ConfrontingWhat Is

an introduction to MONTAGUE ULLMAN DREAM GROUP

Massimo Schinco, ITALY

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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”

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

“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”

so that

“the dream is a metaphor in motion"

“dreaming is a pictorial elocution, a way of talking in pictures”

by virtue of which

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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”

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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"

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

“…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”

metaphors in dreams reveal feelings, which are the “stuff itself of reality”

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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

Massimo Schinco, Italy

psychotherapist

Judy Gardiner, USA

dream facilitator

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