Dreaming across continents: A collaborative inquiry into dream sharing as a resource for action researchers

Abstract

This is a collaborative inquiry into how dream sharing might inform our work as action researchers. Our main inquiry’s purpose was to explore participants’ experiences of an action research conference through sharing dream material in a social dreaming matrix, set up to create collective rather than individual meanings from dreams. A further purpose, which developed as we reported on the social dreaming matrix, was to examine our own dream insights as an ongoing parallel process whereby we shared our own dreams to facilitate and inform our reporting. We did this through documentary exchange and monthly telephone interchanges. Our theorizing about the interplay between conscious and unconscious mental processes draws on the psychoanalytically based ideas of Bion, Jung, Bollas, and Gordon Lawrence who developed the ideas and practice of social dreaming. We found our dream sharing helped overcome difficulties in writing the paper through a deeper and different level of knowing. Four themes emerged, they were the challenges and risks of doing action research particularly on dreaming, new insights and challenges that our dream sharing raised, the search for guides in our life and work, and the irruption of our research in other aspects of our lives.

Keywords

Social dreaming psychoanalysis collaboration different ways of knowing action research conference

Introduction

This is an account of a collaboration to explore how to make dream material relevant to action research. The post-structuralist challenge to essentialism calls for reconceptualizing the way we perceive and observe in the act of “doing research,” prompting a research “turn” toward forms of experience that unsettle or even transgress the apparent rationality of the familiar. As St. Pierre argues, our experience of the language we use to communicate our research shows it to be inadequate and that we do actually use “much data that has never been textualised into words on a page” (St. Pierre, 1997, p. 179). Our inquiry explores how the study of our dreams might stimulate this different kind of knowing.

The use of material arising from dreams has for some time hovered at the edges of action research and qualitative research. For example, Corbin and Strauss include dreams among examples of how an insight into qualitative data analysis may emerge (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 34). Whitehouse–Hart explores this more deeply, explicating how a “dream fragment” from her research diary enabled her to progress in analyzing a case study that had become so troublesome she wanted to discard it because of a resistance to interpretation (Whitehouse-Hart, 2012). She proposes, following Bion, that a troubling emotional aspect was preventing her from thinking about it. The dream—both in form and content—cast direct light on her difficulties and enabled the emergence of meaning.

St. Pierre too proposes a more central methodological role for dream data to “produce different knowledge and to produce knowledge differently.” She experienced such data as “irrupting” and “transgressive.” But she also argued that they are “necessary” (St. Pierre, 1997, p. 175). We found this notion of irruption helpful, as it reflects the surprise when an insight from our dreamworld “bursts” into wakeful consciousness.

In action research, we also find occasional reference to dream material, for example Convery shows how “a dream sequence … symbolised my confusion in attempting classroom research. I felt very strongly that the dream had exposed my concerns: that much research—even from centres of applied research—has an over-reliance on theoretical niceties: trick questions whose purpose is to reinforce the intellectual superiority of the questionners [etc.]” (Convery, 1996, p. 85). The value of creative and imaginative expression is well embedded in action research. Less so, but nonetheless evident is the role played by unconscious processes in developing the insights and learning we recognize as “action research” (Carson, 2009; Leitch & Day, 2000). The value of a dream-type state of consciousness such as Jung (2009) and Bion discussed, of letting things happen, action through non-action, can also be discerned, eg. Burchell's experience of ‘reverie’ enabled poetic expression to surface ‘tacit dimensions’ in practitioner research (Burchell, 2010, p. 394), and RB has begun inquiry into the place of dreaming in action research (Balogh, 2010, 2015, 2019). Our research seeks to discover how to bring dream data out of the margins, asides, and “backstage” (Goffman, 1980) of research acts, so that the unexpressed emotions that drive us might be articulated more openly.

