Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.

Following tenets set out by Milton Erickson, Therapeutic Interventions in Three Sentences: Reshaping Ericksonian Hypnotherapy by Talking to the Brain and Body presents an array of short, effective commands which have been developed for use in connection with a wide range of mental and psychosomatic disorders. Examining in detail the basic building blocks which must be in place in order for someone to send an effective command to his or her sub-conscious mind, the book presents an elegant way of using informal variations of Ericksonian hypnotherapy in awake states and transferring these principles to a variety of therapeutic settings. The methods described follow specific rules derived from hypnotherapy but can be integrated into any other form of counselling or therapy and can be used in short sessions, in telephone consultations and with patients in critical states, as well as conversations of a therapeutic nature by non-therapeutic professionals. The book explains why and how these interventions work, their general structure, and how they can be used to tackle specific needs such as trauma, depression, and anxiety disorders. The book will be of great interest to counsellors, doctors and therapists of different orientations who are looking for therapeutic methods that can be used in short sessions or with patients in critical states, as well as non-therapeutic professionals who engage in conversations of a therapeutic nature, such as social workers, pastors, nurses, carers and teachers (including SEN teachers).

Falling, flying, making love to a stranger, being naked in public – we’ve all woken up, wondering ‘Why did I dream that?’ In this lively and thorough guide to the world of night time fantasies, nightmares, and visions, dream specialist Gayle Delaney helps readers interpret, understand, and direct their dreaming. Drawing together dream history and the latest techniques, she lets readers in on the most fascinating new thinking about dream interpretation and explains how the ancients used and understood dreams.Delaney shows readers how to live their dreams and direct what they dream about and when. She also offers a complete resource guide of ‘dream-y’ books and tapes, study groups, and web sites. From a fascinating survey of dream history – Aristotle to Jung – to the stunning new ways business, arts, science, and health care use dreamwork today, Delaney presents an enchanting – and practical – dream ‘bible’ sure to find a place on the shelf of every curious, fascinated dreamer.

To go beyond is to move into a higher state of consciousness, to a place of bliss, greater understanding, love, and deep connectedness, a realm where we finally find life's meaning - experiences for which all spiritual seekers seek. Dr Rupert Sheldrake, writing as both a scientist and a spiritual explorer, looks at seven spiritual practices that are personally transformative and have scientifically measurable effects. He combines the latest scientific research with his extensive knowledge of mystical traditions around the world to show how we may tune into more-than-human realms of consciousness through psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, and by taking cannabis. He also shows how everyday activities can have mystical dimensions, including sports and learning from animals. He discusses traditional religious practices such as fasting, prayer, and the celebration of festivals and holy days. Why do these practices work? Are their effects all inside brains and essentially illusory? Or can we really make contact with forms of consciousness greater than our own? We are in the midst of a spiritual revival. This book is an essential guide.

'Everyone should read this important book' Josh Glancy, Sunday Times 'One of the most important living philosophers' Bryan Appleyard, Spectator In the coming decades, the technology that enables virtual and augmented reality will improve beyond recognition. Within a century, world-renowned philosopher David J. Chalmers predicts, we will have virtual worlds that are impossible to distinguish from non-virtual worlds. But is virtual reality just escapism? In a highly original work of 'technophilosophy', Chalmers argues categorically, no: virtual reality is genuine reality. Virtual worlds are not second-class worlds. We can live a meaningful life in virtual reality - and increasingly, we will. What is reality, anyway? How can we lead a good life? Is there a god? How do we know there's an external world - and how do we know we're not living in a computer simulation? In Reality+, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of philosophy, using cutting-edge technology to provide invigorating new answers to age-old questions. Drawing on examples from pop culture, literature and film that help bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it.

A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroes to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant's suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say "I"-by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today's most fashionable ideas about our species.

This book will help the reader get to know their unconscious mind through a series of exercises. Results will serve all curious readers well, especially psychotherapists, writers, artists, actors and others working in the world of creativity. It is important for all of us to achieve a deeper understanding of who we are, with the satisfaction that commonly comes with that. Readers will be able to set free their hidden selves to direct their lives in new and satisfying directions. Humans have a complex unconscious mind, containing vital information about who we are, who we were and where we are going. Sigmund Freud deserves the most credit for pointing systematically to channels of access. Today's neuroscience has tested these points of access and is suggesting new ones. This book introduces five well-established methods of gaining useful access to our unconscious mind. The authors have taught the theory, science, and practice discussed in this book for over fifteen years at Stanford University to people of all ages, backgrounds, and interests. Having witnessed the growth of their students, they are confident about the positive contributions these exercises make to psychotherapy, creative work, and the sheer enjoyment of new horizons in our lives.

