Running Is a Kind of Dreaming A Memoir

<p><strong>A powerful, breathtaking memoir about a young man''s descent into madness, and how running saved his life.</strong></p><p>“Voluntary or involuntary?” asked the nurse who admitted J. M. Thompson to a San Francisco psychiatric hospital in January 2005. Following years of depression, ineffective medication, and therapy that went nowhere, Thompson feared he was falling into an inescapable darkness. He decided that death was his only exit route from the torture of his mind. After a suicide attempt, he spent weeks confined on the psych ward, feeling scared, alone, and trapped. One afternoon during an exercise break he experienced a sudden urge. “<em>Run</em>, I thought. <em>Run before it’s too late and you’re stuck down there. Right now. Run</em>. ” </p><p>The impulse that starts with sprints across a hospital rooftop turns into all night runs in the mountains. Through motion and immersion in the beauty of nature, Thompson finds a way out of the