It was quite a challenge to narrow my selection of literature down to only these sources. There is so much literature on dreams and interpretation that it is mind-boggling. Many of these sources would be redundant to have in the bibliography, so I have chosen the most pertinent ones that don't have so many similarities that they are practically the same book in relation to one another. In no way does this give a portrayal of how many books are printed on the subject of dreams.

Some of the books selected here only mention dreams in passing or only have a few paragraphs, like the Seth books by Jane Roberts, but these books are some of the first ones to give me the idea that dream worlds might be a key for me in my growth and self-discovery. The Seth books are channeled material, Jane Roberts being the channeler and her husband Robert Butts being the transcriber and questioner. I believe channeled information can sometimes be more accurate and informative than information from the human mind alone. If the person doing the channeling is adept at the task, information that has either been dormant in the human collective unconscious or has yet to be discovered, can be brought forth. Roberts has many books, about twenty, but I only refer to four of them in this essay. Each book has a different focus, and the comments on dreams come from different perspectives, depending on the focus of the book.

The first of Jane Roberts books that I have listed is The Nature Of The Psyche: Its Human Expression (1979). This book delves into the human nature in depth, expounding on sexuality, personality problems, and includes psychic exercises that one can do to improve on his or her intuition. Dreams are also addressed.

The second of Jane Roberts books is Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment, Volume One (1986). This is also channeled material and as per the title, is completely focused on the nature of dreams and how they work as another arena for consciousness to have experiences which are just as valid as waking life experience. Not only are our nightly dreams discussed in this book, but so are the dreams of the mass consciousness of humanity, animals, plants and other such beings on Earth. There is constantly an unconscious dreaming mass self at work underneath the fabric of physical reality.

The next two books by Jane Roberts that I refer to are called The Unknown Reality, Volume One (1977) and The Unknown Reality, Volume Two (1986). Both of these books are very large in scope as to the subjects addressed, for there are many kinds of unknown realities. The future and how it is created is discussed, probable realities, how events at the individual and mass level are created, past/present/future lives, and how idle daydreams and unfulfilled desires shape our lives. I found exquisitely interesting material on the nature and uses of dreams in these books, mostly in Volume I.

The Lady Of The Hare: A Study In The Healing Power Of Dreams (1988) by John Layard is a wonderful book with a gentle and soft approach to dream work. It includes an account of his work with one woman who had a life changing dream about the sacrifice of a hare (rabbit). This spurred an entire book about the mythology and symbolism of the hare, like the Easter Rabbit of the Christian tradition, and an examination of the archetypes the hare holds in many different religions and cultures. The part of the book that is useful for this essay, however, is what Layard writes about dreams and archetypes which are essential parts of their content.

Leaving The Body: A Complete Guide to Astral Projection (1983) by D. Scott Rogo is a wonderful book that does not address dreams as the subject for the entire book. However, there is some lengthy information about dreams and how they can lead to an OBE, or out of body experience. If a lucid dream is achieved, an astral projection can easily follow by instructing yourself to do so while in the dream state. This causes the consciousness to shift into yet another dimension that is similar to the dream world, but is overlaid on the physical world and doesn't change as easily. The book also suggests that the dream body is just one of the many bodies we use in order for our consciousness to have an experience. These experiences happen whether we realize them or not.

Harper's Encyclopedia Of Mystical And Paranormal Experience (1991) by Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a book about many metaphysical subjects. I found her portion about dreams, approximately five pages, quite informative and useful. The Encyclopedia Of Psychic Sciences (1966) by Nandor Fodor is another one of these books about all things metaphysical. I found that the information about dreams in his book was informative and useful.

