Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History

By Kelly Bulkeley

From Biblical stories of Joseph interpreting Pharoh’s dreams in Egypt to prayers against bad dreams in the Hindu Rg Veda, cultures all over the world have seen their dreams first and foremost as religiously meaningful experiences. Dreams are a powerful medium of transpersonal guidance, offering the opportunity to communicate with sacred beings, gain valuable wisdom and power, heal suffering, and explore new realms of existence. Conversely, the world’s religious and spiritual traditions provide the best source of historical information about the broad patterns of human dream life.

      Dreaming in the World’s Religions, written by Kelly Bulkeley, currently a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, provides an authoritative and engaging one-volume resource for the study of dreaming and religion. It tells the story of how dreaming has shaped the religious history of humankind, from the Upanishads of Hinduism to the Qua’an of Islam, from the conception dream of Buddha’s mother to the sexually tempting nightmares of St. Augustine, from the Ojibwa vision quest to Australian Aboriginal journeys in the Dreamtime.

      Publishers Weekly says, “The scope of Bulkeley’s knowledge is impressive, as is his skill at synthesizing ideas from a variety of source material. The author makes a persuasive case that ‘[t]he study of dreams is …a necessary source of insight for our knowledge of what it means to be human’.”

      Bulkeley’s other books include: The Wilderness of Dreams: Exploring the Religious Meanings of Dreams in Modern Western Culture and Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology.

For information on this book and others published by NYU Press, visit www.nyupress.org.