Western Rationality and the Angel of Dreams: Self, Psyche, Dreaming

By Murray L. Wax

Throughout recorded time people have been fascinated by dreams and their meanings. Tribal societies valorize knowledge obtained from dreams and respect possession as a channel for revelation. In contrast, implicit in Western intellectual thought is an image of the human as a non-social atom with a unitary and rational mind, which turns dreaming into an epiphenomenom or, for Freud, a neurosis in miniature. Integrating materials from anthropology, post-Freudian psychoanalysis, social evolution, and the social psychology of Mead, Cooley, James, and Sullivan, this book offers a view of the self and the psyche that provides meaning to the views of traditional peoples on dreams, possession, and the loss of self.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0847693759
• ISBN13: 9780847693757
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.9"