Sleep and Dreaming: Scientific Advances and Reconsiderations.

Abstract

Sleep and Dreaming is a compilation of papers, critical reviews, and commentaries published from 2000 to 2002 in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences that assess the “relationship of dreaming to brain physiology and neuro-chemistry and the possible functions, or lack of functions, of REM [rapid eye movement] sleep and of dreaming”(ix). As a summary of this fascinating field, this book is becoming significantly outdated; as an entree for the primary care clinician, it is likely to be more soporific than scintillating. The book comprises an introduction and 5 chapters (reviewing the cognitive neuroscience of conscious states, the discordance of dreaming and REM sleep, mentation in REM and non-REM sleep, the case against memory consolidation in REM sleep, and an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming). Peer commentary and author responses follow, and there is a comprehensive list of references and a useful index. The book is quite exhaustive in treatment, and the main articles and invited commentary demonstrate the give and take of science in action. There are plenty of controversies, and the text provides a detailed overview of sleep and dreaming. If you really are an aficionado of sleep disorders and want to better understand the latest models of dreaming as well as the theoretical connections among such disorders as narcolepsy, REM-behavioral disorder, and posttrau-matic stress disorder, you might find this compilation worth a read. For my money, the introduction or an overview from one of the standard texts is more than enough. To be fair, this book appears to target the sleep physiologist. Unfortunately, for most psychiatrists, let alone primary care clinicians, this book may be just a bad nightmare.