ABSTRACT

Dreaming the Social uses social dreaming as a tool to explore aspects of contemporary life and examine how we can reverse social fragmentation and large-scale trauma.

Since the attack on New York on 9/11, the world has been balanced on the edge of potential disaster, exacerbated in recent years by global warming, the Covid pandemic, and war in Ukraine. Since the first edition in 2009, these national and global events have come to dominate our lives in unforeseen ways. With this in mind, this new edition explores the potential of social dreaming to help access things we know but are unable to think, except through the complex activity of dreaming. Based on several research studies, group sessions, and mass dreaming experiments, the book explores peoples’ experiences of dreaming during times of change, transition, and upheaval and discusses the insights that these dreams offer.

Dreaming the Social will be of great interest to all professionals interested in dreams and the power of social dreaming, including psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and clinical psychologists.

part I|30 pages

What is Social Dreaming?

chapter 2Chapter 1|19 pages

Social dreaming and the self

chapter Chapter 2|9 pages

The night train of social dreams

part II|102 pages

Social Dreaming in practice

chapter 32Chapter 3|13 pages

Dreaming after 9/11

chapter Chapter 4|11 pages

Sweet honey in the rock

chapter Chapter 5|28 pages

The end of the dance

Dreams at a literary festival

chapter Chapter 6|19 pages

We are all slaves to babble—land

A mass dreaming experiment

chapter Chapter 7|16 pages

Dreaming in the inner city

chapter Chapter 8|13 pages

Social dreaming

A no-goal method?

part III|50 pages

The long matrix Hay-on-Wye 2009–23

chapter 134Chapter 9|14 pages

Where are we going?

chapter Chapter 10|18 pages

Covid

The invisible invasion

chapter Chapter 11|9 pages

War in Europe

chapter Chapter 12|7 pages

Conclusion