Counting Sheep
The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams (Text Only)
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
A brilliant overview of that most vital, most underrated and most elusive of human activities, sleep.
Using the approach and skills he deployed to such successful effect on the relationship between mind and body in the prize-winning ‘The Sickening Mind’, likeable British popular science author Paul Martin here tackles the science of that most mysterious, elusive and alluring of human activities, sleeping, and draws on both cutting-edge neuroscience and classic literature to do so.
We spend one third of our lives asleep, but know hardly anything about it, and can remember so little of it as we come out of it. Why?
Are dreams the place we go to resolve our problems, emasculate our fears and rehearse our hopes? Why are we paralysed when we dream? Why did sleep evolve?
And is anybody getting enough sleep?
About the author
Paul Martin studied biology at Cambridge, acquiring a First in Natural Sciences and a PhD in behavioural biology. He went to Stanford as a Harkness Fellow and then to the School of Medicine as Postdoctoral Fellow, before lecturing and researching at Cambridge University. He is the co-author with Pat Bateson of Measuring Behaviour and Design for a Life. His first solo book was The Sickening Mind, which was shortlisted for the NCR Prize in 1997.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scientist Martin (The Healing Mind) is on a mission to cure our "sleep-sick society" and convince us, for our own good, to start taking sleep more seriously. Pithy, wry and earthily humorous, this book is Martin's manifesto for a healthier society. He systematically critiques how our culture encourages us to skimp on sleep (usually so that we can work longer hours), and he rues the bad example of our befuddled, jet-lagged politicians. Applying scientific fact, theory and experiment, Martin demonstrates the similarity between sleeplessness and drunkenness; the links between the hours modern schoolchildren keep and ADHD; the role of sleeplessness in man-made disasters; and how sleeplessness and night shift work can contribute to serious illness. Martin highlights extreme abuses of sleep deprivation in torture and in warfare, while also celebrating sleep's creative power, telling of musicians who have woken up humming melodies and the scientists who benefited from the problem-solving qualities of deep REM sleep. When he discusses dreaming, Martin touches on the habits and beliefs of traditional societies as revealed by anthropologists, and neatly debunks Freud's interpretation of all dream imagery as sexual. A writer fully in command of his subject and his style, Martin reveals just how deeply and madly we pay for our collective indifference to the value of so simple a pleasure as a good night's sleep.
