Maria (00:13) Hi everyone and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shaped the world. Sup, Aarati? Aarati (00:22) Not much. Not much, Maria. How's it going? Maria (00:26) listeners don't know this, but we are in the same house right now and we tried to record in the same room, but there was too much echo. Aarati (00:35) We are. We did. We have very cheap, bad microphones. Maybe that'll change one day, but for now, Maria (00:40) Amazon $40. Yeah. Aarati (00:43) Yeah. And so I'm sitting in the room right down the hall from you. My computer is sitting on a big cardboard box. We're very high tech here at the Smart Tea Podcast. Maria (00:53) Very high tech. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, Happy Easter. Aarati (01:00) Oh my gosh, so Maria has the most ridiculous combination of clothes on right now. So when we started this podcast together, she suggested that if I tell her the theme of the episode each time that she would try to find a t-shirt or something that kind of matches the theme because has like 500 t-shirts. I don't know how she has so many, but she does, and they're all very cute and all very hilarious, but it's a lot. And so we're going to try to do this that every episode she's going to try and wear an on theme t-shirt. So you want to tell the people about your t-shirt right now? Maria (01:41) So you told me that the theme was sleep. So this is a shirt woot shirt and it has like a chibi version or chibi or however you say it version of Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle laying on a box of pizza because he's having a food coma and he's asleep. So I thought that was you know appropriate for something related to sleep. It's very cute. Aarati (02:10) Very cute. Very cute. And not only that, but you have on a Ravenclaw hat, Yes, and Easter bunny ears that pop up when you squeeze them. So. Maria (02:22) I may take these off because they may be too distracting for me and then you're just gonna have a bunch of popping in the background all the time because I'm just gonna be playing with these ears. Aarati (02:30) Well, know, honestly, I'm not gonna be even looking at you because I'm gonna be reading my script that I have. So you can do what you want. All right. Maria (02:41) Okay, I'm gonna take them off. The ears are off, sadly. Aarati(02:45) That's okay. Maria (02:47) I'll bring him back later. Aarati(02:48) Yeah, this episode will probably be out after Easter anyway, so just saying. Maria (02:53) Also. It's fine. You can like bunnies any time of the year. Aarati (02:56) That's true. So as you mentioned, this episode is about sleep. And the person that we will be talking about today is William C. Dement. Maria (03:06) That's an interesting name. Aarati (03:08) It is an interesting name. I was really curious as to whether his last name, Dement, had anything to do with dementia or being demented or anything like that, but I could find no connection. It's just his name. Maria (03:26) The interesting thing is when you brought it up, the first thing I thought of, which is on brand with my hat, was Dementors from Harry Potter. Yeah. Aarati (03:36) Oh Dementors! Is that why you wore that hat? Maria (03:39) Well, you didn't, I didn't know the person's name. It just was by chance. Aarati (03:42) That's right, you didn't, no. Maria (03:44) Yeah, I didn't know. But, but like when you said Dement, was like, like Dementors. And then it made me think about how like Harry Potter would fall asleep, but not exactly fall asleep, when he would see Dementors. Aarati (03:55) Yeah, that's... Yeah, he would like faint. Yeah. Maria (03:58) Yeah, he'd faint, fall asleep. A different type of sleep. Aarati (04:01) And like, Dementors kind of were able to drive you crazy, essentially, right? So like, the root makes sense. So he had nothing to do with that. I don't know. I don't, and I don't actually even know like, where his last name comes from, originates. I'm not, I didn't actually look into that, but I did... Maria (04:22) 'Cuz if he's French it's actually Dement. Aarati (04:25) He might be, but he spent his whole life in America. So I don't know. But yeah, that's who we're talking about today. And he was a pioneer in sleep studies. Maria (04:37) Yeah. Like EEGs? Aarati (04:40) Yes, that was a tool that he used. He's more specifically known for discovering REM sleep and the different phases of sleep that we go through. Yeah. Maria (04:51) Interesting. Aarati (04:51) Yeah. Maria (04:52) You know, we had to learn about that a little bit because... Aarati (04:55) Did you for what? Maria (04:56) At school, so like this year we had like a physiologist come and talk to us. Aarati (05:00) in your pilot school? Maria (05:02) Yeah, like the beginning, he does other stuff for us. Like if people get motion sickness, he does like the spinny chair to help you kind of habituate to vertigo, but, or to, it's really motion sickness. Let's not get into the details of that. But, He talked to us about sleep because at test pilot school, you don't get a lot of sleep because we have a lot of work as you know from the week that you've been here. And so he talked to us about like the stages of sleep and like obviously the body will like prioritize physical rejuvenation before like mind rejuvenation. So like REM won't happen like at first it takes a little bit for you to get into REM. But then once you're, I think you're like four hours in or three hours. I can't remember, have to look it up. Then you start having more consistent REM. So that's why he talks to us about like, you need to be sleeping for at least this amount of time. And then also you're supposed to try to wake up during REM and you feel more rested. I don't know if you go into that kind of stuff. Aarati (06:07) A little bit. Maria (06:08) but some really interesting tips and tools for like sleep hygiene. And so he like told us like, yeah, try to sleep. See what your normal amount of time is if you don't have an alarm on. And then try to go for that amount of sleep. And if you can't, try to figure out where your little REM windows are and trying to wake up during that so that you wake up feeling rejuvenated. Aarati (06:32) Interesting. Maria (06:33) Yeah, it's super, super interesting. Aarati (06:35) Yeah, didn't realize that about how your body prioritizes physical rejuvenation over mental, but it makes a lot of sense because if you get only five hours of sleep, you're physically able to get up and go and your body may not feel as tired anymore, but your head is still foggy and you're like, I didn't get enough sleep last night. Maria (06:54) Yeah. And it makes sense though, right? Because like, if your mind goes first, if you can't physically like move forward, like it's useless. So anyway, it's fascinating. This is where we should put up a chart of what a typical sleep cycle looks like. