Designed primarily as a text this volume is an up-to-date and integrated overview of physiological sleep mechanisms, brain function, psychological ramifications of sleep, dimensions of dreaming, and clinical disorders associated with sleep. It is accessibly written with specially boxed material that enhances the text. Authored by a researcher/clinician/professor with more than 25 years of experience in sleep studies, Understanding Sleep and Dreaming provides a solid basis for those who are not expert in this area. It offers a good foundation for those who will continue sleep studies, while at the same time offering enough information for those who will apply this knowledge in other ways such as clinicians in their individual practices or researchers for whom sleep may be part of a specific study. It is an excellent text for courses on sleep at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

A comprehensive proposal for a conceptual framework for describing conscious experience in dreams, integrating philosophy of mind, sleep and dream research, and interdisciplinary consciousness studies. Dreams, conceived as conscious experience or phenomenal states during sleep, offer an important contrast condition for theories of consciousness and the self. Yet, although there is a wealth of empirical research on sleep and dreaming, its potential contribution to consciousness research and philosophy of mind is largely overlooked. This might be due, in part, to a lack of conceptual clarity and an underlying disagreement about the nature of the phenomenon of dreaming itself. In Dreaming, Jennifer Windt lays the groundwork for solving this problem. She develops a conceptual framework describing not only what it means to say that dreams are conscious experiences but also how to locate dreams relative to such concepts as perception, hallucination, and imagination, as well as thinking, knowledge, belief, deception, and self-consciousness. Arguing that a conceptual framework must be not only conceptually sound but also phenomenologically plausible and carefully informed by neuroscientific research, Windt integrates her review of philosophical work on dreaming, both historical and contemporary, with a survey of the most important empirical findings. This allows her to work toward a systematic and comprehensive new theoretical understanding of dreaming informed by a critical reading of contemporary research findings. Windt's account demonstrates that a philosophical analysis of the concept of dreaming can provide an important enrichment and extension to the conceptual repertoire of discussions of consciousness and the self and raises new questions for future research.

This is an absorbing account of a dialogue between leading Western scientists and the foremost representative of Buddhism today, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. For modern science, the transitional states of consciousness lie at the forefront of research in many fields. For a Buddhist practitioner these same states present crucial opportunities to explore and transform consciousness itself. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around three key moments of consciousness--sleep, dreams, and death--the conversations recorded here are both engrossing and highly readable. Whether the topic is lucid dreaming, near-death experiences, or the very structure of consciousness itself, the reader is continually surprised and delighted. Narrated by Francisco Varela, an internationally recognized neuroscientist, the book begins with insightful remarks on the notion of personal identity by noted philosopher Charles Taylor, author of the acclaimed Sources of Self. This sets the stage for Dr. Jerome Engel, Dr. Joyce MacDougal, and others to engage in extraordinary exchanges with the Dalai Lama on topics ranging from the neurology of sleep to the yoga of dreams. Remarkable convergences between the Western scientific tradition and the Buddhist contemplative sciences are revealed. Dr. Jayne Gackenbach's discussion of lucid dreaming, for example, prompts a detailed and fascinating response from the Dalai Lama on the manipulation of dreams by Buddhist meditators. The conversations also reveal provocative divergences of opinion, as when the Dalai Lama expresses skepticism about "Near-Death Experiences" as presented by Joan Halifax. The conversations are engrossing and highly readable. Any reader interested in psychology, neuroscience, Buddhism, or the alternative worlds of dreams will surely enjoy Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying.

