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Sleep: The Mysteries, the Problems, and the Solutions— Carlos H. Schenck, M.D.
What if you woke up to discover you had spent the night gorging on exotic foods or had charged into heavy furniture in your sleep in the belief it was a burly football tackle? For some people with strange sleep disorders known as parasomnias, such situations may be daily - or nightly - occurrences. Such extreme sleep disorders affect at least 20 million people in the United States alone and millions more suffer from insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, or other sleep issues.
In Sleep: The Mysteries, the Problems, and the Solutions, published in March 2007 by Penguin/Avery Press, Carlos H. Schenck, M.D., a leading sleep researcher and a pioneer in the identification and study of parasomnias, considers both common sleep disorders like insomnia and the bizarre, often frightening, world of disorders like sleep eating, sexsomnia, REM sleep behavior disorder, and nocturnal dissociative disorder. His book provides the latest science on these conditions and offers deep insight into where they come from, how they manifest themselves, and their effects on sufferers and their families. It is only recently that parasomnias have begun to gain media attention and the study of parasomnias had only been underway for twenty-five years; in 1982 when Dr. Schenck first saw a patient with REM sleep behavior disorder there was no known treatment and he was one of a few doctors who were searching by trial and error for ways to manage parasomnias.
Yet, despite the fact that parasomnias have only been studied for a couple decades, they are far more widespread than most people realize and in fact have existed and been written about for centuries, as Dr. Schenck's examples from literature and history show. The book also explores the many manifestations and effects of these disorders. Sleep disorders seldom exist in isolation, milder sleep disorders frequently can contribute to more severe ones, and they also affect sufferers' bed partners, families and friends whose lives may be disrupted, even endangered, and who may themselves inherit a parasomnia. Dr. James B. Maas, author of Power Sleep, says "Sleep is so fascinating, so informative, and so well-written that I'm staying up far too late reading every word in every chapter…Any layperson or practitioner interested in sleep mysteries, problems, and solutions is asleep at the switch if they haven't read this gold mine of invaluable information and insight."
Dr. Schenck has written a previous book, Paradox Lost: Midnight in the Battleground of Sleep and Dreams, and has also produced and participated in a DVD documentary, Sleep Runners: The Stories Behind Everyday Parasomnias. He has also written many articles on sleep and sleep disorders. He has also talked about parasomnias for both domestic and international media including Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic and has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, The Oprah Show, and more. Dr. Schenck is a senior staff psychiatrist at the Hennepin Country Medical County Medical Center and the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. He is also an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis and has a website that deals with parasomnias, along with a website for his DVD documentary film on parasomnias.
—Caroline Patton
