The Variety of Dream Experience

Expanding Our Ways of Working with Dreams, Second Edition

Edited by Montague Ullman & Claire Limmer

Subjects: Educational Psychology
Series: SUNY series in Dream Studies
Paperback : 9780791442562, 280 pages, August 1999
Hardcover : 9780791442555, 280 pages, August 1999

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Table of contents

Introduction to the Second Edition
Montague Ullman
Introduction to the First Edition
Montague Ullman

I. GROUP DREAM WORK

1. The Experimental Dream Group
Montague Ullman
2. After the Dream is Over
Nan Zimmerman
3. A Mother's Dream Group
Jenny Dodd

II. THE SPREAD TO OTHER DISCIPLINES

4. Dream Work and Field Work: Linking Cultural Anthropology and the Current Dream Work Movement
Deborah Jay Hillman

5. Dream Reflection and Creative Writing
Richard M. Jones

6. Dreaming and Learning: The Dream in a College Classroom
Edward F. Storm

7. Night Rule: Dreams as Social Intelligence
John R. Wikse

8. Myths, Dreams, and Divine Revelation: From Abram to Abraham
John A. Walsh

9. Dream Work and Pastoral Counseling: Steps toward an Educational Program
Sven Hedenrud

III. APPLICATIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY

10. Working with Dreams in Group Psychotherapy
Inge Widlund

11. Dream Work and the Psychosomatic Process: A Personal Account
Claire Limmer

12. Clinical Work with Dreams
Montague Ullman and Claire Limmer

13. Dreams and Society
Montague Ullman

Contributors

Index of Names

Explores the contributions dreams can make to our private and public lives, and outlines methods for safe and effective dream work.

Description

The versatility of dreams—their intrinsic creativity and their healing potential—extends beyond their clinical usefulness. This versatility comes to life in the way this book's contributors have succeeded in extending dream work into the public domain—the home, the church, and the educational arena. The various perspectives include literature, creative writing, cultural anthropology, the priesthood, political science, computer science, history, psychosomatic medicine, and individual and group psychotherapy. Taken together they illustrate the far-reaching value of understanding our dreams and how much they can tell us about ourselves.

In this second edition of The Variety of Dream Experience, chapters have been updated and significant changes have been made in the way the group process is structured, making it easier to master and more effective in its application. Three new chapters have been added: one that discusses the importance of dream work in the training of pastoral counselors, another on how the experiential dream group process can be integrated into group psychotherapy, and a third on how the principles and rationale of the dream group process can be of help in individual therapy. Two other chapters have been substantially expanded: one on the role social forces play in the shaping of the dream, and the other on a very moving account of the role a dream played in working through an abusive relationship.

Montague Ullman, M. D., is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University. He is the author of Appreciating Dreams and is the coauthor of Waking with Dreams (with Nan Zimmerman) and Dream Telepathy (with Stanley Krippner and Alan Vaughan). In addition, he is the coeditor of Handbook of States of Consciousness (with Benjamin Wolman). Claire Limmer is a psychoanalyst in private practice.

Reviews

Praise for the first edition:

"This is a volume of enormous interest that calls attention to the stirring of an interesting group, the so-called dream work movement. Appropriately, the work also calls attention to the signal contributions, theoretical and practical, that Montague Ullman has made to this humanistic endeavor. "—Milton Kramer, M. D., Academy Forum

"Many edited collections are not always readable; this one is. For anyone intrigued by dreams, The Variety of Dream Experience is a good investment of the reader's time. Ullman and Limmer have expanded our ways of looking at and working with dreams. The experiential dream group is no longer an experiment. This book demonstrates that it is well established as a useful process in 'appreciating' the dream. "—John P. Briggs, M. D., Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis

"[T]his book has something for everyone interested in dreams, and especially dream groups. "—Carol Warner, ASD Newsletter

"[A]n interesting collection of articles on recent experiments with the employment of group analysis of dreams in diverse, in some cases unlikely, fields of endeavor. "— Kirkus