From the ancients to the present day, the importance of sleep has seldom been disputed, but it has never had top billing in comparison to other components of healthy living. Now, however, it seems that the combined critical mass of research, the needs of the population, and the shifting weight of professional interest is pushing sleep to the academic and research forefront. The Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders provides a comprehensive and state-of-the-art review of knowledge about current research and clinical developments in normal and abnormal sleep. The handbook comprises three sections: Section I covers the basics of normal sleep, its functions, and its relationships to emotions, cognitions, performance, psychopathology, and public health and safety issues. Section II addresses abnormal sleep, including disorders like insomnia, parasomnias, circadian rhythm disorders, and sleep apnea. An informed classification of sleep/wake disorders is presented along with a protocol for assessing sleep-wake complaints and evidence-based treatment options. Section III provides a developmental perspective on sleep and sleep problems in childhood, adolescence, and in late life, and a discussion of sleep disturbances in selected special populations. Written by eminent international experts from diverse fields of study and clinical backgrounds, this handbook is a comprehensive resource that will meet the needs of clinicians, researchers, and trainees with an interest in the multidisciplinary and emerging field of sleep medicine.

First published in 1985. This book summarizes the findings of empirical dream psychology and interprets them from a cognitive-psychological perspective.

This book is about sleeping and dreaming as explained by arts and science: where sleep is described as being the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which the powers of the body are restored. The contents detail the body's relaxation as induced by graded switching off of the nerves. All species of mammals undergo regular periods of it, varying with age, species, and with the seasonal changes of day length. Sleep is a natural state of torpor, and a lowering of consciousness associated with changes in the patterns of electrical waves recorded from the brain. Additionally, it clarifies the dream states, as a series of thoughts, images, poetry, or emotions occurring during sleep. Dreams can also be experiences of waking life: having the characteristics of a dream as a visionary creation of the imagination; as a day-dream state of mind marked by abstraction or release from reality; a reverie, as an object seen in a dream-like state; and vision, as a wishful creation of the imagination.

This two-volume set examines dreams and dreaming from a variety of angles—biological, psychological, and sociocultural—in order to provide readers with a holistic introduction to this fascinating subject. Whether good or bad and whether we remember them or not, each night every one of us dreams. But what biological or psychological function do dreams serve? What do these vivid images and strange storylines mean? How have psychologists, religions, and society at large interpreted dreams, and how can a closer examination of our dreams provide useful insights? Dreams: Understanding Biology, Psychology, and Culture presents a holistic view of dreams and the dreaming experience that answers these and many other questions. Divided thematically, this two-volume book examines the complex and often misunderstood subject of dreaming through a variety of lenses. This collection is written by a large and diverse team of experts and edited by leading members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) but remains an approachable and accessible introduction to this captivating topic for all readers.

Laypeople think of wake, sleep and dreaming as distinct states of the mind/brain but “in-between”, hybrid states are recognized. For example, day-dreaming or, more scientifically, the default network occurs during wake. Equally, during sleep, lucid dreaming in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep presents as another hybrid state. But hybrid states are usually temporary. This book explores the possibility of an enduring hybrid wake-sleep-dream state, proposing that such a state may engender both creativity and psychopathologies. REM sleep is hyper-associative. Creativity depends on making remote associations. If REM sleep and dreaming begin to suffuse the wake state, enhanced creativity may result. But moderate to severe interpenetration of wake, sleep and dreaming may engender psychopathologies – as the functions of wake, sleep and dreaming are partially eroded.

The Dream Experience provides the mental health professional with a systematic scientific basis for understanding the dream as a psychological event. Milton Kramer’s extensive research, along with the findings of others, establishes that dreams are structured, not random, and linked meaningfully to conscious events in daily life and past memories. The book explores this link between dreams and consciousness, providing a review of information about normative dreaming, typical or repetitive dreams, and nightmares, while also showing how mental health professionals can use dream content in therapy with clients. Kramer’s book is an illuminating description of dreaming for dreamers, therapists and neuroscientists.

Conceptions of Dreaming from Homer to 1800 traces the history of ideas about dreaming during the period when the admonitory dream was the main focus of learned interest—from the Homeric epics through the Renaissance—and the period when it began to become a secondary focus—the eighteenth century. The book also considers the two most important dream theorists at the turn of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud and Sante de Sanctis. While Freud is concerned with questions of what a dream means and how to interpret it, de Sanctis offers a synthesis of nineteenth-century research into what a dream is and represents the Enlightenment transition from particular facts to general laws.