Books about dreams

[TrumanB]

I've just started reading The Star and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz written by Rudy Montenegro, a man that I'm in touch with for 10 years and whose awareness I deeply respect. But I bet that no one heard of him nor of this book. I also learnt a lot from Ivan Nastović's analytical books but he is not worldwide known and not sure if his work is translated to English.

 

What books on dreams thematic would you recommend? They can be of psychological, spiritual or even fictional works.

[docyabut2]

38 minutes ago, TrumanB said:

I've just started reading The Star and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz written by Rudy Montenegro, a man that I'm in touch with for 10 years and whose awareness I deeply respect. But I bet that no one heard of him nor of this book. I also learnt a lot from Ivan Nastović's analytical books but he is not worldwide known and not sure if his work is translated to English.

 

What books on dreams thematic would you recommend? They can be of psychological, spiritual or even fictional works.

https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings/dreams/

His books on dreams I studied and he has some good points .

he said if you dream of being in any building, it means self, the windows are your eyes, like in a school it means learning, in a bathroom  means cleaning out, in a car or train means traveling.   If one has dreams it has to be self analyzes to figure out their dreams.   

 

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by docyabut2

[Abramelin]

On 6/24/2021 at 10:18 PM, TrumanB said:

I've just started reading The Star and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz written by Rudy Montenegro, a man that I'm in touch with for 10 years and whose awareness I deeply respect. But I bet that no one heard of him nor of this book. I also learnt a lot from Ivan Nastović's analytical books but he is not worldwide known and not sure if his work is translated to English.

 

What books on dreams thematic would you recommend? They can be of psychological, spiritual or even fictional works.

"A Dictionary for Dreamers" by Tom Chetwynd.

"Lucid dreaming" by Dr. Stephen LaBerge.

[Violet_Dusk]

When I was a student I read Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams". Maybe, some of his points of view are outdated now, but it definitely deserves reading with critical analysis.

[Bed of chaos]

In regards to fictional works, I recently looked up tips for writing a short story (something I thought about). It said never write about dreams or keep it short. This will only confuse the reader and book agents hate it. I couldn't believe it. This sounds more like someone's personal opinion. 

Anyway, currently can't think of any great (fictional) recommendations. Stephen King's Insomnia wasn't bad. Though u could prob get more info on dream sites (reddit lucid dreaming or dreamviews). Good luck.

 

[Abramelin]

On 7/3/2021 at 1:31 AM, Abramelin said:

"A Dictionary for Dreamers" by Tom Chetwynd.

"Lucid dreaming" by Dr. Stephen LaBerge.

The best book about dreams and dreaming I'v read sofar:

Stefan Klein's "Träume. Eine Reise in unsere innere Wirklichkeit" (Dreams. A journey into our inner reality).

It has all the latest results of scientific research.

I read the Dutch translation, and I'll bet a dime there is a translation into English. If not, just wait for it; it's great.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

A review in English:

PDF

[Abramelin]

....

You're welcome.

[Wepwawet]

Karl Jung knew a thing or two about dreams, so I would give him a go. His work has been applied to the Netherworld books of Ancient Egypt in seeing them as descriptions of what Jung called the "collective unconscious".

[quiXilver]

Been lucid dreaming my entire life.

Never found much useful info in the many books I explored offering to deciper meanings of dream images. 

In my experience the dreamscape is too personal, subjective and vast a terrain for some other individual to determine what any given symbol's meaning has for another.  Book to book they disagree.  It's a crap shoot at best.

 

Myths can be a bit more approachable as they are culturally derived egregores, but even then, how they relate to each person is again unique.

one thing rings true...

Myths are public dreams.

Dreams are private myths.

[Abramelin]

On 9/6/2021 at 11:34 PM, Wepwawet said:

Karl Jung knew a thing or two about dreams, so I would give him a go. His work has been applied to the Netherworld books of Ancient Egypt in seeing them as descriptions of what Jung called the "collective unconscious".

What I found kind of astonishing is, that there is not a single note, quote or reference from/to Carl Jung or his 'collective unconscious' in Stefan Klein's book.

[Wepwawet]

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

What I found kind of astonishing is, that there is not a single note, quote or reference from/to Carl Jung or his 'collective unconscious' in Stefan Klein's book.

