Here are a few books offered on a variety of topics. They've been read by the author of the site and come highly recommended.

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Product Description

"Wrestling With Ghosts" summarizes and updates a growing literature that includes traditional cultural accounts, scientific research, and subjective reports about the uncanny sleep disorder referred to as sleep paralysis (SP). The book serves as an important tool to normalize the sleep paralysis experience by attempting to remove its often-publicized mystical and supernatural aura. Specifically, the book is a serious contribution to the psychological and social scientific literature as an example of behavioral/social methodology in clarifying psychological phenomena that can be misinterpreted individually or by culture as "paranormal." However, the book does not refute the very real phenomenology of the experience and is intended as a practical guide for recognizing and managing the disorder in creative and self-enhancing ways. Moreover, this work reiterates the aesthetic and creative power of uncanny dreaming regardless of its origin. This aesthetic dimension of sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming is part of mythical, shamanic, creative, personal and scientific multidisciplinary approach to studying and describing dream phenomenology.

Additionally, this work provides a retrospective look at the history of this uncanny disorder in human evolution, its recent western medical history and its most recent empirical descriptions as so-called alien abduction cases, including a presentation of Jungian and Freudian mythical perspectives. The empirical data is presented in balance with traditional cross-cultural and folklore accounts of the disorder as well as in the context of numerous recent cases researched in conjunction with the long-term study. Part of the data presented includes a proposal about psycho-geographical and psycho-geomagnetic distributions of "ghost" stories, dream attacks, and other SP related phenomena. These geographical zones correlate with geodynamic areas such as the Pacific "Ring of Fire" region where an increased number of cultural name

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #692133 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

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Customer Reviews

I now know more about sleep paralysis
Years of not knowing whether I was crazy, hallucinating, or drinking too much tea all but disappeared when I finished reading Dr. Sevilla`s excellent book. Even though my knowledge of sleep paralysis has grown in the last year, I thought I was alone in my recent capacity, or ability to move from the paralysis state to more fun lucid dreaming. Dr. Sevilla explains how he and others do this making me feel less alone. His proactive management of the debilitating paralysis and turning it into a positive experience makes this a hopeful and optimistic book about the syndrome.

Dr. Sevilla also provides a wealth of information and scientific background (his and others) that makes his book an excellent reference book. There a lot of technical terms used throughout the book and he explains all of them in an accessible language. He uses the metaphor of a `dream shaman` as a literary tool to identify with the reader and to link the personal-phenomenological information with the more formidable and specialized scientific literature.

Included in the book is a dream questionnaire that I found very useful and probes deeply into the kind of experiences dreamers are likely to describe if they experience both SP and LD or any other type of dream. A keeper.

Balancing the "spooky" with science
I just finished re-reading this amazing and unusual book. A friend of mine who suffers from sleep paralysis (she is interested in any books about dreams!) recommended it to me.
Most books that I have read on the subject of dreams are either too "out there" or offer too little practical advice that I can incorporate into my dream life. Dr. Conessa Sevilla's book presents a well-balanced scientific, practical, "spooky" story, not only in regards to sleep paralysis, but about lucid dreaming as well.
His book also incorporates narratives of individuals who have experienced these dreams.
Some of the more psychological (bio-psychological or Freudian)explanations he offers, I must admit, were either new to me.
Finally, Dr. Conessa re-interprets the sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming experiences from the point of view of aesthetics.
Cordially,
J. Rodman