The skills necessary in the Experiential Dream Group.

There are two skills involved listening and knowing how to ask open questions:

1. Listening: The main challenge for most people is to put all of their own brilliant ideas to one side, disregard them utterly, and listen purely and simply to what the dreamer is saying. This is not easy for people in general and it is not easy for people who have been trained in the helping professions. Frequent mistakes beginners make include:
   1. Cutting a dreamer off when she is speaking to introduce an idea of their own. It is hard for people to realize their own ideas don't matter and that nothing is more important than what the dreamer herself has to say.
   2. Offering supposedly helpful suggestions when a dreamer struggles to find a way to express herself. Putting words in the dreamer's mouth isn't helpful. When the dreamer opens her mouth and is silent, what we want to hear isn't what someone else in the group supposes she is about to say next. We want to hear the words that come when the dreamer finally does find a way to express herself. In the experiential dream group we put up with silence for longer, sometimes, than many people are comfortable with. It's the same with tears and laughter. More often than not they signal that something has gone right - not wrong. We don't try to rush forward and comfort the dreamer unless we are invited to do so. The group functions instead to open the dreamer up to self-expression and to allow that expression.
   3. Disregarding what the dreamer says because they feel they know better than the dreamer what the dream is about. Usually the dreamer knows much more than she realizes she knows. The highest skill is to listen to what the dreamer says but does not hear herself say and then share with her what you have heard. In other words, each of us in the group is called upon to listen to the dreamer even more closely than she listens to herself. This is a tall order. Most people simply can't get away from their own brilliant ideas long enough to really hear what the dreamer is saying.
2. Knowing how to ask a question: In this kind of dream group we do not allow any group member to take control away from the dreamer. The dreamer alone determines the extent to which she wishes to open up to the group, what information she is willing to offer to the group, and in what direction she chooses to take the process. Consequently:
   1. No information demanding questions are allowed. "What were your feelings when your parents died?" is an "information-demanding question" - a question that demands the dreamer provide an answer. This kind of question intrudes into the dreamer's private domain and is not permitted. Instead, we ask "information-eliciting questions" . "Is there anything more you would care to say about how you felt during this period?" is a proper question. It demands nothing of the dreamer but is an invitation for her to say anything else that comes to mind. Thus, it functions to elicit information. An open-ended question like this gives the dreamer the freedom to follow her own inner promptings. She stays in control and leads the process.
   2. No "leading questions" are allowed. "Don't you think that little old lady in the dream was your mother?" is a leading question. A leading question is a hypothesis introduced under the guise of a question. It takes control of the process away from the dreamer and subjects the inquiry into the dream to the preconceptions of a group member. Such questions will be stopped immediately.
   3. No questions are allowed about areas of her life not already introduced by the dreamer . The dreamer may have a boyfriend but she said nothing about him at all. No one may ask about the boyfriend or any other piece of information unless the dreamer introduces it first. The very crux of this process is that the dreamer alone controls the level of sharing. Of course if she shares almost nothing at all, she will get very little of value out of the process. It is in the nature of the group work that there is an inevitable tradeoff between the safety factor and the discovery factor. A dreamer who makes herself completely safe might discover very little. On the other hand a dreamer who discovers a lot might not feel entirely safe. Only the dreamer can decide what balance to strike.