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This is a book for sleep researchers about the biology of sleep, and an invitation for more research. A less misleading title might have been The New Biological Findings in Sleep and Dreaming: Suggestions for Further Research. The dream is studied by means of its electrophysiological coefficients rather than from a psychological point of view. In the form of answers to cogent questions posed by the editor, thirty-seven contributors, mostly sleep researchers,
bear witness to the deluge of accumulated data pertaining to the electroencephalographic and neurophysiological properties of the sleeping and dreaming states. The editor's questions are more provocative than the answers are satisfactory.
In a compendium of this nature, some duplication and unevenness are inevitable. The tremendous and bewildering volume of data adduced here cries out for a degree of ordering and structure. None is available, a state of affairs which perhaps reflects the disorganization of partisan pioneers staking out claims in a brave new world. The book contains a comprehensive subject index, and copious references are appended to each chapter. It will be of value to those interested in the methodology of sleep and dream research as practiced in the laboratory today.
Perhaps the time will come when we may expect the correlation of neurophysiological processes and psychological events in sleep and dreaming. That time has not yet arrived. Carried away by enthusiasm for objective recording, 'hard' scientific instruments, and responses that can be verified and measured by their use, many investigators show a lack of regard for, and inability to deal with, the 'extraneous variables' of the subject's motivation. As one contributor notes with chagrin: 'The experimenter is at the mercy of the subject in this situation'. Too bad. Such a hardheaded preference fails to make a clear distinction between two related but not necessarily equivalent concepts, the biology of sleep and the psycho