We all have our peculiarities, some of which we prefer to conceal while choosing to broadcast others. One of my quirks, if it can be called that, is that I have been fascinated by sleep and dreams ever since I was a small boy in the 1950s. When I was about eight years old, I saw the Devil in a dream so powerful, it left a lifelong impression. In seventh grade, I checked out a Freud omnibus from the Pomona Public Library, digested his interpretations of dreams, and pronounced him ridiculous, a judgment I was never required to modify. Over the years, I have read an absurd number of books about sleep and dreams—most recently,
When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness
, by David M. Peña-Guzmán. (By the way, it’s fascinating to compare the title of that book with one I reviewed for
The Lamp Magazine
last year
,
When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and Mystery of Sleep
, by Antonio Zadra and Robert Stickgold.) Some of these are only tangentially relevant (Omnia El Shakry’s
The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt
, for instance); I just can’t help myself.