Dream cultures: explorations in the comparative history of dreaming

This volume presents a comparative perspective on the way dreams are reported, perceived, and interpreted in vastly different cultural milieux. In contrast to Freud's claim that all dreams share a universal language of symbols, the authors of the essays collected in this book seek to explore the unique dream-languages of distinct civilizations. Sixteen previously unpublished works by such distinguished scholars as Barbara and Dennis Tedlock, Moshe Idel, Christiano Grottanelli, and Jean-Claude Schmitt examine the literature of dreams from China, India, Meso-America, Greek and Roman antiquity, early Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism and Kabbala, Islam, medieval and early-modern Europe, and nineteenth-century Vienna. Taken together, they constitute an important first step toward a new understanding of the ways in which different cultures experience and conceptualize the world of dreams. --