Nightmareland
Travels at the Borders of Sleep, Dreams, and Wakefulness
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From a Coast to Coast AM insider, a mind-expanding exploration of sleep disorders and unusual dream states--the scientific explanations and the paranormal possibilities.
The sleeping mind is a mysterious backdrop that science is just beginning to shed light on. It was only some sixty years ago that researchers discovered REM, the rapid-eye-movement cycle that's associated with dreams. In Nightmareland, Lex "Lonehood" Nover travels into the eerie borderlands where the unconscious, dreams, and strange entities intermingle under the cover of night, revealing wider and hidden aspects of ourselves, from the savage and frightening to the astounding and sublime.
Encompassing accepted medical phenomena such as sleep paralysis, parasomnias, and Ambien "zombies," and the true-crime casebook of those who kill while sleepwalking, to supernatural elements such as the incubus, alien abduction, and psychic attacks, Nover brings readers on an extraordinary journey through history, folklore, and science, to help us understand what happens when we sleep.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This engrossing look at the stranger aspects of sleep a state of being that the average person spends a third of their lives in runs the gamut from night terrors to UFOs. Nover, Web producer for overnight radio show Coast to Coast AM, shares firsthand experience with sleep paralysis, during which one is fully aware of one's surroundings but unable to move, often perceiving a threatening creature lurking in the room. Other sleep phenomena recounted here include delusional behavior among the chronically sleep-deprived; sightings of the "black dog" as a portent of approaching involuntary sleep, as described by long-haul truckers; and reports of nocturnal alien abductions, which, Nover observes, often resemble medieval accounts of demonic incubi. He also delves into the night terrors that occur in deep sleep, sometimes making people capable of feats of adrenaline-fueled strength that they cannot duplicate while awake. The more garden-variety but still terrifying phenomena of nightmares and fever dreams receive their full due as well. Filled with documented and fascinating stories of slumber gone awry and explanations of the science behind sleep issues, Nover's book will be received by readers as a riveting invitation to sleep at one's own risk.
Customer Reviews
Great Read
I recently finished listening to Nightmareland and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Using personal stories, humor and very well researched psychology and science, Lex Nover is able to clearly define and explain the various states of dreams and sleep. This book covers many various sleep states by explaining what goes on in the brain and using documented personal accounts through the research he has done for each of these sleep disorders. I was impressed with all the documented notes he supplied at the end of the book, all the detailed science and the actual experiences of people living with these sleep disturbances gave a solid foundation to this very interesting book. His sense of humor adds a lightness to many of the stories and the narrator’s was voice was a perfect fit for the subject matter. This is a fun audiobook to hang out with!!