Choice Review

This book adds to the list of volumes on dreaming by coeditor Bulkeley (e.g., Dreaming in the World's Religions, CH, Jan'09, 46-2600) that focus on interreligious dialogue on dreams and dreaming between Muslims and Christians. In part 1, five essays deal with dreams in Christian traditions; the seven essays in part 2 address dreams in Muslim traditions. In part 3, seven essays are comparative. The structure echoes older phenomenology: empirically accurate and empathetic description as the prerequisite for a comparative search for commonalities. The editors' hoped-for reconciliation is achievable through the volume's capacity for education and for stimulating a dialogue that recognizes common appreciations of dreaming among Muslims and Christians. While questioning the importance of the Western psychology of dreams and their function, this volume embraces these communities' theological understandings of dreams as communications from the divine and argues that dreams can be interpreted vehicles to bring the two communities together in peaceful unity. Though written by scholars, this is not so much a critical scholarly text as a scholarly sermon exhorting readers to consider divine communication in their dreams and in the dreams of others. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above; general readers. J. C. Hanges Miami University