March/1998
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INSOMNIA Stephen King (New York: Viking, 1994, 787 pp., $27.95)
Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg
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This book contains enough misinformation about sleep to give a sleep specialist nightmares. After his wife dies, Ralph Roberts starts waking up earlier and earlier. Soon he's down from his usual 8 hours of sleep at night to only a couple of hours.
Electing not to see his long-time doctor who, after all, had misdiagnosed his wife's brain tumor, he tries whiskey, honey, and other home remedies. He visits the local library, where, much to the dismay of this sleep book author, he finds none of the more than two dozen popular books on sleep published in the last 10 or 15 years, virtually all of which refer people with persistent sleep problems to sleep centers. He
does come across "a full-color brochure advertising the wonders of The Minnesota Institute for Sleep Studies in St. Paul," which, for reasons not given, he ignores.
He decides to try OTC sleep-aids, but is dissuaded from doing so by a pharmacist, who also advises against benzodiazepines. The reason: "They significantly reduce REM sleep." The pharmacist, who presents himself as a sleep guru, tells Roberts: "People who stop dreaming or suffer from constant dream interruptions have all sorts of problems, including loss of cognitive ability and emotional stability. They also start to suffer perceptual problems like hyper-reality." This is Stephen King, remember.
Roberts' visits to hyper-reality allow him to know the past and alter the future. Mission accomplished, he can sleep again. The 787 page book reads like a script for the movie it surely will become. Might as well wait until then.
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