Word: dement
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Before the end of the year, U.S. insomniacs will spend more than $170 million and gobble hundreds of millions of pills in their search for sleep. But will they really sleep better? Not always, says Dr. William Dement, head of Stanford University's Sleep Disorders Clinic. Last week Dement reported that sleeping pills can actually keep some people awake and cause emotional problems that may be worse than insomnia...
According to Dement, sleep researchers have found that the pills (which are usually barbiturates) interfere with those dream periods that normally occur about every 90 minutes and are accompanied by rapid eye movements. Denied their normal outlet, such REM dreams are suppressed, only to come back later with tremendous psychological force. As a result, says Dement, "the person has nightmares, is overly intense and displays excitability...
...Though Dement is quick to urge pill poppers to omit the barbiturates, he does not advocate sudden withdrawal, which can cause severe anxiety or even convulsions. Instead, he urges a slow weaning. One patient who followed this advice reported significant gains in his battle with insomnia. When he took as many as five barbiturates a day, he slept only 5 hrs. 40 min. a night. After abandoning the pills entirely, he began snoring soundly for seven hours...
...defense's case was even more picturesque than the prosecution's. Ira Dement, a sometimes-liberal lawyer with a hound-dawg face, cross-examined each of the black witnesses, always beginning with the question, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" His defense case was as straightforward as it was absurd, consisting of character-witness testimony from assorted Klan members...
Cornell gained its lead with 3:23 left in the period. Aggressive all-Ivy wing Mike Doran won an extended battle for the puck behind the cage with Tag Dement who was filling in for Don Grimble. Doran passed into a scramble in front of the goal and Dave Ferguson tipped the puck...