Pre-death dreams and visions have been reported throughout history by people in cultures all over the world. The same is true today, when terminally ill people experience strange dreams in the final days of their lives. These dreams often have a remarkable impact on the dying person: as a direct result of the dream or vision, the person’s fear of death diminishes, replaced by a new understanding of living, dying, and that which lies beyond death. Dreaming Beyond Death combines fascinating stories of contemporary dreamers, the latest scientific research on dreams, and the insights of the world’s religious traditions to provide a simple, spiritually-sensitive approach to understanding these remarkable end-of-life experiences. Written for those who are dying and their caregivers (family, friends, clergy, medical staff), this book is an invitation to discover the surprising potential for personal change and religious transformation that opens up as mortal life draws to a close.
Newsweek Article…

Blurbs and Reviews

“This highly readable volume is a treasure trove of compelling, original insights to excite the mind and the spirit through the journey of dying, healing, and hope. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”

–Rabbi Earl Grollman, author of Caring and Coping When Your Loved One is Severely Ill

“By investigating the metaphor-making power of dreams, this profound book not only bridges life and death, emotion and reason, science and the care of the dying, but the generational difference between this wonderful mother-son team of authors. Dreaming Beyond Death is a great contribution to both science and the challenge of facing death.”

– Don Browning, Professor of Religious Ethics and the Social Sciences and author of Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies

“In earlier days in Western culture, there existed an Art of Dying. It got lost. Dr. Kelly Bulkeley and Rev. Patricia Bulkley help us recover it. They show how dreams can move us beyond thresholds, carrying us like vehicles into the unknown. Dreams cloak us in almost-understanding and in mystery. They speak to the heart, and whisper us along the implacable path. At a moment when guidance is of the utmost importance, dreams speak. This book makes them accessible. I took up this text just to skim through it and became utterly engrossed, reading every word in one sitting.”

– Robert Bosnak, author of A Little Course in Dreams, Dreaming with an AIDS Patient, and Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Dreams of Mortality
2. The Nature and Meaning of Dreams
3. Journeys
4. Guides
5. Obstacles
6. Care For the Dying
Conclusion
Appendix: Resources for Caregiving for the Terminally Ill

Blurbs and Reviews

“Probably the best introduction to the psychology of dreaming to date. The author summarizes with remarkable clarity the various approaches to this topic…. Even though this text is intended as an introduction to the topic, it provides a sufficiently in-depth approach to satisfy the needs of the busy practitioner.”
—Rama Coomaraswamy, American Journal of Psychotherapy

“A superb introduction. It is remarkably comprehensive and comprehensible….[It] covers all of the important landmarks in the area of dreams [in an] understandable fashion. It would be a magnificent book for a course on dreaming. One of the truly amazing characteristics of the book is the author’s capacity to present the widely diverse material in such an even-handed fashion.”
— Wilse B. Webb, Professor Emiritus of Psychology, University of Florida

“This is an easy-to-read, elegant, and well-organized text on an important but often neglected topic. Kelly Bulkeley has written a dream of an introduction to dreaming!”
— Ernest Hartmann, Professor of Psychology, Tufts University School of Medicine

“This book by Kelly Bulkeley lives up to the readers’ expectations. The author has condensed his profound knowledge about dreaming in an easily readable introduction.”
— Michael Schredl, Dreaming

Table of Contents

Three Basic Questions about Dreaming: Formation, Function, Interpretation

Sigmund Freud Discovers “The Secret of Dreams”

C.G. Jung Descends into the Collective Unconscious

Alternative Clinical Theories about Dreams

Sleep Laboratories, REM Sleep, and Dreaming

Experimental Psychology and Dreaming

Popular Psychology: Bringing Dreams to the Masses

Modern Psychology’s Answers to the Three Basic Questions

From Biblical stories of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams in Egypt to prayers against bad dreams in the Hindu Rg Veda, cultures all over the world have seen their dreams first and foremost as religiously meaningful experiences. Dreaming in the World’s Religions provides an authoritative and engaging one-volume resource for the study of dreaming and religion. It tells the story of how dreaming has shaped the religious history of humankind, from the conception dream of Buddha’s mother to the sexually tempting nightmares of St. Augustine, and from the Ojibwa vision quest to Australian Aboriginal journeys in the Dreamtime. Dreaming in the World’s Religions offers a carefully researched, accessibly written portrait of dreaming as a powerful, unpredictable, often iconoclastic force in human religious life.

