The book has left me feeling I need more answers about the workings of the human brain, which is a positive outcome. This was exactly the type of book I wish I had access to when I first started getting sleep paralysis. Dracula’, ‘Jane Eyre’ and the Brother Cadfael mysteries all make reference to parasomnias, as does Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. A wonderful deepdive into the world of dreams and the science to explain them throughout the centuries. By directly confronting her own strange and frightening nights for the first time, Vernon encourages us to think about the way troubled sleep has impacted our imaginations.

The style is eclectic, ranging from science journalism, to literary analysis of victorian novels, back to autobiographical writing. This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees. When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

A welcome addition to the vast library it cites and celebrates, Vernon's work is a compelling guide to the uncanny grammar of our dread and desire. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. By writing this gruelling, honest book, Alice Vernon has done her small bit to try to puncture the power of nightmares.

I was instantly drawn to the cover, and if you're not familiar with the image, it's the The Nightmare by Swedish painter Henry Fuseli. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. Despite being one of those people who drift off with annoying ease, Alice Vernon does not sleep soundly, she sleeps “strangely”.Now a lecturer in Creative Writing, Vernon set out to understand the history, science and culture of these strange and haunting experiences. The author walks that fine line between sprinkling in subjective experience, and working on her trauma in public, and the whole thing doesn't quite gel together in my opinion. Ever since she was a child, her nights have been haunted by nightmares of a figure from her adolescence, sinister hallucinations and episodes of sleepwalking. AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK IN DECEMBER 2022 **'Curious, lively, humble, utterly genuine . On the other hand, it sometimes veers into unconfortably personal material that feels like a live therapy session happening in front of our eyes, with the author figuring things out as they come up.

Still, I learned a lot of interesting, amusing and frightening factoids, and mostly enjoyed having a glimpse into the author's psyche along the way. Alice Vernon's writing: her historical accounts of parasomnia are fascinating and I found the way she was extremely open and honest about her own experiences made me warm to the book even more. Dr Vernon said: “In finding examples and case studies from history, as well as being rather brutally honest about my own troubled sleep, I’m hoping to encourage conversations about parasomnias—and for us all to realise that our strange sleep experiences aren’t quite so strange after all. It is very insightful book that not only reveals the long history of the conditions and experiences mentioned but it also open your eyes to the fact that it is not as uncommon as what you may have first thought.

Mental illness and the maternal urge become nightmarishly entwined in this gutsy, gory mashup of domestic horror and dark humour.

Read more about the condition New: An item that is still in its original shrink wrap from the manufacturer and the original manufacturer’s seal (if applicable) has not been removed.The passion in which Vernon pursues discussion to be normalised surrounding our sleeping patterns is something that I think we can all take away from with a sense of positivity, as after all, we all have sleep.