Book Review: The Dream Gate

• The Dream Gate: Understand Your Dreams, Empower Your Life
• by Janet Piedilato
• REDFeather, 2023
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0764364914

I’ve been interested in dreams and dream interpretation since I was a teenager. I have several books on the subject. What sets this one apart is that Dr Piedilato writes not just about the dreams that we have when we’re asleep, but includes, “all altered-state experiences: visions, shamanic journeying, trance states, active imagination, and hypnotic encounters.”

The back cover tells us that the author holds two doctoral degrees, in biology and in transpersonal psychology. Some people with an academic background are able to adapt their writing style to a wider audience but Dr Piedilato’s prose lacks the common touch for me.

Here’s an entirely representative example from Chapter Two: “I wish to tell you that paying attention to the wider territory, which includes all these waking dream experiences, shall allow you entrance through the Dream Gate, actually helping increase the number of remembered sleep-generated dreams.”

The paragraphs tend to be on the long side. Sometimes there are only two or three paragraphs per densely written page. At times I wished a well-meaning editor had given Dr Piedilato some gentle suggestions on writing clear English for a non-academic audience.

Most books on getting to know your dreams suggest that you keep a dream diary by your bedside. In my experience, this is an essential step. If you’re not willing to write down what you remember of your dreams, it won’t be possible for you to deepen your understanding of your own, and other people’s, dreams.

Dr Piedilato writes not only about this essential step but suggests exploring ideas that emerge as we’re falling asleep in the state known as “hypnagogia”. We’re all familiar with this lovely, drifting-off state of mind. In order to recall and catch these images, the author offers this technique: “At night, placing their arm straight upward often helps…. As they begin to drift off to hypnagogia, their arm will fall and they will wake, catching, it is hoped, the momentary imagery that arose in the in-between state.”

Well, call me old-fashioned, but that’s not for me. If you read that and thought, “ooh I might well try that, I’m sure my partner would understand” then maybe this book could be your sort of thing.

Each chapter has a slightly pompous title. For example Chapter Three rather than being called say, “Tips to help you remember your dreams” is actually called “Dreams Elusive, Dismembered from the Dream upon Waking: How to Capture Dreams.”

Tip number 6 is something I’ve never seen elsewhere in a book on dreams: “Most of all, if we do not have a dream to remember, we simply must make one up!” Just write something down, any old thing. The author says that this demonstrates our intention of experiencing a dream. “Imaginal muscle stretching”.  Dr Piedilato says that after a short time this can really help people who are unable to remember their dreams.

I had high hopes for chapter 13: “Using Tarot Card Imagery to Empower Dream Interpretations”. I thought it might be about using our knowledge of the Tarot cards to see how they are referenced within a dream. For example, dreaming about driving a car might suggests VII The Chariot. That sort of thing. Instead, the author suggests doing a two-card spread, ideally from The Mystical Dream Tarot, but only looking at one card before falling asleep. Then in the morning, write down what you remember of your dreams and turn over the second card to see how that relates to the dream.

At the end of the chapter, Dr Piedilato seems to underplay there being anything special about Tarot by saying that whatever attracts your attention in the morning, not necessarily Tarot cards, can amplify the dream. “Thus using the Tarot cards, a beloved art book, or room imagery is a helpful way to broaden and widen our search for meaning.”

Part Two, which comprises the last 60 pages of the book, features six chapters about dream incubation. Nerys Dee in the book Your Dreams and What They Mean describes dream incubation as the ancient process of someone attuning themselves to a particular deity and requesting a dream to help with their problems.

Each chapter in Part Two of The Dream Gate contains a script designed to prepare you for a dream experience, similar to a ritual in preparation for a Tarot reading.

For example, Chapter Sixteen, “Approaching the Temple of Telesphorus: The Healing Asklepion for Personal Healing”, contains a six-page Pilgrimage Script. Dr. Piedilato suggests taping the script and leaving a twenty-minute gap between seeking the welcome of Telesphorus and the concluding section giving thanks for the healing. There are five Pilgrimage Scripts in total: Charonium, Telesphorus, the pyramid of Unas, Poseidon and Meretseger. If nothing else, these Pilgrimage Scripts represent an extensive piece of work, 10 out of 10 for effort.

There are some excellent ideas in this book, designed to help you to remember your dreams, build up your own vocabulary of dream symbols, and deepen the connection to your dreaming mind, even when you’re awake!