Books About Dreams and Dreaming

[IrisRavenstar]

For those looking for something to read... some suggestions! The ones
marked ** are good basic books to start with for anyone new to working with
dreams. I haven't updated this in awhile, but it's what's on my bookcase, and doesn't include library books I've read. I have new ones to read still too! Never enough time!

**Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. Van de Castle, Ph.D.
**Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremy Taylor
**Parker's Complete Book of Dreams by Julia and Derek Parker
Psychic Dreaming by Lloyd Auerbach
Mary Summer Rain's Guide to Dream Symbols by Mary Summer Rain
**The World of Dreams by Wilda B. Tanner
Dreamgates by Robert Moss
Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss
Dreaming True by Robert Moss
Dreamways of the Iroquois by Robert Moss
The Dreamer's Book of the Dead by Robert Moss
What Your Dreams Can Teach You by Alex Lukeman
Dreams: A Way to Listen to God by Morton Kelsey
Dreamquest by Morton Kelsey
God, Dreams, and Revelation by Morton Kelsey
Watch Your Dreams by Ann Ree Colton
Lucid Dreaming by Stephen La Berge, Ph.D.
The Lucid Dream by Malcolm Godwin
Symbols of Transformation in Dreams by Jean Dalby Clift and Wallace B. Clift
The Dream Book by Betty Bethards
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections by C.G. Jung
Dreamwork for the Soul by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
A Little Course in Dreams by Robert Bosnak
Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming by Robert Bosnak
Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness by Dale E. Graff
River Dreams by Dale E. Graff
Dreams, Symbols, and Psychic Power by Alex Tanous and Timothy Gray
She Who Dreams by Wanda Easter Burch

Novels about Dreams:
The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin

Movies about Dreams:
The Lathe of Heaven, 1979
Dreamscape, 1984 (Dennis Quaid)
The Lathe of Heaven, 2002

Literary Dreamers:
The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death
Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel

I'd love to hear any good additions!

[mwyna]

Thank you for the list. I will try to work through it once I have moved house in a couple of months.

P.S. Just noticed Literary Dreamers section at the bottom of your list. I will definately look into those when I have moved house. My husband often tells me I do not dream normal dreams. I dream novels!

[NfoJunkie]

I was just looking for more movies on dreams & had just watched Dreamscape (1984), as well as The City of Lost Children (1995) a week or 2 ago, and both were interesting & entertaining movies. A year or 2 ago I found 2 other movies about dreams & dreaming, and it was after watching them that I really became more actively curious and interested in the dreams I've had. The Science of Sleep (2006) is a French movie about a kid that dreams & daydreams so much that he has a hard time distinguishing dreams from reality ( The English version can be found here ). Waking Life is a movie done with a cool style of animation (same style they used in A Scanner Darkly) that introduces & explains the concept(s) of lucid dreaming, and while there is a storyline, I consider it somewhere in between a documentary & a movie.

If you try, and fail, to find any of these movies on your own, send me a private message & I might be willing/able to find a link for you to watch it online. I haven't seen either of the The Lathe of Heaven (1980) (TV) movies, so I'll check them out.

I have a copy of The Interpretation of Dreams, by Siegmound Frued, as well as some PDFs & audiobooks by Carl Gustav Jung, but so far I've only started reading Frued's book, & watched documentaries about Frued, Jung, & Edgar Cayce. The ones about Frued & Cayce were more about their lives and overall theories & accomplishment, rather than focusing on their dream research, so I won't bother listing those, but The Wisdom of the Dream WAS specifically about Jung's dream research, & I found it very interesting (btw, if you use that link, you should know there's 3 parts. Parts 2 & 3 are listed to the right of the video in orange letters).
Thanks again, IrisRavenstar, I'll be sure to check out some of the ones you recommended.

[IrisRavenstar]

Mwyna, that's about a twenty three year collection on the topic! I have another whole shelf for books on psychics as well. The Naomi Epel one should really appeal to you, as she interviews about twenty well-known authors about their dreams, and how they influence their writing... very interesting reading!

I'm not sure there is a "normal" for dreams. We're all unique. And our inner guides are as unique as we are, so the dreams are bound to vary as well, since many are interactions between ourselves and our guides, or even other people. My family is often a pain in my dreams; I wish they'd go dream somewhere else. Dreams also seem different for different ages, different maturity levels, different IQ levels. All kinds of things affect what we dream and how we dream it, imo.

