The History of Last Night's Dream: Discovering the Hidden Path to the Soul

By Rodger Kamenetz

Book Overview

A third of our time on earth is spent sleeping, yet our dreams, if we remember them at all, have been relegated to nothing more than curious anecdotes. When Sigmund Freud awakened modern interest in the dream a century ago, his theory of interpretation undermined the potential insights dreams had to offer. For Freud, dreams were little more than fragmented puzzle parts made up of events from our waking lives. Most of us today still live under Freud's far-reaching influence. When we wake up after experiencing a powerful series of images, we too readily explain them away or simply ignore them all together. Whatever emotion or insight the dream evokes slowly fades. But what if Freud was wrong? Unless we challenge his deeply-ingrained assumptions, we will forever lose the gift of our dreams.

International bestselling author Rodger Kamenetz believes it is not too late to reclaim the lost power of our nightly visions. Kamenetz's exploration of the world of dreams reopens all the questions scientists and psychologists claimed to have settled long ago. The culmination of decades of research, The History of Last Night's Dream is a riveting intellectual and cultural investigation of dreams and what they have to teach us. We discover how the age-old struggle between what we dream and how we interpret our dreams has shaped Western culture from biblical times to today. Kamenetz introduces us to an eighty-seven-year-old female kabbalist in Jerusalem, a suave Tibetan Buddhist dream teacher in Copenhagen, and a crusty intuitive postman-turned-dream master in northern Vermont. He fearlessly delves into this mysterious inner realm and shows us that dreams are not only intensely meaningful but that they hold essential truths about who we are. In the end, each of us has the choice to embark on this illuminating path to the soul. But one thing is certain: our dreams will never be the same again.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060575832
• ISBN13: 9780060575830
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Archetypal Dreamwork Comes to Oprah's Soul Series!

The History of Last Night's Dream is part spiritual autobiography and part historical analysis of how exactly the "revelation dream" lost its eminent status in early biblical times and how it is now reasserting itself in quiet, rural Vermont; reasserting itself in a way that is profoundly changing lives for the better. In the process, author Roger Kamenetz reveals how his own life was impacted, and finally transformed, by his dreams. This book provides a gentle introduction to a psychological and spiritual path known as Archetypal Dreamwork. It's written with enough scholarly background and credentials to quiet (or perhaps even please?) skeptical intellectuals. The particular method of working with dreams that was pioneered by Marc Bregman is probably not very palpable fare for the masses. But when it's presented by an author who's already made a name for himself with his penetrating religious studies - and, what's more, it's presented in the humble form of a human journey that becomes more and more personal as the story unfolds - the result is a book that may just be what this seemingly-esoteric path to spiritual healing and evolution needs to catch the eye of the mainstream. The fact that Roger recently shared his insights about the Work on Oprah's radio show seems to support my hunch... One's own healing is the greatest message of hope that can be imparted to others; and Roger Kamenetz has, within these pages, enshrined that hope with eloquence, honesty, courage, exhaustively-researched fact, and a healthy dose of wry wit and humor to wash it all down. Highly recommended for seekers (I suspect that there are more of us now than ever before) on all roads to the Mystery of the Soul.

Honesty that cuts to the bone

Reading The History of Last Night's dream is like looking into the open door of a private home - only instead of seeing the furniture and decor - you get to feel into Kammenetz's soul. I am awed by his honesty and the 'direct hit' the dreams have for propelling him into what really appears to be true inner growth.I found that it started a little slow - but keep reading! It will blow your mind - and change your ideas about dreams!

Kamenetz Catches the Dream

A powerful story of a seeker who found what he was looking for. From Israel to Denmark to a small town in rural Vermont, Kamenetz chases the dream until he catches up with it. This story of Kamenetz's awakening to the power of his own dreaming is heartbreaking, moving, and enlightening. This book may well change our collective view of dreaming forever. Even more phenomenal, though, is that Kamenetz has given each of us---dreamers all---a chance to finally hear what our dreams have been trying to tell us all along.

Beautiful

I love to dream. I have always believed dreams are important but never knew quite what to do with them besides record them in journals. I feel like the author handed me a toolbox when he wrote this book. I could have floundered on my own for years and never come to one tenth of these conclusions on my own. I especially appreciate Kamenetz's intense honesty and openness in sharing his own dreams and life experiences.

This book is getting great reviews

"The History of Last Night's Dream" may well change [your life]. Kamenetz's fierce honesty and unflinching self-revelation inspire both admiration and awe and sympathy and a sense of kinship. We are all dreamers, are we not? This smart, funny, and revolutionary book is filled with compassion for our dreaming minds, for the ways in which they reveal ourselves to ourselves, for the ways our dreams, nighttime or waking, can carry us back to love and so to God. --Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune "Last Night's Dream" is the tale of Kamenetz's attempt to break free ...by training himself to place dream imagery on an equal footing with text in his quest for a spiritual connection. The book is deeply personal and artfully written; Kamenetz was an established poet before his 1994 classic "The Jew in the Lotus" turned him into a Jewish Renewal celebrity. It is also an accessible primer on the evolving status afforded dreams in Jewish and Western thought and science. -- Jerusalem Report