World Federation of Sleep Research Societies

Archival Video Histories of Sleep Researchers

Nathaniel Kleitman

Nathaniel Kleitman was born in 1895. In 1995, the sleep community celebrated his 100th birthday .

Nathaniel Kleitman is one of the foremost pioneers in sleep research. He was involved in the discovery of REM sleep and argued persuasively for over a half century that the Basic Rest Activity Cycle was of fundamental importance in regulating physiological processes as well as the states of sleep and wakefulness. The 90-minute cycle of REM sleep that occurs in all humans, every night, and the development of continuous all-night sleep recordings are among the many important contributions made by Dr. Kleitman. He is especially well-known for his book Sleep and Wakefulness, which unified all of the fundamental information that defined the state of knowledge of sleep in 1939 in its first edition, and in 1963 in its second edition. Today, Sleep and Wakefulness still remains a definitive source book for information on sleep behavior.