Book List - Suggestions from What I've Read

[agan_uni_tsi]

I went back to my wife’s bookshelf and flipped through the ones on dreaming. Its been over ten years since I read any of these books. These are the few that stood out as soon as I looked at the cover, “Oh yeah, this one helped me because…”:

“The Dream Game”, Ann Faraday – Of the entire list, this is the only one I’m considering re-reading. This was THE BOOK during my first year of dream analysis. It begins with discussing the importance of dreams, keeping a journal and techniques for remembering your dreams, then moves on to discussions of common “beginner” techniques (such as looking for word play) and finally “advanced” techniques that dive into concepts like “topdogs”, “underdogs” and “saboteurs”.

"Inner Work", Robert Johnson – Similar to Henry Reed's book (below), this book discusses ways to work with your unconscious. Go beyond the occasional "What did that really disturbing dream mean?". Basically how to use your dreams every day. Have a question? Before you call the psychic hotline, have you asked your inner self? About a third of the book is devoted to the Active Imagination technique, which amounts to extending your dreams/subconscious world via waking, freeform story creation. Reed also focuses on the need for "ritual" to reinforce the dialogue with the subconscious, such as creating "totems" (artwork) as inspired by dreams.

“Getting Help from Your Dreams”, Henry Reed – A great discussion of what Reed terms “dream realization”, or creating a dialogue with your subconscious by using your dreams to spark your creativity. Using a dream as a base for a story or drawing, for example, and seeing where it takes both your next dreams and you.

“Breakthrough Dreaming”, Gayle DeLaney – An awesome overall dream book that hits on all the major concepts. DeLaney’s method of interpretation focuses on being the “interviewer”, whether you are interviewing someone else or yourself – “knowing what to ask and when to ask it.” It includes separate chapters on the components she prefers to deconstruct a dream into - setting, people, objects, animals, feelings and actions.

“On Dreams”, Sigmund Freud – This one is useful as a beginner’s model of the psyche. Kinda like when I think about my introduction to the atom in basic chemistry class, with the Bohr model. Very useful at what it does, but ultimately only a partial truth useful within a specific system. Reality is not so neatly packaged.

“Man and His Symbols”, Carl Jung – Although it may be considered a book on psychology and the unconscious, the fact that it begins “The importance of dreams” says a lot. It discusses the creation of symbols and the importance of exploration of the self. This is not a dream symbol dictionary. As a drawback, it is pretty much a discussion of the average Western white male's unconscious and its symbols. If anyone's heard of a female counterpart, I'd love to hear it.

“Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming”, Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold – If you want to learn how to be a lucid dreamer, this is the book. If you aren’t interested, this book doesn’t have much else to offer. Unlike any of the other books in this list, it assumes you already have some knowledge of keeping a dream journal and techniques for interpreting dreams.

“The Dreaming Universe”, Fred Alan Wolf – The author presents his thesis on “what is dreaming” and “why we dream”, and discusses just about all of the major research – full of cool opinions. For example, Wolf discusses the opinion that the prevalence of ET encounters in the industrial age is a comment on the collective unconscious, and our fear of where we are headed – the description of ET’s is often “fetal-like, looking like children, often very sick children with thin arms, bulging eyes, and large heads, like the starving children you see in the countries where famine and war have decimated the land.” Yeah, I just pulled that quote from a book I read over 10 years ago – that’s how cool I thought the idea was.

[dream_angel]

Thanks!!  This is a great idea.  I've read a few of those.  Robert Johnson was an important one in my dream journey and both he and Henry Reed appear in my thesis.  (Johnson is one I keep going back to).  It seems there is an endless supply of Jungian-based dream books, and in some cases one is probably as good as another for getting an idea about dreams and some of the ways to approach them, so I shan't list any others which are based on Jung but have the author's individual approach.  I think Inner Work is great and then others as they come to hand.  All no doubt have their own unique wisdom to impart.  Others i have found interesting and useful are:

"How to Interpret your Dreams, and Discover your Life Purpose", Michael Sheridan (2007) - this was a turning point for me.  I found the website first http://www.dream-analysis.com/index.htm and bought the book from there.  It is quite different to the straight Jungian-based methods of association etc, but I found it gave me a quantum leap, also because it includes spirituality and health.  It is largely symbol based but since I've been testing it out, it works pretty well, taking into account that symbols never always have the exact same meaning. . . .

"Dreams.  Secret Language of the Soul",  George Rhatigan (1996) - the source from which Michael Sheridan drew his stuff.  Rhatigan spent around 30 years doing hypnotic regression and counselling, incorporating dreams.  He has developed a useful way of approaching dreams, and again, I have found a positive result from incorporating his work.  This is also pretty original in as much as I haven't found anything quite like it from any of the other books I've read (except of course Sheridan)

"Dreaming Beyond Death", Kelly Bulkeley and Rev. Patricia Bulkley - an exploration of the dreams of the terminally ill.  Wonderfully written and fascinating subject matter.  A very useful resource for anyone dealing with death and dying - which is pretty much all of us :)  Yes, it has been described as "life affirming" but it really is a great little book, easy to read and powerfully uplifting stuff.

"Recurring Dreams, A Journey to Wholeness", Kathleen Sullivan - An excellent example of the transformational power of dream work including helping heal chronic physical and emotional ailments.  It is pretty-much Jungian-based, but an interesting personal account.