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W. Gordon Lawrence provides us with the latest scatter shot of 15 articles targeted on the theme of the Social Dreaming Matrix. This is the fourth book on Social Dreaming demonstrating that the concept is alive and well, inspiring authors to use it in various environments and organizations, and extending understanding of the original technique. Where else can we read about the dreams of Israelis and Palestinians, South Africans, political refugees, social democrats, or soldiers, all of whom are seriously confronting social upheavals and massive social discontent: a Jungian gold mine in itself? It is heartening to witness opposing factions struggling with similar issues and anxieties.
Lawrence contributes three articles to the collection. In ‘Infinite possibilities of Social Dreaming’ he provides an excellent summary and history of the method. By forming a group and sharing dreams in a non-interpretive atmosphere, Social Dreaming makes possible the examination of the social unconscious. The group adds free associations and amplifications to the dream images. The thought behind the dream emerges and through the amplificatory process it can be related to the culture in which the group participates. New and creative thinking can emerge from such an experience. Or as Morgan clearly expresses, the central task of the Matrix is ‘to transform thinking by associating to the dreams made available to the Matrix in order to make links and find connections between private thought and social meaning’ (p. 107). Lawrence also puts forward the notion that the very first dream of a Matrix ‘is a fractal of all the dreams that are to follow’ (p. 11).
In later articles, Lawrence proposes two supplementary processes to the Social Dreaming Group. One is the Dream Reflection Group (DRG), whose task is ‘to make a synthesis of the state of being of the system, with its dilemmas and puzzles, using the evidence of the dreams of the Matrix to intuit the state of emergence of the system’ (p. 165).