Remember that insomnia is not so much a disorder as it is a symptom, one that stems from any number of causes. Nor is it merely a measurement of the number of hours of sleep experienced on a given night. The pattern of sleep disruption and the resulting quality of sleep are critical elements: when did sleep occur and when was it interrupted? Was it deep and restorative or light and fragmented? Armed with these facts, the physician can begin to penetrate the darkness.Popular media, including television, magazines, and the tabloids, only add to the confusion about insomnia. Advertising often portrays a world in which sleep problems disappear after merely taking a pill. And articles aimed at the layman may oversimplify or misstate the nature of insomnia. One recent publication invented a set of clumsy names—as if more were needed—for the various types of sleep disorders. For example, the inability to fall asleep promptly was called “initardia.” Other varieties were given such names as “pleisomnia,” sleep interrupted by awakenings; “scurzomnia,” short sleep; “hyperlixia,” excessive light sleep; and “turbula,” sleep laden with uneasy dreams.Naturally, as a physician, I prefer to use the more precise, if less colorful, terminology agreed upon by experts who, over the last dozen years or more, have wrestled with the problem of identifying and classifying sleep problems. Precise categorization is not simply an exercise in academics—far from it. The symptoms of different forms of insomnia may appear to be very similar on the surface; patients may even use the same phrases in describing them to a physician. Their causes, however, may be radically different. To cite a parallel example: you may sneeze because of an allergy to dust, or because you are infected with a cold virus. While the symptom sneezing is the same, the causes, as well as the remedies, are completely different. By the same token, therapies that work for one form of sleep problem often prove to be ineffective—or worse, counterproductive—for another.*105\226\8*