Conference XIII and the Internet
The 1996 ASD Computer and Internet program brought together both technical and non-
technical dream concerned individuals and groups from around the world to show that
computers are not so much about being interested in machines but really about people
connecting with people. In keeping with the innovative and diverse programs ASD continues
to offer the world, the 1996 Computer Hub opened a door to the new millennium and gave us
a peek at the future of communications in online dreams and dreaming.
Projects included dream inspired art galleries online, global research venues for data
collection, never guessed at ways of sharing dreams, fabulous new designs for the
collection, recording and searching of dream content, international networking
opportunities and wonderful new environments for discussing theory & ideas.
Many of these projects will continue though the year on the permanent ASD Web site,
while others are expected to change from year to year as the Internet shifts and new
communication channels morph into new forms. The seeds have been planted that will grow in
every area of dream study. Whatever we decide to keep or not keep, the foundations have
now been laid for future conferences to use computers & the Internet to enhance &
expand any conference's informational, educational, ideational and presentational base.
What's left now the Conference is over?
Did you miss this part of the conference in all the other wonderful programs? You can
still view the report on conference XIII and
Cyberspace and use the report as a Learning Guide for investigations on how to use the
Internet for research on dreams and dreaming, for learning about the history of dreamwork
on the Net and for seeing a variety of creative ways that networkers, artists, writers and
others are using the Net with dreams and dreaming.
For the Online version of the report, point your Web Browsers to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/asd-13
The ASD Web Site Update & the World Wide Web
There are several new areas on our site which I'd like to mention, but I particularly
would like to focus on the Bulletin Board and encourage you to participate.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Internet, a Web site is a collection of linked
documents that are permanently available (as long as the rent is paid) to the public
through the Internet on the World Wide Web and linked together in a rich tapestry of
conceptual ideas and images. What this means is that any part of a document can be
hyperlinked to any other part of any other document on the Web. And, not just our
documents but any document. For example, if this article were on the Web, it could be
coded so that by selecting *this* word you could jump to the top of this article, or to
the first article in this newsletter, to an article in a newsletter 5 years ago, or even
to an article in another journal put out by another organization. The direction of the
links are decided when the document is first typed up and coded, but can easily be
changed. This is hyperlinking.
When several documents are held together conceptually, like the ASD Web site, the
effect is like going into a building or home that has rooms. Each page is its own room and
you can enter other rooms via the links on the page. There can be thousands of links on a
page, but typically there are less than a dozen, unless the page has an index.
Now these rooms, these pages on the Web, can also be constructed so you can leave text
and pictures as well as see them and copy them. The most popular way to do this is a
Bulletin Board style environment. In a Bulletin Board room you can scan down a list of
topics and if interested reply to the topic heading right there while you are reading the
post on your computer via the Internet. And of even more interest, you can comment on
other people's replies. This creates a topic thread that may be hundreds of messages deep,
though it is typically less than a dozen. Its just like finding a note on a bulletin board
at a college and leaving notes behind the original. And just like this college bulletin
board, you can post new topics just as easily as responding to old topics.
Note: Traditionally on the Net, Bulletin Boards are called Newsgroups. What? Because
there are places off the Internet that you can call up locally on your computer and get
information that are called Bulletin Boards, and they have a coalition and network of
thousands around the world and are not part of the Internet. When the Usenet network began
setting up message boards on the Internet they decided to call them newsgroups to avoid
confusion. These Usenet newsgroups eventually connected with the Internet and there are
thousands of them, still called newsgroups even though they look and act like what we
would usually call a bulletin board. Now that the World Wide Web is beginning to have its
own message boards, the term Bulletin Board is being used more often in its generic sense
as it seems to make sense to newer users of the Internet, so now we are all confused. Just
note that 1. When you hear "message board" or "newsgroup" they mean a
bulletin board style of posting, and 2. When you use the word "Bulletin Board"
your listener may understand this to mean the local dial up non-Internet services.
The ASD bulletin board. Have you ever wanted to discuss your dream project with a group
of ASD members but its only November and the Conference is nearly a year away? Have you
ever been reading an article or book on dreams and dreaming and wanted to comment in a
public place about the book or to the author? Jayne Gackenbach and her wonderful crew have
put one of these interactive message boards on the ASD web site and it is now being used
for the discussion of dreaming ideas, projects, questions, concerns and proposals. While
many of us have been using the board for international communications and discussion of
recent topics, it is still relatively unknown and so I wanted to focus on the board this
issue and not only explain what it is, but how to use it.
How to get to the ASD Bulletin Board. Do you have a Web Browser? If not, you will need
to ask your sever. All major commercial servers now have Web Browsers, including AOL,
Compuserve, Prodigy and MSN. Most colleges and universities that give you accounts on the
Internet provide you with a web browser. Many public libraries now provide computers
connected to the Internet and provide you with World Wide Web connections, usually through
a text browser called LYNX. A web browser is simple a software program that allows one to
travel on the World Wide Web and looks and acts much like a word processor. The difference
is that you can call up files from around the world instead of just on your own computer
and the files are linked together.
Once you have a browser and start it up while connected to the Internet, it will ask
you for an address, what is called a URL or Universal Resource Locator. Since the ASD
Bulletin Board is on our Homepage, you simple type in:
http://www.asdreams.org
One of the options will be Discussions, and one of the Discussion options will be the
Bulletin Board.
Once in the bulletin board, you will see a page full of postings, each an organized
discussion on topics including nightmares and children, astronauts and dreaming, the
dangers of dream sharing online, proposals on the collection of dream bibliographies,
queries for dream book discussions, places to put your updated e-mail addresses for other
ASD members and much, much more. Be sure to add a topic to the bulletin board that
interests you and stop back once a week to see the replies and add new comments.
For those of you with research projects, this is a place to post and collect either
subjects or data, discuss your projects as in a poster session with other researchers and
find support for future research. As a SPECIAL BONUS, there is an article on the bulletin
board right now on conducting dream research on the Internet, which in itself is worth
learning how to use a Web browser and visiting our message board.
Other ASD Web Events and Projects
For those of you who are less verbally oriented, be sure to see the ASD Dream Art
Gallery, which contains beautiful graphics of many of the pieces submitted to the July
show at the Claremont. The ASD Web also has added to the article collection and now has
some real treasures for your reading pleasure.
Next issue the Dream Guide to the Internet continues, with updates on all the new
programs that now becoming available on the Internet in dreams and dreaming, how to find
them and how to reference them in bibliographies. If you have questions on dreaming and
the Net you would like addressed, send them to Richard
Wilkerson
rcwilk@dreamgate.com
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