Counting Sheep : The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams

Rating:
Summary: "The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams"
Review: A very good subtitle for this encyclopedic book, also the title of this review, which could have included the words "and everything that can go wrong with sleep and the lack of it". Easy to read, exhaustively referenced (but without numbered references), Martin's dry humor is sparse at the beginning, but expands nicely as the book progresses. There are no picures, tables or graphs. For my taste, too many myths, legends, personal anecdotes, and non-scientific thoughts including poetic fantasies detracted from the many experimental findings that were presented.

Every aspect of sleep was addressed: REM, NREM, deep-wave, insomnia, too little sleep with many warnings about its effect on driving and other activities, alcohol and sleep, falling asleep, snoring, apnea, dreaming, waking up, SIDS...everything! Some conclusions were not surprising - many people in industrialized countries are suffering from too litttle sleep or too little deep sleep, and wake up to alarm clocks, a stress. Many school children sleep through classes because of poor regular sleep.

Martin demonstrated a few lapses in content. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was said to have complex causes, including "malfunctioning immune reactions" (p21). Actually, it is proven that food allergies, especially grain allergies, are a common cause of CFS. People who get sleepy 90 minutes after eating a meal (p157) was not connected with hypogycemia from high-carbohydrate food. ADHD may well be caused by poor sleeping (p232), but no mention of its possible connection with diet was made (J. Am. Phys. Surg. 2003;8(2):58-60). Serum cholesterol levels were said to be a risk factor for heart disease (p263), which they are not when age is taken into account (see The Cholesterol Myths, Uffe Ravnskov). Eating fat, unless it was all trans fat, was not likely to be the cause of Elvis Presley's early death (p280). Grinding of teeth while sleeping was adressed with several types of treatments (p283), yet the simple plastic tooth guard was not mentioned. Irritable bowel syndrome (p284) was not connected with grain allergies. SIDS causes (p328) did not include too many vaccines too early in life as a possible cause.

Despite the caveats, this is a very good book.

Rating:
Summary: An Encyclopedic Sleep Manifesto
Review: "The mere presence of an alarm clock implies sleep deprivation." What's the purpose of sleeping and dreaming? Some would just as well ask what's the purpose of wakefulness, or elegant dining, and I've been happily one of them since I was kid who early understood the delicious and miraculous sensuality of that mere third of our lives spent sleeping and dreaming. (Some of us wish it was an acceptably higher percentage.) With whimsical puns and humor appropriate to any lover of sleep ("Give sleep a chance." "Falling asleep again, what am I to do?"), Dr. Martin covers everything from the art of lucid dreaming to the history of beds -- and everything his delightful and agile mind can squeeze into 432 pages in between. No kidding. Despite the format that already feels like a sad "remainder," no self respecting sleep aficionado will be without this book on a nightstand (or coffee table, perchance to recruit other sleep and dream connoisseurs). Loaded with countless "aha" and "wow" current research facts and implications -- and plenty of encouragement to include the exquisite pleasures of sleeping and dreaming in daily life. Highly recommended educational material for the materially insane Western world. Zzzzzz.

Rating:
Summary: Weak Title...Strong Book
Review: I almost passed on this book because the title gave me the impression that it was probably a piece of fluff. In reality this is a very comprehensive study on all aspects of sleep. I really liked how the author put many things I already knew, more or less, into perspective. Such as: Driving while having slept too little is like driving after having drunk too much. Alcohol gets all the blame, while people pride themselves on going without sleep. One problem: I often have dreams that foretell some incident that occurs later in the day, and found this true for many others also. Psychic dreams seem to be as common as rain, but the author dismisses them as mere coincidence. I subtracted one star for this factual error.

Rating:
Summary: Scientific and Artistic Appreciation for Sleep
Review: We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, but we don't like to admit it. We are likely to praise the person who skimps on sleep in order to get the duties of the rest of life, "real life," done. Scientific sleep research was not even considered until recent decades. Correcting this sort of neglect of a biological necessity is one of the purposes of _Counting Sheep: The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams_ (Thomas Dunne Books) by Paul Martin. The deliberate neglect of sleep manifests itself in many ways, as if, Martin writes, we all somehow "ceased to exist at night." There is an enormous literature about sleep, not just the scientific studies that have been conducted over the past five decades, but also poems, essays, and novels having to do with sleep and dreaming. Martin gives quotations from many authors (especially Shakespeare and Dickens) in epigraphs and also as illustrations within the text to show how universal the literary concern for slumber has been; his reading is obviously wide and rich, and his book is crammed with interesting facts about aspects of sleep that ought to convince anyone that sleeping is more important, and more virtuous, than we currently esteem it.

Sleep is universal, even among other animals besides humans. Humble insects and mollusks sleep. Fruit flies find a location where they can remain immobile for a couple of hours, around the same time of day, and if you keep them from sleeping, they catch up as soon as they can. What is sleep for? Nathaniel Kleitman, the founder of modern sleep research, dodged the question. He said he would explain the role of sleep once someone had explained the role of wakefulness. Most hypotheses of the action of sleep have been shot down, and non is completely convincing or comprehensive, so there are many mysteries still to be solved. Martin makes the case that almost all of us in modern societies are deprived of sleep at least some of the time. "Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty," says the Bible, and even Dr. Franklin roused the sluggards with the reminder that there will be sleep enough in the grave. Our eagerness to stay up, our fortitude in setting the alarm so we get an early start, are not virtues at all, Martin shows. Sleep deprivation robs the next day of comfort and productivity, but can also produce disasters. The grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the Challenger explosion, the near-disaster at Three Mile Island nuclear power station and the true disaster at Chernobyl might not have happened had the personnel involved all been sleeping well. There are many sleep diseases, but the very worst is Fatal Familial Insomnia, in which sufferers endure worsening sleep until their brains become incapable of generating sleep brain waves. Not even the strongest barbiturates bring sleep, and death invariably results.

There isn't much here about that other bed activity, sex, but there is chapter on the universal phenomenon of nocturnal erections and the equally universal one of yawning. There is a chapter on beds, many of them strange or expensive. Cardinal Richelieu was so devoted to staying in bed that he traveled in his bed, with porters carrying him. If he visited you, you would have to tear down a wall or two so that he could be carried, still abed, into your house where he would begin his meetings, again still abed. There is the story of how the Soviets harnessed sleep deprivation by amplified music and flares to keep Nazis from sleeping and overtaking Leningrad. Famous sleepers are profiled. The pianist Anton Rubinstein would have overslept every morning except that his wife found the perfect solution. She would play an unresolved chord on his piano, and he would leap out of bed to complete it. You can learn here about increasing the likelihood that you will remember your dreams, or how to increase your chances of lucid dreaming, during which you have more control over the dream than usual. Throughout this informed survey runs the recurrent and welcome message: Sleep is important, you probably don't get enough, and you should enjoy a good sleep just as you do a good meal. And naps are good for you. Brightly written, Martin's book cannot itself induce somnolence, but can just make us act upon it more readily and knowingly.