World Dream Bank topic: PSYCHODRAMA

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PSYCHODRAMA

Psychodrama, encounter, and similar mixtures of psychology and theatre. For several years , I was a regular in a large psychodrama/encounter group, the Inner Theatre, at Prometheus Center, near Stanford, California. One by one, audience members stepped into the spotlight center stage and worked on an issue; actors dove in, playing parts and fleshing out primal dramas. Everyone participated: in fight scenes, even the audience held up pillows in a ring to protect combatants.

In psychodrama, the speed and intensity of sharing, the secrets bared and wrestled with, forged friendships even more quickly and tightly than in an ordinary theatrical troupe. Even more of a hothouse, in fact. Both delicate orchids and weird, huge, stinking carrion-flowers grew in profusion. Most of what I know about human insides, I learned from psychodrama.

Dreams are, of course, the original Inner Theatre which psychodrama tries to mimic: a safe zone where new behaviors can be tested and old pains healed; an arena full of mayhem from which the dreamer wakes (usually) intact. Usually. I think wise dreamwork has the same basic safety-rule as physical psychodrama: fight if you must but don't hit to hurt, for your enemies are just friends playing roles. "All the world's a stage". And at some point you'll have to switch roles and see how it feels...

RELATED TOPICS: acting and theatre - psychology and therapy - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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	BLUE CRYSTALS: by Wayan; 1979/5/20 dream offering guidance. Throw a dream-crystal, or dangle it by a thread, and it'll point the way to go... CAUTION: NUDITY
	COFFINS: by Beryl and Wayan; 1983/11/5, dark parallel/shared/telepathic dreams Twin dreams of ghoulish games backstage at a theater. And they anticipated real long-term ghoulishness... CAUTION: SLOW DEATH
	DIAGNOSTIC BATTERY: by Wayan; 1988/4/20, a nightmare of backstabbing that came true My sister & her new guru tests me psychologically--only it looks like a test to destruction... CAUTION: EMOTIONAL CRUELTY
	DRAMATIC PARASITES: by Wayan; 1995/6/28, a dream on fear of success. I project I'll make a lot more money soon. Good, now I can support all my lazy friends! Wait...
	EXIT THROUGH THE DUNGEON: by Wayan, 1982/5/23, trance-drawing experiment with surprise advice I turned off my conscious judgment and just drew. Two paths appeared--one led to psychodrama, then parental prison; the other, into the underworld of dreamwork... CAUTION: NUDE DREAM-SELVES
	FIRE-CATS: by Wayan; 1981/10/10; twin dream-poems on over-discipline For mere disobedience, I EXECUTE a forest-fire-fighting cat! So next I'm trapped in a security-obsessed job; how do I like it? I flee...
	FLY-PARADISE: by Wayan; 1978/12/15, an automatic-writing poem that worked like an advisory dream I'm a fly lured to a bright but sealed window. The only way out is to ignore the light and brave the dark--and only when a door opens. Patience AND boldness...
	GENDERBENT LUCID DREAMS: by JHM Whiteman, pre-1961, compared to Wayan, 1979/8/29 Celia Green, lucid dream expert, claims nearly all lucid dreamers keep their waking bodies, their self-image. But Whiteman & Wayan both have genderbent lucid dreams...
	ICERINK: by Wayan; 1980/8/23, a warning dream. Psychodrama seemed like a way to meet cool people. But when I dreamed they were ice-skating rioters...
	IN THE STAR; 1988/9/12 by Wayan; an epic, out-of-body, intrastellar quest-dream I tour the heart of a red supergiant, where dreaming souls explore their fears and heart's desires, unconstrained by solid matter... CAUTION: SWEDENBORGIAN VISION, UNICORN NUDITY
	JACUZZI JAIL: by Wayan; 1979/10/12, a dream of parental poison. My family has shackled my little sister in the dungeon in the hot tub full of carcinogenic bubble bath... CAUTION: INCEST FEELINGS, TOXIC PARENTING
	LAING SAYS: by Wayan, 1983/2/10; a cluttered, comic, goofy predictive dream DREAM: I run into a couple I know. I get gridlocked. R.D. Laing gives me a transpersonal message. DAY: I bump into that couple, get gridlocked, and hear R.D. Laing speak on transpersonal messages...
	THE LEMON SEA: by Wayan; 1982/2/22, a dream warning. I wake up as someone else. I go through her working day, till Captain Kirk comes to take me to...
	MOTH TRAPS: by Wayan; 1980/1/11, a dream on getting stuck The Agile Beasts build traps to catch Moth Monsters, but Moths may build traps for Beasts... I wake & wonder--could the theater group where I feel subtly unwelcome be the trap?
	MUSICIAN AND FOXTAIL, by Wayan, 2009/2/14, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #40 In Palo Alto I meet strange musicians in the rain, and realize kitsune aren't born but made...
	NUCLEUS: by Wayan, 1979/3/18, a surreal dream of character-insight, set inside an atom I dream my theatre friends are particles dancing inside an atomic nucleus-- particles that reveal their character, motivations and power. And I'm one too...
	OVERLAY: by Wayan; 1984/2/11, 1995/8/26, and 2004/9/11, 3 dreams shape a 9-page comic on living with ESP Dreams of translucent fairies, centaurs, robots & gnomes prompt me to cartoon on transparent overlays to show how dreamworlds overlay ours...
	PESCADERO MONET: by Wayan; 1983/11/4, a happy art-cult dream. Monet is over 100 now, living in an art colony. I visit him, but my parents come along. Bad idea...
	POD WAR: by Wayan; 1979/10/14, an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" dream Emotionless pod-people surround the last free humans. I fight for humanity, but I'm not human or pod--I'm...
	POPEYE MUSCLES: by Wayan; 1986/7/14, a grotesque dreamtale. My body turns protean: big Popeye muscles pop out as needed, relaxing into stick-figureness...
	THE RULES OF THE GAME: by Wayan; 1992/11/30, a Gestaltish dream. The Inner Theater. I'm duelling someone who keeps changing the rules. But so can I... can we make a deal?
	SISTERS' PSYCHODRAMA: by Christine Downing; before 1986, recurring dream of a Hadean abduction In psychodrama, my sister/lover did a happy childhood scene--till the actors took her down a trap door into the underworld. And I knew I'd have to go down after her...
	STARHAWK THE WITCH: by Wayan; 1983/8/19, 6. illus., an epic, milestone dream. DAY: I read Starhawk's Dreaming the Dark, on building unity, undoing capitalism; DREAM: I'm forced to become Time Pilgrim, warning of the dangers of community--indeed, of unity...
	SUSHI CIRCUS: by Wayan; 1982/2/17, an illustrated psychic dream. To avoid being stabbed, I flee the Psychodrama Circus. Wisely--the place explodes! But it's the filling of the sushi roll that really upsets me... CAUTION: CANNIBAL MAKI
	THE VACUUM CLEANER QUARTET: by Wayan; 1981, four bizarre poems. All I know about humans, I learned in psychodrama. I gawked as caterpillars grew wings. Except me...