"In a world of perennial fire and growing extinctions, Anna's aged mother is dying-if her three children would just allow it. Condemned by their pity to living she increasingly escapes through her hospital window into visions of horror and delight. When Anna's finger vanishes and a few months later her knee disappears, Anna too feels the pull of the window. She begins to see that all around her others are similarly vanishing, but no one else notices. All Anna can do is keep her mother alive. But the window keeps opening wider, taking Anna and the reader ever deeper into a strangely beautiful story about hope and love and orange-bellied parrots."--Back cover.

When he is assigned to capture demoness Luciana Rossetti, angel Brendan Clarkson, who hunts down the most dangerous criminals on Earth, meets his match in this beautiful killer who could either be his salvation or his downfall.

In a waking dream, we inhabit the dreamworld with an awareness of doing so-as sometimes happens upon waking from sleep when a dream continues to feel present alongside an awareness of lying in bed. Taking perspectives from transpersonal psychology, ecotherapy, complexity theory, and fractal geometry, this book develops new possibilities within waking dream practice (also known as "active imagination" and "guided imagery") to show: - how the in-between waking/dreaming experience allows us to become aware of not just what we imagine but also the process of how we imagine-a process that reveals the principles and skills of image-based transformation and healing. - how a broad understanding of imagination-as present in all perceptions, actions, and relationships (not just as pictures "inside the mind")-allows for an image-centric approach to psychotherapy and everyday life as an ongoing "eyes-wide-open" waking dream. The result is an experiential and theoretical appreciation of imagination, not just as a means to rational insight but as a creative ability at the heart of human potential. If you are interested in cultivating a richer, story-filled, and enchanted existence, or you are a therapist wanting to help others do so, this might be the book you have been waiting for.

From the writer of Zenescope's smash hit Wonderland trilogy and Image Comics' The Gift comes Raven Gregory's newest tale of horror! In the big city, police detectives investigating routine murders discover that the victims of these crimes are coming back from the dead in search of those responsible for ending their lives. Now the detectives are in a race against time to find the source of the recent "wakings" before the victims deal out their own brand of bloody justice. Meanwhile, a father with an incredible ability must choose between avenging his daughter's death - or losing her forever!

For the past one hundred years, psychotherapy has neglected the inner world of image in favor of words. Now, Dr. Gerald Epstein presents the next evolution in therapy -- Waking Dream.Epstein's approach is brief, effective and powerful. Waking Dream Therapy uses mental imagery to journey inward. The explorer starts from a waking state and via imagination, reenters a night dream fragment to explore the dream. This inner journey reveals new directions and jolts the person to change. The book also contains a history of imagination; instructions for the process; examples of waking dreams; and the meaning of symbols. It appeals both to clinicians and to anyone who seeks self-transformation.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the bestselling and most influential video games of the past decade. From the return of world-threatening dragons to an ongoing civil war, the province of Skyrim is rich with adventure, lore, magic, history, and stunning vistas. Beyond its visual spectacle alone, Skyrim is an exemplary gameworld that reproduces out-of-game realities, controversies, and histories for its players. Being Dragonborn, then, comes to signify a host of ethical and ideological choices for the player, both inside and outside the gameworld. These essays show how playing Skyrim, in many ways, is akin to "playing" 21st century America with its various crises, conflicts, divisions, and inequalities. Topics covered include racial inequality and white supremacy, gender construction and misogyny, the politics of modding, rhetorics of gameplay, and narrative features.

A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate—either in the waking state or in a lucid dream—we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives.

The traditional method of dream interpretation involves identifying the elements and themes, making significant associations, and then deciphering the disguised messages. Pike has spent the last ten years developing her "waking dream" theory. Now, with the help of the stories from dream group participants, she reveals how this technique has been adapted to help those who cannot remember their dreams tap into the wisdom and insight of dream analysis.