Part 1. This thing called sleep. To sleep ...

Caffeine, jet lag, and melatonin : losing and gaining control of your sleep rhythm

Defining and generating sleep : time dilation and what we learned from a baby in 1952

Ape beds, dinosaurs, and napping with half a brain : who sleeps, how do we sleep, and how much?

Changes in sleep across the life span

Part 2. Why should you sleep?. Your mother and Shakespeare knew : the benefits of sleep for the brain

Too extreme for the Guinness Book of World Records : sleep deprivation and the brain

Cancer, heart attacks, and a shorter life : sleep deprivation and the body

Part 3. How and why we dream. Routinely psychotic : REM-sleep dreaming

Dreaming as overnight therapy

Dream creativity and dream control

Part 4. From sleeping pills to society transformed. Things that go bump in the night : sleep disorders and death caused by no sleep

iPads, factory whistles, and nightcaps : what's stopping you from sleeping?

Hurting and helping your sleep : pills vs. therapy

Sleep and society : what medicine and education are doing wrong; what Google and NASA are doing right

A new vision for sleep in the twenty-first century

Conclusion : to sleep or not to sleep

Appendix : twelve tips for healthy sleep.