Thus, the purpose of this study was to understand how dreams and dream sharing informed our work as action researchers. While we draw on psychoanalytic theories to inform our understanding of the interplay between conscious and unconscious processes, we use them in a relational way. We do not approach interpretation with a psychoanalytic lens, but instead, recognizing the multiple possibilities of meanings within dream texts, focus on the expressed concerns of participants. The purpose of our main inquiry was to deepen our understanding of participants’ experiences of an action research conference through an exploration of dream material shared in a social dreaming matrix (SDM). A further purpose, which developed as we commenced reporting on the SDM, was to examine our own dream insights as an ongoing parallel process, in which our dreams often reflected the anxieties and frustrations we experienced in our waking lives and in particular in writing this paper. In parallel process thinking, aspects of one system are played out in another, and when unpacked can inform understanding of the system. In this case, the two systems are our dream life and our waking personal and professional lives.

Individually, we had each experienced the transformative power of dreams in our waking—and working—lives. It was therefore logical to explore such possibilities within the spaces of our lives as action researchers. Separately we had each experienced and practised Gordon Lawrence’s social dreaming (Lawrence, 2003, 2005, 2010) and wondered about the potential for social dreaming within action research.

We begin by introducing the ideas and practice of social dreaming, moving onto our collaborative inquiry, how it began with a SDM, and how this led to a two-year exploration of our own dreams as we wrote this paper.

Social dreaming

The idea of social dreaming was developed by Gordon Lawrence, drawing on the psychoanalytic perspectives of object-relations and group relations, particularly the work of Bion and Bollas. The practice Lawrence developed involves a social dreaming “matrix”: where people share dreams and associations to them. This social process is specifically designed to minimize the play of group dynamics to enable “the sharing of hidden or unspoken thoughts and feelings about the social circumstances of the social dreaming participants” (Manley, 2014, p. 323). Seating is arranged in a “snowflake” or “spiral” pattern with everyone seated concentrically facing a central empty space, limiting the possibilities for eye contact and conversation as in the conventional circle. There being only contributions of dreams and associations, turn taking occurs spontaneously, without linear logic or argument. According to Lawrence, the “matrix refers to the web of mental processes, thinking and emotions that underpin all social relationships and mirror the infinite/unconscious processes that produce dreaming in the first instance” (Lawrence, 2003, p. 610).

The purpose of social dreaming is to create a space for participants to contribute dreams and to free-associate, helping them engage and connect thoughts, images, fantasies, and metaphors that can later be analyzed through discussion when the SDM is over. The focus is a question, issue, or situation of interest to those involved. The special character of social dreaming is that meaning making shifts away from the individual concerns of the dreamers, and instead is on the dreams, their contribution to understanding the group-as-a-whole (Lawrence, 2003; Wells, 1995), and the creation of new knowledge (Bion, 1970). These articulations of the “social unconscious” of the participants in the space of unknowing provide a method of understanding the social context and the embedded nature of individuals within the larger system.

Bion was concerned with how people derived meaning and new knowledge as a result of exploring their dreams (Lawrence, 2003)

By focusing on the development of thinking and knowledge, Bion broadened the base for understanding dreaming and dreams by freeing them from being bound by the individual psyche. … By concentrating on the dream and not on the person who dreams it, the cultural context of dreaming is addressed. (p. 610)

As a psychoanalyst, Bion emphasized the need for the analyst to be in the present moment with the client, akin to the dreamy or mental space Keats described as “negative capability.” He said, “I am thus postulating mental space as a thing-in-itself that is unknowable. But that can be represented by thoughts” (Bion, 1970, p. 11). Bion’s explorations of the unknown which he termed the “O” point to the importance of not knowing so that we can learn anew, a kind of action inquiry and discovery that can stimulate new knowledge. Bion’s “O” is not fixed—it is a state of mind that is always in flux, a constant state of becoming (Reiner, 2012)

One might ask then if action researchers may also be inclined to explore the boundaries of this noumenal realm through dreams and dreaming.

