Tony Crisp Biographical Information

1953 - At age sixteen I started my own business as freelance photo-journalist. Sold mostly to Health and Strength magazine. An interest in self-help in body and mind, that had started at age 13 with yoga practice emerged more strongly. Took a course in relaxation techniques. Began to study Eastern philosophy and yoga of East and West and searched for a teacher. See: Some of my Photos; Teens.

1958-67 - Worked as photographer - was a director of Landseer Studios and Photo Repro Company, a graphics art business near Leicester Square, London. Ran a book business in spare time. The business was The Arcane Library specialising in alternative areas such popular psychology, meditation, dreams, spiritual philosophy. Sold books world-wide. I really wanted to circulated the ideas regarding this non-sectarian insight into the human spirit. Then the Beetles came along and did it a million times faster!

I was also still writing as freelance journalist in this period.

In 1962 began the study of dreams after reading/selling Dr. Leslie Weatherhead's book on the subject, and P.W. Martin's description of peer group work in his book Experiment in Depth. I had already studied Jung and Freud, but Weatherhead and Martin presented the subject as accessible and useful to the general public. All the other books on dreams I had read and sold presented it as a purely clinical or superstitious subject.

During this period there was an explosion of interest in meditation, yoga, the inner life. I started teaching classes throughout Buckinghamshire - Wycombe; Slough; Gerrards Cross; Amersham; London Dance Centre. Subject - relaxation, yoga, meditation.

1970-71 - Moved to Devon. Helped my wife, Brenda, run a vegetarian wholefood guest-house, and also taught yoga in local classes. Meanwhile, from the work done in classes and at Tyringham, saw there was a market for a compact book on the subjects I had taught. In 1970 Collins published my book Yoga and Relaxation. Sphere later reissued it as a paperback under the title Relax With Yoga. Writing articles for several health oriented magazines.

1971-78 - I started a small experimental group to explore the connection between dreams and spontaneous movement, as it was used in many ancient cultures. (See: Chap4) The group became a focus for people interested in alternative health and self help. With the help and support of Mike Tanner and Sheila Johns I started one of the first 'personal growth' centres in the UK, and ran it in Devon from 1972 until 1980. The centre, Ashram, in Combe Martin, was a focus for psychotherapy, personal growth and yoga in the South West at that time, and was the nucleus for several 'LifeStream' groups elsewhere. This work gained recognition from recognised Humanistic Psychology authorities. David Boadella wrote in Self And Society (the official magazine of Humanistic Psychology) "The most powerful advocate of this kind of mutual help process in England, has been Tony Crisp. Tony Crisp developed methods of working with bodily charge, breathing, muscular tensions, and the contact and energy of small groups, quite independently of Reich, Janov, Lake or Lowen. .... I regard him as the best exponent I know of what I should like to call the 'democratic' approach to working with emotional and bodily energies."

One of the approaches that developed out of our explorations we called the Seed Group. It started as a form of free meditation and unfolded into a very powerful means of self exploration and spiritual experience.

Do You Dream? - My second book, was published by Spearman in 1971. This was published in the USA by Dutton, and in Germany by Lubbe Verlag. My aim, after exploring dreams for some time with individuals, was to carry on the tradition of Weatherhead, and present a lay-persons guide to the dream. At the time there was very little else on the market in that vein. The book is now out of print but still available at Amazon.

From the experience of the experimental group, LifeStream, and from previous work in movement and relaxation, I started working as a therapist using dreams and what at the time we called Coex, and is now LifeStream. I always tried to keep a 'self-help' basis for my work, seeing it as a way of working with the self regulatory, self healing processes within each of us. Also I constantly honoured the spiritual nature of human life.

From 1983 I regularly worked as one of the teachers and sometimes director of the holistic holiday community at Atsitsa on the Greek island of Skyros and at the Skyros Institute. In both places I was helping people use simple techniques to discover the wisdom in their own dreams, and to work with the processes of healing and personal growth within themselves that express as spontaneous movement.

1984-90- The Instant Dream Book was published by Spearman in 1984.

Taught dream work and self-regulation in Montreal Canada. This was organised by my long time friend Krysia Gallien, who is still teaching in Montreal. Did a tour of UK broadcasting on local radios doing phone-in on dreams. Was taken up on regular basis by London Broadcasting Company (LBC). Taught in Iceland, appearing on national TV and radio, and in national newspapers.

The Queen of self-help health, Leslie Kenton published an appreciation of my work in a feature 'Rituals of Beauty', in the magazine Harpers and Queen. "Through his work with dreams and his in-depth study of dream function, Crisp knew that during sleep each of us experience spontaneous movements while we are dreaming. Most of these movements are only barely expressed through the body."

