VMS Help Sys Parameters, DORMANTWAIT  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

    DORMANTWAIT specifies, in seconds, the amount of time that can
    elapse without a significant event before the system treats
    a low-priority computable process as a DORMANT process for
    scheduling purposes. (A low-priority process is a non real-time
    process whose current priority is equal to or less than the value
    specified by the system parameter DEFPRI [default=4].) After
    SUSP (suspended) processes, DORMANT processes are the most likely
    candidates for memory reclamation by the swapper.

    Increasing the value of DORMANTWAIT can increase the interval
    that a low priority process blocks a high priority process if
    that low priority process is holding a lock or resource that the
    higher priority process is waiting for.

    DORMANTWAIT is a DYNAMIC parameter.