This historic meeting took place on June 16 and 17, 1984 at the Metropolitan Club in San Francisco, California. Approximately 125 persons from all areas of the country and from such widespread geographical locations as Ecuador, Belgium and Japan attended.
On the evening prior to the convention, Gayle Delaney and her husband, Steve Walsh, served as hosts for an informal reception at their home. After the Saturday morning program opened with a welcome by Dr. Gayle Delaney in her role as the President of the ASD, presenters gave papers on dreams and insight, the importance of dreams in psychotherapy, definition dream analysis, lucid dreams, dreams and synchronicity, and dreamwork in educational settings. The day's events ended with the keynote presentation of 160 slides by Dr. Van de Castle.
On Sunday, the papers dealt with archetypal dream work, innovations in community dream work, dreams in the Christian tradition, dream reflections and creative writing, the perceptanalytic dream system, dreams and the shamanistic tradition and anthropological studies of the dream. The final presentation was by Dr. Henry Reed on dream realization.
The long lunch breaks and Saturday supper time provided an opportunity for participants to exchange viewpoints about the papers or personal experiences with dreams. Near the conclusion of the convention, audience input was invited regarding reactions to the convention and suggestions were requested about the format for next years convention. Before closing, Gayle thanked her large crew of volunteers, the conventioneers thanked Gayle, and gave her a standing ovation in appreciation of her diligent efforts to get the convention organized.
Then Melodie sang a beautiful a capella dream song and the group silently held hands in a circle. Participants reluctantly left amid promises to renew the many newly discovered friendships they had developed when the next ASD convention gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The next ASD conference will be held June 19-23, 1985 at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia. Participants will be housed in inexpensive, air-conditioned dorm suites on the beautiful West Lawn of the original grounds designed by Thomas Jefferson. Plans are being developed to include a wide range of research, clinical and theoretical papers as well as discussion panels during the daytime program. The evening programs will offer opportunities for small group meetings to share in educational and brief experiential workshops. Large scale dream induction and telepathic studies involving all interested persons are also being planned. Books on dreams and other educational materials such as tv tapes will be available and there will be a display of dream-inspired creative products (art, sculpture, etc.).
There will be pre-convention one and two day experiential workshops offered by a variety of leaders such as Henry Reed, Bob Van de Castle, Gayle Delaney, Strephon Williams, and Monte Ullman. There will be a welcoming party on Wednesday evening before the convention officially opens on Thursday morning. It would be helpful in estimating projected attendance if persons who think they might attend would drop a postcard indicating their interest or intent to the arrangements chairman:
Dr. Robert Van de Castle, 6 East, Blue Ridge Hospital, Charlottesville, VA 22901
