---
product_id: 3952429
title: "Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction"
brand: "j. allan hobson"
price: "8.51 OMR"
currency: OMR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 10
url: https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/3952429-dreaming-a-very-short-introduction
store_origin: OM
region: Oman
---

# Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction

**Brand:** j. allan hobson
**Price:** 8.51 OMR
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction by j. allan hobson
- **How much does it cost?** 8.51 OMR with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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## Description

Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    An Introduction to Dr. Hobson's Work, Not a Synoptic Summary of Dream Research
  

*by R***Z on Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2017*

I love this OUP series; it fills a nice niche and offers quick reads on important subjects.  I have read several books in the series but was less pleased with this one than with the others.  First, dreaming is an extremely complex subject and spans the speculations of Freud to the most up to date fMRI-facilitated ‘wet neuroscience’ experiments.  Dreaming is a facet of consciousness and consciousness is both highly controversial and one of the most highly challenging subjects of research.  Some see consciousness as the essence of identity and the clearest evidence for the existence of the soul.  Others see it as a biochemical phenomenon that deludes us into believing in identity, the soul, etc.  This is all further complicated by the advances in our understanding of the brain, one of the most important areas of research for the last two generations.Thus, what I wanted to see in this book was a grand synoptic summary of the issues and the manner in which multiple researchers have handled them.  Unfortunately, Dr. Hobson’s book is much more of a summary of ‘his way’ and ‘his research’.  That way tends more toward biological reductionism, though he expresses his orientation with humor, a little bit of tentativeness and some (potential) reverence.  In effect, he says that the evidence is largely going in this direction and he believes that it will end there, but feel free to hold out a little hope for an alternative possibility.Unlike many other readers I found the writing to be an impediment to understanding, though I recognize that he was trying to be as clear as possible.  He gave instances of his own dreams, with simple illustrations and he provided pictures of the human brain with pertinent areas highlighted.  The bottom line, however, is that this is not an ‘introduction’ in the sense of a book for general literate readers.  It is an introduction to Dr. Hobson’s work and it assumes a considerable degree of sophistication with regard to neurobiology.  The targeted audience would be advanced undergraduate majors or graduate students in related fields.His position centers on activation: how does the brain go to work once we are asleep?  What areas are activated?  What areas are blocked?  What is the biochemistry of these processes?  When we get to key (layman’s) questions such as, why does the brain self-activate and for what purposes, we find ourselves in speculative territory: the brain may be consolidating, re-charging, strengthening areas which are underutilized during waking periods, and so on.  At one point he argues that it may well be that dreaming is simply an epiphenomenon and not the crucial part of human experience that many have considered it to be.  Thus, the bottom line is that this book is a very good introduction to one approach to dreaming and brain science but not the overarching account that the title implies.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A concise review of the science of dreaming
  

*by B***Y on Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2016*

Dreaming is one of the most interesting and ill-understood activities of human existence. Many of us don’t remember most of our dreams—to the extent that a number of people don’t think they even have dreams (while not completely conclusive, the scientific evidence suggests that all of us dream every night—except people who live on RedBull and 2 hours / night until they tragically die young.) However, when we do remember a dream, it’s often a vivid and profound experience. Some people dream lucidly (are aware they are inside a dream as it occurs), and a few people have lucid dreams on a regular basis. This has led people to draw all sorts of conclusions about dreams existing in a realm beyond the physical, and what not.While there remains a lot that we still don’t know about dreams, a great deal of science has been advanced in recent decades—enough to take dreamland out of the realm of spiritual mumbo-jumbo and even away from the weak (and largely wrong) science of Freud, and into the realm of legitimate science. This book summarizes much of that science in a concise package. The “A Very Short Introduction” (VSI) series from Oxford University Press offers this type of guide for many subjects. They’re usually about 100 pages long, and give a quick and gritty rundown of the subject at hand.This book is organized into eleven chapters covering: What is dreaming? Why the Freudian approach (and earlier dream interpretation schemes) failed? How the brain is activated during sleep? What is happening at the level of neurochemistry? Why we dream? What can go wrong with dreams? (i.e. sleepwalking, night-terrors, etc.), How dreaming relates to delirium and mental illness? (i.e. it is, after all, a state of hallucination in which we take often bizarre imagery for granted.) There’s a discussion of the new psychology of dreaming which is based in neuroscience and not on an Austrian with a pipe suggesting that it all comes down to penises and vaginas. (Hobson isn’t anti-Freud, though he does want to make clear that the psychology pioneer was quite wrong on this subject.) There’s a discussion of how learning and memory can (and can’t) be advanced through sleep. Hobson discusses the interaction of consciousness and dreams, e.g. lucid dreaming. And there’s a discussion of interpretation of dreams that is rooted in more modern thought.An interesting feature of this guide is that the author uses his own dream diary entries as case studies to make points clear. That helps make this VSI guide a little less dry than they tend to be by their nature.I do enjoy the VSI series. I’ve read quite a few of them, and find they are a good way to study up on a subject with a minimal of effort or pain. I also enjoyed this volume specifically. It’s certainly one of the most fascinating topics on which I’ve read a VSI, and the author doesn’t disappoint in bringing interesting facts and anecdotes to the table.I’d recommend this book if you want to get up to speed on dreaming in a little over a hundred pages.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Enlightening
  

*by M***K on Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2018*

I enjoyed this great intro to the brain and dreaming. I've learned a lot about the history research on this topic but also how we have a long way to go.

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*Last updated: 2026-02-21*