A summary of the technique described in Bruce L. Moon, Dialoguing with Dreams in Existential Art Therapy, Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, 24(3), 2007, 128-133.
Moon provides an artistic expansion of Moustakas’ phenomenological model for dreamwork, but Moon’s technique is distinguished from Moustakas’ through the “creation of, and engagement with, visual artwork(s) that emerge from the dream” (129). There are no hidden meanings in the dream, and each image can have multiple meanings for the dreamer. As dream images “stand for themselves”, the focus is on the “manifest content of the images of the dream” and the artwork, rather than on attempting to interpret the dream images (129, 128).
The dreamer begins by creating an image of the dream. For complicated dreams with many images that present themselves as important to the dreamer, it could be good to select one image to work with. The dreamer then creates a written record of the dream. The artwork is placed as an intermediary between the therapist and the dreamer, in a triadic relationship, and the dreamer reads the record of the dream aloud. The therapist (or another witness) reads the record to the dreamer. All this reading aloud should stimulate associations to the dream images.
The dreamer identifies what Moustakas named the horizons of the dream. These are the dream’s key elements, in the image and in the written record. The dreamer shares their associations on the horizons. The therapist or another witness can reflect back these associations, without offering interpretation or elaboration, and identifies the horizons in the image. If the witness has written down the associations, these can be repeated, and the dreamer asked for further associations.
The dreamer clusters the horizons, identifying connections among the horizons, using these clusters to create existential statements of concern. One sentence for each cluster should suffice. The dreamer identifies commonalities between these existential statements of concern, aiming to create one summary existential statement. “Theoretically, this is an ‘essential message’ from the dream to the dreamer” (132). A course of action will arise from the essential message, and should fall somewhere between paradoxical extremes. Statements of intention generated from the essential message are selected, and the dreamer expresses their commitment to the course of action statement by reading it aloud directly to the dream image.
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