How to Use Jungian Dream Analysis and Meditation to Build Deeper Characters and More Powerful Scenecraft

This four-week workshop explores psychologist Carl Jung’s writings about dreams as examining x-rays of the spiritual state. Dreams are powerful engines to turn complex or unconscious ideas into vivid images. This workshop teaches writers and other creatives techniques to apply the power of dreams to create more vivid, resonant, haunted work. It uses meditation, a Choose-Your-Own-Narrative branching format, dream journaling, meditation, shock-prompt writing exercises, and other unconventional methods. Students will learn to identify Jungian archetypes in their dreams or nascent ideas; identify the shadow archetypes in theIr work; engage with a simulacrum of their dreams as a scene in waking life; and surgically alter and stress-test their dreams using elements of scenecraft. The workshop will draw from disciplines including Jungian and post-Jungian dream work, meditation, and Eastern philosophy. The students will learn how to harness these ideas to create deeper, more complex work with greater psychological, emotional, and visual power.