A Dream in the World

Robin E. van Loben Sels serves on the faculty of the Center for Depth Pscychology and Jungian Studies in Katonah, New York. She is currently in private practice in Manhatten and Katonah (New York) and Ridgefield (Connecticut).

How can science and religion co-exist in the modern discipline of psychotherapy? A Dream in the World explores the interfaces between religious experience and dream analysis.

Introduction. Dream-in-the-World. The Dream Sequence. Religious Experience and the Psyche. Religious Experience and the Body. A Quantum Stance. A New Story of Our Place in the Cosmos. Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Mystical Experience. The Body as Locus for Religious Experience: Mairi and Hadewijch. A Capacity for Religious Experience: Quantum Mind and the Psycho-Spiritual Senses. Quantum Mind. Dreams as Portals to the Quantum Mind. Psycho-Spiritual Senses. Fully Human Consciousness: Paradox and the Capacity to Participate. Jung's Religious Terminology: Self (and Spirit), Soul (and Psyche). Self and Individuation. Soul and Spirit. Self-Directive Dreams. Part II: The Dreamer and Her Dreams. Dreams with Commentary. 1 - Red Circus Tent. 2 - Flaming Angel. 3 - Snowy Mountains, Two Children. 4 - Ordeal by Spiders. 5 - Two-ness Beneath the Ocean. 6 - Artichoke Dream. 7 - Lightning Strike. 8 - Silver Fish Kiss. Waking Vision. 9 - Burning Stone. 10 - Three Angels. 11 - One the Beach, Naked Woman, Fiery Skin. 12 - Four Colors. 13 - Buddha With a Globe. 14 - Statue of a Woman. 15 - Swami B. is Dancing. 16 - Rose Dream. 17 - Bird With Jeweled Wings. 18 - White Elephant on a White Sea. 19 - Self-Birth. 20 - The Lunar Tree. 21 - The Solar Tree. 22 - Hands Holding the Earth. 23 - Cowlick and Re-entry. Part III: "Falling Through:" Experience of Soul. Psychological Commentary. Self-Directive Dreams and Initiation. Personification, Personalisation and "Indwelling". Winnicott's Personalisation and Indwelling. Beyond Personalisation to Personhood. Reflections on Psyche and Soul. Limitations of Winnicott's View of Religion As "Necessary Illusion". Part IV: Hadewijch's Paradox. Hadewijch and the Beguines. Literary Contributions. Beguine Spirituality. Mysticism and the Body. Hadewijch and the Feminine. Soul and Self-Transformation . Part V: Summary and Conclusions. Individuation and the Religious Instinct. Centrality of the Soul in Religious Experience. Anima Mundi. Loss and Recovery of a World View. Bibliography.