A pioneering book that explores the unknown landscape of human consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics
- Shows the relationship between shamanism, near death experiences, and other mystical and altered states with those induced by psychedelics
- Lays the conceptual foundation for the creation of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology
Stanislav Grof's first 17 years of research into nonordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles--the perinatal domain, which holds memories of the various stages of birth, and the transpersonal domain, which mediates experiential identification with other species and mythic figures, visits to archetypal realms, access to past life memories, and union with the cosmic creative principle.
The research presented in this book provides a map of the psyche that is essential for understanding such phenomena as shamanism and near death experiences as well as other nonordinary states of consciousness. This map has led to the development of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology for treating mental conditions often seen as disease and therefore suppressed by medication. It also provides a new threshold to understanding and entering the numinous realm of spirit.

Author, psychiatrist and scholar, painter, world traveler, and above all visionary dreamer, Carl Jung was one of the great figures of the twentieth century. A comprehensive compilation of his work on dreams, this popular book is without parallel. Skilfully weaving a narrative that encompasses all of his major themes - mysticism, religion, culture and symbolism - Jung brings a wealth of allusion to the collection. He identifies such issues as the filmic quality of some dreams, and the differences between 'personal dreams' - dreams that exist on the individual level - and 'big dreams' - dreams that we all experience, that come from the collective unconscious. Dreams provides the perfect introduction to his concepts to those unfamiliar with Jung's work. Perfectly illuminating his user-friendly approach to life, Dreams is the ideal addition to any Jung collection.

Did you know that intentional dreaming has been used to solve life's problems?

Embodiment: Creative imagination in medicine, art and travel sets out Robert Bosnak's practice of embodied imagination and demonstrates how he actually works with dreams and memories in groups. The book discusses various approaches to dreams, body and imagination, and combines this with a Jungian, neurobiological, relational and cultural analysis. The author's fascination with dreams, the most absolute form of embodied imagination, has caused him to travel all over the world. From his research he concludes that while dreaming everyone everywhere experiences dreams as embodied events in time and space while the dreamer is convinced of being awake; it is after waking into our specific cultural stories about dreaming that the widely differing attitudes towards dreams arise. By taking dreaming reality, not our waking interpretation of it, as the model for imagination, this book creates a paradigm shockand produces methods which can be applied in a wide variety of cultural settings.

Through detailed case studies, professionals and students will find thorough discussions of:

• ways to flashback into dreams and memories while in a hypnagogic state of consciousness
• the practice of embodied imagination and its profound physical effects
• psyche as a self-organizing multiplicity of selves
• the nature of subjectivity
• the body as a theatre of sense memories
• the limitation of reason
• the process of dissociation
• the treatment of trauma

This book discusses a variety of techniques which may be applied by health professionals to their patientsand clients. It will also be of particular interest to Jungian and relational psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists, as well as to artists, actors, directors, writers and other individuals who wish to explore the creative imagination.

The unconscious, cornerstone of psychoanalysis, was a key twentieth-century concept and retains an enormous influence on psychological and cultural theory. Yet there is a surprising lack of investigation into its roots in the critical philosophy and Romantic psychology of the early nineteenth century, long before Freud. Why did the unconscious emerge as such a powerful idea? And why at that point? This interdisciplinary study breaks new ground in tracing the emergence of the unconscious through the work of philosopher Friedrich Schelling, examining his association with Romantic psychologists, anthropologists and theorists of nature. It sets out the beginnings of a neglected tradition of the unconscious psyche and proposes a compelling new argument: that the unconscious develops from the modern need to theorise individual independence. The book assesses the impact of this tradition on psychoanalysis itself, re-reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in the light of broader post-Enlightenment attempts to theorise individuality.

Milton H Erickson is one of the most studied people in the field of hypnosis and psychotherapy. Hundreds of thousands of words have been written analyzing his therapeutic methods and words with miles and miles of film, audio and videotapes. In Milton H Erickson MD: An American Healer read about the man Milton H Erickson, rather than his psychotherapeutic techniques. Told from the perspective of three of his children, this book uniquely explores the personal side of this world-famous psychiatrist. It is a remarkable spiritual journey. As a part of his life-long struggle to overcome the physical effects of polio, Erickson acquired prodigious observational and interactional skills, as well as a powerfully calm healing presence. With photographs, stories and downloadable material of one of his clinical sessions, this book brings to light the quiet spirituality of an extraordinary healer. For anybody interested in the life and works of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Originally published in hardback, ISBN 9780918172556

