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The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life
Discover how the hidden messages in your dreams can change your life.
A renowned expert on the subject of dreams, Jeremy Taylor has studied dreams and has worked with thousands of people both individually and in dream groups for more than forty years. His discoveries show us how dreams can be the keys to gaining insight into our past and our conflicts, as well as excursions into the fantastic realm of creative inspiration.
An expanded and updated edition of his classic guide to understanding your dreams— Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill—The Wisdom of Your Dreams provides readers with specific, hands-on techniques to help them remember and interpret their dreams, establish a dream group, and learn the universal symbolism of dreaming. Full of case histories and featuring a revised introduction by the author and a new chapter about dreams as clues to the evolution of consciousness, this is a life- changing and potentially world-changing work.
A renowned expert on the subject of dreams, Jeremy Taylor has studied dreams and has worked with thousands of people both individually and in dream groups for more than forty years. His discoveries show us how dreams can be the keys to gaining insight into our past and our conflicts, as well as excursions into the fantastic realm of creative inspiration.
An expanded and updated edition of his classic guide to understanding your dreams— Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill—The Wisdom of Your Dreams provides readers with specific, hands-on techniques to help them remember and interpret their dreams, establish a dream group, and learn the universal symbolism of dreaming. Full of case histories and featuring a revised introduction by the author and a new chapter about dreams as clues to the evolution of consciousness, this is a life- changing and potentially world-changing work.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
89 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
Jeremy Taylor
10 books8 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Jeremy Taylor, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, has worked with dreams for over thirty years; he blends the values of spirituality with an active social conscience and a Jungian perspective.
Founding member and past president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, he has written four books integrating dream symbolism, mythology, and archetypal energy. The latest is: The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap Into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life. His earlier books - The Living Labyrinth: Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams and the Symbolism of Waking Life; Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill; and Dream Work, have been translated into many languages.
Jeremy appears regularly on local, regional, and national radio and TV, and pioneered on-line dream work as host of AOL's innovative dream work show. He has taught in the schools and seminaries of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA for 30 years and teaches at a wide variety of colleges and universities in the Bay Area and in South Korea.
He has led workshops (most recently) in Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Korea, England, and Peru as well as all over the United States.
Jeremy Taylor died January 3, 2018 of a heart attack less than 48 hours after his wife and life partner of 55 years, Kathryn, died. They are survived by their daughter Tristy.
Jeremy Taylor, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, has worked with dreams for over thirty years; he blends the values of spirituality with an active social conscience and a Jungian perspective.
Founding member and past president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, he has written four books integrating dream symbolism, mythology, and archetypal energy. The latest is: The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap Into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life. His earlier books - The Living Labyrinth: Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams and the Symbolism of Waking Life; Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill; and Dream Work, have been translated into many languages.
Jeremy appears regularly on local, regional, and national radio and TV, and pioneered on-line dream work as host of AOL's innovative dream work show. He has taught in the schools and seminaries of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA for 30 years and teaches at a wide variety of colleges and universities in the Bay Area and in South Korea.
He has led workshops (most recently) in Canada, Mexico, Australia, South Korea, England, and Peru as well as all over the United States.
Jeremy Taylor died January 3, 2018 of a heart attack less than 48 hours after his wife and life partner of 55 years, Kathryn, died. They are survived by their daughter Tristy.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 4, 2020
Rev. Jeremy Taylor was a teacher at Starr King School for the Ministry on Holy Hill in Berkeley for many years, particularly in the realm of trauma-taming Group Dream Work. His The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Your Dreams to Tap Into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life, is one of the guidebooks I’ve fallen back on when the walls seem to be creeping in and memories and monologues begin to go bump in the night during our Shelter-In-Place.
What a world view! “Every dream comes in the service of health and wholeness,” BONK “…The oppressions that are delivered with love are far more difficult to throw off than the oppressions that are delivered with malice,” OH NO! and
“This individual …process of fully becoming the unique, whole, fully alive human being my genetic heritage and personal experience call me to make manifest in the world also reflects and stimulates collective developments in human awareness.”
And evolution. Evolution of the human species? Did he really say that? Did Carl Jung really say that, too?
