Social dreaming:competition or complementation to individual dreaming?

This project explores what dreams might reveal about the collective psyche’s response to the COVID‐19 pandemic in its first year, before the development of vaccines. A brief survey, distributed to Jungian colleagues and organizations, and to various social media sites, invited people to submit online a dream related to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Four hundred and thirty‐six dreams were submitted. Forty additional Russian dreams were collected and submitted by Russian colleagues. Using qualitative research methods based on phenomenological hermeneutics, the researchers categorized and counted the range of COVID imagery. In addition, the researchers describe a range of psychic responses to the pandemic, including horror, grief, sickness, social discord, and violence, but also images of healing and transformation, increased sense of community, and spiritual renewal. Several healing nightmares are presented. Healing alchemical and anima/animus imagery is described. Twelve dreams are introduced and presented. It is concluded that the collective psyche, rooted in the Self, is a healing resource for social and cultural trauma. This project supports Beradt’s (1968) inspirational study of dreaming in Nazi Germany, as well as recent studies of COVID‐related dreams and recent publications on the social nature of dreaming.

Section: Our Approach To These Dreamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dreaming for the World: A Jungian Study of Dreams During the COVID‐19 Pandemic¹

Landau

Brooke

Lampe

et al. 2023

“…It may also be paradigmatic for psychological understanding and the ground on which Jungian psychoanalysis stands. As Jungian analyst and group analyst Amelie Noack expresses it: ‘To consider an underlying human matrix as the basis of all our thinking and dreaming, which encompasses individual and collective processes, akin to Jung’s "unus mundus"' (Noack 2010, p. 687).…”

Section: Foundational Assumptions For a Jungian Socioanalysismentioning

confidence: 99%

A preliminary sketch of a Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology, complexity theories, sociological theories, socio‐ and psycho‐analysis, group analysis and affect theories¹

Odde¹,

Vestergaard²

2021

This paper presents a preliminary sketch of what we have termed a Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology, complexity theories, sociological theories, socio‐ and psycho‐analysis, group analysis and affect theories. Our assumption is that Jungian theory and practice need to attend to and focus more on social contexts, sociality and the influence of societal developments. But also, on the other hand, that analytical psychology, primarily Jung’s theory of individuation and the transcendent function as well as the broad complexity perspective of his theory of psyche, can be extended to a ‘socio’ and not just a ‘psycho’ perspective. The paper presents five foundational assumptions for a Jungian socioanalysis, with the following headings: 1) A Jungian socioanalysis calls for a complex psychology; 2) (Un)consciousness is social and sociality has a dimension of (un)consciousness; 3) A Jungian socioanalysis explores social fields ‘from within’ by smaller groups; 4) A Jungian socioanalysis enables and is enabled by emerging metaphors and affect‐imagery; 5) Socio‐cultural fields have an impulse toward individuation. This is the first of two papers in the present edition of the journal – the second paper gives socio‐clinical illustrations of our thesis in this paper.

“…A second difference concerns interpretation. Social dreaming differs from ‘the classical psychoanalytic interpretative stance, which assumes an obscurity of meaning in the manifest content of the dream’ (Noack 2010, p. 30). Instead, Lawrence explicitly turned to Jung and his view that ‘the dream, the dreamer and dreaming have to be celebrated and all valued in their own right’ (Lawrence 1998, p. 30).…”

Section: Social Dreaming As a Socioanalytic Group Approach To Socialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, Lawrence explicitly turned to Jung and his view that ‘the dream, the dreamer and dreaming have to be celebrated and all valued in their own right’ (Lawrence 1998, p. 30). He applied ‘the Jungian phenomenological approach, which, by using association and amplification to disentangle and translate the dream's symbolism, always keeps the dream itself in focus’ (Noack 2010, p. 675). According to Lawrence: ‘The dream is an imaginative replay of our state of being in our social world and a rehearsal of how we are to become in relation to our environment’ (Lawrence 2005, p. 28).…”

Section: Social Dreaming As a Socioanalytic Group Approach To Socialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Jungian socioanalysis, social dreaming and the emerging complexity of Europe¹

Vestergaard¹,

Odde²

2021

This paper presents central elements of what we have termed Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology, complexity theories, sociological theories, socio‐ and psychoanalysis, social dreaming, group analysis and affect theories consisting of five assumptions (see also Odde & Vestergaard 2021). Jungian socioanalysis develops a process approach, as opposed to a systems approach, to sociality. In this paper we focus mostly on one of the five assumptions, namely that Jungian socioanalysis explores social fields ‘from within’ through smaller groups, treating group processes as a vehicle to gain a psychosocial and cultural understanding of larger social entities. We give an example of this approach with a presentation of two local social dreaming experiences in Denmark, focusing on Europe in transition. We show that the most significant outcome doesn't rely on the specific content of the dreams, but rather on the engagement in the social dreaming process itself, resulting in transformative image‐affects. The paper ends with reflections on how these social dreaming experiences inform a Jungian socioanalysis, pointing to enabling intersubjective meetings, or present moments, opening for a deeper understanding from within the group as opposed to a systems approach. The paper is a revised version of a presentation at the 2018 European Congress in Avignon.