My Dream Journal
By Charles Phillips
Illustrated by Many Pritty

The Ultimate Gift

A Journal that Teaches You
To Catch Your Dreams

     Like essential oil, here is a gift--for someone else or for oneself--that feeds the mind, body, and soul in indispensable ways.

      My Dream Journal is a notebook so perfect it could only be made better by tucking a sprig of lavender onto its title page and inscribing it "forever."

      Published by Ryland Peters & Small the quality of this volume is true to their standards. Fine paper and colors assembled to inspire. The author, dream expert Charles Phillips, guides and informs whoever partakes of it through an adventure of the mind.

     This book does what all books once did--it appeals to the senses. It beckons to those who want to know themselves better. It throbs with ideas for themes and characterization for writers. Of course, journaling is primarily something we do to know ourselves and to cope, but the better we do those things, the better writers we are. And anyone who journals is a writer, may even be on the way to calling themselves "poet" or, in fact, already doing so.

      This journal includes a color-coordinated elastic band that keeps it closed--sort of a metaphorical key or gatekeeper that may psychologically deter intruders. Each separator page includes a pocket for clippings, pictures or doodlings. Like an intimate gesture, it entices us to use it, makes us think of people we'd love to give one to.

      It is also a journal that does more than one expects of a lovely notebook. Charles Phillips includes information on why we dream, on using dreams as a source of inspiration, and on dream classifications like psychic, lucid, nightmares, incubating, and religious. He doesn't stop there. He includes information on dream analysis, and even tells us about "dream catching." There is even a short list for further reading.

      Illustrator, Many Pritty, should not be neglected. This artist's primitive designs are so well integrated into this special journal, one could not imagine it complete without them. We see faceless individuals flying on carpets or alone. The pictures so perfectly illustrate Phillips' anecdotes, we may find ourselves dreaming in pictures much like Pritty's.

      Like any good book--and this is a book as well as a place to journal--this book may be purchased in bookstores or online. It is easily found by using its ISBN (1841725188) as an identifier when using Amazon's search feature. Please take the time to look up this treasure. It is sure to make even those who have never made an entry into a diary into instant journalers.