Nocturnes, literally music of the night, is an impressionistic investigation into everything that is not known, and perhaps can never be known, about dreams. Rather than espousing a strategy of dream interpretation, Lippman offers a naturalistic approach appreciative of the playful, complex creativity in dreams. He urges the reader to apprehend dreams on their own terms, in a manner that enables the patients actually to experience the unconscious in its radical difference from waking thought.