My Dreams and Me: A Life Reflected through Dreams

This title is discontinued as of 12/31/19

by Emilio S. Cot; professional commentary by Suzanne Saldarini; MindMend Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-942431-11-4 (soft)

There’s a complex science behind dreaming, but this book is not about that. It is about the author’s experiences – love, romance, sex, violence, conflict, fear, work, socializing, and recreation – and how they emerge in his dreams. It explains how his understanding of who he is was shaped by analyzing his dreams. The author takes on all everyday topics of life: Love, Romance, Sex; Violence, Conflict, Fear: Work, Socializing, and Recreation. We all experience, read about or hear about some or all of these things on a regular basis. It could be personal, or it could be second-hand or random. These are the things that came up over and over again in the author’s dreams. “Intensity is what makes me remember so many of my dreams. So much so, that there are many dreams that I can look back on from even years ago, and I still remember them vividly with just a few key words to remind of them,” says the author.

So, what will the reader find in this book? About 145 dreams in less than a full year. That is about one dream every two nights or so. At the end of the book, there is a professional commentary by Suzanne Saldarini, a dream analyst. As author writes in the Introduction, more than anything else, writing this book has taught him a lot about himself, and it will tell the reader a lot about the author. But more importantly, this book will tell the reader more about him/herself, as they start thinking about their dreams and their life.

In the end, it is a book for anyone, academicians and lay people alike, who wants to learn more about themselves, as we all live; we all experience; we all sleep; and we all dream. Let this book be an encouragement to the readers to think about their life through the prism of their own dreams.

Reviews

The Compulsion to Create is a superb account of distinguished female writers [Plath, Nin, the Brontæs, Dickinson, and Sitwell] from a psychoanalytic object relations perspective. The artists discussed often suffered tragic fates including suicide, fatal illness, lifelong withdrawal from people, or alienation from the world. At this current time in the American psychoanalytic dialogue, there is a tendency to idealize the creative process and to discuss it only in terms of ‘healthy narcissism.’ While presenting a sympathetic and respectful attitude toward the creative process, Kavaler-Adler nevertheless does not idealize it and is forthright in discussing the problems the artist may encounter.

— Jeffrey Seinfeld, Ph.D

This book can be highly recommended as an introduction to the clinical applications of current object relations theory from the perspective of both its dynamic and developmental viewpoints, as well as its application to the analysis of fine, enduring literature of female authors, and the unconscious mechanisms that underlie it. It is a rich and often moving account of how the capacity for attempts at self-repair find their expression in artistic endeavors that provide the artist with a personal medium for creative psychic survival, while contributing to the general enrichment of culture by means of such aesthetic experiences.

— Mark Wayne, C.S.W., B.C.D., American Journal of Psychoanalysis