Night: Night Life, Night Language, Sleep, and Dreams

Night: Night Life, Night Language, Sleep, and DreamsIn this powerfully written book, A. Alvarez examines night in all its aspects. How do we light it? How do we inhabit it and make it safe? In what "languages" do we dream? The search moves from the neon lit brilliance of Las Vegas to the shadowy underworld patrolled by the police. We visit a sleep laboratory, where scientists try to understand what happens to our bodies and in our brains when sleep claims us. Alvarez shows how "night horrors" inspired

In this powerfully written book, A. Alvarez examines night in all its aspects. How do we light it? How do we inhabit it and make it safe? In what "languages" do we dream? The search moves from the neon-lit brilliance of Las Vegas to the shadowy underworld patrolled by the police. We visit a sleep laboratory, where scientists try to understand what happens to our bodies and in our brains when sleep claims us. Alvarez shows how "night horrors" inspired and terrified Coleridge, how dreams liberated the minds of Stevenson and the Surrealists, and how his own childhood fears provided a gateway to the secret world of the unconscious. And through a highly original and accessible account of the thoughts of Freud, Jung, and their modern-day counterparts, Alvarez reveals how deeply dreams and the unconscious color and fashion our waking lives.

Like his bestseller The Savage God, Night is a remarkable, eloquent combination of ideas and personal experience; it is a literary feast, a journey of discovery, and a perfect initiation into the mysteries of the dark.


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 07/17/1996
ISBN: 9780393314342
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.90d