Review by Choice Review
Hobson is a well-known researcher in the physiology and psychology of sleep and dreaming. This book is related to his earlier works on the subject but casts a wider net, dealing with such seemingly diverse topics as memory formation and retrieval, emotion, mood swings, and abnormal behaviors. The framework that he builds on rests on two basic assumptions: (1) brain-mind is a unified system (virtually an axiom in modern thinking) and (2) there are three cardinal brain-mind states: waking, sleeping, and dreaming. These three states can be distinguished on behavioral and biochemical grounds. Throughout the book Hobson makes use of a brain-mind model, built from three factors, or "dimensions"--activation energy, information source (internal or external), and mode. Mode is determined in this model by the relative dominance of two different neurotransmitter systems, cholinergic and aminergic, both of which he explains in some detail. Hobson makes good use of anecdotes and other illustrative examples, although some of his analogies seem strained. The more professional reader may be annoyed by some glaring lapses in scholarship (e.g., John O'Keefe is referred to and indexed as "Frank Keefe"). There are no literature citations. Also, Hobson's speculations and hypotheses are likely to sound like "fact" to the general reader, since he offers few caveats. Despite these problems, this is a very interesting, even exciting, book by a well-informed and creative scientist. Recommended. General; undergraduate. D. P. Kimble; University of Oregon
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
As neurologists and psychologists find themselves on each other's turf, evidence supporting the theory that the brain and mind are insepar~able grows in quantity and quality. Hobson, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, began his studies of various states of consciousness by comparing various forms of psychosis with dreams, his speciality. By analyzing the chemical properties associated with these strikingly similar states, he came to believe that we should refer to the unified and dynamic system percolating within our skulls as the brain-mind. Hobson articulates the logic behind this paradigm and explains the implications of studying consciousness from this perspective for both science and everyday life. Along the way, he provides his readers with some of the clearest descriptions yet of such crucial faculties as orientation, memory, perception, emotion, attention, and mood. As Hobson provides anecdotal examples to illustrate each brain-mind faculty, he emphasizes the value of understanding how states of consciousness affect health. Not surprisingly, he found that getting enough sleep, the "brain-mind's own resident physician," is an important path to well-being. ~--Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Hobson sets forth a model of consciousness that posits brain and mind as an inseparable unity and, in self-help fashion, explains how to control one's ``brain-mind'' states to improve health, sleep, memory and learning ability. One fascinating implication of his theory is that dreaming and psychosis have much in common. Another is that abnormal modes like schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer's disease and dementia result when neurochemical or physiological changes lead to a failure in one or more of our faculties-perception, emotion, orientation, memory, attention, energy. Hobson splices recent advances in cognitive neuroscience with his own dream research, episodes in the lives of his patients and his personal experiences, such as temporary amnesia due to a car accident. His exciting report holds equal interest for laypeople and scientists. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A prominent neurophysiologist explains his theories about the brain's chemistry and how it affects our conscious (and unconscious) activities. Hobson (Psychiatry/Harvard) espouses a kind of yin-yang view of the brain in which waking states are dominated by ``amines'' (neurotransmitters like norepinephrine that are associated with attention and arousal) and sleeping and vegetative states by acetylcholine. In this hydrodynamic theory amines are depleted as the day wears on and the cholinergic levels rise, precipitating sleep and dreaming--a time when acetylcholine is at its peak. During sleep the system is building up its supply of amines, eventually waking us up. Not altogether a surprising theory, considering that Hobson's first book, The Dreaming Brain and Sleep (not reviewed), reflected similarly his lifelong research into sleep, collection of dream journals, and experiments with lucid (i.e., self-conscious) dreaming. While the notion that we are ruled by our neurochemistry will hardly shock enlightened readers, the tendency in approaches like Hobson's is to overinterpret: Thus the schizophrenic's hallucinations, the fits of expletive-slinging common in Tourette's patients, and the suggestibility of hypnotizable people are all given as examples of involuntary loss of control occurring in waking states (whereas dream sleep creates controls that prevent violent acting out). Curiously, with all the explanatory weight Hobson puts on the importance of sleep and dreaming, he is the first to admit that no one can explain the necessity of dreams; he even suggests that newer drugs that promote production of amines may obviate the need for dreaming. There is obviously more to brain-mind states, more to the bag of neurochemicals and byways of neural circuitry, than Hobson can account for. All the same, his case studies, autobiographical anecdotes, and guidance on how to deal with sleep problems without drugs will intrigue many readers and possibly provide relief to others.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
