A Man for All Seasons Who Changed My Life

In 1961, Montague Ullman founded a dream laboratory at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. A few years later, he asked several eminent psychologists and psychiatrists to direct the laboratory’s research program on anomalous effects in dreams. They all turned him down because the laboratory was only assured funding for three years, and the study of telepathic, clairvoyant, and precognitive dreams was hardly a move that would lead to career advancement. When Monte offered the position to me, I immediately accepted it and have never regretted the decision.

When I arrived in Brooklyn, Monte told me about the adventures he shared with a few college friends, a series of private meetings marked by ostensibly anomalous events such as the sudden appearance of strange objects and messages purportedly written by a “Dr. Bindleof,” a physician who claimed to have died in 1919. He also told me of psychotherapeutic encounters in which patients reported dreams that incorporated specific elements of his own personal life. These were the personal sources that motivated Monte to organize a dream laboratory that took advantage of newly developed technology—monitoring research participants’ brain waves and eye movement activity—to determine the appropriate time to awaken them and ask for dream reports.

Monte and I designed an experimental protocol that involved introducing a staff member to a volunteer, and then separating them for the night. Once the staff member reached his or her own room, the staff member opened a randomly selected envelope and focused on the enclosed art print. Research participants tried to incorporate these images into their dreams; a team of outside experts attempted to match dream protocols with the art prints used on those nights—and did so at statistically significant levels. It was a pleasure to work out the details of these studies with Monte; his insights into both the dreaming process and the nature of anomalous phenomena provided material that I could draw upon in designing an airtight procedure that would be evaluated statistically and that would rule out trickery, sensory cueing, and coincidence.

Indeed, we were a “dream team,” that enjoyed a “dream relationship.” Our contact continued after we both left Maimonides in the early 1970s. I studied Monte’s dream appreciation method at his home in Ardsley, New York, which also gave me the opportunity to maintain contact with his lovely wife, Janet. Our visits were marked by intellectual discussions, philosophical speculations, and personal interchanges. We discussed life’s triumphs and tragedies frankly and openly, including his grief over Janet’s death and, later, her appearance in a series of remarkable dreams.

When I turned seventy-five, Monte and his companion Judy Gardiner drove to Manhattan to help me celebrate. I introduced him to my family and friends as “the man who changed my life.” The same can be said of other men and women I have known, but my friendship with Monte was multi-dimensional. It was marked by intellectual growth (on my part), wit (primarily on his part), and storytelling (on both our parts). Monte Ullman was more than a man for all seasons; he was a man for all reasons.

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