DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

A New Beginning for Empirical Dream Research

The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis
By G. William Domhoff. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002. 209 pp. Cloth, $49.95.

William Domhoff's The Scientific Study of Dreams breaks new ground in the field, not by proposing grandiose, premature answers to questions about the nature of dreams but rather by showing us with unprecedented clarity and scope where we have erred in the past and allowing us to start over again. In a careful, reasoned critique, Domhoff demonstrates the shortcomings of the dominant dream theories that haunted the last century. Based on a thorough examination of converging evidence from neurophysiological, cognitive, and content analysis approaches to the study of dreams, he then lays the groundwork for the construction of future theories of the dreaming process from a neurocognitive perspective.