ALL ABOUT DREAMS

ALL ABOUT DREAMS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
ABOUT WHY WE HAVE THEM, WHAT THEY MEAN,
AND HOW TO PUT THEM TO WORK FOR YOU
Gayle Delaney, PhD
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998
352 pages, paperback, $14.00
ISBN 0-06-251411-3

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

"Dream interpretation can be one of the most exciting and rewarding things you will ever do in your life." Gayle Delaney writes. "It can bring you thrilling new experiences, joys, and insights that will help you live and love more fully and richly than you ever imagined."

Delaney, a San Francisco psychologist and co-founder of the Association for the Study of Dreams, teaches dreamers to explore their own dreams via an interview method, in which the dreamer is questioned by a friend, colleague, or therapist who pretends to come from another planet. The dreamer tries to define and describe dream images as if talking to someone with no prior knowledge of the persons, places, objects, animals, feelings, or events. After the interviewer restates what the dreamer said, the dreamer tries to connect the dream with waking experience. With practice, Delaney says, you can learn to interview yourself about your own dreams.

In engaging and conversational prose laced generously with examples, Delaney demonstrates how to use her technique. She also guides readers through the hard work of the following weeks or months: to reflect on the meaning of the dream, and to apply insights gained to making life changes.

She reviews common dream themes, such as being chased, having teeth fall out, being naked in public, being unable to run, making love to an unexpected partner, losing your purse or wallet, discovering new rooms in a house, taking an examination, flying, and more. Delaney shows how similar dream situations may hold vastly different meanings for different dreamers. She lists questions you can ask yourself to better understand such dreams. She also offers guidelines for those who would like to try to direct their dreams, to use them, for example, to solve problems at school or work.

One interesting feature of this book is Delaney's collection of other dream specialists' methods of working with dreams and nightmares, excerpted from their own books, and included here with their permission. The ones she selected share her view that the dreamer owns his or her dream, and that the only valid interpretation is that of the dreamer.

Finally, Delaney tells how to find a dream partner and to organize a dream group. She includes references, and resources such as other books, tapes, videos, and websites. Few pop psychology books get as close as this one to delivering the "everything you need to know about" promised in the title.