Frequently invited to lecture on dreams by Marcia Karp and Ken Sprague at The Holwell Centre for Psychodrama & Sociodrama, North Devon. Did regular seminars on dreams and Coex at Little Grove Education, Chesham. Also taught at Cortijo Romero in Spain a few times - now run by my friends Ann and Alan Dale.

Mind and Movement - I consider this book to be an expression of the central theme of my life's work and thought. It was was published by Daniel in 1987. A study and explanation of the connection between dreams and self-regulation, and the spiritual practices worldwide, such as Subud, Seiti, spontaneous dance movements, waking dreams, etc.

1994 - Revised edition of Dream Dictionary published in April as The New Dream Dictionary. Finished The Hand Book in new year, published in September. Started working for Teletext again in February. Worked for a while with Yannis Andricoplous on his I to I magazine. See feature from I to I on - an interview about my work - What Keeps Me Going.

1995 - Hyone and I sold Ashram in Combe Martin, Devon, where we had been living, to our long time friends Juliana Brown and Richard Mowbray. They still run it as a centre named The Wild Pear Centre.

Living in Melbourne, Australia. Worked for New Zealand Teletext producing a dream page, as with UK Teletext. Early in the year did a book launch for The New Dream Dictionary and The Hand Book. This resulted in many national broadcasts, two national TV appearances on 'Good Morning Australia' with Burt Newcombe; large feature in The Age, and centre spread in the Herald Sun. Wrote a new interpretation for the I Ching, and worked at enlarging Dream Dictionary for possible multi-media use. Finished working for Teletext UK.

I left Melbourne at the end of 1995, leaving Hyone in Australia. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the end of our marriage. It was the beginning of a very difficult period.

2000 - Coincidences was published in June 2000. I then worked on a new dream dictionary for the software program Alchera, produced by Harry Bosma. The stay at Ruskin College, along with the writing of Superminds, Dreams and Dreaming, and Coincidences, were all done with the caring support of Chris Campbell, who was my partner from 1996, and is still my very good friend.

2001 Bantam/Dell have now published the revised version of Dream Dictionary. This is a great excitement, to offer readers a much improved book.

This year was a wonderful experience for me. During it I spent time in Mexico and San Francisco with Jacqueline and Jim Hermann. Jacqueline and I drove from San Francisco to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. It was all a transforming experience, evoking many poems and dreams, and the healing of an age old shadow that had clung to me since childhood.

2002 - I am presently living in Wales, Near Swansea, in the UK.

2003 - Finished working on a set of Dream Cards published by Cico Books. Each card is a beautifully coloured illustration of a dream image, and an accompanying book helps you explore your dream with the cards. The boxed set is titled Dream Power and is published in the USA, France and in the UK.

One of the big events for me this year, challenging as well as wonderful, was that Johan, Ayana and their small son Caleb lived with me. They had moved to the UK from Namibia to study ways of helping mothers raise and educate their own child. Their aim is to take their experience back to Namibia and possibly South Africa to help the white, black and coloured mothers learn skills enabling them to raise their children with a fuller access to the child's potential. They feel it better to work toward raising healthy and whole children in touch with their inner life, rather than try to heal the countless stream of people crippled by being raised in our present social and educational structures.

This year I experienced a dream that foreshadowed world events and changed the direction of my life. See Visions in the River of Dreams.

2004 - In January of this year I finished the latest book, titled Your Dream Interpreter. This is published in the UK by Cico, and in the USA by Readers Digest. This is a beautifully illustrated book and is a real pleasure to have helped create.

In December of 2004 started writing Lucid Dreaming. This is commissioned by Godsfield.

2005 - Lucid Dreaming was finished in April, and was published in April of 2006. I really enjoyed writing the book and feel I have said things in it that previous books did not give the right setting to express.

Events in the early part of this year led me to a meeting that has been life changing in many ways. The meeting was with 'Akela', a woman with whom an extraordinary connection has grown. This led to a spiritual marriage in which our inner life is linked in ways that constantly nourish and transform us. So much wonder and experience have arisen from this, so many inexplicable events.

My dream life has been extraordinary also, and new territories of experience are being explored.

Something else that has happened this year has been a massive increase in the amount of visitors to the website. I get a lot of pleasure providing something so many of you use.

At the very end of the year I spent time with my two friends Johan and Ayana in Namibia, and helped deliver their new baby. See Shorter Labour.

2006 - This year I finished writing Eye of Dreams. The book was started in 1994, and some of it appears on this site. But there were several chapters unwritten that have now been completed. The book summarises the extraordinary dimensions of dream and the inner life I met or experienced during my forty years of work with dreams, exploration of the unconscious, and working as a psychotherapist.

So far I have not been able to find a publisher for the book, though I haven't tried too hard. The reason being that I am revising The New Dream Dictionary.

