Customer Reviews

The Enchanted World of Sleep

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This is a riveting read! What I found fascinating is that to determine if other animals sleep we look for the strong amplitude spikes of slower frequency wavelengths. Animals that need to sleep on the move or always be alert have high rates of "paradoxical sleep" (light REM sleep) while animals assured of protection (like bears) have deep dreamless sleep, with strong amplitude spikes.

The author's argument that REM was monophasic -- arising from the cerebellum connections as an evolutionary transition to more deep, restorative sleep, is fascinating. So infants have more REM sleep because they need to be able to wake up more often for fast growth and since they have little protection, the same for fish, birds. Until the book it's been thought that REM was necessary for long-term memory storage, which appears to be more of a combination of REM with other factors while the "monophasic" use of REM is primary. The author presents that amazing evidence of a patient who had next to no REM and had amazing long term memory capabilites.

The author's discovery that repression of traumatic memories was the key to restful sleep is amazing since it goes totally against Freudian psychology! So the practice is to never discuss the trauma! On the otherhand it presents an argument for the legitmacy of secrecy regarding experiences that are classified in "parasomnia" realms. The "silent channel" tactic to enable restful sleep during war is also fascinating.

How genetic factors tie into nacrolepsy and how the hypothalamus is tied to somnambulism is also very intriguing. That somnambulism usually disappears after puberty and that somanambulism is also associated with traumatic dreams of "night monsters" and bizarre deviance sex behavior is also intriguing.

From the perspective of yoga it is the strong amplitude, high frequency paradox that enables the awareness to leave the body while in a deep sleep trance state.

So for the example of one parasomnia patient, who achieved lucid dreaming, and apparently had a dream of a future catastrophe (the Bhopal Carbide disaster), there is some indication that REM sleep can be utilized for astral travel as well.

You will not want to stop reading this book. It tells all about the mechanism of sleep, about dreaming and biological clocks. It is easy to read, informative and very interesting. It is very important to read this book to learn about so many myths about sleeping. It will change your life forever! Ron.

We spend a full third of our life sleeping, but what do we really know about it. Why do we sleep? What causes us to sleep? What happens when we sleep? All these questions remain unanswered, but scientists are working--dare I say it? oh, why not--around the clock to explain why we can't work around the clock.

On the academic side, the latest report from the somnabulent world is Peretz Lavie's The Enchanted World of Sleep. Translated from the original Hebrew with aplomb by Anthony Berris, Lavie's book introduces us to the world of scientific sleep study through one of the original sleep institutes, the Sleep Laboratory at the Technion--the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Prof. Lavie, who is dean of the Faculty of Medicine and head of the Laboratory, is uniquely qualified to give such a historical perspective, because he did his graduate work under Prof. Bernie Webb, one of the founders of sleep research.

It should be noted that what these scientists are studying is the mechanisms of sleep. While dream state is included in this, they are interested in only the fact that someone is dreaming, not about what the dream relates. Such dream studies are the province of psychologists. Prof. Lavie and his collegues are medical doctors who are interested in the physiology of sleep--what happens when people are deprived of sleep through natural (brain disorders, etc.) and unnatural (sleep deprivation experiments, etc.) events. One of the many myths exploded in this book is that a majority of people sleep poorly. Instead, Prof. Lavie proves, people only think they don't sleep well, whereas in comparison studies, their sleep is as even as the next persons. The person's opinion is solely based on a perception that occurs during the first thirty minutes of sleep, and can be easily corrected by controlling simple environmental variables (noise, light, etc.). While The Enchanted World of Sleep is meant for an audience of his peers, it is written as much as a personal memoir, detailing his own experiences with patients at the Sleep Laboratory. The author comparison that I was inevitably drawn to is that of Dr. Oliver Sacks, who also explains some tough medical mysteries by using personal experience.

this book is an easily accessible and enjoyable story of sleep. it will be interesting for scientists and non-scientists alike.

I read this book in a week. I am not big on books, but I couldn't put this book down. It cover past theory on sleep, brain waves, studies, sleep disorders and much more. I couldn't get enough of it. It even talk about how work schedules effecting our sleep, which hit home for me. This book is something you can't live without. It makes you view your sleep and dreams so much differently then you have before.