Dream Singers - by Anthony Shafton

Book Synopsis

Advance Praise for Dream-Singers "You will find a great storehouse of folk and literary treasures in this ambitious book that speaks to anyone who has ever thought about his or her dreams. It's a wonderful adventure and I highly recommend it."-Clarence Major, author of Configurations and Juba to Jive Acclaim for Dream Reader also by Anthony Shafton "A book so unique in its combination of scholarship, clarity, and down-to-earth feeling about dreams that I find it hard to fully express the excitement and satisfaction I felt on reading it."-Montague Ullman, M.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Author of Working with Dreams and Dream Telepathy "Breathtaking . . . the single most complete and thorough analysis of contemporary dream theories yet written . . . Shafton has a keen sense for what people most want to know about dreams, and an admirable ability to explain difficult concepts without oversimplifying them."-Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., Past President, The Association for the Study of Dreams, Author of The Wilderness of Dreams

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for Dream-Singers

"You will find a great storehouse of folk and literary treasures in this ambitious book that speaks to anyone who has ever thought about his or her dreams. It's a wonderful adventure and I highly recommend it."-Clarence Major, author of Configurations and Juba to Jive

Acclaim for Dream Reader
also by Anthony Shafton

"A book so unique in its combination of scholarship, clarity, and down-to-earth feeling about dreams that I find it hard to fully express the excitement and satisfaction I felt on reading it."-Montague Ullman, M.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Author of Working with Dreams and Dream Telepathy

"Breathtaking . . . the single most complete and thorough analysis of contemporary dream theories yet written . . . Shafton has a keen sense for what people most want to know about dreams, and an admirable ability to explain difficult concepts without oversimplifying them."-Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D., Past President, The Association for the Study of Dreams, Author of The Wilderness of Dreams

Review Quotes

Many books about dreaming are concerned with interpretation or neurobiology, while others explore the role of dreaming in foreign cultures, both contemporary and historical, This book, however, is the first to examine the role of dreams in any American subculture-and the one it considers is especially vital. Shafton ("Dream Reader: Contemporary Approaches to the Understanding of Dreams") interviewed approximately 115 African Americans, ranging from highly educated professionals to ghetto children to prisoners, asking about their own and their families' experiences with dreams. What emerges is a fascinating look at instances of ancestor visitation, predictive dreaming, and the continuity of dreaming and dreamlike states. While these phenomena occur in other American communities as well (although less frequently, according to the author), other phenomena seem to be the exclusive province of African Americans. These include the special place of dream symbolism in betting, the view of the deja vu experience as caused by unremembered dreams, dreams in Hoodoo (the Southern U.S. version of Voodoo or Santeria), and dream interpretation based on a single central image rather than on a narrative. This book goes beyond dreaming, offering insights into African American culture as a whole. It is especially useful in showing us that cultural differences indeed exist, cutting across class boundaries. Essential for all academic and larger public libraries. --Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L, Pullman, WA ("Library Journal", 11/1/01)

About the Author

ANTHONY SHAFTON is a writer and independent scholar who has been researching and writing on the subject of dreams since the early 1980s. He has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Harvard and a master's in creative writing from Stanford. Shafton began researching African American dreams in 1990 and has published on the subject in Dream Time, the magazine of the Association for the Study of Dreams. He lives in Indiana.