Book Review: An Introduction to Dream Interpretation
The audiobook reviewed here is ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Dream Interpretation’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estes who also narrates the audiob0ok. Firstly turning to the narration, I thought this was exceptionally good. Compared to the narration in the previous audiobooks I have reviewed here, which have also been of an exceptional quality, Estes brings a unique approach. She uses a style which gave the impression of listening in to her having an informal conversation interspersed with relevant anecdotes and always in a very light-hearted manner. She is able to do this while covering the introductory material to dream interpretation. There was some overlap with material covered by John Betts in his excellent podcast series on Jungian Analytic Psychology (e.g. see reviews here, here, here and here which link to relevant episodes). Thus we see familiar themes such as the benefits of keeping a sleep diary and Estes refers in the work to Jung’s approach to dream analysis. As this is a relatively short introductory guide to dream interpretation it serves the purpose of informing those new to the field as the title suggests and Estes attains this goal succinctly by explaining the central concepts while holding the listener’s attention. What I found particularly interesting in this book was the description of the common types of dreams that occur across many cultures including falling, flying and animals amongst others. Indeed listening to this list triggered one of my recent ‘forgotten’ dreams and perhaps reinforced that many of my dreams would fit into these common themes (although it could of course be coincidence!). However another fascinating resource reviewed earlier on the blog – the Dream Journal (see review here and site here) consists of dream narratives entered by members of the forum. A look at this at the time of writing revealed common themes or content in dreams including friends, relatives, searching, ‘peaceful’, fear, water and driving! While this is not a formal research area and members are self-selected (meaning it might not be representative of the general population) there are sufficiently large numbers of dreams to be able to ask some interesting questions. This site also shows that inquiry into the subject of dreams can follow both a qualitative and quantitative approach and while it is inherently difficult due to the nature of dreams it is not unreasonable to expect that such study will (and has) produced useful results. It is interesting to note that dream analysis has preceded the psychoanalytic movement and indeed the more formal analysis dates back many centuries. Nevertheless the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung contributed many valuable insights into this field and as Estes is a Jungian analyst she is able to communicate many of these insights to the reader. I found this to be a very useful resource for those new to the field of dream analysis.
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Disclaimer
The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.
Book Review:The Greatest Show on Earth
The book reviewed here is ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ by Richard Dawkins. Both Dawkins and his wife actress Lalla Ward narrate the book in an engaging style and in the process convey the awe of nature that permeates the book. Indeed for those unfamiliar with Dawkin’s works – he is a champion of communicating the beautiful and at the same time inexorable logic of evolution while at the same time answering the common criticisms that have been levelled against evolution. In my opinion, Dawkins writing represents the embodiment of rationalism in search of an ephemeral eternal truth about nature which because of the subject of its enquiry takes on a transcendent quality. Dawkin’s latest work references many of his earlier works, reiterating important nuances in evolutionary theory such that it parallels a collection of axiomatic proofs building to a final conclusion. The conclusion in this case is the essence of several billion years of evolution on Earth. Dawkins examines the possible origins of life with a fascinating reference to Darwin’s profound passage on the chemicals in a pond which might contribute to the beginnings of life. He covers artificial, natural and sexual selection and illustrates each of these with elegant examples that reaffirm the concepts. Indeed what it is striking is Dawkin’s ability to effortlessly take such examples which are selected from across vast expanses of time as well as geographically and phylogenetically disparate regions and which reveal a supreme familiarity with the natural world. Indeed it seems that any debate about the underlying principles of evolution should begin with a demonstration on both sides of such familiarity particularly as the significance of the natural world is rarely contested. Dawkins also discusses the gene pool and this part in particular I had found interesting. I had overlooked that the individual and successful genes are part of a gene pool within the organism and this relationship between an individual gene and the remainder of the genome (or genomes if the wider group is considered) adds a necessary layer of complexity. For instance, the small changes in genes which may initially cause problems can be compensated by the actions of other gene products. This is interesting in the light of recent evidence that in people, each generation results in an average of 100 mutations in the genome*. In this regards it was also interesting to note that different parts of the genome have staggeringly different rates of mutational change with such changes being particularly rare in histone-related genes. On further reflection about some of the underlying evolutionary principles, I thought that these might easily be abstracted in mathematical form and this became more evident when Dawkins describes one of the computer programs he had written to simulate evolutionary changes (indeed genetic algorithms have been particularly successful in real world applications). This again testifies to the skills and effectiveness of Dawkins in translating such refined arguments into a format that is easily accessible. He has in the process developed a language which combines the underlying logic of evolution with those additional components of knowledge which reach out to a wider audience**. This is another indispensable work for those with an interest in the wonders of the natural world.
* It is tempting to suppose that multi-gene mutations may produce significant changes in a network effect although such an effect is improbable if such mutations are independent (given the size of the genome)
** It would be interesting to see if such rules could form the basis for an open-source educational and research software paradigm
References
Richard Dawkins. The Greatest Show on Earth. Narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward. Random House Audio Books. 2009.
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Podcast
You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).
Responses
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Disclaimer
The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.
