The ideas and dreams shared with you here are not necessarily new or revolutionary in and of themselves. They are the result of months of calling and receiving whatever wished to come, in an atmosphere of calm detachment, with the only desire being that of manifesting Mother’s dream of the Galaxy Plan for Auroville.

The Dream Catcher Forum has no other ‘agenda’ than this, and as a non-aligned gathering of ‘aspirational’ Aurovilians, we merely wish to offer these dreams for feedback from the larger community to see if avenues and paths of mutual consent can be teased out of the myriad possibilities which lead us ever on into our communal future. An open-source planning approach What is open-source planning? Utilising the concept of open-source, which the global software community has been using successfully since many years, we wish to stimulate a wide-ranging dialogue within the community as to the direction of development of the city the earth needs. Starting from the premise of the Galaxy, we are exploring how the ideals of Auroville could manifest in the three dimensions of our built environment, and we wish to do this in as inclusive, inspiring and beautiful a way as possible. We believe that Auroville's ideal of Human Unity is not merely a necessity in a world of ever greater fragmentation, but that it is in fact the solution to our ever more complex problems – that if we can nurture methodologies which tap into the wisdom of the collective, then we believe that not only will Auroville become a model for this earth on a physical level, but on an emotional, mental and spiritual one as well. 

A number of different avenues of open-source planning are so far being explored, including the dreamcatcher forum itself, dreamweaving sessions (experiential) and the dreamweaving cafe (Co-creating Cafe), Dream Spaces as well as the Dream Boxes – one of which you have just opened. One aim of open-source planning is to receive feedback and input from the community (which includes you!) on the ideas presented, and to this end a pad of paper and a pen have been included for your comments, suggestions and constructive criticism. As opportunities of time and timing arise, we hope to synthesize and clarify those ideas which truly enrich Mother’s Dream and which have received sufficient positive feedback from the community, and to present these to the relevant planning group for their consideration.

Each Dreamspace is an opportunity to present the wide variety of dreams and concepts which have arisen through the dreamcatching and dreamweaving processes. The creation of each Dream Space is itself an exploration of how a group of people working together can begin to synthesise their different ideas and talents to achieve the 'highest common factor', rather than the 'lowest common denominator' which can be the common experience for many in such situations. Each Dream Space also gives the opportunity for people to give their feedback and add their ideas to the ever-expanding body of work. 

As the dreamcatching sessions evolved it became clear that another step was required, whose aim would be to explore different modalities of working together in groups to study more in depth some of the ideas that had come up in dreamcatchers. From this the idea of dreamweaving emerged. In the beginning, dreamweaving was merely a forum for more interactive discussion of the ideas emerging in dreamcatchers. The late afternoon timing of these sessions was more conducive to this. However, as it became clear that we wished to present some of the ideas to the community, the dream weaving sessions evolved to address the creation of Dream Spaces. 

A tentative step has also been made with dreamweaving Cafes, where we have modified the popular concept of 'Conversation Cafes'. Instead of merely debating varying issues of global or local nature, the participants still divide themselves up into smaller groups, but they then address specific issues of planning and development in Auroville through sketches and drawings instead of just through conversation, and they then present these findings to the larger group for discussion.

The concept of Dream Boxes coalesced out of a number of different aims. The first and simplest of these was to record and share the wide variety of ideas and dreams which have emerged through each of the Dream Spaces, in a manner which would be engaging and thought-provoking. However, dreamcatchers also wished to inspire people to continue the dreaming on each of the themes covered in the Dream Spaces, and so the Dream Boxes also needed to address this in a manner conducive to such an open-source approach. Thus, since they are not intended to be seen as a finished product, we came up with the idea of boxes which could not only contain a wide range of initial material but would also allow new material to be added with ease. With these aims in mind, Dream Boxes on each Dream Space will be made available to each school in Auroville, as material for teachers to use with their students, as well as in the AV Library, the Laboratory of Evolution and L'Avenir d'Auroville to allow for wider public access. Over time there would also be the opportunity to update the Dream Boxes with new material collated from the input at the various locations – in this way it is hoped that people might re-visit the Boxes occasionally, on the chance that the content might well have changed, metamorphosed and transmogrified into something completely new. 

Each Dream Box should be seen as a 'Pandora's Undo Box' – each one charged with the possibility to release 'good' into the world...

(Dreamcatcher was an experience that went on for a few years from around 2005 to 2014 basically, but was very influential on the future planning of Auroville and on developments that are still trying to find a solution)

See Also: The Dreamcatchers' experience: A Dream Space