When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep

What are dreams? Humanity has been trying to answer this question for thousands of years, with little success. Zadra and Stickgold are prominent researchers in the field, studying dreaming since the early 1990s, with over 200 scientific papers on the subject combined. They propose that we are closer to understanding the nature of dreams now more than ever. The goal of this book is to show why the human brain needs to dream while offering new answers. It explores the concept of dreaming from the beginnings of our experience with dreams as children, and systematically moves through the scientific and psychological approaches to the study of dreams. The authors present a compilation of the wealth of recent insights and discoveries about the sleeping brain and the nature of dreams, connecting ideas and findings from a broad scholarly resource base. Drawing on their extensive research and expertise, Zadra and Stickgold propose a new and innovative model of dream function called NEXTUP (Network Exploration to Understand Possibilities). Included is an extensive bibliography, as well as suggested readings.