WOH! That is one big jump. You mean, ME all alone in my room or with my Zoom dreamers are CHANGING THE WORLD? Just by CHANGING OURSELVES and HOW WE TREAT EACH OTHER in this inside-outside, super-vulnerable super-crazy-outlandish-yes-no-maybe-boundaries time? This time that is sort of Not Time/Eternal Existential Waiting For Godot-sort-of time?
Just saying. Or am I intuitively prophesying by way of the Collective Unconscious?
What a world view! “Every dream comes in the service of health and wholeness,” BONK “…The oppressions that are delivered with love are far more difficult to throw off than the oppressions that are delivered with malice,” OH NO! and
“This individual …process of fully becoming the unique, whole, fully alive human being my genetic heritage and personal experience call me to make manifest in the world also reflects and stimulates collective developments in human awareness.”
And evolution. Evolution of the human species? Did he really say that? Did Carl Jung really say that, too?
WOH! That is one big jump. You mean, ME all alone in my room or with my Zoom dreamers are CHANGING THE WORLD? Just by CHANGING OURSELVES and HOW WE TREAT EACH OTHER in this inside-outside, super-vulnerable super-crazy-outlandish-yes-no-maybe-boundaries time? This time that is sort of Not Time/Eternal Existential Waiting For Godot-sort-of time?
Just saying. Or am I intuitively prophesying by way of the Collective Unconscious?
January 23, 2025
This book changed how I interact with my dreams. As a vivid and active dreamer my whole life and someone who’s always wanted “prophetic” dreams, this book has enlightened me about how much my dreams are really trying to tell me. Give yourself time to read this dense book full of applicable information, and be wary of difficult content in the recurring dream chapter, this dream will teach you how to interact and learn from your dreams in a really fulfilling way.
I definitely skipped some chapters and skimmed some, but nonfiction books aren’t necessarily meant to be read cover to cover. Minus one star for being so dense at the beginning I could barely get through it.
I definitely skipped some chapters and skimmed some, but nonfiction books aren’t necessarily meant to be read cover to cover. Minus one star for being so dense at the beginning I could barely get through it.
October 18, 2024
This is a phenomenal book! I read Taylor's Dream Work: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams first and then started reading his The Living Labyrinth. Dream Work was pretty good but it has a lot of information about archetypes which, while very important, were not what I was looking for. The Living Labyrith is archetypes on steroids and again, I will put it aside for the time I am ready to absorb that information.
Dream Work is exactly what I was looking for: how to access my dreams and work with them. If you are familiar with Richard Schwartz's creation, Internal Family Systems (IFS), you will see a mirror image of that method of healing in Taylor's writing. Interestingly, Taylor wrote that he thought the delirium tremens that alcoholics experience when withdrawing from that drug are caused by alcohol's ability to suppress the natural phenomenon of dreaming. When the alcoholic's blood alcohol level declines to a level where dreaming can once again occur, Taylor says that the alcoholic begins to experience dreams while awake. The book is full of these kinds of insights, which I find compelling.
If you are interested in exploring your dreams and how working with them can help you along on your spiritual path, I highly recommend this book. If you would like to explore working with dreams with a group of people, which Taylor says is very fruitful, you can't go wrong by reading Montague Ullman's book, Appreciating Dreams.
Dream Work is exactly what I was looking for: how to access my dreams and work with them. If you are familiar with Richard Schwartz's creation, Internal Family Systems (IFS), you will see a mirror image of that method of healing in Taylor's writing. Interestingly, Taylor wrote that he thought the delirium tremens that alcoholics experience when withdrawing from that drug are caused by alcohol's ability to suppress the natural phenomenon of dreaming. When the alcoholic's blood alcohol level declines to a level where dreaming can once again occur, Taylor says that the alcoholic begins to experience dreams while awake. The book is full of these kinds of insights, which I find compelling.
If you are interested in exploring your dreams and how working with them can help you along on your spiritual path, I highly recommend this book. If you would like to explore working with dreams with a group of people, which Taylor says is very fruitful, you can't go wrong by reading Montague Ullman's book, Appreciating Dreams.
