Description
Book SynopsisIn January of 1999, an otherwise nonviolent man under great stress at work brutally murdered his wife in their backyard. He then went back to bed, awakening only when police entered his home. He claimed to have no memory of the event because, while his body was awake at the time, his mind was not. He had been sleepwalking.In The Twenty-four Hour Mind, sleep scientist Rosalind Cartwright brings together decades of research into the bizarre sleep disorders known as parasomnias to propose a new theory of how the human mind works consistently throughout waking and sleeping hours. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated EEG and brain imaging technologies, we now know that our minds do not simply turn off during sleep. Rather, they continue to be active, and research has indicated that one of the primary purposes of sleep is to aid in regulating emotions and processing experiences that occur during preceding waking hours. As such, when sleep is neurologically or genetically impaired or just too
Trade Review"Professor Rosalind Cartwright is a true pioneer of sleep research. She was there in the field's formative years and her particular interest in the function and meaning of dreams is reflected in a record of high-quality scientific publications spanning more than four decades. In The Twenty-four Hour Mind, Cartwright describes both her research as well as that of many other sleep scientists in an exciting, eminently readable and thought provoking narrative. She examines numerous important and intriguing topics, including insomnia, depression, sleep walking, forensic sleep medicine and the role of dreams in human consciousness. In her Introduction, Cartwright writes, 'Come Along. I promise it will be an interesting ride.' The Twenty-four Hour Mind is a promise well kept!"--Michael V. Vitiello, University of Washington, Seattle, and Past President, Sleep Research Society "An engaging account of the history of sleep research. [Cartwright] skillfully weaves in her 50 years' worth of work in the field, delving into her own theories about the purpose of dreams and highlighting the importance of sleep to maintain our physical and mental well-being."--Scientific American Mind "This is an easy-to-read, interesting, and informative book about the neurophysiology, purposes, and meanings of sleep and dreaming...Often surprising, and richly informative." --JAMA "Rosalind Cartwright, a well-respected sleep researcher and therapist, presents a strong argument for viewing sleep and its resulting dreams in a new light that is reflected in the title of her book, The Twenty-Four Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives... The combination of sleep research and clinical analysis that Cartwright brings to The Twenty-Four Hour Mind should be of interest to a broad audience. It is well written and should be generally appreciated because most of us have a self-interest in a better understanding of the mysteries of sleep." --PsycCRITIQUES "A respected pioneer in the field, Professor Cartwright is the leading authority on the role of sleep and dreaming in our emotional lives. Her unique and personal experience as a researcher, clinician, teacher, and sleep expert in court cases involving murder and other acts of non-lethal aggression makes this book a captivating read...I highly recommend it as the go-to source for reviewing important dream and sleep studies, fascinating clinical cases, and what we have learned about the sleeping mind-body connection along the way." --Doody's "This very absorbing and beautifully written book describes cogently some of the psychophysical aspects of sleep and how our present understanding of them has been reached, and in doing so underscores just how much remains outside our comprehension. It also reviews the illustrious career of one of the pioneers in sleep research, compelling in its own right. Readers interested in either will not be disappointed. " --Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine "The work is focused and concise, emphasizing the author's own contributions and career experiences to a greater degree than the large corpus of research pertinent to the question of sleep/dream function. It is therefore an excellent primer for the sleep neophyte, an informed guidebook for the practicing clinician, and a solid review of Cartwright's theoretical position on the function of sleep and dreaming. Readers should be better able to appreciate the '24-hr mind' theory as an increasingly valid perspective in the ever-growing field of nocturnal neuroscience." -- SLEEP "Cartwright offers an absorbing history of sleep research, at once revealing how far we've come in understanding this vital third of our lives and how much still remains outside our grasp." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Role of the Night Mind in our Emotional Economy ; Chapter 1. In the Beginning: The Early Days of Sleep Research ; Chapter 2. Collecting Dreams: Watching the Sleeping Mind ; Chapter 3. Short Sleep and Its Consequences: Insomnia ; Chapter 4. Sleep and Dreams in Depression ; Chapter 5. Sleepwalking into Danger: Murders without Motives ; Chapter 6. More NREM Parasomnias: Those Who Injure Themselves, Seek Food or Sex, Explore, and Protect ; Chapter 7. Sleepwalking and State of Mind in the Courtroom ; Chapter 8. Warnings from the Land of Nod: Nightmares and REM Behaviour Disorder ; Chapter 9. Dreaming and the Unconscious ; Chapter10. The Role of Dreams in the Twenty-four Hour Mind: Regulating Emotion and Updating the Self
