Big dreams are rare but highly memorable dream experiences that make a strong and lasting impact on the dreamer's waking awareness. Such dreams can include vivid imagery, intense emotions, fantastic characters, bizarre elements of form and content, and an uncanny sense of being connected to forces beyond one's ordinary dreaming mind. These types of dreams have played significant roles in religious and cultural history, and even today people still experience them and find them intriguing and thought-provoking. Because of their infrequent occurrence and fantastical tendencies, however, big dreams have rarely been studied in light of modern science. While we know a great deal about the religious manifestations of big dreams through history and around the world, we have not yet integrated that cross-cultural knowledge with new scientific research on their psychological roots in the brain-mind system. In this volume, Kelly Bulkeley provides the first full-scale cognitive scientific analysis of highly memorable dreams, with an original theory about their formation, function, and meaning. He draws upon evidence from religious studies, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience to build a very specific argument: big dreams are a primal wellspring of religious experience. They represent an innate, neurologically hard-wired capacity of our species that regularly provokes greater self-awareness, creativity, and insight into the existential challenges and spiritual potentials of human life.

This important book argues that apres-coup, a concept that has blossomed in French psychoanalytic discourse, not only allows an understanding of how repressed early memories determine adult life, and how human sexuality develops, but also allows for a richer and wider explanation of our mental structures and thinking. The book outlines how apres-coup has been understood and defined by Freud, Lacan and other authors, considers it in diverse psychoanalytic cultures and explores its resonance in dream-work, sexual drives, thought, and the experience of trauma. Bernard Chervet considers that the totality of human thought can be approached according to the theory of apres-coup. It offers a metapsychological approach to the operation of apres-coup, bodily erogeneity and the regeneration of libido. Chervet's compelling work argues that the phenomenon of apres-coup allowed for the development of the psychoanalytic theories of causality, sexuality, temporality, memory and trauma. Illustrated by clinical vignettes and written by one of the leading theorists on the topic, Apres-coup in Psychoanalysis will be an invaluable resource for psychoanalysts in training and in practice.

Originally published in 1959, with some corrections in 1962, the author examines the common view at the time that dreams are mental activities or mental occurrences taking place during sleep. He starts off by offering a proof that the sentence 'I am asleep' is a senseless form of words and cannot express a judgment. After commenting on various features of the concept of sleep, the author expands his argument to prove that the notion of making any judgment at all while asleep is without sense. He takes the further step of showing that this same conclusion holds for all other mental acts and mental occurrences, with the exception of dreams.

Originally published in 1979, this is a dream book with an outstanding difference: it takes the interpretation of dreams out of the realm of the professionals and gives it to the ultimate expert - the dreamer. Working with Dreams stresses the uniqueness of every dream and dreamer. With anecdotes and examples from their own dream groups, the authors show how to deal with the intimacy and honesty of a dream; how to explore its meanings without distorting them; how to let a dream tell us about ourselves and add to our understanding. Dr Ullman and Mrs Zimmerman start with the question of what is in a dream - what is real and what is symbolic? - and then go on to explain what happens during sleep and the way a dream develops. They cover remembering and recording dreams and dealing with the imagery of dreams. They illustrate the many predicaments that dreams depict, the self-deceptions we practice in relation to our dreams, and then show how dream groups - whether a family or a group of strangers - can work together to uncover the meaning of dreams. And they enrich their book by discussing everything from the history of dreams to the possibilities of dreams across space and time. The result is a storehouse of information about the world of dreams.

Originally published in 1950, this title includes instances of dreams in published records from both British and American societies of psychical research, covering six decades. This work had been previously inaccessible to the ordinary reader. Other stories have come from friends and acquaintances of the author and in his introduction he states that: 'the chief purpose of this collection is to present examples of apparently significant dreams, those that "come true", there will be no effort in these pages to debate possible explanations based on known laws, either of chance or of psychology. Readers are able to exercise their own ingenuity to this end. The material is offered here simply as evidence of a striking phenomenon in human consciousness, which, instead of being brushed aside as superstition, calls for serious study. It may have a profound bearing on the riddle of human personality.'

Can the mind, one's true essence, or soul travel through dream? Can we interact with future children and deceased loved ones while dreaming? This colorful book asks those questions and more, as the reader takes a journey through time and place, across culture and religion. Announcing dreams and dreams around the time of death are highlighted and examined alongside related phenomena followed by tips for greater dream awareness.

