This book explores Shakespeare’s religious significance through the lens of dreaming, offering a fresh perspective on his works. By analyzing the role of dreams in plays like Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it uncovers a subtle spirituality that transcends traditional religious teachings. Dreams in Shakespeare’s plays—ranging from prophetic visions to magical transformations —invite reflection on deeper spiritual possibilities. Blending religious studies, psychoanalysis, and dream research, it offers a new understanding of Shakespeare’s insight into the visionary power of the human mind, appealing to scholars, theater enthusiasts, and general readers alike.

Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D. is a dream researcher, director of the Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb), and author/editor of more than twenty books, including Soul, Psyche, Brain (Palgrave, 2005), Dreaming in the World’s Religions (NYU, 2008), Big Dreams (Oxford, 2016), Lucrecia the Dreamer (Stanford, 2018), The Scribes of Sleep (Oxford, 2023), 2020 Dreams (Stanford, 2023; nominated for the ACLS Open Access Book Prize), and The Spirituality of Dreaming (Broadleaf, 2023; First Place, Spirituality and Enlightenment Category, CIBA). He received a doctorate in psychology and religious studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a B.A. from Stanford University. A former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, he has served in many leadership positions in the American Academy of Religion and is currently a senior editor of the American Psychological Association journal Dreaming and a member of the editorial board of the Springer journal Pastoral Psychology. From 2016 to 2025 he served as a board member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), one of America’s oldest and largest theater companies devoted to productions of Shakespearean drama. He has an active social media presence including a blog for Psychology Today with more than a million views, Instagram and X accounts, and a creative partnership with the Elsewhere.to app for online dream journaling, which has a growing international user community.