Dreaming in the World's Religions: A Comparative History
Kelly Bulkeley
From Biblical stories of Joseph interpreting Pharoh’s dreams in Egypt to prayers against bad dreams in the Hindu Rg Veda, cultures all over the world have seen their dreams first and foremost as religiously meaningful experiences. In this widely shared view, dreams are a powerful medium of transpersonal guidance offering the opportunity to communicate with sacred beings, gain valuable wisdom and power, heal suffering, and explore new realms of existence. Conversely, the world’s religious and spiritual traditions provide the best source of historical information about the broad patterns of human dream life
Dreaming in the World’s Religions provides an authoritative and engaging one-volume resource for the study of dreaming and religion. It tells the story of how dreaming has shaped the religious history of humankind, from the Upanishads of Hinduism to the Qur’an of Islam, from the conception dream of Buddhas mother to the sexually tempting nightmares of St. Augustine, from the Ojibwa vision quest to Australian Aboriginal journeys in the Dreamtime. Bringing his background in psychology to bear, Kelly Bulkeley incorporates an accessible consideration of cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology into this fascinating overview.
Dreaming in the World’s Religions offers a carefully researched, accessibly written portrait of dreaming as a powerful, unpredictable, often iconoclastic force in human religious life.
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About Kelly Bulkeley
Reviews for Dreaming in the World's Religions: A Comparative History
Kelly Bulkeley
New York Times
"With this original and provacative book, Bulkeley has shown what the 'new' comparative study of religion at its very best can offer."
Kimberley C. Patton
History of Religions
"A pleasure to read, well written and full of fascinating examples. It is unique in combining a sensitive and sympathetic understanding of the religious meanings of dreams with a state-of-the-art treatment of the insights that cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology bring to our understanding of them."
Wendy Doniger,author of Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities "Offers a sophisticated, yet easily accessible and engaging discussion of how and in what way dreams and a broad range of the worlds religions have enjoyed mutual influence throughout history."
Nina P. Azari,Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia of Religions and Sciences "The scope of Bulkeley’s knowledge is impressive, as is his skill at synthesizing ideas from a variety of source material."
Publishers Weekly
"The chronological/regional organization, along with the authors careful, scholarly prose, makes this practical as a classroom textbook."
Library Journal
"Such a chronological/regional organization, along with the author's careful, scholarly prose, makes this practical as a classroom textbook...for interested readers and students, there are notes and an ample bibliography to stimulate further study. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with strong religion collections."
Library Journal
"Psychoanalysis and phenomenology combine to understand dreams and dreaming as comprehended by a geographically and temporally wide spectrum of global and regional religions. Bulkeley argues that scientific understandings are not unique in their reflective critique of the nature or value of dreaming, that critical reflection on dreams can be found in a variety of traditions, and that even where evidence for formal analysis is lacking, dreams are categorized by type and value."
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