INTERVIEW Shrink-Wrap radio with authors Greg Mahr MD and Chris L. Drake Ph.D on THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul (Routledge)

Here are the links to the podcast of Shrink-Wrap Radio's, David Van Nuys Interview with Greg Mahr and Chris L.Drake

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https://shrinkrapradio.com/838-greg-mahr-and-chris-drake-on-the-wisdom-of-dreams-science-synchronicity-and-the-language-of-the-soul/

The Bhavachakra or Wheel of Life. Yama is the monstrous being holding the wheel in his hooves. Lord of the Hell Realms, he represents death and impermanence.

Dreaming in Tibetan culture

Bon is the original, pre-Buddhist faith of the Tibetan people, and Dzogchen Yoga is the highest form of Bon teachings. For centuries, Bon evolved and blended with a form of Buddhism called Vajrayana. Both Tibetan Buddhism and Bon coexist in the Himalayan region and in the Tibetan diaspora, and both acknowledge the important role of Dalai Lama as a religious and political leader. 

Dreaming is greatly valued in Tibetan culture, as is what we would call the unconscious ( Rinpoche, 1998 ). The cultivation of lucid dreaming is an important part of Tibetan religious practice. In Tibet, the goal of lucid dreaming is not transformation or renunciation but recognizing the way things are, pure awareness without ego issues like seeking or fear. Dzogchen seeks an “ordinary” awareness during wakefulness and while being asleep. “Ordinary” awareness is a metaconscious awareness of consciousness itself. Dzogchen cultivates an “empty mind” through becoming aware of our impermanence, developing “egolessness” and escaping from the self-imposed prison of suffering that thoughts of past and future so often bring. True awareness is light-hearted. According to Dzogchen monks, as we become.

Excerpt from THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul by Greg Mahr and Christopher L. Drake (Routledge hardcover available) For more information on the book and authors, https://thewisdomofdreamsbook.com

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The rat in a maze.  Let us consider the dream about a rat rehearsing and sorting the day residue of his lab experiences in a dream. Research in rodents has shown that specific cells in the brain called “memory place cells” fire in a pattern that mirrors a rat’s search behavior in a maze. The exact pattern of behavior is then replayed during non-REM sleep, but at a rate that is ten times faster than occurred during the actual maze running while awake. Similarly, the same pattern of brain cell firing is seen during REM, but the pattern is replayed in real time.

 

Figure 19.3 Detail from Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.

Asleep in a cage, what might that difference mean? Recent research has suggested that non-REM sleep is involved in memory consolidation. In contrast, REM sleep connects memory with emotion and decides which memories to save and discard. Perhaps the rat quickly replays his maze runs in non-REM sleep, then plays them out more slowly to decide which ones are important and “feel” right while dreaming. The rat’s dream may also involve integrating previously unrelated memories and emotions that form novel associations and, as human dreams do, an expression through connection to archetypal imagery, that of the wise old man rat friend. Through REM dreaming, we learn and make creative new associations. In this way, dreaming may provide a path out of the maze, a key to the cage of human experience we sometimes find ourselves in during wakefulness.

Excerpt from THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul by Greg Mahr and Christopher L. Drake (Routledge hardcover available) For more information on the book and authors, https://thewisdomofdreamsbook.com

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Mother, I had a dream last night.   

Stars of the sky appeared,A meteorite of Anu fell next to me.  

I tried to lift it but it was too mighty for me, I tried to turn it over, but I could not budge it . . . 

Men clustered about it, And kissed its feet as if it were a little baby.  I loved it and was drawn to it, like one is drawn to a woman.   Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian epic poem written about 4,000 years ago,one of the first ever recorded.)

Gilgamesh’s Dream. 

The stone that Gilgamesh dreams of, that the townspeople revere, is reminiscent of the Black Stone in the Kaaba, one of Islam’s most sacred sites. This stone is a meteorite as well and, according to the Islamic faith, was given to Abraham by the angel Gabriel. Gilgamesh, touchingly, shares his dream with his mother. This powerful man wants reassurance and comfort. He, like all of us, wants his dream to be interpreted and understood. She, symbolically, is the great goddess mother who understands all dreams; she is Ishtar, Isis, Eve, Lilith, Mary and the Black Madonna. Gilgamesh yearns for relationship with this part of himself that he does not yet know. The heavens sent a gift in the form of a shooting star; it represents new life. The townspeople understand this, and worship the object as a baby. This heaven-sent thing is beyond the power of even all-powerful Gilgamesh. He cannot lift it or even roll it over. Gilgamesh is drawn to this star-like object as one is drawn to someone one loves. He shares the dream with his mother, a positive embodiment of the feminine. The feminine is not gender, it is symbol. 

Figure 27-1, A medieval image of the Black Stone 

Excerpt from THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul by Greg Mahr and Christopher L. Drake 

Book is published by Routledge and is available now in hardcover.

For more information on the book and authors, 

https://thewisdomofdreamsbook.com

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Towers and high places: Excerpt from THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul

Figure 25.2 “The Tower of Babel” by Peter Brueghel the Younger.

Towers are man-made structures that rise heavenward. Freud saw towers as phallic symbols. Jung would have agreed but saw the image as representing our inner drive toward life and growth. 

Towers can represent spiritual development and ascent, or misguided hubris, as in the story of the "Tower of Babel." 

