Night Terrors: Troubled Sleep and the Stories We Tell About It

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On one hand, they bring a human touch into this largely academic work, and the mixing of the two is intriguing.

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The book encourages us all to change the way that we talk about sleep, arguing that there are many benefits to exchanging sleep stories – socially, culturally and in terms of our wellbeing. From episodes of sleepwalking to hallucinations of sinister figures in her bedroom, her nights are often eventful and sometimes frightening. The narrator on this occasion, whilst I can't speak for her other work, Her reading on this was insufferable. By directly confronting her own strange and frightening nights for the first time, Vernon encourages us to think about the way troubled sleep has impacted our imaginations. Along the way she explores the Salem Witch Trials and sleep paralysis, Victorian ghost stories, and soldiers’ experiences of PTSD.

Here’s me thinking it’s a good idea to read a book about nightmares and all things creepy that go bump in the night right before bed. Like Alice I’ve seen ghost like people standing over me when I’m in that barely awake moment and experienced the weight of something holding me down when I was in bed by myself one time. Dr Alice Vernon is Lecturer in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, where she teaches students the fundamentals of storytelling. AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK IN DECEMBER 2022 **’Curious, lively, humble, utterly genuine … a remarkable debut. A wonderful deepdive into the world of dreams and the science to explain them throughout the centuries.On the other hand, it sometimes veers into unconfortably personal material that feels like a live therapy session happening in front of our eyes, with the author figuring things out as they come up. The style is eclectic, ranging from science journalism, to literary analysis of victorian novels, back to autobiographical writing. Its approach is multidisciplinary, featuring both scientific explanations for the phenomena and brief examinations of how they have been perceived throughout history. I was instantly drawn to the cover, and if you're not familiar with the image, it's the The Nightmare by Swedish painter Henry Fuseli.

Now a lecturer in Creative Writing, Vernon set out to understand the history, science and culture of these strange and haunting experiences. As someone who dreams every time I shut my eyes, this was incredibly enlightening, resonated, and is a must read for dreamers. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.The passion in which Vernon pursues discussion to be normalised surrounding our sleeping patterns is something that I think we can all take away from with a sense of positivity, as after all, we all have sleep. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.