Customer Reviews

Dreaming in the World's Religions: A Comparative History

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Dr. Kelly Bulkeley has written a world class survey of dreaming in the major religions of the world. This book is potentially as ground-breaking as those by Dr. Huston Smith. Dr. Bulkeley speaks to our common humanity and how the human reality of dreaming is incorporated in the various streams of faith. A must read for anyone interested in dreams, world religious, or dialoging across cultures.

This language and methodologies of this book fail to provide a comprehensive or objective comparative examination of differences and patterns the interpretation of dreams by the major religions. Instead, it provides a brief, oddly worded survey followed by an antiquated, incomprehensive conclusion summarizing the findings of cognitive neuroscience. There are maybe 2-3 pages connecting this conclusion to the rest of the work!! Why? Probably because its tacked on and not supported by the rest of the book's tenuous psuedo-historical findings. This conclusion is that there seem to be *some* similarities in the way dreams manifest in across different religions and these may have some basis in cognitive theory. Really, that's it. It doesn't say anything better or more specific than that. Wow, who'd have thought? A species responds consistently to dreams, despite professing different religious faiths? But instead of interpreting these findings as evidence of manifestations of consistent underlying physiology, Kelly tries to argue that this somehow reflects on 'transcendental' human 'aspirations' or some other pseudo-theological junk. Freud already addressed this question 100 years ago in his essay "On the Interpretation of Dreams" which you can find, for free, online everywhere. For whatever reason, despite borrowing psychoanalytic language, Kelly ignores this essay and its underlying psychiatric implications. Instead, we have this sloppy attempt at academic work. Don't waste your time with this.