Customer Reviews

The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Dreams for Creative Problem-Solving-- and How You Can Too

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dreams can be valuable sources of ideas, creativity and solutions, as clearly demonstrated by Deirdre Barrett's book. Barrett covers how dreams have assisted writers, painters, architects, biologists and chemists, for example, in finding solutions to problems or by presenting new creative ideas. All the accounts and evidence presented in this book should convince any skeptic that dreams can be a rich vein to mine. I myself often come up with creative ideas when I am in the so-called hypnagogic state, that state on the border of sleeping and waking, when I awaken in the morning. My problem is that I am usually not prepared to capture my thoughts on pen and paper, and I later find myself remembering that I had a good idea but not remembering what it was. Barrett also explores the impact that dreamers' professions and cultures have in the types of dreams they have. For example, in cultures where dreams are accepted as sources of ideas or inspiration, they are more readily shared and acted on.

On the down side, although I can't quite put my finger on it, there is something about Barrett's writing style that made it somewhat difficult to get through the text, and I found that I was forcing myself to push through the text, feeling at times that I was more reading a menu of dream selections and their details rather than a story about the dreams and their dreamers.

This book brings together all the best accounts of dreams which have solved important waking life problems or inspired great art. It summarizes research on how often and what kinds of problems dreams are most helpful with. There are directions for incubating creative problem solving dreams which give the reader all clear information to get started making practical use of their own dreams. Well-written and entertaining reading. Recommended to anyone who's interested in dreams or in the creative process.

This out of print book will be out in a high quality paperback under the IBSN 978-0-9828695-0-5 probably very late July. It's list price will be $19.99, with possible discounts. So, if you're a customer balking at the hardback resale prices, just check back under that IBSN. If you're a reseller, here's your heads up to drop that $145., so you're not stuck with them soon.
Obviously this isn't exactly a review but I couldn't think of another way to get the info onto this page and seen by these two groups of people.

This book isn't a self-help book per se. It devotes most of the space to describing problem solving and creative dreams of historic and modern writers and scientist. But it has enough pages which outline how to incubate proberm-solving dreams yourself to make this easy and the famous examples are more inspiring than a whole book of the 'how-to' would be. Best book if you want to start getting practical help from your dream life.