THE VARIETY OF DREAM EXPERIENCE: Expanding Our Ways of Working With Dreams

For the most part, an interesting collection of articles on recent experiments with the employment of group analysis of dreams in diverse, in some cases unlikely, fields of endeavor. Ullman of the Dream Laboratory at Maimonides Medical Center (coauthor of Working With Dreams, 1979) and psychotherapist Limmer initially reject the mystique that dream analysis must remain solely in the domain of psychotherapists and proceeds to describe a variety of ways in which a lay group's analysis of dreams can be employed for a variety of creative and practical activities. Presenting their experiences, as the discovery of enhancements to various fields, e.g., visual arts, creative writing, the study of literature, theology, cultural anthropology, psychohistory, political science, and even computer science, 14 authors report on specific examples of group exploration of dreams, or give their views on the value of dream analysis, as applied to their particular field of work. With an emphasis on the creative convolutions of the metaphors designed by the sleeping mind, most of the articles include narrations of specific dreams, explanations of interpretations made within the group framework, and the utilization of these discussions in the context of the particular field of interest. The depth of insight, as well as the pertinence of the material to the overall thesis of the book, vary from author to author, and are at times reduced to the obvious presented as groundbreaking observation; the most unusual directions are offered in the articles of John Wikse and Ullman, who both present ideas about the use of group explorations of dreams as a means of providing a broader comprehension of social patterns and global problems. Considering the intriguing elements of dream study, and the universal experience of this phenomenon, probably of broad interest. But the going can be slow.