The 2012 IASD Nominating Committee has invited the following eight members to run for the five three-year Board positions that will be vacated as of the June Board meeting: Mark Blagrove, Laurel Clark, Jordi Borras-Garcia, Janet Garrett, Curtiss Hoffman, Linda Mastrangelo, Tracey Kahan, and Robert Waggoner.

The Committee also arrived at a slate of Executive officer nominees for 2012-2013, which is as follows: Robert Gongloff, Board Chair; Scott Sparrow, President; Laurette Dupuis, Vice-President; Tracey Kahan, Secretary, and David L. Kahn, Treasurer.

As for the Board nominees, the Committee members worked long and hard  to arrive at a slate of Board nominees who were interested and available, and who reflected gender and geographical diversity, as well as a wide range of skills and knowledge. Below are brief descriptions of each nominee in his or her own words.

Mark Blagrove, United Kingdom

I joined IASD in 1989 and have attended all conferences since then (except one). I am a past IASD President, and have assisted in maintaining the membership database functions. I am currently Chair of the Publications Committee, a member of the Research Committee, one of the reviewers for the conference research track, and a reviewer for the Hot off the Press session. I have won several prizes at the Dream Ball and write the Dream Bibliophile column in Dream Time. For employment I am full professor and head/chair of the Psychology Department at Swansea University in south Wales, where I run a two-bed sleep and dreaming lab (www.swansea.ac.uk/sleeplab). I conduct research into nightmares, lucid dreams, and the possible relationship between dream content and memory consolidation during sleep. I also run an Ullman dream appreciation group for students. I am forever grateful to IASD and its members for having inspired much of my scientific work, but also for introducing me to many other disciplines involved in the study and appreciation of dreaming.

If elected to serve on the Board I would continue to recruit dream scientists and students who would add to the scientific side of IASD, and who would also appreciate and benefit from, and add to, the colourful and eclectic mix that characterizes IASD. I would also work to recruit and involve individuals who are doing neuroscience research into dreaming. There is much work being done on the relationship between the brain and dreaming, and such work is of great interest to the general public. These researchers must, by definition, be open-minded to be doing such work, but only a few of them attend IASD programs. I would thus aim to enhance the research track at the conference that that is related to the neuroscience of dreaming. I am also interested in continuing to publicise IASD to the scientific community, as well as continuing to “flit” between the dream appreciation, artistic, scientific, and humanities branches of IASD. 

Laurel Clark, USA

I am President of the School of Metaphysics (SOM), a 501(c)(3) educational organization.  A teacher, counselor, and interfaith minister, I have kept a dream journal since 1976 and have been teaching dreamwork since 1979.

I have also written several dream-related articles for publication in magazines and online. I am co-editor and a contributor to the book Interpreting Dreams for Self Discovery. I am currently writing a book called Intuitive Dreaming, and I’m one of the authors of the online study program at www.dreamschool.org.  I contributed an entry on “Dream Incubation” to the Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams, (edited by D. Barrett and P.McNamara) and a chapter on “Proposing Courses on Dreams” to the book Weaving Dreams in the Classroom, (edited by Curtiss Hoffmann and Jacquie Lewis.)  I serve as a columnist for the Longmont Times Call, in which I write a weekly dream interpretation column.

I give frequent lectures on dreams to professional and civic organizations and have appeared on worldwide radio and TV to educate people about dreams.  I teach ongoing dream education courses through the School of Metaphysics and community colleges, and have guest-taught dream seminars to psychology, theology and philosophy classes in high schools and universities.  I also use dream analysis in my work as a counselor and interfaith minister to aid people who want to cultivate a soul-oriented and spiritual perspective on life. 

I became a member of IASD in 2008, and attended my first conference in Montreal as a volunteer and a presenter.  Since then, I have volunteered at each annual conference, primarily for registration and publicity.  I have also participated in the IASD PsiberDreaming Conference since 2008--as a presenter and avid learner.  As a more-than-full-time volunteer with the SOM for 30+ years, I have a unique perspective on the power of volunteering, always endeavoring to inspire people to serve something greater than themselves.  With skills in mediation and communication, I often serve as a “worldbridger” by aiding people to hear each other and understand each others' perspectives.  I see IASD as an amazing organization for helping people to learn from their differences as well as similarities.  I believe I can contribute to this evolving process.

