The center had accepted him almost immediately. They had done the initial examination but found nothing out of the ordinary, except for the now almost constant headache (due to the fact that he hadn't slept properly for almost 23 days) and mild hallucinations, another side effect of his sleep depravation. Nothing to cause the problems he had, only symptoms of them.

He had described to the psychiatrist the nature of his dreams. They had arrived at nothing that rang true to Langdon and he suspected that his doctor felt the same way. There was something odd about this whole episode, though Langdon was at this point too strung out and shortcircuited to be able to make any complicated connections.

Langdon had met some of the other patients, most of them in for similar problems. But the others seemed mostly unable to sleep because of distress in their lives. Some had personal tragedies in their recent days and some had problems at home or at work. Few had actual, hard to diagnose, sleep disorders. But they received help here as well.

The rooms were private and cozily furnished. There were comfortable armchairs in every room, with a small lamp and a bookcase with an assortment of literature for late night sessions. So far, Langdon had finished four. He still had his computer and the hospital had a wifi-connection, but he was not allowed to use it between eleven at night and six in the morning. Those were the "sleeping hours" during which all patients had to stay in bed if at all possible.

One of the patients that Landon had met was Robert (pronounced roebair), a french Canadian with terrible english and a severe case of sleep walking. He had been sent here when canadian police had stopped him trying to cross the border in his car, asleep. Since Robert slept well at night, he and Langdon talked about all kinds of things, though Langdon felt so sluggish compared to him that he sometimes gave up asking him to repeat what he said and just nodded.

The pain on the left side of his forehead just wouldn't go away.