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If you spend hours during the night lying wide awake, trying to catch some sleep, you could be suffering from insomnia. If you already know that, then it might interest you to know that insomnia could be caused by the fear of the dark.

The research findings, presented at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Boston, suggest that the disturbances or lack of sleep in some adults could be due to the fear of the dark.

For the study, the blink response of 100 college students to unexpected sound in light and in darkness was studied. The participants were categorized as good sleepers and bad sleepers.

The results astonished the researchers, as it seems, good sleepers got accustomed to the sound disturbances gradually but poor sleepers became even more stressed and startled by the unexpected noises.

Also, poor sleepers' anxiety level increased much more when exposed to unexpected sound in the dark.

"The poor sleepers were more easily startled in the dark compared with the good sleepers," lead author Taryn Moss said in a statement. "As treatment providers, we assume that poor sleepers become tense when the lights go out because they associate the bed with being unable to sleep. Now we're wondering how many people actually have an active and untreated phobia."

A survey conducted by the researchers revealed that the number of people afraid of the dark was twice in poor sleepers compared to good sleepers.

According to Dr. Colleen Carney, principle investigator of the study and director of the Ryeson University sleep and depression laboratory, many adults often behave similar to children who are afraid of the dark. They are able to go to sleep only when the television or the bathroom light is turned on, reports ABC News.

She further said that the response to treatment for insomnia differs among people. While there are some who completely recover, others do not respond well to the treatment. She added that a new approach towards the problem is needed. Most of the insomnia treatments involve asking patients to indulge in something else away from bedroom before reattempting to sleep. However, this treatment might not work for people with a phobia of the dark since turning the light on again might just end up making them feel more awake, added Carney.

"We may need to add treatment components for these patients and adapt existing treatment components in light of the phobia," Carney said in a statement. "A lot more research is needed, but we believe we have stumbled across an unmet treatment need for some poor sleepers," she said.