Dreams and Visions: How Religious Ideas Emerge in Sleep and Dreams : Praeger : 9781440847165 : 1440847169 : 26 Sep 2016 : Across time and around the world, billions of people with highly dissimilar backgrounds and cultures have felt spiritual or religious inspiration that shaped their lives and supplemented their mental strength?and in many cases, this inspiration came via a dream. The "how" and "why" of this common phenomenon is one that science has largely failed to explain. In this book, nationally recognized behavioral neuroscientist Patrick McNamara taps the latest science in sleep and dreams as well as neuropsychology to investigate one facet of the answer from the "inside out"?the human brain's role. The first study of its kind in an emerging field, Dreams and Visions: How Religious Ideas Emerge in Sleep and Dreams provides a comprehensive summary of past theory and examines the latest science on dreams, REM sleep, cognitive approaches to religion, and neuroscience approaches