Dream Seminar 2017/2018

The NAAP organized six workshops in 2017/2018, location Amsterdam, on working with dreams. The first workshop was a case example, visiting the analysis of one patient: The use made during the analytical session of the initial dream, the dreams in which the patient felt her conflict, and the dreams where the patient felt her growth. The second workshop explored the fairytale Iron Hans and made connections to similar motifs found in dreams, in particular the motif of attraction/automatisms. The third workshop used the Bible story, Jacob’s fight with the angel, to form the question ‘what needs to be struggled before one can return home?’ coming to see that psychological cleanliness is awareness of one’s own dirt. The fourth workshop explored the Danish fairytale “King Lindworm” and a dream that had remarkable similar imagery: the shedding of nine shirts. The Siberian fairy tale “The Woman Who Became a Spider,” formed the base for the fifth workshop: After exposure to destructive forces, insight into the cycles of life, the heroin fails to integrate her experience, hence she is doomed to weave the same story. C. G. Jung’s Vision Seminar 1930-1934 (vol. 2; pg. 1213-1378 formed the base for the sixth workshop, and Jung’s treatment of the Visions was explored. His conclusion of the visionaries’ certain lack of integration was to help us see that work with dreams and visions is a real feeling of and for the consequences of our participation in life, hence, an encouragement to use our tools.

The workshops were well attended with thoughtful, insightful interactions. There was request for more of the same.

(written on 29 October 2018, Barbara Miller)