The Confusion of Dreams between Selves and the Other: A Psychoanalytic View of the Political Reality in Social Dreaming

Ferenczis 'Confusion of Tongues between adults and the child' (1933) reformulated prevailing Freudian ideas on symbolic material, or fantasies, in ways that remind me of Lawrences (1999) reformulation of dreaming as a social experience. For purpose of stimulating our discussion today, I will first describe social dreaming in the context of contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory and suggest that the idea of intersubjectivity can best be viewed socially from a cross-cultural analysis of individual versus collectivist views of the self. After this I will provide some organizational examples of the application of social dreaming from my work with Marc Maltz. Finally, I will conclude with the dream narrative from a social dreaming matrix held 2 weeks after 9/11/2001 coincidentally at a location equidistant from the three major events of that terrorist attack on the United States and invite you to share your own associations to this material.