Ever since she was a child, her nights have been haunted by nightmares of a figure from her adolescence, sinister hallucinations and episodes of sleepwalking. These are known as 'parasomnias' - and they're surprisingly common. Vernon set out to understand the history, science and culture of these strange and haunting experiences. This book examines the history of our relationship with bad dreams: how we've tried to make sense of and treat them, from some decidedly odd 'cures' like magical 'mare-stones', to research on how video games might help people rewrite their dreams. By directly confronting her own strange and frightening nights for the first time, Vernon encourages us to think about the way troubled sleep has impacted our imaginations.