[IrisRavenstar]

Thanks for adding some things, NfoJunkie! I'll have to make note and try to find them. I still have a slow little dial-up connection, so probably can't view online, but often can find older tapes or foreign movies in catalogs and such. I get inundated with catalogs!

The Lathe of Heaven movies, both versions, are often shown on PBS... that's where I taped them. They're based on Ursula K. LeGuin's novel, and she's pretty much considered a literary writer, despite the science fiction genre. I remember studying her _Left Hand of Darkness_ in college. So PBS likes her. How cool that watching the movies is what got you to pay attention to your dreams! Lathe is about this guy who's afraid to go to sleep, because when he does, his dreams alter the world, but he's the only one who can see that it has happened. Scary stuff!

I studied everything I could get my hands on about Freud and Jung back in the seventies and eighties. I was in therapy for a clinical depression, and my very cool psychiatrist was a believer in teaching his patients to do self-therapy after they finished with him, so had me reading a lot of stuff, and I also returned to college with a major in Occupational Therapy and a minor in Psychology during those years. Thanks to all the reading he'd had be doing, I aced all my psych classes! Unfortunately, family situations (kids on drugs, ex's Navy duties, childcare difficulties) made it impossible to finish my degree (I have 2.5 years of one), but I sure learned a lot anyway! So I know them both well, but not like quoting textbooks... it's more assimilated knowledge at this point.

After that, I started in on Cayce books and Cayce readings... same story... I assimilated a lot! Some of those books I still have, but don't think of them so much as dream books... they're on my psychics shelf. He did work with dreams some too though. Anyone who's interested: The ARE (Association of Research and Enlightenment, or Cayce Foundation) is at

www.cayce.org

If you join, you get free access to their complete Cayce readings archives, plus they have a mail order lending library.

Well, I've got to scoot out. Been in here off and on all morning, and need to do other things! You have a good one!

[mwyna]

Originally Posted by IrisRavenstar

Mwyna, that's about a twenty three year collection on the topic! I have another whole shelf for books on psychics as well. The Naomi Epel one should really appeal to you, as she interviews about twenty well-known authors about their dreams, and how they influence their writing... very interesting reading!

I'm not sure there is a "normal" for dreams. We're all unique. And our inner guides are as unique as we are, so the dreams are bound to vary as well, since many are interactions between ourselves and our guides, or even other people. My family is often a pain in my dreams; I wish they'd go dream somewhere else. Dreams also seem different for different ages, different maturity levels, different IQ levels. All kinds of things affect what we dream and how we dream it, imo.

Thanks for the tip re Naomi Epel Iris. I will try to read that one first. I remember an interview done with Stephen King once. I don't know if he is in her book but he said many of his stories come from his dreams. Scary thought eh?

[Wolfjk]

Hi IrisRavenstar,
I think you missed the most important book on dreams and dreaming: The Collected works of Shakespeare! He holds up a mirror to the soul!
Cheers Wolfjk

[IrisRavenstar]

Originally Posted by mwyna

Thanks for the tip re Naomi Epel Iris. I will try to read that one first. I remember an interview done with Stephen King once. I don't know if he is in her book but he said many of his stories come from his dreams. Scary thought eh?

Oh, yes, he IS in Epels' book! And no, I wouldn't want his dreams for anything! I don't get nightmares very often, unless they involve my ex-husband (usually me beating HIM up, like I could really, and they shock me and leave me shaking... brrrrr), and I'm not even getting those lately, so I guess time really does heal.

[IrisRavenstar]

Originally Posted by Wolfjk

Hi IrisRavenstar,
I think you missed the most important book on dreams and dreaming: The Collected works of Shakespeare! He holds up a mirror to the soul!
Cheers Wolfjk

Okay, I own those books too! I had really good English teachers in high school, and we studied a lot of Shakespeare, so I got well-grounded in it, and often go see a local production by a group called "Flock Theater" who does primarily Shakespeare in the Arboretum at Connecticut College... very cool outdoors in this location... it's next to a big pond covered in lily pads, and all these gorgeous trees... or in the winter they use an old church in New London. They do ancient Greek plays sometimes too, which I also studied in high school.

"All the world's a stage, and all the people in it merely players..."

[Gordon Jerome]

Thanks Iris, that's a great bibliography.

Gordon