Dream telling follows certain rules of presentation that are to be described as a set of specific rhetorical practices. The rhetoric of the dream teller reporting a dream is one of emotional distance, which shows that the narrative sequence lacks a motivational fra-mework. The report needs to be put into context by establishing a dialogue with the listener. The sharing of the dream with another, especially in the psychoanalytical context, corresponds to the representation of the dream tellers attempt to reproduce the dream experience. This attempt is made in reference to a commenting and exploring other.

Purpose: In cooperation with linguistic partners (Prof. Dr. E. Gülich, university of Bielefeld) dream reports are analyzed and compared with narratives of enigmatic episodes (for example epileptic attacks or psychotic experiences). Reports of epileptic attacks were intensively studied by conversation analysis in linguistic and medical collaboration at the university of Bielefeld (supported be Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). 100 transcribed dream reports of a psychoanalytic patient (AMALIE; the material stems from the Ulmer textbank (Prof.Dr.Kächele, Prof.Dr.Mergenthaler: a multi-centered single-case oriented research project) and other dream material is linguistically analyzed in the specific communicative context.

Boothe, B. (Hg.) (2000). Der Traum – 100 Jahre nach Freuds Traumdeutung. Zürich: vdf

Boothe, B. (2001). The rhetorical organisation of dream-telling. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research 1 (2), S. 101-113.