We spend more than 200,000 hours sleeping in a lifetime, the equivalent of more than 8,000 days. Yet research has only just begun to decode the mysteries behind what can go wrong. Here, Dr. Carlos H. Schenck, one of the most prominent sleep doctors and researchers in the country, takes us on an incredible journey into the mechanisms of sleep, and the spectrum of disorders that can occur when these mechanisms go bizarrely awry.

Dr. Schenck discusses the causes and treatments for common problems-insomnia, restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, and more. But what sets this book apart is the rare glimpse it offers into the cutting-edge science that he and others have pioneered in identifying, understanding, and explaining the realm of "parasomnias"-the mysterious, more extreme sleep disorders,such as dream enactment, sleep-related eating disorder, sexsomnia, sleepwalking, sleep terrors, sleep paralysis, and even sleep violence, which affect at least 20 million Americans.

Comprehensive, engrossing, and backed by the latest medical research, Sleep is a groundbreaking work about what continues to be one of our most mysterious medical puzzles-making it an indispensable guide for sufferers of all sleep disorders and their families.