by Mia Cellucci
In our data-driven society we’ve come to believe that the best decision-making is driven by analytics, and that leaders should make decisions based only on metrics and statistics. But this is only part of the picture. Underlying all decisions, no matter how data-driven, is image and story. How we see a problem, and the narrative we create around it, informs which facts we see as important, which patterns we notice, and how we factor these into our assessment of a problem and our proposed solutions.
The Dream Game™ is designed to develop image-based thinking. Through play, leaders and teams interact with images and tasks to understand how we create stories around the challenges we face, and how we can shift those stories by taking new perspectives and imagining a new way forward.
Why Images?
Think back to 8th grade algebra. A formula of X’s and Y’s, parentheses and equal signs, sitting incomprehensibly on the chalkboard until the teacher draws a diagram of a swimming pool. Suddenly, you understand what variables you are solving for. In cognitive psychology this boils down to a simple principle: see a problem, solve a problem.
Working with images helps us visualize the problems we are facing. It engages our default mode neurological processing system. This image-based cognition helps us to bypass pattern-driven linear thinking and move into the open space of the imagination. Not only are we able to see our challenges in more detail, but through image-based thinking we can also access diverse and seemingly unrelated information and synthesize it in new ways to propose truly novel solutions.
This year at NASAGA, Lynne Cuppernull and I will be facilitating a 90-minute session of The Dream Game™ on Thursday, October 15th from 11:00am - 12:30pm. The game is structured into 8 levels, and we will play 3-4 levels during the session. We will conclude with a discussion of the group’s learnings and practical applications of the game.
How to Play
The Dream Game™ consists of 95 image cards and 92 task cards. There are 8 levels, each focusing on developing a different leadership capacity through play. The levels progress from simple to more complex. At the same time, the levels are designed to be modular, customizable to different group sizes and allotted play times.
Right: Live play of The Dream Game. Photo by Katarzyna Szugajew.
The game begins with a simple image and a simple exercise that draws attention to the different ways each of us might describe it. From this starting point, players draw more image cards and interact with them depending on which task cards they draw. There are tasks around perception, embodiment, and taking multiple perspectives. In level five, players explore narratives and how to shift them. Level six works with how to identify blocks and see new ways to interact with them to reach our full potential. Level eight focuses on teamwork, as images become team members and tasks include solving problems as a group. The game is fun, participative, and non-competitive. Players work together to co-create an experience and move into a more flexible, holistic, and open way of thinking.
Because the game is non-competitive, leaders are able to drop titles and expectations and simply tune into experiencing and learning. Players are free to access inner insights without delving into personal content or needing to maintain perceptions of hierarchy or achievement. This is critical for leaders and teams to step outside of their typical roles and dynamics and into new ways of interacting.
Players become more intuitive, creative, fluid, and responsive, and gain tools to more quickly overcome blocks and shift patterns, as well as the ability to apply these insights and tools to current situations. In one recent game play, for example, a leader interacting with an image of a tangled bush suddenly understood that a new company offering was too complicated and needed to be “pruned back” so that the “light” of the offering’s value could shine through.
Image-based Cognition in the Age of AI
The role of the leader is rapidly shifting. In this age of rampant Large Language Model (LLM) use, thinking in image is more important than ever.
Our ability to imagine, dream, and create is humanity's greatest superpower. It has allowed us to build culture, societies, and governments throughout millennia. With it we have envisioned the inventions—including AI—that move our world forward.
AI can become a powerful tool for humanity if we know how to ask imaginative questions and discern ideas from LLM output. Reductive, pattern-based learning provides pattern-based results unless we apply our human creativity. When we engage our creative imagination, found in the default network, we are able to bring seemingly disparate strands of information and experience together in new and unexpected ways.
The Dream Game™ develops the leadership capacities that are critical in today’s AI-heavy landscape. Working with images and tasks, players experience divergent thinking, inductive processes, and engage their creative imagination. By working with images and tasks, they learn how to elaborate on ideas and how to apply the critical thinking necessary to determine which idea is the best fit for a specific challenge. In past game plays, leaders at tech companies have told us that playing the game strengthened their ability to engage with their work – including with AI – in much more creative ways.
Come Play!
At the Institute we are experts in the creative imagination and image-based cognition. We have developed numerous ways to bring this work to leaders and organizations, including The Dream Game™.
Come play The Dream Game™ with us and see how we are helping leaders develop the imagination needed to not only thrive in today's world, but to truly envision and move towards the future we want to build.
Mia Cellucci is a leadership & executive function coach and certified Dream Game™ Facilitator. Her work focuses on supporting leaders in balancing the creative and the tactical, turning vision into meaningful action.
The International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery works with leaders, teams, and organizations to envision new solutions to existing problems. We do this by tapping into image-based cognition, bypassing linear thinking. The Institute has a long track record of bringing image and dreamwork to leadership including at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership’s One Humanity Leadership Coaching Certification program.
Cover Image: Live play of The Dream Game. Photo by Katarzyna Szugajew.
