The colorful cover illustration attracted me to this book. I initially planned to give it as a gift to my sister, who has an interest in dreams but liked it so much I decided to keep it for myself!
This is a good introductory book with beautiful illustrations throughout. The author provides both the psychological and mystical meanings of each symbol with interesting folklore. The introduction covers history and basics. Also included is information on some famous dreamers, dispersed in colored blocks on pages throughout the book. There are brief discussions of lucid dreaming and out of body experiences in the introductory chapters.
My only complaint is in regard to the index. To be honest, it's one of the worst I've seen. The reader is frequently referred to another symbol, which sometimes refers to yet another symbol, and once I ended up with nothing at all! Sometimes the symbol you are referred to is not listed in the index but does exist within the text of the book, and sometimes the symbol isn't in the book at all. After using the book for several months, I finally figured out the method and understood how the index works, but it was quite frustrating until I got the hang of it.
The symbols are organized alphabetically and are not difficult to find despite the fact that this book has no page numbers! I think this is the first time I’ve seen that. I looked this up on Amazon.com and found that it contains 144 pages. The author doesn’t do a bad job of including most of the symbols in such a short book.
Despite the index, this is a nice book to give as a gift or to keep on the desk as a quick reference. This book may appeal to those just beginning to study dreams more than the advanced dream student.
Parthena Black is a professional social worker and ordained minister with experience in tarot and runes. For private spiritual counseling and intuitive readings via e-mail, please visit her at oymygoddess.com.
