Waking Dreams - by Allan Frater (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In a waking dream, we inhabit the dreamworld with an awareness of doing so-as sometimes happens upon waking from sleep when a dream continues to feel present alongside an awareness of lying in bed.

Taking perspectives from transpersonal psychology, ecotherapy, complexity theory, and fractal geometry, this book develops new possibilities within waking dream practice (also known as "active imagination" and "guided imagery") to show:

- how the in-between waking/dreaming experience allows us to become aware of not just what we imagine but also the process of how we imagine-a process that reveals the principles and skills of image-based transformation and healing.

- how a broad understanding of imagination-as present in all perceptions, actions, and relationships (not just as pictures "inside the mind")-allows for an image-centric approach to psychotherapy and everyday life as an ongoing "eyes-wide-open" waking dream.

The result is an experiential and theoretical appreciation of imagination, not just as a means to rational insight but as a creative ability at the heart of human potential.

If you are interested in cultivating a richer, story-filled, and enchanted existence, or you are a therapist wanting to help others do so, this might be the book you have been waiting for.

Review Quotes

"Waking Dreams demonstrates how it is possible to explore a three-dimensional waking dream experience...using various entry-points such as memories, fantasies, places or free association... Frater's analogy of imagination to that of an ecosystem - a living web of different relations and energy - helps us to see the limitations of a psychotherapy practice that does not consider the entirety of human experience as worthy of exploration. Imagination is a tool that is underestimated in our need to search for a more tangible human experience... This book strives to recover an amazing skill that not only wanes in adulthood but has also become lost in practice."

-Dr Claire Mitchell, New Psychotherapist Magazine

"A direct and inspiring immersion in the practice of working with the imagination, aimed particularly at therapists but also of interest to any practitioner. It effectively challenges the assumption that imagination is merely "inner", and offers balanced, subtle techniques for developing hypnagogic experience that are clearly grounded in years of reflection on imaginative practice."

-Robert M. Ellis, author of Red Book, Middle Way: How Jung Parallels the Buddha's Method for Human Integration