“A pleasure to read, well written and full of fascinating examples. It combines a sensitive and sympathetic understanding of the religious meanings of dreams with a state-of-the-art treatment of the insights that cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology bring to our understanding of them.” –Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago, and author of Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities

“Offers a sophisticated, yet easily accessible and engaging discussion of how and in what way dreams and a broad range of the world’s religions have enjoyed mutual influence throughout history. . . . This book is unique in that is provides a valuable resource for the serious scholar of religion, yet has equal potential for non-specialists interested in exploring how their own dreams may find relevance for their own lives, religious or otherwise.” –Nina P. Azari, Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia of Sciences and Religions

Main findings:

1. Dreams have strongly influenced the beliefs and practices of religious traditions all over the world, throughout history.

Each of the ten chapters of the book is devoted to a different religious tradition (or family of traditions) and its historical teachings about dreams, including Hinduism, Chinese religions, Buddhism, religions of the Fertile Crescent, Greek and Roman religions, Christianity, Islam, and the indigenous cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.  In every case, dreams appear as a powerful medium of transpersonal guidance offering the opportunity to communicate with divine beings, gain wisdom and power, heal suffering, and explore new realms of existence.

2. Dreams and reason are not mutually antagonistic.

Voices of critical questioning and naturalistic analysis have risen up wherever and whenever humans have explored their dreams.  It might be a surprise to those who assume that modern scientists were the first to explain dreaming as the mental by-products of sleep, but many ancient traditions recognized exactly the same psychophysiological dynamics at work in people’s dreams.  The skeptical perspective did not come after religious perspective, nor even before it.  Historically speaking, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive.  They have coexisted from the start.  The prototypical experiences of dreaming have provoked not only religious and spiritual experience but also a deeply human capacity for rational thought and critical reflection.  Dreams have stimulated the power of reason to become increasingly aware of deceptive appearances, hidden connections, subtle perceptions, and cognitively impactful emotions.

3. Dreaming is a primal wellspring of religious experience.

This means that dreams, by virtue of their natural emergence out of the immensely complex, internally-generated activities of the mammalian brain during sleep, offer all human beings a potential source of visionary insight, creative inspiration, and expanded self-awareness.  The abundant evidence of cross-cultural history proves that we are indeed a dreaming species.  Through dreams humans have discovered the deepest realms of their psyches and grown in awareness of the powerful relational bonds that connect them to their families, communities, natural environments, religious traditions, and ultimately the cosmos itself.  Whether dreaming came before religion or religion came before dreaming is an impossible question to answer. But we now have evidence strongly suggesting that the natural rootedness of dreaming in the human brain-mind system makes it a universally available source of experiential awareness of precisely those powers that people have historically associated with religion.  To accept that evidence does not mean abandoning science or pledging faith to some religious creed or dogma.  Rather, it means acknowledging the reality of an autonomous visionary capacity within the human brain-mind system, a capacity driven by an unconscious intelligence deeply rooted in our biological nature yet continuously striving for transcendent understanding and insight.

4. The pan-human prototypes of dreaming are rooted in the brain, the body, and the evolutionary history of our species.

In almost every known cultural tradition, people have described certain types of intensified, highly memorable dreams (e.g., flying, falling, being chased or attacked, meeting a dead relative, having sex), and I refer to them collectively as prototypical dreams  Prototypical dreams are not universal in the sense that every single person experiences all of them.  Rather, they are latent forms of dreaming potential. They reflect innate predispositions to dream in certain ways that, when actualized, make unusually strong impressions on waking awareness.  In contrast to the vast majority of sleep experiences that fade into oblivion, prototypical dreams are actually quite easy to remember.  Some of them are literally impossible to forget, remaining a vivid presence in people’s memories for the rest of their lives.

My basic argument in the book is that highly memorable prototypical dreams have played a powerfully creative role in virtually all the world’s religious and spiritual traditions. The consciousness-provoking impact of dreaming has not been sufficiently recognized by scientists or religious studies scholars, and my hope is to present a compelling case for taking dream experiences more fully into account in the comparative study of religion.

