Rapid Eye Movement Sleep

From our regular book review column.

Comprehensive reviews of complex neuroscience topics are not on a typical reading list for the practicing psychiatrist, but sometimes it’s worth looking behind the window-dressing of our clinical world to explore the basic science that explains some of our questions "Why?" Why do some patients experience intensification of dreams, or disruptions of slow-wave sleep, or daytime somnolence? Why does the same drug seem to have opposite sleep effects in different patients? What is sleep, anyway?