The Effects of Four Hypnotic Drugs and Placebo on Normal Subjects' Sleeping and Dreaming at Home

Abstract

Hypnotic drugs are most commonly used with patients at home, yet with few exceptions (Ghernish, Gruber and Kohlstaedt, 1956) most trials of hypnotic drugs are carried out in hospitals. Studies on such patients by general practitioners are valuable, but they often rely on retrospective or other forms of delayed reporting and their validity is thereby somewhat limited. This preliminary study therefore compared four widely used hypnotics with a placebo when normal subjects were sleeping at home. Their impressions of the quality of their sleep and other information, including their dreams, were collected by telephone the morning after the drug had been administered. All subjects were healthy and did not complain of sleep disorders; neither before nor at the time of the trial were they taking either hypnotics or other medication.