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Dreaming Circle

Dreaming Circle

Dreaming Circle
Dreaming circle can be used to connect personal intentions into a shared dream of a whole group that will work on it together. The Dreaming Circle is one of the essential skills of Dragon Dreaming and rooted in the aborigine tradition.

What is
Dreaming Circle
about ?

What is
Dreaming Circle
about ?
What is this Method about ?

The Dreaming Circle is one of the essential skills of Dragon Dreaming. It is the process by which, in a win-win way, the project of an individual becomes the project of a team. In the Dragon Dreaming pathway, this is the first stage. The next stages then are the planning, the doing and the celebrating, which are not in our focus in this description.

Working on a project that has been started by someone else always generates less personal motivation than working on a project collectively owned by a group. And yet every project is always started as the dream of an individual. But, all too often the dream is not shared. And yet as Carl Gustav Jung and Australian Aborigines knew, we rarely ask, “where do such dreams come from”. Failure to share our dreams in an appropriate way is one reason why 90% of all projects get blocked in the dreaming stage. It is easier to work on “our project” than to work on “his project”, and yet every project starts as an idea of one person. How can this apparent paradox be resolved? 

Catherine Baldwin calls this first process “calling” or “casting the circle”. This is the first stage in converting an individual intention into a collective one for Dragon Dreaming, and is a process by which “project ownership” is transferred from the individual to the group. Rather than maintaining a sense of possession, the group becomes custodians of the collective dream of the project. But to do this it needs a “Dream Team”, an initial circle group that can be drawn from friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances, or people you have identified because of their possession of special skills, who come together to share a dream.

When and why is this Method used ?

The method, philosophy and background knowledge of Dragon Dreaming, and in particular here the Dreaming Circle, support people who want to make our society more eco-social: to playfully plan projects, to strengthen the community and to bring about a  change towards sustainability.

Where does this Method come from ?
Original Source Details
The Dreaming Circle is one of the essential skills of Dragon Dreaming and was developed by John Croft. It is the process by which, in a win-win way, the project of an individual becomes the project of a dream team.

Audience

Audience

Is participant experience relevant for Dreaming Circle ?

Some workshop experience of the participants is desirable

[content_physical_trust]

[content_mental_trust]

Audience description for Dreaming Circle

Anyone.
An initial Dreaming Circle group can be drawn from friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, acquaintances, or people you have identified because of their possession of special skills, who come together to share a dream.

Requirements

Requirements
Experience level of the facilitator
Routine as participant OR professional facilitator
Number of Facilitators :  
more than one if the group is large
How Stationary
Stationary necessary, at least in parts
Location requirements

a space where everyone can sit in a circle and won’t be interrupted by sound or weather

Run Through

Run Through
Prep Work (excluding materials)

Identify people for your Dreaming Circle, pick a time and place that is convenient for all, a place free from external distractions, and where excitement of the participants will not disturb others in the vicinity (a crowded restaurant is not advised!).

Pre Exercise
Steps

Introduction

To make our dreams come true, it takes all of us from all of us. Begin by acknowledging the place where you are gathered. Place exerts influence on what is shared and how it is shared, so it is important to name that at the beginning. Welcome the participants. It is important for people to feel comfortable, safe, and welcome so that they can open up to share. Recall the intention of the dreaming circle.

Dream and record

Once it feels like everyone has arrived energetically, announce the beginning e.g. with a gong or light a candle in the middle and ask the generative question “What would this project have to be like so that afterwards you can say – this was the best possible way to have spent your time?” Or: “What would enable you to say – yes! I am so pleased I worked on this project!?”.
  • Talking piece - one person takes the talking piece and only this person - holding the talking piece - is empowered to speak. The others practice deep listening. Exceptions: expressing that you can not hear the speaker or saying “ho” or “ah-ho” to express support or agreement
  • The simplest form is to pass the talking piece clockwise around the circle. Each person pauses in silence when the piece comes to them and feels into which dream may be arising that wants to be shared.
Add one dream at a time. If someone has nothing further to add for the moment, they can pass. They can add a new idea when it is their turn again. It is important in a Dream Circle that every idea is recorded. Don’t try to capture every word, just get the essence of it. Check with the speaker that this reflects what they wanted. Make sure that there is a flow in the Dream Circle – this way it is an uplifting experience. If you find the energy falling, there is something going wrong. Watch out for Analysis Paralysis, i.e. that your Dream Team gets stuck in the debate over the meanings of words. The Dream Circle continues until everyone in turn has passed and you may continue until you feel it is done. Remember, to make the most out of the Dream Circle:
  •         Use Pinakarri (=is a word of the Aboriginal Mandjilidjara Mardu people of Western Australia and literally means "ears standing up" and is usually translated as "deep listening," a listening with the whole bodymind.)
  •         Use a talking piece
  •         When writing, write the essence of the dream, not a whole paragraph
  •         Each person adds one dream at a time
  •         Neither be too rational nor too abstract
  •         Relate the dream to real-life
  •         Write the dream positive and as if it would already be real

Closing

Once everyone shared or the process feels complete, make some expressions of gratitude for everything that was shared. It can be nice to sing a song together or use some other closing ritual.