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (07:11) Yeah, maybe on the YouTube channel I will do that. I'll definitely have some EEG readings of like circadian rhythms and sleep patterns on the YouTube channel if anyone wants to go watch there. So let's get into his life. So William C. Dement. He went by Bill. was born July 29th, 1924 in Wenatchee, Washington. but he grew up a bit further east in Walla Walla. Did I say Wenatchee right? Wenatchee. Maria (07:45) I don't know, but I have heard of Walla Walla. That is where Whitman College is. They're also very known for their onions, Walla Walla onions. Aarati (07:53) Oh really? OK. His is father, Charles, was a tax agent and bookkeeper, and his mother, Kathryn, was a homemaker. And I couldn't find out too much about Bill's childhood, but apparently his grandfather owned a flour mill, and so he spent a lot of his teen years working on a wheat ranch. And he was also really into music and learned how to play the bass guitar. So that's pretty much his childhood. By the time he's 17 or 18, World War II had just ended. Bill joined the US Army as a journalist and was stationed in Japan. And here he edited the regiment newspaper and developed a very clear writing style that helped him later on in academia. He spent a few years there before returning back to Washington to pursue his bachelor's degree in medical science at the University of Washington in Seattle. And this is interesting, to pay his way through college, he worked as a professional musician in jazz clubs. He also lived on a houseboat where he would host jazz jam sessions. And I'm not really that much into jazz, but I was reading the names of some of the musicians that he played with, like Quincy Jones and Stan Getz and I was like, I think I recognize some of those names and all the jazz people are probably like hating me right now because they're like, Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, amazing. Yeah. Maria (09:20) Wait, so he was a musician then? Aarati (09:11) So he's going to school to get his degree in medical science, but he's paying his way through college by being a musician. Maria (09:31) But like he was that good. Aarati (09:33) He was that good. He's playing with some big names, However, he realized according to himself that he could quote, make a better living as a mediocre physician than a mediocre musician. Maria (09:47) True. Aarati (09:48) Mm-hmm. So although he loved to perform, he went into science and medicine, but he continued to perform music throughout his life at conferences and in classes whenever his students asked. So I thought that was cute. Maria (10:02) So he actually really liked music. Aarati (10:05) really a lot. Maria (10:06) But it's just like, this was not gonna pay off, so he was being practical. Aarati (10:11) Yes, yes, but he kept it up and I think it was maybe little known fact about him as you grew to know him as a person. It's like, wait, he's actually a brilliant jazz musician. Amazing. So he graduated in 1951 and then he went to the University of Chicago to do his MD. And here in his first year, he took a psychology course where his professor was just a phenomenal teacher. And as part of the coursework, he had to read books by Freud and he became fascinated by psychoanalysis. So in his sophomore year, he started diving deeper into neurophysiology and he went to a lecture by a guy named Professor Nathaniel Kleitman. And Kleitman was talking about consciousness and what happens in the brain when we're asleep versus when we're awake. And so Bill starts thinking about this and starts wondering how the brain and consciousness are intertwined. So obviously when you're asleep, you're unconscious, quote unquote, and when you're awake, you're conscious. And what changes in the brain between those two different states? So he goes to Professor Kleitman's office and says, hey, I read your book called Sleep and Wakefulness, and I loved it, and I was wondering if I could work with you. So Kleitman was pretty impressed by that, like, hey, you read my book, you know, and took him on and started him working with one of his graduate students, Eugene Aserinsky, who was studying eye movements during sleep. And so this is something people had known for years. They had noticed that when you're asleep, your eyes move. And Kleitman was theorizing that there were certain types of eye movements that might be an indicator of how deep asleep someone was, kind of like a gauge, you know? So the physiology department had an electroencephalogram or EEG, as you were saying, which Aserinsky had permission to use at night. So he would hook participants up to this machine while they slept overnight. And the EEG would generate over half a mile of paper recordings of the brain activity. And so then they would have to, like, the next day go through all of this data, which sounds ridiculous to me. Maria (12:38) Yeah, it is nice that things are digital now. Aarati (12:42) Yes. half a mile of paper recordings, can you imagine just storing all that data? Maria (12:47) No, that would really suck. like, what if you ran out of paper and like didn't know? Aarati (12:52) Oh that would suck, like halfway through? Maria (12:54) Yeah, cause those EEG's... like the leads. And then back then I think it was probably even worse. Cause like even now, if you have an EEG done with all of the electrodes, like it is nasty. Aarati (13:06) Yeah, I can imagine. Maria (13:07) Like that is gross. yeah, so I can't even imagine like back then when the technology wasn't even as refined. If you set someone up and it's like, sorry, we're doing a sleep study on you and we ran out of paper. Aarati (13:20) Whoops, can you come back tomorrow? Maria (13:22) Yeah! Aarati (13:25) Yeah, that would suck. So by doing this, they discovered that there were many times during the night when the person's eyes would start moving super fast back and forth. And at first they thought this must be a mistake or an artifact of the EEG machine, but then they repeated the recording several times on different sleepers, including Kleitman's own daughter, and they always noticed this pattern. So was a brand new discovery. So people had known that people's eyes moved while they sleep, but this is the first time that they've noticed like an actual pattern. And so now we know that people actually cycle through four stages of sleep. The first three stages by slower eye movements and we spend about 75 to 80 percent of our time in these stages, but in the fourth stage there's a burst of activity where our eyes are moving rapidly back and forth and then after a while our eye movements slow down again and we begin the cycle again. So that's what's happening. And so this is the first time people realize that there actually might be different discrete modes of sleep. So in 1953, Aserinsky and Kleitman published a paper in Science called Regularly Occurring Periods of Eye Motility and Concomitant Phenomena During Sleep, which detailed these periods of sleep when the persons displayed rapid eye movements, which is actually what Bill later coined as REM or R-E-M. And increased respiratory rates that occurred three or four times during the night almost as if the person was awake. So that was like a really interesting thing I thought like they were looking at these EEG readings and there these points of REM that they were noticing it was equivalent basically like the brain activity was equivalent to the person being awake. Maria (15:23) Mm-hmm. Aarati (15:24) So Bill said that this publication was