The Seba library treats Conjoint Dreaming in 8 passages, across 6 authors (including Jung, C.G., Stein, Murray, Ogden, Thomas).
we can hardly consider such a dream as his own property; it would be his wife’s just as much. His psychology is in her as hers is in him, and every dream that each one has is more or less an expression of that relatedness.
Jung’s seminal formulation that intimate psychological relatedness dissolves dream ownership, rendering the dream a conjoint product of two interpenetrating psychologies rather than a private possession.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984thesis
the psychological factor which sends one of them dreams which pertain to the other as well, the unconscious link connecting the couple’s timing even when they are far apart. The Rebis is bound by neither time nor space.
Stein identifies the alchemical Rebis as the transpersonal psychic structure that generates conjoint dreaming between partners, transcending spatial and temporal separation.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998thesis
each analysand unconsciously (and ambivalently) is seeking help in dreaming his ‘night terrors’ (his undreamt and undreamable dreams) … The analyst’s task is to generate conditions that may allow the analysand — with the analyst’s participation — to dream the patient’s previously undreamable
Ogden recasts analytic work as conjoint dreaming, positioning the analyst as active co-dreamer whose participation is essential to completing the patient’s interrupted or foreclosed dream-work.
, This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries, 2004thesis
Synchronistic dreams may occur when there is a need to generate more interest in the analyst or the patient for the process of analysis. In this function, the synchronistic dream is similar in effect to sexualization of the transference–counter–transference.
Hall situates synchronistic — and implicitly conjoint — dreaming within the transference–countertransference field, framing it as a psychic event that energises and deepens the analytic relationship.
, Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice, 1983supporting
It was his wife who had the children. Dr. Jung: Yes, and what did I tell you about that? I will repeat that famous rule of thumb … If the dreamer dreams of his wife, then it is his wife. When you dream of a person who is in vita
Jung’s interpretive rule-of-thumb — that a living person appearing in a dream may be that person in actuality rather than merely an inner figure — opens the clinical door to conjoint-dreaming readings of relational dream material.
, Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930, 1984supporting
sharing dreams with other people has political and social value in helping overcome the barriers of race, age, sex, and class … dream-sharing groups promote both personal and communal transformation.
Bulkeley, drawing on Taylor, extends the conjoint dreaming concept into group dream-sharing as a social and transformative practice, emphasising the communal dimensions of shared dream work.
, An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming, 2017supporting
For several nights thereafter, she had terrifying nightmares … obviously related to her fears of therapy and of the therapist being overpowered by the male members.
Yalom’s clinical vignette illustrates how a patient’s dream life responds directly to group-therapeutic interpersonal events, suggesting a permeable boundary between group field and individual dreaming analogous to conjoint production.
, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition, 2008aside
Another complication of conjoint therapy arises when clients use individual therapy to drain off affect from the group.
Yalom’s discussion of conjoint individual-and-group therapy introduces the clinical structure within which dreams produced in one therapeutic context migrate meaningfully into another, touching the boundary of conjoint dreaming in practice.
, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Fifth Edition, 2008aside