Book Description

At night, during sleep - Who acts-out their dreams, goes "night-flying," has super-human strength and speed, gets hurt or hurts their partner in bed? Who eats food without control, and gains weight? Who has unusual or hurtful sexual behaviors? Who has sleep terrors, with screaming, running around, and jumping through windows? Who becomes violent, with punching and kicking? Who sleepwalks and leaves the house, drives a car, wiggles like a seal, or barks like a dog? Who has legs that are restless and jump around? Who has non-stop dreaming and feels exhausted in the morning? Who becomes paralyzed while falling asleep or waking up and has frightening visions? Who has "extreme sleep"? Important New Findings: Current research has shown that 2% of people engage in sleep violence; almost 1% enact their dreams; 5% have involuntary sleep-related eating; 3% have sleep terrors; up to 10% have sleepwalking; 4% have "confusional arousals" with agitation; at least 5% have episodes of "sleep paralysis;" 10% have restless legs; and the list goes on. Therapy of these conditions is usually effective and safe. In this book, physician and scientist, Carlos H. Schenck, MD, tells his story of helping discover the "dream-enacting" disorder in 1982, which he and his colleagues named the "Rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder" - RBD. Since the time that RBD was first reported by Dr. Schenck et al. in 1985, thousands of cases of RBD from around the world have been published in medical journals. RBD is now recognized as one of the most important clinical discoveries on sleep since the time REM sleep was discovered in 1953. Dr. Schenck has also helped discover other sleep behavior disorders ("parasomnias"). Dr. Schenck now shares the stories told to him by many of his parasomnia patients and their families, who describe their fascinating yet dangerous and strange tales from "the far side of sleep." Dr. Schenck discusses the science of parasomnias, and its connection with the brain sciences, clinical medicine, psychology, law and literature. This book should interest people affected by parasomnias or other sleep disorders; and those interested in sleep, dreams, and human behavior from various perspectives; students and professionals in medicine, nursing, sleep technology, biology, neuroscience, law, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other fields.