Forum 3: Dream Communication, Education and Commercial Products
1999 ASD Santa Cruz Conference
As a dream educator, I've found that cyberspace can aid me in 3 ways.
1) It provides a lecture format, a one-way flow from teacher to
student, with opportunity for the student to look, listen and ask
questions.
2) It provides an opportunity for 2-way dialogue.
3) I can do prep work and build resources that allow the ornery
independents to do things their way, at their own pace.
This latter approach is best carried out using one's own web site.
Folks surf the net looking for information and they just might come away
with new ideas from whatever is provided there. Such an arm's length
presentation can help differentiate between the mildly curious, who
simply window shop, and the seriously interested, who make contact with
the instructor. From the point of view of a student, this initial
contact is nice because you don't have to commit to anything. It's the
on-line equivalent of flipping through a college catalog.
My own web site is currently "G" rated, but if I were to
add sexually explicit dream material, I would place it in a position
where the web surfer would be warned ahead of time that he was entering
such a place.
America OnLine doesn't do barter or pass a collection plate. I still
dream that a millionaire philanthropist with come along to support
dreamwork. In the meantime, the flow of students to my own web site
isn't large enough to warrant the use of credit cards services or
voucher systems. Instead, I request payment for my on-line course
"Psychic-Creative Dreaming" by check made payable to myself or
my business name, "Dream Flights." Folks out of the United
States might send a money order or, if that's too expensive, ask a
friend or relative living in the U.S. to write a check on their own
account. And I'm also open to other types of exchanges in kind, like
books
or magazines.
I
use lecture format, with opportunity to ask questions, in my on-line
course and when I write articles, like my "Dream Trek" column
in Richard Wilkerson's *Electric Dreams* e-zine. I prefer these methods
to creating a FAQ, or frequently asked questions sheet. The quick-and-dirty
facts in FAQs remind me of dream dictionaries. Symbols without a
context. Forgoing the specifics of the dreamer's waking and dreaming
life. Or generalizing to the point that it weakens the practicality for
any particular dreamer. However, a FAQ that contains a "for more
information go here" message, can serve as a nice teaser to bring
folks to richer resources.
Working with the Internet is an education in itself. When I first
came on-line, the place to contact dreamers was through text-based
newsgroups like alt.dreams and alt.dreams.lucid. Nowadays, web sites
have their own bulletin boards, but that requires a webmaster to monitor
the content of the comments. It takes time to be vigilant.
Several snail mail newsletters have made the shift to cyberspace.
They might retain their snail format and advertise on-line, or post old
issues of the off-line publication. My own newsletter, *NightFlyer*
started as a desktop publication but shifted to Internet distribution
for those member-subscribers who were on line. I've had to run
concurrent e-mail and snail mail formats for people without access to
the Internet. Duplicating text is no problem. And I can still print and
photocopy graphic files when I distribute those illustrations to the
snail mail folks. But they lose out when it comes to sound files. And I
can't distribute Quick Time movies to them, either.
Internet mail lists are often used to distribute timely news to
members of a group, like ASD or BADG. But again, Bay Area Dreamworkers
Group has only about half of its membership on-line. Since our snail
newsletter "Dream Newzzz" comes out but twice a year, we must
supplement the mail list information with a telephone tree system that
spans the 5 area codes of the greater bay area. It takes time to run
double systems.
Mail lists are the preferred method when you want to stir up group
projects and communication among members of a group. The dream
groupleaders list has a very appreciated volunteer who creates a summary
of the weekly deluge of information. Members and potential members can
always go to the web site to read past memos, too.
I favor the e-mail format over chat rooms when it comes to conveying
detailed and complex information or a considered response to a
thoughtful question. E-mail does provide time for in-depth explanation
and reflection. One disadvantage is the lack of emotional resonance. It
can be difficult to tell if the correspondent is serious or joking.
Especially if they don't use "smilies" or acronyms like a
"g" in brackets (for "grin").
My colleague Fred Olsen has used the chat room successfully, though,
to do his brand of re-entry visualization dreamwork. We both prefer the
interview method of dreamwork in which we ask questions to elicit
information from the dreamer, about the dreamer's
waking and dreaming life. We find this approach best matches the
"dreamer is the expert" values of the Partnership Paradigm.
Call
me a dreamer, but I wish that dreamworkers would be given gold stars
when they are honest enough to admit that they don't know all the
answers. I'm a member of the dream groupleaders list, an on-line
discussion group of peers. I find the list to be like teachers' in-service
training: it helps fill the gaps in my knowledge base. Our current topic
is the ethics of dreamwork. We have also talked about new techniques and
dream theory, dream skill development, dream creativity and interaction
with dream characters and our dreaming selves.
Dreamwork is but a subset of dream education and education is not
limited to informing the general public about dreams. I often find
myself educating fellow dreamworkers to the rules of the Partnership
Paradigm or alerting them to potential breaches in manners and
etiquette. For example: Just because a person shares a dream with you is
*not* an automatic permission to do dreamwork on it.
There are lots of unspoken assumptions about dreams for which an
airing is long overdue. We can start such discussions here, IRL (in real
life). But here, we have time constraints that aren't true for
cyberspace. I suggest whatever we dream up today can continue, on the
Internet.
Linda Lane Magallón is a dream writer and researcher who has
presented new findings at many ASD conferences. As a member of the
founding board, Linda penned the first mission statement for ASD. She is
author of *Mutual Dreaming* and co-founder of the Bay Area Dreamworkers
Group (with Fred Olsen). On the net, you can find her *Dream Trek*
column at www.dreamgate.com. Her primary web site features flying
dreams. http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html
Linda Lane Magallón
Linda Lane Magallón, MBA,
created the Fly-By-Night Club research group. She wrote Mutual Dreaming,
the Internet course Psychic-Creative Dreaming, and wrote the "Dream
Trek" Column on Electric Dreams. She is a founding member of ASD
and co-founder of the Bay Area Dreamworkers Group. http//members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html
E-mail caseyflyer@aol.com