really the thing that blew open the field of sleep studies. He repeated these experiments in animals and found the same thing. They would go through these periods of sleep where the animal was like very clearly asleep, like you're looking at the animal, it's asleep. But then when you look at the EEG brain activity readout, it was the same as if the animal was awake. And even some of Bill's collaborators couldn't believe this at the time. And so when Bill was trying to publish the paper, his collaborators didn't even want to be listed as authors because they didn't believe their own eyes, basically. Maria (16:03) So when you started talking about it, I'm just imagining how you record an EEG on an animal and what animals they did this on. Aarati (16:14) Mostly cats. Maria (16:15) When the cats were asleep, like, did they sedate them or like, did they give like a medication to get the, Aarati (16:24) That's a good question. Maria (16:24) Like, I'm just curious because like once you said that, have you seen an EEG cap? Aarati (16:28) I have, yeah. Maria (16:28) and like what someone looks like when they have. Yeah. So like, I'm just imagining a cat or literally any animal because like for some reason since our last episode was about birds, I was like imagining putting it on a bird. And I'm like, that's, that head's too small. And then it's like a dog or like oftentimes, you know how in, in lab research they'll use mice and I'm like, that's a tiny head. Aarati (16:56) Yeah, it's a really tiny head. Maria (16:57) Do they shave the head? Aarati (16:57) I think they also did like... I think... don't really know that much about it. I think they did kind of a combination of like actually hooking it into the animal's head or scalp so that it would stay on somehow. I'm not 100 % sure. Maria (17:16) hooking it in like... Aarati Asundi (17:19) Yeah, like surgically? Maria (17:20) Because the other thing is too, like different animals have different brains, right? So like the segments of our brain are going to be different than a different animal. So you'd likely have to have the electrodes set up in a different way. But like, I would feel really sad if they had to like screw things into a cat's brain. But like, obviously now we care so much about our pets that like we treat them like humans. Anyway, that's fascinating. Aarati Asundi (17:45) That's so funny. Yeah, it just makes me think of this is a tangent, but my neighbor has a dog who has seizures every now and then. And I wonder if she's been through an EEG to kind of figure out what's going on. Maria (17:59) Probably. Aarati Asundi (18:00) Probably. The thing that really hooked Bill on sleep though was after the paper Kleitman and Aserinsky was published, Bill asked Eugene Aserinsky what he thought these periods of REM could be. Eugene said, Dr. Kleitman and I think these movements might be related to dreaming. Bill said later, quote, for a student interested in psychiatry, this offhand comment was more stunning than if he had just offered me a winning lottery ticket, end quote. So to get at this question of whether REM and dreaming were connected, Bill and Professor Kleitman set up a study where they had nine sleeping subjects and they were hooked up to this EEG machine. And then once the person entered REM, Bill would wait five to 15 minutes and then wake the person up. And usually when he did this, the person would say, I was just dreaming about something. And they could relate that in very vivid detail what they had been dreaming about. Whereas if they woke them up during a non-REM period, the people had a really hard time remembering their dreams. And so Bill and Professor Kleitman came to the conclusion that rapid eye movements corresponded to where the person was looking within their dreams. Does that make sense? Maria (19:23) It does, and then it's funny because going back to what I was talking about at the beginning, you know how I told you that you feel more rested if you wake up during REM? So the way that you know if you woke up is like, so our instructor, he was like, do you normally remember what you were dreaming about when you wake up? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, that means you probably woke up during REM. And so like, that's a good indicator for you if you're waking up at the right time in your cycle. Aarati (19:52) Oh interesting. So it's funny you say that, because I can almost never remember what I was dreaming about until I think in high school, one of my teachers made an offhand comment Maria (20:03) Journaling, right? Aarati (20:03) Yeah about how they kept a journal. And so for a little while, I kept a dream journal. And it was like a part of my brain knew what I was doing. And it remembered my dreams for me because it's like you got to write this in your journal when you wake up and so it was like this little piece of my brain turned on and started recording my dreams for me even though I could never remember them before once I started journaling I could remember all my dreams in super vivid detail. And like we were saying like you go through this REM cycle like three or four times a night so I would remember three or four distinct, very different dreams and like how I felt in all of those dreams. And it kind of got to be too much. I was like, this is taking too long to journal because I have to write like four separate stories every single day. This is a lot. So I stopped, but it was interesting. So now I can't remember my dreams anymore, but I feel like if I started journaling again, that little part of my brain would like click on again. Maria (21:06) And you don't have to remember them. It's more like when you wake up, were you just dreaming? And oftentimes I think people do forget their dreams. Like I'll wake up. So I'm a vivid dreamer, like a very vivid dreamer. And I can actually be a lucid dreamer sometimes. Do know what lucid dreaming is? Aarati (21:22) Yes, vaguely, but remind me. Maria (21:27) Yeah, just in case you don't know what it is. Lucid dreaming is when you are in your dream and you are aware that you are dreaming and you can interact inside of the dream. Aarati (21:37) Right. Yes, I've had that a couple of times. Maria (21:27) which is really fun. Aarati (21:38) Yes, it is. Maria (21:42) But I have always been like a very detailed dreamer I guess. So I'll wake up... since I was little and I remember like all these crazy details. It's almost like I just lived another day. In fact, at some point in my life, I questioned whether or not my dreams were my life or if my life was my life. Cause like that's how. Aarati (22:04) Oh my gosh, that's getting into like some existential... I think you and Dement would have a really good conversation around that. Maria (22:12) But it's like fascinating. And then I mean, it ends up becoming obvious what's a dream and what's not a dream. But yeah, I've always kind of had like extremely vivid dreams. Whenever I talk to Laura, Laura's my wife, whenever I talk to Laura about it, she's always like, how do you dream in that much detail? Aren't you tired when you wake up? And I'm like, sometimes I do feel a little tired. