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This is undoubtedly the best book that has so far appeared on the recent research on sleep and dreaming, based on the utilization of the EEG-REM (rapid eye movement) method. It considers a great
part of the literature up to 1966 and has a biblography of over six hundred titles. Although since 1966 the literature in this field has continued to accumulate at an ever-increasing rate, Hartmann's book summarizes the principal findings and discoveries, most of which were made by that date.
The author accepts the dual sleep theory which emphasizes that dreaming is associated with a unique biological sleep state, a state in many ways as different from ordinary sleep as it is from waking. This biological state, called by Hartmann the D-state, has been found to occur in mammalian species as well as in man. The term 'D-state' emphasizes the qualitative differences from waking and ordinary sleep, the 'D' stressing the important concomitant psychological experience of dreaming. Hartmann's term has the advantage over others, such as REM state or Emergent Stage 1, in that it includes reference to dreaming while all other terms stress the physiological.
Hartmann discusses, among other topics, the phylogeny and ontogeny of the D-state, its peripheral physiology and neurophysiology, the D-deprivation phenomenon, the chemistry of the D-state, the relation of the D-state to mental, physical, and psychosomatic illness, and finally its functions. The author himself has made important contributions in many of these areas. He belongs to a small but growing number of young analysts who have been working in the area of dream-sleep research, an area of special importance because of its implications for the mind-body problem. As Hartmann suggests, there are few places in present research where the gap between physiology and psychology seems smaller. The biology of dreaming is a truly interdisciplinary field involving workers in physiology, neurophysiology, biochemistry, psychoanalysis