The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our Lives

While the limitations of the purely materialist worldview have been known for some time — the English Romantics wrote about its failure to provide meaning & depth two centuries ago — it's only in the past 60-70 years or so that the symbolist worldview has been gaining real ground as a necessary alternative & remedy to reductionism & that pure materialism — "a Universe of Death" as William Blake called it.Now, do I unquestioningly accept everything proposed in this book? By no means … but then, it's not presented as dogma, something to accept blindly. Rather, it offers a broader, deeper look at the Universe, and at our place within it — a place with genuine personal meaning, sacred meaning, with that encompassing sense of Oneness that so many have experienced & written about in the past. And at most, author Ray Grasse is simply asking us to consider the many possibilities that our culture has taught us to dismiss out of hand.It's long been obvious that the Universe can't be boiled down to "nothing but" — for all the prodigious technical prowess of the present age, we're destroying the environment, we're on the verge of another great extinction (which could well include our own species), and we're facing an atomized society awash with fear & despair. This is marked by a rise in factional violence, fundamentalism of every stripe, lethal drug use (and I include all of our shiny digital distractions among those drugs). We boast about living in the Age of Information, but more & more people lack real knowledge … and actual wisdom is practically non-existent, presumably because it's "too old school" & "dated" & every other trendy but empty dismissal we've all heard too many times now.So here we're offered another way of looking at & experiencing the Universe, one that's very old indeed, but is also genuinely new (for us) & positive as well. A way that's humbling in the best sense, but also offers a life of richness & meaning that far surpasses what we're living in now. That doesn't mean abandoning the truly good things that we've gained from the materialist worldview; it simply means setting them in a different context, one that's sustainable & soul-nourishing.Just think about it …Most highly recommended!

"The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine." -Sir James JeansIn the modern, mechanistic worldview, cold, hard, objectivity rules and there is no place for the mystery of subjective meaning and the symbolist perspective that pervaded world cultures in days past.Ray Grasse is among a few vanguard thinkers that asks us to rethink the modern position and, in an epistemological revolution, to allow space for the strange, acausal, signs and symbols that often peek through the ordinary experience of life. Grasse suggests that, rather than a meaningless accident of matter, the physical world is intimately linked to the inner world. All things, he says, partake in a single regulating intelligence, or Divine Mind, that permeates and transcends material reality. In this view, everything is governed by hidden connections, cycles, and archetypes. Everything is meaningful and Grasse suggests life is a "living book of symbols, a sacred text that can be decoded," if we only know how to decipher the code.In this fascinating exploration of the symbolist worldview, Grasse considers ancient knowledge across world cultures including esoteric and hermetic traditions, kabbalistic lore, and yoga. He looks at astrology, tarot, numerology, omens, rituals, archetypes, chakras, and more, in an attempt to synthesize symbolic knowledge into a coherent perspective with fundamental laws. Like Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams," which contains observations about features of dream symbolism, Grasse's book is an "Interpretation of Reality," providing clues about how to decode symbolic meaning in waking life. It often feels like he's drawing from hermeneutics and literary theory to decode the symbolism of everyday life!Grasse hints at a mysterious creative force at work, a collective psyche, a master storyteller, a magic weaver, linking the events of the individual, society, and the universe together in a brilliant tapestry, with meaning everywhere. But if we are all part of some grand work of art, who is the artist? How does the artist work? What are the grand metaphysical implications of a symbolic worldview?The book doesn't answer the big questions but it gets the reader thinking. It provides a starting point for investigations. It's full of wonder and provocative suggestions, the kind of book that might be found in a Renaissance alchemist's library.I don't believe everything Grasse proposes in this book. Sometimes his suggestions of what is meaningful and significant are forced and beyond belief. Yet, considering the whole of the text with an open mind, I can't help but feel there's something to the symbolist worldview, and I give Grasse great credit in attempting to re-introduce it to a modern audience.

I rank this as one of my very favorite and most complete compendiums of the vast world of the spiritual, mystical and metaphysical. It's intelligently but very clearly written, and its accurate and extensive research and explanation of both the historical and recent are solid and impressive. Its references are excellent and thorough, and are well documented for further reading - from C.G. Jung and Albert Einstein to Joseph Campbell and David Bohm.There is nothing "airy-fairy" or wackily "New Agey" about this fine book. All those seriously exploring and seeking what may lie beyond and/or hidden within this material world – this apparently severely limited and painfully unfair existence – will love reading Ray Grasse's remarkable and reassuringly credible masterpiece, "The Waking Dream"!

The other book I was disappointed in was Under a Sacred Sky. After reading the comments and reviews of both Under the Sacred Sky and The Waking Dream I bought both. Like my 3 stars says, "It's OK". But I was looking for more than just "OK".Grasse just doesn't go very deeply into his ideas which, in themselves, are unremarkable. Grasse appears to be mainly a magazine articles writer (Under a Sacred Sky is just a collection of articles written for The Mountain Astrologer magazine), and it shows. Most of the ideas in these two books are covered in a third book I bought concurrently, Cosmos and Psyche by Tarnas. Now that's a book! I'll be giving these two disappointments away.

This is an incredible work of literature. I found the minimal amount of reviews as quite surprising. Grasse has achieved a feat that I feel is unmatched in this field of study. I came across the book by 'chance', and I'm honored and thankful for it. Of you've also come to this page by 'chance', do yourself a favor, buy it.

Fascinating and thought provoking book exploring the dream-like nature of reality. I have experienced moments of strange synchronicity several times in my life but have never been able to describe the feeling adequately to others. This book captures the feeling perfectly and may even be of interest to the sceptical. It also explores the symbolism used in different cultures, highlighting some surprising links between them.

Good but now very dated

Couldn't ask more for a secondhand book. I got what I expected! I'm pleased with my purchase. Thank you!

If you experience synchronicity and wish to examine strange experiences this book is a gem. Highly recommend!

There is some good information throughout the book. Specific areas interested me more than others but over all satisfied.