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, and how dreams liberated the minds of Stevenson and the Surrealists. He talks about his own childhood fears and explores the secret world of the unconscious. Through a highly original and accessible account of the thoughts of Freud, Jung, and their modern-day counterparts, as well as the latest scientific theories, Alvarez reveals how deeply dreams and the unconscious color and fashion our waking lives.
- ISBN10 039303724X
- ISBN13 9780393037241
- Publish Date 8 November 1994
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 21 August 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English