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (22:37) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think it's for me, it's like, that's what was happening when I was journaling. I was remembering all the details and I'm like, this is too much. Okay, we're gonna stop now. Yeah. But there are some times when I wake up because like, I'm so emotional in my dream that I wake up. Usually it's anger. Like I wake up so angry for at somebody in my dream or something in my dream and then I have to like calm myself down and be like, usually it's my brother. I'm like, my God, Arun, why? And then I wake up and I'm like lying in bed and I'm like, he didn't actually do it. He didn't actually do it. Do not yell at him. Do not, you know, call him on the phone right now and yell at him. He didn't do it. He didn't do it. So that's usually what happens. Maria (23:18) And for the listeners, like, that's actually kind of funny because Aarati is a very even keel, like, mellow person. So like the fact that she's that angry. I mean, I think she has anger on the inside, but yeah. Aarati Asundi (23:30) Still waters run waters run deep. Maria (23:31) so sleep is fascinating. Like there's so many aspects of sleep. you know, and I think I brought up a little bit in my intro last time, I used to be a physical therapist and I had a board certification in neuro. So like, neuro is my jam. But since I treated neuro patients, one common diagnosis that I would treat was Parkinson's disease. So something that's a precursor oftentimes, well not often, that can be a precursor to Parkinson's disease is something called REM sleep behavior disorder or RBD. So it's when people like act out their dreams... Aarati (24:08) Mm, yep. Maria (24:09) and move a lot and like they'll get up and start doing things. With RBD, if you have REM sleep behavior disorder, like it can be a precursor to that kind of thing, but there are a lot of strange diagnoses that are related to sleep. So like you can have like, and it's crazy because these people will have Parkinson's is just an easy one, for Parkinson's people will have RBD in their like their twenties and thirties and they end up finding out that Parkinson's when they're 50 or 60, but like they have found like an actual correlation. Aarati (24:39) That's crazy. Maria (24:39) And there are other diagnoses just like that where it's like, my gosh, like your sleep behavior or like your, like what happens when you're sleeping can actually be indicative of something else that's going on neurologically, which is wild, super wild. Aarati (24:54) Yeah, and I think it, yeah, it is. And I think that's like kind of what Bill starts to get into later on in his life a little bit. We don't touch too much on like sleep disorders in general, but like he was fascinated by that stuff as well. So we'll touch on it a little bit. Okay, so Bill and Professor Kleitman have concluded that rapid eye movements probably correspond to like where the person is looking at when they're dreaming. So they published this in 1957 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. I do wanna make one clarification though. I was watching an interview with Bill that he did for the Society of Neuroscience in 2012. And he said that although he does still believe that REM is dreaming sleep, he wasn't so sure if non-REM was necessarily non-dreaming sleep, so just to clarify, and scientists now generally agree that we do actually dream in both REM and non-REM. So now we're just trying to parse out like the measurable differences between dreaming and non-dreaming sleep. So it's complicated. Anyway, back to Bill. So he graduated with his MD in 1955, and two years later, he got his PhD in neurophysiology in 1957, which is a pretty remarkable feat on its own, but even more so when you take into account that he was doing these sleep studies at night and then falling asleep himself during classes during the day. So I don't know, that just reminded me a lot of you for some reason. Maria (26:33) Yeah, my sleep hygiene is not the best. I need to get better at that. Though actually I have found strangely you would think that I would be dreaming more or like remembering more dreams now, but because I'm so tired and like I have like, I'm not getting nearly enough sleep. I like don't remember my dreams the way I normally do. It's kind of weird. Aarati Asundi (26:55) Oh interesting. It's like your brain is like, I'm too tired to remember this. Fascinating. Maria (26:59) Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like I'm in survival mode. It's like, bro, sleep. Don't think about anything. And hopefully that doesn't mean that I'm not getting like enough REM. I'm not sure, but I don't remember my dreams, which is sad because I love kind of at least thinking about my dreams because they're so weird. Aarati (27:15) Yeah, maybe you need to start a dream journal, but you don't have time for that. Maria (27:20) I don't have time. Okay, sorry. Continue. Aarati (27:24) Okay, no worries. So next, Bill moves to Manhattan to do an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital. And he realizes that what he wants to do next really is study sleep disorders, like we were kind of talking about. But the problem is there was no such thing as a sleep clinic where he could study patients with sleep disorders and try to help them. Like this does not exist at this time. So he's like, well, I better start one then. So he gets a research grant to study sleep disorders and he sets up a sleep laboratory, quote unquote, in his apartment. And this was actually kind of a genius move on his part because by this time, he had gotten married to a woman named Eleanor Weber, who he met during one of his sleep studies. He was studying sleep in children and Eleanor was called in to be kind of like their babysitter. So Bill and Eleanor are starting to build a family. And so because his sleep studies have to happen at night, if they're happening in his apartment, that way he could stay close to his family. And also this way he could use part of the grant money to cover some of his rent because that's his lab space, quote unquote. So I thought that was pretty smart. But then I was like thinking... the first question that then popped into my head was like, okay, so who are these research subjects that you're getting? Because you have to have these people come into your apartment where your wife and child are sleeping nearby. So you can't just get like randos off the street. And it turns out he was able to recruit some members of the Rockettes to participate in his studies, which alarmed his landlord who noticed all of these like really attractive ladies going in and out of his apartment all the time. Which I thought was hilarious. Maria (29:19) That is funny. Aarati (29:20) Yeah. But getting subjects was definitely a difficulty for him and Bill often had to resort to studying himself and his wife would wake him up when he went into REM or when he wanted to be woken up. So from these studies, he published a paper in Science in 1960 on what happens when a person is deprived of REM sleep. So immediately after he noticed the sleeper's eye movements starting to increase, he would wake them up. And he found that this increased irritability, anxiety, and appetite in these subjects. And in following nights, when the subjects were allowed to sleep without interruption, they entered REM faster and stayed in REM longer. He wrote, quote, the results have been tentatively interpreted as indicating that a certain amount of dreaming each night is a necessity. Aarati (30:18) Hi, everyone. Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S-Y-K-O-M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science, communications, content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science, writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, nonprofits, or really any scientists. To help simplify your science, check us out at sykommer.com. That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E r.com. Back to the story. Aarati (31:03) In 1962, one of the professors he had known in Chicago was recruited to be the first chairman of the Department of Psychiatry in the medical school at Stanford. And this professor reached out to Bill and invited him to join the faculty. So Bill went to visit Stanford in January and he just couldn't get over the fact that back in New York, his car was buried under three feet of snow and here at Stanford in January, it was warm enough to walk around in the sunshine and they were eating ice cream cones. And Bill was like, dude, I will pay you to come to Stanford. So in 1963, he moves to Stanford, which I gotta say that's the best, like California is the best, just saying. Maria (31:48) Hey! Aarati Asundi (31:52) On a bit of a related tangent, so we're taking a little side quest In 1964, a 17-year-old student named Randy Gardner and two of his friends, Bruce McAllister and Joe Marciano, entered an annual science fair in San Diego. For their experiment for the science fair, they decided that Randy would stay awake as long as possible while Bruce and Joe did everything they could to keep him awake. His health was monitored by a US Navy medic, Lieutenant Commander John J. Ross. I have no idea how roped him into that, or that connection came from. So a few days into this experiment, Bill heard about it. and he was so intrigued that he made the trip down to San Diego to see Randy and even helped keep Randy awake by playing basketball with him. So any guesses on how long Randy was able to stay awake? Maria (32:55) With no drugs? Aarati Asundi (32:59) With no drugs, just his friends and Bill and the crowd, I guess, cheering him on and doing activities with him to keep him awake. Maria (33:08) Mmmmmm....A few days maybe? Aarati (33:12) How many days? Maria (33:14) Maybe like three? Aarati (33:17) Three days? Maria (33:17) Yeah? Aarati (33:18) So Randy stayed awake for 11 days and 24 minutes. Maria (33:25) Wow. Aarati (33:26) Which broke the world record at the time. Maria (33:28) Wait, someone's done it longer than that now? Aarati (33:31) So now they don't allow you to try and break that world record anymore because of the psychological and mental health hit that you take by doing this. They're like, this is too dangerous. People should not be doing this because Randy, although he was fine, he reported moodiness, trouble with concentration, paranoia, and even hallucinations. Maria (33:55) During that time or after? Aarati (33:57) Yeah, during that time, during those 11 days, like I think towards the end of the 11 days, he started hallucinating and, you know, having paranoia. Maria (34:06) So my question is, like, was he having microsleeps? So like, there's something called, I believe they're called microsleeps. So it's like, you're asleep and you don't even know it. I can't remember what the study was, but there was a presentation on, I think it was like flight safety. And they did this whole experiment at looking at when pilots were actually taking microsleeps during like really long flights, like hours. And like, you're taking microsleeps and you have literally have no idea. And these pilots were taking like hundreds of microsleeps or something crazy like that. And I'm really curious during that time period, like pbviously they couldn't monitor that at that point, but like you can easily take a microsleep if you're not doing anything. And like, there's not necessarily going to be an indication that you're asleep, but like you're theoretically you would need that sleep, right? So like your brain needs it, your body needs it a little bit. So like, even if it's for like a split second to keep you alive, like I just be curious. Aarati (35:13) Yeah, yeah, it might make sense because like, I think his friends and people were trying to keep him doing stuff and keep him active and everyone's watching him, right? But like, if he dozes off for even a second, like no one's gonna notice that if he's eating or something, he's just gonna take a pause in a chew and then continue chewing. And people maybe wouldn't notice that. Maria (35:32) Yeah. Aarati (35:34) Yeah, interesting. Maria (35:34) And like, I think the same thing can happen during driving. Like, you know how there are times where like you're driving and you know where you're going and it's like, you get there and you're like, whoa, how did I get here? Aarati Asundi (35:47) Yeah. Wasn't I just back there? Which is scary. Maria (35:50) Yeah. And I think during those types of moments, I think it's pretty easy to have a micro sleep, especially if you're really tired. So I'm like curious, like what activities he was doing. Cause also toward the end, I'm assuming he probably didn't have the energy to play basketball. Aarati (36:05) Probably not. Yeah, probably didn't want to either. He was probably just like, dude, leave me alone. I hate you all. Maria (36:12) Yeah, exactly. Anyway, that would be very interesting to see. And then that makes me think of like experiments that people did in the past that would not fly now, like the Stanford prison experiment and like all those kinds of things. Aarati Asundi (36:28) Yeah, this is one of those like banned ones that it's like no one can try to do this anymore, it's too dangerous. But the other thing that I found interesting was afterwards, after these 11 days and 24 minutes, he went to sleep for 14 straight hours and after that he was fine. He was like, yeah, I'm good now. And he went back to a normal sleeping schedule. So that's all it took. Maria (36:50) I don't know if I believe that. Because you even think about jet lag. You know? Or like, even after a long period of travel, you catch up. Like, you have to catch up. Right? or, I can't remember who told me this, but someone told me that like, when you're sleep deprived, that sleep deficit, it adds up. Like, it's additive. Aarati (37:17) Mm-hmm. Maria (37:17) It's like, oh, I lost two hours of sleep one night and then I lost an hour of sleep the next night and I lost an hour of sleep the next night or something like that. It adds up if you don't like Aarati (27:26) make it up some somewhere? Yeah. Maria (27:27) getting a little... like making it up and getting more sleep later. So I'm curious if like he was like back to normal in terms of like, I'm not hallucinating anymore. But like, did he actually like for a couple of weeks feel a little bit off and maybe he slept a little bit