Get out of My Dreams and into My Kindle

I wanted to love this book. Dreaming is weird and interesting.  I wanted to try and make sense of recurring or common dreams that I had, learn how to retain memory of more of my nightly dreams, and try lucid dreaming. This book had good reviews, so I gave it a go as a way to help me make my dream dreams come true. While this book does have some good information, it feels more like a “get rich quick by gaming Kindle Unlimited” book than a reliable piece of non-fiction. As somebody with a vested interested in the self-pub world, that is a bummer to me and therefore Angel Greene’s book gets two stars.

Let me start with the bad parts of this book. First, there are few citations and no footnotes. It’s 200 pages of “a study found”, or “it’s been said that”, etc. It’s hard to take non-fic seriously if little is backed up. A lot of the research or statistics in the book may be accurate, but because there aren’t citations I don’t trust it. Second, the book is not edited well. The book came out last June and is currently on its fourth edition; I assume the multiple editions were attempts to correct the myriad spelling errors and unconventional writing style. When I bought the book in January 2016 (third edition), it was part of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program. A lot of authors try to game KU by hitting certain word counts and page turns. My educated guess, based on Angel Greene’s other non-fic titles, is that s/he tries to fill needs in several how-to subgenres by quickly gathering a lot of information, paying for a good cover to seem more credible (this is key for self-pub folks), titling the book to maximize SEO, and maintaining a high word count. This book has a lot of repetition, and some of the FAQs questions in the back seem to be asked and answered more than once. Non-fic tends to repeat itself a bit as it’s not necessarily written to be read in order or all the way through, but in this case it seemed excessive. I believe everyone has a right to try and make a living, but I paid for the book with my hard-earned money and was disappointed by the quality. As an avid reader, writer, and all-around fan of books, this bummed me out. Kindle Unlimited bums me out. It turns art into a utility.

The good parts of the book earned it two stars. It does contain a lot of interesting (if not footnoted) information that was useful for me in better remembering my dreams and exploring possible interpretations of my dreams. The tip to quickly write down my dreams  upon waking up was worth the few bucks that I paid. However, my frustrations with the quality of editing and writing keep me from recommending the book to anyone.