Reviews

This Is Why You Dream: What Your Sleeping Brain Reveals About Your Waking Life by Rahul Jandial

book_nerd_1990's review

informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

nic_readsbooks's review

informative slow-paced

4.0

I have inadvertently landed on a reading theme this month - dreams. Having read a more creative approach to understanding your dreams; this book offered a contrasting scientific explanation which was interesting to read.

The author draws on his background as a neuroscientist to explore the world of dreams - what are they? Why do we have them?

This book achieves a great balance of delivering scientific explanations but in a way that is accessible and understandable to someone who doesn’t haven’t a great scientific understanding of(me!).

This isn’t a spiritual book but still holds dreams as holding importance in human life. I liked this and felt the author did a great job of offering weight to this area.

Some chapters were more interesting than others and I particularly liked the chapters about types of dreams, themes and I found it really interesting to learn about dreams that are particularly predominant across the world. The information around nightmares was also really interesting.

I think it probably would have been helpful to have more of understanding on neuroscience and I would probably have gained even more from this reading experience if I had this background however I still felt I understood a lot of the book and it didn’t interrupt my reading experience.

This was a fascinating read

chloelb98's review

informative reflective fast-paced

4.25

anyagt's review

4.0

An interesting examination of the sleeping brain and the power of dreams on our waking lives. Rahul Jandial uses his extensive experience as a brain surgeon and neuroscientist to delve into a relatively unexplored part of all our lives. Dreams have long been interpreted and there are many theories as to why we dream, Jandial explores some of these theories, referencing the research which has been carried out in this field. This is grounded in science but written in a clear and accessible way. The referencing is thorough throughout and useful for further reading. The chapters exploring lucid dreaming were especially interesting, something which has been recorded historically and practised, but only fairly recently explored by cognitive scientists. This is not a sleep dictionary which will interpret your dreams, but a far more insightful study into why we dream and what we can learn from our sleeping brain.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone publishers for an advanced readers copy of this book.