The word for “dream” is synonymous with “root.”
– Ursula le Guin, The Word for World is Forest
During our residency at Elias 2069, we explored the idea of dreaming in the forest. The forest as a place for dream rituals, as a place where histories and mythologies intertwine, as a metaphor for the subconscious, where we get lost and find clarity when entering a clearing. Building our own bird’s nest was an important group activity. The idea for the camp was to float in-between as an extended embodied, liminal state, using technology enmeshed within the ecology of the place. Suspending our tents and our cargo nets on trees above the creek, our enmeshed fabric became a dream net, where every movement was translated into vibrations. Here we listened to the rustling of the leaves, to the trickling of water and the rapid passing of dragonflies who used the creek as their highway. While in the house everyone needed their own space, in the forest we huddled cozily together at night to feel safe from unknown sounds that stirred our imagination, from beetles coming out of the ground, from the high pitch screeches of weasels and perhaps werewolves.
Our resident musician Corny Horny lulled us to sleep with gentle electronic and acoustic sound improvisations with the marimba being placed upon the rocks between the ferns, echo delays of speakers being placed on different distances throughout the forest, mimicking the parallel realities in dreams. It was fascinating to hear interplay emerge between the pulsating sounds of the crickets responding to the ambient soundscapes, how they enforced it and sometimes fell silent. Sound vibrations and movements became gentle resonances in the dream net, a big embrace, a package of duvets, an immersive cradle and lullaby for adults.
Some rules and principles for the residency were: no breakfast before 10 am, priority for rest and dreaming, stopping addictions, such as alcohol, weed, or other substances, reducing work, phone and screen time and that our collective dream work can be transformative for everyone involved. Dreams were shared after breakfast and one dream got “opened” per day. Dream Opening is a practice derived from the Kabbalah, a jewish spiritual tradition, meaning to receive. The technique is learned not by scripture but by practice and teached to us by Mala Kline. Using a four step method in disclosing the coded language of dreams, we first asked question about the factual context of the dreamer, then looking at patterns, associations, antidotes, urgencies and the “hinge” within the dream, to then come to an interpretation as a “secondary dreamer”. After feedback, a small hypnosis session starts to go “back into a scene of the dream”. Going back serves as a gentle psychic intervention to change patterns in which we are stuck or to explore further what was hidden. The idea is to integrate these dream images as guides and answers for waking life.
In the words of one of the participants, it was “super meaningful to talk in a non-medicalised, non-professional therapy session”, to hold space for each others dreams and the deeply felt griefs. We came into conversations you do not easily come into even with your friends and everyone contributed with their personal horizon to thedisclosure of dreams. The question arose if we are actually healing ourselves or creating harm? How do we know we are doing something good? It is important to create safety within the group. The intention to hold space for each other was already transformative. I personally believe that shining a light on deeply held insecurities, griefs and blockages can be already a form of release, of honest intimate reflection and of letting go. It led me to think how this practice can be part of Hologram, a distributed mental, emotional, physical, social care model, where health is treated holistically through a protocol of dedicated practitioners, inspired by the solidarity health clinics during the austerity crisis in Greece. While I dont want to deny the importance of experts, of people dedicating their lives on certain issues, the new realisation after this residency is, that with mutual support, we can do so much ourselves. This is the real soil for post-capitalist futures to thrive on. We can dream and do it ourselves.
This research residency was generously funded and made possible by the Culture Moves Europe.
Links:
https://culture.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/creative-europe-culture-strand/culture-moves-europe