ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two further lines of reasoning within this process: interpretation as intersubjective creation of knowledge seeing ↔ believing and the use of dreaming as a reflexive tool for thinking dreaming ↔ thinking. It describes these two developments in separate sections, but hope the reader can appreciate how the strands are related to each other. Menzies Lyth’s study of ward-based nurses was able to identify the social defence systems that operated within the institution to protect the nurses from the experience of “raw” unconscious anxiety. The dream material created new opportunities for dialogue with and between participants, the observation and interviews evoked dream material. The dreams were eloquent, but they were also beautiful. That aspect seems to have escaped Sigmund Freud in his theory of dreams. Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.
