The finite and the infinite, finding the edges of creativity…

In October 2000, we established a monthly social dreaming matrix with Dr. W. Gordon Lawrence, who is professor of organizational studies at Cranfield University and a poet and distinguished writer on social dreaming. Gordon Lawrence is responsible for the rediscovery and development of this process which realizes dreaming as a form of thinking to connect us to inaccessible aspects of the social.

Social Dreaming is a method which reveals that dreams can tell us not only about the inner world of dreamers but also of the social and institutional reality within which they live. It does not challenge the contribution which psychoanalysis has made to dreams but tries to emphasise their social dimension. It is based on the assumption that all dreamers are thinkers. The focus is on the dream and not the dreamer and the container for dreaming is changed. The container becomes the matrix, which is composed of a set of people who meet to work on the dreams made available. It enables participants to rescue dreams from the infinite and so be able to use them more directly in daily and working life, recognizing dreams as a source of creativity. Jung wrote that the dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul opening into cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego-consciousness.(Jung 1953,p.46).

In Social Dreaming the way into the universal is invoked because the matrix is not conducive to the airing of narcissistic preoccupations but alive to socio-centric issues. This applies to all of us because of our common humanity.

Lawrence, W.G. (1998) Social Dreaming @ Work. Karnac Books.

Lawrence, W.G. (2000) Tongued with Fire. Karnac Books.

John Clare, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Founder member of MLPC

Ali Zarbafi, Jungian Psychotherapist, Founder member of MLPC

Ali Zarbafi: azarbafi@btinternet.com

or John Clare: ajkv72@ukgateway.net