Examines the relationship between rock art, shamanism, and the origins of human existence.
The Dream on the Rock takes an interdisciplinary approach to contextualizing and historicizing the phenomenon of shamanism from the Neolithic Age until the beginning of the Iron Age. Fulvio Gosso and Peter Webster argue that rock art and other ancient materials provide a glimpse of the fundamental role played by nonordinary states of consciousness in our social and evolutionary prehistory. Ultimately, the authors offer a comprehensive exploration of shamanism, religion, and the origins of human consciousness, along with evidence that hallucinogenic plants may have played a key role in this process.
Fulvio Gosso is a psychoanalyst and one of the founders of the Italian Society for the Study of Consciousness. Peter Webster is a retired chemist.