In A Guide to the World of Dreams, Ole Vedfelt presents an in-depth look at dreams in psychotherapy, counselling and self-help, and offers an overview of current clinical knowledge and scientific research, including contemporary neuroscience. This book describes essential aspects of Jungian, psychoanalytic, existential, experiential and cognitive approaches to dreams and dreaming, and explores dreams in sleep laboratories, neuroscience and contemporary theories of dream cognition. Vedfelt clearly and effectively describes ten core qualities of dreams, and delineates a resource-oriented step-by-step manual for dreamwork at varying levels of expertise. For each core quality, key learning outcomes are clarified and resource-oriented, creative and motivating exercises for practical dreamwork are spelled out, providing clear and manageable methods. A Guide to the World of Dreams also introduces a new cybernetic theory of dreams as intelligent, unconscious information processing, and integrates contemporary clinical research into this theory. The book even includes a wealth of engaging examples from the author's lifelong practical experience with all levels and facets of dreamwork. Vedfelt's seminal work is essential reading for psychotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, and even psychiatrists, and could well be a fundamental textbook for courses at high schools, colleges, universities and even in adult-education classes. The book's transparent method and real-life examples will inspire individuals all over the world who seek self-help or self-development - any reader will be captivated to discover how knowledge of dreams stimulates creativity in everyday life and even in professional life.

Two premier hypnotherapists collaborate on a new edition of this award-winning text, a collection of techniques and information about hypnosis that no serious student or practitioner should be without. A thorough and practical handbook of various hypnotherapeutic measures, it contains illustrative examples and logically argued selection methods to help practitioners choose the ideal method for a needed purpose. Section by section, it breaks out the various methods and phenomena of hypnosis into easily digested chunks, so the reader can pick and choose at leisure. An excellent practical guide and reference that is sure to be used regularly. The authors have a wide and longstanding experience on the subject and thus can stay on clinically approvable methods.

Each of us has an inner world, influenced by experience, environment and the people and places we encounter. As individuals engaged with children and those around them, educational psychologists enter a multitude of systems and relationships with the intention of helping. This often involves working in a context of confusion, conflict and creativity, a dynamic tension which is reflected in the chapters of this book. Designed to give both students and practitioners access to the experience of engaging with a dynamic unconscious, this volume investigates some of the key tenets and principles of psychoanalytic theory and demonstrates ways in which educational psychologists have used both theory and practice in their roles. Each chapter approaches a recognisable activity from educational psychology practice and provides an account of how psychoanalytic theories about our unique inner worlds and our unconscious processes can inform and enrich these interactions.

The Sower and the Seed explores the origins of consciousness from a mytho-psychological angle. The concept of immanence, a vast intelligence within the evolutionary process, provides the underlying philosophy of the book, presented as a creative-destructive spirit that manifests higher orders of complexity (such as life, intelligence, self-consciousness) and then dissolves them. The book explores the human psyche as immersed in nature and the realm of the Great Mother, showing how the themes of fertility and power, applicable to all life forms, saturate the history of humanity - most evidently in the period stretching from 40,000 years ago up to modern civilizations. The book examines in particular the transition to patriarchal religious consciousness, in which a violent separation from the world of nature took place.

The distinguished surgeon and medical writer Walter Cooper Dendy (1794 1871) published On the Phenomena of Dreams in 1832. The work carefully traces the history of western thought and philosophy on the topic of dreams and visions, examining authors from Aristotle to Hume and Pyrrho to Berkeley, and maps the development of poetical and literary traditions on the subject. Dendy's work then moves to an attempt to find a medical explanation and material source for dreams, psychic visions and illusions. Dendy presents his concept of a ghost as an intense idea, and attempts to classify and categorise different types of psychic experiences. Dendy's work was a pioneering attempt to find scientific solutions to supernatural phenomena. Very popular at the time, it now offers an invaluable insight into the Victorian fascination with the occult and the desire to approach the supernatural with reason and the rigours of scientific investigation.

James N. Pinkerton published Sleep and its Phenomena in 1839. The essay is a revision of a lecture first given to the medical faculty of the University of Edinburgh. In this work Pinkerton introduces his theory of types of sleep, analysing sleep in terms of its completeness. He follows with discussions of dreaming, sleepwalking, spectral illusions, sleep-time apparitions, hibernation and the sleep of plants, analysing each sleep-time activity in terms of sleep type. This work was one of the first to link the activities of the facial muscles and the nervous system during sleep with dreamed movements, thoughts and emotions. It was a pioneering work of nineteenth-century medical research into sleep and helped to establish Pinkerton's reputation. He is still well known today as one of the first to find a correspondence between sleep-actions and dreamed thoughts. It is an important work of Victorian medical research.

