Ann Faraday was a writer on dreams in the 1970s. She began as a REM researcher whose subjects wanted to know what their dreams meant, and she retained her scientific clarity even while discussing the outrageous. Her book Dream Power is a solid introduction to dreamwork much like the work of Patricia Garfield or Celia Green, but it emphasizes the views of different cultures worldwide (unusual for 1972). Her sequel, The Dream Game (1974), is my favorite how-to book on advanced dreamwork. Open-minded, witty, full of sample dreams, with original theories on literal dreams and dream warnings, visual and verbal puns, and the notoriously spotty nature of psychic dreams (briefly: when it works, it works, and skeptics just haven't experienced one; but skeptics and believers alike picture ESP as like vision, when it's more like radar or sonar--without active scanning, no echoes come back. And we scan for issues troubling us now.)

She's also original in her treatment of sex dreams; where Freud sees sex symbols in everything superficially nonsexual imagery, she argued explicit sexual dreams can illustrate hard-to-visualize nonsexual issues. Sex with a guy with erection problems might mean your dream finds his thinking less than firm; getting in bed with a child might mean taking up a very new project or discipline; sleeping with a politician, siding with that party or position.

Her closest modern parallel is probably Marc Ian Barasch, Healing Dreams. They both emphasize dreams vary wildly and even a single dream can be multilayered--literal here, symbolic there, sometimes personal, sometimes wider. For Faraday and Barasch, most dream theories (Freud, Jung, Perls, ancient dream dictionaries or this week's newest brain-science) dispute details, but share the same core flaw: one-size-fits-all universality. I have to concur.

RELATED TOPICS: predecessors Emanuel Swedenborg, Hervey de St. Denys, Alfred Maury, Carl Jung, JW Dunne, Nancy Price, Louisa Rhine, JB Priestley - contemporaries Montague Ullman, William Dement, Gayle Delaney - successor: Mark Ian Barasch - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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	BOAR: by Ann Faraday, 1974, a punning book-review dream DREAM: I'm in a restaurant offering just one dish: wild boar, for $12. Excessive. I say no. NEXT DAY: I tackle a book review I must write. The book costs $12. Excessive. Oh! It's a...
	EASY RIDER: by Ann, a psychology professor, c.1972, an incubated, revealing dream. I ask my dreams if my dad's influencing my divorce. I dream my dad warns me "You can't ride a motorcycle." I mount the bike and zoom down the road. I love it. When I park at last, my dad says...
	FETAL SLIDESHOW: by Rachel; c.1973, a misinterpreted recurrent diagnostic dream I dreamed at least weekly I had to view a slide showing something wrong with my fetus. I assumed the dreams expressed doubts about motherhood--until my miscarriage...
	GOLD NECKLACE: by Elaine, c.1970, told to Ann Faraday; a subliminal or psychic warning dream DREAM: My husband was slipping a gold necklace onto a slim, dark girl I'd never met. I woke and sketched it... AFTER: He was having an affair with the girl, and gave her the necklace the night of my dream--her birthday...
	HATCHET JOB: by Ann Faraday, 1972 or 3; a lucid shamanic predictive dream DREAM: I'm in the Arctic facing a hostile mob. I insist "I'm dreaming; you can't hurt me." They try! I look down at my body, stuck full of hatchets, and say "See?" They slink off, looking sheepish... TWO DAYS LATER: I'm in northern England. A reporter snaps "Dreams won't help the miners..."
	HELL-CHESS and COMING CAUSES AMNESIA: by Wayan; 1985/3/10, twin surreal dream-poems Hell Chess isn't just black and white. Living women, from weak pawns to transcendent rainbow queens... Coming Causes Amnesia: reincarnation, 69, and plate tectonics all fuse in lava-hot orgasm... CAUTION: ORAL SEX IN DREAM TWO
	HOPE: by Elsie Sechrist's student; c.1973, the ultimate punning dream. A student of Elsie Sechrist reports a dream in which Bob Hope came jumping down the street on a pogo stick, expressing the dreamer's feeling that...
	LONG JOHNS by Ann Faraday, 1972; punning dreamlets on two consecutive nights DREAM 1: A man wearing long white underwear shoots me down with a machine gun. DAY: Long John Nebel interviews me; his Freudian friend calls me a penis-envying woman. DREAM 2: Long John and his buddy umpire a rough baseball game. Definitely not cricket... CAUTION: SEXISM, FREUDIANS, PUNS
	MAGGOTS: by Ann, a psychology professor, c.1973, the most reassuring nightmare ever! I ask my dreams to evaluate my current relationship. I dream I'm vomiting up big maggots, and a mirror shows smaller maggots eating one eye! In dream group, I ask the maggots who they are, and they say... CAUTION: GROSS, BUT POSITIVE UNDER THE HORROR SKIN
	MARRY MY SHADOW: by Ann Faraday, c.1972, recurrent nightmares ending in a wedding In nightmares I was stalked by a big ugly bruiser. At last, I faced him, asking "What do you want?" He asked for my hand. His animal energy attracted me, and despite my doubts I said yes...
	MUSIC SABOTEUR: by Amy, c.1973; Gestalt unveils the saboteur behind a frustration dream At college, my sheet music arrives from home, but vanishes when I try to play--or the piano does...
	NIXON AND CHOU: by John Wren-Lewis, c.1973, a character-evaluation dream of Ann Faraday DREAM: I'm in the White House. Nixon blows his nose on the curtains! I think "despite his crudity, he reached out to China." DAY: my wife Ann has a cold--she's Nixon! The dream concedes she has private flaws, but she's pioneered dream research...
	PAY CUT: by Sara, 1973/6/23, a surgery nightmare with practical advice DREAM: Surgeons cut off both my breasts--without my consent! I feel resigned, but the staff is upset... DAY: I'm interviewing for a job offering $2,000 less than I make now. Told myself it's OK, but... CAUTION: MALPRACTICE, MUTILATION
	PIANO-PLAYING JANE: by Jane, 1972-3?, recurring frustration dreams When I try to play the piano in public I get sabotaged. At last I see a child who says she can't play while she's in pain...
	RONALD'S FORBIDDEN FIELD: by Ronald, patient of Jan Ehrenwald, before 1954, a telepathic dream? DREAM: a distinctive house with a tempting green field by it. But the field's forbidden... DAY: Ronald's analyst had rented that house--but the adjacent field was forbidden... CAUTION: E.S.P. THEORIES
	TIGER DIALOGUES: 1973-4 by Ann Faraday, plus a dreamlet by John Wren-Lewis; recurring dreams When I overwork, neglecting my body's wants, I dream of an angry tiger. Over time, I've learned (mostly) to feed my tiger, and sometimes he's an ally now...

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