The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness

by J. Allan Hobson

Book Overview

In this book, J. Allan Hobson offers a new understanding of altered states of consciousness based on knowledge of how our brain chemistry is balanced when we are awake and how that balance shifts when we fall asleep and dream. He draws on recent research that enables us to explain how psychedelic drugs work to disturb that balance and how similar imbalances may cause depression and schizophrenia. He also draws on work that expands our understanding...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262082934
• ISBN13: 9780262082938
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Dreams, Drugs, and Delirium

Hobson notes that the purpose of this book is to develop a "three-way analogy between dreaming, psychosis, and psychedelic experience." These varied states of consciousness share underlying mechanisms mainly involving a subtle shift in neuromodulatory systems. He relates that the "larger implication of this goal is to promote the concept of a unified theory that could account for all spontaneous and induced alterations of consciousness, whether they are produced and experienced in the context of natural life, scientific experimentation, therapeutic treatment, or recreational use." Of that final topic, I enjoyed his rendering of hallucinogen usage as "recreational psychopathology." By this, he neither maligns psychopathology nor hallucinogen usage (at least as a productive research tool). According to the theory that unites this often dissociated book; dreaming, psychosis, and psychedelic experience are facets of the same gem. While The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness imparts numerous interesting points about dreams and dream physiology, its scope is much broader. Hobson's other books, such as Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep or The Dreaming Brain: How the Brain Creates Both the Sense and the Nonsense of Dreams are surely the ones to consult for more detailed reviews of dream theories. An important point he relates is that during REM sleep, working memory and areas of the frontal lobe are inhibited. This helps to explain the capricious shifts in themes, plots, and characters that are typical of dream experience. Moreover, the disruption of these systems is linked to the sequestration of monoamines (esp. serotonin and norepinephrine) during sleep. During the day the dominance of aminergic over cholinergic systems is typical while at night the opposite ensues. He sees these two systems as locked in a competition that affects all aspects of consciousness. Hobson provides a solid review of the main categories of psychotropic drugs and explains their mechanisms of action with a particular eye toward supporting his ideas about the diurnally shifting balance of neuromodulators. Numerous long-winded accounts of Hobson's own dreams pepper the book. Reading others' dream journals is none too rewarding but Hobson's point is well made: dreams can be just as odd, transcendental, or psychedelic as any acid trip. Though a psychiatrist, Hobson derides the casually prescribing druggists of his profession. He believes a more circumspect approach is necessary even in the use of well-tested psychotropics, such as the SSRIs. According to his research, SSRIs can profoundly affect the architecture of sleep and potentially lead to long-term change in neuromodulatory systems, some beneficial, others not. He's not an absolutist and would hardly eschew the use of drugs to treat serious conditions but insists that a more careful cost-benefit analysis be employed in all cases. As he notes, "the sad conclusion

An Incredibly Difficult but Fascinating Read

If you plan to read this and don't have a degree in clinical psychology or brain physiology, plan to skip a lot or have an encyclopedia handy. It is by far the most difficult book I have ever read. There is, however very useful and interesting information. Beginning with a less technical explanation of how dreams and dream visions work, the book hits the ground running. Then very quickly, Dr. Hobson gets into what parts of the brain are activated in REM sleep, what occurs in REM sleep etc. REM sleep is really the basis for dreams and for the rest of the book. Here are some of the topics I found to be very educational: REM sleep, sleep cycles, neuromodulation, drugs that inhibit and prohibit dreams, how the brain works in REM, false awakenings and definitely lucid dreaming. My problem with the book is partially my own ignorance or just plain ineptness in the subject matter. I don't have a degree in these areas, so probably half the book means little to nothing to me. I do believe, however that if Hobson was writing to a larger audience such as just a well-rounded college educated individual, he missed the mark by a long shot. The biology vernacular or language used is on a post-graduate level and even then only doctors of psychology or psychiatry would be able to make full use of this book. I've probably skipped 50 or 60 pages of the 200 I've read, just because I was completely lost in the speak of the prefrontal cortex, medulla, parietal lobe and reuptake inhibitors. I appreciate the science used to back up the claims made, but audience should really have been given more consideration here. I found Dr. Hobson to be rather fascinating in his usage of the English language however. Like another reviewer said, it is a big bite. A good book nonetheless if you have some serious time and want to put effort into understanding the mechanics of the brain in sleep.

