The enigma of sleep

Resource Information

The work The enigma of sleep represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Waubonsee Community College. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Moving Image, Visual Materials.

Label

The enigma of sleep

Statement of responsibility

produced by ZENIT in association with LES FILMS D'ICI/ZDF/ARTE/ DISCOVERY CHANNEL, YLE TEEMA, RTSI. International distribution by GA&A

Contributor

• Discovery Channel (Firm)
• Films d'ici (Firm)
• Zenit Arti Audiovisive
• Radiotelevisione della Svizzera italiana
• ZDF/Arte (Firm)
• YLE Teema

Subject

• Dreams
• Sleep
• Sleep disorders
• Lavie, P., (Peretz), 1949-
• Documentary films

Genre

• Documentary films

Language

eng

Summary

Sleep disorders are little understood although the lives of many people are dramatically affected by them. This fascinating documentary brings us to laboratories in Italy, France, Israel and Switzerland where researchers are trying to untangle the mysterious working of the brain in order to help those who suffer from these disorders. Dr. Peretz Lavie is a sleep researcher and the director of the Technion Sleep Laboratory in Haifa, Israel. His state-of-the-art lab studies 2,000 patients a year, six nights a week. We watch these forlorn, sleep deprived human beings, rigged to scientific instruments, as they try to accomplish in the lab what most people do naturally amidst the comforts of home. Dr. Michel Jouvet in Paris has studied the functions of sleep and dreams for over fifty years. He discusses the interest in dreams going back to early man. One patient we see suffers from narcolepsy; he never knows what activity will be interrupted by a sudden "fall" into sleep. Another is a sleep walker whose life is half dream, half reality. One woman has the only documented case of sleep without REM. The result is that she never has the benefit of a restorative rest. One patient from a family afflicted for generations with a rare, lethal form of insomnia, remembers relatives who didn t sleep for months; their fatigue was catastrophic and incomprehensible. Sleep apnea, when the patient may "forget" to breathe during sleep, is also treated. The documentary gives an understanding of the pain of sleep deprivation, and the extremes to which it may be manifest. Science can treat and cure some sufferers. For others, sleep disturbances remain incurable because even for the doctors in this film, sleep is still very much an enigma

Cataloging source

VaAlASP

Characteristic

videorecording

Intended audience

For College; Adult audiences

Language note

In English

Runtime

52

Target audience

general