About the author
Bert O. States (1929–2015) was an American scholar of theater and literature, long a professor of dramatic art and English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work moved between the phenomenology of performance and the study of dreaming, treating dream experience as a form of narrative and improvisation rather than a code to be decrypted. His book "Dreaming and Storytelling", published by Cornell University Press, examines how dreams construct scenes, characters, and plots, drawing on cognitive science, literary theory, and his own recorded dreams to argue that dreaming extends the mind's storytelling habits rather than speaking a separate symbolic language. Readers interested in dream studies as a branch of narrative and cognitive theory, rather than as fortune-telling or symbol dictionaries, will find his approach rigorous and readable, closer to literary criticism than to popular dream-interpretation manuals.
📖 Where to start with Bert O States
💬 What our editors say about Bert O States's books
“States presents a compelling argument that dreams are essentially personal literature, supported by insights from neurobiology and psychology. While intellectually stimulating for academics in literary theory or cognitive…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Dreaming and Storytelling
“States delivers a rigorous intellectual exploration that demands patience from its audience. While his thesis linking dream logic to narrative construction is compelling, the academic density may alienate casual readers seeking…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Dreaming and Storytelling
