Product Description

Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams offers a window into our souls and a doorway to The Other Side. llustrating her findings with the research and inspiring real-life stories that are her trademark, Browne shows how our dreams influence everything from our memories to our health and well-being to our relationships. We can make positive changes by heeding the messages contained in our dreams. And we can reconnect with our departed loved ones through the phenomenon of these altered states of being.

From recurring dreams to daydreams, from dreams that comfort to dreams that force us to confront our deepest fears, Sylvia Browne's Book of Dreams illuminates the path between our conscious and unconscious minds and shows why our dreams are among the most important and misunderstood connections we have with portals to The Other Side.

"I've personally witnessed her bring closure to distraught families, help police close cases, and open people's hearts to help them see the good within themselves." (Montel Williams)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231274 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07
• Released on: 2002-07-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 280 pages

From Library Journal
In Brown's previous works, we've visited past lives and the afterlife. Now this psychic takes us on a tour of dreaming.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Sylvia Browne is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Other Side and Back; Life on The Other Side; Past Lives, Future Healing; and Adventures of a Psychic. She has been working as a psychic for nearly fifty years, and appears regularly on The Montel Williams Show. She has also appeared on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, CNN, and Entertainment Tonight.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt:

Chapter One

THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEYS OF SLEEP

There is nothing more fascinating, more intensely personal, and more uniquely ours than the voyages our minds and spirits take while we sleep. These dreams and other adventures confuse us, alarm us, preoccupy us, relieve us, amuse us, comfort us, inform us, enlighten us, and above all, keep us more sane and whole than we could ever hope to be without them. Our sleep journeys, even the nightmares, are gifts, our allies, to embrace rather than dread, and worth every effort it takes to unravel their mysteries and cherish every valuable lesson they have to offer.

I've been studying the worlds of sleep and dreams for more than thirty years. In the course of those studies I've read a lot of the same dream interpretation material you have, and often come away feeling more confused when I finished than I was when I started. Some "experts" swear that there's great cosmic significance in every dream, if we were only bright enough to figure it out. Others are convinced that dreams are nothing but meaningless little vaudeville shows to keep us entertained while we sleep. Still others strain to find sexual symbolism in each tiny detail of our dreams (I'd love to have met Sigmund Freud just once, just long enough to say, "What's wrong with you?"), while a few geniuses even insist that the minute we doze off, we disintegrate into any number of vapor blobs and go darting around the universe for reasons I can't figure out for the life of me.

I might have thrown up my hands and dismissed the whole subject of dreams as being too confusing to conquer if it hadn't been for some basic realities I wasn't confused about at all:

First and foremost, I grew up with my grandmother Ada, a brilliant psychic and teacher, who shared her passion for dreams, especially prophetic ones, with her adoring granddaughter and taught me that the subconscious mind understands their meaning whether the conscious mind can make sense of them or not.

Then there was my own passion for world religions, which led me to read and reread every great sacred work and to appreciate how prominently dreams are woven into the exquisite fabric of every one of them. If the Bible included those 121 references, how could I ignore them?

In addition, maybe because I was born psychic, I devoured the books of all the great psychics, from Edgar Cayce to Arthur Ford to Ruth Montgomery, in the hope of not feeling quite so out of place. At the same time, endlessly curious about exactly how the human mind operates (thinking I could learn to be "normal," I guess), I read and studied every book and course I could find on the subjects of psychiatry, psychology, and hypnosis, even becoming a master hypnotist in the process and forming lifelong friendships with some of the finest psychiatrists and psychologists in the country. I'm sure there are some members of the psychiatric community who won't appreciate hearing this, but the truth is, the psychic world and the psychiatric world have a lot in common, including a deep interest in uncovering and understanding the secrets hidden in dreams.

Once my career as a psychic was under way, more and more clients were asking for my help with interpreting their dreams. In most situations, I don't mind a bit saying the words "I don't know." But when a client wants and needs something from me, I owe them better than a shrug and a simple "Beats me." So it was for my clients' benefit as well as my own insatiable curiosity that I made it my business to unravel the mysteries of dreams as best I could, to the point where for many years I had the pleasure of teaching very successful dream interpretation classes to the growing number of clients who were as fascinated as I was.

And then one day I found myself so shaken by a dream that I went to one of my professors for help, and the value of decoding a message received in dreams hit home like it never had before. It was during a period of huge personal upheaval in my life, which, by the way, is when our sleep adventures tend to be more vivid, intense, and meaningful than ever. I was juggling my two full-time careers, as both a psychic and a schoolteacher, taking an advanced hypnosis class, and most of all, in the midst of a nasty divorce from my first husband Gary (technically my second, but that's another story for another book). There was no dispute over money or property, since neither Gary nor I had any money or property to fight over. But there was a huge, ugly dispute over the custody of our two precious little sons, Paul and Chris, and our beautiful foster daughter, Mary, and I wasn't about to let anyone on this earth separate me from my children, period. It was a painful, terrifying time that I can still feel in the pit of my stomach as I write about it now, thirty years later.

In my dream, at the height of my fear, I was standing in a classroom, tightly holding my three children Paul, Chris, and Mary, who were huddled beside me, the four of us in the center of a protective circle I'd drawn on the floor. Several androgynous, nonthreatening figures wearing faceless green masks were walking single file around the outside of the circle, chanting, "Beware of the three, beware of the three," over and over again. The figures themselves didn't frighten me, but their repeated warning did, and I woke feeling helpless and more afraid than I'd ever felt in my life.