Do your dreams seem to have as much in common with real life as a funhouse mirror? Don't be misled. Dreams contain extraordinarily reliable commentaries on the conflicts and events of everyday life. Properly interpreted, they not only illuminate your anxieties but actually show you how to alter the course of your life - and very much for the better. Dreams are so essential to our health and well-being that almost all of us create them in clusters four or five times every night. In this title, originally published in 1989, Dr Robert Langs, a psychoanalyst and dream researcher, goes far beyond standard interpretation in showing how your dreams tap the wisdom of the deep unconscious part of your mind. Through his unique and groundbreaking technique of trigger decoding, you will learn what your dreams are saying about your life, about the events you must deal with, about the problems you are trying to resolve. Dreams can be a kind of emotional camouflage, difficult and often uncomfortable to interpret. Trigger decoding not only exposes our emotional wounds, it also provides the balm for healing those wounds. In the proper decoding of dreams, there is revealed an intelligence, power, and beauty of mind that is unheard of in direct and conscious experience. Decoding Your Dreams opens a revolutionary new door to self-understanding and self-improvement.

Originally published in 1986, the emphasis in this book is on dreaming rather than sleeping. This reflected the recent emergence of interest in dreaming among professionals, in the general public, and across disciplines at the time. Each chapter offers a review of its area with pertinent references. Selected references are annotated. The annotated references represent the cutting edge of the area under review or are classical, historically important pieces or studies that represent a key turning point. Therefore, the number of annotations varies from chapter to chapter. This book gives the reader a basic grounding in what we know about the sleep state and then details sleep mentation or dreaming. Although this book is not totally comprehensive, it will give the reader a good look at the basic sleep phenomena and a more detailed look at contemporary work on dreaming.

Most of us believe that we sleep in order to rest our tired bodies and minds. Originally published in 1977, this centuries-old common-sense view is challenged by Ray Meddis, who describes and argues for a controversial new theory of the nature and function of sleep. The theory seeks to replace the old view with the idea that sleep may no longer serve any important function in modern man. Whereas the sleep instinct helps animals to survive by driving them to hide away for as long as possible each day, this is no longer a valuable asset in civilised surroundings. Nevertheless, as the author explains, we still feel driven by a primeval urge beyond conscious control to crawl away every evening to the security of our beds to wait out the dangerous hours of darkness which were such a threat to our ancestors. Contrary to contemporary wisdom, he also argues that dreaming is a primitive and particularly valueless kind of sleep - a crude a dangerous heritage from our reptilian ancestors which is kept to a bare minimum in most adult warm-blooded creatures. Ray Meddis writes in a non-technical style and succeeds admirably in making the science of sleep and intensive research studies on sleep accessible and even exciting for the general reader as well as for the scientist. He shows that not everyone is bound by a felt need for sleep; in fact, some human beings discussed at length in the book thrive on less than two hours sleep a night without any ill effects. The implications of the research described are little short of sensational; in particular, Dr Meddis believes that it is well within the bounds of possibility that future research will show us how changes can be brought about in normal people to free them from the bondage of their sleep instincts. This new perspective also leads directly into a radical reappraisal of the nature of insomnia and new possibilities for treatment.

Originally published in 1935, William Archer's interest in dreams had persisted for over quarter of a century, for ten years of which he kept a careful record of his own dreams. These records alone form a valuable collection of material, of which Archer made good use in the writing of the book on dreams on which he was engaged at the time of his death; large parts of these dream-records are reproduced in this book. He left this book partly finished, partly in draft, and partly in the form of notes. In putting together this material the editor, Theodore Besterman, tries to carry out Archer's intentions as closely as possible, and believed that he represented the book as he would have wished it to appear. It was unquestionably an important contribution to a difficult subject at the time, the result of many years' study and reflection.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Dreams have always been one of the most popular areas of Jung's psychology. His seminar on dream analysis was given at a series of weekly meetings between 1928 and 1930, and was based on the dreams of one of Jung's male patients. It contains a storehouse of dream interpretation by Jung that enriches one's understanding of his ideas on the subject. The first part of that seminar is presented in this new paperback edition.

This book examines some of the oldest preserved texts on dreams, such as Artemidorus' Oneirocritica, Sigmund Freud's favourite ancient dream theorist, and dream books by Aristotle, the grandfather of modern dream theory.

