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This book concerns ‘a Jewish theory of dream interpretation’. Its contents include a two-page ‘Glossary of Jewish Terms’, a two-page bibliography, a five-page index, and 33 pages of the author's abridged translation of Pitron Chalamot (The Interpretation of Dreams) by Solomon Almoli, a sixteenth-century Spanish rabbi and physician from Constantinople. Covitz, a Jungian analyst residing in Massachusetts, bases much of his work on the writing of Almoli and Jung.
The title of the book immediately called to mind the book by Max Zeller entitled The Dream - The Vision of the Night. The phrase is taken from the Old Testament books of Job and Daniel, in both of which the dream is referred to as ‘a vision of the night’.
Covitz focuses on Jungian and Jewish philosophical dream interpretation, as well as on attitudes about dreams in biblical times, when dreams were considered prophecies delivered by God. ‘Today’, he states, ‘dreams have no religious significance at all in mainstream Judaism’, because dreams are no longer considered prophetic (p. 13).
What I found most interesting in this book was the similarity between ancient and current views of dreams and dream interpretation. For example, some principles listed by Covitz and promulgated by Almoli include the following: One does not choose one's dreams; rather, dreams come ‘from the will of God’ (p. 21). And, working on dreams, according to both Almoli and Jung, aids individuation (p. 22f). ‘Dreams usually mirror either the conscious or the unconscious situation of the dreamer’ (p. 60). ‘Many dreams have the function of mirroring the self in a way that confronts us with the way we are rather than the way we wish we were’ (p. 68).
I have been conducting weekly dream workshops for almost thirty years, and my approach to working on dreams rests, of course, on Jungian theory and the same or similar principles to those described by Almoli. (Covitz essentially says the same thing.) In my workshops, dreamwork generally begins with obt