This is the final chapter of Understanding the Sociogram. It was not included in the text due to length limitations of the publisher, Routledge. A free e-book version is also available from the publisher.
17: Factors for Analysis
Evaluating Truth Criterion
Like waking and dreaming, the results you obtain with Dream Sociometry are dependent on your perceptual biases. What elements you leave out skew your results, just as does what you put in. This fact can be used to justify dismissing the conclusions reached in any of these three realms as partial and delusional. Benefits and problems accrue from both taking too seriously and dismissing findings. This is why IDL and Dream Sociometry fall back on pragmatic tests oftruth: What are the results in your life when you act on the recommendations that you receive from interviewing dream characters and the personifications of life issues?
Dream Sociometry attempts to compensate for the obvious limitation that important elements are left out ofDream Sociograms by encouraging the inclusion of the most extreme elements in each category – characters, actions and feelings. If this is done, a context or framework is created that will create a pattern that will most likely fall into the same category, even if more elements are added. This theory can be tested. First create a Dream Sociogram on a dream or life drama containing only the most extreme examples from each category. Then create another containing both the extreme elements and as many others as you can. Compare your results; see if the constellation of preference interactions falls into the same category.
Predicted vs. Actual Intrasocial Group Patterns
What are the differences/similarities between predicted patterns of preference and actual preference patterns?
What is the relationship between predicted dream significance and actual character statements?
Acceptance
What relationships exist between self-acceptance by characters and acceptance by other characters?
What relationships exist between self-acceptance by characters and expressed satisfaction with group actions and feelings?
What relationship exists between low self-acceptance by characters and rejection of other characters?
What relationship exists between low self-acceptance by characters and dissatisfaction with group actions and feelings?
Dream Sociometry assumes that acceptance is a core determinant of development, based on its data. Is this conclusion validated by a consensus of independent data sources, is it an artifact of the methodology or both?
Patterns of Preference
What is the average degree of positive preference of any particular character within one life drama or dream?
What is the average degree of positive preference of any particular character among a series of life dramas and dreams?
What is the average degree of rejection of other characters by any particular character?
What is the average degree of rejection of other characters among a series of life dramas and dreams?
What relationship exists between self-rejection of Dream Self and his rejection by characters?
What type of character is most likely to be rejected by intrasocial groups?
What type of action/feeling is most likely to be rejected by intrasocial groups?
What type of character is most likely to be preferred by intrasocial groups?
What type of action/feeling is most likely to be preferred by intrasocial groups?
Correlations Between Affect and Dream Type
Which Dream Sociometric pattern is most likely to have the most/least emotional elements? How does fear generate and amplify dysfunctional life dramas and dreams?
How does love generate and amplify synthesis/high synthesis life dramas and dreams?
What is the relationship between love and acceptance?
Character Attributes
What type of character is most likely to be most nurturing?
What type of character is most likely to be most rejecting?
Which type of Dream Sociometric pattern is most likely to have the most/least nurturing characters?
What type of character is most self-accepting?
What type of character is most accepted by others?
Dream Sociogram Categories and Waking Organizational Structures
What values are associated with each of the three basic Dream Sociogram categories?
What parallels can be drawn between these values and various patterns of social group function in waking life?
How applicable are the fourteen categories to understanding various types of waking organizational structures, such as families, schools, businesses, religions and governments?
Acceptance and Degree of Dream Self Participation
Are intrasocial groups in which Dream Self watches more or less accepting than groups in which Dream Self is invested and involved?
How important is Dream Self involvement to integration of the group?
How Important Is Lucid Dreaming?
Is there a correlation between the ability to lucid dream and the frequency of any of the fourteen categories?
Do lucid dreams, when assessed with Dream Sociometry, tend to fall into particular categories of the fourteen?
Is the freedom of choice commonly experienced in lucid dreaming correlated with an improved ability to empathize with other characters and view the dream and the dreamer from their perspectives?
What is the Consequence of Interviewing/Becoming Characters While Dreaming?
Does waking character interviewing increase the likelihood that one will interview characters in dreams?
