I had heard about the work John Herbert last year
through the grassroots dream grapevine, but hadn't been able to track him down
on the Net. Finally, he found me and I had a chance to go through two of his
groups, one as a commentator and the other using one of my dreams. I feel John's
work, both at the Seniornet on AOL and his many other projects in the last few
years, provide a core model and background support for the emerging communities
of concerned dreamers on the Net. The background support comes from his research
on CMC (computer mediated communications)vs Face-to-Face dream groups and his
findings suggesting that many aspects of dreamwork work just as well with CMC
and some aspects are even superior. The point here is not to set up a
competition between the two. John has a great deal of experience with
face-to-face groups and highly values them. What I see as valuable in his
project is the process of differentiating just what *is* better mediated by CMC
and Face-to-Face and building on what we learn.
While I want to describe my experience with this kind of Net group dreamwork
and compare this to Face-to-Face and other Net dreamwork, my main goal here
(beyond giving John Herbert's work some exposure and attention) is to stimulate
our imaginations and inspire ever new forms of experimental dreamsharing. But
first a short history I asked John to provide for us
From John Herbert:
Most of my professional life has been associated with aviation, but my
introduction to group dream work started with an Edgar Cayce group in New York
in the 1960's. I later attended one term at the C.G.Jung Institute in Zurich,
which started my serious work with dreams. My desire to learn more about dreams
and research led me to back to school, first at San Francisco State Univ. (M.A.Psychology,
1970) and recently to a Doctoral program in Psychology at Saybrook Institute
(San Francisco), where I was introduced to Montague Ullman's "If it were my
dream" approach by Stanley Krippner, who has been my major mentor.
Progressively, I became more active in face-to-face group dreamwork; I have
studied under Ullman and have moderated FTF groups for several years.
I became aware, however, of the changing modes of communication available to
the electronic community and I wanted to find out if it might be possible to
conduct group dream work on electronic BBSs. As part of the research for my
dissertation, I have done test groups on the Internet (alt.dreams), Delphi,
Compuserve, the WELL, and America OnLine. Group Dreamwork is currently being
conducted on AOL in the Seniornet sector\Communities Message area\Group Dream
Work topic. I have over 3500 of my own dreams stored in electronic format, and I
have been able to use them for research, documenting how dream metaphors have
commented on various life situations. J.H.
Reflections on the Seniornet Dreamgroup & Ideas - by Richard Wilkerson
I enjoyed both of the groups I participated in and as I mentioned I was a
commentator in one and a dream sharer in the other. The process is much like
alt.dreams, only much more intimate. If you are not familiar with the alt.dreams
newsgroup, you can subscribe to that via Usenet. In John's version there were
about 5 participants in each group who signed up anonymously and the group
lasted under two weeks. The group was guided through the steps of the process by
a mediator who chose the dream from the list of submissions and the process
generally ran as follows: After the dream was posted, the participants were
asked for clarifications only. The dreamer responded, but didn't have too. The
next phase began with the participants being encouraged to comment in the
"If this were my dream" style originated by Montague Ullman, and made
popular and developed by Stanley Krippner, Jeremy Taylor and others. The dreamer
chose to limit the replies, but was encouraged to the comments as he or she
wished. End group.
There was a subtle but delightful shift that occurred in me emotionally that
had to do with the reflective process, the give and take, question and answer. I
often feel this in Face-to-Face (FtF) groups too, but there is a difference in
that I get a chance to reflect longer before I respond in the CMC groups. Which
is the better mediator of skills and insight over time? There is something about
the CMC experience that is "light" and ephemeral. I've had to look up
responses to my dreams over and over, as I keep forgetting things I wanted to
remember. With FtF groups, things stick a little better for me personally. But
this may indicate that CMC may have and inherent, excellent self regulation
valve. One of the mutual projects John and I share with dreams as well as
internet is the valuing of self-empowerment, and the lightness of the medium
allows for more personal self regulation.
What this experience has led me to is the possibility for using Electric
Dreams as an experimental ground for miniature groups that meet and organize on
Electric Dreams and then go off to conduct a more private and personal
experiments and then return to the EDreams community with a report or summary
and suggestions for new mini-groups. We are trying one of those now and will
have some results for you next issue. If you are interested in being in one of
these groups or would like to suggest and mediate your own, feel free to send in
a request. We are trying a Round Robin approach now, but I can think of many
interesting variations. What, for example, would happen if we, as a small group,
began visiting other realms and domains on internet? We could conduct a group on
alt.dream, going about our process, but allowing other in too. We could sign up
on mail list, like Imagination or Gestalt, and do a small workshop with them.
Perhaps we have a Telnet expert who could help link us together at a specific
time, or use the IRC on internet for a real time meeting. Send me some ideas and
requests.
Lets play. -Richard
For more on John Herbert's Seniornet group or other work, see
http://users.aol.com/john0417/HuSci/Greet.html
Herbert, J.W. (1991) "Human Science Research Methods in Studying Dreamwork: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Face-to-Face and Computer Dream Work Groups" Unpublished Manuscript, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco.
Sample Session - Herbert
http://users.aol.com/john0417/dmgp/dg16.html
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