DREAMING AT SCHOOL: A QUALITATIVE DEPTH PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT ON SHARING DREAMS
Original scientific paper
Abstract
Carl Jung’s 1936-1940 discrete seminars and post-Jungian studies provide a compelling insight into the significance of children’s dreams and the child archetype in the development of the unconscious. An extensive analytical literature review of existing research into children’s dreams and the analysis of the phenomenological view of dreaming and sharing dreams within a British school context indicated that children’s dream experiences are underutilised in primary education. The qualitative research project aimed to analyse the children’s voices, perceptions, and experiences of sharing sleep dreams within an epistemological, psychosocial, and Jungian perspective. This phenomenological perspective on the oneiric dreams of children living in the 21st century across the world augments discourse concerning the relevance of Jung in contemporary pedagogy. As dreaming is a universal human function, it is worth widening the discourse on the sharing of dreams in schools within the context of socialist childhoods, arguing that this project’s findings can be transposed as a valid pedagogical approach. In the empirical study, 22 children shared their dreams in six adapted social dream matrices and creative activities hosted by this researcher, followed by individual interviews with the researcher. The matrices were analysed with a focus on psychoanalytical and educational perspectives. Of the 22 interviews, a sample of eight were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings from the children’s perceptions and voices about sharing their inner worlds in the context of an educational environment concluded that sharing good and scary dreams in school time was a positive experience and they wished it could continue.
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