Who is Pamela Ball?

I got a book titled "The Power of Creative Dreaming," because I'm hoping that it will jump start me out of my dry spell. I'm usually weary of books about psychology with a 'Dr.' as part of the author's name, but it seemed legit. Now I'm not too sure... The book seems to be poorly edited. I noticed that she constantly switches between American and real English. There is a paragraph around page 30 where she mentions PRATISING dream recall in order to PRACTICE dream control.

Both spellings are correct, but it's odd to see both. She seems to know what she's talking about so far, could it just be that she has a really bad editor? Has anyone else read any of her books? (She had another titled 10,000 Dreams Interpretted._

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Originally Posted by ninja9578

... PRATISING ... Both spellings are correct, but it's odd to see both.

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I'm pretty sure "PRATISING" is not spelled correctly. :p

I, too, find it annoying when authors switch from American to British English or vice versa. It happens fairly often, actually. A couple weeks ago, for instance, in a lecture on T.S. Eliot, our speaker wrote the word that is properly spelled "anesthetized" or "anaesthetised" as "anaesthetized." I would assume that that's an incorrect spelling because I know that the American "ze(d)" suffix is usually spelled "se(d)" in the U.K. I might be wrong (which would mean that British English is even more inconsistent than American English :shock:), but I've seen that kind of thing fairly often, especially with words like theater/theatre.

I'd be more concerned with the information in the book than spelling errors. If you like the book so far I wouldnt worry about it. However, I tend to think that thoses dream interpretation books are total crap. The only person that can interprete you dreams is your self. That alone would make me sceptical about the author.

If you want a book about lucid dreaming then get Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Steven LaBerge. It's very informative and covers both he bsics and higher level aspets of lucid dreaming. There's a reason why it's recommended so much.

Oh yeah. My post was directly solely toward the OP's observation regarding the fusion of American and British English. To address the actual purpose of this thread (way to get carried away, self :D), I agree that spelling doesn't necessarily determine the author's qualifications. However, it's always safer to go with the well-known titles like Stephen LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. He explains how to induce DILDs (through critical state testing and MILD) and WILDs (using several techniques), and he covers both recreational and practical uses for lucid dreaming.

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Originally Posted by dsr

I'm pretty sure "PRATISING" is not spelled correctly. :p

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Oops.


I wanted Steven LaBerge's book, but Borders didn't have it so I bought this one instead.

Yea, I too am very skeptical when it comes to books which are supposed to help you "interpret" your dreams. I agree, stick with Stephen LaBerge, there IS definately a reason why it is reccomended so much.

Have you tried ordering it from Amazon? You can get some good condition used copies for almost nothing.

I'm sure the general caveat of learning about anything from only a single source applies to lucid dreaming as well. If you can find ( or think you've found) other credible books on the subject then you should explore as much as possible. I haven't read LaBerge, but especially with subjects like dreaming, often times when there is only one source that anyone uses; then what happens is everyone only tries to use the methods that work best for that one person when there are thousands of different ways to become skilled at dreaming.

My sister bought me a copy of "Creative Dreaming" by Pamela Ball, but I haven't had much chance to give it a good read yet though. The Amazon reviews aren't half bad though.