DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Hobson on the Neuroscience of Sleep: A Case of Persistent REM Tunnel Vision

Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep
By J. Allan Hobson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 224 pp. Cloth, $22.

Alan Hobson's short book on dreaming is literate and engaging. Despite the book's popular, even breezy style, Hobson clearly intends that we take seriously the scientific issues he raises. I will do so because these issues are important and because Hobson's ideas have significantly influenced research on sleep and dreaming. This influence stems largely from the activation-synthesis model of dreaming, which he and Robert McCarley proposed in 1977. Although a generation old, this model is enshrined in many introductory texts and continues to influence thinking in this field.