Dreams: Visions of the Night

by David Coxhead, Susan Hiller

Explores the art and literature of many cultures as well as the data of analytical psychology and experimental science to elucidate the nature, varieties, and significance of dreams

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Art

95 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1982

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concisely compares several different peoples' and cultures' integration and concepts of dreams, referring to the Bible, the Qaran, Greek mythology, Hinduism, Buddhism, American Indian tribes, including western psychology (Freud, Jung) and science (dream labs). This is a very interesting approach to discuss the phenomenon of dreaming. All these different concepts together sum up "the big picture". The introduction is followed by a discussion of dream related art of aforementioned various cultural origins (illustrated with a collection of colour images).
The third part of the book concisely discusses dream systems, methods of dream incubation and induction, dream interpretation, artifacts, dream art and conscious dreams.
This book presents a concise overview of all significant aspects of dreaming, very nicely illustrated. The authors discuss the phenomenon of dreaming on the basis of fascinating ethnographic and historical background information. Yet, it is not overloaded with detail.
This book is highly recommendable as general entry point for anyone interested in our nightly activities and essentially their respective conceptualisation and integration by peoples of this world, present and past.
I really like how very concise it presents all the essentials.