Sleep Monsters and Superheroes: Empowering Children through Creative Dreamplay

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

World-renowned contributors across several disciplines reveal how dreams can aid and empower children in daily life. Children can feel powerless in waking life, a fact that is often reflected in their dreams. This book shows how to take an active role in guiding children's dreams to help grow their confidence and improve their coping skills for real-life difficulties. Contributors from across various fields provide simple techniques to help children utilize dreamwork as a conduit for creative discovery and empowerment. Each chapter includes case studies and methods for working in practical ways with children, explaining what may trigger nightmares for children and how "monster" dreams can be guided to become "superhero" dreams. Essays encompass a spectrum of children's dreams with experts discussing dreams of trauma, dreams as a reflection of emotional and physical development, dreaming in the community, spiritual or religious dreams, lucid dreams, dreams during wartime, and dreams of death, among others. Throughout the work, the narrative discusses the use of dreams as teaching aids for use in art therapy, storytelling, and self-empowerment.

Reviews

The approach of the discussion surrounding therapies is always open-minded and non-judgmental. The writings are researched and documented well; these will be useful for parents, child caregivers, educators, and practitioners in child therapy. . . . This text is a highly recommended addition to collections in dream studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; faculty and professionals. * Choice *
Give[s] practical advice on how to record dreams as well as ways to use these records to solve problems or work through questions. * The Floyd Press *

Author Bio

Clare R. Johnson, PhD, is board director of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), a lucid dream researcher, a novelist, and an award-winning writer. Jean M. Campbell is editor of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) magazine, DreamTime, and CEO of the nonprofit research organization, The iMAGE Project.