Sexual Dreams: Why We Have Them, What They Mean (1994) by Dr. Gayle Delaney, who has written other books on dreams, definitely perked my attention, for I hadn't seen many books addressing the sexual nature of dreams except books influenced by Freud and Jung. I definitely had to take a peek into this book and it was quite interesting what I found. It is a precise and intelligent look at the sexual material in dreams, explaining that sexual dreams are not always about sex. This book is filled with vivid erotic dreams of both men and women and the analysis of those dreams and their symbols. Dr. Gayle Delaney graduated from Princeton University. She is also the Founding President of the Association For The Study Of Dreams. Her co-founder is Jeremy Taylor, the author of the next two books listed in this chapter. She lectures around the world in several languages, including French, Italian, and Spanish. I must admit that I am very impressed by this woman, who was actually quite young at the time this book was written, and has accomplished so much already in her physical life.

Where People Fly And Water Runs Uphill (1992) by Jeremy Taylor is a wonderful book about using dreams to tap into the wisdom of the unconscious. Jeremy Taylor has studied dreams for over twenty years and has worked with thousands of people from all walks of life, both individually and in groups. He is a Unitarian Universalist minister and co-founder of the Association For The Study of Dreams. In his book, he explores the many levels of symbolism and archetypes. He also gives us exercises for dealing with dreams, from recall to interpretation and to deriving the spiritual messages of dreams.

Another book by Jeremy Taylor, Dream Work: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams (1983), is an older work of his, but very helpful in understanding how to use dreams creatively. This book is not quite as full of techniques as the book listed in the previous paragraph, although it does offer techniques, even in the area of lucid dreaming. He talks more about the origin of ideas, inventions, and revelations that dreams give, and have already given, throughout history. He talks about how to apply that desire to receive creative ideas from your dreams.

Interpreting Dreams A-Z (1999) by Leon Nacson is a cute and colorful book with a layout that is ideal for teaching children about dreams. It is very artfully done. I liked it because it had some very simplistic definitions for symbols in dreams.

Understanding Your Child's Dreams (1999) by Pam Spurr, Ph.D. is another very colorful book. It is also geared toward children. I really liked the simplistic definitions for dream symbols as I did in the book listed above. Sometimes simple really is better!

Dreams: God's Forgotten Language (1968) by John A. Sanford is written from a Christian perspective. It is religious in nature, and refers to many biblical experiences of dreams as found in traditional bible text. Sanford was a priest and is now a rector in the Episcopalian tradition. He is not convinced that God has stopped speaking to us in dreams, as many Christian traditions would have us believe.

Unlocking the Power Of Your Unconscious Mind (1999) by Lauren Lawrence is a wonderful book on understanding how the brain registers experiences and uses these experiences in the inner worlds, one of which is dreams. The most useful part of this book for the purposes of this dissertation is the list of common dream symbols and their meanings.

Dreamworking: A Comprehensive Guide To Working With Dreams (1991) by Strephon Kaplan-Williams is a huge book with multitudes of exercises and a focus on self healing through dreamwork. "Comprehensive Guide" is an understatement about this book! I don't believe that there could be any other work that has as many tips and precision guidance through exercises for dreams and interpreting those dreams. If this book isn't famous, it should be.

Dream Back Your Life (2000) by Joan Mazza is another book, not quite as large, but just as comprehensive in its offerings of exercises and tips for understanding dreams and interpreting them. It is focused on do-it-yourself healing. It also introduces lucid dreaming as a means for healing.

Yet another book focused on self healing is The Dreamworking Handbook (2001) by Helen McLean and Abiye Cole. This one is also chock full of exercises and tips on dreaming and interpretation.

The Art Of Dreaming (1995) by Veronica Tonay, Ph.D. is full of charts and exercises for dreamwork.

Working With Dreams (1979) by Montague Ullman, M.D. and Nan Zimmerman uses many case histories and facts to explain how dreams work. This book is full of techniques and ways to interpret dreams. It goes through all kinds of scenarios and explains how to work with them, including working with recurring dreams or nightmares.

