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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > States of consciousness > Sleep & dreams
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The Sleep Instinct (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,414
Discovery Miles 34 140
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The Sleep Instinct (Hardcover)
Series: Routledge Library Editions: Sleep and Dreams
Expected to ship within 12 - 19 working days
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Most of us believe that we sleep in order to rest our tired bodies
and minds. Originally published in 1977, this centuries-old
common-sense view is challenged by Ray Meddis, who describes and
argues for a controversial new theory of the nature and function of
sleep. The theory seeks to replace the old view with the idea that
sleep may no longer serve any important function in modern man.
Whereas the sleep instinct helps animals to survive by driving them
to hide away for as long as possible each day, this is no longer a
valuable asset in civilised surroundings. Nevertheless, as the
author explains, we still feel driven by a primeval urge beyond
conscious control to crawl away every evening to the security of
our beds to wait out the dangerous hours of darkness which were
such a threat to our ancestors. Contrary to contemporary wisdom, he
also argues that dreaming is a primitive and particularly valueless
kind of sleep - a crude a dangerous heritage from our reptilian
ancestors which is kept to a bare minimum in most adult
warm-blooded creatures. Ray Meddis writes in a non-technical style
and succeeds admirably in making the science of sleep and intensive
research studies on sleep accessible and even exciting for the
general reader as well as for the scientist. He shows that not
everyone is bound by a felt need for sleep; in fact, some human
beings discussed at length in the book thrive on less than two
hours sleep a night without any ill effects. The implications of
the research described are little short of sensational; in
particular, Dr Meddis believes that it is well within the bounds of
possibility that future research will show us how changes can be
brought about in normal people to free them from the bondage of
their sleep instincts. This new perspective also leads directly
into a radical reappraisal of the nature of insomnia and new
possibilities for treatment.
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