Teaching about Dreams: Sharing
Perspectives, Activities and Resources
Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, is a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate
Theological Union and teaches in JFKU’s Dream Studies Program in
the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a Past President of IASD, and is
author of The Wilderness of Dreams and The Wondering
Brain, co-author of Dreaming Beyond Death, and editor
of Dreams: A Reader and Soul, Psyche, Brain.
Philip King, PhD, is
Professor of quantitative methods and psychology at Hawaii Pacific
University, where he teaches a course on dreams. His research
areas include dreams of health care professionals, connections
between dream orientation and dream content, and existential
themes expressed metaphorically through dream motifs.
Bernard Welt, PhD, is
author of Mythomania: Fantasies, Fables and Sheer Lies in
Contemporary American Popular Art, and has taught an
interdisciplinary course on dreaming for over twenty years at the
Corcoran College of Art and Design.
Abstract
Teaching about dreams, while as
old as human society, is far from stagnant. Dream teaching is
evolving as advances in communications technology, social mobility
and the spread of education enable a wider sharing and more rapid
development of theory, perspective and approach. Dream topics are
taught in the humanities – literature, art, drama, film,
philosophy and religious studies, and in the sciences –
psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology.
Dream
teaching is burgeoning. Exercises, topics, courses and academic
programs are growing, for adults and children, in formal academic
contexts and in communities outside academic settings.
Dreams are taught to pre-school classes, to elementary,
intermediate and high school students, to undergraduate and
graduate students. They are taught as topics in a larger course,
as entire courses, as certificate programs, academic
concentrations and advanced degrees.
Dreams are taught in churches, community centers, businesses and
civic organizations. They are taught in counseling, psychotherapy,
and personal growth contexts. They are taught as part of
methodological and statistical training in scientific research.
They are taught in families, between and within generations.
New
practices allow us to envision future possibilities.
Many
audiences and many disciplines characterize the creative ferment
that the teaching of dreams promises to become in this new
millennium. Nowhere, however, have these practices and trends been
systematically catalogued, shared and discussed, their
implications drawn out, and their resources collected for the
benefit of other teachers and would-be teachers.
The
purpose of this panel discussion is to present a book project by
the panelists in which we attempt to bring together material on
important advances in dreams teaching, and to involve the audience
in providing ideas and information.
The
book, and this panel discussion, will treat the history, current
status, and possible future developments in teaching about dreams.
It will cover the disciplines within which dreams are or could be
usefully taught, the audiences, cultural and institutional
contexts, theoretical perspectives, teaching resources, strategies
for starting a dreams course or topic within a broader educational
context, obstacles and ways of overcoming them. Pedagogical
strategies and ethical concerns will be addressed.
The
panelists have developed a set of questions designed to gather
information from dream teachers. Using these questions, the
panelists will interview one or more dreams teaching practitioners
to demonstrate the rich lode of dream teaching experience and
wisdom waiting to be tapped.
The
audience will be viewed as potential collaborators in this
project, and their experiences and ideas will be solicited.