When characters are interviewed in dreams, how do their dream answers correlate with the answers they give in the various Dream Sociometric Commentaries?
Is Character Acceptance Correlated with Usefulness of Suggestions?
What type of character is most likely to present useful waking/life issue suggestions? which are acted upon?
What type of character is most likely to present suggestions which motivate the dreamer to test?
What is the relationship between the nurturance of a character and the usefulness of suggestions in the Waking Commentaries?
How do Dream Self Preferences Correlate with Intrasocial Group Preferences?
How accepted/rejected by the group as a whole are characters strongly rejected by Dream Self?
How accepted/rejected by the group as a whole are characters strongly accepted by Dream Self?
Choice Impact on Group Integration
What is the relationship between character acceptance/rejection and group integration?
What is the proportion between number of choosers and scores for chosen?
Are any types of characters most likely to always be accepting?
Are any types of characters most likely to always be rejecting?
What is the relationship between high character nurturance and group integration?
What is the relationship between high character rejection and group dysfunction?
What is the relationship between character self-rejection and group dysfunction?
What actions/feelings are most likely to be associated with integrative/dysfunctional patterns?
Ambivalence
What characters are most likely to express intrasocial ambivalence?
What elements are most likely to be sources of intrasocial ambivalence?
What is the relationship between intrasocial ambivalence and dysfunctional intrasocial groups?
Are some forms of ambivalence more destructive than others?
Is there usually more ambivalence toward Dream Self than toward other characters?
Is there a progression away from ambivalence that mirrors an evolution toward integration? (Direct opposition > lesser ambivalence; ambivalence > polar opposition; opposition > unidirectional/unipolar configurations)
Impact of Waking Attitudes on Intrasocial group Integration
Are waking attitudes associated with synergistic intrasocial groups? If so, what?
Are waking attitudes associated with dysfunctional intrasocial groups? If so, what?
Dreamage Efficacy
Does the use of Dreamages pre-sleep correlate with improved mood/values in subsequent waking hours?
Does the use of Dreamages pre-sleep correlate with increased intuition/creativity in the subsequent day?
Does more or less Dreamage-related material show up in dreams when compared with self-chosen pre-sleep suggestions?
Are dreams subsequent to use of a Dreamage more or less integrative than those subsequent to a self-chosen pre-sleep suggestion? To no pre-sleep suggestion at all?
Cultivating Synthesis Patterns
What sorts of populations are most likely to recall synthesis pattern dreams?
Do women have more than men?
Do prisoners have less than regular citizens?
Does age make a difference in reported frequency?
Does a higher percentage of these dreams correlate with growth and improved adaptability? What type of population would be most likely to benefit from having more of this variety of dream?
Does the act of getting in touch with nurturing and accepting perspectives, such as those that populate synthesis intrasocial groups, support constructive behavioral changes?
There are less than half as many synthesis-type intrasocial groups in this series 11 (22%) as there are antithetical or oppositional Dream Sociogram patterns recalled: 29 (57%). Why?
Would dreamers from peaceful societies report a higher proportion of (+/+) Dream Sociograms?
As man evolves, does his percentage of (+/+) intrasocial groups increase?
Antithetical Patterns
Are we more likely to recall dreams comprised of antithetical intrasocial groups?
Does this category of dream, generally much more stressful and therefore having a more powerful effect on both awareness and physiology, truly predominate?
If so, is this pattern associated with such factors as age, waking stress factors or cultural variables?
Does improved stress management have any effect on this proportion of dream type? For instance, as I meditate more, will the proportion of synthetical/synergistic dreams increase and the percentage of antithetical dreams decrease?
Will highly stressed individuals, members of belligerent groups or the chronically confused present a greater percentage of ( / ) Dream Sociograms?
Is it true that at least some of the categories that cannot be depicted by Dream Sociograms but which exist in dreams and waking life exist as subgroups within the ( / ) category? If so, a close reading of Commentaries may be able to tease out the most likely associated category for a particular dream group or waking life issue.
Dream Consciousness
Does inclusion of Dream Consciousness change Dream Sociograms in any predictable way?
