Guy Leschziner_75

Comparisons with Oliver Sacks are inevitable and right there on the cover. 'The Nocturnal Brain' is 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat' for sleep disorders. It's gripping, naturally, with that Sacks-esque (Sacksian? Sacks-like? Sacks-adjacent?) combination of neuroscience and intimate storytelling. There's the teenager with Klein-Levin syndrome—bouts of extreme sleepiness combined with hypersexuality and morbid hunger. The bloke sent to jail for attempted rape, later diagnosed with sexsomnia and having to deal with the horror of realising he had actually committed—while sleeping—the crime he had vehemently denied. Sleep-related eating disorders. Extreme sleepwalking (and, memorably, sleep-driving). Sleep paralysis with hallucinations. Life-threatening insomnia. 'The Nocturnal Brain' is a very nicely written cornucopia of sleep-related horror stories, with few happy endings. As Leschziner says, "sharing a bed with someone is an act of deep trust".