"I can't fall asleep", "I wake up with a start", "I have nightmares": insomnia sends us back to an intimate experience. From the outset, psychoanalysis along with Freud, introduced desire into sleep and dream. What does insomnia as a symptom imply in relation to such a desire to sleep? Should we see in this the insistent presence of reality which would put in check the fabrication of the protective dream of sleep? If Freud postulates a continuity between night dream and daydreaming, what about our avoidance of the unbearable reality in waking dreams? Could insomnia resonate with these repetitive dreams in which the subject relives a traumatic event, traces of terrorism, attacks, wars, forced exiles, sexual brutality, extreme fatigue? Freud linked these dreams to the beyond the principle of equilibrium that is the pleasure principle as well as to the repetition compulsion supported by the death instinct. These questions among others are here put to the test of the psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic clinic, rich in examples borrowed from literature, art or cinema and contributions from researchers from various disciplines.