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Now, in September 2012, the first students of the Master of Developmental and Dementia Music Therapy graduate from my University in Wuerzburg in Germany. Sometimes for me it even today feels like beeing in a dream. I don’t know if other colleagues worldwide also can feel this when a new program really starts, when new colleagues really come or when a research project after plenty of applications and preparations becomes true.

I remember very well all the meetings with colleagues from all over the world. I told colleagues from Germany, from four other European countries, from US and from Australia about my ideas of a master-program specialized in treatment of clients suffering from dementia and of clients with special needs. Together with all these colleagues I developed the new master program. Parallel to all this I remember the talks, formal preparations and the acknowledging of all the university-laws in my university. Step by step the child grew and got its first Gestalt. However, until this moment it was only a pure idea, written in a plenty of papers. But then the big moment came: The first students and the real beginning of the new program. We had a perfect frame for it: The lecture hall where Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen lectured more than hundred years before. The lecture hall of this Nobel-prize-man and the laboratory of this unique inventor of the x-ray is part of our university. We were more than proud when making the opening ceremony of the new master-program in this location. Then all the teaching followed, with all the important contributions from Germany and from the nine international teachers from Europe, US and down under. The program worked and it developed in this process. In this real situation new questions arose. For these we together with all students and all teachers found very interesting and important new details of the gestalt of the new master-program. Now we are in the end of course one and the first Masters have graduated from this program.

Is it a dream? In a way it is. Dreams are also defined as passive thinking. That means, that we are thought by something. It is like the basis of emotion, which is defined as being touched by something (Ulich & Mayring 1992). Contrary to this is our self-regulated thinking while working and doing other day activities, when we think. There we plan and organize and shape with our thinking. In the planning and in the process of the first course of the new master-program things happened and gave step by step another Gestalt-details, then the Gestalt which was planned and expected at the desks and in all talks before the beginning of the first course. It is team work in the end and it is adaptation to conditions of laws, of institutions, of financing and of course of plenty of reality proofs in the first complete process of all semesters of the program. These things just happen like in a dream, like in passive thinking. Giving it a frame, which allowed for these “things” to also shape the program, was from my point of view very important for the program. I think this also is a key to make ideas become true and work in reality. It is the key of let things happen, of surprises, of not expected needs of the students and of not expected meanings of parts of the program for students. In the end of the day elements or mechanisms of dreams are a key for these ideas to work in real life, in reality. This seems to be a paradox or a double negation (like in Adorno’s aesthetic theory) and it means that in the end of the day also dreams make ideas true.

The second dream power of making ideas alive is the inner fire of the teaching team and of the students. Also this is fantastic to be seen and to feel. It gives great happiness. Of course it is the endless happiness when a child grows and survives. If it gives personal happiness it could be interpreted as a personal need. But this personal need is special. In the end of the day this being touched by something (like in Ulich’s definition of emotion) very intensive, is also bound very strongly with an interpersonal component (also like in Ulich’s definition of emotion). It works only in the team of teachers, it works only in the team of teachers and students and last but not least it works only, if it works in practice with our clients too. This means that when all the competencies students got in all the lectures, seminars and trainings, also work in the application in internship or practicum, then it is shared in every case with others and grow in these social situations. Moreover, when in the master theses new techniques, new application of social law or new fields of application of music therapy with clients with special needs or with dementia disorders also are developed, then the inner fire enlarges, shares and betters this field of music therapy for its clients. Then this happiness is really more than just a personal need.

References

Adorno, T.W. (1993). Aesthetische Theorie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Jacobi, J. (1991). Die Psychologie von C.G. Jung. Frankfurt: Fischer.

Ulich, D. & Mayring, P. (1992). Psychologie der Emotionen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

How to cite this page

Wosch, Thomas (2012). Like a Dream or When Ideas Become True. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 09, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2012-dream-or-when-ideas-become-true