What do you think?
Rate this book
The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means for Our Health
Not yet published
Expected 24 Feb 26We all dream, but do we know why we dream? Discover what goes on behind our eyelids and what it means for our health.
Do you have common recurring dreams of missing an exam, even though it has been years since you were in college? Do certain people keep showing up in your dreams? How can you stop your dreaming brain from fixating on the same preoccupations and concerns? We spend every night of our lives dreaming, yet we remain unaware of the power and possibilities of accessing the inner sanctum of our minds.
In The Brain Never Sleeps, Karen van Kampen guides us on a journey through dreamland, sharing how we can reclaim this other realm of thought and experience to improve our well-being. Our dreams are as real to us as our waking experiences. They have the power to influence what we think, feel and do. With our dreaming brain operating in a different mode, disconnected from the demands and distractions of daily life, we brainstorm new ideas, face our fears and uncover insights into ourselves. Van Kampen, whose father opened one of the first independent sleep laboratories in North America, acts as a unique and informed guide, combining first-person narrative with highly accessible science journalism.
Van Kampen investigates neuroscience and psychology to reveal the connection between our waking and dreaming lives while also exploring what happens when people get stuck in between—the mixed brain state of parasomnias including sleepwalking and night terrors. Through the fascinating stories of dream scientists, we learn how dreams boost learning, spark creativity and process emotions. Van Kampen conducts her own dream experiments with expert researchers as her guides. The Brain Never Sleeps propels us into the next frontier of dream engineering where we can guide our dreams with the hope of improving our well-being. Her toolkit at the end of the book offers simple ways to use dreams to improve our waking and dreaming lives.
The Brain Never Sleeps is a personal and enlightening journey that will change how we understand and value our nocturnal wanderings.
Do you have common recurring dreams of missing an exam, even though it has been years since you were in college? Do certain people keep showing up in your dreams? How can you stop your dreaming brain from fixating on the same preoccupations and concerns? We spend every night of our lives dreaming, yet we remain unaware of the power and possibilities of accessing the inner sanctum of our minds.
In The Brain Never Sleeps, Karen van Kampen guides us on a journey through dreamland, sharing how we can reclaim this other realm of thought and experience to improve our well-being. Our dreams are as real to us as our waking experiences. They have the power to influence what we think, feel and do. With our dreaming brain operating in a different mode, disconnected from the demands and distractions of daily life, we brainstorm new ideas, face our fears and uncover insights into ourselves. Van Kampen, whose father opened one of the first independent sleep laboratories in North America, acts as a unique and informed guide, combining first-person narrative with highly accessible science journalism.
Van Kampen investigates neuroscience and psychology to reveal the connection between our waking and dreaming lives while also exploring what happens when people get stuck in between—the mixed brain state of parasomnias including sleepwalking and night terrors. Through the fascinating stories of dream scientists, we learn how dreams boost learning, spark creativity and process emotions. Van Kampen conducts her own dream experiments with expert researchers as her guides. The Brain Never Sleeps propels us into the next frontier of dream engineering where we can guide our dreams with the hope of improving our well-being. Her toolkit at the end of the book offers simple ways to use dreams to improve our waking and dreaming lives.
The Brain Never Sleeps is a personal and enlightening journey that will change how we understand and value our nocturnal wanderings.
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication February 24, 2026
3 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 11, 2025
**I received an early copy of this book from Edelweiss.**
I've always been fascinated by dreams. I've had many of the types that Van Kampen describes in this book--vivid inspirational dreams, recurring dreams, lucid dreams. I've had Inception-type dreams where I fall asleep in a dream and have another one. I also talk in my sleep and sleepwalk. So I was really intrigued by this book and all its information about how dreams work and all the different ways dreams can be therapeutic. It's not like a woo-woo "this is what your dream means" book--it's really fascinating and backed by science, and it took me a while to absorb the information. I was most interested by the therapeutic dreams that can come at a certain brain wave frequency when people are coming out of surgery/anesthesia. I wonder if that will ever become a standard or if it's just too expensive.
I've always been fascinated by dreams. I've had many of the types that Van Kampen describes in this book--vivid inspirational dreams, recurring dreams, lucid dreams. I've had Inception-type dreams where I fall asleep in a dream and have another one. I also talk in my sleep and sleepwalk. So I was really intrigued by this book and all its information about how dreams work and all the different ways dreams can be therapeutic. It's not like a woo-woo "this is what your dream means" book--it's really fascinating and backed by science, and it took me a while to absorb the information. I was most interested by the therapeutic dreams that can come at a certain brain wave frequency when people are coming out of surgery/anesthesia. I wonder if that will ever become a standard or if it's just too expensive.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
"The brain is the person, the brain is the self, the brain is who you are."
This is an incredibly thorough history of our understanding of sleep and dreams. The author took immense effort explaining how research has developed over the years. She presents complex information in a clear and simple way and weaves in her own personal experiences.
I enjoyed this. It isn't a book I would necessarily buy (more of a fiction reader), but it is one I would absolutely check out from the library. It's a good book to leaf through little by little. I recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about sleep, dreaming and our brains.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is an incredibly thorough history of our understanding of sleep and dreams. The author took immense effort explaining how research has developed over the years. She presents complex information in a clear and simple way and weaves in her own personal experiences.
I enjoyed this. It isn't a book I would necessarily buy (more of a fiction reader), but it is one I would absolutely check out from the library. It's a good book to leaf through little by little. I recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about sleep, dreaming and our brains.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you NetGalley, author, & publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I was really excited to read this, hoping for insight to my incredibly wild dreams. However, I found this book difficult to get into. It reads like a textbook, it’s very dry. For being under 300 pages, it took me much too long to finish. There is a lot of information on Freud, sleep studies, and the technical side of dreams. But I think I was expecting a fresher take and what I got was outdated Freudian theories. This one just wasn’t for me.
I was really excited to read this, hoping for insight to my incredibly wild dreams. However, I found this book difficult to get into. It reads like a textbook, it’s very dry. For being under 300 pages, it took me much too long to finish. There is a lot of information on Freud, sleep studies, and the technical side of dreams. But I think I was expecting a fresher take and what I got was outdated Freudian theories. This one just wasn’t for me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews