When the Brain Sleeps: Dreams from a Scientific Perspective

Why do we dream? What do dreams mean? What are they for? For centuries, humanity has been unsuccessfully asking these questions, but scientists studying sleep have come to realize that the question should be framed differently: what happens in the brain of a sleeping person? Analyzing a multitude of ideas and relying on the latest research, the authors of this book propose an innovative model that helps understand the key features of different types of dreams. Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold show where the brain gets the images and concepts that shape the plots of our nighttime adventures, introduce us to new hypotheses about nightmares, and explain that dreams are rarely the result of suppressed desires, as well as visiting us not only during the rapid eye movement phase.