Across time and around the world, billions of people with highly dissimilar backgrounds and cultures have felt spiritual or religious inspiration that shaped their lives and supplemented their mental strength and in many cases, this inspiration came via a dream. The "how" and "why" of this common phenomenon is one that science has largely failed to explain. In this book, nationally recognized behavioral neuroscientist Patrick McNamara taps the latest science in sleep and dreams as well as neuropsychology to investigate one facet of the answer from the "inside out" the human brain's...

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...