Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes’s Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited (Book Review)

Ted Remington, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English and Foreign Languages, The University of Saint Francis, 2006.

Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness explains, extends, and expands many of Julian Jaynes’s most provocative ideas. For readers who finished The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and wondered “What comes next?”, this collection provides answers.

Gathering together both additional writings by Jaynes himself, along with thoughtful essays by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, the book both explores ways in which Jaynes’s thought can be applied in specific fields of study and serves as a testimony to the centrality of the issue of consciousness to all fields of intellectual endeavor. This worthy sequel to Jaynes’s original book has been a long time coming, but the wait has been worth it.