The second Online Social Dreaming Matrix takes place on April 19th. People from previous gathering attend again joined by five new entries. A total of 11 people attend the matrix.
The opening follow the lines of the previous meeting and we jump right into a house on the beach. A lawn with no grass activates feelings of shame/remorse for not doing a good job with tending to the garden. The grass-less garden bring up associations with the blank state, tabula rasa, a barren land that is in a state of maximum potential. Linguistically a parallel with grass/marijuana (a substance that take night dreams away) introduce elements of pleasure, dream-like hallucinatory states, as well as the dimension of medication/self-care.
Few participants lament having gone through week with fewer than usual dreams. A garden with no grass is like a night with no dreams.
A momentary connection to the previous Matrix appear in a dream involving transportation, train stations and older family members who needed to be helped and be taken care of. Mean of transportations expand to ferries, again with family members. We are not traveling alone, there is somebody familiar to us at all times.
There is a man, an ex-partner, that shows off his huge penis out of the window. Another dream where the word clitoris is whispered and bring a sense of safety and security. The images merge with the dimension of potency/impotency, Power / Powerlessness, Pleasure and Safety. There is a dream about a rape, a man rapes the dreamer during a conference. The victim knows the rapist and he is afraid of meeting him. The asymmetry of power and the discomfort associate with the penis and the masculinity.
Babies are present in dreams, babies who don’t know who their father is, babies drowning placidly in water who don’t want to be saved. Babies whose life and death depends on health protocols based on economic factors. There is a dimension of getting lost that appear in one dream, a walk in the forest toward a river, as well as in real life memories, a person gets lost in the forest for following the wrong river.
A dream about being on the old workplace focuses on the expectations of other vs our internal feeling. They were happy I was back but I wasn’t. There is a dream about a card game with Michael Jordan, seen as an older and gentle man, who invites the dreamer to take a break from the busy work. A personal memory of a participant encounter with Michael Jordan also connect with this element of peace, taking distance and break from our own social persona. Is the pandemic helping putting in perspective our social persona?
A dream about a lioness that is behind a gate difficult to lock bring the animal part to surface, the emotions can put us in touch with our roots will attack us if not handled with care, if we cross the threshold between play and fun and danger. Again the images stray from safety and comfort and to danger and Strenght, the sensation of being in control, related to our constant battle against Death.
Death becomes a knot in the discussion, a hub for connecting different elements of dreams and association. Death is a garden with no grass. The Seventh Seal’s movie (I.Bergman 1957) offer a bridge connecting the chess game with the Death with the card game with Michael Jordan. Take a break from your busy day that keep the idea of death far away. Accept death.
The empty space, the space of death, the garden with no grass exemplify this sentiment of emptiness. While the previous matrix focused on the care for elders-this time we spiral up right into the dimension of Death, its handling by society and the consequences that has on any of us. Do we die well in our society?
After a quick break we enter the space for Reflection. I ask the participants to turn off video and microphone and take a minute to get in contact with their body. After that we come back.
We start the reflection on pleasure, which was a big element during the matrix, and the frustration to have some pleasure taken from us. Being always in the “cyberspace” creates a bubble, it numbs from pain but it makes us less sensitive to pleasure. Body aches, frustration are the somatic experiences registered. Another element.
Another reflection is on how it is easier to look at people in the face when they are behind a screen, so when they are sort of unsuspecting somebody is looking at them. Losing social contact in real life made us more eager to share and be with others on a screen. A participant suggest that a mid way between face to face interaction and computer mediated interaction is the challenge we are facing at this moment.
There are three cultural model always recalled by participants. Due to the intercontinental nature of this matrix there are many comparison and parallels between East/West and North South (North America, South America and Europe). How we die is something that has been explored and the tragedy of people dying alone during this covid-19 experience touches everybody.
One of the participants says goodbye before the end of the reflection. Other participants interpret this as the end and say goodbye as well. I accept the spontaneous popular decision and conclude the meeting.