Source
A Book of Dreams
Author
Reich, Peter
Coverage
Publication information
Type
Book
Publisher
Dutton
Date issued
1973
Citation
Reich, Peter. A Book of Dreams . (Dutton, 1973).
Repositories
Summary
This famous book, the inspiration behind Kate Bush's 1985 hit song "Cloudbusting," is the extraordinary account of life as friend, confidant and child of the brilliant but persecuted Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Peter, his son, shared with his father the revolutionary concept of a world where dream and reality are virtually indistinguishable, and the sense of mission which set him and his followers apart from the rest of the human race. Here, Peter Reich writes vividly and movingly of the mysterious experiences he shared with his father: of flying saucers; the "cloudbuster" rain-makers and the FDA narks; and of the final tragic realization of his father's death, which woke him up to the necessity of living out his life in an alien world. Already regarded as a modern classic, A Book of Dreams is not only a beautifully written narrative of a remarkable friendship and collaboration, but a loving son's heartfelt tribute to a loving father.
The Author
Peter Reich, son of the controversial Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who died in a US jail in 1957, was born in New York in 1944. After his father’s death, he left the USA to study French at Grenoble, eventually returning to take degrees at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and at Boston University School of Public Health. He has been a VISTA volunteer in Oregon, has worked with drug addicts in Boston and also as a journalist in New York, and for the past thirty years has worked at Boston University School of Medicine. He lives in Massachusetts.
Review
"This book contains the childhood memoirs of Peter Reich. As the son of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, Peter led a bizarre life. He lived with his parents on the family estate of Orgonon in the backwoods of Maine. Not only did his father develop a unique form of psychotherapy, but he also was a theorist who experimented with unknown forms of energy. As Wilhelm's only child, Peter was one of the first recipients of Reich's therapy methods, which involved special forms of touch, energy channeling, "softening the stomach", and inducing vomiting (in Peter's account). Peter was also made lieutenant in his father's defensive squad that protected the earth from UFO attacks through the use of "accumulator guns". The elder Reich eventually got in trouble with the FDA for manufacturing and promoting medical equipment without proper testing for safety and effectiveness. The court case involving his work eventually landed him in jail through contempt of court. Not long after being sent to prison, he passed away, apparently of heart failure. Upon his father's death, Peter found himself at the tender age of 13 forced to confront his father's legacy of brilliance and madness. Up until the time of his father's death, he had believed everything his father told him, not knowing enough of contemporary scientific theories to understand how different his father's version of reality was from most other people's, nor having established an identity of his own through which he could objectively choose between his father's explanations and standard scientific approaches. In this book, Peter tries to sort out for himself what is real and what is not, what is his, and what is his father's. The book reads like the proverbial onion-chapters move in a dreamlike fashion from one period of time to another. Sometimes it's hard to tell if what Peter is describing actually took place, or whether it was all an imaginative game in his head. By the end of the book, the reader will have some inkling of the confusion in Peter's mind, but, like Peter, may not be capable of saying what really happened. In any case, this is very much a book about Peter Reich, and not Wilhelm Reich, although readers who want to learn more about Wilhelm Reich may find some clues to his ideas through the interpretation of his son, who experienced them first hand and without question." - Erika Mitchell Review in Amazon (19 April 2005)
"This is a story about slippage between things that are objectively real and things that are unknowable, about how one man’s memories of a unique and troubled childhood get filtered out through dreams and anesthetic hallucinations into a memoir, are sideswiped by an important avant-garde film and adapted into two hauntingly lovely pop songs, before coming to rest this room and out of it again in each of you. In his 1973 memoir A Book of Dreams , Peter Reich writes touchingly about the strange world that father and son shared, how he struggled with guilt over having failed to magically protect his father from enormous forces, and the slow process by which he came to terms with his childhood’s pleasures and agonies." - Kim Cooper Review in Post45 (26 Sep 2011) [1]
Details
Hardcover: 172 pages
Publisher: Dutton; 1st edition (1973)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060135468
ISBN-13: 978-0060135461
References
↑ Post45: "Very Different Tonight: The Contagious Nightmares of Wilhelm Reich" , article by Kim Cooper. 26 Sep 2011.