When The New Dream Dictionary was published it was 156,000 words in length. Over the years, as I gained new insights or wrote new features I added them to my computer file of the book. This enlarged it enormously until now it is over 626,000 words in size. This is far too big to print in hard copy. So hopefully, as and when I finish the revision, it will be presented either as an online resource - perhaps the largest of its type - and made accessible; or sold on a CD as a computer file to access. I don't think this will happen until well into 2007 or 2008, as it is a huge undertaking to not only revise, but to set up all the internal and external links.

During this year Your Dream Interpreter has been published in several languages - in French as De Decoder nos Reves; in Portuguese as Interprete dos Sonhos; in Swedish as Drommene Dine.

2007 - In the early part of the year I visited New Zealand for the second time with my friend CJ. Didn't work or teach, just enjoyed being with her family and absorbing the seashore and mountains. The revision of Dream Dictionary is now complete, as from the end of October. A company in the US is going to present it to users in a very new way that I will describe when it is out. I also hope it will be presented on the website, but I am waiting for site builders to create something special. Up until now I have done all the design and work on this site. A new design and functionality is needed for the new presentation of the dictionary.

2008 - Hudson Entertainment are now offering a specially tailored version of my online Dream Interpreter for the new type of mobile/cell phones. This is a new departure for Hudson as they have previously only dealt with games for phones. It means you can have the full dream dictionary on your phone. The database for this is huge. Much bigger than any book on the subject and what is presently on this site.

The enlarged and revised edition of Eye of Dreams is now published. I am also working on a book provisionally titled Surviving Tomorrow! It is being written in collaboration with Dina Glouberman, and our combined experience will hopefully produce an outstanding book. It is about the enormous changes in the world we face in the present and future, known and unknown, and what understanding, talents and skills we need to meet it creatively and perhaps with love.

During the last few months of this year Tiziana Stupia and I have been working together exploring the possibilities of LifeStream. Some of this she has recorded on her travel blog. This has been a very rich time of exploring and sharing. Tiziana is now working toward presenting LifeStream and dreamwork to other people.

On December the fifth of this year I experienced a stroke. Thanks to the quick and skilled work of the Royal Free Hosital in Hampstead it was a wonderful experienced. I had no language, and I felt I emoted up a new level of pereption, pre-verbal, a world of quite peace. I can not simply write well yet. As my spelling can sometimes do some strange things. Bear with me.

2009 - This year so far has seen me gradually re-building the skills of walking, talking, writing and being after my stroke. Quite a journey, and still progressing. I am starting to write up my experience of the stroke, and some of the wonderful things I learned from it. See My Experience of Stroke.

At last, this year has seen the release of the immensely larger dream dictionary that I called Dream Call for mobile/cell phones. If you click on the image you will be able to see it more fully. Huson Entertainment has now launch the massive dream dicionary using Twitter as a platform. Dream Call is 318,000 words in size, compared with Dream Dictionary at 150,000. Unfortunately there is still no sign of a better planned website. Also there has been a vicious attacks on the server on which my website appears. I suppose it is a sign of the times - Internet terrorists. Though I suppose this is also a sign of the breakdown of the old values so long prophesied. As this year nears it end Larry Minikes suggested that he put Dream Call on iPhone. I do not know how long this will take, but it feels like something big. Dream Call will end up enormous because we plan to include the dream encyclopedia in it.

A New Life - Since the 17th of December I entered a new epoch of my life. It started 10 years ago while I was living in Oxford. At that time I had a very passionate love affair with a very passionate woman. Unfortunately it didn't last long - though in fact looking back I think it was good fortune as I had a lot of living to do that prepared me for what came later. It shortness was due to my new love deciding that she preferred her previous man-friend who had just 'come back' to her.

In June of 2009 Ros came into my life again with amazing results - amazing because for the past ten years I had lived a life of a bahelor, and a semi recluse. I thought then that I could never manage a full relationship again, though I had tried several times since. So now I have moved my home and are securely living with Ros in Totnes. I avoid giving her full name as we want to avoid telephone calls. It is an enormous change for me, internallly and externally.

2010 - ????????

All the above is of course just a reflection of some outer events. My major work has been exploring the inner world. Some of this is described in Eye of Dreams; LifeStream, and End User, the latter being part of an autobiography. But during my life I have worked as a shop assistant - photographer - kitchen porter - trained nurse - telephone exchange operator - van driver - builder decorator - plumber - electrician - television aerial erector - radio and TV broadcaster - journalist - author - group leader teaching LifeStream, dreamwork and self help - therapist using dreams and LifeStream - newspaper columnist - cook - what next!!!. There are just too many things in life to enjoy and taste. Now I am enjoying being an old man ready to fly into the next world. All the exploring of inner worlds I have experienced in the past means that at my age I am already half way there!