Narrator: Imagine waking up in a cold sweat, your heart pounding. In the corner of your bedroom, a dark figure looms—Satan himself. This isn't a scene from a horror movie; it was a recurring reality for psychologist Richard Wiseman. Week after week, he was tormented by these terrifying visions, an experience he later learned was not a nightmare, but a far stranger phenomenon known as a night terror. This personal brush with the bizarre and frightening world of sleep sparked a deep investigation into the one-third of our lives we so often ignore. In his book, Night School: Wake up to the power of sleep, Wiseman takes us on a journey into this hidden world, revealing that what happens after we close our eyes is not just a passive state of rest, but a dynamic and powerful process that shapes our health, happiness, and very reality.

Narrator: For centuries, sleep was a black box. Philosophers and scientists could only guess at what occurred in the mind during slumber. That all changed in the early 20th century, thanks to the strange obsession of a German scientist named Dr. Hans Berger. After a near-fatal accident, Berger became convinced of telepathy and dedicated his life to finding a "brain mirror" to measure its signals. While he never proved telepathy, his relentless work led to the invention of the electroencephalogram, or EEG, a machine that could record the brain's electrical waves.

This invention opened the door for others, like the wealthy American tycoon Alfred Lee Loomis, who turned his mansion into a "palace of science" in the 1930s. By wiring up his overnight guests to his own EEG machine, Loomis discovered that the brain wasn't just quiet during sleep; it produced distinct electrical patterns, cycling through predictable stages. The most revolutionary discovery, however, came in 1951 from a graduate student named Eugene Aserinsky. While studying his own son, he noticed periods of frantic brain activity and darting eye movements. He had found REM, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep, the stage where vivid dreaming occurs. These discoveries collectively revealed the fundamental architecture of our nights: we sleep in 90-minute cycles, moving between light sleep, restorative deep sleep, and the bizarre, active world of REM. This cycle is governed by an internal clock, our circadian rhythm, which dictates when we feel tired and when we feel alert.

Narrator: Thomas Edison, a man who famously claimed sleep was a waste of time, ironically gave the world the tool to destroy it: the light bulb. By conquering the night, artificial light disrupted humanity's natural sleep-wake cycle, leading to a modern epidemic of sleep deprivation. The consequences are far more severe than simple grogginess. The book details the harrowing 1959 stunt of disc jockey Peter Tripp, who attempted to stay awake for eight days in a glass booth in Times Square. After just a few days, Tripp became abusive, paranoid, and began hallucinating, seeing spiders in his shoes and believing a doctor was an undertaker coming to bury him.

While Tripp's case is extreme, Wiseman shows that even minor, chronic sleep loss has profound effects. Studies reveal that getting just one or two hours less sleep than needed impairs cognitive function as much as being drunk. It cripples our decision-making, saps our self-control, and makes us more likely to behave unethically. The impact extends to our physical health, with poor sleep linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and an early death. The catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill serves as a stark real-world example; investigators concluded that a sleep-deprived third mate, who had slept only six hours in the previous two days, was a major factor in one of history's worst environmental disasters.

Narrator: For most, sleep is a peaceful state. But for some, the boundary between sleep and wakefulness breaks down, leading to bizarre and sometimes dangerous behaviors known as parasomnias. The book recounts the incredible story of a fifteen-year-old girl who, in 2005, was found by firefighters fast asleep on the arm of a 130-foot construction crane in London. She had sleepwalked out of her home and performed this perilous climb completely unconsciously.

These events occur when the brain gets stuck in a transitional state, neither fully asleep nor fully awake. While sleepwalking can lead to strange acts like naked gardening or even driving, a more terrifying disorder is the night terror. Unlike a nightmare, which occurs in REM sleep, a night terror erupts from the deepest stage of sleep. The person may scream, thrash, and appear terrified, but they are not truly awake and will have no memory of it. The book presents the tragic case of Brian Thomas, a man who, during a night terror, believed an intruder was in his camper van and tragically strangled his own wife. He was later acquitted of murder, as experts proved he was acting unconsciously due to a sleep disorder. These cases reveal that the sleeping mind can take control of the body with a profound and frightening disregard for safety and consequence.

Narrator: While some dreams are frightening, Wiseman argues that they often serve a vital therapeutic purpose. Research shows that dreams are a continuation of our waking lives, frequently filled with our daily anxieties and worries. This isn't a flaw; it's a feature. The "dreams as nocturnal therapist" theory suggests that by replaying stressful events in the safe, simulated environment of a dream, our brain can strip away the associated emotional trauma, helping us cope. One study showed that volunteers who were allowed to dream after watching a disturbing film reported significantly less anxiety the next day compared to those who were deprived of REM sleep.

Beyond therapy, dreams are a powerful engine for creativity and problem-solving. The book highlights how Robert Louis Stevenson was struggling to find a plot for a new book when he had a terrifying dream of a good man who, after taking a potion, transformed into a personification of evil. He woke up and frantically wrote the story that would become The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Similarly, Dmitri Mendeleev saw the structure of the periodic table in a dream, and Paul McCartney famously heard the entire melody for "Yesterday" in his sleep. These examples show that dreams allow our minds to make novel connections, offering innovative solutions that elude our conscious, logical thinking.

Narrator: The idea of controlling one's dreams, known as lucid dreaming, was long dismissed as fantasy. However, in the late 1970s, Stanford researcher Stephen LaBerge devised a brilliant experiment to prove it was real. While hooked up to an EEG machine, he instructed himself to signal his lucidity by moving his eyes in a pre-arranged pattern once he became aware he was dreaming. He succeeded, proving that consciousness could exist within REM sleep.

Night School provides a toolkit for anyone to follow in LaBerge's footsteps. Techniques like performing "reality checks" during the day—such as looking at a watch twice to see if the time changes—can train the mind to recognize the strangeness of the dream world. Influencing dream content is also possible. The book describes how the author helped create the Dream:ON app, which plays soundscapes during REM sleep. The results were clear: users who heard nature sounds dreamt of forests and flowers, while those who heard beach sounds dreamt of the coast. For those plagued by nightmares, a technique called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy is remarkably effective. It involves rewriting the script of a recurring nightmare with a positive ending and rehearsing this new version before sleep. This simple act can retrain the brain, banishing the nightmare for good and demonstrating that we have the power to become the directors, not just the audience, of our own nocturnal theater.

Narrator: Ultimately, Night School is a powerful manifesto against our society's casual disregard for sleep. Richard Wiseman dismantles the myth that sleep is an unproductive interruption to our "real" lives. Instead, he reveals it as a vital, active, and deeply influential state that is essential for our physical health, mental well-being, and creative potential. The single most important takeaway is that sleep is not a passive state to be minimized, but an active process to be understood and optimized.

The book challenges us to stop viewing the night as an enemy to be conquered with caffeine and artificial light, and instead see it as an opportunity. What if we could use our sleep to solve problems, heal from trauma, and achieve our goals? By embracing the science of sleep, we can reclaim one-third of our lives and wake up not just rested, but happier, healthier, and wiser.