Meaning of a Dream

Following in the footsteps of America's James Randi and Britain's Derren Brown, Professor Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and former conjurer who uses his knowledge of stage show magic to debunk popular paranormal myths.

Now... if you are a believer in the paranormal, please don't scream and drop this book as if it had just burst into flames. Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There was written for you.

"People are emotionally drawn to the supernatural. They actively want weird, spooky things to be true... Wiseman shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away the psychic fog and lets in the clear light of reason." ~ Richard Dawkins

The most fascinating things I found in this book include:

Exposing the tricks of the old school charlatans - how Spiritualism was founded by two 19th-century sisters playing a practical joke on their parents. Lessons in cold reading - how you can "play psychic" and convince a total stranger you know all about them and their future. The story of Gef, the talking mongoose, who famously lived in the walls of a house on the Isle of Man for 15 years. How to see your own face distort and turn into another person in front of your very eyes - with only a mirror and some dim lighting. The psychology of how cult leader, Jim Jones, convinced more than 900 people to take their own lives in a South American commune in 1978. How to trick your brain into having an Out of Body Experience by slightly altering the visual information it receives. The science of precognitive dreams - how math and psychology overrule the apparent gift of prophecy.I bought Paranormality for a psychology lesson into the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. This was certainly true on the fascinating topics of Out of Body Experiences (OBEs), cold reading, and how cult leaders appear to achieve mind control over their followers (and even convince them to kill themselves and their very own children).

However the rest of the book was dedicated to debunking irrational beliefs in things like Ouija boards, palm reading, astrology, psychokenesis, ghosts and precognitive dreams. Interesting as it was, it was rather like listening to a magician telling you how all his magic tricks are done. Yet we're not talking about magic here, we're talking about our personal and very precious beliefs about the underlying nature of reality. People will believe want they want to believe.

As a result, I fear that the people who need to read this book - won't. And the people who don't need to read it - will. I can't be much clearer than that ;)

Of course, with all the debunking going on, the front cover and marketing of this book are a little misleading. Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There has very little to do with understanding why we are biologically programmed to seek out paranormal explanations when a simple reality check will do.

Similarly, the marketing claims of "Learn how to control your dreams - and leave your body behind" and "Unleash the power of your unconscious mind" leave a lot to be desired. Whoever wrote those cover teasers ought to be slapped. I'm sure it wasn't Wiseman himself but an over-eager publisher who is more focused on book sales than advertising transparency.

Misgivings over this misdirection aside, Richard Wiseman delivers an important message in a world where people are obsessing over how the world is going to end in 2012, how to become rich with the Law of Attraction, and how to make contact with their deceased loved ones via self-proclaimed psychics. Wiseman urges us to lift the veil of deceit and stop falling for centuries-old charlatan tricks.

However, the tone of this book is not patronizing. Wiseman delivers his psychological studies and first-hand experience of performing magic in a respectful and unbiased manner. You get the feeling he is a sensitive chap who, despite explaining how all psychics are conning you (and/or themselves), he doesn't want to ruffle any feathers. Or perhaps that's just the most effective way to get your message across. He is a psychologist after all.

Another reason I picked up Paranormality was for Wiseman's take on dream control - aka lucid dreaming. I'm still a bit confounded over how this topic still falls into the category of "paranormal" in so many books and websites today. Paranormal is literally defined as experiences which fall outside of scientific explanation. And yet Wiseman himself details how the first lucid dream was scientifically recorded by Keith Hearne in the 1970s. Nevertheless, if people want to talk about lucid dreaming in their book of psychological oddities, I'm not going to be the one to stop them.

The concept of dream control gets a couple of mentions in this book but it's pretty basic stuff designed for the totally uninitiated. Wiseman recommends you set your alarm clock to wake you up during your most likely periods of REM sleep, write down all your dreams, look at your hands, and perform basic reality checks. He suggests that when you do become lucid, look in a mirror - "in a lucid dream your image will appear blurry" - which unfortunately is not accurate for many people, unless you succumb to the power of suggestion in which case it will be now. After that, he recommends you bite your arm or lean against a wall; perfectly acceptable reality checks for cannibals and loiterers which I can certainly endorse.

So I'd like to say kudos to Richard Wiseman for bringing lucid dreaming closer into the public eye - just don't expect any new dream control revelations here.

In its essence, Paranormality is not just a logic bomb for the New Agers and Spiritualists of this world. It's a fun page-turner with loads of interesting stories and psychological tidbits you can show off to your friends. Wiseman finishes the book with a bonus chapter called The Instant Superhero Kit, which provides several mind-bending tricks you can perform at parties. And I think that really defines the tone of this book - it's aimed at casual readers with a short attention span.

Richard Wiseman is a well-recognized face in Britain and frequently quoted in the media for his insight into deception, luck and the paranormal. It's his job to popularize modern psychology findings and educate the masses on being rational. So this book will appeal to many and does make for an easy and informative read. However if you already have a skeptical mind, understand how cold reading works, and know why your future couldn't possibly be delineated in the palms of your hands - then you might be left wanting more.