Social Dreaming

Social dreaming is method of inquiry for exploring dreams as a window into our daily interactions, to access collective knowledge and thinking embedded in our shared dreams for mutual learning and development.

In Social Dreaming, we focus on the dreams and not the dreamer. By sharing dreams and weaving our dream images, feelings and associations we are able to reflect on emergent patterns and new collective meaning. Social Dreaming transcends the individual. By listening and associating to dreams in a matrix of dreamers we can learn more about our community, it’s culture and context of society at large. Social Dreaming in organizations contributes to systemic thinking in leadership and strategy development, organizational consultancy and coaching, innovation and design thinking, systemic project- and change management initiatives.

Social Dreaming as a method of enquiry is applied in a number of fields of scientific endeavor and creative practice, in in action research, group relations conferences, in the field of education, social choreography and cultural creativity.

The transformative potential of Social Dreaming has been instrumental in advancing collective cohesion, consciousness and innovative development. Sharing dreams in a Social Dreaming Matrix can help us accesses hidden depths and paradoxes of human experience and make these available for reflection and action. The practice of Social Dreaming can evoke a sense of reverie, connection, curiosity, playfulness, energy and a desire to transcend habitual notions of polarities, re-generating our capacity to engage with wonder in the un-known.

Social Dreaming at the ISPSO AM2021 is chaired by Nicola Wreford-Howard and Marc Maltz, co-hosting the week with with Angela Eden, Brigid Nossal, Leslie Goldenberg, Martin Ringer, Mathias Lohmer, Richard Morgan-Jones, Susan Long and co-hosts drawn from participants of the Social Dreaming workshop, 5th July.