The Scribes of Sleep: Insights from the Most Important Dream Journals in History

Description

Dream journals are a surprisingly powerful resource for psychological and spiritual discovery. Contemporary dream science has shown that, as much as we can learn from single dreams, far more information can be derived from analyzing a series of dreams over time. Many have intuitively understood this point, and carefully recorded their dreams for years, even decades, drawing profound guidance from the patterns they discovered. The Scribes of Sleep is the first book to gather historical and cross-cultural evidence showing the value of dream journals as potent sources of healing, religious experience, and metaphysical insight. Dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley profiles seven remarkable people who kept dream journals: Aelius Aristides, Myoe Shonin, Lucrecia de León, Emanuel Swedenborg, Benjamin Banneker, Anna Bonus Kingsford, and Wolfgang Pauli. Because dreams are so complex and multi-faceted, especially when viewed in a series, Bulkeley employs an interdisciplinary approach to shed light on their meanings, drawing on data science, depth psychology, and religious studies. As the findings of these different methods are woven together and they begin to illuminate each other, it becomes clear that the practice of keeping a dream journal stimulates several specific qualities of religiosity, prompting the dreamers to move in more individualist, mystical, and pluralistic directions-towards becoming a free spirit. Cover The Scribes of Sleep Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction Part I Seven Dreamers and their Journals 1. Aelius Aristides: Devotee of the Healing God 2. Myōe Shonin: Extreme Visionary 3. Lucrecia de León: Prophet of an Empire’s Doom 4. Emanuel Swedenborg: Mystical Scientist 5. Benjamin Banneker: Mapping the Heavens 6. Anna Kingsford: Spiritual Dynamo 7. Wolfgang Pauli: Quantum Physicist, Depth Psychologist Part II Discovering Patterns of Content 8. Digital Methods of Analyzing Dreams 9. Baseline Patterns in Dream Content 10. Anomalous Patterns in Dream Content Part III Interpreting Psychological Meaning 11. Psychoanalysis 12. Archetypal Psychology 13. Cultural Psychology Part IV Exploring Dimensions of Religiosity 14. Individualism 15. Mysticism 16. Pluralism Conclusion Further Reading Appendix: Summary of Word-​Search Results Notes Bibliography Index