Each of the four prototypes I discuss is clearly associated with a distinct kind of carry-over effect of dreaming experience into the waking state.  With sexual dreams the carry-over is a physical orgasm, of both the male and female varieties.  With aggressive dreams it’s the hyper-activation of the fight/flight response—extreme fear, racing heart, rapid breathing, and full-body sweat.  With gravitational dreams it’s the horribly realistic sensation of falling and waking up with a sudden gasping start.  With mystical dreams it’s the blissful, ultra-realistic sensation of flying or the profound joy of being reunited with a deceased loved one. These kinds of direct emotional and bodily continuations of the dreaming experience into the person’s waking life are perhaps the strongest and most easily observed instances of the deeply rooted interplay of dreaming and waking consciousness.  The palpable carry-over effects associated with prototypical dreams are clues to the specific processes by which dreaming contributes to healthy brain-mind functioning.  Aggressive dreams reflect an adaptive concern with identifying and responding to threats in the waking world.  Although emotionally disturbing, such nightmares have the beneficial effect (in survival terms) of stimulating greater waking-world vigilance toward similar threats.  The evolutionary logic is simple: the more often and more intensely you dream of various kinds of threatening situations, the better prepared you’ll be to react effectively to those situations if and when they occur in waking life.  Likewise with gravitational dreams, which accurately reflect and simulate the existential dangers of entropic destruction.  The intense fear and horror generated by these dreams activates the fundamental instincts of self-preservation that must always be ready to respond immediately should a comparable danger arise in the waking world, whether it be falling off something high, getting in a car crash, or losing physical mobility.  Sexual dreams prompt the reproductive system and envision a variety of possible ways of satisfying its desires.  Their stimulating and taboo-defying effect on the erotic imagination is, I suspect, self-evident to most readers.  The impact of mystical dreams is less directly tied to evolutionary biology, and more to the emerging spirit of human creativity.  Dreams of the mystical prototype have the effect of enlarging people’s sense of life’s possibilities, expanding their awareness from a narrow fixation on what is to a broader consideration of what might be.  Such dreams stretch the mind by pushing it to become more conscious of its own powers and the realities that extend beyond what is immediately present in normal perceptions of the waking world.

Building on sixteen years of scientific research involving thousands of dream reports, Bulkeley shows how the playful fancies of people’s dreaming imaginations can be interpreted as insightful expressions of their hopes and fears about issues as varied as the environment, religion, family values, and the Iraq war. Examining in particular detail the dreaming tendencies of conservatives and liberals, the book centers on ten people of different political perspectives—a dreamers’ focus group—who kept yearlong sleep and dream journals. The dreaming and waking stories of these “ordinary” Americans (among them a cancer survivor, a lesbian horse rancher, a former Catholic priest, a young waitress engaged to be married, and a soldier preparing for his third tour to Iraq) provide raw psychological material and a window into their deepest beliefs, darkest fears, and most inspiring ideals.

Hyper-ventilating political pundits have described in lurid detail what conservatives and liberals disagree about but rarely do they try to explain why they disagree—and that’s the real question. At a time of bitter partisan conflict and governmental paralysis, American Dreamers calls the country back to its visionary origins, arguing that dreams can serve as a royal road to the creation of new political solutions that integrate the best of conservative and liberal ideals. If we truly want to learn something new about the American Dream in people’s lives today, Bulkeley proposes we take a good, close look at how well American people are sleeping and dreaming at night.

Main findings:

1. Conservatives are more likely to sleep well and report fewer dreams, and liberals are more likely to sleep worse and report more dreams.

This is the overall conclusion of the sleep and dreams poll (sleep and dream poll results: political ideology), and it’s consistent with the same finding in my earlier studies (KB articles 2002 and 2006). It must be said, however, that some conservatives report many dreams, and some liberals report none; the distinctions are not absolute. In fact, the book’s analysis of more than 1500 dreams recorded in home journals by a group people with mixed political views (The 10 members of the “dreamers focus group”) reveals a much more complex psychological process at work, with conservative and liberal tendencies interacting in each person’s dreams in unexpected ways. Still, taking all the evidence as a whole, it seems fair to propose the working hypothesis that conservatives tend to be good sleepers and minimal dreamers, while liberals tend to be troubled sleepers and expansive dreamers.

2. The most religiously observant Americans (attend a worship service more than once a week) report better sleep and fewer dreams than the least religious Americans (never attend a worship service).

