Twenty-six patients with sleep disturbances who had completed therapy with hypnotics were observed under single-blind and self-comparable method for 7 days each. We found that patients treated with imovane or estazolam had no statistical differences with respect to sleep time onset, total sleep time, nocturnal awakening, feeling after awakening, dream, drug side effects and sleep quality. Imovane performed better than estazolam in sleep time onset and total sleep time. From this study, imovane can be recommended as a new hypuotic to treat patients with sleep disturbances.