Inside a SDM of action researchers

Our initial research focus was a SDM and discussion we conducted at a Collaborative Action Research Network/International Practice Development Collaborative (CARN–IPDC) conference, an annual international meeting of action researchers with a very high level of participation through presentations, workshops, etc. (www.carn.org.uk/events/conferences/). We invited participants to contribute dreams and associations within a SDM about a focal issue: “entering and occupying the space of [the] Conference” (Balogh & Getz, 2012). A group of seven took part. We seated them in a “snowflake” arrangement as previously described and they contributed dreams and associations for around 45 minutes on this issue. RB led the SDM, by briefly introducing the subject and process and taking handwritten notes, occasionally contributing a dream, and maintaining the SDM’s focus on dreams and associations, discouraging interpretations and discussion. CG recorded material on a tablet, and we both agreed a composite record afterwards, assigning numbers to participants. In a second session, some of the participants, along with other Conference participants, discussed the material generated in the first. Due to the complexities of conference timetabling, not all members of the SDM could join this second session. We summarized the material from the first session for discussion in the second, reminding the original participants and introducing it to the new ones.

Our approach to making meaning was to try to understand the dreams as “lived experience” within a collective reality (that of an action research conference), and our second session discussants helped us to extend this beyond the insights reached just within the SDM. This focus on dreams as “lived experience” departs from conventional psychoanalytic approaches, having more in common with Bion’s ideas and Bollas’s argument for a more aesthetic approach, along the lines of literary criticism, of “appreciating” dreams rather than interpreting them (see also Ullman, 1996). For Bollas, the Freudian focus on the thematic or symbolic aspect of dreams has led to neglecting their theatrical nature, which he describes as a play that “seems to have been arranged by an Other” (Bollas, 1987, p. 65). In this way, the SDM enabled the group to encounter “otherness” not only in their own dreams, but in a more collective “otherness”—the dreams of their colleagues in the Matrix, and for the discussants who joined the second session, an “otherness” yet further removed but accessible to appreciation. This “otherness” could also be understood as the collective unconscious, which Jung described as an objective reality unto itself. Humbert (1996) notes that, “Jung defined the unconscious as an objective reality that is the seat of creativity and of the processes that could be called, using the language of consciousness, knowledge” (p. 113). Thus, this unconscious form of knowing is made available through the sharing of dreams in images and associations to them, bringing forth information (data) that is not easily accessible in our conscious life.

Many dream images emerged, and verbatim comments are reported here in quotes. The first dream was one that particularly engaged the matrix participants and also the discussion. It concerned the image of a tsunami, “a recurring anxiety dream … if my workload is too much, I dream of a tsunami—I am on a shore, or on a cliff, it engulfs me. I try to gather my children to myself.” [participant 3]

Within the matrix participants expressed that the tsunami dream invoked fear of anticipation and enveloping; but also of surrender and letting go. Associated with this was the way action research “allows us to unravel and let go of previous forms” [participant 2]. In the later session, the violent nature of the image, of “breaking up” seemed to draw people into discussion, and its destructive power was further elaborated, as participants shared ideas of “cleansing,” “finishing,” “dismantling,” and transformation “like a cocoon to a butterfly.”

Many of these images relate to the immersive nature of an action research conference where everyone participates. Thus, the space of the conference is yet another layer of the collective unconscious available for exploration and learning. Such images invoke a concept that is fundamental to action research, the notion of action research processes as cyclical or spiral-like. On occasion these can be portrayed as mechanistic procedures, but the wider literature points to a deeper, transformational aspect of action research cycles (Dadds, 2008; Mezirow, 1991).

One participant offered a further dream, which occurred after the SDM and discussion, again about a cyclic process involving immersion. It featured a water turbine to which she was:

binding a young child with Down’s syndrome … he did not mind … I turned the wheel, the child, boy? was sometimes under water and sometimes above, when he was above he laughed. That continued for some time, the boy enjoyed himself a lot, I did too. I felt that something strange can be ok. [participant 6]

