The Mind at Night

The Mind at Night - The New Science of How and Why We Dream
Forgive this old warhorse of a trope — there are two kinds of non-fiction writers in the world: those who are
writers who happen to dig exploring the real world and those who are researchers who happen to know how to write
standard English sentences. Bill Bryson, whose charming A Short History of Nearly Everything is a primer both on
how things and words work, is an example of the former. Andrea Rock, whose The Mind at Night: The New Science of
How and Why We Dream is a dry read about a lush subject, is a textbook example of the latter.
It’s not that the information Rock presents isn’t interesting. During her foray into the science of the sleeping
brain, she uncovered some fascinating tidbits about competing theories, some of which pit Freud against pretty
much everyone else, as well as details about how the mentally ill mind dreams and why dreams seem to be needed.
Not all of Rock’s information is new, despite the promises of the subtitle. Really, this collection of chapters
collects and attempts to synthesize both recent and historical data. Most of the nuggets presented in Mind at Night
have been nibbled by other journalists as well, such as the theory that the sleeping brain is engaged in risk-free
problem solving and the proof that lucid dreaming is doable by the average sleeper. Despite the relative lack of
startling new material, the ideas themselves are still interesting.

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