PICK OF TODAY’S RADIO

NIGHT TERRORS, 9.45AM, 12.30AM, RADIO 4

EVER since she was a child, Alice Vernon has had vivid, dreadful nightmares and episodes of sleepwalking. She often wakes up to find that her bedroom seems filled with strangers or sinister figures from her past. These hallucinations, along with the likes of sleepwalking and sleep paralysis, are known as ‘parasomnias’, which are surprisingly common, and all kinds of ancient and modern remedies have been devised to help sufferers. In this week-long abridgement of Alice’s book, we hear about the history of our relationship with bad dreams.