Customer Reviews

The Paradox of Sleep: The Story of Dreaming

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Having completed my thesis on the functions of REM sleep, I have read a great deal in the area of sleep research.

While Jouvet is undoubtedly one of the pioneers in sleep research, this book is less than ground-breaking. Jouvet postulates that the function of REM sleep is to periodically reinforce genetic programs, in order to maintain the functional synaptic circuits responsible for our psychological heredity. Basically, he is saying this "genetic reprogramming" would restore our individuality and diversity within our species, despite a changing environment. The hypothesis presented is rarely acknowledged in current literature on the subject and Jouvet has little to support his hypthesis.

I was left with many more questions than I started with, but that could be good. The translation is mediocre but Jouvet throws in some kind of houty chuckles every once in a while that make it bearable.

If you want to read a very comprehensive, readable and informative book on sleep, I would recommend 'Sleep' by J.Allan Hobson.

Why do humans sleep? This question offers many answers. Physical rest at first seems the logical answer, but individuals deprived of sleep but allowed physical rest are often just as tired as those who worked thru the night. Resting the brain might be the next logical answer. This book looks at the latter reason, and takes it several steps further. Specifically, Dr. Jouvet argues that the primary purpose of sleep is to dream, and that dreaming is genetically hard-wired into the human organism, and is essential a human function as breathing, eating and drinking.

The author goes over the history of sleep research, of which he is a reknowned expert. He examines research done on both humans and other animals, and shows us what we know, and what we don't know, about sleep and dreaming. He cites experimental data that shows how dreaming is often the central part of sleep, and how those allowed to sleep, but prevented from dreaming, can suffer numerous medical and psychological problems.

Overall, this is an interesting book. The book serves as a good introduction to the science of sleep, dreaming, nuerology, and psychology. The book also is well-referenced, and gives good background on this topic. Overall, I recommend this book.

This is an excellent work describing the new thought in the scientiic study of sleep. Finally, a work that describes why we see strange situations in our dreams without resorting to mysticism.