Reviewed by Michael Daw
Is it possible to create our own reality? To manifest our heart’s desires? This book suggests that it is and that our consciousness can directly affect our physical reality. Or, as its title suggests, we can ‘Dream It to Do It’.
This short and pithy tome of only around 130 pages promises that it will “provide a ‘wake-up call’ to you all, because these are very dark times” and enable us to “learn about the magical resources that are our birthright” (p. 13). The author describes it as a ‘massive update’ of his 1977 work Inner Spaces: Parapsychological Explorations of the Mind, no longer in print. The book’s thesis is that consciousness is more fundamental than matter meaning that it should be possible to “envision and navigate alternative realities”, as the heading of the penultimate chapter puts it. In themes that will be familiar to anyone who has delved into ‘edge science’ and New Age literature, we are told that physical reality is more that it seems and that the world can be directly manipulated by our minds.
Eisenberg tells us that, not only does such a message underpin many spiritual traditions, it is also supported by findings from modern physics and parapsychology. To help make the case, the text is liberally sprinkled with a plethora of supporting quotations from sacred texts, scientists and philosophers from the Bible to Einstein by way of Viktor Frankl. In the final section of the book, we are taught how to ‘apply the magic’ through a variety of meditation and similar techniques.
The book should be accessible to most people – it’s well-written and has an easy, conversational style. It’s also beautifully presented. In terms of its contents, I particularly liked the shower meditation, which provides instructions for practising mindfulness whilst abluting and so achieve a mind that’s as clean as one’s body. The overall thrust of the book has an excellent pedigree – it is indeed the case that virtually all spiritual traditions point to a magical world, and quantum mechanics and relativity suggest that the physical universe is far stranger than it appears. Of course, as anyone who follows parapsychology and psychical research knows, there is also a mountain of strong evidence showing that our consciousness might extend beyond our brains, pointing to the reality of phenomena such as telepathy and psychokinesis.
However, this book felt far too brief to do justice to any of these topics. I’m also not quite sure who might benefit from reading it. Either one is aware of the material already, in which case the book covers it with little depth or substance, or one is not, in which case the topics are covered in such a terse way, my guess is you’ll probably need a lot more convincing and – in the case of instructions for meditation and similar techniques – a lot more guidance. I was also somewhat unsure whether what was being argued for was that we can quite literally manifest our own physical reality – such as conjuring up a free parking space on demand – or whether the book was instead intended simply to provide useful but somewhat more mundane life-hacks, say to reduce stress and provide a bit more equanimity to our lives.
Ultimately, I was left with the feeling that the book resembled written-up notes of a much more substantial book, albeit nicely-polished and presented. This is illustrated by the somewhat abrupt manner in which the book ends. There’s no concluding summary, no motivational words to send us on our way, nothing. It just stops dead after providing some (all too brief) instructions for lucid dreaming.
Whilst its heart is in the right place, I would suggest that there are better books out there that cover broadly similar material. For example, I’d recommend Real Magic by Dean Radin for a scientifically-grounded background on the scientific basis for spiritual teachings followed by The Seven Spiritual Laws for Success by Deepak Chopra for how one might put theory into practice. Both of these offerings are much more substantial and, ultimately, more satisfying treatments of a similar theme.