Our Dreaming Mind
by Robert Van De Castle

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Book Reviews of Our Dreaming Mind

Book Review: Comprehensive, dry, boring, and suspect
Summary: 1 Stars

I approached Van de Castle's book with enthusiasm, only to have that dampened by the academic tone and awkward writing style. By comparison, Freud's writing about dreams is lucid and engaging.

However, the most off-putting thing in the book is the author's uncritical acceptance of dreams as psychic phenomena. To hear a grownup person at the turn of the twenty-first century -- a scientist with a PhD, no less -- spouting nonsense about "telepathic dreaming" and using dreams to predict the future is disheartening, to say the least. (He even cites Shirley MacLaine's idiocies about reincarnation as if they are to be taken seriously.)

Although there might be some interesting and useful information in this book, the author's cumbersome language and spiritual beliefs that taint his scientific objectivity put me off completely.

June 2002

Imagine my surprise at finding myself personally attacked in a review of this book by someone who signs in only as "A reader from USA." Sounds like a ringer, folks.

I challenge the statement, "As for telepathic and precognitive dreaming, they are facts, not fictions, well documented and well studied." Psychic claims have been well studied, but according to the documentation, no scientific study has ever validated the existence of any psychic phenomenon.

"We ... have much to learn about ourselves ... from our dreams." About our inner selves, that is. Dreams are subjective. They are neither receptors of magical visions of the future nor evidence of past lives. As to what we can learn from Mr. Van de Castle, accepting his unverified claims can only teach us how gullible we are.

Van de Castle is an indefatigable researcher, but he's no more an "authority" on dreams than Erich von Daniken is on ancient history. It's not the accumulation of facts but the scientific validity of the conclusions based on those facts that makes one an authority. Despite much current disenchantment with Freudian analysis, Freud's "On the Interpretation of Dreams" is still the best writing on the subject.

Another reviewer says "Contrary to the last review, I did not find this book difficult to read or understand." I didn't say the book was either. I said it was academic, awkward, and cumbersome. I don't necessarily find such writing hard to read, but it's not much fun.

January 2003

Mine is undoubtedly the "one negative review" cited by another critic, who wrongly infers that I am "a Freudian." All that can be gleaned from the above is that I am a rationalist who admires good writing.

Agree or disagree with Freud, his propositions have a rational basis. The analogy of believing the Earth to be the center of the universe applies more properly to Van de Castle's views on psychic phenomena and reincarnation than to Freud's attempts to understand dreams within the framework of modern science.

Freud's pioneering efforts inspired others to seek greater understanding of human motivation and behavior. Van de Castle's mysticism puts us back in the Dark Ages.

Amazon.com's listing of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" contains a number of thoughtful reviews and critiques. As Rob Lightner writes, "Whether we love or hate Sigmund Freud, we all have to admit that he revolutionized the way we think about ourselves."

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