I prefer to embrace the evidence indicating that dreams help us solve problems from our waking lives. Leftover Freudians still see them as messages from the unconscious while some pragmatists dismiss them as the waste product of REM sleep. Its passage on the possible links between exposure to artificial light and the higher rates of diseases among night-shift workers proves “as stimulating as a double shot of espresso.” Also fascinating is his tour through the debate over dreams. Still, Dreamland offers an eye-opening fact on nearly every page. Randall’s style “sometimes veers toward the glib,” said Maureen Corrigan in NPR.org. “We don’t know as much about it as we should, or could.” Always, Randall reminds us that science hasn’t unraveled many of sleep’s mysteries. Turning to sleepwalking, he details how it could be possible that a Toronto man killed his mother-in-law while somnambulating. Writing about circadian rhythms, he notes that the NFL has found that East Coast teams lose a disproportionate share of night games to West Coast teams, most likely because the bodies of the first group are winding down while their counterparts’ are experiencing a second wind. Contemplating sleep deprivation, he cites Army studies showing that soldiers in Iraq were five times more likely to clash with civilians when they got less than four hours of shut-eye. The “inventive angles” he dreams up greatly enliven the journey, said Laura Miller in.
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