Dreamcatching : Every Parent’s Guide to Exploring and Understanding Children’s Dreams and Nightmares.
Alan Siegel, Kelly Bulkeley
Three Rivers Press 1998
Purchase this Book
Dreams are a regular part of every child’s life and a powerful resource for every parent. Dreamcatching is the first comprehensive dreamwork book covering children’s first reported dreams around age two into adolescence. This practical guide to children’s dreams shows parents how to learn the hopes and fears that their children may not be able to articulate and to nurture their children’s creative, problem-solving, intellectual, and spiritual natures. Siegel and Bulkeley give guidance on how to encourage children to remember and share their dreams, and the book includes a “Dreamcatcher’s Workbook” which is filled with projects using drawing and painting, playacting, and other playful ways to bring to life the meanings of the dream.
Blurbs and Reviews
“Dreamcatching offers a wealth of scientifically backed information about the dream life of young people, and offers adults the opportunity to join with boys and girls in a voyage of social, psychological, and spiritual exploration.”
—Stanley Krippner, coauthor of The Mythic Path, editor of Dreamtime and Dreamwork
“Dreamcatching makes dealing with your children’s dreams the most thought-provoking game you’ve ever played…. The siple instructions geared to all stages of childhood dreaming propel you deeply into the imagination of the people you love most. This book is a joy.”
—Robert Bosnak, author of A Little Course in Dreams and Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming
“Few things are more vital in reclaiming the soul of our culture than to get families to share dreams and harvest their gifts of story, mutual understanding, and healing. Alan Siegel and Kelly Bulkeley have written a lucid, practical, and caring guide.”
—Robert Moss, author of Conscious Dreaming
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Family That Dreams Together
2. The Playful Creativity of Children’s Dreams
3. A Child’s Garden of Common Dream Themes
4. Nightmare Remedies: Helping Your Child Tame the Demons of the Night
5. Dreams of Growing Up: From Infancy through Adolescence
6. Dreams and the Changing Family: Divorce, Adoption, Blended Families, and new Siblings
7. First Aid for Crisis Dreams: Dream Patterns in Response to Crisis, Injury, Disability, Abuse, and Grief
8. Visions of Transcendence: Dreams and the Spiritual Life of Children
9. Social Influences on Children’s Dreams: Television, Sex-Role Stereotypes, and the State of the World
10. Your Dreams About Parenting
11. The Dream Catcher’s Workbook
Appendix A. Every Teacher’s Guide to Creative Dream Work for the Classroom
Appendix B. Annotated Bibliography of Children’s Books Related to Dreams