I've not read Klein so couldn't really say why he would not reference Jung, at least in some small way. Maybe Klein is on a different track, I don't know, or maybe he thinks Jung is too difficult to properly decipher, as quite a few academics and others find Jan Assmann too difficult, so ignore him.

[Abramelin]

On 9/9/2021 at 9:33 PM, Wepwawet said:

I've not read Klein so couldn't really say why he would not reference Jung, at least in some small way. Maybe Klein is on a different track, I don't know, or maybe he thinks Jung is too difficult to properly decipher, as quite a few academics and others find Jan Assmann too difficult, so ignore him.

Klein ignores, or better, rejects symbolism in dreams.

From the review in English I linked to earlier:

"By building bridges to the past, dreams and their strong accompanying  emotions open up spaces for memory to which we would otherwise have no access.  
Such voyages of discovery can enrich us like a trip to an exotic foreign country. But  the past only delivers the material. The dream’s significance relates to the present.  
So it’s senseless to look for the symbolic significance of nocturnal images. There is  no childhood trauma at the root of my exam dream. The professor has nothing to do  with unresolved father-son conflicts. On the contrary, a present anxiety – for instance  nervousness in the face of an imminent publication – seeks out suitable images from  my memory.  
Dreams reveal their import directly in emotions, without any symbolic disguise.  
The psyche has powerful undercurrents that escape our notice during the day because we’re too busy processing external stimuli. In dreams, however, we  experience what truly moves us."

 

[Mr Walker]

53 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Klein ignores, or better, rejects symbolism in dreams.

From the review in English I linked to earlier:

"By building bridges to the past, dreams and their strong accompanying  emotions open up spaces for memory to which we would otherwise have no access.  
Such voyages of discovery can enrich us like a trip to an exotic foreign country. But  the past only delivers the material. The dream’s significance relates to the present.  
So it’s senseless to look for the symbolic significance of nocturnal images. There is  no childhood trauma at the root of my exam dream. The professor has nothing to do  with unresolved father-son conflicts. On the contrary, a present anxiety – for instance  nervousness in the face of an imminent publication – seeks out suitable images from  my memory.  
Dreams reveal their import directly in emotions, without any symbolic disguise.  
The psyche has powerful undercurrents that escape our notice during the day because we’re too busy processing external stimuli. In dreams, however, we  experience what truly moves us."

 

While i kinda agree with some of this, one point  must be remembered.

Dreams are "written" in the language of the subconscious (which is symbolic) and so EVERY image in a dream is a construct based on a subconscious symbol 

Eg I have many dreams about the farmhouse in which we lived for 20 years and which burned down in a major bushfire  in 2005

However each dream is a bit difernt Often the house is rebuilt but owned by other people. In one dream we arrived at the house  on top of a railway  carriage on a railway line which only existed in my dreams.

That was about the  time the y were closing down the real railway line 100 yards from where we now live in a town. 

In another, a cousin and I opened a portal from   the house to a football match in Adelaide   (this cousin and i attended the only football match i have ever gone to, back in about 1970  and i had just been talking to her on the phone about her mother's death.

My mind put all those ingredients together into a fascinating narrative.

Sometimes we own the new home and its identical to the old, down to the wood grain and door handles etc.  Sometimes it's owned by others and we are there secretly and they  return home. The house was never rebuilt in real life and the yard is vacant in the middle of big paddocks.

Sometimes the house has not been rebuilt and sometimes its been modernised and modified  Last night   I dreamed of all the trees we planted, and observed the many gaps caused by the fire  and reminisced with someone about the effort of planting those hundreds of trees back in the 80s and ealry nineties 

Quite often the dream includes walking down across a couple of paddocks or a dirt road to the main highway a couple of kilometres away and then by flying, hitching, or using other means like teleportation   travelling to one of the 3 neighbouring towns of significance to me and where i have lived during my life  

I enjoy all those dreams. I am fully aware while dreaming that the y are dreams, but they help me relive, very accurately, life in that home   as If I was actually there again.  

Its true that dreams process recent events including previous dreams, BUT the y also reflect memories and experiences from  the past which exist in our minds side by side with recent events and memories.

In our minds 40 years  is as recent as yesterday, and we can remember consciously - forgotten details from  40 years ago in perfect detail, when our subconscious memory recalls them to our mind in a dream.  

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Mr Walker