Day 3: In which the learning begins

It's five a.m. which is the only time in these action-packed days that I have energy and restored balance to blog. (You can be the judge of the latter.)

Yesterday morning I dragged myself, headachy and exhausted, downstairs. My new friend Lisa was getting breakfast at the same time. She suggested we go to "Dream Table." Lest this sound like I am in one of those woowoo schools, remember that the majority of people here are psychology grad students, many in the clinical tract.

"Why not?" I thought. I hadn't really thought about dream analysis since I read that book by Freud in the eleventh grade. (Read it, yes. Understand it, no. It was during that energetic stage of life when I hoped to read every great book ever written, i.e. before the late sixties happened and I lost interest in academics for awhile.)

Here's how dream table works. Someone brings in a dream which they have written and copied for the rest of us. The dreamer reads it. The participants can ask questions about the dream but not about the personal life, history, etc. of the dreamer. Next they are invited to interpret the dream as "if it were my dream." That operative phrase is key. And yes, I avoided jumping in with my adolescent Freudian interpretation, in part because I was in a room full of Jungians but mostly because nobody seemed to care what the "official, correct" interpretation might be...only the interpretation one would make if one were thinking about it as if it were his/her own. The facilitator then gives an interpretation, the qualification here being that it is alternative to any other interpretation. The idea is that this opens even more possibilities for dreamer and participants. The dreamer responds to all these ideas, picking and choosing what she feels relevant. The participants are invited to comment. The dreamer reflects the entire experience. And on to the next. (If anybody is familiar with this process and I've left something out, let me know. It was my first time and I took no notes.)

The reason I am telling you this is not because I've switched concentrations. I think it's metaphorical of my experiences of the rest of the day. Although I am pretty sure there will be times when there is only one answer (someone else's great idea on the subject), I feel encouraged that many interpretations of what knowledge is are possible. It was the perfect way to begin and prepare for what followed...a four hour class on transformational learning. More about that later.

And for anybody on the edge of the cliff wondering if Sidney came home unscathed or went to jail (see day 2)? That turned out okay too.