Does inclusion of Dream Consciousness as a chooser increase the likelihood of synthesis patterns?
What are other uses for Dream Consciousness? Is there any qualitative difference becoming Dream Consciousness during waking life and becoming other characters?
Meditation
Does Dream Yoga as an integral life practice, that is, the construction, contemplation and application of IDL interviewing and Dream Sociometry have any impact on ease or depth of meditation or in the various physiological, interactional, cognitive, affective, self-esteem markers associated with meditation?
Many interviewed characters recommend that we become them when we meditate. How do we determine if this is helpful and effective?
Are some types of characters better to become when meditating than others?[1]
Questions Regarding Dream Sociogram Construction
Element Placement Considerations
Of the fourteen types of Dream Sociograms, what elements predominate in each type? Is there a larger percentage of say, actions in ( / ) patterns? Is the proportion of elements constant among types of Dream Sociograms?
Taking into account that larger groups state more preferences, thereby raising the total possible group preferences and allowing greater distances of element placement in the Dream Sociogram, the quantity of preference ebbs and flows, indicating perhaps a sort of variability of strength of intentionality. In what ways are intention levels the same or different when thesis, antithesis and synthesis patterns are compared?
Does one axis consistently have moreambivalence than others?
Does one axis consistently have lessambivalence than others?
Does one axis consistently have more opposition than others?
In what type of Dream Sociogram is Dream Self most often rejected?
In what type of Dream Sociogram are there the most elements?
Are there patterns of element clustering or opposition on an axis in several Dream Sociograms? For example, anxiety and confusion clustered in opposition to helpfulness in several Dream Sociograms. Are there other examples of patterns of element clusterings? If so, how are they best explained?
Do the same dream themes always create the same Dream Sociogram patterns? For instance, would a dream of being chased always create an ( / ) pattern? We can pretty well predict that dreams without conflict will create (+/+), (+/ ) or ( /+) patterns. But will a dream of looking for something that has been lost, falling, or flying tend to fall into the same categories regardless of the dreamer?
Questions Regarding Types
Are the names of the types helpful and both generic and descriptive of a particular category? These names, beyond their descriptions and designations, are arbitrary and partial. Better names for the types can probably be found.
What sorts of revisions and substitutions will improve the descriptive accuracy of the various categories of descriptors for each of the fourteen patterns? Depending on the definition of a type, the various descriptors in the summary will change. These are provisional and subject to revision and improvement.
Where can more and better examples of the categories be found? Examples of dreams and life issues, Dream Sociomatricies, Commentaries and Dream Sociograms that depict these types, particularly types not represented in this sample, are requested.
Questions Regarding Integral
Is the hypothesis that dialectic remains the same for all stages of development correct or are there changes in proportions of patterns at different stages (prepersonal-personal-transpersonal) of development?
Can the dialectic as it appears in the different major lines, (self, cognitive, moral and empathy) be teased out of the commentaries and data?
Do some intrasocial groups focus on one quadrant more than the others? For instance, do they tend to focus on the lagging quadrant? Is Dream Sociometry skewed toward issues dealing with one quadrant or is there a balanced addressing of all four quadrants?
In terms of developmental style, Wilber believes that there is a natural alternation between communal/female/yin/involutional and agentic/male/yang/evolutional at different stages of development. Is any difference in style depicted in Dream Sociograms? Does the gender of the subject make any difference in the style of intrasocial group processes?
What difference does it make in success with an integral life practice when it is directed by triangulation, that is, in conjunction with the priorities and recommendations of interviewed characters, when compared to an ILP that is not?
Summary
- Dream Sociometry raises more questions than it answers.
Its usefulness and applicability still requires considerable testing and experimentation.
There are so many other types of data to collect, so many other relationships to dreaming, mystical states and everyday waking awareness to explore that I can only hope that others are encouraged to fill in missing pieces, correct what is in error and refute what does not stand the test of time.
[1]For a comparison with Tibetan Deity Yoga see http://integraldeeplistening.com/tibetan-dream-yoga/