dreamtime, Fall 2008), what does this say about dreams that seem “precognitive,” or “prescient,” of illness?
Misa Tsuruta, MA
Pregnancy dreams: Between the Earth and the Sky
Many women get pregnant without even knowing so. Like death, it seems that we have least control over pregnancy and birth. Can we dream of birthing? How is our capacity to dream related to being pregnant and giving birth, literally and figuratively?
Ancient Greek men dreamed of having offspring without women. In their myth, babies were simply born from the seeds dropped on the Earth, like plants. Women, on the other hand, passed down this experience among women and from mother to daughter. The nature of pregnancy and childbirth that eludes verbal descriptions makes it an ideal theme for dreaming; if we have control over pregnancy and birth, without something like an ability to dream, pregnancy may not take place.
In 2004, at IASD conference in Berkeley, a woman in Jean Campbell’s morning group shared her dream in which she dropped her friend’s baby in a crack on the Earth. Subsequently in the group, we all became a baby. Perhaps that was the time when my baby was installed in my mind? A spiritual conception. A few years had passed; I had a dream where I was invited into a small room. There were a baby and a nurse in the first room, and in the second room my husband healed my injury from childbirth. Soon after this dream I conceived a real baby. During my pregnancy I had several dreams that involved my baby – mostly in animal forms, like a cat, a parrot, etc. The baby’s face is so anonymous and invisible during pregnancy, while her presence is literally taking over the mother’s body – at least part of it physically, but in its entirety systemically and emotionally. However, in one dream his face was visible through sonogram. Although I also had some name dreams, I ended up not using them. Instead, I gave my baby a “Sky” name.
It can be summarized that the whole process of conception and pregnancy occurred in an inner space that was half-conscious and half-unconscious: a “dream space,” so to speak.
Katja Valli, PhD
The Effects of Dream Bizarreness on Threat Simulation
Co-authors: Tero Tuominen, MA, Antti Revonsuo, PhD
The Threat Simulation Theory (TST) of dreaming proposes that the original biological function of dreaming, threat simulation, enhanced ancestral fitness because repeated nocturnal threat recognition and avoidance rehearsal led to higher survival rates and more abundant offspring. One main criticism toward TST is that dreams are so random, disjointed, and bizarre that realistic threat simulation cannot take place in dreams. For the first time, the following questions have now been empirically answered: How bizarre are threat simulations actually? Does dream bizarreness render the threat simulations more or less efficient rehearsals, or has bizarreness no effect at all?
Robert Van de Castle, PhD; Janice Baylis, PhD
Angels in Dreams: Do They Originate From Internal or External Sources?
Accounts of angelic or divine figures appear in all of the world’s major religions. Several national polls indicate that the vast majority of Americans believe in the existence of angels. A Google search conducted on December 12, 2008 on the word “angel” returned 14.9 million hits. This presentation will focus on the topic of angels and examine a collection of over 100 dreams that were obtained in response to a request for dream accounts involving angelic figures made through various internet requests and in response to a solicitation for such dreams that appeared on Dr. Van de Castle’s website, ourdreamingmind.com.
In attempting to analyze how such dreams differ from other classes of dreams it appeared that some seem to originate from ego states suggestive of the ISH concept (Internal Self Helper) that is reported in the literature on MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder). Some examples of such dreams will be presented and discussed by Dr. Van de Castle.
Dreams of angelic figures also seem to have distinguishing features in terms of the way such figures are described in dreams and in the types of activities that they engage in within the dream. The subsequent emotional state of the dreamer also seems to be markedly different from that described in dreams where the characters play more conventional social roles. Dr. Baylis will discuss examples of these types of dreams and how these features occupy a unique status in comparison to dreams where angelic figures are not described.
Robert Van de Castle, PhD
ESP and Dreams: Past, Present and Future Research
Throughout recorded history, dreams have always been accorded a special place of acknowledgment whenever accounts of psychic events are reviewed. In the Bible, Joseph’s insightful interpretations of the Pharaoh’s dreams played a prominent role in enabling this ruler to avert the disastrous consequences of the forthcoming plague. Dreams were so highly regarded two millennia ago that an itinerant Greek dream interpreter, Artemidorus, wrote a five-volume work describing how dreams could be consulted for information about forthcoming events.
