Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Dreamland

We spend a third of our lives sleeping, and yet we know so little about what goes on when we're under. I'm aware of countless studies that have demonstrated how important sleep is, and still I don't feel like I know enough to be getting the most out of it. It's with that in mind that I read Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep.

Unfortunately, it was an absolute snoozefest. I had a hard time getting through it, despite the fact that I was already sold on the importance of sleep.

One problem I had was that the author feels the need to remind the reader in every chapter of how important sleep is to the particular chapter's topic. But I was already willing to stipulate that sleep is the most important factor for performance in [insert topic here], so that was just a waste of time for me.

Another problem was that the author digs deep into a lot of somewhat rare sleep conditions. Some of those things were interesting to learn about, but they do not apply to me so I found them of limited usefulness.

Third, there isn't much offered in the way of practical advice for the average person that you can't find in a decent article on sleep on a website for about 1/100th of the time cost.

Finally, on a more personal level, there was very little if any info on lucid dreaming, which is the sleep topic in which I'm most interested. Are there any lucid dreamers out there who have any advice on how to get started?

No comments: