Rem Madness Summary

Dr. William Dement is recognized as one of the worlds leading authorities on the topic of sleep. In the article titled “Rem Madness, Dement has conducted experiments on patients regarding sleep deprivations. Using an EKG machine he was able to monitor patients in REM. However, when Dement gathered his patients for the experiment he made a mistake. First, he told the patients what they may experience during his experiment, as well as, told them about the probable outcomes of his experiment, which in turn, possibly affected the authenticity of his data. To address the second question, from my own personal experience, being in hospitals or lab all day put you in a mood. Being in these types of settings especially as a guinea pig, is full of uncertainties …show more content…
One, the individuals did volunteer and were well informed about the experiment. Secondly, while Dement may have made wrong judgment in telling his subjects what they may experience it did allow them the opportunity to opt out depending on when he told them. Lastly, doing this type of experiment on something so foundational to our wellbeing just doesn’t seem right. However, how would you really be able to test this without using human being? While I don’t believe it’s a good idea, I do understand why he needed to do it, and the people did volunteer. Personally, He could have been more thoughtful as to what to tell his volunteers, this may have improved the accuracy and surely would have taken away an aspect of the power of …show more content…
Second, I have heard of people sleep eating which is not a crime, however it is still done in an altered state of mind, but these crimes are serious, and I don’t believe that these people didn’t have some conscious sense about what they were doing. I mean how can you stab someone 26 times while you are sleeping? Most of these crimes appear to be very well thought out. In the one case, the criminal tried to cover his tracks; that takes conscious thought. Regardless of whether or not the individual was in a conscious state or not, I do not believe that they should be exempt from the law. Murder is murder, and if they are dangerous to the point of such crimes they shouldn’t be able to live in community. Another thing is, I have a hard time with the fact that if you are known to have these types of sleep problems then some external restraints should be put in place to keep that person from getting in a car and driving as well as possibly hurting themselves as well as someone else. Lastly, I believe that there really isn’t a way to prove that someone was sleepwalking when they committed a crime. You may be able to prove a sleep disorder with doctor’s notations or prescription drug records. Though, even sane people suffer from sleep disorders. According to the American Sleep Association “50-70 million adults suffer from some type of sleep disorder”, this includes sleepwalking. (Institute of