13 Dreams Freud Never Had: the new mind science.

In this autobiography, Harvard neurophysiologist Hobson demonstrates the advances that he and his colleagues have made during his 30-plus-year career in dream research. Hobson's research indicates that during deep rapid eye movement sleep, chemical mechanisms in the brain stem activate various regions of the cortex and thus generate dreams. Hobson explores theories on thoughts and memories, both while a person is awake and asleep. He insists that these data refute Freud's idea that dreams result from an elaborate effort of the mind to conceal unacceptable instinctual wishes. Instead, modern advances in neuroscience demonstrate that dreams result from the brain's structure. These ideas come into focus through Hobson's accounts of his own dreams in brief narratives that introduce each chapter. He has meticulously recorded and dissected each of his dreams, and he uses them to introduce advances in dream research. Pi Press, 2005, 204 p., hardcover, $24.95.