Dreaming Reality
How Neuroscience and Mysticism Can Unlock the Secrets of Consciousness
Steven Jay Lynn author Vladimir Miskovic author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Harvard University Press
Publishing:30th Oct '26
£20.95
This title is due to be published on 30th October, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A cutting-edge neuroscientist and a leading clinical psychologist look to religious, mystical, and mind-altering experience to challenge scientific orthodoxies concerning consciousness.
We are nothing but a pack of neurons, Francis Crick once said. But while there may be some truth to this way of thinking, it is also an obstacle to understanding consciousness. Dreaming Reality responds by connecting the latest findings from neuroscience to the insights of the world’s mystical traditions, which chart elaborate cartographies of the mind through experiences of meditation, prayer, and ecstasy. Vladimir Miskovic and Steven Jay Lynn show how we can tackle the biggest questions surrounding the nature of consciousness when we place objective scientific research alongside the phenomenology of “altered” states.
While neuroscience privileges the experience of waking life, Dreaming Reality finds that we have much to learn from dreams, hallucinations, and visionary states. Miskovic and Lynn delve into Buddhism, Vedanta, and Christian mysticism, addressing questions of selfhood from the standpoints of ego death, mind wandering, sensory deprivation, psychedelic experimentation, and minimal phenomenal experiences of consciousness.
Ably explores recent developments in neuroscience and psychology. -- Dan Turello * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Brings together what is known about dreams, memories, emotions, and sleep and how they are related to brain structure and function…[a] thoughtful conversation on consciousness. -- Catherine Lantz * Library Journal *
A fascinating journey through empirical science and contemplative wisdom, Dreaming Reality illuminates how our sense of self—our sensations, perceptions, and even actions—can be extended beyond the limited modern view of the individual to an expanded state of belonging and a broader experience of who we are. -- Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of IntraConnected and Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute
This is a remarkable book. Written by two authors with impeccable command of scientific modalities and an intimate familiarity with meditation traditions from around the world, Dreaming Reality invites readers to an exciting and exemplary new dialogue between neuroscience and religion. -- Martin Laird, author of An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation
A necessary and welcome departure from the classic intellectual, nihilistic, materialistic, and reductionist view of the mind and the brain. This book takes a fresh look at what is possible when scientific approaches and contemplative traditions are taken together to better understand human consciousness. -- Marc Wittmann, author of Altered States of Consciousness
Nothing is more commonplace than our daily experience of thoughts, emotions, objects, and dreams, but no scientific theory can yet explain even one specific conscious experience. Dreaming Reality explores our elusive consciousness from the vantages of neuroscience, evolution, spirituality, psychedelics, and dreams, providing a genial and captivating guide to the fundamental mystery at the core of our being. -- Donald D. Hoffman, author of The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes
ISBN: 9780674306097
Dimensions: 235mm x 156mm x 25mm
Weight: 553g
392 pages