Extensive reviews of alleged paranormal events, including dreams, were conducted by the British Society of Psychical Research in the late 19th century, and similar work by the American Society for Psychical Research was undertaken during the early 20th century. The most frequent content was that of death and serious injuries. The most frequent pattern of interaction involved a female who dreamed about a male character experiencing such misfortunes. Well-controlled experimental work documenting the existence of psychic dreams was conducted for many years at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn by Stanley Krippner and Montague Ullman in the 1970s.
Suggestions for future research, that would potentially help us to better understand some of the conditions which appear to facilitate psi functioning in dreams, are reviewed.
Geomagnetic factors, such as the presence or absence of sunspot activity, may play a role in psi receptivity. Recipients of organ transplants frequently report dreams reflecting salient features of their donor's lifestyle and personality characteristics. Comparing the dreams of identical twins, who enjoy the status of being identified as one half of a unique partnership, has been a very promising but neglected research area. Frequent lucid dreamers could be utilized to better understand what types of intentions or stimuli are needed to obtain more successful results in efforts to achieve mutual dreaming.
An impressive body of anecdotal material has accumulated to demonstrate that “dream helpers” who collectively offer to share their dream experiences can obtain a better understanding of an emotional conflict being experienced by a designated targeted dreamer.
A survey of recent ASD telepathy contests demonstrate that the psi process is a very fluid one and seems to involve elements of telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance. The resulting fusion of psychic inputs suggests that the final result is one of "group entanglement" and the connections do not appear to be of a “one-to-one” type of correspondence, but to a “one to a group” relationship or a “group to a single member” gestalt connection.
Deon van Zyl, PhD
Holographic Dreaming
In this presentation, case dreams as well as Freud’s and Jung’s “specimen” dreams will be used to illustrate how each separate image or activity within those dreams contains a dialectical dilemma within it, and how this dilemma is in turn reflected in the central dialectical theme of the whole dream. A dilemma is seen as a life issue wherein contrasting opposites or polarities need to be managed. There is no easy “this or that” solution, but a more complex “this and that” way of managing the issue.
Dreams seem to insist on making a polarity visible, and search through some of the best images they can find (within the individual’s frame of reference) that encapsulate the dialectic. Every single image, person and activity in the dream contains this central theme, and does so with images that embrace the current topic of opposites within themselves. It is as if the dream as a whole is like a holographic plate, wherein each part of the plate contains the picture of the whole. In addition to this, there is a built-in dialectic within each image that depicts the overall dialectical dilemma. Jung described how a dream and a fantasy that is properly processed has “everything it needs” within itself. Ullman related quantum concepts to dreaming consciousness, describing the hidden unity of opposites (complementarity) and interconnectedness within dreams. In this paper the implications of these approaches will be explored, and a different form of Freud’s condensation principle will be proposed. A dream often seems unadorned and ordinary, but is in fact packed with complex polarities and paradoxes, and ultimately a true gift of insight, understanding and deep wisdom.
Robert Waggoner
Awakening Asclepius: Healing Accounts in Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreaming, or the ability to become consciously aware of dreaming while in the dream state, has been used by some psychotherapists to deal successfully with the trauma of recurring nightmares, often associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. By having the client learn to become conscious during the nightmare and either face or confront the feared stimulus, many have achieved significant relief from recurring nightmares.
Less well known in the healing community is the use of lucid dreams to deal with physical illness. A number of lucid dreamers have sought to use lucid dreaming as a platform from which to actively seek physical healing. Though not always successful, many have self-reported unusually rapid healing experiences, reduction in the severity of symptoms and even the disappearance of the health issue altogether.
In this presentation, a number of lucid dream healing attempts will be considered with a focus on those that led to the most dramatic recovery, taken from the presenter’s book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self. Various common features will be highlighted, as we consider the means by which lucid dreamers focus their intent and work with the lucid dream to achieve their conscious objective. For example, some lucid dreamers manipulate their dream body, while others direct healing affirmations or energy upon the diseased area with surprising results.
Also, examples of lucid dream work that did not lead to healing changes will be discussed. These often diverge from successful attempts in numerous ways, including such aspects as negative expectation, external locus of control and consciously ignoring dream advice. The lucid dreamer’s allowance of healing and belief in it appear to be important elements within the lucid healing attempt.
