Our Dreaming Mind

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Library Resource
Review: As other reviewers have stated, this book reads like a dissertation given all of the works cited. The author has definitely done his research and is comprehensive in covering all aspects of dreaming. The information presented is interesting and fascinating, but the book is not for those who would rather read a novel than a textbook or term paper. I, alas, am one of those people and donated my copy to our Women's Circle library. This book is a valuable resource and is recommended for those who are taking on serious study.

Rating:
Summary: The best objective survey of humankind's interest in dreams.
Review: I am surprized that I am the first person to review this book. It is an excellent book to learn about the dreams. Dreams are no longer meaningless hallucinations for me that happen when I am confused or feel cold at night. Dr. Van de Castle gives an extensive overview of dreams, with an open mind and heart. He also talks about his first-hand experiences that he had in scientific dream laboratories. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in dreams for personal or professional reasons.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource, Tons of Information
Review: November 18, 1999

I approached Van de Castle's book with enthusiasm, only to have that dampened by the academic tone and awkward writing style. By comparison, Freud's writing about dreams is lucid and engaging.

However, the most off-putting thing in the book is the author's uncritical acceptance of dreams as psychic phenomena. To hear a grownup person at the turn of the twenty-first century -- a scientist with a PhD, no less -- spouting nonsense about "telepathic dreaming" and using dreams to predict the future is disheartening, to say the least. (He even cites Shirley MacLaine's idiocies about reincarnation as if they are to be taken seriously.)

Although there might be some interesting and useful information in this book, the author's cumbersome language and spiritual beliefs that taint his scientific objectivity put me off completely.

June 2002

Imagine my surprise at finding myself personally attacked in a review of this book by someone who signs in only as "A reader from USA." Sounds like a ringer, folks.

I challenge the statement, "As for telepathic and precognitive dreaming, they are facts, not fictions, well documented and well studied." Psychic claims have been well studied, but according to the documentation, no scientific study has ever validated the existence of any psychic phenomenon.

"We ... have much to learn about ourselves ... from our dreams." About our inner selves, that is. Dreams are subjective. They are neither receptors of magical visions of the future nor evidence of past lives. As to what we can learn from Mr. Van de Castle, accepting his unverified claims can only teach us how gullible we are.

Van de Castle is an indefatigable researcher, but he's no more an "authority" on dreams than Erich von Daniken is on ancient history. It's not the accumulation of facts but the scientific validity of the conclusions based on those facts that makes one an authority. Despite much current disenchantment with Freudian analysis, Freud's "On the Interpretation of Dreams" is still the best writing on the subject.

Another reviewer says "Contrary to the last review, I did not find this book difficult to read or understand." I didn't say the book was either. I said it was academic, awkward, and cumbersome. I don't necessarily find such writing hard to read, but it's not much fun.

January 2003

Mine is undoubtedly the "one negative review" cited by another critic, who wrongly infers that I am "a Freudian." All that can be gleaned from the above is that I am a rationalist who admires good writing.

Agree or disagree with Freud, his propositions have a rational basis. The analogy of believing the Earth to be the center of the universe applies more properly to Van de Castle's views on psychic phenomena and reincarnation than to Freud's attempts to understand dreams within the framework of modern science.

Freud's pioneering efforts inspired others to seek greater understanding of human motivation and behavior. Van de Castle's mysticism puts us back in the Dark Ages.

Amazon.com's listing of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" contains a number of thoughtful reviews and critiques. As Rob Lightner writes, "Whether we love or hate Sigmund Freud, we all have to admit that he revolutionized the way we think about ourselves."

Rating:
Summary: The best book on dreming so far, if not the best imaginable
Review: Robert Van De Castle has a sense of vocation for his subject that conveys beautifully. He speaks very plainly and directly, without talking down to the reader. He's as objective as you can be with a subject that's so completely subjective (yet universal.)

The one negative review of Van De castle's book is from a Freudian. There is not "disenchantment" with Freud, he has been largely discredited. Dreams are not intentionally disguised infantile sexual wishes. The 'sub'conscious does not consist entirely of repressed desires. Freud's idea of the ego as basically the entire mind reminds me of the idea of the Earth being the center of the universe. They are just products of a different era.

While sometimes a little simplistic in its prose style and speculative in nature, Our Dreaming Mind is on a much higher plane than the new age junk that largely consumes shelf space devoted to the subject in book stores. Well worth the investment.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This book is a compendium of information about dreams, ranging from folklore and ancient beliefs through current scientific research. The book is organized into 6 parts: anecdotes and famous dreams, early dream research from the dawn of history up until Freud, modern dream theorists including Freud and Jung, experimental dream research, scientific dream analysis, and paranormal and lucid dreams. There are also two appendixes that provide contact information for dream networks and organizations, and how to keep a dream diary. The book is extensively documented with endnotes, and there is a 20 page bibliography as well as an index. There is a phenomenal amount of material crammed into this volume- -the pages are extra wide to accommodate two columns of text on each page. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs and dream-influenced artwork.