Next steps

The Dreaming Circle results should be kept in a prominent place. Successful consensus building requires us not to sort or prioritise this list (because sorting and prioritising will lead to a diminution of the importance of some of the ideas and an augmentation of the importance of others). This is people’s hopes, thoughts, wishes and desires at a fixed moment in time. To be a successful change agent is to get the whole group to agree to achieving all of these, otherwise someone will feel that in some way they have been left out. At the following workshop or meeting we need to return to our list of points gathered during the Dreaming Circle. From experience I find it useful to ask each person “To what extent do you feel we have achieved this goal?” We quite often find it is useful to get the people to express this as a percentage. The next question is, “What needs to happen to get it to 100%?” The answer is usually “More time and practice”. Designing appropriate follow-ups is then essential: more concrete planning, doing and celebrating. Find more here: https://dragondreaming.org/#process

Online

Online
Potential for Solely Online & Blended Learning

Maybe, a Dreaming Circle could work online, but we don’t have the experience yet. We are open to hear from you if you have experienced an online Dreaming Circle. We can imagine that an adaptation can be that the speaker can choose who is next until all have spoken.

Variations

Variations
The Meshworks Method
There is a number of variations you may like to try. One, used by the people of “Meshworks”, a group from the Centre for Human Convergence in the Netherlands, is to create a wall in which an anonymous group of people post as many of their answers to generative questions as they wish (like the two we mentioned in the step-by-step section). This system of generating and capturing people’s dreams, however, from experience does not capture the group spirit and motivation of the group as discussed above. In such cases it is important to have a way of separating the issue of “What should be done?” from “What will I do personally?” and to have a way of capturing contributors names and addresses. A good way to do this is to use two separate generative questions. At the Copenhagen Climate Summit, at December 2009 Klima Forum, Meshworks used cards in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle where people could consider their dreams as a piece of an overall puzzle. Reading the puzzle wall stimulated a great many other contributions. Having a big pile of these in the centre of a circle and having individuals write up their ideas, discuss what they have created and sticking them to a wall creates an artistic way different from the lists of dream circles that are normally generated. The Transition Town Movement makes a big use of “Post-It” notes for the same reason.
Ulrike Reimann’s modification
At the Second Train the Trainer session held at Sieben Linden Ecovillage in 2010, rather than having a single recorder, Ulrike had the recorder be a second person who rotated as the speaker rotated. This approach makes the process a lot more playful, and can lead to playful mock conflict when someone passes.

Material for

Material
Additional Material Description

Talking piece, pen and paper to capture the dream, gong or candle in the middle to mark the beginning and the end of the Dreaming Circle.

The Dragon Dreaming Ebook. A systemic design process, a philsosophy and a methodological framework for the realisation of collaborative and regenerative projects, organisations and platforms: https://dragondreaming.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DragonDreaming_eBook_english_V02.09.pdf
Other Resources – The Fact Sheets: https://dragondreaming.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Final-Index-DRAGON-DREAMING-FACTSHEET.pdf

Additional Resources Description
Create materials with tender, love and care in : 30 min
Create materials quick and dirty in : 5 min

Impact

Impact
Hidden Curriculum The hidden curriculum of the Dreaming Circle is equality — each participant can be heard equally unity — sitting in a circle and coming together to experience the wisdom of the group promotes cohesion right-brain engagement — practising SPONTANEITY (not planning what you'll say before it's your turn, and checking in to see what is actually arising in the moment when it is your turn). This is also practising a kind of intuition
Individual EmpowermmentDreaming Circle is inherently an empowering experience. Because of the structure that guides the process, participants may experience being heard and witnessed in the group in a way that is deeply validating. Participants may also find that the circle structure and the talking object, as well as trusting whatever needs to be voiced to arise in the moment, is empowering in that their inner wisdom may flow in ways it may not have felt safe to in other situations.
Group EmpowermentDuring a Dreaming Circle, a skilled facilitator will notice a shift in the language used by participants. Participants often start by saying “what the project should do is….”, but will shift to saying “what we will do is…”. When this happens this is a sign that the Dreaming Circle process is working successfully. You will often be aware that there is a general rise in group energy.
Collective LearningPeople in the circle seem to grow more excited as the full enormity of the amazing project becomes apparent to them. Motivation in the room rises, as their commitment to the project also grows. The project is truly becoming a project of the group rather than being the “property” of a single individual.
Dreaming Circle
project

project

IN WHICH THIS method WAS DEVELOPED
Hosting Empowerment
Hosting Empowerment
Dreaming Circle
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