extra or maybe he took naps when he wouldn't usually. Aarati (37:45) Yeah, and we can't really know this because we don't have like EEG recordings of this. Like this wasn't a sleep study. So it was just like three random high school kids who were like, let's do this for science fair and try to break a world record. it's not like scientific study. So we don't really know. Maria (38:06) Yeah. super interesting. Aarati Asundi (38:07) Yeah, but That's actually what first got me interested in this story because I remembered hearing about this. And I did think it was part of a legit scientific study. So I was trying to figure out like, wait, who was the scientist who led this study to see like how long a person could stay awake? And then I figured out it's just the 17 year old kid trying to break a world record. But he did actually manage to attract the attention of Bill Dement, who's like now a Stanford professor. And so that's how I kind of went down this rabbit hole. and Bill's work was actually influenced by this because since he had stayed awake to try and keep Randy awake, when he was driving north to Stanford, he actually was stopped by the police because he was driving on the of the road, on a one-way road. Maria (38:55) Whoops! Have you heard of that one study? Or I guess there have now probably been multiple studies about the effects of sleep deprivation as compared to someone who has consumed alcohol. Aarati Asundi (39:05) I've seen these studies. I've heard of these studies. Maria (39:08) So I'd have to pull it up, like, think after you've had, after you've been awake for...close to 24 hours or something like that. It's like the same as having a blood alcohol content of like 0.1 or something like that. Those are made up numbers, so please don't quote me on that. But if you look up that sleep study, it's interesting because lack of sleep ends up impairing your ability to drive and just impairing your body the same way that consuming alcohol would. Which is wild. How important sleep is. Aarati (39:44) Yeah, yeah. Maria (39:45) Oh my gosh, I just looked it up and it is. Being awake for at least 18 hours is the same as someone having a blood content, blood alcohol content of 0.05%. Being awake for at least 24 hours is equal to having a blood alcohol content of 0.1. Bam. Aarati (40:00) Wow, that's scary. Maria (40:02) Yeah. So. Aarati(40:04) That's, yeah, it really does, like you said, shine a light on how important sleep is. Maria (40:08) It makes you think about truckers. And I know they have rules about when they're supposed to sleep, but I know I've heard stories from patients and other folks where it's like, if you have to get your load to a specific spot at a certain time and there was traffic or you're running behind. Aarati (40:28) Yeah. And I think also there's probably some pressure too to like, the faster you can get it there, the more bonuses you get or like the more pay you get or the more loads you can haul. Maria (40:35) Exactly. Yeah. Aarati (40:36) So they want to like, yeah, they want to keep driving even though they're supposed to take a break. So that's, it's really scary. And that's actually a great segue because Dement realized this, like, because he was stopped by the police. started looking into what the effects of being drowsy behind the wheel was. And he realized that it's like one of the biggest causes of motor vehicle deaths. And he wanted to bring awareness to this. So he came up with this campaign called Drowsiness is Red Alert. And he used it as a way to raise general awareness about how to recognize the signs of drowsiness and take precautions to keep yourself and everyone around you safe while you're maybe sleep deprived. He also developed a Sleep and Dreams undergraduate course at Stanford, which was hugely popular. And during his class, if he noticed any of his students starting to doze off, he would squirt them with a water gun and yell, "drowsiness is red alert!" and wake them up. I would take the class just to see that. Maria (41:44) Yeah, that'd be pretty funny. Also, like, why would people fall asleep during a class where they know? Aarati (41:49) where they know that's gonna happen. Maria (41:51) Yeah. Aarati (41:52) Okay, so in 1970, Bill finally realized his dream when he and a colleague, Dr. Christian.... I'm gonna say this so wrong... Maria (42:02) How do you spell it? Aarati (42:05) G-U-I-L-L-E-M-I-N-A-U-L-T. So it sounds French. Maria (42:12) Guill...Guilleminault? Aarati (42:15) Guilleminault? Hopefully. Guilleminault? Maria (42:17) Sure. Sounds good. Aarati (42:20) Great. So he and a colleague, Dr. Christian Guilleminault started the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic, which was the world's first sleep clinic. It's the first of its kind. And here he was finally able to really conduct some proper studies on sleep. So at this point, Bill has become really interested in narcolepsy as kind of an extension of his Drowsiness is Read Alert campaign. Maria (42:49) I'm going to just start doing that to people when they're just asleep. Like when when Laura falls asleep. Aarati (42:53) Just when they're... drowsiness is read alert! Like squirt her with something. She will leave you so fast. Maria (43:03) I know. Well, we've been together for long time, so hopefully... Aarati (43:06) Hopefully not. Maria (43:07) And I don't necessarily want to do that to Kai because he's too young. Kai is my son, he's two. Aarati (43:13) Yeah. He's too young. Don't do that to him. That would so that would create problems further on. When he's a teenager. Maria (43:19) But maybe when he gets a little older. The thing I have to think about though is that if I do that to him as a child, it's gonna come back and haunt me. Aarati (43:27) Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna create lasting effects. You can't do that. When he's a teenager, you can do it. That'd be really funny. Maria (43:32) Well, I just meant going to come back at me... Aarati (43:34) Ah yes. Maria (43:34) and he's going to be doing things like that to me when I'm older. And I don't want that. Aarati (43:39) Not even when you're older, He's gonna learn that it's okay now and he's gonna start doing it to you now. Maria (43:44) Yeah too many pranks. Aarati (43:45) He's gonna be like, mom thought that was funny. I'm gonna do it back to her. Maria (43:49) I don't know when I thought it was okay to pull pranks like that because I do that a lot to like my cousins and things like that. I have no idea where I learned... Actually, I do know my aunts would do that to me all the time. Aarati (44:04) Ah see? There you go. Maria (44:04) They would play pranks on me all the time because they thought it was hilarious and it sucked. And then I was like, every generation used to go through this, it's great. Aarati (44:17) Nope. Maria (44:17) Yeah, this is where I change the tide. Aarati (44:23) This is where you break the cycle. Okay, so Bill gets really interested in narcolepsy. He knew that there are people out there who suffer with this disordered sleep. But in general, sleep during the day wasn't something that anyone had really studied before. They had all been, like all sleep scientists had been