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zannmato's review against another edition
1.0
This was a nightmare of a book to complete, but I felt I needed to in order to be able to say it was terrible legitimately. I thought the book's subject by Darian Leader would be interesting, I've always sought to learn more about sleep and dreams. Although, I must say that my alarm bells were initially ringing after a few pages of drivel when I determined to find out who Darian Leader was, and then the puzzle came together. A lot of my questions were answered when his bio page described him as one of the last Lacanian Psychoanalysts. Having read Lacan I knew what to anticipate in the writing but Leader really took it to another level by having nothing to add to an exciting field of study. He accurately recited past research that others have completed but he himself added nothing to the conversation. In true Lacanian style, Leader jumped from idea to idea without any apparent reason to and without having completed his original thought making the book seem like a fever dream of disconnected ideas read to me by an extremely excited 4-year-old who was reciting their favourite dinosaurs and then remarking that certain dinosaur names sounded a lot like something completely irrelevant to what they were just talking to me about a few seconds ago. To say this book left a bad taste in my mouth would be an understatement: Darian Leader is an author to stay clear of.
cloudfarmer's review against another edition
2.25
Some interesting points but the author is unbearably dismissive of modern sleep scientists
icallaci's review against another edition
3.0
What an odd little book! Starts out well, but then gets into weird, sexual, mother-related Freudian theories about the origins of modern sleep problems.
hcdelamusique's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Really challenged the way that society views sleep
lintulai's review against another edition
2.0
Can't say I enjoyed reading this book, as this goes to the category of "it's important to read things you don't agree with". I would've hoped that the author would have positioned himself clearly from the beginning as a Freudian psychoanalytic and established where he stands; now I as a reader had to debunk things as I turned pages. It became clear that this book is written as a kinda-sorta-answer to Matthew Walker's excellent Why we sleep, but Leader's book is highly un-scientific, full of basic argumentative errors and far fetched (but of course in the Freudian framework probably spot on) interpretations of folk tales and movies.
elliecaholic's review against another edition
4.0
Loved the more philosophical approach to the history of sleep and why/how we sleep.
raehink's review against another edition
3.0
Biphasic sleeping. Blue lights of technology. Anxiety. Medications. Work. Short but jam-packed.
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