Dreams: Your Magic Mirror (1968) by Elsie Sechrist contains dream interpretations that the late Edgar Cayce did long ago. Elsie and her husband consulted the famous psychic about problems they hoped to solve. This book uses hundreds of actual dream interpretations in order to demonstrate how to understand dreams and derive vital information about business dealings, social dangers, sexual entanglements, religious beliefs and other aspects of life—from the most spiritual to the most commonplace. Edgar Cayce's son, Hugh Lynn Cayce, wrote about this book:, "a summation of years of study and work in many new, thought-provoking concepts. Good common sense, humor, practical psychological insight, and spiritual purposes are blended here to challenge the reader..."

Dreams & Dreaming (1990) by Time-Life Books, George Constable, Editor In Chief, is a beautifully arranged tribute to dreams and dreaming. It is full of beautiful color pictures and has many articles and prose about dreams, from the history of dreams to speculation about the purpose of dreams. Also explored are symbols, archetypes and events that happen in just about everyone's dreams sooner or later. This book does not go into techniques as much as some of the other books, but it is a very beautifully arranged synopsis of dreams and what they might be for.

Our Dreaming Mind (1994) by Robert L. Van De Castle, Ph.D. is a huge volume with extensive information about the history of mankind and dreaming. It contains early philosopher's ideas and twentieth century ideas about dreams. He explores the role that dreams have played in politics, art, religion, and psychology during all eras. He also discusses the mechanics of dreams and what the different classifications are. Multitudes of dreams are interpreted and analyzed in this wonderful book as well. It should be a textbook for colleges.

Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams (1988) by Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., an esteemed dream expert, shows in her book how women dream differently than men and how those dreams reflect a woman's passages in life. This book is geared toward women of all ages and assists women with understanding dreams and adjusting to the female body's changes and emotional states. This book might not be as interesting to men, but it is quite useful for women.

The Inner World Of Daydreaming (1975) by Jerome L. Singer isn't about dreams per se, but about daydreaming while awake. I found information in this book that is quite applicable to the night dreams we have, and how the mind needs these dreaming times, both while awake and while asleep, in order to have health and balance. As in nighttime dreams, daytime dreams are also therapeutic and useful to the human psychology.

Sigmund Freud (1971) by Richard Wollheim is a book about the famous psychoanalyst who came up with some of the first theories and techniques known to western psychology. Included in this book are some of his theories and writings about dreams and their meanings. He has a tendency to think that everything wrong with people is some kind of sexual dysfunction, so I must admit that I am not necessarily a subscriber to everything he says about the human psyche. However, since he is one of the first people to even think of examining dreams as an official form of therapy, he should be included in this material, not to mention the fact that his name is nearly synonymous with the concept of dream analysis. His points of view on these matters has been a cornerstone of western psychology even though most of western psychology uses Jung's methods more than.

The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung (1959) edited by Violet Staub De Laszlo also should be included in the reference material for this dissertation, for he is another founder of western psychology in the area of dreams and their interpretations. Jung and Freud were colleagues of sorts until they realized their theories were going in different directions and they split off from each other. Jung is an early psycho-analyst who is famous for his dissertations on the shadow self. In this book are his basic ideas about dreams.

My favorite book out of all these books is Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming (1990) by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold. This book is one of the most informative books on the subject, and there are not many books about lucid dreaming per se. It is packed with material that has not been addressed in most dream books except in a passing nature. I used this book like a Bible for techniques, inspiration and knowledge about how lucid dreaming works. This book is solely about lucid dreaming, written by people who have done laboratory testing and research in the field. It is the most information one will find about lucid dreaming all in one place.