concentrating on what happens normally during the night. So when he was trying to gather research subjects, it was really difficult for him because he tried to go through the proper conventional channels that Stanford had for getting people to participate in medical studies, but he couldn't really get anyone because many medical institutions and insurance companies didn't recognize sleep disorders as a thing. They don't recognize sleep disorders as a legitimate medical study. So what he ended up doing was putting an ad out in the San Francisco Chronicle, basically saying, hey, if you have any of these symptoms, we would like to study you. And he got nearly 100 responses, which for him was huge because even when he was in New York, like we said, he had barely been able to scrape together 10 subjects from the Rockettes for these studies on REM deprivation in one of the biggest cities in the US. So this response was really great for him. So he and researchers around the world are making great strides in studying narcolepsy. They're realizing that narcoleptic patients enter REM sleep almost immediately after falling asleep, which is weird. Maria (45:58) Probably good for their brains. Aarati (46:01) Yeah, probably. Maria (46:03) It's like, man, I feel so rested all the time. I'm also sleeping all the time. Aarati (46:08) Yeah, immediately, all the time. And they also exhibit all the classic physiological traits associated with REM sleep, including muscle atonia. So you were talking before about like sleepwalking and stuff. So muscle atonia is what happens usually, normally during REM sleep where your muscles are temporarily paralyzed. don't act out your dreams and flail around and walk around and hurt yourself or others. Maria (46:34) What is it called? You know in Haunting of Hill House, how the main character, Nell? Nellie? Something, something. Aarati (46:41) Yeah, Nell? Maria (46:42) How she would fall asleep, but like she would have like her eyes open and she'd have be having like a nightmare know I'm talking about? Aarati (46:52) Oh like sleep paralysis type of thing? Maria (46:56) Is that what that is? Sleep paralysis? Aarati (46:58) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like she would wake up, but then she couldn't move because her muscles were still paralyzed? Maria (47:05) Yeah! so is- Aarati (47:06) And then she had to wait until her brain kicked back in or something. Like that part of her brain kicked in and it's like, you're not sleeping anymore, so you can move your muscles. Yeah. Maria (47:17) how come for those people, this is a little bit of a tangent as always... Aarati (47:22) As we ...yeah as we do as we do. Yeah Maria (47:23) you're welcome. Yeah, so you're very welcome. You know how, well, I don't know if you know, because I also don't know, I might be making this up, but oftentimes when I see that depicted, it's usually in a negative way where people are very scared. Aarati (47:41) Yeah. Maria (47:42) So like, during that, are they sleeping but awake? Like, what is going on there? Do you know anything about that? Aarati (47:49) I don't know. The way it was depicted in the TV show, it sounded like she was awake but just couldn't move. And she was like aware of what was going on around her, but she was paralyzed. And that was what was scary for her. Maria (48:04) It was during scary things happening around her. Aarati (48:05) Yes, of course, because it's a horror movie or horror show. So yeah, of course. Maria (48:11) And maybe I've just seen it during horror movies, because I feel like that's kind of a common, not trope, but almost, where it's like, I can't move, and something scary is happening. Aarati (48:21) Well, it would be a scary thing. It's almost like being in a coma and being locked in and you know what's happening around you, but you can't communicate. You can't tell people. Maria (48:29) That's true, that would be very scary. And you don't know if it's gonna come back. Aarati (48:33) Yeah, you don't know when. And so I think that's why it works so well as a horror trope or because it is so scary to be in that situation where you're just powerless to do anything about what's happening around you. Maria (48:47) I feel like I have brought up lot of movies and TV shows in my 1.5 episodes that we've done so far. And I feel like it's going to be a trend. Aarati (48:53) That's okay. That's good. No, it's good because yes, it's really good because science is pop culture and pop culture is science. So I love it. Maria (49:03) And it's really cool to see when science is done well in pop culture. Aarati(49:08) Yes, absolutely agree. Maria (49:09) In fact, in one class I took, one of my professors, he actually made us watch a part of The Martian Aarati(49:17) Oh really? Maria (49:18) because that movie apparently has a lot of really good science, but there was one part where we actually did the math to figure out if the science was good just for that one very dramatic part and it actually was wrong. Aarati(49:30) Those are my favorite teachers. I love it when teachers make us read something or watch something and then they're like, okay, now let's focus on the science behind this. And I'm like, I love that you made it relatable. That's so fun. Yeah. Maria (49:43) Yeah. And then it's cool too, because they're like, but look, this science is good. And overall, the science is really good. And like, it makes you look at things in a different light and apply what you have just learned so that it's hopefully lifetime or lifelong learning. Aarati (49:58) And then you become one of those annoying people who watch The Martian again with like some friends or something. Maria (50:00) That wind is not fast enough! Aarati (50.05) And you're like, yes, did you know that this is actually wrong? Maria (50.08) That would just be the equivalent of a 20 mile per hour gust. That's nothing. Aarati (50:13) Exactly. You could barely fly a kite with that. It's nothing. Maria (50:19) Oh my gosh, I just got a text. I'm sorry. I just need to tell you what the text said. My father-in-law, he just sent me a text that said, I really enjoyed your debut podcast with Aarati for Smart Tea. And he doesn't have any idea that we're recording right now. Aarati (50:33) Yes! Amazing! Maria (50:35) But you have a new follower. WE have a new follower! Aarati (50:37) Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Amazing. Amazing. I love it. Maria (50:42) Thank you, Dave. Shout out to Dave. Aarati (50:43) Thank you, Dave. Amazing, Dave. I might leave that in. Maria (50:53) And back to your story. Aarati (50:57) Okay. Anywho, back to Bill. In 1973, Bill takes a recording of one of his patients to show at the American Neurological Association. And when he played the video, one of the neurologists in the audience at this conference comes up to him and says, you know what, I know a dog that exhibits exactly those same behaviors. And it turns out that the dog in question was a French poodle in Saskatchewan. So, Bill contacted the owners and bought the poodle from them and they named her Monique because she was French. And they started studying her and gathering more dogs that had narcolepsy by going to vet clinics and animal