Download Confronting What Is

Confronting
What
Is
an introduction to MONTAGUE ULLMAN DREAM GROUP
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, ITALY
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
Montague Ullman (1916 – 2008), psychiatrist and psychoanalyst,
founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical
Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
for over two decades he taught psychoanalytic candidates in
Sweden, later teaching his group process to professional and lay
groups alike
he devoted his life to lecturing, teaching and inspiring a
grassroots dream work movement within the United States
the process, having spread internationally, reflects a gradual
shift in dream ideology and an upsurge in popular interest in
dreams
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
Ullman emphasizes that
“we are much less separate
than we think we are”
and that dreaming is
“an adaptation concerned with
the survival of the species and only
secondarily of the individual”
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
“dreaming is a pictorial elocution, a
way of talking in pictures”
so that
“the dream is a metaphor in motion"
by virtue of which
“dreams can offer an aesthetic and creative
approach to knowledge, oriented to wisdom,
which is complementary to the “objective”
one of science, oriented rather to mastery”
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
from a theoretical point of view Ullmann
roots his statements in the contributions
of the physicist David Bohm
for Bohm, consciousness is envisioned as
an infinite collective stream in which the
contents of individual consciousness are
distinct but not separate explications of
“wider” implicate orders
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
reality “explicates” and “implicates” itself in an
endless “holomovement” – the movement of the
whole
in consequence of this, all conceptions that consider
individual vs. collective, psychological vs. “material”
past, present and future as ultimately separated one
from the other
are no longer accepted
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
consistent with this, Ullman’s view of dreams and
dreaming is transpersonal
“dream work moves us into a
transpersonal domain by
drawing attention to the way
we are living out our
membership in a single
species”
“in our dreams we struggle
against fragmentation and
move toward wholeness”
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
dreams are highly connected to truth and reality
“the ego in a dream is at the mercy of
the truth"
“our dreams are the only part of us
that can’t stray from the truth"
“dreams are active conveyors of
the truth in its broadest social sense
and in its personal references"
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
metaphors in dreams reveal feelings, which are
the “stuff itself of reality”
“…that part of us which is linked to
others through feeling is more real, more
enduring and more significant than
other dimensions of our existence. It
compels belief. It dissolves distances,
creates unity and links us to the real
world. This is the stuff of reality”
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
Ullman’s privileged tool for dreamworking is the
GROUP
an Ullman group can last hours
today, we aim to introduce you to a short
demonstration based on the Ullman method in
the spirit of an Ullman group
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
the dreamworking normally goes through 4 different
stages
the group is requested not to give interpretations of
someone else’s dream
In one stage, the dream is considered your own
dream. To reinforce this attitude, before
commenting, we use the words «if it were my
dream»
this is much more than a memo, a narrative
expedient or a slogan
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
the statement actualizes a basic aspect of dream
reality
in one single dream all dreams are enfolded,
merging the individual with the collective.
by unfolding one’s dream through the group
dreamworking, the group unfolds to a certain extent
all dreaming reality
so the full respect of the individual dreamer and the
benefits she/he will receive can be considered in
agreement with those of the group and of the
community
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist
now the demonstration will begin
if you choose to participate in this activity you shall fulfill special
requirements of privacy, respect for others, focus and dedication
• please turn off all electronic devices and recordings
• when the dream group has concluded, voicing your reflections
and other conceptual ideas is fine
• however, we ask that you keep the contents of the dream
you’ve heard and your notes about it to yourself
• please do not leave the room once activity has begun
Judy Gardiner, USA
Massimo Schinco, Italy
dream facilitator
psychotherapist