This is a marvellous collection of essays on various ways that dreaming can ease the stress of modern society and even help construct a better society. I particularly enjoyed essays on the specifics of women's dreams and those of African-Americans as well as those on dreams as revitalizers of our spiritual lives. A really thoughtful and dream-provoking book.

This is a very neutraland informative explanation of the process of dreaming and the different theories on how to interpret dreams and find meaning with in your dreams. Bulkeley wirtes so that someone with no prior knowledge or who has been studying dreams for years can understand and really learn from what he has to say. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about dreaming from a psychological approach, but that doesn't dimiss the mystical aspect of dreams.

Reading Kathleen Sullivan's RECURRING DREAMS was so satisfying. She courageously uses her specific and recurring dreams to understand, on many levels, what is going on in her life. This is a fascinating, colorful and creative process. She lets us know that the unconscious can be accessible through dreams and once brought out into the open, is a useful tool to help understand out present day realities.

Each chapter begins with interesting information about dreams in general. This is then followed up by an insightful quote relevant to the presented material. From page l67, on a chapter titled "Imperfection", by Joan Borysenko,Ph.D.: "It takes a lot of nerve to believe that we can or should be able to outwit natural laws, but perfectionism requires just that. As a strategy evolved to ensure love and approval, (perfectionism) is rooted deep in the fears and longings of childhood, making it an emotional need, not an intellectual choice."

I found RECURRING DREAMS to be not only satsifying but exciting as well. Through dreams, we can get to know ourselves from the inside out. How intimate and how necessary!

The above reviews say a lot of what I would say. So I'll just add that it's refreshing to read an author who is candid about her own challenges and lessons.This book is really two in one. First a fascinating story and then practical, clear directions for doing your own dreamwork. It's a must for those who want to discover their own truth and guidance. (offered up into consciousness through the dream) This author walks her talk. The proof is in the transformation she's achieved in her life.

I've been in a dream group for the past 3 years and have read numerous books on dreams. Yet, when I stumbled across Recurring Dreams: a Journey to Wholeness a few months ago, I felt that it illuminated dreamwork for me in a whole new way -- perhaps because I hadn't learned a lot about recurring dreams and their meanings until now. I was mesmerized with Kathleen's transformation out of a life of struggle and pain -- and into the authentic and passionate life she is now living. Her life gradually transformed from cocoon to butterfly as a result of working with a recurring dream character who came to her in different scenarios over a span of 35 years, showing her what she needed to work on in her conscious life. Her courage to take a hard look at herself and make healthier choices as a result of the dream character's messages was both inspiring and motivating. Her story really made me look at my own journey and commit to my own dreamwork on a much deeper level. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I much preferred Dreams: Gateway to the True Self.

This is one of the best books ever written on the religious meanings of dreams. In Part One, Dr. Bulkeley traces the role of dreams in the history of religions, giving the background for the questions he will pose. He also presents the guiding metaphor of the book, the "wilderness" of dreams, indicating that while several "explorers" have come back from there with "maps", the territory is still not known -- and thus is open to interpretation. In Part Two, he summarizes some of those "explorers", twentieth century writers who have put forth theories of dreams interpretation; these include Freud and Jung, the surrealist Andre Breton, the neurobiologist J. Allen Hobson, the lucid dream advocate Stephen LaBerge, the anthropologist Barbara Tedlock, and the cognitive psychologist Harry Hunt. The variety of possible interpretations leads nicely into Part Three, where Bulkeley introduces hermeneutical theory to defend, as it were, the wilderness from the writers who would claim that it is "known". Indeed, he shows that none of the previously cited interpretations of dreams is complete and satisfying in and of itself. In Part Four, building on the work of Lakoff and Johnson, Bulkeley introduces the concept of a "root metaphor." As he explains: "Root metaphors are metaphors that express our ultimate existential concerns; root metaphors provide religious meanings that orient our lives" (p. 145). From there, he reveals his masterstroke: "dreams are our primary source of root metaphors" (p. 151). He goes back to each of the previously discussed theories of dream interpretation and re-analyzes them in terms of root metaphors, and then shows how to work with dreams using the idea of root metaphors. In Part Five, in light of the increasing secularization of the modern world, he argues that one antidote would be a more prominent place for dreams and dreamwork in our lives. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in dreams, as well as to anyone concerned by the problem of meaning in the modern world.