Dreaming is the cognitive state uniquely experienced by humans and integral to our creativity, the survival characteristic that allows for the rapid change and innovation that defines our species and provides the basis for our art, philosophy, science, and humanity. Yet there is little empiric or scientific evidence supporting the generally accepted dream-based theories of neuroconsciousness. "Dream Science" examines the cognitive science of dreaming and offers an evidence-based view of the phenomenon.

Today, such evidence-based breakthroughs in the field of dream science are altering our understanding of consciousness. Different forms of dreaming consciousness occur throughout sleep, and dreamlike states extend into wake. Each dream state is developed on a framework of memories, emotions, representational images, and electrophysiology, amenable to studies utilizing emerging and evolving technology. "Dream Science" discusses basic insights into the scientific study of dreaming, including the limits to traditional Freudian-based dream theory and the more modern evidence-based science. It also includes coverage of the processes of memory and parasomnias, the sleep-disturbance diagnoses related to dreaming. This comprehensive book is a scientific exploration of the mind-brain interface and a look into the future of dream science.
Provides a more evidence-based approach than any other work on the marketSingle source of integrated information on all aspects of dream science makes this a critical time-saving reference for researchers and cliniciansAuthored by one of the leaders in the field of dream research

'A fascinating account of what happens during the dark third of our lives, the time with which we are so familiar but about which we know so little.'
'Sunday Telegraph'

'Energetic and immensely readable, this is as good a popular science book as I have read…A timely reminder that we ignore sleep at our peril, 'Counting Sheep' will tell you why sleep-deprived people are shorter, why some blind people dream in pictures and others don't, and what dreams are actually for and it does this with such vivacity and infectious enthusiasm that by the end of this book you'll be racing to your bed to try out a few sleepy experiments for yourself.'
'Evening Standard'

'A masterpiece of efficiently and entertainingly delivered information, bracingly clear and thoroughly researched…whether you want to know about the half-brain slumbers of dolphins, the appalling disease of fatal familial insomnia, or how to cultivate lucid dreams.'
'New Statesman'

'A thoroughly engaging and passionate book…littered with fascinating experiments, titillating examples and offbeat asides.'
'Scotland on Sunday'

'A more gripping subject for a book than almost any other…Even if you don't buy into the dark side of sleep deprivation, Martin's mourning of the lost pleasures of languor might win you over. To me, it sounds irresistible.'
'Daily Telegraph'

This book is a collection of selected writings by Dr. Sidney Rosen that aim to demystify the work of the leading clinical psychiatrist, Dr. Milton Erickson, and illustrate Erickson's unconventional and life-changing hypnotic techniques and strategic therapy. An essential reading for those who seek to learn essential elements of psychotherapy, this collection elucidates fundamental aspects of Erickson's approaches and outlines factors effective in all forms of psychotherapy. It contains core teachings of many central elements in psychotherapy and stresses the importance of techniques such as therapeutic trance and hypnosis. As a student and close friend of Dr. Erickson, Dr. Rosen shares his own personal insights about Erickson's teaching methods in a direct and straightforward manner that allows readers easy access to Ericksonian philosophy and techniques. Many therapists, both psychoanalytic and others, will find both Rosen's and Erickson's approaches compatible with their own and far removed from their preconceptions about hypnosis. Providing guidelines for providers of individual and group therapy, this book is an excellent guide to Ericksonian hypnotherapy.

This book is a collection of selected writings by Dr. Sidney Rosen that aim to demystify the work of the leading clinical psychiatrist, Dr. Milton Erickson, and illustrate Erickson's unconventional and life-changing hypnotic techniques and strategic therapy. An essential reading for those who seek to learn essential elements of psychotherapy, this collection elucidates fundamental aspects of Erickson's approaches and outlines factors effective in all forms of psychotherapy. It contains core teachings of many central elements in psychotherapy and stresses the importance of techniques such as therapeutic trance and hypnosis. As a student and close friend of Dr. Erickson, Dr. Rosen shares his own personal insights about Erickson's teaching methods in a direct and straightforward manner that allows readers easy access to Ericksonian philosophy and techniques. Many therapists, both psychoanalytic and others, will find both Rosen's and Erickson's approaches compatible with their own and far removed from their preconceptions about hypnosis. Providing guidelines for providers of individual and group therapy, this book is an excellent guide to Ericksonian hypnotherapy.