Robert Moss - The Underground Railroad of Dreams

ASD 2000 Conference 17 Abstracts

Millennial Dreaming: Washington, D.C.

ABSTRACT 1: Presentation
ABSTRACT 2: Workshop

DreamWork/BodyWork

Jean Campbell

Over the past twenty years, several individuals have produced theories concerning the relationship between body consciousness and the dream. Foremost among these theorists are Arnold Mindell, whose book, Dreambody, is a classic in the literature; Eugene Gendlin, who introduced the term felt sense in his book, Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams; and Stanley Keleman, one of the best known proponents of the body psychotherapy technique known as Bioenergetics. All of these people have taken slightly varying approaches toward working with body consciousness in dream interpretation.

My own experience over the past ten years, with a technique known as Energetic Metatherapy, have led me to numerous insights concerning the mind/body relationship and techniques for working with dreams from the perspective of body consciousness.

What I propose to do in this paper is to examine the similarities and differences between the various approaches to working with dreams through the body, and to discuss why I feel that a certain background in depth psychology and character analysis may be essential for more than the most superficial approaches to working with dreams in this manner.

Dream work done through a body work approach, particularly through a bioenergetic approach, can go very deep. It can go very quickly into personal, emotional issues and how to resolve them, as I will illustrate through examples of dream work done in this manner.

Hopefully, a look at the history of these body-oriented techniques, plus an exploration of some of the possible changes to be achieved through working in this manner, may encourage other dream workers to explore body work as an approach to dream interpretation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brennan, Barbara. Hands of Light. New York: Bantam, 1988.

Campbell, Jean. Dreams Beyond Dreaming. Norfolk, VA: Donning, 1980.

Gendlin, Eugene T., Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams. Wilmette: Chiron, 1986.

Keleman, Stanley. Emotional Anatomy. Berkeley: Center P, 1985.

______________. "Dreams and the Body." Artes de Cura. Online publication, 1996.

Kuri-Cano, Hector. Energetic Metatherapy. Unpublished manuscript, 1999.
Lowen, Alexander. Bioenergetics. London, New York: Penguin, 1975.

_______________. The Language of the Body. New York: Macmillan, 1985.

Mindell, Arnold. Dreambody. Portland: Lao Tse Press, 1982 (1997).

Reich, Wilhelm. Character Analysis (3rd edition). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1945 (1972).

Roberts, Jane. Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment. New York: Prentice Hall, 1986.

Roth, Gabrielle. Sweat Your Prayers. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1997.

Wilbur, Ken. No Boundary. Boston, London: Shambala, 1979.

DreamWork/BodyWork Workshop
Jean Campbell

In this DreamWork/BodyWork workshop, I will attempt to demonstrate ways of understanding the body/mind connection through our body senses, and demonstrate how we can access our feelings through our bodies--in other words, how we can make the unconscious conscious.

Specific dreams carry a variety of symbols and images. One theory of dream work is that we should analyze the symbols and then postulate their meanings to us. In DreamWork/BodyWork, however, we listen to the emotional messages given to us by the body when we "walk through" the dream. We learn to under-stand, quite literally, by determining how we stand, both in the dream and in waking reality.

DreamWork/BodyWork relies on a variety of techniques and traditions: yoga, tai chi, gestalt therapy, meditative movement, and others, combining these with an understanding of human psychology and physiology. The work frequently is deep, and "goes right to the heart of the matter." Because of this, it will be suggested to workshop participants that techniques taught in the workshop be approached with great sensitivity, and that a primary precept of this work is that the helper or facilitator learn to "dance with" or to follow the dreamer.