▉評審推薦語

黃榮棋（長庚大學生物醫學研究所副教授）

21歲讀大二時，他第一次發病，白天會有難以抗拒的睡意，甚至在與教授面談時突然睡著（猝睡）；興奮或緊張等情緒激動時，會突然四肢無力而癱倒（猝倒）；會在猝睡、失去意識狀態下進行自發行為；會有睡眠癱瘓（鬼壓床）與入眠幻覺的恐怖經驗；也會有夜間睡眠中斷等症狀。

作者以猝睡症伴隨猝倒症患者的自身經歷，多年來訪談科學家、醫師，以及許多與他一樣飽受睡眠障礙之苦的人，完成了這本生動有趣的書。書中幾乎涵蓋了睡眠科學的所有相關面向。

睡眠及腦科學都是21世紀相當重要的議題，作者參考諸多科學與歷史文獻，回顧猝睡症的發現以及睡眠研究的歷史，作者的記者之筆寫作流暢，翻譯也十分到位。書中某些章節描述猝睡症的不同症狀，穿插引述前人與受訪者發生過的案例，並對照自身經歷過的故事。其中不乏有趣軼事，像是睡眠研究的重要檢查工具腦波儀，原來竟是發明者在百年前因為相信自己在危險時刻可以傳送心電感應給姊姊，因而發願，也的確如願完成這項可以檢查大腦的儀器。

針對猝睡症病因的探討，患有猝睡症的狗狗功不可沒；猝睡症的某些症狀又與快速動眼睡眠（作夢）期的生理變化有關。本書還包括各種睡眠障礙，像可能致命的睡眠呼吸中止，以及你我一生當中偶（常）會出現的鬼壓床、入眠幻覺及失眠等等。

人生1/3花在睡眠（包括作夢），本書將讓你更了解失去意識的那1/3人生。

▉得獎感言

撰文：亨利．尼可斯（Henry Nicholls）

我是亨利．尼可斯，我非常興奮自己的書《睡眠腦科學》得到2019年OpenBook年度好書．翻譯書大獎。全世界都察覺到睡眠的重要，我希望這本探索有趣卻又惱人的睡眠失調之書，能發揮影響力，改變大眾對於睡眠的態度，並鼓勵大家關注自己睡得如何，又如何能睡得更好。
我21歲的時候得到猝睡症，這是一種神經系統失調，每2500人就有1個人得到這種病，是因為大腦裡缺乏幾萬個細胞所造成的。就一個擁有一千億個細胞的器官而言，聽起好像沒什麼。但這些細胞會產生一種叫下視丘泌素（又稱食慾素）的神經傳導物質，它對於在白天維持清醒及夜晚的睡眠扮演極重要角色。因為缺乏下視丘泌素，我的生活變得零碎，白天的時候深受棘手的睡意所影響，晚上又因為極其生動的夢境，睡眠變得斷斷續續。我經常有睡眠麻痺的情況，醒來的時候發現自己動彈不得，我的大腦理解我的恐懼，讓我產生幻覺，使我看見一個頭戴帽子，手持斧頭的人形站在床尾。我開始出現猝倒的狀況，這種異常現象會讓我因為激動的情緒，像是開心、憤怒或驚訝而讓我完全失去肌肉張力。可能我開個玩笑（通常不是很好笑），雙腿就變得無力而摔倒。我的大腦完全有意識，但是身邊的人會以為我突然睡覺或是心臟病發。
得到猝睡症給我的補償是，這讓我有絕佳條件來寫一本關於睡眠失調的書。缺乏這些細胞而導致的猝睡症，更加說明睡眠相關的症狀相當廣泛。對我而言，從自己睡不好的經驗和各種睡眠障礙之間找出關聯性，相當容易，像是晝夜節律睡眠障礙、睡眠呼吸暫停、睡眠性交症到失眠問題。為了得知這些不同的睡眠障礙，我訪問了醫生、科學家和病人，理解到缺乏睡眠背後這些痛苦的故事是最有說服力的證據，提醒我們良好睡眠的重要性。
最後，我希望讀了《睡眠腦科學》的讀者能學到睡眠為何對大腦非常重要，以及我們、甚至是確診了睡眠相關疾病的人能做出的小改變，好改善睡眠，得到清醒的狀態和人生。
我很榮幸能獲得OpenBook好書獎，謝謝。

原文：

My name is Henry Nicholls and I am absolutely thrilled that my book Sleepyhead has won the OpenBook best translation for 2019. The world is waking up to the importance of sleep and I hope my book – which explores the fascinating but often troubling world of sleep disorders – will play a part in changing attitudes towards sleep and encourage people to pay more attention to how they sleep and how they might sleep better.
When I was 21 I developed narcolepsy, a neurological disorder thought to affect around 1 in 2500 people and caused by the loss of a few tens of thousands of cells in the brain. In an organ that contains around 100 billion cells, this doesn’t sound like much these particular cells produce a neurotransmitter called hypocretin (also known as orexin), which plays a fundamental role in sustaining wakefulness during the day and sleep at night. Without hypocretin, my life began to unravel, overcome by impossible sleepiness during the day and crazily fractured night-time sleep full of the most extraordinarily vivid dreams. I experienced frequent sleep paralysis, waking up but finding myself paralysed, my brain making sense of my terror by creating a hallucination of a hooded figure standing at the end of my bed, holding an axe. I began to experience something called cataplexy, a strange phenomenon where a strong emotion, like mirth, anger or surprise causes a complete loss of muscle tone. I’d make a joke – often not very funny – my legs would give way and I’d collapse. I’d be completely conscious inside my brain but to everyone around me it would look like I’d suddenly fallen asleep or suffered a heart attack.
This one redeeming feature of narcolepsy is that it’s an excellent condition to have if you want to write a book about sleep disorders. The cause of narcolepsy – the loss of these cells – underpins so much about sleep that the symptoms are extremely wide-ranging and it was easy for me to find connections between my own experience of sleeping badly to the many other ways in which sleep can go wrong, from circadian sleep disorders to sleep apnea to sleep sex to insomnia. In order to learn about all these different sleep disorders, I interviewed doctors, scientists and patients and came to realise that the harrowing stories of the sleep deprived offer is compelling evidence for the importance of sleeping well.
Ultimately, I hope people who read Sleepyhead will learn about sleep, why it is so tremendously important for the brain and small changes that all of us – even those with a recognised sleep pathology – can make to improve sleep, wakefulness and life.
It is a great honour to receive this OpenBook award. Thank you.●