Bruxism the phrase "wailing and gnashing of teeth" is used to describe the fate of sinners in hell (). In David Lynch's 1977 film "Eraserhead", Henry Spencer's partner ("Mary X") is shown tossing and turning in her sleep, and snapping her jaws together violently and noisily, depicting sleep bruxism. In Stephen King's 1988 novel "The Tommyknockers", the sister of central character Bobbi Anderson also had bruxism. In the 2000 film "Requiem for a Dream", the character of Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) begins taking an amphetamine-based diet pill and develops bruxism. In the 2005 film "Beowulf & Grendel", a modern reworking of
Bruxism in research declined from over 60% of publications in the period 1966–86 to about 10% in the period 1997–2007. In the 1960s, a periodontist named Sigurd Peder Ramfjord championed the theory that occlusal factors were responsible for bruxism. Generations of dentists were educated by this ideology in the prominent textbook on occlusion of the time, however therapy centered around removal of occlusal interference remained unsatisfactory. The belief among dentists that occlusion and bruxism are strongly related is still widespread, however the majority of researchers now disfavor malocclusion as the main etiologic factor in favor of a more multifactorial, biopsychosocial model