On Wednesday of this week, fifteen Manor students traveled south to join our Marticville friends for our second Guest Speaker Seminar of the year. Our speaker was Dr. Hugh Smith,a local licensed psychologist. He presented on the topic “I had the weirdest dream last night! Understanding our dreams through psychology and creativity.” He gave an overview of the types of psychology there are in the field, explained the dream cycle and brain anatomy when awake and asleep, and lead the class in analyzing and interpreting dreams.
Students asked questions throughout the presentation about shared consciousness, lucid dreaming, and the idea that reality may in fact be a dream. The depth of student questions was impressive! Dr. Smith instructed students to focus on 4 areas when interpreting dreams; wishes, conflicts, feelings,and other details from the day. Two brave students volunteered to share details of one of their dreams for the group to interpret. It was fascinating to hear the connections students made.
Ultimately, Dr. Smith said the “correct” meaning and interpretation of a dream can only be know by the dreamer. The workshop concluded with Dr. Smith giving each student a dream journal and a challenge to record the details of their dreams over the next few weeks. He will be offering a follow-up dream interpretation session for those who are interested in early February (information will be sent out to those students who participated in this seminar.)
The day ended with students eating lunch together and discussing the ideas shared during the workshop. A special thank you to Dr. Smith for offering his time to teach middle school students about the field of psychology and how to learn more about our dream worlds!
