"There is only one sure way to escape insomnia: not to be born, "Darian Leader reminds us, quoting Gay Luce and Julius Segal. And given what we read in this entertaining essay by the English psychoanalyst - and the evident lack of sleep that so many suffer in our own flesh, confirming the theses of these pages - it seems that an action in principle as "natural" and "simple" as sleeping never was, and it reveals itself as little less than a utopia in the hyperestressed societies of capitalism With the arrival of the industrial age –which brought electric light, the change of schedules and sleep habits– and, later, the technological revolution –and the appearance of computers and smartphones, with this continuous demand for Being perpetually connected– our relationship with sleep has become more and more problematic, projecting a growing and paralyzing deep anxiety. The obsession with resting the sacrosanct eight hours for To perform at work thus becomes, paradoxically, another impediment at bedtime and also the perfect bait for a buoyant sleep industry, which only overlooks the true and multiple causes of insomnia.

Why can't we sleep? It sets out to answer this complex question, in addition to shedding light on what happens in our minds when we sleep and when it is impossible for us to do so, what function does the dream have, what is its relation to memory, and the possible meaning and purpose of dreams? . Interweaving different scientific, sociological, economic and psychoanalytic discourses, Leader offers us a fascinating map of our sleepless society.