The contradictory emotions implied in these dreams demand further inquiry. The initial tsunami image clearly related to an excess of work that became literally “overwhelming.” In the SDM “gathering the children” was further echoed in other dreams involving children and parents, and the need for an “anchor,” a feeling of safety. The dream above indicates the possibility that a seemingly dangerous activity might be safe and even enjoyable. The discussion noted that action research entails taking risks. These may appear dangerous but might result in experiences that are not only safe but enjoyable. We can also consider the significance of the child having Down’s syndrome, a “learning disability” known for its affectionate disposition, carrying the implication within the dream that enjoyment expressed by someone limited in the ability to learn may nonetheless lead to learning. Analyzing it as theater, along the lines Bollas describes as “the speech of a visual theatric that both represents and veils thought” (Bollas, 1987, p. 65), it is also a dyadic, relational enactment of power. One person controls the “power” turbine (and its cyclic movement), the other is “bound” (another winding or spiral process) within it, yet the two are in harmony. And finally we observe the feature of dreams Freud called “condensation” (Freud, 1900): “the process by which two (or more) images combine (or can be connected) to form a composite image which is invested with meaning and energy derived from both” (Rycroft, 1968, p. 22), when the dream image juxtaposes “down” (Down’s) and “immersion” with the cyclic turbine and “binding.”

Thus, within the group, we found that sharing dreams enabled us to articulate Bollas’s “unthought known” (Bollas, 1987)—knowable only through “use and experience of the other” (p. 280)—in terms of conflicting and difficult feelings that could emerge through engagement with images not initially comprehensible, but amenable to the development of layers of meaning. It was possible, too, to relate these feelings to persistent, troubling, but necessary discourses in action research, relating to power (the turbine) and consent (binding) (see Kemmis, 2006, p. 104) in the action research process (that turns). For action research these are constant problematics, since the action researcher initiating an inquiry is positioned in control of it yet seeks during the process to relinquish some control.

Using our dreams to support the reporting process

Our inquiry uses dreams on several levels. When we considered how to write this paper, we wanted to deepen our mutual understanding, and so we decided an exchange of dreams might help. This process became in some ways more fascinating than the initial research. As two writers, we were separated by geography, living thousands of miles apart. But we were connected by shared experiences, and a shared interest in social dreaming. Thus as we reflected on the SDM, we explored our own dreams as another source of data. This began a two-year process of recording dreams, sharing them, and analyzing them, as well as a monthly telephone meeting to discuss our inquiry. This process became a sort of practice field to demonstrate the importance of dream material in understanding how we conceptualize a paper about dream material in action research.

In the early stages when we began writing about the SDM, and then exploring our dreams, we recognized we were participating in a parallel process of engaging with how we might write a paper on this topic. We dream, we discuss, and we ponder how we will analyze the data we assembled, along with the data merging from our dreams. We recognized the importance of our own dream material in relation to Bion’s understanding of the unconscious dynamics and ways of being present to something that might not yet be seen, heard or felt by us (as researchers), but may become available if we remained open to different ways of exploring and knowing.

Since our hope was to better understand the usefulness of dream material for action researchers, we discovered this two-pronged approach was indeed crucial—one prong was the SDM, and the material (data) that arose, and the other was using our own dream material to enrich, enliven, and recognize our own challenges of reporting on the first. This process of dream sharing began with each of us writing down significant dreams and any connections we made to the SDM, the difficulties of doing action research, and/or any professional challenges we may have been experiencing over our scholarship. We then sent our reflections to each other, and each added their own thoughts about what was shared. This was an ongoing and circuitous journey, where we often noted similarities and further connections, for example our challenges of writing this manuscript.

After approximately 18 months, we began a process of analyzing the data we had gathered from our dialogues and reflections. CG used the qualitative software HyperRESEARCH for initial coding of the 20 pages of text, which resulted in 13 initial codes. Upon further examination of the initial codes, both authors recognized that three themes stood out as most critical to our work: dream interpretations, actions we took as a result of dreams, and the identification of places or landscapes in our dreams. We then reflected more deeply on the data associated with just these three themes (which included over 100 entries) to help bring our unconscious thought into the rational world. We were then more able to view the data as it related specifically to us as action researchers. This resulted in four emergent issues, about how dreams can bring one’s unconscious world into the quotidian life of action researcher/practitioners. The four issues cover: challenges and risks of doing action research, particularly research on dreaming; new insights and challenges that our dream sharing raised; the search for guides in our life and work; and finally, the irruption of our research in other aspects of our lives. We examine these below.

