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Dreaming: A Gateway to the Unconscious?

Dreaming: A Gateway to the Unconscious?

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

The New York Academy of Sciences

Presented By

The Nour Foundation

Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge

The New York Academy of Sciences

 

Video of the full event is available on the Nour Foundation's YouTube channel.

Where do our dreams originate from, and what do they tell us? Is there a universal set of symbols that are common to all dreams, regardless of a person's ethnicity or culture? What does dreaming reveal about the unconscious? Why do some dreams remain etched in our memories, whereas others are almost instantly forgotten? Some scientists have adopted the position that dreams are little more than noise in the brain, without any substantive purpose or function. Yet such a stance seemingly runs counter to the experience of many people who reflect upon and even analyze their dreams, often in search of clues to their daily lives or insights into their deeper selves. Similarly, in virtually all wisdom traditions, dreams are invoked as an important source of revelation or prophecy. Psychologist Deirdre Leigh Barrett, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley, and sleep/dream medicine expert Rubin Naiman will examine dreams from a variety of perspectives to answer these questions.

*Reception to follow.

Featuring

Deirdre Leigh Barrett, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Past President, International Association for the Study of Dreams
Co-editor of Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams: The Evolution, Function, Nature, and Mysteries of Slumber

Kelly Bulkeley, PhD

Director, Sleep and Dream Database; Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
Author of Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History

Rubin Naiman, PhD

Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
Author of Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening

Moderator

Steve Paulson

Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio's nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge

Registration — Individual Lecture Prices

Member (including students)$5
Nonmember$15
Nonmember (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow)$7


This event is part of the Unlocking the Unconscious: Exploring the Undiscovered Self series.

Moderated by Wisconsin Public Radio's Steve Paulson, this three-part series brings together leading scientists and scholars to probe the largely unexamined realm of the unconscious mind through a mix of disciplinary approaches, including neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and psychotherapy.

To learn more about each lecture and to purchase tickets, click on the links below.

• Delving Within: The New Science of the Unconscious, Wednesday, October 26, 2016

• Dreaming: A Gateway to the Unconscious? Wednesday, December 7, 2016

• The Deeper Self: An Expanded View of Consciousness, Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Featuring

Deirdre Leigh Barrett, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Past President, International Association for the Study of Dreams
Co-editor of Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams: The Evolution, Function, Nature, and Mysteries of Slumber

Deirdre Barrett, PhD, is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard where she teaches courses on dreams to undergraduates, psychiatry residents and psychology interns, and lectures on hypnosis. She is Past President of both the International Association for the Study of Dreams and The Society for Psychological Hypnosis. She has written four books including The Committee of Sleep, The Pregnant Man: Cases from a Hypnotherapist's Couch, and Supernormal Stimuli. She is the editor of four additional books including The New Science of Dreaming, Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, and Trauma and Dreams. She is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal, Dreaming. Dr. Barrett has published dozens of academic articles and chapters on dreams, hypnosis, sleep talking, and evolutionary psychology. Her current work focuses on dreams and creative problem solving and on lucid dreaming.

Dr. Barrett's commentary on dreams has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, Fox, and The Discovery Channel. She has been interviewed for dream articles in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time, Life, and Newsweek. Her own articles have appeared in Psychology Today and Scientific American. Dr. Barrett has lectured at Esalen, the Smithsonian, and at universities around the world.

Kelly Bulkeley, PhD

Director, Sleep and Dream Database; Visiting Scholar, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
Author of Dreaming in the World's Religions: A Comparative History

Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, is a psychologist of religion focusing on dreams and dreaming. He is director of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), a Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and a Senior Editor of the APA journal Dreaming. He earned a BA at Stanford University, an MTS at Harvard Divinity School, and a doctorate at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is author and editor of several books, including The Wondering Brain (Routledge, 2005), Dreaming Beyond Death (Beacon, 2006), American Dreamers (Beacon, 2008), Dreaming in the World's Religions (NYU Press, 2008), Lucid Dreaming (ABC-Clio, 2014), Big Dreams (Oxford University Press, 2016), and the forthcoming Lucrecia the Dreamer (Stanford University Press). He currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

Rubin Naiman, PhD

Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
Author of Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening

Rubin Naiman, PhD, is the sleep and dream specialist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, directed by Dr. Andrew Weil. Dr. Naiman is founder and director of NewMoon Sleep, LLC, an organization that offers a broad range of sleep and dream related services, trainings and consultation internationally. He has spearheaded the development of integrative medicine approaches to sleep and dreams, creatively weaving medical and neurophysiological perspectives with archetypal and transpersonal views. For fifteen years, Dr. Naiman served as the sleep and dream specialist at Canyon Ranch and Miraval Health Resorts. He currently maintains a private practice specializing in sleep and dream loss with clients ranging from leading CEOs to world-class athletes and from homemakers to statesmen and entertainers. Dr. Naiman is the author of a number of groundbreaking works on sleep, including Healing Night, Healthy Sleep (with Andrew Weil), The Yoga of Sleep, and Hush: A Book of Bedtime Contemplations, as well as various professional book chapters and articles. He also blogs about sleep and dreams for the Huffington Post. Please see www.drnaiman.com.

Moderator

Steve Paulson

Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio's nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge

Steve Paulson is the executive producer and an interviewer with To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Peabody Award-winning radio program produced at Wisconsin Public Radio and syndicated nationally by Public Radio International. Paulson has written for Salon, Slate, Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Independent and other publications. His radio reports have also been broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His recent book, Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science, was published by Oxford University Press.

Sponsors

Presented by

  • The New York Academy of Sciences
  • Nour Foundation
  • To the Best of Our Knowledge

Media Sponsor

Promotional Partners

The Dana Foundation

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