This was a surprising finding (sleep and dream poll results: religion), insofar as other research has indicated a close relationship between dreaming and religion (Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History). These results may be due to a) the connection between religion and conservative politics in America, and/or b) the connection between American liberalism and a “spiritual but not religious” perspective. Chapter 3 looks at the religious and spiritual beliefs of the ten journal-keepers, who range across the spectrum from conservative Christian to liberal atheist.

3. A surprisingly frequent type of dream among both conservatives and liberals is a nightmare about work.

This is the most unexpected finding, because it reveals the impact of economic pressures on sleeping and dreaming in ways that no previous research has shown (sleep and dream poll results: economic status). Chapter 5 of the book discusses the economic circumstances of the focus group members, most of whom struggled financially during the journal-keeping year. Their job-related dreams reveal a profound populist frustration with the economic status quo.

4. The continuity of waking and dreaming extends to political ideals, beliefs, and attitudes.

Analysis of the dreams of the ten journal-keepers adds further evidence to the continuity hypothesis (www.dreamresearch.net), which says that dream content accurately reflects the most important concerns of the individual’s waking life. The findings in this book show that basic, easily identified patterns in dream content are continuous with a person’s most meaningful and emotionally intense relationships, activities, and beliefs. Those beliefs include a person’s attitudes toward politics. Perhaps one day we’ll be able to predict people’s political views with no information other than the patterns of their dreams.

Blurbs

“A beautifully written reminder of the depth of differences, and a dream of how difference might be understood. Bulkeley understands something profound about us; we would benefit enormously if we could even just glimpse that understanding.”—Lawrence Lessig, author of The Future of Ideas and Free Culture and Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

“No book about dreams could be more timely or more important than Kelly Bulkeley’s American Dreamers. Whatever is important in people’s waking lives is reflected in their dreams–politics included. American conservatives report different dreams than American liberals. American Democrats report different dreams than American Republicans. Dr. Bulkeley paints his portraits of American dreamers with a palette that reflects his scholarship in both religious studies and dream science; the results are filled with insights that will delight, amuse, and infuriate his readers. American Dreamers provides its readers with insight into the country’s future, insight that is available from no other (or better) source.”—Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Co-author, Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans

“This story we tell ourselves in our dreams passes the impurities of our waking life through an ethical filter and exposes truths we have not yet acknowledged. American Dreamers is a comprehensive and very readable account of our unconscious adaptation of what is still a hazardous and imperfect waking domain. Bulkeley’s professional life has revolved around dreams and what we can learn from them. This book is true to its title. He has opened the door to the sociology of dreams.”—Montague Ullman, M.D., author of Appreciating Dreams: A Group Approach and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, Yeshiva University

“In this ground-breaking and timely work, Kelly Bulkeley uses the psychological analysis of dreams to plumb the depths of political, religious, and cultural realities. With an exemplary grasp of dream science built upon thousands of dream accounts, Bulkeley presents a multifaceted and nuanced portrait of the ways our deeply seated ideas, values, virtues, and fears become apparent within our dreams. American Dreamers challenges us to develop a greater understanding of and respect for all people across the political spectrum.”—Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, author of In the Midst of Chaos and Let the Children Come

“Any political pundit who wants to speak with intelligence and genuine insight about the psychological motivations of American voters across the political spectrum would be well advised to read Kelly Bulkeley’s American Dreamers. Kelly Bulkeley is arguably the most rigorously empirical and psychologically subtle contemporary interpreter of the phenomenon of human dreaming. Over twenty-five years of writing and research is deployed in this urgently relevant, non-partisan, and broadly sympathetic analysis of the underlying psychological and spiritual concerns that unconsciously organize the political views of ordinary Americans today.”—John McDargh, author of Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory and the Study of Religion and Associate Professor of the Psychology of Religion, Boston College

Dreams have been a powerful source of revelation, guidance, and healing for generations of Christians and Muslims.  Dreams have also been an accurate gauge of the most challenging conflicts facing each tradition.  Dreaming in Christianity and Islam is the first book to tell the story of dreaming in these two major world religions, documenting the wide-ranging impact of dreams on their sacred texts, mystical experiences, therapeutic practices, and doctrinal controversies.

The book presents a wealth of evidence to advance a simple but, in the contemporary historical moment, radical argument:  Christians and Muslims share a common psychospiritual grounding in the dreaming imagination.  While careful, sustained attention will be given to the significant differences between the two traditions, the overall emphasis of the book is on the shared religious, psychological, and social qualities of their dream experiences.

