Patrick McNamara Ph.D. – författare

Challenging existing claims concerning the functions of Rapid Eye Movement sleep and the purported meaninglessness of dreams, this text offers a complete and up-to-date survey on the anatomy, physiology, ontogeny, and phylogeny of REM sleep as well as the cognitive neuroscience of dream phenomonolgy and dream content. The text underlines the importance of looking at how REM interacts physiologically with NREM sleep, in order to understand the potential functions of REM. The findings support and extend clams that the functions of REM involve memory consolidation and regulation of emotional conflicts and expression.Analyses of evolutionary relationships include sleep in reptiles, birds, marsupials, and mammals. Chapters explore interactions of REM and NREM and effects of these interactions on anabolic hormone release as well as the effects on dream content, the effects of genes and genomic imprinting on sleep, and theories of dream formation and content.

With a breadth including breaking research from around the world, this set created by a team of experts is the most authoritative source that exists regarding the biology and psychology of dreaming. Readers will not only understand the new science of dreams, but how that science could lead to innovations in the medical, social technical and biotech fields.Although it has been described since ancient times, dreaming remains a somewhat mysterious mental process, and scientists around the world continue to study its mechanisms and meanings. In this unique set of books, experts in the field from around the globe gather to show the newest and most exciting research and findings related to the biology and psychology of dreaming. New studies of dream content, for example, show that across age groups, cultures and clinical groups, dreams have recurring themes. New brain imaging techniques show us specific brain regions involved in dreaming. Other research featured here describes the biology or psychology of realistic and bizarre dreams, of symbolic images in dreams, and of how differences in gender and personality affect dreams and dreaming. The newest and most extensive source of information on dreaming in existence, this set gives readers insights into how this new science could lead to innovations in the medical, social, technical, and biotech fields.Dozens of contributors—some top experts in their fields known internationally—show us how brain functions affect and are affected by dreaming and why these new findings should be important to all of us. Volume I spotlights the biology of sleep and dreaming. Volume II focuses on dream content and its many facets. In Volume III, the many theoretical accounts of dreams are presented.

We've nearly all been there at least once - awakened with a pounding heart and the memory of frightening scenes that seemed so real, but were conjured up and existed only in the sleeping mind. Nightmares affect people across countries and cultures, with some 10 percent of the world's population reporting recurrent nightmares. Parents have reported, and science has recorded, nightmares in children as young as 18 months old. Up to 40 percent of children aged 2 to 12 experience nightmares, as do some 35 percent of veterans and 50 percent of adults with chronic illness. With this book, a psychologist widely known in his field shows how nightmares evolved and were useful to ancestral populations, and why nightmares may carry beneficial functional effects even today for people who suffer from the pulse-pumping dreams. McNamara brings us up to date on the biology of nightmares and what, specifically, happens in the brain during the event. He also explains the history and development of nightmares and likely causes, including traumatic events, psychological and physical disorders, and commonly consumed medications.

This two-volume text reviews spirit possession throughout history, analyzes case studies from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, and examines rites for exorcism.From the beginning of civilization to the present day, and across all major religions and cultures, there have been documented cases of people seemingly overtaken by an unseen entity. The invading force—whether good or bad—appears to replace the possessor's soul with the spirit's own persona, resulting in mystifying symptoms such as levitation or other supernatural feats, speaking in tongues, and even horrific and inexplicably accelerated physical distortion and deterioration.This is a two-volume chronological history and examination of spirit possession that addresses its phenomenological, psychological, and neurobiological aspects, and its effects on societies. Volume one reviews spirit possession from the upper Paleolithic era to modern times, while Volume two focuses on case studies and rites of exorcism.

We've nearly all been there at least once - awakened with a pounding heart and the memory of frightening scenes that seemed so real, but were conjured up and existed only in the sleeping mind. Nightmares affect people across countries and cultures, with some 10 percent of the world's population reporting recurrent nightmares. Parents have reported, and science has recorded, nightmares in children as young as 18 months old. Up to 40 percent of children aged 2 to 12 experience nightmares, as do some 35 percent of veterans and 50 percent of adults with chronic illness. With this book, a psychologist widely known in his field shows how nightmares evolved and were useful to ancestral populations, and why nightmares may carry beneficial functional effects even today for people who suffer from the pulse-pumping dreams. McNamara brings us up to date on the biology of nightmares and what, specifically, happens in the brain during the event. He also explains the history and development of nightmares and likely causes, including traumatic events, psychological and physical disorders, and commonly consumed medications.