Social Dreaming in a Transactional Analysis Context

Abstract

We all dream, individually and collectively. The latter is called “social dreaming,” an established practice in a number of groups and societies. For example, elders in some tribes gather to share dreams in order to find direction. In the analytic world, social dreaming was discovered to be an important way of increasing awareness of aspects of the collectively held unconscious. In this article, the concept of the social dreaming matrix is explored along with the way it was applied and experienced during the 18th biannual transactional analysis conference held in Sydney, Australia, in 2006. Themes and issues from the conference experience are discussed.

The Infinite Possibilities from the Ground

“…Social dreaming has been researched and described at large since its development in the early 1980s (Lawrence, 1998(Lawrence, , 2003(Lawrence, , 2007Friedman, Neri, & Pines, 2002;Van Beekum & Laverty, 2007). The SDM methodology has been applied around the world in social, corporate, organisational and political institutions.…”

“…It is the whole that is more than the sum of the parts. This can be referred to as "we-ness" (Tudor, 2006;Van Beekum & Laverty, 2007), an important concept in extending from the individual to the social. People are bound in relationships and communities, to which they contribute with their bodies, minds, and souls, and in which they meet others who contribute as well, thus jointly co-creating dynamics, parts of which are hidden and unconscious.…”

Learning and Hating in Groups

“…Others have looked at the dynamics of groups irrespective of practice contexts (Bonds- White & Cornell, 2002;Campos, 1971;Gurowitz, 1975;N. L. James, 1994;Micholt, 1992;Sills, 2003;van Beekum & Laverty, 2007;Woods, 2007), while some have examined the contrasts and complementarity of different theoretical and practice approaches (Kapur & Miller, 1987;Peck, 1978;Shaskan & Moran, 1986).…”

“…Though groups, in my experience, cannot think or learn, I have seen that individual members can, and in so doing, clearly stimulate and support the thinking and learning of others. As van Beekum and Laverty (2007) put it, at those moments "something comes into existence that is not exclusively the product of the individuals involved" (p. 228).…”