Throughout their respective histories Christians and Muslims have turned to dreams for creative responses to their most urgent crises and concerns.  In this book the contributors apply that same imaginative resource to the current conflict between the two traditions, seeking in the depths of dreaming new creative responses to the global crisis of religious misunderstanding and fearful hostility.  Included in the book are chapters on dreams in the Bible and Qur’an; on the early history of Christian and Muslim beliefs about dreaming; on religious practices of dream interpretation; on the dreams of children, women, college students, and prison inmates; and on the use of dreams in healing, caregiving, and creative adaptation to waking problems.

This book offers a new integration of religious thought and cognitive neuroscience. By focusing on experiences of wonder—startling encounters with the true, real, and/or beautiful—the author shows that human religiosity (and indeed all creative experience) depends on unexpected moments of radical decentering in which ordinary brain-mind systems are profoundly transformed, generating what science calls new consciousness and what religions call divine revelation.

The Wondering Brain explores four different spheres of wonder: dreams, sexual desire, art, and contemplative practice. Each chapter begins with a narrative of an individual life in which one of these spheres of wonder appears in especially vibrant form. The details of that narrative are then discussed in relation to the revolutionary findings of cognitive neuroscience (CN), which shed new light on the physiological roots of wonder in the human brain. CN can only take us so far, however, and this is where the resources of religious studies (RS) are brought into play, to provide historical and cultural context, to question the metaphysical assumptions of CN, and to clarify the inspiring, life-changing impact of experiences of wonder. Each chapter ends by returning to the original narrative with a richer appreciation for the dynamic interplay of brain-mind functioning and the religious imagination. Guided by the pioneering 20th century investigations of Freud, Jung, and James but pushing far beyond them, The Wondering Brain provides a new foundation for the study of religion and psychology in the 21st century. The book also issues a provocative challenge to scholars and general readers alike to think more deeply about the most dangerous of all spheres of wonder—the violent wonder of war.

Blurbs and Reviews

“A genuinely revelatory read in both the religious and intellectual senses of that term. The reductionist can only come away with a deeper appreciation for the innate or “hard-wired” religiosity of the human brain, and the religionist can only stand in awe before how much we really do know about the brain and its predictable workings. The wisest read, though, is perhaps the one that insists on balancing both of these polarized perspectives within a deep and playful sense of human wonder. Personally speaking, I have not stopped thinking and talking about this text since I set it down, and that was five months ago.”
— Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Rice University

“Kelly Bulkeley’s latest book, “The Wondering Brain” empowers both the scientific and the religious points of view. In his warm and humorous style the reader is informed of recent developments in brain science and religious thinking. I highly recommend this unique book to anyone interested in opening him or herself up to the wonders of the brain.”
— David Kahn, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Dreams and Visions
2. Sexual Desire
3. Creative Madness
4. Contemplative Practice
Conclusion: The Evolution of Wonder

Soul, Psyche, Brain is a collection of essays that address the relationships between neuroscience, religion and human nature. The book highlights some startling new developments in neuroscience that have many people rethinking spirituality, the mind-body connection, and cognition in general. Soul, Psyche, Brain explores questions like: What are the neurological effects of meditation and prayer? How does the mind develop psychological and spiritual self-awareness? And what are the practical implications of brain-mind science for religious faith and moral reasoning?

Blurbs and Reviews

“Bulkeley provides a unique and valuable resource reporting from the cutting edges of the encounter between neuroscience and religion. Fields as diverse as emotion and dream studies, complexity theory, spiritual development, Christian and non-Christian theology—and more—contribute to the ferment. Those working in any or all of these areas will find here resources to stretch their mind.”
Carol Rausch Albright, co-author of The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet

“Soul, Psyche, Brain has successfully re-set the starting point for any serious interdisciplinary conversation on the topic of religion. By doing so, this book at once updates all parties, levels the intellectual playing field, and lays open new possibilities for collaborative research—both reflective and empirical—on the topic of religion across a broad range of disciplines.”
Nina P. Azari, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Hilo

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Genes, Brains, Minds: The Human Complex
Holmes Rolston III

2. Brain, Mind, and Spirit—A Clinician’s Perspective, or, Why I Am Not Afraid of Dualism
James W. Jones

3. Psychoneurological Dimensions of Anomalous Experience in Relation to Religious Belief and Spiritual Practice
Stanley Krippner

