What do psychology and neuroscience tell us about our dreams? Dream researcher and practicing psychotherapist Paul R. Robbins presents the science in a non-technical Q&A format. Covering the history of dream interpretation—from ancient Assyrian dream books to the theories of Carl Jung—he describes his own successful approach to dream studies: exploring the real-life incidents brought to mind by dreams and probing their meaning to the individual in an objective way.

Paul R. Robbins is a psychologist who has held a number of positions as a researcher in the Department of Psychiatry of the George Washington University Medical School, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Public Health Service. He has served as a consultant to the Drug Addiction Ward of the Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Washington, DC, and had a private practice of psychotherapy for over twenty years. He has published numerous research papers in psychological and psychiatric journals, written many books on psychological topics for general readers and is the author of several novels. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Paul R. Robbins

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7275-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3180-6
Imprint: Exposit Books

Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1

Part I. What Science Tells Us

About Our Dreams

 1. The Nature of Dreaming 7

 2. Dreaming and the Brain 21

 3. Dream Recall, Dreaming in Color and More 30

 4. The Sources of Dreams and the Experience of Lucid Dreaming 38

 5. The Content of Dreams, Theories About Dreams and Dreams That Recur 48

 6. Gender and Age Differences in Dreams 68

 7. Bizarre Dreams and Dreams and Mental Illness 74

 8. Anxiety Dreams, Nightmares and Night Terrors 81

 9. Positive Effects from Dreams on Emotions and Problem Solving 93

 10. Message and Predictive Dreams 99

Part II. What Dreams May Tell Us

About Ourselves

 11. Comparing Your Dreams with the Dreams of Others 111

 12. The Approach to Dream Analysis of Sigmund Freud 127

 13. Dream Analysis According to Carl Gustav Jung 135

 14. Dream Dictionaries 145

 15. The Dream Incident Technique: An Experimental Approach to Using Dream Associations
163

 16. Some Final Thoughts About Dreams 190

Notes and Sources 197

Index 209

• “A concise text covering basic concepts, theories, and research findings related to dream psychology…written in an easy to read, conversational tone, this book is easily accessible to the general reader…recommended”—Choice