Mindful Dreaming

Ancient and modern masters alike have shown us that mindfulness is the direct path to emotional healing and spiritual awakening. In Mindful Dreaming, psychologist David Gordon shows how every dream corresponds to one of the four universal stages of healing and growth that Joseph Campbell called the Mythic Journey—the Calling, Quest, Illumination, and Return—our "search for bliss."

Dreams teach us to recognise the spiritual lessons of each phase of the Journey and urge us to learn ten perennial steps to mindfulness taught by spiritual traditions throughout the millennia. A breakthrough in the field of mindfulness practice and dreamwork, Mindful Dreaming teaches you the simple language of dreams and how they promote mindfulness in our everyday lives.

Dreams prompt us to become mindful of distraction and embrace the value of solitude. Relaxing our grip on control, our dreams open us to guidance from the Source. Helping us see through the illusion of permanence, they teach us to release attachments and grieve the limitations and losses that life imposes.

Mindful of our destructive rush to judgment, our dreams move us to embrace compassion for our own suffering—not just that of others. Finally, dreams teach us mindfulness of our impatience so that we may live more consciously and awake in the present moment.

Relying on thought-provoking exercises and abundant examples from the life-changing dreams of the author, his clients and friends, Mindful Dreaming demonstrates how dreams provide a non-judgmental and compassionate mirror that reflects our ongoing progress on the Journey to mindfulness. Mindful dreaming leads us to overcome the emotional blocks that keep us feeling stuck and conflicted in love relationships, frustrated in work, or stagnating in our creative goals.

Currently Membership Chair for the International Association for the Study of Dreams, David Gordon, Ph.D. has been in private practice since 1973 when he obtained his doctoral degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. During the past twenty years, he has presented workshops, led dreamsharing groups and hosted a call-in radio program Dreamworks. Dr. Gordon has lectured on the topic of dreams, myth, and spirituality at his Dreamwork Institute in Norfolk, Virginia, and throughout the United States and Canada.