4. Sacred Emotions
Robert Emmons

5. Where Neurocognition Meets the Master: Attention and Metacognition in Zazen
Tracey Kahan and Patti Simone

6. From Chaos to Self-Organization: The Brain, Dreaming, and Religious Experience
David Kahn

7. Converting: Toward a Cognitive Theory of Religious Change
Patricia Davis and Lewis Rambo

8. Cognitive Science and Christian Theology
Charlene Burns

9. Overcoming an Impoverished Ontology: Candrakirti on Buddhism and the Mind-Brain Problem
Richard K. Payne

10.Religion and Brain-Mind Science: Dreaming the Future
Kelly Bulkeley

11.Religion out of Mind: The Ideology of Cognitive Science and Religion
Jeremy Carrette

12.Brain Science on Ethics: The Neurobiology of Making Choices
Walter J. Freeman

Read Chapter 2: Snakes

Blurbs and Reviews

“Kelly Bulkeley’s book is a valuable addition to the growing shelf of dream writings. Using dream reports from traditions as diverse as the religions of Asia, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and many native traditions, Bulkeley presents dreams whose common theme is the experience of the sacred… This is a scholarly but very readable book, including exhaustive notes and a complete transcultural and transtemporal bibliography of dreams.”
—Betsy Caprio, Praying

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Dead
2. Snakes
3. Gods
4. Nightmares
5. Sexuality
6. Flying
7. Lucidity
8. Creativity
9. Healing
10.Prophecy
11.Rituals
12.Initiation
13.Conversion
Conclusion
Appendix 1. Hermeneutics: The Interpretation of
Spiritual Dreams
Appendix 2. Dreams and Conceptions of the Soul,
Reality, and Reason
Appendix 3. Methodological Issues

Dreams are a regular part of every child’s life and a powerful resource for every parent. Dreamcatching is the first comprehensive dreamwork book covering children’s first reported dreams around age two into adolescence. This practical guide to children’s dreams shows parents how to learn the hopes and fears that their children may not be able to articulate and to nurture their children’s creative, problem-solving, intellectual, and spiritual natures. Siegel and Bulkeley give guidance on how to encourage children to remember and share their dreams, and the book includes a “Dreamcatcher’s Workbook” which is filled with projects using drawing and painting, playacting, and other playful ways to bring to life the meanings of the dream.

Blurbs and Reviews

“Dreamcatching offers a wealth of scientifically backed information about the dream life of young people, and offers adults the opportunity to join with boys and girls in a voyage of social, psychological, and spiritual exploration.”
—Stanley Krippner, coauthor of The Mythic Path, editor of Dreamtime and Dreamwork

“Dreamcatching makes dealing with your children’s dreams the most thought-provoking game you’ve ever played…. The siple instructions geared to all stages of childhood dreaming propel you deeply into the imagination of the people you love most. This book is a joy.”

—Robert Bosnak, author of A Little Course in Dreams and Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming

“Few things are more vital in reclaiming the soul of our culture than to get families to share dreams and harvest their gifts of story, mutual understanding, and healing. Alan Siegel and Kelly Bulkeley have written a lucid, practical, and caring guide.”

—Robert Moss, author of Conscious Dreaming

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Family That Dreams Together

2. The Playful Creativity of Children’s Dreams

3. A Child’s Garden of Common Dream Themes

4. Nightmare Remedies: Helping Your Child Tame the Demons of the Night

5. Dreams of Growing Up: From Infancy through Adolescence

6. Dreams and the Changing Family: Divorce, Adoption, Blended Families, and new Siblings

7. First Aid for Crisis Dreams: Dream Patterns in Response to Crisis, Injury, Disability, Abuse, and Grief

8. Visions of Transcendence: Dreams and the Spiritual Life of Children

9. Social Influences on Children’s Dreams: Television, Sex-Role Stereotypes, and the State of the World

10. Your Dreams About Parenting

11. The Dream Catcher’s Workbook

Appendix A. Every Teacher’s Guide to Creative Dream Work for the Classroom

Appendix B. Annotated Bibliography of Children’s Books Related to Dreams

Edited by Kelly Bulkeley

Palgrave, November 2001

Purchase this Book

This book offers a one-volume compendium of the best contemporary scholarship on the study of dreams, bringing together leading researchers from religious studies, anthropology, and psychology.