Jordi Borras-Garcia, Spain

I started my private practice in psychology in Barcelona 15 years ago. I began organizing dream workshops soon after realizing how my clients evolved much faster if I gave them some clues about how to work with their own dreams at home. I then created mondesomnis (www.mondesomnis.com), a platform from which I’ve been spreading the importance of dreams for self-knowledge. Since then I’ve been organizing regular dream workshops, and host two dream “circles”–– with ten participants in each one––on a monthly basis. I also host lucid dreaming and incubation workshops. I was really excited when I discovered the work of IASD about six plus years ago. This discovery made me feel I was not alone! I soon became a member and I’m now its Regional Representative in Spain and Portugal.

I love promoting IASD and dreamwork whenever I have the chance. Since 2000 I’ve had a deep connection with the media in Spain––especially in Catalonia. I’ve talked about dreams in the most widely heard radio stations in the country; I’ve been interviewed several times by the major newspapers and for some popular TV programs; and I assessed and participated in a series of 13 programs devoted to dreams, which aired in prime time on the main Catalan TV station. I’m a dreamwork teacher for psychologists in the Institut Transpersonal de Barcelona. I wrote a chapter on mutual dreaming in a book called Transpersonal: Planeta, Cultura y Conciencia (2012), and another chapter on dreams and healing for a book shared with Stanislav Grof and Manuel Almendro, among others, to be published next September.

When I started studying psychology, I wanted to keep alive the artist in me: I sang and played bass guitar in a band, I sang and danced in a professional theater company, and I wrote stories and drew comic books…so I felt exploring dreams was the natural evolution of both of my main interests: conscience and creativity. I long to connect artists, dancers, filmmakers, dreamworkers, psychologists, scientists, and mystics…in short, everyone who would listen to their dreams. With this in mind, I’ve just co-written the screenplay for a comedy on dreams which will be shot next April in Barcelona.

If chosen to be on the Board, I’d love to foster the online community––for instance, by studying the chances to develop an online conference on dreamwork, such as we have employed in the Psiberdreaming conference, or by exploring the possibilities of airing the regional and annual conferences online for those who are not able to attend them. I also believe that online conferences are something we can do to reach a lot of people who still don’t speak English fluently but are very much interested on dreams. I’m thinking, particularly, of Spain but also South and Central America, and Mexico. I think we can build the bridge and increase knowledge of the IASD by exchanging ideas in a Spanish-speaking forum. The whole world’s waiting for the dreamworld to show!

Janet Garrett, Spain

My interest in dreams began in 1989 after attending a course on Jung in San Francisco, and I have kept a dream journal and participated in dream groups ever since.  Here in Spain I have given informal courses on dreams and psychology. I attended my first PsiberDreaming Conference (PDC) in 2004, which was when I also became a member of IASD.

In 2011 I was awarded an M.Sc. in Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. A project in my second year and my thesis were both dream related; the latter revisited the group dreaming experiments conducted by Jean Campbell in 1979-1984, and was the basis for a paper I presented at the 2011 PDC.

However, my professional background was not in psychology or dreamwork, but in IT project management. I believe this has already been of use to IASD as I have gradually developed standards and procedures for the PDC, in the process discovering a talent for copy editing which I've also put to use for Dream News and conference program booklets.

After enjoying the many benefits that IASD has to offer, I feel that it is time for me to take a more active role in the organization, and I believe that my project management experience can continue to be an asset if I am elected to the Board.

Curtiss Hoffman, USA 

I am Professor of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University, where I teach courses in Archaeology and Cognitive Anthropology, including Myth and Culture, Anthropology of Religion, and Culture and Consciousness.  I am the author of The Seven Story Tower: A Mythic Journey through Space and Time. 

 I have been an IASD member since 1997, and have presented at most IASD conferences since then.  I served as conference Host in 2006, when the IASD annual conference was held at Bridgewater.  I am currently serving a second term on the IASD Board, and I am the Program Chair of the 2012 conference, as well as Chair of the Student Research Awards Committee.

