For this pioneering work in a previously uncharted field in the United States, he is sometimes referred to as the American father of sleep medicine.
[3] Aserinsky, along with his and Dement's adviser Nathaniel Kleitman, had previously noticed the connection but hadn't considered it very interesting.
Dement had an interest in psychiatry, which in those days considered dreams to be important, so he was excited by the discovery and was eager to pursue it.
From the University of Chicago, he received an MD in 1955 and a PhD in neurophysiology in 1957 for the thesis Rapid eye movements during sleep in schizophrenics and non-schizophrenics and their relation to dream recall supervised by Kleitman.
In 1964, he monitored and assisted Randy Gardner's successful attempt to break the record for longest time without sleep.