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Can one person's dream impact another's? Are dreams about each other relational information, or are all characters in dreams merely parts of the dreamer? These two pivotal questions asked by Tess Castleman over 17 years ago are the heart of Threads, Knots, Tapestries.
Entwined in her book are the tribal, synchronistic and relational stories of forming dream groups, their failures and successes, the questions and a few answers they bring to the analytical table.
While directed towards a broad professional community of therapists, psychologists, chaplains, even teachers, Castleman's book is easily accessible to the layman and is filled with stories and examples focusing on the less common, communal type of dreaming.
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 "Within one's own dream theatre, our stories unfold using the characters from our lives to weave a pattern - each connected to the other in facinating complexity."
Tess Castleman
What
readers are saying:
Tess Castleman cautions against taking books of dream symbols too seriously and her advice is very relevant if you are looking to analyze your own dreams. The color red could have many interpretations (power, anger or sexual experience) and elements in your dream could even solve problems in daily life.
The author believes our dreams are often more complex than they first appear. She unveils the mysteries in dreams on a daily basis and enters one of the most intimate places in the human psyche. Here our fears and desires are revealed in metaphors, feelings, images and symbols only we may understand.
Jung is mentioned quite often and there are discussions about the animus and anima. There is also a list of an individual psyche that includes the Persona, Ego, Complexes, Shadow, Anima/Animus, Tribal Field, Archetypes, The Self, Collective Unconscious.
The Tribal Field helps to explain synchronicity, while archetypes can help us understand our actions through universal images.
"The tribal of communal field, one's inner desire, the movement of the Self, does not reveal itself in drop-dead-jaw-agape synchronistic phenomena alone. It may just as likely emerge as a mild, quiet, connecting link, like the notes in a melody that flow one into the next in a chain or matrix of meaning and music." ~Tess Castleman
One interesting aspect of dreams is that when you talk about specific types of dreams with friends, you might start to have similar dreams or even induce dreams where someone has not been dreaming that much before or at least has not been remembering details of their dreams.
I love talking about dreams and analyzing my own dreams because I think they give us clues to how we are living our life, our destiny and our most secret and often hidden desires. For some reason, all my dreams lately have been about traveling to other planets and I think that might be symbolic of some change in my life in the near future. Blue has been a current theme. Just for fun, I will sometimes go online and type in things like "What does the color blue mean in dreams?" Some of the answers make perfect sense.
Dreams can be mysterious and exciting, but what happens in the day in regards to synchronicity can also be quite entertaining. Like, I am still trying to figure out why everything one of my friends talks about instantly appears in movies I'm watching.
Threads, Knots, Tapestries will be especially helpful to anyone who wants to join or start a dream group. If you are not participating in a dream group, the information may encourage you to analyze your dreams in more depth. What you dream could be important for a friend or relative or maybe even the entire world.
~The Rebecca Review
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Sifting through stories, myths, and beliefs about dreams.
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Fascinating Reading
This review is from: Threads, Knots, Tapestries: How a Tribal Connection Is Revealed through Dreams and Synchronicities (Paperback)
Is it possible that our dreams affect others and the dreams of others affect ours? Is there some kind of collective dream world that we all share in and that through it we affect each other? These are the kind of questions author Tess Castleman, a Jungian Analyst based out of Dallas, Texas, examines in her book "Threads, Knots, Tapestries". Her primary area of interest and expertise is the use of dream groups. After years of studying these groups she now shares her experience and how common dream threads demonstrate our interconnectedness with each other.
Some schools of psychology teach that all the characters of your dream are just different parts of yourself. Is it possible that there are times when a dream is much more than this? Tess Castleman examines situations where it appears there is some type of communal dreaming occurring. Apparently there is some sort of collective dream world that we can all access and do at times. Going one step further she shows how we may be interacting not only other people, but also with our environment itself, or even with other cultures.
"Threads, Knots, Tapestries" is a fascinating trip into the realm of possibilities and how closely we may all be bound together in the web of life.
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Are we interconnected through our dreams? Maybe.
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Is it possible that our dreams affect others and the dreams of others affect ours? Is there some kind of collective dream world that we all share in and that through it we affect each other? These are the kind of questions author Tess Castleman, a Jungian Analyst based out of Dallas, Texas, examines in her book "Threads, Knots, Tapestries". Her primary area of interest and expertise is the use of dream groups. After years of studying these groups she now shares her experience and how common dream threads demonstrate our interconnectedness with each other.
Some schools of psychology teach that all the characters of your dream are just different parts of yourself. Is it possible that there are times when a dream is much more than this? Tess Castlemen examines situations where it appears there is some type of communal dreaming occurring. Apparently there is some sort of collective dream world that we can all access and do at times. Going one step further she shows how we may be interacting not only other people, but also with our environment itself, or even with other cultures.
"Threads, Knots, Tapestries" is a fascinating trip into the realm of possibilities and how closely we may all be bound together in the web of life.
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Thank you for a job well done! Written in a conversational tone, sharing personal anecdotes of years of dream groups, Castleman reminded me we are never alone in our endeavors. As an artist I spend most of my time alone in the studio, but the time in altered states of consciousness, similar to dreaming, that can come about when emersed in the process of art work, puts me into the company of the collective where eagles soar. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Ms. Castleman steps into a gap often left in Jungian literature. She invites us to consider the realm of the communal unconscious - the territory found between the more explored regions of the personal and collective unconscious. Here we find a rich new way of thinking about some of the people and objects, places and events that we experience in our dreams. Ms. Castleman wants us to look at the complicated way in which personal dreams impact the larger community and other individuals. It is compelling and essential that we do so.
"Threads" also serves as a guide to working with dreams in a group. Excellent practice for coming to understand the impact of dreams beyond the individual. Her references are often to Native American traditions, combined with many years of her own professional practice.
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Articulate, concise and very wise, "Threads, Knots and Tapestries" is readable and fun as well as scholarly. Important material for the lay person and the professional alike.
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