* Insomnia is not a modern-day phenomena: Aristotle penned his "Sleep and Sleeplessness" in 350 B.C.

* Napoleon, Margaret Thatcher, Thomas Edison, Marilyn Monroe and Vincent van Gogh are among the world's most well-known insomniacs.

* Albert Einstein was known to sleep nine hours a night, Adolf Hitler regularly slept in till noon.

* Andy Warhol's 1964 movie "Sleep" shows nothing but a man sleeping -- for eight hours.

* One study claimed that sleeping one hour less than the recommended eight can reduce your IQ by a single digit.

* Eating spicy food increases the chances of remembering dreams. If we remember dreams when we wake it is either because we have not slept very soundly, or because something, such as stomach trouble brought on by unsettling food, has forced us to wake up during the night. Deep sleepers do not remember their dreams.

* On average, cats sleep 16 hours per day, dogs 11 hours and giraffes two hours.

* Dolphins sleep with one eye open, snakes with both.

* Save a thought for hypnophobiacs who have a morbid fear of sleep and falling asleep.

* The phrase "sleep tight" originated from times when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. Sagging ropes were fixed with a special key.

* Some unusual remedies for sleeplessness: Sleep facing north (thus aligning your body, and energies, with the earth's electromagnetic field. Unfortunately, in Japan, this is the direction in which the dead are laid to rest); suck an oval-shaped radio transmitter (the electromagnetic field influences the brain's electrical rhythms and induces relaxation).