Hush, a Book of Bedtime Contemplations

Okay, it’s not a mystery thriller, not an espionage novel, but if sleep has ever been a problem for you, then this short book is worth having on your bedside table. Hush, a Book of Bedtime Contemplations was a well-written, well-researched, and fascinating book by Rubin Naiman, Ph.D. He is often quoted by the sleep and meditation coach, Jennifer Piercy. Although, as a psychoanalyst, I don’t agree with all that he writes about dreaming, it is clear that one effect of his work is to bring dreaming into one’s waking life as a useful tool for self-contemplation.

 

Many of Naiman’s passages are simply stunning. He wrote, “Hush was born of an integration of sleep science and spirituality. It was written to complement effective behavioral sleep medicine approaches with more traditional sacred views of sleep and dreams. Hush’s ‘prescriptions’ are, therefore, meant to speak to the heart as well as the mind.” He added, “Sleep is so much more than a servant of waking life; it’s a rich and direct experience of life itself.”  He writes, “More often than not, what we must do to heal our sleep is precisely what we must do to heal our waking lives.” He opines, “Sleep is not a respite from life, but a deeper immersion into it…. More important than knowing the meaning of any particular dream is knowing that dreaming is meaningful.”

 

I really loved this work and give it my strongest recommendation.