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About Cynthia Pearson
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When I began keeping a dream journal in the late 1970s, my dreams seemed to reward me for my interest. More than once, I woke in the night with a sudden solution for a problem I'd been struggling to resolve, in writing or in life. My dreams seemed to encourage me to harvest them and I soon found that they often included inexplicable hints of upcoming events.
Seeking some explanation, I found the work of C.G. Jung especially useful, as he had developed the concept of synchronicity, or "meaningful coincidence." Jung led me to study the I Ching, a means of observing "what likes to happen together," and eventually, I discovered Jane Roberts' Seth books. These were the basis for my collaborating with John Friedlander, who had studied personally with Jane, to write The Practical Psychic. It was published by Samuel Weiser and is now in six languages.
When writing my second book, Parting Company: Understanding the Loss of a Loved One--The Caregiver's Journey (Seal Press, 1999, with M.L. Stubbs), I asked caregivers to tell about significant dreams they'd had of loved ones who were passing on. Their responses were often profound and moving. I reported on their dreams at the 1999 IASD conference, and this and other presentations, by myself and others, can be found at my website, Dream Journalist: A Website for People Who Write Down their Dreams. In 2000, I helped to form a nonprofit organization to help people dealing with end-of-life issues. You can learn more about that work, including a video project which I co-directed, at Take Charge of Your Life.
In 2008 I completed the mystery novel which first sprang to mind at the IASD conference in Hawaii in 1998. Called Dreaming the Dead, I have been very pleased with the reviews. "If you are at all interested in dreams or like a good mystery," one reader wrote,"you will really enjoy this book."
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My notes on the IASD
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I first joined IASD in 1987 because I was trying to design a computer index for my burgeoning dream records. I reasoned that there must be someone in this organization who was already computerizing dream records--which was true, but only of academics who coded other people's dreams for their studies.
Since then, I have given presentations at IASD conferences on using a preinstalled database to index one's own dreams; on a series of studies in precognitive dreaming; on the complex synchronicities that I found upon entering past dreams into my database (I call them "arabesques"); and other discoveries in dream journal keeping. I have chaired panel discussions on "Long Term Journal Keeping" since 1998.
From 2002 to 2004, I served as the secretary of the board of IASD and then was elected to a 3 year term as a trustee. In 2004, I hosted a regional IASD conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Society for Contemporary Craft during its exhibition of works influenced by dreams. This was a thrilling experience, in which the art and the program seemed to coalesce into a two-day waking dream.
Last but certainly not least, since the IASD's first Psiber Conference, I have hosted the annual Precognitive Dream Contest -- mystical, magical, marvelous fun!
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