I'm a clinical psychologist. I teach at Harvard Medical School and I write books--both ones for the general public and academic volumes. Dreaming is one of my two areas of research--the other being hypnosis. In terms of dreaming, my emphasis has been on its relation to creativity and objective problem solving, dream incubation, and the role of dream in PTSD. Theoretically, I'm an evolutionary psychologist; I believe that dreams are essentially thinking in a different biochemical state and that they can be extremely helpful because of focusing on our life-issues from a very different perspective.
I use dreams in my own self-exploration, in work with psychotherapy clients, and in psychology research. In addition to Harvard, I've been lucky to travel and have lectured on dreams in Russia, Kuwait, Israel, England and Holland, at Esalen and the Smithsonian, and talked about them on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, Fox, and The Discovery Channel.

I IASD joined when it was still calling itself "Dreamworkers International." I signed up for the first conference, got mono and didn't go, but have attended every conference since the second. I was Program Chair twice--1989 London and 1992 Santa Cruz. I served as President in 1995/1996 and am currently Editor-in-Chief of DREAMING: The Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams. I also write the film review column, 'The Dream Videophile' published in IASD's magazine Dream Time.

My books include:

Barrett, D. L. The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use their Dreams for Creative Problem Solving—and How You Can Too. NY: Crown Books/Random House, 2001/hardback.

Pandemic Dreams https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Dreams-Deirdre-Barrett/dp/0982869533/ref=pd_sbs_1/135-2168017-1619167?pd_rd_w=xim7S&pf_rd_p=8b76d7a7-ab83-4ddc-a92d-e3e33bfdbf03&pf_rd_r=N3HQBWZJCS2KW4R4H3DD&pd_rd_r=8534c7d0-a3c8-4c5a-a20f-8d043c95bb0e&pd_rd_wg=fSpKc&pd_rd_i=0982869533&psc=1