Years ago, I met Dr. Dement and attended lectures given by him. He supported my efforts to move sleep apnea testing into the home, controversial at first but now standard practice. Locally he’s affectionately remembered for having jazz sessions on his houseboat on Lake Union. He opened the world’s first sleep laboratory at Stanford and became internationally famous for his research on dreams and REM sleep.
Dr. William Dement, whose introduction to the mysteries of slumber as a postgraduate student in the 1950s led him to become an eminent researcher of sleep disorders and to preach the benefits of a good night’s sleep, died on June 17 in Stanford, Calif. He was 91.
His son, Nick, a physician, said the cause was complications of a heart procedure.
Dr. Dement spent his working life as a popular professor in the department of psychiatry at Stanford University, where he started what is believed to be the world’s first successful sleep disorders clinic. He taught a class on sleep and dreams that drew as many as 1,200 students.
When he awakened dozing students with spritzes from a water gun, Dr. Dement gave them extra credit if they recovered and shouted, “Drowsiness is red alert!” — his rallying cry to make sleep deprivation a public health priority.
Drowsiness was the last step before falling asleep, he often said. Sleep deprivation put people at a higher risk of an accident on the road, diminished their productivity, increased the likelihood of their making mistakes, made them irritable and actually hurt their ability to fall asleep.