The best books about dreams

I am a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in ADHD. My passion for dreams overlaps with my interest in ADHD which is commonly associated with daydreaming. I have intensively studied dreams in courses, conferences, experiential dream groups, and in years-long therapy that focused only on dream interpretation. I have seen dreams offer insights and at times solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems in my client's lives and also in my own life. I am an author writing on ADHD, executive functioning, and depression including the books The Gift of Adult ADD and The Six Super Skills for Executive Functioning. Dreams can offer insights into all of these conditions suggesting perspectives and healing actions.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in ADHD. My passion for dreams overlaps with my interest in ADHD which is commonly associated with daydreaming. I have intensively studied dreams in courses, conferences, experiential dream groups, and in years-long therapy that focused only on dream interpretation. I have seen dreams offer insights and at times solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems in my client's lives and also in my own life. I am an author writing on ADHD, executive functioning, and depression including the books The Gift of Adult ADD and The Six Super Skills for Executive Functioning. Dreams can offer insights into all of these conditions suggesting perspectives and healing actions.

Having grown up on S.E. Hinton, I love a good, gritty young adult novel that doesn’t pull any punches! In my book, Black Chuck, four misfit teens suddenly find themselves cast adrift after the very charismatic Shaun dies, leaving them to navigate their way to adulthood without their leader. All the books on this list are coming-of-age stories about kids growing up in tough circumstances, finding love, making mistakes, getting hurt, and ultimately finding joy in a world that at times seems set against them.

My books may never be a child’s favorite nighty-night story, but I think they offer fresh minds opportunities to visit some unusual places. There are goblins in the forest; so let’s go there together, in delight, holding hands. My poems and illustrations have been featured in numerous books and magazines and honored by the National  Council of Teachers of English and the Society of Illustrators. I live with my youngest son in upstate New York, in a house filled with bikes and balls, color, and music.

Although I had many intriguing dreams during my childhood, including fantastic flying dreams, the idea of becoming a sleep scientist never crossed my mind. All that changed during my first year in college. It was then that I experienced an exceptionally long and vivid lucid dream that changed my life; it was because of this dream that I decided to become a dream researcher. Today, I’m a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, director of the department’s Dream Research Laboratory, and have published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters on sleep and dreams. I don’t have as many flying dreams as I once did, but I do have a really cool job while awake. 

I’ve always been a daydreamer – I spent a lot of my childhood imagining the different places I could go if I just crawled through some magical crack in the universe or discovered a hidden tunnel under my bedroom floor. So fantasy has been at the top of my reading list forever. Fantasy does what all great books do, just more explicitly – they take you somewhere new, and by leaving this world behind, they give you a fresh perspective on everything that’s old and familiar. My favorite fantasies take big ideas and play them out in language rich enough to make me love that new and alien place with a passion. 

I’ve illustrated and written over 50 children’s picture books and now teach the subject of writing and illustration for all stages up to University level. I’m particularly interested when a student presents a challenging theme a publisher might balk at on commercial grounds: we have plenty of books about pirates, fairies, dinosaurs, and monsters under the bed, but relatively few on the important lessons that life can throw at a child. Race, abuse, depression, or disability (with which I have personal experience) are subjects rarely seen in book stores and can be difficult starting points for a successful children’s book. But the restrictions themselves can often be the source of great creativity.    

I'm an anarcho-feminist who has a special interest in magic; I consider it my guilty pleasure. I write dark and gritty stories that delve into gender, trauma, and mental illness, yet discover hope and freedom in the pit of darkness. I'm best known as a horror writer, but it’s more accurate to say that I create dark-fantasy and speculative fiction. My themes reflect the darkness which feels ubiquitous in the world, especially now in this age of extremes and pandemics, but I always search for the glimmer of light, the flame of hope that we can make a better future. I've always been fascinated by the Goth aesthetic and enchanted by post-punk threnodies.

I love Aotearoa New Zealand books! Our writers are brave, feisty, original - and living in ‘the land of the long white cloud’ at the bottom of the globe gives us a unique take on the world that permeates through everything we write. But we struggle to get our voices heard internationally, so far from the rest of you! This is your chance to push out your boundaries and explore stories that derive from a culture very different from your own, while sharing the same human emotions that bring us all together. As one of these writers, I challenge you to check us out – you won’t be disappointed!

Everyone dreams, even if you don’t remember them, you dream. I have researched dreams and stories concerning dreams for decades. There are more than a handful of dream fiction books I admire and would recommend, but here are five that I think should be singled out. I am a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams to try to keep my finger on the pulse of peer-reviewed papers concerning the ‘yet-to-be-explained’ purpose of dreaming. I wrote this story because I can see a future where dreams become mainstream entertainment, it is just a matter of time and technology.