On Dreams And Dreaming

Doyenne of dream interpretation Pamela Ball has followed up her internationally successful 10,000 Dreams Interpreted with this magnificent new volume. The Complete Book of Dreams and Dreaming shows you how to use the dream state productively to help fulfill every aspect of your waking life. Immensely practical, The Complete Book of Dreams and Dreaming gives you all the techniques you need for turning your desires into reality.

"A truly comprehensive, scientifically rigorous and utterly fascinating account of when, how, and why we dream. Put simply, When Brains Dream is the essential guide to dreaming." —Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep Questions on the origins and meaning of dreams are as old as humankind, and as confounding and exciting today as when nineteenth-century scientists first attempted to unravel them. Why do we dream? Do dreams hold psychological meaning or are they merely the reflection of random brain activity? What purpose do dreams serve? When Brains Dream addresses these core questions about dreams while illuminating the most up-to-date science in the field. Written by two world-renowned sleep and dream researchers, it debunks common myths that we only dream in REM sleep, for example—while acknowledging the mysteries that persist around both the science and experience of dreaming. Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold bring together state-of-the-art neuroscientific ideas and findings to propose a new and innovative model of dream function called NEXTUP—Network Exploration to Understand Possibilities. By detailing this model’s workings, they help readers understand key features of several types of dreams, from prophetic dreams to nightmares and lucid dreams. When Brains Dream reveals recent discoveries about the sleeping brain and the many ways in which dreams are psychologically, and neurologically, meaningful experiences; explores a host of dream-related disorders; and explains how dreams can facilitate creativity and be a source of personal insight. Making an eloquent and engaging case for why the human brain needs to dream, When Brains Dream offers compelling answers to age-old questions about the mysteries of sleep.

In the late nineteenth century, dreams became the subject of scientific study for the first time, after thousands of years of being considered a primarily spiritual phenomenon. Before Freud and the rise of psychoanalytic interpretation as the dominant mode of studying dreams, an international group of physicians, physiologists, and psychiatrists pioneered scientific models of dreaming. Collecting data from interviews, structured observation, surveys, and their own dream diaries, these scholars produced a large body of early research on the sleeping brain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book uncovers an array of case studies from this overlooked period of dream scholarship. With contributors working across the disciplines of psychology, history, literature, and cultural studies, it highlights continuities and ruptures in the history of scientific inquiry into dreams.

Dreams and Dreaming: Analysis, Interpretation and Meaning begins with a review of an integrative phenomenological approach to psychotherapy. More specifically, the authors outline the dream-interpretation method of Daseinsanalytical psychotherapy compared to Freudian and Jungian dream analysis. The main working method of Daseinsanalysis is dream interpretation, since the subject mostly reveals herself/himself through dreams. The authors go on to maintain that memory processing and lucidity are better viewed on the sleep-wake continuum, independent of the REM sleep versus non-REM question, as processes contiguous with waking. The strongest evidence supporting a special relationship between REM sleep and dreaming comes from studies addressing the types of thought present in different forms of dreaming. Next, dream motifs and experiences are described from personal and universal perspectives in the context of a simulation of madness. The authors sense of madness is derived from the cinematic semiosis presented by Patrick Fuery (2004) and Christian Metz (1991). Important aspects of dreams and of their probable interpretations are comparable to a cinematic experience, including time bending and various degrees of spectatorship involvement. Following this, this book makes considerations about, the value that the Freudian interpretation accords to latent contents and to the actual shape of dreams, the defaulting status of the object of desire, the relationship that the accomplishment of desire implies between encounter and confrontation and between deception and truth, and the problem of fetishism. Lastly, the pair of Doras dreams written down by Sigmund Freud in light of two modern functional theories concerning the phenomenon of dreaming are revisited. The authors shed light on new hypotheses regarding the dreams, confirming the accuracy of several theories.

A comprehensive neurocognitive theory of dreaming based on the theories, methodologies, and findings of cognitive neuroscience and the psychological sciences. G. William Domhoff’s neurocognitive theory of dreaming is the only theory of dreaming that makes full use of the new neuroimaging findings on all forms of spontaneous thought and shows how well they explain the results of rigorous quantitative studies of dream content. Domhoff identifies five separate issues—neural substrates, cognitive processes, the psychological meaning of dream content, evolutionarily adaptive functions, and historically invented cultural uses—and then explores how they are intertwined. He also discusses the degree to which there is symbolism in dreams, the development of dreaming in children, and the relative frequency of emotions in the dreams of children and adults. During dreaming, the neural substrates that support waking sensory input, task-oriented thinking, and movement are relatively deactivated. Domhoff presents the conditions that have to be fulfilled before dreaming can occur spontaneously. He describes the specific cognitive processes supported by the neural substrate of dreaming and then looks at dream reports of research participants. The “why” of dreaming, he says, may be the most counterintuitive outcome of empirical dream research. Though the question is usually framed in terms of adaptation, there is no positive evidence for an adaptive theory of dreaming. Research by anthropologists, historians, and comparative religion scholars, however, suggests that dreaming has psychological and cultural uses, with the most important of these found in religious ceremonies and healing practices. Finally, he offers suggestions for how future dream studies might take advantage of new technologies, including smart phones.

Offers visual entryway and theories into the realm of the fascinating world of dreams and dreaming.

The Dreams We DreamYou have been created to live a life of wonder and awe -- like the feeling you get when trying to count the stars. This sense of wonder can be encountered as you sleep, when you enter a uniquely crafted world through your dreams, which is personally designed for you by God.In The Dreams We Dream Murray Dueck will move you deeper into this state of wonder by opening the door to the world of the Heavenly Father's dreams. He will show you how God has changed the history of nations, science, and even the lives of everyday people. Amazing stories happen when God speaks and people listen to His voice through the dreams He gives them. You will be inspired to learn how to: Remember your dreams Discover their meaning for you and for others Encounter the nature and character of Abba Father All through The Dreams We Dream. "In writing "The Dreams We Dream," Murray Dueck brings his many years of Christian leadership, knowledge, and experience within your grasp. This encounter will thrill and inspire you as you savor the depth of his research, and the richness of his insights. He reminds us all that our dreams, and the divine insights they bring, are desperately needed in our over secularized, non-spiritual, materialistic world."John ArnottCatch the Fire, Toronto

Mapping the uncharted territory at the edges of psychological knowledge, these fascinating essays explore compelling aspects of dreams and dreaming. They discuss topics as diverse as memorable dreams, lucid dreaming, the role of dreams in the evolution of human consciousness and the relationship between dreams and the waking state. In ‘The Dream and Its Embedding’, psychoanalyst Patrick Mahony demonstrates, with absorbing case studies, how dreams can become effective therapeutic tools, while dream scholar Kelly Bulkely concludes in ‘Big Dreams’ that, ultimately, the function of dreams is to make the brain grow. Luigi Zoja, dream analyst, explores the profusion of nightmares among soldiers, prisoners and other victims of war in ‘Nightmares’. And Madhu Tandan, who lived for seven years at an ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas, explains how dreams can access a level of consciousness beyond the psychological. This volume is the first in the ‘Boundaries of Consciousness’ series, which, under the leadership of Sudhir Kakar, seeks to bring together psychoanalysts, philosophers, religious studies scholars and neuroscientists in order to expand the frontiers of current psychological understanding. Subsequent volumes will spring from symposia held at Wasan Island, Canada, on the supernatural, death and dying and creativity and imagination. Edited and introduced by Sudhir Kakar, On Dreams and Dreaming will be of interest to scholars and to all who dream and seek to understand why.