The Salon goes to dreamland....

 

Oscar Wilde quipped that the most frightening words in the English language are 'I had a very interesting dream last night'. This Salon, we shrug off such pithy observations as we embark on our most ambitious event yet: raising our hypothetical trowel and aiming it deep at our audience's collective unconscious . . .

Yes, that's right for the merry month of May, you'll be asked to tell all about your dreams (wake up, Oscar), as The Salon stages its own social dreaming matrix, which, (do we need to tell you?) is a method to loosen the possessive ties we have over our dreams and place them in a much broader context. 

This is an idea with ancient lineage. In fact, long before Freud and Jung even had beards, dreams and dreaming had great significance in many ancient societies and civilisations, and were used to understand the meaning of their lives and the world around them.

The matrix acts as a conduit that receives shared aspects of the group's dreams and amplifies them as a means of exploring their context and uncovering the common cultural themes within. Originally conceived by W. Gordon Lawrence, an organisational consultant at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, it has been honed to perfection by others throughout the world, and we are beyond lucky to have Jungian practioners Helen Morgan and Penny Pickles, world-experts in the convening of a matrix to lead us through Salon's own.

Helen and Penny explain. 'The primary task of the Social Dreaming Matrix is to share dreams and to associate to one's own and other participants' dreams, so as to make links and find connections.  Such a perspective regards dreams as more than the private possession of the dreamer and suggests that, by exploration in a social context through free association and amplification, your Salon dream exploration experience may edge your conscious, finite understanding further into the unconscious infinite.' 

And if you're left scratching your head, wondering what the hell's going on, don't worry - BAFTA winning animator Greg McCleod will be on hand to interpret the results of our matrix, drawing our dream archetypes as we go, and creating a beautiful film of our shared experience.

As this is a super special Salon, there is a limited number of Saloners we can open up the dream matrix up to, but we really want you to be there.

 

Helen Morgan / Penny Pickles

Social Dreaming Matrix Live

Helen Morgan is a Jungian Analyst, a Senior Member and Fellow of the British Association of Psychotherapists (BAP) of which she is a past Chair. Her background is in therapeutic communities with adolescents and in adult mental health, but currently she works mainly in private practice as an analyst and also supervises in both the individual and the group setting.  Her publications include a number of papers on Social Dreaming Matrices in different settings.

Penny Pickles is a Jungian Analyst, a Professional Member of the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) and a Full Psychotherapy Member of the British Society of Couple Psychotherapists  and Counsellors (BSCPC).  She works in private practice.    She is the Current Chair of the SAP and was the Coordinator and a Supervisor for the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP) training programme in Moscow for the past seven years.

 

Helen has co-convened the Social Dreaming Matrix since 1995 and Penny and Helen have worked together in the UK and internationally including the International Congress of the(IAAP) and in Russia and Eastern Europe.

 

Greg Mcleod

Live Animation

 

Greg Mcleod is an award winning illustrator, animator and director with a distinctive hand drawn style and has worked on a wide range of projects including animation, illustration, exhibitions and book covers.  Greg writes and directs animations, and his work has appeared on BBC 1, Channel 4, E4, BBC Choice, Atomfilms as well as featuring in the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and CGI, Imagine and Digit Magazines.  Greg started in the visual arts early, at three he painted kitchen cabinets with poster paints, by ten he was producing a comic book about Sid the Punk, by thirty he had his first BAFTA. 

Greg has also won a Webby, an Association of Illustrators Gold Award and has spent a significant part of the last couple of years bounding around film festivals collecting awards for his huge talent.

 

 

http://www.salon-london.com 

 

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