Stephen LaBerge is the founder of the Lucidity Institute, the leading organization and authority on the subject of lucid dreaming. A workbook put out by this organization contains multitudes of charts for self-teaching and analysis of dreams. This workbook was invaluable to me in learning how to track my progress and get my mental body in the right mode of attention for observance and noticing the irregular things that occur even in daily life, which is a necessary state of attention for attaining the ability to dream lucidly. Not only did this book with its charts and questions help me learn how to wake up in dreams, but it also helped me wake up in my waking life, assisting me in becoming more observant of the subtle details that are around me all the time. The name of this workbook is called A Course In Lucid Dreaming (1999) by Stephen LaBerge and it is an invaluable tool for learning how to have lucid dreams. This book is published in house at the Lucidity Institute and comes included when an individual buys the Nova Dreamer, a device that will be mentioned further in the Findings part of this thesis. In short, it assists the dreamer in waking up in a dream.

The Universe Within (1982) by Morton Hunt is a book about many things within, dreams being one of them. This book is a collection of information derived from scientists on the leading edge of the exploration of humankind's inner self. He portrays the work of researchers who are "investigating such mysteries of the mind as memory and forgetting, concept formation, logical reasoning..." He reports on the scientific studies on how we solve problems and get creative ideas. Artificial intelligence is also addressed. This book is mostly about the mechanics of human psychology and how it works. Dreams are included in this book in only very small ways, but most importantly, it discusses how a famous dream was the source of knowledge about the benzene molecule, which had stumped early scientists for years, and was the key to greater scientific feats with chemicals and such.

Creative Dream Analysis: A Guide To Self Development (1988) by Gary K. Yamamoto is a wonderful book with the same intensity that the book Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming has for the how-to type of person who is exploring consciousness. It is not focused on lucid dreaming however. It is focused on the recall and interpretation of dreams, which is important for understanding any kind of dream, including lucid dreams. It is packed with exercises and tips for recalling dreams and interpreting them. It is a practical guide for using dreams to increase mental and physical health.

All In The Mind (1981) by Ian Wilson addresses many subjects, like reincarnation, regression, stigmata, multiple personalities, and other "little understood powers of the mind." Dreams are not addressed in a huge way in this book, for its subject matter is mostly about proving or disproving that reincarnation exists. However, what it does say about the dreams of the fetus are quite interesting.

There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity And The Stories Of Our Lives (1997) by Robert H. Hopcke is not about dreams per se, but dreams are included in his material. This book is more about synchronicity in our lives. Dreams are one of the triggers for synchronicities take place. Dreams and synchronicity are explored together in this book, including many other aspects of synchronicity and ways it shows up in our lives.

Conversations With God, Book III (1998) by Neale Donald Walsch is channeled material although it is not called such. It is a dialogue between the author and God, and the author translates what God is saying in answer to his questions. There is only one reference in this book on the nature of dreams but it was quite interesting to read that the soul is the one who needs the break from human life, not necessarily the personality or the body.

Straight Answers On The New Age ( 1989) by Bob Larson is an opposing point of view to the value of dream work. He is against the New Age movement and feels that everything metaphysical and "other worldly" is a sham. I want to include Larson's point of view in this dissertation so that opposing thoughts to the subject matter are fairly observed.

The following books are all the same kind of book. They are dream dictionaries that list, from A to Z, symbols and words that appear in dreams. They describe what each of these symbols and words might mean in the context of the dream. They are quite basic in list form and don't describe much in other areas about dreams, like how to recall them, dream lucidly or seed a dream. Some of these books have short introductions to dreams but do not have in depth material about dreaming techniques. They are directed toward giving the dreamer a dictionary to use in interpreting events that have appeared in the dream. The following books are the dictionaries I have used in my own dream interpretation endeavors: The Complete Dream Book (1966) by Edward Frank Allen, The Dreamer's Dictionary (1974) by Lady Stearn Robinson & Tom Corbett, Zolar's Encyclopedia & Dictionary Of Dreams (1984) by Zolar and Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted (1999) by Gustavus Hindman Miller. The Encyclopedia Of Dreams (1993) by Rosemary Ellen Guiley is a dream dictionary, but also has a good amount of introduction material about dreams, techniques and recall. It is not just a dictionary like the others, but an instructional book on dreams.

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