The History of Last Night's Dream

by Lael

Acclaimed poet and author of The Jew and the Lotus Rodger Kamenetz is garnering rave reviews for his latest book, The History of Last Night's Dream. This fascinating volume traces the place of dreams in Western culture and suggests that - from the biblical Joseph, whose hasty dream interpretations gained him the enmity of his brothers and landed him initially in servitude, to father of psychoanalysis and author of On The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud - dream interpreters have gotten dream analysis all wrong.

Seeking an encounter with nighttime visions less mediated by language, Kamenetz made pilgrimages around the globe to an assortment of contemporary dream experts. According to his website, this cast of colorful characters included an "87 year old female kabbalist in Jerusalem, a suave Tibetan tulku in Copenhagen, and a crusty intuitive archetypal dream master in northern Vermont."

Rather than treating them as intellectual puzzles, we should, according to Kamenetz, pay particular attention to the feelings that arise in dreams. He warns against relying on clumsy word-based interpretations that ultimately keep our dreams at a distance and instead suggests entering into a dream's images and felt reality. In other words, to plumb a dream's hidden depths a dreamer must, paradoxically, stick closer to its surface meaning.

In a recent Time Magazine interview, Kamenetz was asked whether his work with dreams had shifted his focus away from his religion, Judaism, which was central to his earlier two books. In response, the author pointed out the range of rabbinic opinion on the subject of dreams and cited the saying "A dream ignored is like a letter unopened." By demonstrating the transformative power of dreams, The History of Last Night's Dream inspires its readers to rip open their metaphorical envelopes and receive what they've been sent.

| 12/26/07 | Book Club