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Once we are persuaded that J. Allan Hobson's dream nihilism—that the contents of our dreams are without psychodynamic meaning—is patently wrongheaded, we are thrown back into that more ancient quandary. What do our dreams mean? How can we pursue their meaning? Do dreams tell us something that can lead to change?
Despite Freud's groundbreaking efforts and those of a raft of dream investigators, elusiveness continues about how to see through the disguises dreams take on and how to explore use them in clinical practice. The goal recedes even as we develop new approaches to understanding them. We seek anything that will help.
When I learned that Myron Glucksman had authored a dream book, I was enthusiastic. His clinical thinking, like his clarity of writing, is reliably insightful, practical, and down-to-earth helpful. Glucksman's work with Milton Kramer on the use of dreams to assess clinical change (2004) and on affect in manifest dream content (2006) is familiar to the readership of this Journal. Their work provides statistical demonstrations that dreams speak meaningfully of matters impacting the dreamer and to the quality of clinical progress in therapy.
This book is not intended for the dream researcher so much as for the clinician who wishes to gain a new appreciation of how to think about dreams and use dreams to effect change. The researcher and student of dreams will value the references and lists of additional suggested readings.
Glucksman hews to the value of each person's associations to gaining insight into the meaning of a dream. The same dream elements may vary in meaning from one person to another, or even in the same person over time. Regardless, dreams provide a concise symbolic indication of problems, conflicts, and solutions with their associated affects and reflections of past circumstances.
In all this, Glucksman follows in Freud's footsteps though his views are modified by later developments in dream research. He acknowledges the influence of Irving B