shelters. Maria (51:46) Because it's easier to run tests on animals? Aarati(51:50) Right, yeah. Maria (51:52) Okay. I mean, cool, I'm on board, but just wanted to clarify that they're just essentially gathering test subjects. Aarati (51:59) They basically are. It's like, so what their goal is here is they started breeding the narcoleptic dogs together and they were able to basically create a animal model of narcolepsy, which they didn't have before. So it turns out narcolepsy is a heritable trait that's controlled by a single recessive gene. And so by breeding these dogs together, they were able to come up with a litter of puppies that all exhibited narcolepsy. Which is so cute and so sad at the same time, like all these little dogs just falling asleep randomly. Maria (52:40) Yeah, that actually, that would be challenging, especially if they just raise them and then they just have an entire like household of narcoleptic dogs falling on each other, falling asleep. Aarati (52:55) Yes. Just falling asleep. Yeah. Randomly. Chasing after the ball and fall asleep right in the middle of the field. So through their studies, they and other scientists were able to figure out that this recessive gene that, you know, was heritable coded for narcolepsy, the gene coded for a receptor for the neuropeptide, hypocretin. And hypocretin is an important neuropeptide in our brains that basically tells us to stay awake during the day. So narcoleptic dogs either didn't have that receptor or the receptor was mutated in such a way that they couldn't recognize hypocretin. And because of that, they weren't getting the stay awake signal. And so they would fall asleep. And when they went back and looked at narcoleptic patients, they realized that the hypocretin neuropeptide was missing in some of these patients altogether. So just to be clear, all this work wasn't done solely by Bill and his team. Like scientists all around the world were working on mapping out the hypocretin system in both dogs and humans, but he was very involved in this research. And according to Bill, identifying the hypocretin system has probably been one of the biggest breakthroughs in sleep research since discovering REM sleep. Maria (54:11) Which he was involved in also. Aarati (54:14) He was involved in, yes, exactly. So my second biggest breakthrough, yeah. Maria (54:20) It's like pat on the back just saying. Aarati (54:23) Yep, that was me too. So the neurons that secrete hypocretin are a very small cluster in the hypothalamus. And they are basically responsible for our circadian rhythm. And once you mess with the system, so many other systems in your body can get messed up like we were saying. And this isn't just for people with sleeping disorders, even after losing an hour of sleep, like you were saying, like we do during daylight every year. has shown to increase heart attacks, strokes, and fatal car accidents. So Bill became a huge advocate for getting the proper amount of sleep. So Bill was responsible for starting so many things in clinical sleep research. So much work was done at Stanford Sleep Disorder including the studies on narcolepsy that we just talked about, but also on sleep apnea, which is when your breathing pauses in your sleep, and studies on circadian rhythm. He also helped found the Sleep Research Society in 1961, and he published the first journal for sleep research that was simply called Sleep. And in 1975, he established the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and was its first president serving for 12 years. So Bill was really also instrumental in setting up a network of sleep clinics around the US, including one in his hometown of Walla Walla, Washington. And I thought this was really cute because the reason he set up a sleep clinic there was because he wanted his mom to understand what he did for a living. Maria (56:02) Aww. Aarati (56:04) Yeah, so he set up the sleep clinic in the 1990s and named it the Kathryn Severyns Dement Sleep Disorders Center. So he named it after her. In his later years, Bill authored several books on sleep, including The Promise of Sleep, which lays out the importance of sleep for good health, and The Sleep Watchers, which was more about his research and the dangers of sleep deprivation and his advice on how to avoid that, which his advice was basically take naps, lean into naps. Maria (56:35) He really missed an opportunity to have a book just called Drowsiness: Red Alert. Aarati (56:41) Drowsiness is red alert. Yeah, he really should have. Maria (56:45) Yeah, is red alert. Aarati Asundi (56:46) I don't know why he didn't call it that. It's catchy. The Sleep Watchers kind of sounds like a Stephen King novel, just saying. Right? Maria (56:52) It does. It's funny because as you're talking about it, I was thinking about Dr. Sleep. Aarati (56:58) Right, yes. Very good, very good book, and movie. Yeah. Maria (57:01) I felt like the movie was quite good. Because you didn't like The Shining. Aarati (57:06) I liked the book, I didn't like the movie. Yeah. Maria (57:08) Yes. Aarati (57:09) Which is par for the course for me when it comes to me. Maria (57:11) But Doctor Sleep, I thought that was very well done. Aarati (57:15) Yeah, I was actually thinking like that maybe should be the title of this episode. You know? William Dement, Maria (57:21) Because he was a doctor. Aarati (57:22) The Doctor of Sleep. Yeah, something like that, Doctor Sleep. So Bill continued to work on sleep until his death on June 17th, 2020. He died peacefully in his sleep as is fitting at the age of 91 years old. Just one more small point that I wanted to say before we wrap up this episode is that Bill's son Nick named his child Zaniel Zayden Zoe to give him the initials ZZZ. Maria (57:52) ZZZ. Aarati (57:54) Yes, in honor of his father's work. I know. I was like, Zaniel? Okay. Why not Zachary? That would have been... Yes. Maria (57:58) Poor child. Aarati (57:59) I know. I was like "Zaniel?" Ok. Why not Zachary? That would have been... Maria (58:05) It's super easy. There are names that start with Z. Aarati Asundi (58:08) There are names, there are, yeah. I'm not one to talk though, Aarati Asundi, so. Maria (58:15) AAAAAH-rati. Aarati (58:19) Yeah, but that's the story of William Dement, Doctor of Sleep. Maria (58:25) I'm actually in need of some REM sleep. Aarati Asundi (58:27) Who isn't, man who isn't? Everyone go take a nap after this episode. Maria (58:32) Hopefully not during the episode. Aarati (58:34) Yeah, hopefully, hopefully we didn't put you to sleep. Maria (58:39) Or maybe, maybe we have folks... like I like to listen to audio books when I fall asleep. Maybe people like to listen to podcasts. So maybe you did fall asleep and good on you. Just have good sleep hygiene. Aarati (58:53) Maybe you did. To the dulcet tones of our voice. Awesome. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Let's go take a nap. Maria (59:00) Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smartteapodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and blue sky @smartteapodcast and listen to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating or comments. It helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time!