Suspend/hibernate on Lenovo Thinkpad

[AussieGuy]

I'm using a newly installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my Thinkpad laptop. When I close the lid, however, all my open applications are killed, so when I open the lid I have a blank Unity screen, and have to open everything up again. Also, the laptop doesn't power down as it should; even with the lid closed the laptop keeps on drawing power. How do I change this strange behaviour to one for which the laptop goes into hibernation when I close the lid?

[zacktu]

On my Lenovo Thinkpad I have set


System Settings/Power

When the lid is closed: Suspend on battery power and Suspend when plugged in.

This works for me.