Response to Using Peer Dreaming
Response to Working with the Peer Dream Process
This book describes a revolutionary new way of exploring your dreams. The way of working known as the Peer Dream Group came about from our experience that dreams are largely self explanatory if approached in the right way. An exterior expert or authority is not necessary for a profound experience of and insight into dreams if certain rules are respected and used. The dreamer is the ultimate expert on their own dream, and when treated as such, and supported in their exploration of their dream drama, they can powerfully explore and manifest the resources of their inner life.
I wanted to write and let you know how well the peer dream group went tonight, especially as the feelings we experienced were and are so positive and so powerful. The kind that keeps you up for hours.
There were three women total tonight. Although I had expected a larger group and was disappointed when two people didn’t show, I knew that we could process a dream with the three of us. Writing this is like writing a dream right now – it’s hard to capture the fluidity of the evening, the flow of the feelings, the surfacing of the feelings and the recognition of the life circumstance(s) of the dreamer because she was allowed “to rest” in those feelings.
Two of us had your steps of the peer group process, and its flow was a great help. It seemed natural to move from one step to the next, and I must say the dreamer had little difficulty imagining herself as the two objects she chose to be (she later said it was like being in therapy in that a therapist would be the one to ask the questions to sit with).
We worked on the one dream, and had time to work through two of her images in the dream. It was a rich dream, and we know we only were able to touch on those two parts, but those two parts were so meaningful for her. I think the most enriching part of the evening, for me, was to see her gain insight as she was describing herself as an image in the dream. It was watching the change on her face, the way she was suddenly not speaking anymore. She saw meaning so clearly, so deeply.
In the end, she was comforted by the dream, and knew it “told” her she was ready for this circumstance in her life. She felt at peace. She “felt her depths”. Her whole demeanour relaxed.
After the dream work, we spent a lot of time discussing how we all felt during the process. For none of us had this experience before. Three important points about the process came up for the dreamer. The first was that the asking of the questions was extremely important. The dreamer stated she never would have thought to have asked herself the questions we asked her.
Secondly, the dreamer was grateful for the time she had to be the image in the dream and to stay with it. It enabled her to see it and feel it and learn what it was. And the third comment was the listeners’ reflections back to her as it enabled her to hear what she said, and to hear what she said with someone else using slightly different words than she used. That was powerful for her.
The other listener and I felt under no pressure at all. It was freeing for us to focus on the dreamer and the dream image. For in projective work, as the non-dreamer, it takes time and work to feel the dream as one’s own and to come up with one’s projections. The two of us as listeners were aware of how much we were not projecting, but I think we did well in not putting our own ideas about the dream into play. It wasn’t necessary to the process.
Finally, we discussed more about how this compared to our experience of projective group work, and we all came away with feeling that it was much more focused for both the dreamer and the listeners. However, as there are plenty of groups in this area that focus on projective work (which some of us will attend from time to time), we made another date to continue and form a dream group using your guidelines, your stuff, or whatever it is to be called. We liked it. For the first try at this, I am very pleased. Assured. Thanks for being there for me and us! LR
See The Book Peer Dreaming – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peer-Dreaming-Understand-Your-Dreams-ebook/dp/B089G5HCD8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Peer+Dreaming+-+crisp&qid=1595249750&s=books&sr=1-1