I was awake and almost frantic the rest of that night trying to make sense of what "beware of the three" could possibly mean. What "three" was I supposed to beware of? Surely it wasn't the three innocent children I was trying so fiercely to protect. Was it an upcoming date for a custody hearing that wasn't going to go well for us, maybe the "third" of the month, or "three" months later? Had my estranged husband somehow manufactured "three" charges against me to try to convince the judge that I was an unfit mother? Most unthinkable of all, was I getting a premonition to emotionally brace myself because I was going to lose these "three" children, which I'm not at all sure I could have survived? I must have come up with a thousand possibilities that night while I paced around the house like a lunatic, but none of them felt quite right, let alone offered the kind of help a warning like that should give. I've always said, I'll vigilantly beware of an enemy, I'll bravely square off with an enemy, but I can't do a thing unless I know what or who the enemy is.

Luckily, I was studying advanced hypnosis at the time, and my professor was a genius about the workings of the subconscious mind, including the messages it sends through dreams, and I still count him among my most trusted and insightful colleagues. I was waiting outside his office when he arrived that morning. I was so frantic by then that I hope I didn't grab him by the lapels, but I can't swear I didn't. He patiently led me to the chair beside his desk and simply said, "Tell me what's wrong."

I filled him in on the fierce custody battle that was consuming my life and then described my dream, in all its disturbing detail. I don't cry often, especially in front of other people. I cried that morning.

"You wouldn't think a psychic of all people would feel this helpless," I told him, "but as you know, I'm not one bit psychic about myself. If that dream was trying to tell me something and I blow this custody case because I didn't understand the message, I'll never forgive myself. What am I missing, John? What could 'beware of the three' possibly mean?"

His smile was patient and compassionate. "Tell me," he said, "who's fighting against you for custody? Who's trying to take your children away from you?"

That was easy. "My husband, his mother, and believe it or not, my mother."

Instead of pointing out the obvious, he let me catch on all by myself. It took me a few seconds, but finally I added, "In other words, three people. Three people I need to beware of." I was hit with that wave of relief that comes when you know something right and true has just been uncovered. The dream wasn't some dire prediction. It wasn't teasing me with mysterious new information in a kind of infuriating guessing game. It was simply clarifying and reminding me to stay focused on the three people who were conspiring to use my children to hurt me.

I felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders as I left John's office that morning. The fear that had kept me awake and pacing most of the night was replaced by a sense of resolved power, like when you turn on a bright light and discover that the terrifying, shadowy monster in the corner of your bedroom is nothing but a pile of clothes on a chair. My lawyer and I paid even closer attention to "the three" from that day on and, because we did, we won. I was awarded full custody of my children. Thank God.

If any one event sealed my commitment to explore the world of sleep and make its magic more available and understandable to my clients and to myself, it was that dream, its aftermath and everything I learned from the experience.

I learned that there's valuable clarity to be found while we sleep if we can just master the vocabulary to translate it.

I learned firsthand how lost, confused, and often frightened my clients felt when they came to me for help with their dreams, and I promised God and myself I would do everything in my power not to let them down.

I learned how important objectivity is when trying to figure out the purpose of a dream, and how easy it is for the conscious mind to overcomplicate a dream's meaning when very often the simplest answer is the right one.

I learned, above all, that the sleep world is richer, more varied, and far more vast than I ever imagined and that, as we'll explore in the course of this book, dreams are only the beginning of that world.

The Basics of Sleep

We all know how to sleep, and we all know that sleep is a biological and psychological necessity. But in the 1950s, researchers began doing formal, well-documented, and exhaustive studies of the whole process of sl...

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable and Intriguing
I was a bit skeptical at first but I found this to be interesting. While I don't find myself "travelling to the Other Side" often when I dream, I found her explanations plausible. And I definitely agree with her assessment that dream dictionaries are fine, but a symbol in a dream may mean something entirely different to each individual. I liked her "dividing" dreams into five types, including prophetic dreams, an informational or problem-solving dream, and astral visits.

Sylvia goes into detail to describe each of these "dream types," and points out in our society people don't give enough credit to dreams. She does spend a chapter describing dream symbols, and it's as good a "dream dictionary" as any I've seen.

She also describes ways to make a dream (especially a bad one) end differently by "telling yourself" it's only a dream and to "choose" a different ending to a recurring bad dream.

I felt Sylvia did a very good job in describing dreams and what they mean or may not mean. Several dream books I've skimmed through seem to follow a "template" of sorts in trying to explain what your dreams mean. And Sylvia went out of her way to do the opposite in explaining dreams.

I'm glad I took the time to read this book.

Dream...dream...dream....!
No, this book doesn't put you to sleep..! Sylvia discusses various forms of dreams and how they effect our lives and also how we can deal with them. Various forms from lurid, astral to prophetic Sylvia has examined and answered a multiple of questions from people over the years asking about dreams. Her ability to look in to the information and decipher the meaning was Sylvia at her best. I liked her subject dealing with deceased loved ones coming into communication during our sleep which is very fulfilling and informative. Like all of Sylvia's work this book is very well done and enjoyable to read. I always find out more about myself when I read her books and look forward to further publications from her!

Very Enlightening!!!!!!!!
I have to admit, I was afraid to start reading Sylvia's books in the beginning. Being raised Southern Baptist, I was taught from childhood that anything of this nature was strictly forbidden. Since I finally (thank God!) decided to open my mind and my heart, I have found a wealth of comfort, peace, and even confirmation. So many references in her books spark me to realize that I've known and believed this my whole life, but was afraid to question it, and ignorant as to how to put it into words. What a beautiful knowledge that there really is a Mother God and she loves us eternally and unconditionally! Astral catelepsy is something that I've experienced since early childhood, but never knew what it was. My brother is the only other person I know that has experienced it as well. I was so happy to read in this book that it's not death knocking at the door! Now that I know what it is, I have no more reason to be afraid of it. This book, along with every other book I've read of hers is definitely one that I would recommend to anyone! A must read!!!!