Tracey Kahan, USA

I am a full-time member of the Psychology faculty at Santa Clara University, a liberal arts university in Northern California. I have been at SCU since 1990.  I received my Ph.D. in Cognitive/Experimental Psychology from SUNY Stony Brook. I am the founder and director of the SCU Sleep Cognition Lab. My SCU-based research, conducted entirely with undergraduate student collaborators, investigates the relationship between the dreaming mind and the waking mind, with an emphasis on variations in self-reflective consciousness, intentionality, and self-regulation. This research utilizes laboratory as well as experimental, phenomenological, and first-person approaches.  I also maintain active collaborations with several IASD researchers and sleep scientists at Stanford Research Institute. I have a strong record of empirical publications in the field of dreaming, sleep, and consciousness and cognition. I teach courses in cognition, perception, consciousness, sleep and dreaming, and research methodology--and I have won several teaching awards.

I have been involved with IASD for over 20 years and have given over 20 research presentations at IASD conferences. Presently, I am a member of the Research Committee. I also have reviewed poster submissions for IASD and grants for the Dream Science Foundation.  Notably, I have won two awards at the Dream Ball! As a future Board hopeful, I will bring good organizational, and interpersonal and collaborative skills. I will also bring a long-standing appreciation for IASD as a unique venue for multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches to the study and exploration of dreams. I have kept a personal dream journal for over 40 years. I welcome the opportunity to serve IASD as a Board member.

Linda Mastrangelo, USA

Linda Mastrangelo, MA, MFTI (FELTON, CA)
I have been on a dreamer’s path since childhood, but it was my first IASD conference at Bridgewater where I truly found my tribe. I was moved by the generosity of heart, soul and spirit of each member and the earnestness and easiness these gifts were given. And from that moment, my intention was to give back what IASD has given me: My life’s work and soul’s calling.
Since then, I am graduate certified in dreams studies, earning licensure as a Marriage Family Therapist; facilitating dream groups; lecturing on dreams at institutions and universities and am part of a dynamic team called The Dream Tribe. In 2009, The Examiner’s first dream column was born and this labor of love has grown into a resource for the San Francisco Bay Area dreaming community and beyond. Other research and work has been published in The Lucid Dream Exchange, Dream Network Journal, All Things Healing and DreamTime Magazine printed “Animal Dreams,” which received the IASD Student Research Award.

Over the years, my involvement and commitment to IASD has only deepened like promoting events and its members, social networking, volunteering and serving on various committees and presenting my art and research at annual and Psiberdreaming conferences like “The Right to Dream” (Asheville, 2010) born from my passion for dream activism and sustainable communities. This year, I present on dreams of the bereaved based on my grief counseling experience at hospice: An area in dire need of dream research and education.

It would an honor to continue to serve IASD through community outreach, forming collaboratives and increasing awareness of the dream in all its incarnations, healing and evolutionary possibilities.

Robert Waggoner

In 1995, I attended my first IASD conference in Manhattan.  I left the conference feeling completely amazed and delighted by the wide-ranging presentations across disciplines, the ethical treatment of dream interpretation, and the tolerance for diverse viewpoints. 

Over the years, I have come to see IASD from numerous vantage points: first as a member and occasional presenter, then as Treasurer for eight years, and a year each as Vice-President, President and Chair of the Board.  I still feel amazed by IASD, and the incredible volunteers, Board and staff that keep it vibrant and alive. I agreed to accept this nomination with the hope that my business expertise could assist IASD in further expanding its membership and outreach.

Thirty years after teaching myself to lucid dream in 1975, I began to write a book on lucid dreaming to address many aspects of the experience that deserved more attention. With the publication of my book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, I have been invited to speak at a number of college campuses and conferences, a bimonthly radio show on dreams and lucid dreams with Iowa Public Radio for eighteen months, and an online, biannual lucid dreaming workshop with Glide Wing Productions. 

I intend to continue to serve IASD actively as co-chair of the IASD Heritage Fund and on various committees and sub-committees––and encourage others to get actively involved in supporting and growing IASD.