This book is a very deep essay that combines religion, theories, science, psychology, reality, and the universe. The author goes through very detailed experiments and thought process to figure out how our dreams are connected to the universe, each other, life, and everything else.
Dreams are a projection of our unfulfilled expectations from waking state; its almost as if its a "what if" scenario without the emotional charge. The author then goes on to explain about the universe, our roles in it, what we should do with each other, free will and predetermined fate. He also interjects a few studies from other religious leaders and some psychology terms. Everything is all very connected with each other. This book really needs a glossary in the back for some of the ideas and terms the books talks about; there were many times where I struggle to follow along because the author only describes a specific term once and it's just written out as acronyms for the rest of the book. ( )

Clearly, Joe Griffin, shares his passionate thoughts about philosophy. “Where is the essence of all things? … It’s something philosophers have been arguing about for the millennia.”

He shares his personal history of his family and employment and talks about dreams he’s had in relations to what he feels it’s all about. There are his words on karma, reincarnation, past lives free will and more. He refers to the knowledge of well-known philosophers throughout the book.

He talks about the need to detach. “There is such a strong sense of empowerment in feeling angry and having fantasies about ways to get revenge that when we feel we have been wronged, we are exceedingly unwilling to contemplate forgiveness.” He says we must detach from anger and resentment to evolve spiritually. It’s a huge challenge when we are extremely bothered by a situation.

I didn’t know what to expect with this book but I thought the concept sounded interesting. This is written for people with more experience and knowledge of philosophy that I have. ( )

A peculiar and frequently unfathomable melange of autobiography, dream analysis, self-help manual and mysticism. Paul McKenna meets Meister Eckhart.

In his introduction the author appears to confide that he has solved the mystery of the meaning of life. He modestly acknowledges that various others have also been selflessly chipping away at this irritating little conundrum on our behalf over the last few millennia but is pleased to announce that his method is minus the imperfections of earlier efforts in this direction. This self-congratulatory tone pervades the entire book.

If you prefer your mysticism served in a self-aggrandising sauce of Madison Avenue style hyperbole then this is for you - your dream book, in fact. ( )

This is an electronic book from the Early Reviewers.There were sections of the book that showed some insight and creativity like interpretation of dreams being focused on personal recent experience and unresolved emotional expression. I found the author to be naïve regarding his beliefs in encounters with dead people and his poorly used analogies of scientific principles with metaphysics and religion. I seriously tried to make sense of some of his theories but find them to be merely opinion without basis. I found the book unacceptably obtuse and irrational. ( )

Disclosures:
a) I received a review copy of this from the publisher PublishNation through LibraryThing
b) Sometimes a title is metaphorical and tickles the curiosity. As it turns out, in this case it isn't and that should have been evident from - and this is my bad - some key words I missed in the description: "revolutionary new understanding" is the warning shot ("revolutionary" almost always means fringe), and "Clear and compelling answers"... well, no; not compelling (or clear)
c) I am a skeptic, and I consider myself a philomath who gets jazzed by philomathy. I can be convinced...it has happened many times... but the evidence must be real (not anecdotal)

So, how do I review a book for whom I was clearly not the target audience? Hmmm, who it might appeal to? I'm thinking fans of Robert Anton Wilson and his Quantum Psychology, or Eckhart Tolle. Robert Lanza and his Biocentrism. Probably fans of Deepak Chopra.

Now, the first third is the closest to science, with a potential theory of dream reasons (although there is a wild story of spontaneous healing of second degree sunburn through hypnosis… “to our amazement the next day, the blisters and red skin had all but disappeared.”) Then the second third fuzzes with mysticism and something called Essence of Things. My review most certainly should refrain from using most of the descriptive adjectives and nouns in my comments on my many, many notes.

The last third is untethered. Richard Dawkins coined Dawkins’ Law of the Conservation of Difficultym which states that "obscurantism in an academic subject expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity. Physics is a genuinely difficult and profound subject, so physicists need to – and do – work hard to make their language as simple as possible..." There is obscurantism in semi-philosophical subjects as well. And invented terms: ;blockquote>In Godhead The Brains Big Bang, we put forward a theory which we called “the oscillating universe” to explain how the mystical experience of the universe and physics could be reconciled. Basically, we theorised that the universe was going in and out of existence in a never-ending series of big bangs. We suggested that there were two basic particles in the universe. Relatons, which we saw as self- conscious information particles, and solitons which we saw as particles of pure energy. When the solitons were completely restrained by the relatons, they cancelled each other out leaving just “I AM” consciousness. The solitons were continuously breaking free from this restraint in new big bangs, which the relatons had to reintegrate and restore the order of “I AM”. Relatons? Solitons? Okay, solitons are an actual physics term (a solitary wave acting like a quasi-particle)

Some of the many things that make you go… “huh?”:

Dr. Griffin asks “Why is the universe so unreasonably susceptible to mathematical analysis?”

On Descartes, “Thinking, he concluded, was very different from material things. This led him to believe that mind and body are separate, and this is the rabbit hole that scientists and philosophers are still trying to escape from.” Philosophers maybe.

“We can see then that there is an absolute cosmic imperative for reincarnation to take place. ” Um….

One note on my review copy:
Adapting some nine Human Givens to business, “So these became our seven needs as illustrated in the diagram on the next page.” My copy had no diagram.

An extra star for the creativity. ( )