Challenges and risks of doing action research, particularly research on dreaming

Our interchange opens with a reference to the interplay between dream and reality and came from a strange experience reported by RB that was not even a dream, but had a liminal, “timeless” (CG’s interpretation) quality to it. This led us to ask how one differentiates between dream and reality and to understand this as a fundamental framing question for how dream experiences might enter the reality of doing action research. In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud quotes Hildebrandt regarding oppositional aspects of dream experience, pointing to “the completeness with which dreams are secluded and separated from real and actual life and on the other hand [by] their constant encroachment upon each other and their constant mutual dependence” (Freud, 1900, p. 8).

Taking this into the insights of Bion and Bollas, the interplays between dream and reality are yet more deeply embedded when we frame dreams as “lived experience” and the “dream text” as the “awakened subject’s transcription of the dream experience into language, a narrated tale of a dramatic experience” (Bollas, 1987, p. 70). RB’s first dream concerned the academy. It featured (among other things) a woman called Sophia in an evening dress, at an archaeological dig in a sociology department, and not getting a cup of tea. Her response was to think she was seeking wisdom (Sophia’s Greek meaning) through “digging” into social science for that part of consciousness associated with evening—and sleep. CG drew attention to the cup of tea, saying that our field of study—action research—is not everyone’s “cup of tea,” introducing an important issue: the risk we take in “pushing the boundaries of academia.”

We also shared dreams about crossing bridges and cliffs, which roused a sense of danger. Our dreams included snakes and other reptiles that we felt were dangerous or made us fearful. We deliberated often about our fears of being open to the fullness of this exploration and the possible dangers of publishing this work. The process of sharing these dreams enabled us to name, without this fear, anxieties we were both experiencing. So at the very onset, two quite fundamental issues arose—the question of how dream and reality are imbricated upon one another: a matter of theoretical significance—and our own personal anxieties about working in a field (action research) somewhat marginal to the dominant positivist orientation of the academy, and in the case of dream study, so marginal that it is regarded as risky in career terms more generally (Young, 2015). The first dream CG reported concerned a search for the mothers of newborn chicks emerging from nests or holes and the sudden appearance of rabbits “jumping all around.” RB understood this as a “transformation from chicks, nests and mothers (protected, contained, and tame) to holes and rabbits (wild and disorganised)”: like the study of dreams itself—taming their disorganized nature to bring them into the rational world of research and reporting. This connects yet further to the initial question about how dream and reality inter-relate and whether reflecting on this connection would prompt new insights.

New insights and challenges that our dream-sharing raised

Many dreams referenced movement: travelling along winding roads, curves, speeding, roundabouts; also dreams suggesting searching for the correct route “wondering which way to turn” or looking for a way in or out of somewhere. This invoked our lack of a linear way of approaching our manuscript. This constant motion also implied a sense of busyness, and indeed even after two years we had yet to produce a draft of our paper. Our meandering (versus writing) hinted that completing the paper would resist the timeliness and order of academic custom, and we often failed to realize our well-placed plans.

We also connected to material about “fitting in”: trying to fit things into boxes, packages, a backpack, and other crowded spaces. These seemed to reflect our desire to fit in, or fear of not fitting into academic spaces that often crowd out action researchers. Yet often we found things “falling out” anyway, leading to inadvertent exposure. In one case, this involved a fruitcake falling out of a backpack, invoking the craziness of appearing as a “fruitcake,” unwittingly revealed from behind. Such dreams sometimes referenced performances, at least one drawing lines around a space, prompting us to discuss our own longing to produce something worthy, reflecting the depth of this work without feeling squeezed out or ridiculed. In some ways this led to seeking acceptance, guidance, or inspiration from others—also an emergent theme.

The search for “leads” and guidance to continue the work

Several dreams featured guides or ourselves guiding others, and this spoke to our openness to being led by what emerges as we worked. Guides are not necessarily people, and we felt we were guided by the messages (people, objects, animals, etc.) that appear in our dreams. These references and images include us as guides for each other and ourselves, as material arising from our own unconscious—yet with the awareness that it is not “just ours,” but coming from a larger shared consciousness—connecting back to the social dreaming that started our inquiry.

