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Dr. Mack's book is a long overdue investigation of the impact of the basic ubiquitous traumatic responses which nightmares represent on the development of the human mind. There is considerable merit in attempting such an extensive investigation. That these phenomena have remained outside the scope of intensive research—Jones's pioneering work appeared forty years ago—may be due to the lack of interest in trauma following the paralyzing and embarrassing failure of Freud's first trauma theory that linked neurosis to external traumatic events, such as sexual seduction. Contrary to a tradition almost inaccessible to correction, Freud never gave up his insight into the etiological role of trauma. He replaced the etiological role of seduction with that of instinctual conflict which arose from the traumatic clash of infantile instinctual drives with the inadequacy of the infant's immature organism. Instinctual drives operate as traumata from within.1
Dr. Mack's book, which describes the physiology of nightmares, their function in adaptation, neurosis, and psychosis, and their relation to artistic creativity, is built on his observations of children, on