Do human beings have a soul, a self that is distinct from the mass of nerve cells and electrical impulses that we call the brain? Or is all of consciousness - thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, dreams - a set of electrochemical events? Where do we go when we go to sleep, and what is the purpose of dreaming?

Are dreams really the disguised fulfillments of secret wishes, as Freud thought, or are they random images summoned by neural activity in the brain, which we do our best to shape into meaningful scenarios as we dream, and edit as stories when we awaken? How does the hallucinatory delirium of our nocturnal experience differ from madness - if at all?

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Eminent Harvard neuroscientist J. Allan Hobson has written a groundbreaking book about consciousness that overturns our most basic assumptions about identity and human nature and forces us to think again about who we are and what we're made of.

In The Chemistry of Conscious States, Hobson argues lucidly and persuasively that the brain and the mind are one - that the thoughts, feelings, dreams, and memories that constitute our consciousness are in fact an amalgam of electrical impulses and chemical interactions.

Using anecdote and narrative to illustrate his research on the waking and dreaming brain, Hobson introduces the revolutionary concept of conscious states: the notion that consciousness is not a fixed entity but a dynamic neuropsychological continuum, regulated by the two chemical systems that preside over our waking and dreaming lives.

In other words, what we call the self - the "I" we refer to so securely - is much more precarious than most of us imagine, for identity, according to Hobson, is not a constant condition at all but a construction whose form reflects the balance, at any given moment, between waking and dreaming. Hobson leads us on a fascinating journey through Harvard's sleep labs and psych wards and, finally, to the pathways of the brain itself.

Without questioning the complexity of the human experience, The Chemistry of Conscious States capsizes the rudiments of psychoanalytic theory and offers a stunning new vision to succeed it. From the cutting edge of brain research, here is a gripping theory of human consciousness written with clarity, wit, and magnificent insight, a provocative look at some of the most fascinating science being conducted today.