The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness

Rating:
Summary: Very Big Bite
Review: Having completed my honors thesis on the structure and function of REM sleep, I feel that I know a bit about the subject of dreams. I have read myriad scientific articles by J.A. Hobson and even another of his books, entitled Sleep. I got about 50 pages into this one and realized I still may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew. The audience Hobson was aiming at here must be the scientific community because I found myself skipping paragraphs at a time because of the tedious detail of neuro-pathways and receptor information that Hobson plows through with an expectation that the reader will need little or no introduction or explanation of the complex neuroanatomy and chemistry that he discusses. He is a great writer, but unless you are a neurochemist, I would recommend one of his other books on the topic of dreams and sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Very Big Bite
Review: Having completed my honors thesis on the structure and function of REM sleep, I feel that I know a bit about the subject of dreams. I have read myriad scientific articles by J.A. Hobson and even another of his books, entitled Sleep. I got about 50 pages into this one and realized I still may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew. The audience Hobson was aiming at here must be the scientific community because I found myself skipping paragraphs at a time because of the tedious detail of neuro-pathways and receptor information that Hobson plows through with an expectation that the reader will need little or no introduction or explanation of the complex neuroanatomy and chemistry that he discusses. He is a great writer, but unless you are a neurochemist, I would recommend one of his other books on the topic of dreams and sleep.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: Hobson has written yet another very good book on the neurochemical mechanisms of conscious states. Certainly, there is not very much one has not read before on his books like Consciousness, Dream as Delirium or The Chemistry of Consicous States. But still, the book should be read because it cuts into some very deep issues regarding consicousness and neurochemistry, specially with regards to dreaming and sleep research. Now the thing is this book is supposed to be about the action of prescription and recreational drugs, but one gets Hobsons model of conscious states, and only then a little of how it explains the actions of those drugs. THis is not necessarily a bad thing, for models are good foundations for such explorations, but maybe a lot more space should have been given to drugs and their actions in the brain.

Hobsons well known model of conscious states, AIM, standing for activation (high-low), Input output grating (internal or external information sources) and modulation (aminergic or cholinergic) is presented in the book, and is supposed to do the lot of the explanatory work. The model is useful in this sense, but I have doubts about its power to actually explain what consicousness is. Activation seems to determine waking, not consciousness per se, Input determines content, not consicousness per se, and modulation seems to be in the level of processing mode, and not processing itself. IN other words, it is not clear to me neurochemistry is the right level where one can find really interesting causal links, like neural correlates of consciousness. But the reality is that the model is grounded on firm evidence and good science, and does explain many things ABOUT consicousness. It certainly adds important things to the debate.

Another very interesting issue Hobson takes on is on the inadequacy of psychotherapeutic frameworks, of how these are mostly incompatible with modern brain sicence. I must agree almost completely here with him. Hobson also mainly concentrates on nonrephinephrine, serotonin and acetycholine as main players, the first two associated with waking and the last with dreaming. This move seems premature, for there are coutless of neurochemicals that may play also important roles. Nonetheless, these serve as the basis of his dream as delirium hypothesis: that psychosis is similar phenomenally and chemically with normal dreaming states, and thus involves alteration in the aminergic or cholinergic systems of the brain. Dreaming involves chcolinergic activity but in sleep. When such activity is present in waking, psychosis ensues. THis is one of the most plausible and defendable views on psychosis out there. By extension, drugs that cause psychosis, or aleviate it, must affect in some way the aminergic and cholinergic systems of the brain. In this way, Hobson explains the action of drugs, both recreational and clinical. (of course im simplifying. I omit the interactions of the other aspects of the AIM model, I and A. Dreaming and psychosis involve high activation and internal or hallucinatory imputs, for example). So in this ellegant framework Hobson frames the rest of his discussion.

Now if one thing can be said about the style of writing, usually good in HObsons books, is that there seems to be way too small a bibliography. For a book of such lenght and scope, one would expect extensive support in references and evidence coming from various diciplines and labs. In fact, Hobson lists about 10 references and onnly seems to present evidence either compatible with his views and coming from his own lab. This is to me a very bad thing for his book, otherwise a brilliant exposition of a promising thesis. The book is nevertheless a valuable addition to the consicousness litterature, and HObson is one of the main players in the game.

Rating:
Summary: Free your brain-mind
Review: This is an intriguing but ultimately frustrating book from one of the leading luminaries of dream/sleep science. With the central thesis being that altered states of consciousness from psychosis to psychedelic intoxication result from the disintegration of boundaries between normally separate brain-mind states (sleeping and waking), this book itself cannot decide what book-state it wishes to occupy. Too cursory to be a book about the neuro-chemistry of dreaming and consciousness in general, too anecdotal to be an adequate discussion of the multifarious effects of various psycho-active drugs (from Prozac to LSD), and too preliminary to be a manifesto for a neuro-dynamic psychiatry, Hobson would like his book to be all these things. While reading it did inspire me to learn more about the actual mechanics of the brain, I felt again and again that what this book really cried out for was a strong editorial hand. There are too many asides, too little sustained argumentation, and in fact, too many goals for this book to cohere and succeed. Succeed at one, you might ask? Hobson is a standard-bearer for an enlightened, scientific realism, who strives to demystify human experience by demonstrating that all transcendent states (from dreaming to tripping) are grounded in the physical chemistry of the brain and, therefore, do not refer to any metaphysical reality. Although science is a long way from isolating or producing the super-specific consciousness effects that we each experience phenomenologically, Hobson believes, and I concur, that it is only a matter of time. However, while Hobson would like to dissuade people from turning to drugs (either from the pharmacy or from the street) in the pursuit of "personal satisfaction and social success," he fails to make a strong case against psychonautical explorations. The pragmatic utilitarianism that might convince people to avoid risky behaviors like taking cocaine or prozac, itself lacks, by definition, a metaphysical ground that would proscibe such activities absolutely.