Exploring the fascinating world of dreams, this comprehensive reference examines more than 250 dream-related topics, from art to history to science, including how factors such as self-healing, ESP, literature, religion, sex, cognition and memory, and medical conditions can all have an effect on dreams. Dream symbolism and interpretation is examined in historical, cultural, and psychological detail, while a dictionary--updated with 1,000 symbols and explanations--offers further insights. Dreaming about teeth, for instance, can indicate control issues, and dreaming of a zoo can indicate that the dreamer needs to tidy up some situation. Examining these concepts and more, this is the ultimate dreamer's companion.

The Dream Discourse Today offers an unrivalled synoptic view of key American, British and French papers on dream analysis in clinical practice. The purpose of the book is to show the reader different, well articulated perspectives, place them in historical context, and invite comparative reading. The cumulative effect of both papers and introductions is to leave the reader with an informed sense of the range of perspectives and a confidence in the continued relevance of dream analysis to practice, as some striking convergences in the implications of thinking drawn from very different approaches becomes clear. The Dream Discourse Today is the first historical and theoretical survey of its subject and the classic nature of the papers it includes will make it a first-class work of reference for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of all schools, whether in practice or still training. It should be of especial interest to those who teach courses on the theory of technique, since the place of dream analysis is almost certain to be one of the central topics in such courses.

Dreams, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis sets out to give a scientific consistency to the question of time and find out how time determines brain functioning. Neurological investigations into dreams and sleep since the mid-20th century have challenged our scientific conception of living beings. On this basis, Keramat Movallali reviews the foundations of modern neurophysiology in the light of other trends in this field that have been neglected by the cognitive sciences, trends that seem to be increasingly confirmed by recent research. The author begins by giving a historical view of fundamental questions such as the nature of the living being according to discoveries in ethology as well as in other research, especially that which is based on the theory of the reflex. It becomes clear in the process that these findings are consistent with the question of time as it has been considered in some major contemporary philosophies. This is then extended to the domain of dreams and sleep, as phenomena that are said to be elucidated by the question of time. The question is then raised: can dreaming be considered as a drive? Based on the Freudian discovery of the unconscious and Lacan's teachings, Movallali seeks to provide a better understanding of the drives in general and dreams in particular. He explores neuroscience in terms of its development as well as its discoveries in the function of dreaming as an altered mode of consciousness. The challenge of confronting psychoanalysis with neuroscience forces us to go beyond their division and opposition. Psychoanalysis cannot overlook what has now become a worldwide scientific approach. Neuroscience, just like the cognitive sciences, will be further advanced by acknowledging the desiring dimension of humanity, which is at the very heart of its being as essentially related to the question of time. It is precisely this dimension that is at the core of psychoanalytic practice. Dreams, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as neuroscientists, psychologists, ethologists, philosophers and advanced students studying across these fields.

Dreams, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis sets out to give a scientific consistency to the question of time and find out how time determines brain functioning. Neurological investigations into dreams and sleep since the mid-20th century have challenged our scientific conception of living beings. On this basis, Keramat Movallali reviews the foundations of modern neurophysiology in the light of other trends in this field that have been neglected by the cognitive sciences, trends that seem to be increasingly confirmed by recent research. The author begins by giving a historical view of fundamental questions such as the nature of the living being according to discoveries in ethology as well as in other research, especially that which is based on the theory of the reflex. It becomes clear in the process that these findings are consistent with the question of time as it has been considered in some major contemporary philosophies. This is then extended to the domain of dreams and sleep, as phenomena that are said to be elucidated by the question of time. The question is then raised: can dreaming be considered as a drive? Based on the Freudian discovery of the unconscious and Lacan's teachings, Movallali seeks to provide a better understanding of the drives in general and dreams in particular. He explores neuroscience in terms of its development as well as its discoveries in the function of dreaming as an altered mode of consciousness. The challenge of confronting psychoanalysis with neuroscience forces us to go beyond their division and opposition. Psychoanalysis cannot overlook what has now become a worldwide scientific approach. Neuroscience, just like the cognitive sciences, will be further advanced by acknowledging the desiring dimension of humanity, which is at the very heart of its being as essentially related to the question of time. It is precisely this dimension that is at the core of psychoanalytic practice. Dreams, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as neuroscientists, psychologists, ethologists, philosophers and advanced students studying across these fields.

A Dream-Guided Meditation Model and the Personalized Method for Interpreting Dreams presents a model for meditation that counselors can use with clients regardless of gender, race, national origin, religion, age, or marital status. Using the model, readers can, if they wish, learn to interpret nighttime dreams. Even readers who choose not to learn to interpret their dreams may find that the meditation model assists with dream guidance.