September 30, 2019
An exceptional, comprehensive guide to dreams, the dreaming mind, and working with dreams as an individual and in a group. As part of a 12 week online course of becoming a teacher of dreamwork, this book provided ample information and tips do to just that: be a facilitator of dreamwork! I was amazed by the depth of this book. The only minor setback is the style of writing with endless, lengthy sentences and some repetition. A couple of my favorite chapters that were most insightful were "dreams and the evolution of consciousness" and "recurrent dreams and recovering memories of childhood trauma in the dreams of adulthood." These provided me with an entirely new perspective on dreams that is immensely helpful when trying to decode your own dreams. The real examples of other peoples' dreams and insights gained were extremely useful and eye-opening as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to seriously study dreams and dreamwork.
April 7, 2022
A very comprehensive book, and at times, I got a bit lost in his language and wordiness. Nevertheless, lots of information on dreams and their images. This is particularly a good resource if any reader has interest in starting a dream work discussion group. Not only does he provide stories of his own experience leading such groups, but he also provides an index of "how tos" for anyone wanting to start a group, among other reference materials. Taylor has a section on Jungian archetypes in dreams, as well as info on lucid dreams.
February 11, 2018
Really really interesting book. A bit long winded, and a few times a bit self-aggrandizing, but clearly Taylor has a huge breadth and depth of wisdom in this arena. Definitely a standard go-to text of the genre.
September 18, 2020
Every chapter is an attempt to shoehorn in left wing politics. Annoying
July 4, 2022
This was the first book I have read about dreamwork. I participate in a couple of dreamwork groups, and of course Jeremy Taylor is mentioned a lot in those settings. This book further enlightened me on Jeremy's approach to dreamwork. I understand he wrote a couple of other books, and I will put those on my reading list. Key take-aways: all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness; they don't appear to tell you what you already know (so look deeper); nightmares are messages you have ignored in a more subtle form, so the nightmare aims to get your attention; even dreams you cannot remember move you along on your path; everyone and everything in my dreams is me; dreams about which you remember only a sliver can still be profound (a dream group can help in this regard).
May 14, 2014
This was more dense than I anticipated, though still very engrossing. Many years ago I went to a therapist that would do dream interpretation with me, and since then, I've taken an interest in the hidden meanings and patterns of dreams. This book explains HOW MUCH is encoded in our dreams, and it has only enhanced my curiosity. For example: all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness (no matter how banal or strange), and no dream tells us what we already know. Taylor has a few other key assumptions for dreams, which are worth reading. I'll definitely have to re-visit this book to grasp all of the concepts Taylor talks about.
January 2, 2017
Some parts are very insightful and concise, but some parts are kind of longwinded nd repetitive. I enjoyed the chapter on lucid dreaming and shamanism the most, and I whole heartedly agree that our collective evolution as a species depends on the psychospiritual exploration and integration of our shadow.
But yeah, other than that, this book is very academic and the structure does get a bit dull after a while. I read it in short bursts to retain interest.
But yeah, other than that, this book is very academic and the structure does get a bit dull after a while. I read it in short bursts to retain interest.
January 10, 2010
The archetype is a kind of readiness to produce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas…when an archetype appears in a dream, in a fantasy, or in life, it always brings with it a certain influence or power by virtue of which it either exercises a numinous or a fascinating effect, or impels to action. Carl Jung
June 28, 2014
I've taken a class from this author and gone to a dream retreat he had a couple weeks ago,and I learn so much from him. He believes that "all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness". He teaches a form of interpretation called projective dreamwork, where you begin you response to another's dream by saying, "in my imagined version of this dream".
February 13, 2012
The Wisdom of Your Dreams by Jeremy Taylor
I wish this book would have been more compact. Had the book been tightened up a bit, it would have been a better book.
I read this book because I am currently in a dream group. Taylor offers some good suggestions for people in dream groups.
I wish this book would have been more compact. Had the book been tightened up a bit, it would have been a better book.
I read this book because I am currently in a dream group. Taylor offers some good suggestions for people in dream groups.
July 18, 2012
Love this book, opened a whole line of thought that has had me reading his other books, comparative mythology and western/world dream analysis books for the past 5 months. Very approachable, but a bit hippie, so heads up if that's not your thing.
July 28, 2015
Some worthwhile insights into dreams and their meaning. But I felt I had to wade through a lot. I didn't end up reading everything, but skimmed to the end. Still, I've found myself thinking on many of the ideas and themes of the book.
October 26, 2014
Nice work, Dad!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews