The Twenty-Four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives

by Rosalind D. Cartwright

In January of 1997, an otherwise nonviolent man under great stress at work brutally murdered his wife in their backyard. He then went back to bed, awakening only when police entered his home. He claimed to have no memory of the event because, while his body was awake at the time, his mind was not. He had been sleepwalking.

In The Twenty-Four Hour Mind, sleep scientist Rosalind Cartwright brings together decades of research into the bizarre sleep disorders known as parasomnias to propose a new theory of how the human mind works consistently throughout waking and sleeping hours. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated EEG and brain imaging technologies, we now know that our minds do not simply "turn off" during sleep. Rather, they continue to be active, and research has indicated that one of the primary purposes of sleep is to aid in regulating emotions and processing experiences that occur during preceding waking hours. As such, when sleep is neurologically or genetically impaired or just too short, the processes that good sleep facilitates--those that usually have a positive effect on our mood and performance--can short circuit, with negative results that occasionally reach tragic proportions. Examining the interactions between conscious and unconscious forms of thinking as they proceed throughout the cycles of sleeping, dreaming, and waking, Cartwright demystifies the inner workings of the human mind that trigger sleep problems, how researchers are working to control them, and how they can apply what they learn to further our understanding of the brain. Along the way, she provides a lively account of the history of sleep research and the birth of sleep medicine that will initiate readers into this fascinating field of inquiry and the far-reaching implications it will have on the future of neuroscience. The Twenty-Four Hour Mind offers a unique look at a relatively new area of study that will be of interest to those with and without sleep problems, as well as anyone captivated by the mysteries of the brain--and what sleep continues to teach us about the waking mind.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Health, Neuroscience, Mental Health, Female Authors

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2010

Reviews

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...sleep is a built-in physician and dreams an internal psychotherapist."

[Janardan Misra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the few books written on a topic, which otherwise constitutes one of the most integral part of our lives - the sleep and dreams.

After reading it, I was really upset thinking that I read it so late in my life! Had I read it even ten years back, it must have enhanced the quality of my experiences in life and productivity to a good extent.

I later plan to share in detail my notes from the book but one or two points which have more strongly stuck with me:

$ Dreams are essential for keeping us emotionally healthy and especially for feeling positive in life and being able use our cognitive functions well. Initial signs of psychological problems can be found in sleep disturbances and completeness of dreams is essential to recover from many common mental problems e.g., depression.

$ Over sleeping (> 9 hrs) and under sleeping (< 5 hrs) are sure ways to invite problems in life!

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be a fascinating read. I heard about it while reading an article about parasomnias, and so my expectations were that this book would focus more on the science behind sleep and how it goes wrong. I was disappointed when, a couple chapters in, I found the main focus to be dreaming. In re-reading the summary of the book however, I realised this was more the topic of the book and readjusted my expectations. I ended up getting a lot out of The Twenty-Four Hour Mind - it has incredible information about the emotional aspect of sleeping and dreaming and how this impacts our every day lives, our self-concept, and our ability to regulate emotions.

The writing itself was engaging and smooth, directed to a wide audience without a strong background in neuroscience. Several case studies illustrated the different kinds of sleep disorders and how they present, even though very little is understood about why they happen. As a psychology student hoping to go into sleep research, this has given me lots to think about and has sparked a lot of curiosity beyond my initial interest of insomnia.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in finding out more about sleep.

[Bözsi Claussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I read almost everything about sleep and dreaming up to about 10 years ago, I have not had time in the last ten years to keep up with what new research has been done, new findings and any possibly new theoretical understandings of the role of sleep and dreaming. This book did a good job of presenting and discussing this new work that has been made possible by MRI scanning. Easy to read and understand while at the same time substantial in content.

[Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

2016.02.08–2016.02.10

Contents

Cartwright R (2010) (09:30) Twenty-four Hour Mind, The - The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives

Introduction

01. In the Beginning: The Early Days of Sleep Research
• How Sleep Researcher Became the "Leading Lady" Part of My Self-concept
• How Sleep Disorders Revitalized Dream Research

02. Collecting Dreams: Watching the Sleeping Mind
• Dreams of Adults
• Brain Imaging in Sleep
• The Benefits of NREM and REM Cooperation

03. Short Sleep and Its Consequences: Insomnia
• The Costs of Short Sleep
• Health Problems Related to Short Sleep
• When Short Sleep Is Insomnia

04. Sleep and Dreams in Depression
• Sleep Studies of Depression
• Dreaming in Depression
• Working Through Divorce in Dreams
• Study 1: Dreams of Depressed and Nondepressed Divorcing Volunteers
• Study 2: Dreams of Healthy Volunteers and Their Mood Before and After Sleep
• Study 3: Dreams of the Ex-spouse During Divorce
• Dreams of the Former Partner

05. Sleepwalking into Danger: Murders Without Motives
• The Scott Falater Case: The Pool Pump Murder
• Was He Crazy?
• When Sleep Turns Violent
• The Diagnosis of Sleepwalking
• Sleep Studies as Evidence
• Sleepwalking Triggers
• Selecting Dreams for Analysis
• Does Scott Consciously Acknowledge the Emotional Changes Evidenced in His Dream Reports?

06. More NREM Parasomnias: Those Who Injure Themselves, Seek Food or Sex, Explore, and Protect
• Self-injury Cases
• Sleep Eating
• Sleep Sex
• The Good Neighbor Case
• REM Sleep Erections
• The Explorers
• The Protectors
• Sleep Behavior in the Young
• NREM Parasomnias: Common Features

07. Sleepwalking and State of Mind in the Courtroom
• Sleepwalking and Sleep Apnea
• Where We Are Now
• Sleep Experts Disagree

08. Warnings from the Land of Nod: Nightmares and REM Behavior Disorder
• Help for the Nightmare Sufferer
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Nightmares
• Nightmares and REM Behavior Disorder
• Animal Models of REM Behavior Disorder

09. Dreaming and the Unconscious
• Science of the Unconscious
• Usefulness of Dreams
• Sleep and Learning
• Reactivation in the Human Brain

10. The Role of Dreams in the Twenty-four Hour Mind: Regulating Emotion and Updating the Self
• Changes in a Frightening Dream
• Summing Up Where We Stand on the Freudian Model

Appendix: Dreams Selected for Analysis from Scott Falater's Dream Log

References
Index

[Dallin Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty cool stuff. upset carl jung was not mentioned a single time

[Rashmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler Alert: The review includes many excerpts from the book and what I understood from it.

I have really understood sleep in my sleep and dreams in my own dreams.

There are books you read and then rate them on Amazon, goodreads, Facebook, twitter or whatever is your current favourite. There are some where you are not satisfied just by giving them some stars, you want to talk about them, comment on them and let others know what you thought about them. And then, there are some others! You read them and you wish you had read them a couple of decades back :) For me, The Twenty-four Hour Mind is one such book :-) I would’ve definitely used the learnings a lot better had I read it much earlier.

The book not only expanded my vocabulary beyond NREM, REM and lucid dreaming :-), it truly helped me understand the fundamentals of sleep and the important role dreams play in our lives. For a long time, until the middle of last century, sleep was merely considered the opposite of waking. The dormant state of our body with the sole purpose of resting our mind and body. But, the mechanism of sleep are a lot better understood today.

To summarize what sleep is all about-
1) Sleep is not a single state of being throughout the night

2) Sleep occurs in 90-110min cycles where each cycle goes through 5 stages - stage I-IV of NREM and REM being the last stage.

3) The first two stages of sleep are when you are drifting into sleep and your waking thoughts continue into your early sleep. Stage III and IV are stages of deep sleep, the most restful part of the sleep. The deep sleep is characterized by very slow brain waves called delta waves and is also referred to as SWS (slow wave sleep). The last stage or the REM is when the brain again becomes active again. Once the REM ends, we gradually move on to the next cycle.

4) The deep sleep is the restful sleep when the body releases large amounts of growth hormones responsible for body repairs, growth of damaged tissues, strengthening of the immune system and our general well being. If one is woken up in this SWS sleep, she would be disoriented for a couple of moments and definitely not in the best of moods :-|

5) The brain is most active during REM sleep. During REM the brain probably takes stock of the days events and files them as memories. If awakened during REM, people remember bizarre images and events from their dreams.

6) When REM ends, there is gradual lightening of sleep and then the next sleep cycle kicks in.

7) The initial sleep cycles are dominated by SWS sleep with REM lasting only about 5-10 minutes. As the night progresses, this is gradually reversed. Towards the end of the sleep, most of the sleep cycle is spent in REM.

8) For a thorough understanding of sleep, one can read up credible sources on the net. For example-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/...
https://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep...

Excerpts from the book and my understanding-

At the macro level, due to the way sleep works, you wake up feeling refreshed and energetic if you wake up at the end of a sleep cycle. If we are woken up by an alarm or any other external stimulus, sometimes we end up feeling groggy and disoriented - it is probably because we are woken up in the middle of SWS or REM. Which means that it maybe worthwhile to figure out the length of your sleep cycle and set your sleep time in multiples of your sleep cycle. There are apps out there that claim to detect your movement and wake you accordingly.

We all know that sleep is important, but we do not realize exactly how important it is. Our most common understanding is that, at the end of a good sleep, we are well rested. And short hours of sleep make us sluggish, unable to concentrate and focus and more likely to make mistakes. In extreme cases, lack of sleep is even considered to lead to weight gain, early onset of Type II diabetes etc. The book helps us understand that the effects of sleep go far beyond the physically and that it also affects our emotional well-being, how well we assimilate new knowledge and learn new skills and how we form new memories.

Each individual has his/her own understanding of how the world works and their own place in the world. This understanding is based on our experiences, knowledge and understanding and it is truly a work in progress . It is this “personal world view” based on which we go about our everyday life - interact with people, react to situations, do activities, make decisions etc. We can consider it like a schema of the world that is populated over the period of our lives. Like a disk based hashmap where the entries are hashed according to emotions, that is, the key is the emotion and the payload are memories/experiences/knowledge/skills etc.

During our sleep, while the body rests, the sleeping mind takes stock of the happenings of the day. As opposed to the waking mind that focuses on logical thinking and decision making, the sleeping mind focuses on emotional aspects of our experiences.

“The emotional aspect, which is often not consciously recognized, drives the not-conscious mental activity of sleep.”

The fact that sleeping mind focuses on emotions is also established by monitoring the active areas of the brain during different stages of the sleep.

“During REM, there is less activity in the prefrontal cortex (the seat of the so-called executive functions of logical thinking, judging, decision making, and self-reflecting) and more in the sensory association areas, and those sites associated with emotion (the limbic and paralimbic areas).”

During the course of our day, we are constantly reacting to different situations, taking decisions, handling conflicts etc. If there is a strong emotional reaction to something during the day, and if that emotion is left unattended, we may carry the unresolved emotion to sleep. During sleep, the brain tries to match these emotions with similar emotions in the past and groups it with similar experiences, based on our emotional response. This whole matching, mapping and storing of similar experiences together generally takes place during REM sleep and it serves multiple purposes. REM is when the events of the day are analyzed, new skills being learnt are reinforced and memories are formed.

“Strong emotions evoked by waking experience, if left unattended may remain unresolved by sleep time. What we experience as dream is the result of our brain’s effort to match recent, emotion evoking experience to other similar experiences in the past. This matching process, of putting similar experiences (similar based on our emotional response) together, helps defuse the intensity of our feelings that might otherwise linger and disrupt our moods and behaviors the next day.”

The mapping of similar experiences together helps down regulate the negative emotion, generated from unpleasant experiences, which is essential for our well being. Its like telling ourselves, “Been there, done that and survived to tell the tale.” Though the book focuses on negative emotions, I believe it would be relevant to all emotions. Even emotions of extreme happiness may warrant regulation as they may lead to impaired decision making. Probably a better description would be ‘normalization of emotions’. This normalization cannot be a one step process, instead it probably happens over multiple iterations involving multiple REM cycles with each iteration uncovering more interconnections with existing memories or the schema and updating it in context of the new experience.

“When the emotional component of the dream story shifts within the night from being negative in the first hours to positive in the late hours — from anxiety or unhappiness to pleasure or joyful expectation — and the images in the dream story include the waking emotional concerns melded with related older memories, making a patchwork of old and new images difficult to understand, a health process is actually under way.”

It is this matching of similar experiences with earlier memories that probably leads to generation of images in dreams that appear random to the conscious mind.

REM is not the same as vivid dreams or even dreaming, though the two are co-related. One may go through REM without seeing any dreams and dreams do not occur only during REM. One may see dreams during NREM sleep as well, however, the fantastical dreams or the dreams that seem completely random, mostly occur during REM. This may well be because of during REM the brain assimilates current experiences with earlier memories and creates complex and deep connections - leading to the brain accessing a collage of memories/images. Dreams that occur during NREM sleep are more logical and coherent.

“We generally remember only the dreams from the last sleep cycle, and that too if it is vivid in imagery and/or particularly rich in feelings.”

“…research supports that dreams are longer, more complex in structure and more emotion-filled at the end of the night than they are in the beginning, and since we are more likely to remember the dream that we are experiencing just as we wake up, we are likely to best remember the wildest one of the night.”

“Most investigators agree with the overall conclusion that one of the ways that sleep works is by enhancing the memory of important bits of new information and clearing out unnecessary or competing bits, and then passing the good bits on to be integrated into existing memory circuits.”

The whole grouping of experiences based on our emotional response made me realize something interesting. It is often said that women remember things longer. Perhaps, it is not that they remember things longer, but it is just that they experience things differently. Women experience a range of emotions, so maybe their schema of the world is a lot richer because it is how our brain stores information. And anniversaries and child births are life changing events for most women, so naturally the emotional response is profound leading to a well imprinted memory :-)

The importance of sleep is not only because of the role it plays in memory formation, it is also plays an essential role in learning new skills. When we are learning new skills, we exhibit more rapid eye movement during REM. Research has shown that high-level of activity is detected in the brain when people are going through stages of intense learning.

“Through the night, from REM to REM, new information is integrated, drawing together more and more remote associations.”

Going back to the point about what happens during REM and the connection with dreams- let us say you are learning an abstract concept, depending on what cognitive skills are required to understand the concept, you may not see any dreams, but events may lead to dreams.

We are constantly updating our internal schema based on our experiences. If we constantly fall short on our sleep, we skip the whole process of integrating our schema with reality and the schema may not fit reality. This may lead to impaired decision making, misinterpretation of responses of others, failure to anticipate new events etc., leading to anxiety.

Lot of sleep and dream studies rely on recording the dreams in sleep labs. The author acknowledges the inherent flaw in collecting dreams as it leads to altering the dream narrative and very often leads to not knowing the ending. It also leads to effecting the later REM.

In addition to collecting dreams, researchers study sleep and dreaming by looking at sleep anomalies, for example, sleep walking and studying the effect of depression and alcohol consumption on sleep and dreams.

Sleep walking It is popularly believed that sleep walkers end up walking when they are in deep sleep and are dreaming. And whatever activity they are involved in is part of the dream. However, sleep walking is not a side effect of dreaming.  In sleep walkers, during the walking episode the body is active but the brain is not. Sleep walking in fact takes place mostly during SWS.  Which probably means that sleep walking episodes can only take place early in the night as compared to later in the night.

Effect of Alcohol Observations post-alcohol consumption show reduced brain activity and rapid eye movement, which leads us to believe that alcohol interferes with memory formation. This may be the reason people drink when they are sad, to reduce the impact of unhappy situations!

Depression In depression, the REM occurs too early and displaces some of the restful non-REM (NREM) sleep that usually precedes it.

“When those who have had a depressive episode are functioning well they sleep better, but sleep worsens prior to the appearance of another episode.”

“The more severe the depression, the earlier the first REM begins”

The patients go from stage 2 to directly REM, skipping stage 3 and 4 of deep sleep completely. This displacement of the first deep sleep results in skipping the release of human growth hormone (HGH) which happens in large quantity in the initial sleep cycle. So, in a way, monitoring the sleep of patients recovering from depression may help predict any cases of relapse.

“In severe depression, dreaming is often devoid of any coherent narrative thread, but in milder depression dreams express emotions that have become flat, and a dreamed self that is passive and lacking responsiveness.”

The irony is that, we all would love fantastical, happening dreams, but the dreams of normal individuals leading relatively happy lives tend to be less interesting and involve themselves and other people in mundane activities.

Questions that stayed unresolved-
1) How do we know which events are important and should be converted to long term memory? It cannot entirely be based on emotional response because assimilating new knowledge and learning new skills will probably be less linked to emotions.
2) Why does sleep deprivation lead to early REM and not longer SWS?
3) Why does lack of sleep lead to early on-set of REM? Why doesn’t it lead to longer SWS?
4) Depression also leads to early REM, that is why anti-depressants are supposed to suppress/interfere with REM. Then why do antidepressants like effexor lead to vivid dreams.
5) When we are learning a new skill, why do we exhibit increase in rapid eye movement during REM. What is the connection? Why the eye movement!!?!!

[ryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice exploration and justification of the primary hypothesis - that the mind continues activity throughout the night and that the content of dreams is a reflection of the mood-regulatory and restorative processes at work during sleep.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not written in a purely scientific style; there are many anecdotes and the author uses many personal phrases. The theories and studies are thought-provoking. I really liked reading subject's dreams, used as illustrations and supporting evidence.

[Mindbait]

This book looks at the various aspects of sleep and dreaming, including sleep disorders and the role of sleep and dreaming in relation to your mental, physical and emotional health.

As a one-time shiftworker the subject of sleep is close to my heart, but I mostly got onto the idea of reading it after a few of the little facts and figures in Stephen King's "Insomnia" novel peaked my interest. '

It was incredibly interesting, with a lot of talk about the idea of dreams regulating your mood and doing the job of churning through all the negativity you experienced lately (that person who said you look ugly, that thing at work that you're really worried about, that argument you didn't have with someone etc), they did studies where they would wake people up throughout the night to get dream reports from them. The dreams generally started off quite negative and unpleasant but by the morning had shifted to a positive frame... so it's like your brain takes all of this junk and chucks it into these surreal scenarios for you to play it out and purge yourself of it... also making it another reason you can be quite grumpy or depressed if you don't get a good night's sleep.

I kind of wonder if it's tied into the circadian rhythm/body clock as much as it is sleep, because I know that on nightshift sometimes my brain would go into some weird overload where I'd just find myself chewing over recent annoyances in my head, kind of going over the points for the argument that I might end up having about whatever... it's not pleasant either, sometimes it's like having some weird feedback loop in your brain.

Well researched and written by a specialist who has been studying sleep for the majority of her lengthy professional life. I enjoyed it well enough that I bought a copy and have leant/recommended it to plenty of people. I recommend it to YOU too.

[Jim Razinha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't remember which book referenced this one, but it was on my List. I'm being generous with the extra star - this is dry and academic and while interesting...dry and academic. I liked Ms. Cartwright recounting a bit on David Foulkes and his book Children's Dreams and how he blamed Freud and the psychologists who interpreted children's dreams with (my words...) the nonsense of Freud.

I don't remember my dreams much...only the not fun ones, and not all of them. And though I've been awakened in the middle or REM sleep - I've been more aware and observant while reading this - I can't recall whatever seemed vivid at the time. Not sure whether I'm an anomaly or the subjects of studies are. I know I don't get enough sleep and a trim the required sleep period unfortunately because I stay up too late. That later deep REM seems to be important. Anyway... I'm in the middle of a move and choose to take the time to share only one of the dozens of notes:

"We can now begin to answer the question, 'Where do we go when we sleep?' Clearly we do not sink into a void, but instead into a mental workshop where emotionally important information is kept active until it is saved in neural networks."

[Ethan Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our dreams are much more than just a masquerade of strange images in the night: they keep us healthy, regulate our negative emotions, and help us cope with the difficulties of waking life.

Actionable advice:

Let your dreams do the talking.

Our dreams are far less mystical than we might like to believe, so there’s no reason to run to your bookshelf to pick up your dusty college textbooks on Jung and Freud in order to find some hidden meaning. In fact, don’t try to analyze them at all! Just trust that they’re doing what they do best: keeping your emotions in balance

[Leanne Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot of interesting content in this book, although the author's style is more academic than I was expecting. She is clearly an expert in her field with lots of research to share. Accepting that this is essentially a compilation of her life's work in a non-fiction book format, it provides much fascinating insight into sleep cycles, sleep disorders and the way sleep aids us in our waking lives.

[Katie]

I enjoy reading books about sleep and dreaming but my one big beef is that they all seem to veer towards the sensationalist: there's always the focus on the guy that murders someone in his sleep, or other really fringe behavior. I would prefer reading more in-depth insights on normal sleep and dreaming. This book also started out compelling but went pretty dry and scientific after a while. Still informational for sure but not light reading.

[Edward Moran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess seven or eight hours is supposed to be a normal amount of nightly sleep, according to this book. Too little sleep or too much sleep are associated with hypertension and diabetes, if I remember what I read correctly.

[Julia Hannafin · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved her research esp about tracking emotional healing through the storytelling of dreams. a small bit stuck with me about how we make better decisions when we turn away from the issue at hand, aka when we are allowed to rest and process our lives as they are happening

[Zhihua · Rating 3 out of 5]

A super interesting phenomena but her approach to study it was boring and hopeless.

[Jonas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time for me to get more sleep!

[Lisa Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this audiobook and found it very captivating. This is not dream deciphering but looking at sleep and waking and their relationship to each other.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book but not well-written, IMHO. There is a lot of worthwhile information about sleep and novel information about dreams.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for class...v interesting

[Rosie49 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating subject. “Every closed eye is not sleeping.”

[Joe Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good! No complaints. The arguments are well laid out, and so far as I (admittedly otherwise uneducated on the topic) can tell, have no serious errors.

[Clark Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A poverty of dreams” is reason enough to be scared, very scared

By now, it should be pretty clear to all of us how important sleep is to our health — lack of sleep has been linked to like a gazillion chronic health conditions from hypertension to diabetes.

This book takes it a step farther, looking at the impact of “poor sleep hygiene,” as the author calls, it on mental health and, ultimately, our sense of self. She is a preeminent researcher who has been studying sleep for, literally, decades, and she has learned a LOT.

She thinks sleep, and specifically, dreams, help us “down-regulate” stress and unresolved emotional issues, a non-conscious factory that runs nonstop.

“…the mind is continuously active throughout sleep—reviewing emotion-evoking new experiences from the day, scanning memory networks for similar experiences (which will defuse immediate emotional impact), revising by updating our organized sense of ourselves, and rehearsing new coping behaviors…”

And, “When all goes well, we wake refreshed and with a modified strategy for guiding our behavior toward fulfilling our now somewhat revised conception of ourselves. We are always works in progress. Dreams are a window onto the ongoing work of the mind during its essential night-shift.”

Ooof, but when it doesn’t go well. She uses a number of frightening sleep abnormalities (sleep eaters, sleep masturbators, etc.) and worst case scenarios to illustrate that point, including several high-profile sleepwalking murders.

It’s a fascinating and eye-opening reminder that “…the mind, although asleep, is constantly concerned about the safety and integrity of the self.”

She’s a better researcher than writer, so much so that even clunky writing is forgivable. All in all, it’s a fascinating look at the importance of sleep, and dreams, from an unexpected vantage.

[Julie Tedjeske Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found out about this book from the Brain Pickings website, which I highly recommend. It provides a wide-ranging overview of sleep research. Notably, the author was personally involved as an expert in a criminal matter involving a man who murdered his wife while sleeping, and it was interesting to get her perspective on that case.

In addition to covering sleepwalking and other parasomnias, the book also deals with more routine matters such as dreaming. As the title suggests, the mind is hard at work during both NREM and REM sleep. The author claims that an initial pass through the day's events takes place during NREM sleep, and then during dreaming the brain matches up the important events with past memories. Negative emotions are given special treatment during dreaming. For an emotionally healthy individual, over the course of the night's dream cycles, the mind works through negative emotions so that early dreams have more emotional charge than later dreams. In depressed individuals, this cycle does not seem to function properly.

As someone who has life-long issues with insomnia and nightmares, I found the subject matter and presentation of the material to be fascinating. For personal reasons, I wished the book had more of a "how-to" and "self-help" component, although it is clear that was not the intended emphasis. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to those with an interest in sleep issues.

[Troy Blackford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating exploration of the mental and physical phenomena of sleep (and, to a lesser but still prevalent extent, dreams) by a leading sleep researcher, this book proved to be eye-opening about the topic of shuteye. [Note to self: Har har, hardeehar, har! I'm brilliant!] More seriously, this book examines a lot of key issues involving sleep, and included a lengthy section on various legal battles in which sleep played a key role: primarily murder cases in which the defendant is claiming non-responsibility because they were sleepwalking at the time. Pretty dramatic stuff! But I found the lengthy foray into legal concerns a bit of a digression. I could see why Dr. Cartwright wanted to address the topic: she had been asked to provide expert testimony in several trials, and the murder stuff is pretty dramatic compared to your less 'stabby' sleep studies. But I liked the big-picture stuff, and the less bloody cases of sleep pathology, compared to the sensationalistic murder bits. A very enlightening work.

[Burcu]

I like these kind of studies whereby you get some proper research and discussion in an accessible language. It is neither a popularized text on a popular topic nor a high-flying specialised monograph for the experts. The case studies make the sections on experiments interesting. I found the parasomnia chapter particularly interesting. I had left the last chapter of this book, which is on dreams and their function, until later. Sleeping is a very important part of our biological existence and dreaming is a rather curious part of it. Building up on previous popular discussions on dreaming, based on psychoanalysis, Cartwright's text extends out on areas that I feel more comfortable with. Having the neuroscientific reliability, however limited it might be, on the side of the discussions on dreaming, makes the book a good read. I find the idea of dreaming as a form of system-defrag. of the world of affection and psyche quite reasonable.

[Linda Branham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book- I couldn't put it down. Rosalind Cartwright is a sleep scientist who is able to explain the research in a way that is approachable and also entertaining. There is much about sleepwalking - the people who do it, what they do, and the research that shows what is actually going on. She postulates that the night mind has the task of keeping us on an even emotional keel when awake, and that dreams in particular have at least two functions: integrating the emotional experiences of the day with similar experiences already stored in long-term memory, and using this new information to maintain and modify our self-concept. There is much about the actual cases that she studied, explaining what she saw that lead her to these conclusions
I will use the information and studies I found in this book in my psych classes :)

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare to read a book by an expert who is also a good writer. Cartwright, clearly devoted to her research, respects it by not hitting the reader over the head with repetition or esoteric information. She pulls out relevant, interesting examples to highlight the topics outlined in the chapters and explains them in a clear, entertaining manner. Here is an extremely readable book about a subject that is complex and enigmatic, and which science has helped to explain. This book makes you respect the author, respect her knowledge, respect her research, and respect her ability to communicate--oh, so important for scientists. At approximately 200 pages, the book is to the point and recommendable.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book completely surprised me. I expected to take a good month to get through it, but I finished in just under a week. Rosalind Cartwright presents information in such an easy to follow manner. My only minor complaint is that this focused so much on dreaming. I found the sections on depression and insomnia the most intriguing, in large part because they're what I personally struggle with. Regardless, this was a great, great read.