Seriously Supplementary

This book is chock full of information and my sessions with it were spent with a highlighter in my hand, because there's a lot to go through. Hobson doesn't dance around and gets right to work explaining brain function during sleep and the parallels between states of consciousness during REM sleep, neurosis and drug use. Most of what Hobson discusses in this book can be found in his other texts, especially The Dreaming Brain, but this book is definately a worthwhile supplement. I give the book 4 out of 5 stars because of its content. There's tons of well presented information, but it's hard for a layman to wrap their head around.

Very Big Bite

Having completed my honors thesis on the structure and function of REM sleep, I feel that I know a bit about the subject of dreams. I have read myriad scientific articles by J.A. Hobson and even another of his books, entitled Sleep. I got about 50 pages into this one and realized I still may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew. The audience Hobson was aiming at here must be the scientific community because I found myself skipping paragraphs at a time because of the tedious detail of neuro-pathways and receptor information that Hobson plows through with an expectation that the reader will need little or no introduction or explanation of the complex neuroanatomy and chemistry that he discusses. He is a great writer, but unless you are a neurochemist, I would recommend one of his other books on the topic of dreams and sleep.

Great

Hobson has written yet another very good book on the neurochemical mechanisms of conscious states. Certainly, there is not very much one has not read before on his books like Consciousness, Dream as Delirium or The Chemistry of Consicous States. But still, the book should be read because it cuts into some very deep issues regarding consicousness and neurochemistry, specially with regards to dreaming and sleep research. Now the thing is this book is supposed to be about the action of prescription and recreational drugs, but one gets Hobsons model of conscious states, and only then a little of how it explains the actions of those drugs. THis is not necessarily a bad thing, for models are good foundations for such explorations, but maybe a lot more space should have been given to drugs and their actions in the brain.Hobsons well known model of conscious states, AIM, standing for activation (high-low), Input output grating (internal or external information sources) and modulation (aminergic or cholinergic) is presented in the book, and is supposed to do the lot of the explanatory work. The model is useful in this sense, but I have doubts about its power to actually explain what consicousness is. Activation seems to determine waking, not consciousness per se, Input determines content, not consicousness per se, and modulation seems to be in the level of processing mode, and not processing itself. IN other words, it is not clear to me neurochemistry is the right level where one can find really interesting causal links, like neural correlates of consciousness. But the reality is that the model is grounded on firm evidence and good science, and does explain many things ABOUT consicousness. It certainly adds important things to the debate.Another very interesting issue Hobson takes on is on the inadequacy of psychotherapeutic frameworks, of how these are mostly incompatible with modern brain sicence. I must agree almost completely here with him. Hobson also mainly concentrates on nonrephinephrine, serotonin and acetycholine as main players, the first two associated with waking and the last with dreaming. This move seems premature, for there are coutless of neurochemicals that may play also important roles. Nonetheless, these serve as the basis of his dream as delirium hypothesis: that psychosis is similar phenomenally and chemically with normal dreaming states, and thus involves alteration in the aminergic or cholinergic systems of the brain. Dreaming involves chcolinergic activity but in sleep. When such activity is present in waking, psychosis ensues. THis is one of the most plausible and defendable views on psychosis out there. By extension, drugs that cause psychosis, or aleviate it, must affect in some way the aminergic and cholinergic systems of the brain. In this way, Hobson explains the action of drugs, both recreational and clinical. (of course im simplifying. I omit the interactions of the other aspects of the AIM model, I and A. Dreaming and ps