Untamable. Damaged. Angry. Once full of promise and life, now a fiery knot of resentment and detachment. This is the story of Dream of Night, an injured and abused racehorse. It’s also the story of Shiloh, a sarcastic eleven-year-old foster child. By chance, Dream of Night and Shiloh both find themselves under the care of Jessalyn DiLima. Just in time—it’s a last chance for them both. Jess fosters animals and kids like Dream of Night and Shiloh for a reason—she’s a little broken, too. And as the three of them become an unlikely family, they recognize their similarities in order to heal their pasts—but not before one last tragedy threatens to take everything away.

This wide-ranging exploration of the spiritual and scientific dimensions of dreaming offers new connections between the ancient wisdom of the world's religious traditions, which have always taught that dreams reveal divine truths, and the recent findings of modern psychological research. Drawing upon philosophy, anthropology, sociology, neurology, literature, and film criticism, the book offers a better understanding of the mysterious complexity and startling creative powers of human dreaming experience. For those interested in gaining new perspectives on dreaming, the powers of the imagination, and the newest frontiers in the dialogue between religion and science, Visions of the Night promises to be a welcome resource.

In this remarkable and unique work, award-winning poet Sarah Arvio gives us a memoir about coming to terms with a life in crisis through the study of dreams. As a young woman, threatened by disturbing visions, Arvio went into psychoanalysis to save herself. The result is a riveting sequence of dream poems, followed by “Notes.” The poems, in the form of irregular sonnets, describe her dreamworld: a realm of beauty and terror emblazoned with recurring colors and images—gold, blood red, robin’s-egg blue, snakes, swarms of razors, suitcases, playing cards, a catwalk. The Notes, also exquisitely readable, unfold the meaning of the dreams—as told to her analyst—and recount the enlightening and sometimes harrowing process of unlocking memories, starting with the diaries she burned to make herself forget. Arvio’s explorations lead her back to her younger self—and to a life-changing understanding that will fascinate readers. An utterly original work of art and a groundbreaking portrayal of the power of dream interpretation to resolve psychic distress, this stunning book illumines the poetic logic of the dreaming mind; it also shows us, with surpassing poignancy, how tender and fragile is the mind of an adolescent girl.

Ever since the first person woke up yawning and stretching from the first sleep, dreams have intrigued humankind. At some point all of us have been mystified or terrified or delighted by a vivid dream, and we all wonder -- what do our dreams mean? In her inspiring book, Dream Power, Los Angeles Times dream columnist Cynthia Richmond draws on her experience as a therapist and dream counselor to show us how to harness the power of our dreams and make our life goals come true. Understanding our dreams can give us a huge advantage in all facets of life, Richmond demonstrates -- in work, love, health, and spirituality. "By listening to what your subconscious mind and your spirit tell you through your dreams," she predicts, "you will have all the tools you need to achieve the life you want." But before we can interpret our dreams -- and change our lives -- we need to learn how to remember them, and so Dream Power begins with a simple tutorial in the art of recall. After providing us with practical, step-by-step techniques for gaining access to our dream lives, Richmond then charts the landscape of dream themes and their rich, perplexing meanings. Most of us have dreams that fall into certain important categories -- dreams of departed loved ones, schools and tests, flying, water, public nudity, and sex. Analyzing more than 200 real-life dreams (some from celebrities such as Jane Seymour and Kelsey Grammer), Richmond reveals the common themes, symbols, and meanings that run throughout them. Our dreams express universal hopes and fears, and these Richmond explores with warmth and insight. But she also takes traditional dream interpretation an important step further, showing us how to transform our insights into life-changing opportunities. To understand our dreams fully, she insists, we must look deep into our hearts and souls and ask: What do we want out of our lives? What are we afraid of and what do we love? Who are we? The answers to these questions will come to us in our sleep, if we recognize the wisdom and truth of the dream world. "Every one of us has a lesson to learn and a gift to offer to the world," Richmond declares. The wisdom of those lessons can help us make powerful changes in our spiritual, social, professional, and romantic lives. As Cynthia Richmond shows us with authority and inspiration, the path to a better life is only a dream away.

A groundbreaking history of the human mind told through our experience of dreams—from the earliest accounts to current scientific findings—and their essential role in the formation of who we are and the world we have made. "A resounding case for the mystery, beauty and cognitive importance of dreams." —The New York Times What is a dream? Why do we dream? How do our bodies and minds use them? These questions are the starting point for this unprecedented study of the role and significance of this phenomenon. An inves­tigation on a grand scale, it encompasses literature, anthropology, religion, and science, articulating the essential place dreams occupy in human culture and how they functioned as the catalyst that compelled us to transform our earthly habitat into a human world. From the earliest cave paintings—where Sidarta Ribeiro locates a key to humankind’s first dreams and how they contributed to our capacity to perceive past and future and our ability to conceive of the existence of souls and spirits—to today’s cutting-edge scientific research, Ribeiro arrives at revolutionary conclusions about the role of dreams in human existence and evolution. He explores the advances that contempo­rary neuroscience, biochemistry, and psychology have made into the connections between sleep, dreams, and learning. He explains what dreams have taught us about the neural basis of memory and the transfor­mation of memory in recall. And he makes clear that the earliest insight into dreams as oracular has been elucidated by contemporary research. Accessible, authoritative, and fascinating, The Oracle of Night gives us a wholly new way to under­stand this most basic of human experiences.

Dreams have been significant in many different cultures, carrying messages about this world and others, posing problems about knowledge, truth, and what it means to be human. This thought-provoking collection of essays explores dreams and visions in early modern Europe, canvassing the place of the dream and dream-theory in texts and in social movements. In topics ranging from the dreams of animals to the visions of Elizabeth I, and from prophetic dreams to ghosts in political writing, this book asks what meanings early modern people found in dreams.