Remaining open to such guidance also manifested in the writing process itself. There was a point when RB became unable to write further. The paper had an introduction, an outline, and we had both contributed substantially to it. For several months the paper made no progress while CG was busy and I—RB—was stuck. I decided that returning to the co-written account of our shared dreams might help. I alighted on the initial dream about Sophia and the sociology department archaeological dig and my enthusiasm began to return. That night I had the following dream

We were on a train, saving seats for family members … Our destination was Leeds. It was very slow, constantly delayed. We were moving through bleak countryside, post-industrial, the colours leached out. I began to notice more about the world we were passing through. And saw a large life-sized pair of statues, encrusted with dirt surrounded by piles of earth. ‘It’s a Roman dig’ I remarked. We went to the buffet car and sat at a round table. A woman we knew came by with friends and we gave them our seats. The train guard told me we were approaching Leeds. I got up to reunite myself with my travelling companions and looked out of the window. While previously the sky had been dark … and an overhead roadway had increased the sense of oppression, now we were heading in the opposite direction, high up, the other side of a river running alongside. I could see Leeds ahead, a colourful city. [abbreviated extract from shared dream data]

This dream immediately enabled me to identify the search for “leads” into the paper with the journey to Leeds, and my attention to the “outside” returned my thoughts to archaeology and “digging” which I continued to find fruitful—and to travel once more through open, colorful landscape. However, the question of holding on to some seats and then giving up my seat puzzled me further. Nonetheless, I was able to resume writing. Sometime later, I realized I had been unable to progress due to another unresolved anxiety: the question of which author “leads” the process. As the author with previous publications in social dreaming and action research, I felt a sense of scholarly authority; on the other hand, I respected CG’s greater experience in the practice of sharing dreams in learning and research. Although our dream sharing had felt unproblematically equal, and our discussions productive and dialogic, the agreed process of cowriting in a loosely structured way, so that insights could emerge during writing—seemed far more challenging. I was able to recognize this was something that mattered to me (holding on to the seats), but now could relinquish it. I further recalled the surname of the friend in the dream who prompted my giving up my seat: Western. It pointed directly towards CG, living as she does on the western coast of the US. But it also included my own position, since I too live on a western coast, in the UK. It was something we shared, only differently positioned.

CG found the relational aspects of our work together challenging at times, and as she reflected on dreams she did not share, she wondered: what could be learned from the experience of not sharing? Was fear holding us back, or was it simply a matter of time?—Time to record every dream, to share it, and then to try to understand it all. In recognizing that action research inquiry is often ambiguous and time intensive, CG sees the value in the struggle, and the powerful learning from critical thinking and openness to unanticipated outcomes.

Thus, in the “not” sharing due to unanticipated real life disruptions, even more insights appear, as in RB’s reflection above, and in a dream CG reported while reflecting on her absence from dream recording:

Colleagues (those I would not generally find doing this type of work) were using sacred potions to get the spirits out of a room, in the house where I grew up. This dream began with me watching myself dream—and in the dream I was falling and flying very fast. I wanted the flying to be fun, but it was more scary than fun. There were haunted figures in the room—that needed to be removed. I couldn’t wake up – I ran into my parent’s room, and lay next to them. This felt safe, but I knew more needed to be done. Then I was with several work colleagues—asking who could help with this. This is where my colleague came in with an incense burner to smoke out the spirits, and it worked.

The colleague who smoked out the spirits of action research, may have represented a desire from some of my colleagues to get rid of this work—or perhaps this colleague represented those who struggle with this method, but yet joined me in clearing the way for a broader inclusion of action research in our department. Either way, I felt a great sense of fear—falling instead of flying, perhaps preventing me from sharing similar dreams that felt raw and frightening. But this reflection was a similar sort of “lead” to RB’s dream and enabled me to continue writing on that particular day, feeling joined by RB and others (perhaps my own colleagues).

