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We have puzzled over dreams for centuries. From ancient societies, believing dreams to be messages from the gods, Freud's theory of dreams revealing our unconscious minds to modern day experiments in psychology and neuroscience, dreams continue to fascinate but also be a source of mystery. Are dreams just mental froth or do they have a purpose?
This book argues that, originally, we dreamed to survive. Dreaming brains identify non-obvious associations, taking people, places, and events out of their waking-life context to uncover complex and, seemingly, unrelated connections. In our evolutionary past, survival depended on being able to detect these divergent, associative patterns to anticipate what predators and other humans might do, as we moved around to secure food and water and meet potential mates. Making associations drives many, if not all, brain functions. In the present day, dream associations may support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, while also contributing to mental illness.
Written in a lively and accessible style, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book presents a highly original theory of dreaming and will be a compelling read for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts, as well as those involved in dream research.
List of contents
- Prologue: What do dreams do?
- 1: What is a dream?
- Dream patterns, basics and backstory
- 2: Dream to see patterns
- 3: Dream to associate
- 4: Dream to survive
- 5: Dream to remember
- Dream emotions, meanings and unconscious impact
- 6: Dream to emote
- 7: Dream to decide (and act)
- 8: Dream to predict
- 9: Dream to predict
- Dream creations and craziness
- 10: Dream to create
- 11: Dream to go crazy?
- Dream theorists and futures
- 12: Fit with Freud and other theorists
- Epilogue: What dreams may come?
About the author
Sue Llewellyn is a Professor in Humanities at the University of Manchester, UK. She has also held Chairs at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leicester, with visiting appointments in Canada, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Italy. Her background is in health services research. About 10 years ago she began to research and publish on dreams and memory processing across the sleep cycle. She is the author of 4 books and, approximately, 60 journal articles.
Summary
Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. This book explores the evolutionary significance of dreaming, its role in memory, unconscious prediction, creativity and psychiatric illness. It will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry, consciousness, and the arts.
Report
In this interesting book, Llewellyn, a lecturer in humanities at the University of Massachusetts, presents a reader-friendly answer couched in evolutionary theory to the question at hand. In a dozen well-constructed, research-based chapters, Llewellyn makes the case that dreams help people not only remember but also decide, predict, and create. If a person could read only one book about dreams, Llewellyn's text would be this reviewer's choice. S. Krippner, California Institute for Integral Studies, Choice
