Dreams and Illusions: Of Dreams That Make Us and Dreams That Break Us

Reflections on the sociology of dreams and life as it is lived today, and on those dreams that may contribute to hope or despair in a world fraught with anxiety and fear for an uncertain future. About this book: While this book has been written in such a way as to stand by itself unaided, it explores some of the basic themes of The Gods of Our Time by the same author and can therefore also be taken as a sequel to it. Our lives consist, in large measure, of dreams, particularly those of our waking hours. They are all of many different kinds, from the purely personal, self-directed and egoistic to the self-reproaching and the visionary; many are false and for very different reasons. The power of dreams is well- documented and attested. Some dreams are outward-seeking and are directed to the betterment of the human condition. Some are false and. may rank as illusions, and some of these illusions can be powerfully unhelpful and destructive in the wrong hands, or in the wrong heads. This book is concerned with some of them as they relate in particular to some universal forms of religious belief: belief in God and in the promise of an Afterlife. The subject of dreams and nightmares, both of sleep and of our waking hours, is vast and this book cannot possibly claim to be a tour de force; for no book can say everything that can be said. It simply seeks to pick up some of the threads which hang loose and aphoristically in The Gods of Our Time, to provide an accessible and thought-provoking discussion of matters fundamental to the human condition, past, present and, undoubtedly, future.