Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction

As brilliantly written, entertaining, informed and convincing an introduction to a subject as you could ever wish for. It gets to the point very quickly, talking of a 'paradigm shift' in dream science over the last half century brought about by a change in emphasis from dream content to dream form. This formalist account has little time for Freudian psychoanalysis. Dream interpretation is considered unnecessary, and Freud over-speculative because of a lack of detailed knowledge about brain science. Hobson takes an essentially physiological, 'brain as mind', approach that he thinks explains nearly everything we need to know about dreaming and consciousness - a major exception being the notoriously 'hard problem' of subjectivity (ie the unobservable, private states of mind and events - the so-called 'qualia') . Some readers - like the reviewer below, perhaps - may consider the formalism too reductionist, a charge that the author seems to anticipate when he says, 'Much apparent complexity melts away when the science comes up with the correct simplicity. This is the true meaning of reductionism.' Despite the author's own commitment to simplicity, the details can at times be complex, especially to those readers without much neuroanatomy or biochemistry. But Hobson carries the non-specialist with him by clever use of summary and fascinating in-text 'inserts' on questions like: Do animals dream? What is lucid dreaming? and Do we dream in black and white or in colour? His own dream journals are also used to illuminate common features of dreams - like their bizarre discontinuities and character instability, their heightened emotions and sensations, but simultaneously, their convincingly lifelike narratives. According to Hobson, studies show that compared to waking, dreaming involves simply the selective enhancement of certain mental functions and the diminution of others via biochemistry (and ultimately DNA). Essential reading for anyone with even the remotest interest in psychology or dreaming.

Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction, J. Allan Hobson, Oxford University Press, 2002, 154 pp., illustrations, $11.95. Oxford University Press' series of Very Short Introductions have over 150 books with topics from anarchism to the World Trade Organization. Accessible to laymen, clear and concise each of the books I've read have covered the basics and stimulated my interest for further explore the topic. Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction in 11 chapters give the historical background of what dreams were at one time believed to be and what they currently understood to be. From ancient times through Shakespeare and ending in the middle of the 20th century, dreams were believed to be portents of the future or concealed messages from the gods. Freud stands in this tradition. Having a phobia of religion, Freud believed that dreams were generated by an individual's 'Id' or as mythologist Joseph Campbell recently declared, 'the god within'. J. Allan Hobson, the author of this Very Short Introduction poses questions throughout the book. What is dreaming? Why did the analysis of dream content fail to become a science? How is the brain activated in sleep? What are the cells and molecules of the dreaming brain doing? Why do dreams occur? Do animals dream? Are dreams deliriums such as those who have a mental illness? What are night terrors? Does everyone dream? Could dreams fortell the future? Are dreams in black and white or color? When does a dream start? Do fetuses dream? Does dreaming have a function? Does a blind individual dream? I suspect all of us have asked these questions to ourselves at sometime or another. Within the limits of known biology, chemistry and electro-chemistry Hobson answers these questions. Here is what appears to be known at this time. Bodily movements in bed while sleeping make a difference in the frequency and intensity of dreaming. What you ate for dinner doesn't. Human learning, memory and cognition are interrelated and at times does not cease while we sleep. Dreams are a type of temporary psychosis. Grandiosity, fearlessness, deep depression exist in psychosis and dreaming. Babies under the age three and animals probably dream similarly. The acquisition of language and propositional thought changes dreams. Nightmares are normal. Night terrors are emotional states that are aggravated by nightmares. Nightmares seem to come from the limbic portion of the brain. This portion of the brain is not well understood today. The rest of the answers to the above questions are in the book. CWL recommends this book and others in the series. CWL as Santa places them under the tree and in stockings for undergrads and graduate students; these gifts relate to their majors and interest area. CWL buys some for himself, such as Abraham Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction by Allan Guelzo.

This book demystifies dreaming and provides a good review of the science of sleep and dreaming. The science of dreaming is linked to neurobiology. We dream because the brain self-activates in sleep. However, we don't know why the brain activates automatically in sleep and how the dream scenarios are composed. It is amazing that dreaming is involved in the reorganization of memory. Equally fascinating are the accounts of dreaming disorders like sleep walking and talking. There are also answers to very interesting questions such as 1) "Do we dream in black and white or in colour?", 2) "Do blind people see in their dream?", (3) "Do babies and animals dream?". On the whole, very informative and a good read!

This is one of the better books I've read on Dreaming. The details of the neurobiology of sleep was a wonderful surprise, and makes much more sense of dreaming. I've read a lot of books on dreaming, all of which were filled with psychological guesses, speculation, and they just never made sense to me. This book presents excellent arguments and studies for the biological aspects of sleep, and the logic that consciousness is a brain function. This books takes a look from a better perspective, IMHO, sticking to the biology of sleep, and the reality of what we are of aware of and not during dreaming, and the lack of memory thereafter. Great book!