The irruption of our research in other aspects of our lives

Our ongoing dream sharing and dialogue proved to be difficult to “tame,” and keep within the boundaries of our research processes and activities. Echoing Hildebrant’s observations about the “constant encroachment [of dream and waking life] upon each other and their constant mutual dependence” (Freud, 1900, p. 8) we found irruptions from dreams into our lives outside this project. So, for example, RB’s dream about an archaeological “dig” in a social science department and the appearance of “wisdom” in evening dress led her to read more closely some anthropological literature about dreaming in Tedlock’s collection (Price-Williams, 1992; Tedlock, 1992). But the influence of our work spread wider than this. Concurrently with this research RB was writing for an action research handbook and trying to understand the subtleties of what an action research “network” signifies. She had a dream which provided a metaphor that helped her describe such a network. It involved movement, down “a rope ladder, but the rungs irregular, barely recognisable and it’s a struggle to know where to put my feet—they’re made of some flexible and stretchy material, with twisted skeins of different colours, not something you’d want to put your weight on, but it held.” This led her to cite the dream: “the stretchy ladder being like our network—irregular, varying in size, shape, colour, texture, sometimes unpromising as a means of support—but nonetheless holding me if I trod carefully, studying the nature of each step” (Rowell et al., 2017, p. 857).

Not only was there an irruption of dreams elsewhere in our lives, but for CG who is able to integrate social dreaming experiences into coursework in Leadership Studies, dream material became significant in her decisions and her ongoing work with graduate students. In her case, the dream sharing often enhanced her capacity (and willingness) to bring inner thoughts into the external world. Cull (2013) highlights Francisco Varela’s observation that all knowing is based on discovery, and it is the essential link between inner and outer engagement in understanding the world around us—in our case the experience of bringing the inner, through our dreams, and outer, through sharing them with each other. The actual sharing and the fluidity between dreaming and waking life that surfaced throughout this process, connects us to that deeper knowing and a new appreciation of how to link inner and outer real-life expressions in the process of discovery and learning as action researchers.

For example, CG had a dream that helped clarify an important decision she was struggling with, “In the dream my teacher (in waking life) was telling me to stop the noise and put the music away.” Upon waking I decided against taking on extra work, and this greatly influenced my workload and my quality of life. This reflection also links to the search for guides—to help lead us to learning anew, but also seeing ourselves as guides to each other and to those seeking to develop new insights about how to use dream material in action research.

CG reported:

As I have begun to reflect more deeply on my work in general, and also try to integrate my spiritual life with my work life, I have found the exploration of our dreams one way to help integrate the two. Since action research is an important aspect of my professional life as a researcher and teacher, this integration seems essential to being fully present for writing, teaching and mentoring students. I found that no matter what comes to me through dreams, I’ve learned to value the importance of being fully present to the immediacy of my internal experience in the moment with students and colleagues.

Similarly, Marshall (1999) describes how, in action inquiry, she remains open to emergence. “By living life as inquiry I mean a range of beliefs, strategies, and ways of behaving which encourage me to treat little as fixed, finished, clear-cut. Rather I have an image of living continually in process, adjusting, seeing what emerges, bringing things into question” (pp. 156–157). Bion (1970) also suggests this unknown is a fluid process that is not bounded by time, place, or person—yet in the space of “O” one becomes open to the possibilities and potentiality of the moment, where new learning can occur. In this place the boundaries between what is real and what is dream space becomes blurred.

Reiner (2012) suggests, “Bion clearly expressed the ongoing nature of dreaming in waking life as central to processing truth and raw emotional experience” (loc. 256), and our research gives some evidence that individual and collective dream explorations can enhance meaning making and stimulate new insights.

