Dreams and Visions: How Religious Ideas Emerge in Sleep and Dreams (Brain, Behavior, and Evolution)

A standout resource on the emerging field of applying neuropsychology and the latest findings in sleep and dream research to religious experience, this book investigates the proven biological links between REM dreams and religious ideas, covering past and current schools of thought in both the science of dreams and the science of religion.

• Provides detailed, mechanistic, and science-based explanations of how god beliefs emerge in dreams

• Shows how the dynamics of REM sleep neurochemical processes produce cognitive states that promote beliefs in supernatural beings

• Presents numerous examples of how the birth of new religious movements was due to dreams of the founders

• Reviews the extensive literature on the anthropology of dreams, demonstrating their centrality to primal tribal cultures and religion