From Dene artist and bioethicist Lisa Boivin comes this healing story of hope, dreams, and the special bond between grandfather and granddaughter. When a little girl dreams about a bear, her grandfather explains how we connect with the knowledge of our ancestors through dreams. Bear, Hawk, Caribou, and Wolf all have teachings to share to help us live a good life. But when Grampa gets sick and falls into a coma, the little girl must lean on his teachings as she learns to say goodbye. Masterful prose and stunning collage weave a gentle story about animal teachings, the power of dreams, and the death of a loved one.

In the 1970s, the author became apprentice to the nagual shaman John Black Crow. Years later, ill with AIDS, the author returned to Mexico and underwent the ritual of "Healing Dreaming".

This book surveys both the scientific and the spiritual terrain of altered states of consciousness, highlighting how extrasensory encounters can be soul-healing balm. It explores a wide range of cultural interpretations of out-of-body experiences, from shamanistic practices to the importance of dreams in ancient world cultures. A dozen or more interviews with health-related professionals present unique, holistic glimpses of our inner lives. Dreaming takes center stage, with the author presenting her most profound and insidious dreams. Part reference work and part guidebook, this book tells readers how to make the most of their dream experiences through a variety of techniques like incubation, talisman creation, tarot and more.

The father of the modern dreamwork movement describes his research on the use of dreams in self-help, creativity, relationships, spirituality and culture, including incubation, remembering, interpretation and application of dream insights.

In this remarkable book, Brad Steiger shows how to enter a dimension of reality between the physical and the nonphysical, between the world of spirits and the world of humans. Drawing upon information relayed to him by shamans from many tribes during thirty years of research and study, Steiger teaches easy-to-master techniques of entering Dreamtime and receiving valuable personal guidance. He explains how to identify one's totem animal and spirit guide, how to project healing energy in dreams, how to travel in astral dreamscapes, how to guard against disruptive entities, and how to receive prophetic glimpses of the future.

"A truly comprehensive, scientifically rigorous and utterly fascinating account of when, how, and why we dream. Put simply, When Brains Dream is the essential guide to dreaming." —Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep Questions on the origins and meaning of dreams are as old as humankind, and as confounding and exciting today as when nineteenth-century scientists first attempted to unravel them. Why do we dream? Do dreams hold psychological meaning or are they merely the reflection of random brain activity? What purpose do dreams serve? When Brains Dream addresses these core questions about dreams while illuminating the most up-to-date science in the field. Written by two world-renowned sleep and dream researchers, it debunks common myths that we only dream in REM sleep, for example—while acknowledging the mysteries that persist around both the science and experience of dreaming. Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold bring together state-of-the-art neuroscientific ideas and findings to propose a new and innovative model of dream function called NEXTUP—Network Exploration to Understand Possibilities. By detailing this model’s workings, they help readers understand key features of several types of dreams, from prophetic dreams to nightmares and lucid dreams. When Brains Dream reveals recent discoveries about the sleeping brain and the many ways in which dreams are psychologically, and neurologically, meaningful experiences; explores a host of dream-related disorders; and explains how dreams can facilitate creativity and be a source of personal insight. Making an eloquent and engaging case for why the human brain needs to dream, When Brains Dream offers compelling answers to age-old questions about the mysteries of sleep.

Winner of the History of Science category of the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards given by the Association of American Publishers Why do racial and ethnic controversies become attached, as they often do, to discussions of modern genetics? How do theories about genetic difference become entangled with political debates about cultural and group differences in America? Such issues are a conspicuous part of the histories of three hereditary diseases: Tay-Sachs, commonly identified with Jewish Americans; cystic fibrosis, often labeled a "Caucasian" disease; and sickle cell disease, widely associated with African Americans. In this captivating account, historians Keith Wailoo and Stephen Pemberton reveal how these diseases—fraught with ethnic and racial meanings for many Americans—became objects of biological fascination and crucibles of social debate. Peering behind the headlines of breakthrough treatments and coming cures, they tell a complex story: about different kinds of suffering and faith, about unequal access to the promises and perils of modern medicine, and about how Americans consume innovation and how they come to believe in, or resist, the notion of imminent medical breakthroughs. With Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell disease as a powerful backdrop, the authors provide a glimpse into a diverse America where racial ideologies, cultural politics, and conflicting beliefs about the power of genetics shape disparate health care expectations and experiences.