An Unabridged Edition with All Footnotes, To Include: He Dreams in Me - Have You Found Him? - He Is My Resurrection - He Wakes in Me - His Name

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

One day in 1698, Robert Pyle of Pennsylvania decided to buy a black slave. The next night he dreamed of a steep ladder to heaven that he felt he could not climb because he carried a black pot. In the dream, a man told him the ladder was the light of Jesus Christ and would bear any whose faith held strong; otherwise, the climber would fall. Pyle woke that morning positive that he should eschew slaves and slavery, having equated the pot with the slave he wished to buy. In fact, so acutely did this dream awaken him to his sins that he became a dynamic advocate of liberation. This dream literally changed his outlook and his life. Teach Me Dreams delves into the dream world of ordinary Americans and finds that as their self-perception increased, transforming them on a personal level, so did a revolutionary spirit that wrought momentous political changes. Mechal Sobel considers dreams recorded in the life narratives of 100 people, revealing the America of the Revolutionary Era to have been a truly dream-infused culture in which analysis of dreams was encouraged, and subsequent personal reevaluation was striking. Sobel uses a wealth of information--letters, diaries, and over 200 published autobiographies from a wide range of "ordinary" people; black, white, male, female. In these accounts, many previously neglected by historians, dreamers explain how their nighttime adventures opened their eyes to aspects of themselves, or unveiled new paths they should take both personally and politically. Such paths often led them to challenge those in power. Charting the widely dreamed of opposition between blacks and whites, men and women, Sobel offers astounding new insights into how early Americans understood their lives. Her analysis of the dreams and lives of ordinary Revolutionary-Era people demonstrates links between dreaming, self reevaluation, and participation in the radically changing politics of the time. This book will appeal to specialists in the fields of American and African-American history, and anyone interested in dreams and self-development.

There's a complex science behind dreaming, but this book is not about that. It is about the author's experiences - love, romance, sex, violence, conflict, fear, work, socializing, and recreation - and how they emerge in his dreams. It explains how his understanding of who he is was shaped by analyzing his dreams. In the end, it is a book for anyone, academicians and lay people alike, who wants to learn more about themselves, as we all live; we all experience; we all sleep; and we all dream. Let this book be an encouragement to the readers to think about their life through the prism of their own dreams.

Wanda Burch dreamt that she would die at a certain age; her dreams foretold her diagnosis of cancer, and they guided her toward treatment and wellness. Although she took advantage of all the medical resources available to her, Wanda believes she is alive today because of her intimate engagement with the dreamworld. This book is more than one woman's story, however. Wanda provides techniques such as questioning the dream and observing the surroundings of the dream to delve into the meaning behind the personal stories we tell ourselves in sleep. Through powerful prose and practical exercises, this book demonstrates that wisdom lives within each of us, and we can tap into that wisdom through dreamwork.