Sharing Hope, Sharing Dreams

"But when he recounted his dream of teeing up on a brilliant sunny day, getting into the perfect stance, and executing the perfect swing... only to whiff it and hit the air instead, I understood. I wouldn't know the right stance for a golf swing if you paid me. But I certainly have experienced the frustration he described, the sense of putting everything into place and then somehow missing the target. Like most of humankind at one time or another, hey-I've been there."

"In today's world, we might think that people are pretty far apart from one another. After all, our opinions seem so different. Surely, we don't see the world in the same way. These thoughts are reflected in my clients. Many of them are talking about a certain sense of separation from others lately, a distance from the communities with whom they once felt aligned. They report to me that their feelings of trust and safety in the world around them are somehow fractured or compromised."

"Until the advent of electricity, people in England had a custom of waking in the night and recounting dreams to family members (Ekirch, 2013). Anthropology has shown us that numerous cultures across time have shared dreams as a group (Brody, 1981; Bulkeley, 2016). Regardless of your stance on whether dreams hold intrinsic meaning, the point here is that people sat and listened to each other. And not just to any topic, but to something deeply subjective and personal."

Dreams reveal shared feelings and emotions and often mirror common human experiences of frustration and missed aims. Group dream work fosters connection, accelerates bonding, and makes discussing feelings and personal experiences easier. Historically, people shared dreams at night, and many cultures practiced collective dream sharing, which encouraged listening and mutual understanding. Modern dream groups, online or in person, serve as contemporary communal spaces for disclosing subjective material. Many individuals report increased feelings of separation and fractured trust; group dream sharing can help restore safety and alignment by creating opportunities for empathetic listening and emotional exchange.

Read at Psychology Today