A young lawyer working in a major New York law firm found himself competing against people who rarely left the office for weeks on end, sleeping at their desks only three or four hours a night. There are also people who, far from using their insomnia as an excuse, see it as a source of pride and strength. For example, you might find yourself saying that you would get more done around the house if you weren't so tired all the time from lack of sleep - but since you are so tired, the leaky faucet just isn't going to get fixed. These secondary gains can make the problem more difficult to resolve.

This is the notion that when a person has suffered from a problem like sleeplessness, alcoholism, or another chronic condition for long periods of time, there may be benefits built into the condition that the subject has come to depend on, even though he or she may not be consciously aware of them. In light of the apparent determination of many insomniacs to believe the worst, it's interesting to note a phenomenon psychologists call secondary gain. After recording several intervals ten or fifteen minutes apart, many people are startled to find that several hours of sleep deprivation, and along with it the symptoms of fatigue the following day. Keep a notebook beside your bed, and glance at the clock occasionally - not at regular intervals but whenever the urge occurs - and write down the time. The solution to subjective insomnia is to turn the clock, so often the insomniac's worst enemy, into an ally.

In some experiments, they've even insisted that the instruments were wrong and that they never closed their eyes all night. And there's no doubt that it is a disorder, since the subjects do in fact feel sleep deprived and tired all day.