Blurbs and Reviews

“A fascinating collection of readings—as rich and diverse as the realm of dreams itself. Bulkeley brings together scholars who explore the science and philosophy of dreams with sophistication, while remaining accessible to readers. A rich array of cultural approaches are represented, and differing western schools receive ample time for a stimulating debate.”

—Deirdre Barrett, Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School

“The dream: hieroglyph, psychic map, cultural artifact, random neural discharge? A century after Freud’s contested odyssey into the interpretation of dreams, this rich volume opens multiple portals to the universal otherworld of dreaming and to some of the most important questions in dream research today …a unique new guide to an endless landscape.”

—Kimberley C. Patton, Associate Professor in the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion, Harvard Divinity School

“There is, arguably, no contemporary scholar writing in the field of the psychology of religion who to date has accomplished a more thorough and critical exploration of the cultural, historical, psychodynamic and religious meanings of the dreaming process than Kelly Bulkeley. This remarkable compilation of carefully chosen essays by leading scholars offers both the student and the professional a comprehensive survey of the best scholarship and the sharpest intellectual controversies that dreaming has provoked world wide and historically… This reader is an epic survey of art, religion, psychology, anthropology literature and diverse human cultures as seen thought the peculiar but illuminating lens of ‘The Dream.’”

—John McDargh, Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Boston College

“Whether you are a scientist or a humanist, a rationalist or a poet, Bulkeley’s collection on dreams will both fascinate and entertain you. Bulkeley knows how to get inside of dreams; he also knows how to take the outsider’s point of view. The individual and the collective, the scientific and the poetic, the past and the present are given their due in this wise selection of readings.”

—Don Browning, Alexander Campbell Professor of Ethics and the Social Sciences, University of Chicago

“I know of no other collection that draws together such a wide range of current approaches to dreams and provides such a comprehensive coverage of the present state of research across disciplines. Bulkeley has deftly assembled so many seminal and challenging essays on dreaming, all of which reflect the latest developments in their respective fields. A veritable feast of dream delights for both the novice, and the seasoned dream researcher.”

— Michele Stephen, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
About the Contributors
Introduction: Contemplating Freud’s Navel

Section I. Traditions

1. The Context of Buddhist Dream Experience and Practice. Serinity Young

2. Through the Looking Glass: Dreams in Ancient Egypt. Kasia Szpakowska

3. Dreams and Dream Interpreters in Mesopotamia and in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Scott Noegel

4. Dreams and Dreaming in Islam. Marcia Hermansen

5. Sending a Voice, Seeking a Place: Visionary Traditions among Native Women of the Plains. Lee Irwin

6. The Role of Dreams in Religious Enculturation among the Asabano of Papua New Guinea. Roger Ivar Lohmann

7. A Content Analysis of Mehinaku Dreams. Thomas Gregor

8. Making Dreams Into Music: Contemporary Songwriters Carry On an Age-Old Dreaming Tradition. Nancy Grace

Section II. Individuals

9. Kagwahiv Mourning: Dreams of a Bereaved Father. Waud Kracke

10. Reflecting on a Dream in Jungian Analytic Practice. Jane White-Lewis

11. Group Work with Dreams: The “Royal Road” to Meaning. Jeremy Taylor

12. Wish, Conflict, and Awareness: Freud and the Problem of the “Dream Book”. Bertram Cohler

13. Penelope as Dreamer: The Perils of Interpretation. Kelly Bulkeley
Section III. Methods

14. Western Dreams About Eastern Dreams. Wendy Doniger

15. The Dream of Scholarship: Some Notes on the Historian of Mysticism as a Dreaming Creative. Jeffrey Kripal

16. The New Anthropology of Dreaming. Barbara Tedlock

17. How Metaphor Structures Dreams: The Theory of Conceptual Metaphor Applied to Dream Analysis. George Lakoff

18. Dreams, Inner Resistance, and Self-Reflection. James DiCenso

19. Turning Away at the Navel of the Dream: Religion and the Body of the Mother at the Beginning and End of Interpretation. Diane Jonte-Pace

20. Using Content Analysis to Study Dreams: Applications and Implications for the Humanities. G. William Domhoff

21. The New Neuropsychology of Sleep: Implications for Psychoanalysis. J. Allan Hobson

22. Consciousness in Dreaming: A Metacognitive Approach. Tracey L. Kahan

23. Dialogue with a Skeptic. Frederick Crews and Kelly Bulkeley