Indhold: Part 1. This thing called sleep ; To sleep ... ; Caffeine, jet lag, and melatonin: losing and gaining control of your sleep rhythm ; Defining and generating sleep: time dilation and what we learned from a baby in 1952 ; Ape beds, dinosaurs, and napping with half a brain: who sleeps, how do we sleep, and how much? ; Changes in sleep across the life span ; Part 2. Why should you sleep? ; Your mother and Shakespeare knew: the benefits of sleep for the brain ; Too extreme for the Guinness Book of World Records: sleep deprivation and the brain ; Cancer, heart attacks, and a shorter life: sleep deprivation and the body ; Part 3. How and why we dream ; Routinely psychotic: REM-sleep dreaming ; Dreaming as overnight therapy ; Dream creativity and dream control ; Part 4. From sleeping pills to society transformed ; Things that go bump in the night:" sleep disorders and death caused by no sleep ; iPads, factory whistles, and nightcaps: what's stopping you from sleeping? ; Hurting and helping your sleep: pills vs. therapy ; Sleep and society: what medicine and education are doing wrong; what Google and NASA are doing right ; A new vision for sleep in the twenty-first century ; Conclusion: To sleep or not to sleep ; Appendix: Twelve tips for healthy sleep