Night: An Exploration of Night Life, Night Language, Sleep and Dreams

Alvarez combines detailed personal reminiscence, candid self-appraisal, close scientific observation, literary scholarship, & natural description to produce a most enlightening & enjoyable rumination on the subject of darkness, dreams, & night-dwellers animal & human, hallucinatory & real. This is a meditation or rumination on the dark, elegantly written & packed with out-of-the-way information. Chapters: the dark at the top of the stairs; the sleep laboratory; dreaming; the interpretation of dreams; a note on chaos theory; hypnagogic hallucinations; & the Brownies; Surrealism; keeping the peace; & night owls. Illustrated.