Books have more to offer than just lessons on life

As a child, my mother drifted to sleep each night listening to her mother and father reading books to each other in bed. As she grew older, she began a ritual of kissing her parents goodnight, closing her bedroom door and turning out the lights, then huddling under her blankets in bed with her secret flashlight, reading as late as her eyes would stay open.

Hers was the time of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. She read each and every book in these series more times than she can count.

When her parents died, my sisters and I were in grade school. We made the sad journey to my grandparents' home to pack their belongings. It was then that my sisters and I discovered the boxes of my mom's old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. We were already "bookworms" by then, but we spent that next year falling in love with "Nancy and the Boys," just as my mom had decades before.

I am so grateful that my family "handed down" this affection for reading. Why do some of us love to read so much? Simply, there are psychological experiences as well as thought processes that are enriched by reading. Moreover, people have loved reading since the beginning of time.

Anthropological discoveries in ancient Babylon and Egypt have revealed written records no less than 7,000 years old - dating the complex process of reading to the beginning of human civilization. And the process of reading is complex. It requires our brain's automatic processing and memory to sift through words and then our conscious attention must make meaning of them. When reading, our mind can become so absorbed in these processes that it is able to block out distractions that at any other time would disrupt our thoughts.

Many of us remember the first books we fell in love with, including titles like "Little House on the Prairie," "The Lord of the Rings," "Harry Potter," and many others, depending upon our age.

Then, beyond our first loves, there are those classic books we can never forget, the ones that change how we think and feel, or even how we see the world. Case in point: read "To Kill a Mockingbird," and you'll feel forever changed.

For me, reading inspires the feeling of being completely transported to another person, place and time - which, incidentally, has a psychological scientific basis. Psychologists and educators have long studied the "reading trance," which happens when we really love a book. In fact, when reading special books, particularly fiction, we endow certain characters and places with particular vividness and intensity and enter into "an altered sense of reality," in which we become completely lost in the book.

Freud's eloquent explanation of the power of fiction asserts that "in order to release yet greater pleasure arising from deeper sources in the mind ... putting us in the position where we can enjoy our own daydreams without reproach or shame."

No wonder I feel particular appreciation for Thomas Wolfe's observation, "No filmmaker has ever brought the audience inside the mind of a character, something that even bad novelists are able to accomplish as a matter of routine."

How wonderful it is that as we grow up with the beloved heroes and heroines in our favorite books, we are able to learn so much. For example, two of life's most significant lessons are learned from humble characters grappling with timeless questions: On making difficult decisions, Harry Potter (author J.K. Rowling) impresses upon the reader that, "Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

Further, Emma (Jane Austen) teaches us to believe in ourselves, "We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be." Such insight is easily and comfortably internalized by the reader.

We all know we're supposed to read to our children: It'll help them perform better in school, and in our competitive society. Isn't that what it's all about? No! It's also about spending time with your child or your partner in relaxed enjoyment. It's also about indulging in that reading trance that is so hypnotic and satisfying. So, as summer lends itself to more daylight and perhaps a little more time and inclination to indulge "me time" - read on ... read on! Read a new book, find a new beginning, and see where you end.

• Lisa Keating, Ph.D., is a Carson City clinical psychologist.