Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison is the author of The Empathy Exams, The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, and Make It Scream, Make It Burn. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her daughter.

A reproduction of a drawing mentioned in this essay. Rendered in pen and highlighter, the drawing shows a platform within a fantasy treehouse furnished with an orange clawfoot tub and pink divan. The bottom of the drawing is labeled “The Platform of Even More Daydreams.”

Essay Online

Daydreaming in Progress

By Leslie Jamison

An overflowing “Daydream Dossier” and a clarifying exercise with index cards — how Leslie Jamison wrote “Dreamers in Broad Daylight” for the Ecstasy issue.

Essay The Ecstasy issue

Dreamers in Broad Daylight: Ten Conversations

By Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison considers why and how we daydream.