Wake

The book Wake by Lisa McMann, is a story about a young teenage girl named Janie Hannagan, who can be apart of people's dreams. The story takes place in and out of the many different dreams. Janie's first dream to encounter, was when she was eight years of age; of course it was someone else's. It happened to be Luke Drake's dream about being on the field playing football naked. Janie did not know what to think except what is happening, why me. The dreams that she kept being involved in started becoming weirder and weirder. Mrs. Hannagan was not a good mother because she never was around to help Janie, she was always to drunk. One day, while Janie was at school, a snobby girl, named Melinda Jeffers tripped Janie on her way to a seat on the bus. She arrives home and her mom is passed out on the couch and Janie instantly falls into her mom's dream.
Janie was introduced to a new girl next door named Carrie, who throughout the book maintains as Janie's best friend. Melinda Jeffers scoots her way into being best friends with Carrie. The funny thing is, Janie gets to be apart of Melinda's dream while being at Carrie's birthday party. As Janie got older, the more dreams she became apart of. On September 6, 2005, at seven thirty-five, Janie was on her way to school and came across Cabel Strumheller who was walking down the road, therefore, Janie told him to just pile into her car. They started becoming close friend, close enough for her to inform him of her biggest secret. The secret was about her being in other's dreams. Cabel, of course does not take it well at first but comes to his senses.
Janie works at the Heather Home for old people and Martha Stubin is a little old lady living there; they become really close. "Dear Janie, Thank you for my dreams. From one catcher to another, Martha Stubin, P.s. you have more power than you think" (129). Janie was planning on having a CAT scan to see what was causing this whole situation to occur. Cabel finally informs Janie that he is in love with her through one of his dreams; she remembers it when they wake up.
In my opinion I liked the book, it was easy to understand. Lisa used good imagery throughout the novel with all the different dreams Janie is involved in. For once a book kept me interested from start finish. I liked how Lisa threw in cliques, certain best friends, and even romance; it made the book more interesting. Wake is overall a good book, but you have to be a person to like confusing situations.
There are also negative things about the book. First is, I did not like how it jumped from different months and days all the time. While reading the book, I had to try and stay unconfused; which was hard, therefore I did not like that. There was also a lot of cussing that I found to be horrid. In my opinion, there should not have been so much fowl language for a book.

McMann, Lisa. Wake. New York: An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Divison, 2008. Print.

Interpretation of Dreams

In the chapter "Why Dream?" taken from The Interpretation of Dreams by Laurence M. Porter informs the readers about dreams and the different variety of interpretations. When a person's sleeping mind is awake, the dream will become more of a waking thought. "By saying that the mind has been temporarily crippled, it neatly avoids all the difficulties of trying to explain the inner contradictions and incoherence of dreams," (Porter). Regression and repression are the keys to Sigmund Freud's concept of the dreams. Porter emphasizes that we have all had immoral dreams. Immoral dreams can contain impulses repellent to our conscience; this shows that dreams have access to psychic material that happens to be absent from or minimal in the waking states of life. There are two rules of interpretation: the dreamer's associations to a dream should be considered as part of the dream and analyzed along with it; absurdity in a dream typically means that the dreamer is passing judgement on some situation that they find absurd (55).
The chapter above helps with my topic because it actually tells about the two different rules of dream interpretations. Porter has very good information to help, but some of the information seems to be repeated time and time again. I have always known their were immoral dreams but I never knew that everyone could have them. Sigmund Freud is the first person to ever interpret dreams; he has very good interpretations at that. This chapter gave details on Freud's achievements with dream interpretations, in which Porter used to help interpret his dreams and to help other interpret theirs. Porter does give some "gee-whiz" information that has nothing to do with dream interpretations as well as giving information about dreams that people already know.
Porter, Laurence M. The Interpretation of Dreams. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987. 48-57. Print.

Hidden Meaning of Dreams

In the video "The Hidden Meaning of Dreams" by Craig Hamilton Parker, who is psychic; he has written several books about dreams. "We all have a number of common dreams and for some reason they keep coming back time and time again," (Parker). Dreams never just end, they will always be there. You can learn about the unusal meanings and the psychological meanings of dreams. Plus you can also learn the spiritual meanings of your common dreams. People wonder if you can talk to the dead in your dreams; also premonitions for people seeing their future in their dreams as well.

The video helps understanding dreams and their meanings. I did not like how he was so boring while he was explaining everything. Parker did help with the psychic interpretations of dreams by letting the people know about the psychological and spiritual meanings. In my opinion, I think it is cool how dreams never just end, you could dream about the same exact thing for years and it never change. I think Craig could have used more information in his video that could have been more specific with greater details.
"The Hidden Meaning of Dreams." You Tube. Web. 8 Apr 2010..

Introduction to Dream Interpretations

In the article "A Introduction to Dream Interpretation" by Michael Sheridan, helps to give good infromation about dreams and what lies beyond them. When sleeping, you can enter the world of dreams where it is magical, but yet times are horrifying. Sometimes you can enter in four to five times at night. Everyone has dreams and you cannot stop it. Learning to interpret dreams can help change someones life for the better. An example is about this guy named John, who dreamt that Van Morrison was sitting on the floor holding a pint of Guinness in his hand and arguing with his wife. In reality John and his wife were having an ongoing conflict; John was holding onto a childhood memory of his parents arguing with John sitting on the floor watching them. Dream analysis is not new. "As far back as the old Testament, Joseph showed us that dreams contain important messages. Native American cultures hold dreams in high regard as messages from the spirit world" (Sheridan). Dreams are a type of language of the soul. All aspects of our lives such as health, relationships, career, and spirituality in dreams. Health dreams have benefits; each person who dies of a heart attack or stroke has normally had several dreams alerting them of their fatal condition. Dreams can provide early warnings for health problems in the future. Relationship advice comes from dreams as well. Dreams will tell you if you are moving to fast in a new relationship. Your dreams can make you attentive to your partner's feelings. Career dreams can tell you when to apply for a promotion and if your going in the wrong career path. Spirituality dreams help with expression within open minds.

Michael Sheridan's article helps with my topic because he gives concrete details on what different dreams can stand for. Dreams come from past, present, and future adventures; which relates to my topic with understanding dreams. Dream interpretations that Sheridan portrayed such as: health, relationship advice, careers; and spirituality, helps people realize what they need to do in life. My only question is why do dreams have to be horrifying? Sheridan does not tell you why, just that they can be horrifying. I do like how some dreams can help with relationship advice because I have actually had a dream about my relationship falling apart and it did. Over all this article was pretty well written and easy to recieve the right interpretations that Michael was trying to put it out there for people.

Sheridan, Michael. "An Introduction to Dream Interpretations." Aisling Dream Interpretation 2009: 1. Web. 1 April 2010. http://www.dream-analysis.com/.