From towers and mountaintops, one can see the world from afar; one is closer to God and can see the world through God’s eyes. Moses returned from the top of Mt. Sinai with a new vision of humanity, organized by rules of law and justice. 

https://thewisdomofdreamsbook.com

An initiate between Demeter and Persephone, from the Temple at Eleu. The Eleusinian mysteries as a model of a guided trip. 

Descending into Mother Earth to restore life, initiates were bound to secrecy about the ritual under penalty of death, and the full details of the ceremonies remain unknown. Plato said, “the ultimate design of the Mysteries was to lead us back to the principles from which we were descended.” They were practiced without interruption for 2,000 years 

Guided trips have been an aspect of religious ceremonies in many cultures. Historically the most important of these were the Eleusinian Mysteries. Famous initiates include Socrates, Plato, Caesar, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. They walked the 19 kilometers from Athens to Eleusis called the Sacred Way. For much of early Greek history, the Sacred Way was the only true road in central Greece. In the course of a seven-day ritual, initiates enacted the story of Demeter and Persephone and drank “kykeon,” a barley-based drink 

Rituals hearken to a time when God visited us in our dreams, sacred places existed and we experienced the world with awe and reverence. The neurosis of modern man, according to the German theologian Hans Kung, is his inability to experience God. Perhaps, the resurgent popularity of psychedelic use in therapy relates to their ability when used correctly, to re-experience the world with wonder and awe. The sacred mountains, caves and springs where God spoke to us are gone, but we still yearn for them. 

From: THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul by Greg Mahr M.D. and Christopher L. Drake Ph.D. 

https: //thewisdomofdreamsbook.com

From THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul by Greg Mahr M.D.& Chris Drake Ph.D. (Routledge) The ouroboros and the chemical structure of the benzene ring. Dream solutions often have archetypal elements. Kekulé did not dream of a carbon ring; he dreamt of a snake devouring its own tail. That image is an ancient symbol of life and rebirth, known as the ouroboros, first seen in ancient Egyptian art, then Greek art and eventually in alchemy and Gnosticism. Mr. Hyde is a brilliant depiction of our Shadow, the dark side of ourselves that Jung explicate

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The mysterious journey of a red balloon through an inner space. An open door awaits. Paul Klee, RED BALLOON, 1922

“In this outstanding synthesis of dream science and depth psychology the authors’ expertise and love of the topic shine throughout. The book reminds the reader of the importance of dreams in human history and in everyday life and is an excellent introduction to dream work for therapists and the general public." – Bud Harris, PhD, Jungian Analyst, author of Sacred Selfishness, Into the Heart of the Feminine

MODERN DREAM SCIENCE AND HISTORIC INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS are synthesized in THE WISDOM OF DREAMS:  Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul

Sleep and dreaming are not separate processes, though scientists have limited the study of dreams to pure physiology. Yet in THE WISDOM OF DREAMS: Science, Synchronicity and the Language of the Soul (Routledge), authors Greg Mahr MD, psychiatrist, and Christopher L. Drake Ph.D, psychologist and sleep researcher, have achieved a remarkable synthesis of Dream Science and Depth Psychology. Their varied backgrounds have allowed them to achieve a unique integration of the interpretative and physiological models of dreaming. The authors use modern sleep science, as well as Freudian and Jungian traditions to explore the meaning and purpose of dreams, especially Jung’s broadly based investigations of dreams through cultural images and practices. Islamic, Jewish and early Christian traditions have recognized the importance of dreams and dream interpretation. Lucid dreaming is prominent in Tibetan traditions, including the Tibetan Book of the Dead; as well as in shamanic traditions. In our time, modern science has finally recognized the importance of lucid dreaming, and lucid dreaming strategies are being explored as treatments for nightmares in PTSD. THE WISDOM OF DREAMS also explains how the REM sleep process, which integrates memory and emotion, may have enabled primitive man to become the dominant species on earth. Other topics include end-of-life dreams, prophetic dreams, and cross-cultural dream analysis, as well as a new model for dream interpretation based on current neurophysiology, symbol formation and narrative structures. Dreams become comprehensible when they are examined in terms of narrative structure, plot, setting and characters. Interestingly, though much of the world outside the U.S. appreciates the cultural, clinical and personal significance of dreams, our prejudice is toward "scientism" and pharmacological treatment. Therapists may write off dreams as meaningless stories or as "symptoms," rather than as messages from the unconscious. The objective of WISDOM is to both expand the "tool box" of professionals and provide new consciousness to all seekers. An awakening to a deeper purpose of life and more enlightened practice may result. ********** Greg Mahr MD is Division Head of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He teaches at Michigan State University Medical School and Wayne State University Medical School, where he has won awards as Teacher of the Year and Mentor of the year. Dr. Mahr has published multiple academic articles, as well as fiction in Flash Fiction and Intima, where his work was a contest winner. His poetry has appeared in multiple literary and medical journals, including Third Wednesday, Intima, Pulse, Peninsula Poets (where he was a contest winner), Psychological Perspectives, Academic Psychiatry and CHEST. Christopher L. Drake, PhD, FAASM is a board-certified sleep specialist and internationally recognized expert in sleep and circadian rhythm disorders. He is Professor of Medicine at the Michigan State College of Human Medicine and serves as the Director of Sleep Research for Henry Ford Health where he oversees NIH and Industry clinical trials in insomnia, narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia, sleep apnea, and depression. He is the Insomnia Section Editor for Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine and serves as Associate Editor for SLEEP, Sleep Advances, and Behavioral Sleep Medicine. He has authored over 200 peer reviewed publications in the field. *********** https://thewisdomofdreamsbook.com/