Conscious awareness at the depth of dreaming appears to allow for significant changes in psychical, emotional and physical issues, when thoughtfully intended in a lucid dream. While the healing mechanism may be a matter of speculation, it appears each of us have access to our own inner Asclepius.
Robert Waggoner
Lucid Dreaming, Freud and Jung: Discovering the Dream Process
For almost one hundred years, the competing theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have largely dominated much of the thinking about the dream experience, and its meaning, significance and purpose.
The more recent scientific proof for lucid dreaming, or the ability to become aware of dreaming while in the dream, has added a new element to the investigation of dreaming. Now, science and psychology have a potentially revolutionary means to ascertain the dreamscape. Through conscious dream explorations and experiments, some theories of Freud and Jung can be tested.
For example, Freud posited that the purpose of dreams was to function as a wish fulfillment for the pleasure-seeking id. Surprisingly, lucid dreamers agree to some extent with Freud, when they independently recount that “expectation” seems to be a major force within the creation of the lucid dream. As such, if the lucid dreamer expects to fly through a wall, then she flies through a wall. However, if she expects trouble flying through a wall, then she will likely bounce off the wall. The expectation operating at that moment seems to create that moment’s dream experience.
The expectation effect suggests a broader type of “wish fulfillment” than Freud imagined, and responds more cogently to Freud’s critics who wondered how a “wish” could explain the frightful activity found in some dreams. By contrast, since all of us have positive and negative expectations, and lucid dreamers can see the power of expectation in creating the dream experience, it seems Freud may have been more accurate stating that dreams functioned as an “expectation fulfillment.”
Of course, Jung has suggested another version of dreaming with a different purpose and rationale. Here too, lucid dreamers may shed light on some of Jung’s notions, like archetypes, the objective psyche, the collective unconscious, and individuation. In my book, I have noted that experienced lucid dreamers commonly comment upon the disparate nature of dream figures; dream figures vary considerably in their ability to respond, reason, act within and act upon the dreamscape. A certain, small subset seem surprisingly capable and aware. Are they archetypes, or more perfected forms of awareness?
Similarly, lucid dreamers have the capacity to seek out information consciously in the dream state. As such, they can probe the depths of dreaming awareness to more accurately access the nature and extent of the apparent collective unconscious, as proposed by Jung. Aware within the dream, do we have access to unconscious knowledge?
This presentation will compare and contrast some general points of Freud and Jung with the experience of lucid dreamers, who learn about the principles of dreaming and the dreamscape as they consciously explore, lucidly aware.
Bernard Welt, PhD
The Aesthetic of the Dream in Surrealist Film – Buñuel, Cocteau, Anger, Deren
The surrealist cinema of the 1920s-‘40s was a key cultural element in increasing popular interest in dreaming, psychoanalysis, and the unconscious mind. The most promising and provocative recent theories of dreaming show the continuing relevance of the subversive program of filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, Jean Cocteau, Maya Deren, and Kenneth Anger.
Mainstream narrative cinema around the world has followed the Hollywood model founded in the realist paradigm: the essential nature of the fictional narrative is to show us the world as it appears to our senses, though ordered and selected toward moral and aesthetic intentions. Any direct access to the mental world of characters or filmmakers, or to a transcendent reality, is an exceptional moment with a strictly limited purpose. But the counter-tradition of experimental film rejected the imperative to record exterior actuality in favor of furthering the Romantic project: to express the interior world of the artist’s thoughts and feelings. The critic Parker Tyler summarized the movement succinctly by calling experimental film “the dream art,” celebrating art’s essential yearning toward vision rather than appearances, rejecting the tendency to pathologize the irrational (including the dream experience), and discovering in it affinities with the roots of poetry.
Recent scientific and psychological perspectives on dreaming confirm the centrality of surrealist film in particular in comprehending the relation between dreaming and the fundamental functions of imagination and art. Like the surrealists, J. Alan Hobson emphasizes the tendency of the mind to construct meaning even from arbitrarily juxtaposed elements; Ernest Hartmann and Mark Blechner argue that withdrawal from reality orientation allows the mind to form new and productive meanings; and Patrick McNamara suggests that nightmares challenge the prevailing order of the unitary self, while John E. Mack holds that they evince pre-oedipal anxieties and question the very grounds of our relation to the external world. With these provocative and illuminating ideas in mind, the classic surrealist films of artists such as Luis Buñuel, Jean Cocteau, Maya Deren, and Kenneth Anger now look more intriguing and relevant than ever.
