Does dream sharing increase empathy and insight? Today meet two English professors who say, “Yes it does!” The Science and Art of Dreaming is their new book.

Mark starts out by talking about the innocence of dreams and how they tell the truth, even though we often can’t recognize it. Julia suggests we can look at dreams as our own art work. Together they describe their process in which Mark guides the discussion of a dream while Julia creates a drawing around the dream on pages torn from Frued’s famous book, The Interpretation of Dreams.

Mark describes his research which shows that (1) dream sharing increases empathy of group members and (2) people who are high in empathy are more attracted to dreamwork than those who are not. He also touches on human self-domestication and shares recent work suggesting that dream sharing might have been an important part of that process.

We take three callers. First John from Santa Cruz describes that he feels sensations in dreams like thorns prickling but not body blows. Steve Popp from the Garden Show then shares a dream about a hooded black cobra lying in square coils. Finally we take a call from Ray of Santa Cruz who dreamt of being chased by a giant bear at Stonehenge.

BIO: Mark Blagrove is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Sleep Laboratory at Swansea University, UK. He is a past-President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Julia Lockheart is Associate Professor at the Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity St David, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts. Since 2016 they have undertaken public Ullman dream discussions, with Julia simultaneously painting each dream as part of their DreamsID.com collaboration. The collaboration has resulted in their 2023 book, The Science and Art of Dreaming, published by Routledge.

Find our guests at: DreamsID.com

On twitter @mark_blagrove and @DreamsID, Instagram DreamsID_artworks, on Facebook @DreamsID2, and on YouTube dreams_id

Intro music is Water over Stones and outro music is Everything both by Mood Science. Today’s ambient music is created by Rick Kleffel. The audio can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick Kleffel for also engineering the show, to Tony Russomano for answering the phones and to Ewa Malady for audio editing.

Show aired on March 25 2023.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM, streaming live at KSQD.org 10-11am Saturday mornings Pacific time.  Catch it live and call in with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or at [email protected].

Contact Katherine Bell with feedback, suggestions for future shows or to inquire about exploring your own dreams with her at [email protected], or find out more at ExperientialDreamwork.com.

Available on all major podcast platforms. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal.

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