Concluding observations

In dreams we are removed not only from rationality, but also from the pervasive moral and ethical significance of our communicative acts in the waking world (Goffman, 1980). Our desire to appear morally worthy is absent. As action research has recognized the value of experiential knowing (Bradbury & Reason, 2006) and the “emotional and the moral-ethical impacts of research” (Heikkinnen et al., 2007, p. 18), it also requires us to widen the search for ways to deepen the reflective processes entailed (Dadds, 2008; Winter, Buck, & Sobiechowska, 2001). Our ability to name and discuss the fears we both were feeling about exploring a risky and contentious area of academic inquiry was assisted hugely by our parallel dreams as they arose and made their puzzling images available for shared study and discourse. Once these images had become “data”—i.e. they were “given,” they somehow became free from any sense of attachment, but belonged instead to the pool of the “O.”

In the process of doing the action research we report on here, we were more able to draw upon the full range of our experiences of dreaming to inform our research in an iterative way. Entering into discussions about troublesome issues in action research is useful but not easy and raises important ethical issues. Dreams, however, by virtue of their “ambiguous and interstitial moral status” (Balogh, 2010, p. 526)—whereby we are both responsible yet not responsible for the dreams we experience—can enable such issues to surface in a manner that invites human and public solidarity to replace private and individual feelings of discomfort or anxiety. Fubini, reporting on the use of a SDM in a mental health organization, described this as allowing “access to the depths without disturbing the surface” (Fubini, 2010, p. 146), comparing it with the power of poetry.

In our quest to inquire into the way action research might draw more explicitly on dream material, we felt that we had enabled some of the troubling aspects of action research practice to surface within the SDM for discussion. We were unable to pursue the inquiry beyond the particular event to learn more from participants about their reactions to it, but our colleagues willingly entered into our small and limited SDM, and one felt sufficiently engaged to contribute a further source of dream data. Our inquiry shows how social dreaming offers a way into different forms of knowing from the emotional dimension. Lawrence’s collection of practice reports (Lawrence, 2010) shows the use of social dreaming within a wide range of professional practice settings and research. Fubini’s (2010) account in a mental health setting shows the use of an SDM as one tool among others, enabling unconscious material to flow into conventional research processes. Other reports show how SDMs can be integrated into learning processes, as part of a high-school curriculum in psychophysical growth (Agresta & Planera, 2010); with theater students (Slade, 2010), and in a primary school (Selvaggi, 2010).

Of greater significance for us was how once we had privileged our dreaming and our interest in studying it, we found it began to irrupt into the process of reporting by helping us to name and share tensions that we were experiencing but were unable otherwise to resolve. And beyond this, we also felt its irruptions into our wider professional lives. At one and the same time, dreams seemed to offer a space of safety and containment (Friedman, 2008)—CG reported a final dream in which she lay upon her mother’s breast—and an entry into a realm of a myriad possibilities. The power and utility to the research process of this most readily available resource surprised even ourselves. Finally, we note that the focus on the unconscious dimension of knowing was an important feature of Lewin’s initial approach to action research, but has been under-explored in action research literature. We hope that this study will help to open up new connections between discourses that were once more closely bound together.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biographies

Ruth Balogh has been an action researcher for more than 30 years. Most of her work has been commissioned research in health and education in agencies ranging from the NHS Management Executive and the Welsh Assembly Government, to local community health development projects. Her main interest has been in mental health and supporting the voices of service users. As Lead Co-ordinator of the international Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) she used action research to develop CARN into a position of improved digital presence and closer partnership with other international action research networks. Ruth also campaigns for the safe stewardship of nuclear waste and the promotion of renewable energy systems for which she received the Friends of the Earth, England Wales & Northern Ireland 2017 Earthmover Award.

Cheryl Getz teaches Action Research Methods courses, and advises MA and PhD students completing action research projects and dissertations. Her expertise includes the use of nontraditional pedagogies to facilitate and teach leadership, the application of Group Relations theory, the use of action inquiry to understand groups and organizations, and the development of inclusive and integrated leadership development programs. She also works as a personal coach, consultant and facilitator for variety of individuals, groups and organizations. Cheryl has been working with the collective unconscious and other aspects of Group Relations work for over fifteen years, and this work informs her teaching, coaching and group facilitation. She frequently uses action inquiry and other reflexive strategies with her students and clients as a way of encouraging them to examine their various identities and to understand the impact of power and privilege individually and collectively.

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