Jennifer M. Windt, MA
Are We Really Deceived by our Dreams? Integrating the Perspectives of Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind
Dreaming raises many questions about our ability to acquire knowledge about the world, and many questions can be raised about our ability to acquire knowledge about the conscious experience of dreaming. Questions of the former type have been extensively discussed in the epistemological debate on dream skepticism, whereas the latter type of question is related to the ongoing controversy on the status of dreams as conscious experiences and their relation to waking consciousness. Nevertheless, both types of questions are closely intertwined.
According to Cartesian dream skepticism, our dreams are deceptive because we take them to be real waking experiences; at any given moment, it is possible that we mistakenly believe ourselves to be awake while we are in fact dreaming, and consequently all our knowledge about the external world may be flawed. This paper confronts the classical epistemological problem of dream skepticism with theoretical considerations from contemporary philosophy of mind on cognition and subjectivity in the dream state, as well as with recent findings from empirical dream research.
The following questions are raised: Based on our current knowledge of the phenomenology of dreaming, can we still assume, as did Descartes, that we are deceived by our dreams in a meaningful sense? How do actual examples of dream deception relate to the phenomenal quality of dreaming and the reliability of cognition in the dream state? And how can false awakenings, prelucid and lucid dreams shed light on the epistemological problem of dream skepticism?
By integrating the perspectives of epistemology, philosophy of mind, and empirical dream research, different scenarios and different strengths of actual dream deception are proposed. Their relevance for epistemological theories concerned with dreaming as well as possible consequences for broader philosophical and empirical theories of dream consciousness are discussed.
Ann Sayre Wiseman, MA
Recurring Dreams and Their Life Messages
This is a hands-on workshop to recreate visually the dream problem and the images that symbolize the content of the story. Seeing the story on a paper-stage adds new dimensions. Using role reversal, dialogue, guided imaging to explore the content, the dreamer can find more options, observe how the metaphor may relate to the dreamers life style and it is a safe way to test and negotiate options that satisfy the problem.
Methods to be used: re-visioning, dialogue, guided Imagery, rehearsal and action.
Activities: creating symbols with torn paper collage or found material, re-framing, dialogue, role reversal
Activity: A Hands-on Problem Solving Workshop for Recurring Dreams
This process allows many participants to work at the same time and "piggy-back" off of other people’s readiness to explore and make changes. A sheet of paper acts as "the stage" on which each person creates the scene of the dream, the problem, or whatever issue they have come to work on. Seeing the issue allows the participant to step outside as observer and director and test his options in response to some pertinent questions. Reframing and role reversal empower the dreamer as the observer and director. Dialogue offers new options and possible solutions. This is a self clarifying, empowering exploration facilitated by the leader moving around from "stage to stage" as people begin to move and explore their options. A useful method for traumas, depression, stuckness and problem solving. Helpful for patients and body image.
Action: dialogue and visualization is deeper and quicker than talk therapy.
Christopher Wright, BSc (2009)
Exploring the Dreams of Women with Breast Cancer: Dream Interpretation, Discovery, and Content Analysis
Co-Authors: DeCicco, T.L., PhD., Pannier, W., Lyons, T., & Wright, C.
Recent findings have shown that the dreams of women with breast cancer have imagery and discovery relevant to their illness (DeCicco & Smit, 2008). The discovery passages and waking-day insights from dream interpretation have been shown to be significantly different than those of women without breast cancer (DeCicco& Smit, 2008). This previous research used The Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation (DeCicco, 2006; 2007) when examining discovery. The current research has extended these findings by comparing the discovery from women with breast cancer with 2 different interpretation methods; The Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation (DeCicco, 2007) and The Projective Method of Dream interpretation (DeCicco, 2007). Women with breast cancer participated in each group (N=20) and 40 women without breast cancer also participated in the study. Results comparing discovery across the three groups will be presented. Furthermore, dream content categories will also be presented for the dreams of women with and without breast cancer, via content analysis. Research and applied implications will be discussed as dream interpretation for breast cancer patients has been found to be useful in therapeutic settings (Coolidge & Fish, 1983; Goelitz, 2001; Lebaron, Fanurik, & Zeltzer, 2001; Ohaeri, J.U., Campbell, Ilessanmil, & Ohaeri, 1998).
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