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ABSTRACT
The
Alchemy of SOUND in working with DREAM IMAGES.
Sven
Doehner, Ph.D., M.F.A. is a psychotherapist in private practice in Mexico City.
Trained in Depth Psychology, he has worked for many years with
native Mexican healers, and guided dream-work groups in Brazil, Greece,
Lithuania, Peru, Mexico, the Soviet Union, the U.S.A. and Uruguay.
An innovator in alchemical dream-sharing, he works at the borders
between contemporary depth psychotherapy and ancient healing traditions.
sven@psicologiaprofunda.com
Summary of Presentation
This
interactive audio-visual presentation will demonstrate the surprisingly
transformative effects of working with sensitivity to the SOUND that
comes with the IMAGES in our DREAMS.
Learning Objectives.
a- Become sensitive to
sound in dream (and life) images.
b- Acquire tools for
working creatively and therapeutically with sound and images in dreams.
c- Discover the
transformative power of exploring sound while working with images in
dreams.
Evaluation questions:
a- How can sensitivity
to sound in images be developed ?
b- What roles do sounds play in our dream (and life) images ?
c- How can sound be used therapeutically in
dream-work ?
Abstract
Even though much in our lives
depends on SOUND, how often do we actually take it into
consideration when exploring our DREAM IMAGES ?
While still in the womb, our earliest sensory experiences are images
associated with sounds. Our mother’s breathing rhythms and
digestive processes, heartbeat, body movements, and all the different
sounds that come from the external world form part of primary images in
our psyches.
Working with dream images is much valued for personal (and
trans-personal) transformation, precisely because it touches and moves us
at the most primary levels of the psyche, allowing for deep shifts in our
imagination, and in the basic relationship between our inner and outer
realities. Through “work” with sound, images can be
rather easily explored and experienced in a profound way, with
surprisingly therapeutic results.
We know of our reliance on breathing in order to produce sound, and that
breathing is directly connected to our physical and emotional well-being.
And that sound is vibration which, at some frequency, accompanies
all life movement. And yet, we often neglect to consider and work
consciously and purposefully with sound as we seek equilibrium in our
lives.
While Depth Psychology acknowledges the importance of sound, it takes no
true initiative in using it clinically. With few exceptions, most
therapeutic work with sound involves either the LISTENING to
particular sounds, or the making of a specific sound, as in a catharsis.
But when? . . . HOW do we hear the sound of our hurt, our pain?
Even though HOW we say something often carries more weight
than WHAT we have said, we are not accustomed to attend to this.
Curiously, we are either unconscious of our sensitivity to sound, or
unaware of how it can “work” to transform our relationship with
ourselves and the world around us.
We are usually unaware of SOUND within our DREAM IMAGES
themselves, but by engaging in a sensitized re-EXPERIENCE of the
dream – by HEARING ourselves in the re-TELLING of it - we
can encounter an unparalleled experiential mirror for reflecting multiple
unconscious perspectives concerning our relationship to our dream images.
The effects can be surprising, funny, shocking, illuminating . . .
and transformative.
Inspired by an Alchemical Imagination concerning the art of
transformation, we will describe how a dream group setting can be an
alchemical container, ready to cook the dream materia
. . . a space ripe for a moment of improvisation, when synchronicity
becomes palpable. First we will propose a specific alchemical
process for sensitizing the group members to their specific unconscious
physical and emotional responses to the dream, allowing for the discovery
of the least conscious aspects of the images.
Then, we will explore how particular moments in the dream sequence can be
re-PRESENTED, with the group acting as an alchemical magnifying
glass and mirror. This process awakens physical and emotional
consciousness at different levels of resonance with the images. Several
examples will illustrate the effects of doing this through experiences
with sound.
Utilizing classic exercises of expansion and contraction, expression and
reflection - designed to heighten physical and emotional sensitivity to
oneself and to others - we will explore some interesting therapeutic
opportunities that emerge when working with the sounds that come with our
dream images.
A series of visual and auditory examples from clinical practice - and
from daily life - will illustrate the presentation. Audience
participation will be encouraged. Together with a heightened
sensitivity to sound, our intent is to stimulate self awareness at many
levels, and to provide principles and tools for further exploration in the
art of dream-work and personal, as well as trans-personal, transformation.
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