The early part of the book seemed almost like an extended literature review for a dissertation or an encyclopedia. The thoughts of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of philosophers, researchers, and other dreamers are briefly summarized in chronological order, from Plato to Artemidorus, from Erik Erikson to Calvin Hall. I found the sections on Freud and Jung particularly illuminating. As someone who has heard a lot about Freud, but never read his works, I found the overview of Freud's work on dreams and his school of psychoanalysis quite informative, especially when it was directly contrasted with Jung's work. The contributions of each of these men to the topic of dream research were presented in great depth, and supplemented with example analyses in their corresponding schools.

I also found the section of the book covering contemporary dream research to be quite fascinating. It would have been better, however, if this section were expanded and brought up to date with the latest laboratory findings. One annoying habit that Van de Castle has is using this book to defend criticisms of his research methodology. In several places in the text, he reports that other researchers disagreed with his findings, and then he launches into in-depth justification of his conclusions. While he is certainly within his rights to defend his views, it makes no sense to do so in a popular work such as this one- -all he needed to do in this text was mention the disagreements (perhaps in an endnote) and briefly explain that he had answered the questions in print elsewhere. By discussing the points in detail here, it makes it appear as if he is defending his research by appealing not to his scientific peers, but to the general public. In contrast, it might have been good to explain the experimental design of his research in a little more detail in this book. From his descriptions here, he makes it sound as if he does dream research by positing that certain elements of dreams are common or absent in a particular group of people, and then checking their dreams to see if this is indeed the case. He never mentions whether this research is conducted using double-blind methods or control populations. If he had mentioned here that he consistently used such methods, his research would sound a lot more credible. (If he actually didn't use such methods, then his research would be dreamy, indeed.)

In any case, I found much of what Van de Castle reports to be consistent with my own experiences. After reading this book, I am even more certain that following one's nightly dreams can be a very illuminating and worthwhile practice. I plan to use the book's extensive bibliography to follow up on the ideas presented here.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This book is a compendium of information about dreams, ranging from folklore and ancient beliefs through current scientific research. The book is organized into 6 parts: anecdotes and famous dreams, early dream research from the dawn of history up until Freud, modern dream theorists including Freud and Jung, experimental dream research, scientific dream analysis, and paranormal and lucid dreams. There are also two appendixes that provide contact information for dream networks and organizations, and how to keep a dream diary. The book is extensively documented with endnotes, and there is a 20 page bibliography as well as an index. There is a phenomenal amount of material crammed into this volume- -the pages are extra wide to accommodate two columns of text on each page. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs and dream-influenced artwork.

The early part of the book seemed almost like an extended literature review for a dissertation or an encyclopedia. The thoughts of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of philosophers, researchers, and other dreamers are briefly summarized in chronological order, from Plato to Artemidorus, from Erik Erikson to Calvin Hall. I found the sections on Freud and Jung particularly illuminating. As someone who has heard a lot about Freud, but never read his works, I found the overview of Freud's work on dreams and his school of psychoanalysis quite informative, especially when it was directly contrasted with Jung's work. The contributions of each of these men to the topic of dream research were presented in great depth, and supplemented with example analyses in their corresponding schools.

I also found the section of the book covering contemporary dream research to be quite fascinating. It would have been better, however, if this section were expanded and brought up to date with the latest laboratory findings. One annoying habit that Van de Castle has is using this book to defend criticisms of his research methodology. In several places in the text, he reports that other researchers disagreed with his findings, and then he launches into in-depth justification of his conclusions. While he is certainly within his rights to defend his views, it makes no sense to do so in a popular work such as this one- -all he needed to do in this text was mention the disagreements (perhaps in an endnote) and briefly explain that he had answered the questions in print elsewhere. By discussing the points in detail here, it makes it appear as if he is defending his research by appealing not to his scientific peers, but to the general public. In contrast, it might have been good to explain the experimental design of his research in a little more detail in this book. From his descriptions here, he makes it sound as if he does dream research by positing that certain elements of dreams are common or absent in a particular group of people, and then checking their dreams to see if this is indeed the case. He never mentions whether this research is conducted using double-blind methods or control populations. If he had mentioned here that he consistently used such methods, his research would sound a lot more credible. (If he actually didn't use such methods, then his research would be dreamy, indeed.)

In any case, I found much of what Van de Castle reports to be consistent with my own experiences. After reading this book, I am even more certain that following one's nightly dreams can be a very illuminating and worthwhile practice. I plan to use the book's extensive bibliography to follow up on the ideas presented here.

Rating:
Summary: Very Informative
Review: This is a very informative book, well written, and a pratical piece to add to the library if you're studying dreams.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read
Review: VdC gives a pretty good gloss-over history of dreaming and what certain people thought of them; how certain philosophers and psychologists thought of them. He also recounts several studies and the statistics that were drawn from them - which are quite interesting.
One of the studies on lucid dreaming describes the participants methods for inducing lucid dreams, and the method happens to be almost identical to a method I've successfully used before, which I originally got from a book called "Control Your Dreams".

Rating:
Summary: Interesting read
Review: VdC gives a pretty good gloss-over history of dreaming and what certain people thought of them; how certain philosophers and psychologists thought of them. He also recounts several studies and the statistics that were drawn from them - which are quite interesting.
One of the studies on lucid dreaming describes the participants methods for inducing lucid dreams, and the method happens to be almost identical to a method I've successfully used before, which I originally got from a book called "Control Your Dreams".