Stealing odd bits of sleep, night ghost stretches (7)
I believe the answer is:
lengths
'stealing odd bits of sleep night ghost stretches' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'odd bits of sleep night ghost stretches' is the wordplay.
'odd bits of' indicates alternate letters.
'ghost stretches' becomes 'hs' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'sleep'+'night'='sleepnight'
The alternate letters of 'sleepnight' are 'lengt'.
'lengt'+'hs'='LENGTHS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lengths that I've seen before include "Measurements from end to end" , "Longitudinal measures" , "Distances (in horseracing)" , "Distances from end to end" , "Linear extents" .)