Ultimate Illustrated Guide to Dreams, Signs & Symbols

This title includes identification and analysis of the visual vocabulary and secret language that shapes our thoughts and dreams and dictates our reactions to the world. It is an illustrated exploration of humanity's universal visual vocabulary through history and around the world, with expert commentary and definitions. It provides rich resource of iconographic images and thematic symbols, including such ancient signs as the circle, the cross and the star as well as complex abstracts such as the Mother, the Cave, the Dragon and the Holy Grail. It helps you learn how to unlock the secret language of your personal dream world: a profound exploration of the world of dreaming, revealing the importance dreams have for understanding the self, and our world. It explores the spiritual, as well as literary and artistic, significance of our ancient mythologies, religions, scientific developments and popular culture in one unparalled volume. It offers over 2000 visual depictions, including photographs, paintings and illustrations, and 3000 line artworks. Many symbols carry an elemental power that transcends boundaries and holds significance for other cultures. This comprehensive and beautiful book discusses and illustrates thousands of these symbols and assesses their position in language, art, literature, mythology, magic, religion and psychology. In the second half of the book, how we dream and how we interpret dreams is analysed as a way of accessing our subconscious fears, desires and preoccupations. The erudite text provides a wealth of cultural background to primal metaphors that are part of mankind's universal language. This book is both a journey of discovery into the importance of symbolism and dreaming and a vast visual resource of signs and symbols.