Experiences in Social Dreaming

Gordon Lawrence was a managing partner of Social Dreaming Ltd, London, and a visiting professor at the University of Northumberland, Newcastle, the New Bulgarian University, Sofia, and at La Sapienza, the University of Rome. Formerly, he held a visiting professorship at Cranfield University, Bedford. He was on the editorial board of Free Associations (UK), Freie Assoziation (Germany) and Organizational and Social Dynamics (UK). He was a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Socio-Analysis and a Distinguished Member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.

• Introduction -- The social dreaming phenomenon -- Social dreaming: report on the workshops held in Mauriburg, Raissa, and Clarice Town -- Dreaming the future -- Not two and not one -- The science, spirit, chaos, and order of social dreaming -- The discovery of social dreaming -- Relationship and relatedness between the elementary school as a system and its violent parts -- Childreamatrix: dreaming with preschool children—or, bootlegging dreams into the school years -- Deep calls unto deep: can we experience the transcendent infinite? -- Sliding houses in the Promised Land: unstable reality worked through dreams -- Social dreaming and the senior managers’ programme -- Dream intelligence: tapping conscious and non-attended sources of intelligence in organizations -- Paul Lippman interview -- The confusion of dreams between selves and the other: non-linear continuities in the social dreaming experience -- Theatre of dreams: social dreaming as ritual/yoga/literature machine -- Social dreaming: a paradox accepted (a psychoanalyst’s condensed thoughts on social dreaming) -- Associations and reflections on social dreaming -- Social dreaming: dreams in search of a dreamer -- Some thoughts on social dreaming

'In editing these papers, I am struck by how the idea of Social Dreaming has caught the imagination of the writers and those with whom they have worked. I am also struck by the quality of thinking made available in these papers. Although it has a short history, Social Dreaming is now well enough established in a range of countries like the USA, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, Israel, Ireland and the UK. As yet, there is no well-rehearsed theory, but there are working hypotheses, which are testimony to the fact that Social Dreaming is always in a process of becoming.'- W. Gordon Lawrence, from the Introduction.