Similar to many other fields in Psychiatry, understanding sleep and dreams as biological events remain unconsolidated and a work in progress. In The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams, psychologist Patrick McNamara describes the neuroscience of sleep and dreams while emphasizing on the evolutionary and social significance of the two. Organized into two sections, Part I Sleep and Part II Dreams, McNamara walks through definitions, characteristics, variations and theories of sleep and dreams. He draws examples from human case studies to describe the two phenomena in relation to human anatomy, as well as citing animal studies to explain possible mechanisms.
McNamara approaches sleep and dreams as physiological and social functions that can be explained within the paradigm of Darwinian evolutionary biology. In other words, sleeping and dreaming involve fitness “trade-offs” in our social context, such that one’s “sleep expression” centers around his or her interactions with others. Biological features of solitary sleepers appear different from those of co-sleepers, and the latter is more likely to be an “evolutionary default” for humans based on behavioral patterns across lifespans; McNamara describes this in relation to social attachment throughout one’s life. Throughout various stages of human life cycles, McNamara argues that characteristics of dreaming also change based on social behavioral patterns at each stage. Various types of dreaming experiences are summarized in Chapter 10 including “unusual dream types” (e.g., lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis dreams, nightmares), and McNamara evaluates possible mechanisms of recalling one’s dreams.
The Appendix of the book introduces various methods to investigate behaviors associated to sleep and dreams, such as analysis of biological rhythms and dream content. Examples include use of sleep diary to track perception of one’s sleep, neuromodulators to promote sleep or wakefulness, the EEG to capture surface electrical activity of the brain, the “Hall/Van de Castle system” for scoring dream content, polysomnogram for measuring total sleep time, and others. Although there are strengths and limitations of each method, the section describes how each method works and relevant situations to use them. Since deviations from regular brain activity profiles can lead to sleep disorders as introduced in Chapter 5, effective use of aforementioned neuroscience study methods may help more individuals to identify and overcome problems with their sleep. Furthermore, some big data resources relevant to the topic are provided, such as de-identified clinical data, archives of sleep studies, collections of dream narratives, and questionnaires to identify sleep patterns.
Aimed for students and non-experts, each chapter comes with learning objectives outlined for students pursuing psychology in higher education. It is part of the Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology serieswhich has books on neuroscience of expertise, intelligence, memory, adolescence, suicidal behavior, creativity, and this particular book on sleep and dreams all by various experts in the field. Since this is an introductory textbook, McNamara intends to describe current research and methodology in neuroscience to investigate sleep and dreams from a psychological perspective. It is also meant as supplementary material to better understand scientific articles on the topic, especially when readers are seeking evolutionary and social importance of sleep and dreams. The book is suited for educated readers who want to gain understanding of sleep and dreams as biological occurrences that influence our social behavior.