This edited volume shows the relationship between dream research and its usefulness in treating patients. Milton Kramer and Myron Glucksman show that there is support for searching for the meaning of dream as experiences extended in time. Dreaming reflects psychological changes and is actually an orderly process, not a random experience. Several chapters in this book explore interviewing methodologies that will help clients reduce the frequency of their nightmares and thus contribute to successful therapy.

This edited volume shows the relationship between dream research and its usefulness in treating patients. Milton Kramer and Myron Glucksman show that there is support for searching for the meaning of dream as experiences extended in time. Dreaming reflects psychological changes and is actually an orderly process, not a random experience. Several chapters in this book explore interviewing methodologies that will help clients reduce the frequency of their nightmares and thus contribute to successful therapy.

Psychodynamic Neurology: Dreams, Consciousness, and Virtual Realty presents a novel way of thinking about the value of dreaming, based in solid comprehension of scientific research on sleep and dreams, but with deep understanding of psychoanalytic and other interpretations of dreams. This book: Surveys the remarkable history of sleep research over the past few decades Examines the neurobiology of sleep and its implications for consciousness and well-being Addresses the nature of waking and dreaming consciousness and how they are deeply related Presents the neurogenesis, function, and clinical importance of a brain-based dream theory Our dreams are a mixture of anticipated virtual as well as remembered real experience. This book tells the story of how neuroscience has helped us reach this startling and exciting conclusion and how the new scientific model builds upon and departs from the dream theories of the past.

Providing a nuanced study of the connections between sleep, circadian rhythms, and metabolis, this informative book examines how circadian actions affect the liver and adipose tissue, the brain, and metabolism. This important book introduces the reader to circadian rhythms in the body and the external cues that set them, discusses on a molecular and organ level how disrupting these clocks results in metabolic and sleep disorders, and looks at the clinical applications of circadian rhythms, with a focus on sleep.

The book covers a variety of important research in the field, including:

The power of computational biology to uncover new nodes in the network of circadian rhythms

Circadian rhythms as they relates to obesity

How late-night shift conditions impair the body s ability to keep time and promote metabolic diseases and how this can be mitigated by strategic planning of feeding times

The relationship between the suprachiasmatic nuclei and orexin neurons, demonstrating the elegant interplay between our biological clocks and wakefulness

How sleep disorders can result from irregular circadian rhythms and potential ways to diagnose this in individuals

How sleeping behaviors can disturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the repercussions of this disruption on female reproduction

How disruption of sleep can be clinically beneficial for depressed patients

How mental state is influenced by circadian rhythm"

Ideas and practices concerning sleep and night-time are constantly changing and widely varied in different cultures and societies. What we do during the day and night is the result of much political struggle. Trade unions, political parties, entrepreneurs, leaders and schools boards, all have an interest in questions of timing for the opening and closing of shops, the starting hours of schools and factories, and the number of hours people have to work and sleep. By drawing together comparative case studies from countries in both Asia and Europe, Night-time and Sleep in Asia and the West allows the reader to track the differences in the cultural importance given to the night, and to compare the ways in which the challenges and opportunities of modernity have been played out in the East and the West.

It is generally accepted that among Freud's many contributions to the understanding of the normal and abnormal aspects of mental functioning, The Interpretation of Dreams stands alone and above all others. In this work published in 1900 Freud laid down the foundations of psychoanalytic theory as it was to develop throughout this century. This work not only unravelled the significance of the process of dreaming and allowed for the scientific understanding of the true meaning and nature of the mysterious world of dreams, but created the basis for a general theory of personality capable of encompassing within a single model both the normal and abnormal aspect of mental functioning. Originally published in 1969 Dr Nagera and his collaborators (all analytically trained) from the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic and Course (now the Anna Freud Centre) isolated from Freud's work twenty-five basic concepts that they considered not only the cornerstones of Freud's theory of dreams but fundamental pillars for the understanding of psychoanalytic theory generally. They include subjects such as dream sources, dream work, dream censorship, manifest content, latent content, condensation, displacement, symbolism, secondary revision and dream interpretation. They are presented in a condensed and concentrated manner containing all significant statements made by Freud at any point in his life on the subject of dreams, as well as tracing the historical development of his ideas wherever significant. References to the sources are given in all instances for the guidance of the student of psychoanalysis, the psychiatrist, the social worker, the psychologist or the scholarly minded reader.