Author(s): UN Global Pulse; CoFutures
The Collective Dreaming Deck
Description
The Collective Dreaming Deck is an interactive card-based game designed to spark collective imagination and support speculative scenario building. Developed as part of the Participatory Innovation and Speculative Storytelling for Change project, this unique toolkit blends creative storytelling, systems thinking, and playful exploration to help groups imagine the futures they want and the ones they wish to avoid.
Rooted in the principles of speculative storytelling and collective intelligence, the deck invites participants to rapidly prototype time-based scenarios by combining cards as narrative prompts. The process creates space for debate, reflection, and exchange across diverse worldviews, enabling people to explore possibilities, uncertainties, and transformations through shared stories.
Particularly useful during collaborative innovation processes — before moving into hands-on strategy — the deck helps expand participants’ sense of what is possible. The deck opens a portal to explore multiple futures: aspirational, absurd, caring, unsettling, hopeful, or anything in between. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for future-oriented planning and participatory design activities.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Collective Dreaming Deck uses simple narrative prompts to unlock imagination. Each card represents a fragment of a future possibility: a theme, a character, a shift, a tension, a worldbuilding cue. When players combine cards, unexpected stories emerge, revealing new patterns and sparking deeper explorations and discussions.
The method encourages participants to step outside habitual thinking, experiment with complexity, and draw connections across domains such as governance, planetary health, technology, culture, mobility, and social systems.
Through quick rounds of story creation, groups generate multiple visions of a chosen future horizon, gradually weaving these individual narratives into a collective tapestry of possibilities.
TO PLAY:
Download the PDF, cut out the cards, follow the instructions — and your journey into collective futures can begin.
WHY PLAY THE COLLECTIVE DREAMING DECK?
The deck transforms speculation into collaboration. By inviting participants to step into multiple possible futures, it creates an accessible and inclusive entry point into complex discussions about systems change, institutional transformation, and long-term thinking.
It helps groups:
-Unlock creativity when facing uncertainty
-Explore how personal stories connect to global dynamics
-Support strategic conversations with imaginative grounding
-Build shared understanding across disciplines and roles
-Strengthen team cohesion through play, reflection, and co-creation
-Whether imagining utopian, dystopian, or radically unexpected futures, the deck provides a safe space for experimentation and visionary thinking.
WHO IS IT FOR?
The Collective Dreaming Deck is designed for anyone working with complexity, innovation, or strategic transformation. This includes:
-UN teams and policymakers
-Civil society organizations
-Educators and students
-Community leaders and activists
-Designers, researchers, and innovators
-Corporate teams exploring future preparedness
From classrooms to boardrooms, from community workshops to strategic foresight sessions or innovation sprints, the deck nurtures curiosity, active listening, and a sense of agency, showing that everyone plays a role in shaping the futures ahead of us.
We would love to hear how you use the deck in your own contexts!
