22 May 2012 No Comments
Bohm Dialogue & Conscious communication
David Bohm was a fabulous physicist, that much I already knew, I had no idea that he was also a great philosopher who investigated human consciousness a great deal. In an audio clip: Waking up is not enough http://integrallife.com/node/111981 the speakers talk about the beauty and importance of listening without opinion, listening without ego, letting people have their say without debate or making others feel wrong or right. I didn’t realize that David Bohm had put together a structure for conscious communication which is known as Bohm Dialogue, Bohmian Dialogue or simply Dialogue.
Bohm Dialogue is an immensely wonderful concept that is being used successfully in groups of people with differing opinions. It is used as a place where individuals can speak and have their thoughts listened to. It is not a debate and there is no right or wrong, there are people speaking their own thoughts and listening to each other.
David Bohm said “…it is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated.” http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/
“In Dialogue, a group of people can explore the individual and collective presuppositions, ideas, beliefs, and feelings that subtly control their interactions. It provides an opportunity to participate in a process that displays communication successes and failures. It can reveal the often puzzling patterns of incoherence that lead the group to avoid certain issues or, on the other hand, to insist, against all reason, on standing and defending opinions about particular issues.” http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html
So often I find I have said something but the person listening has heard something entirely different, attaching their own projections and options onto a statement I have made with no intention of sparking any ‘negative’ thoughts. I find projections very interesting and am constantly watching out for my own shadow – I feel blessed that I was part of a group which studied projection for a day each week (5 hours of sitting in a circle talking and seeing how we all related/reacted to each others words) for a year as part of a Psychosynthesis training. At this time I wondered how different life would be if conscious communication were taught in schools and people could become aware of their own ‘stuff’, shadow and projection.
Reading more into Bohm Dialogue I see how powerful this form of communication and open listening could be on a world stage amongst leaders of our countries, right down to us at street level.
Some other great sites that explain Bohm Dialogue:
http://www.globalcommunitydialogue.org/GCD/Welcome_files/DIALOGUE-BOHM.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-dialogue.html
Written by Ani Richardson