The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams

Summarizes the latest neuroscience of sleep and dreams, as well as the evolutionary background to their potential functions.

Patrick McNamara (Author)

9781009208895, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 April 2023

275 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'This book is a wonderfully accessible and much needed resource for students, teachers, and the general public. The sleep and dream sciences are rapidly expanding but have been underrepresented in psychology and neuroscience textbooks for higher education. This volume goes a great distance toward filling this gap! Adding to the solid background in sleep science provided in the first edition, this second edition presents many of the newer findings in this burgeoning field. Dr McNamara's fascinating incorporation of social and evolutionary neuroscience is certain to further engage readers from diverse backgrounds.' Edward F. Pace-Schott, Harvard Medical School, USA

The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams provides comprehensive coverage of the basic neuroscience of both sleep and dreams for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. It details new scientific discoveries, places those discoveries within evolutionary context, and links established findings with implications for sleep medicine. This second edition focuses on recent developments in the social nature of sleep and dreams. Coverage includes the neuroscience of all stages of sleep; the lifespan development of these sleep stages; the role of non-REM and REM sleep in health and mental health; comparative sleep; biological rhythms; sleep disorders; sleep memory; dream content; dream phenomenology, and dream functions. Students, scientists, and interested non-specialists will find this book accessible and informative.

Introduction
1. What is sleep?
Part I. Sleep: 2. From biological rhythms to the sleep cycle
3. Expression of sleep across the human lifespan
4. Characteristics of REM and NREM sleep
5. Sleep disorders
6. Theories of REM and NREM sleep
Part II. Dreams: 7. Introduction: What are dreams?
8. Dreams across the human lifespan
9. Characteristics of REM and NREM dreams
10. Dream varieties
11. Theories of dreaming.

Subject Areas: Clinical psychology [MMJ]