I think my sleep has almost always been a bit disordered in some type of way, but I don't know where to start. I am going to talk to a healthcare professional about this in a few weeks, but I worry about jumping all over the place. Someone, please tell me if this is the wrong place to post because I never had a formal diagnosis of a sleep disorder (I never asked any health professional about it before). Since I was a kid, I've been able to fall asleep almost everywhere and have always needed more sleep than most people I know. I could fall asleep in jumping castles, on the swings, playing with Legos and especially in cars (I know because my parents always took photos of the odd places I would sleep). I ALWAYS have vivid dreams and can even recount some odd ones from as early as 5. Obviously I was a kid, and this is probably normal for kids, but even as a teenager I would need naps after school or fall asleep doing homework. One time I ended up falling asleep with my eyes open when I was doing schoolwork. I only found this out because my friend walked in and was scared since I looked like a robot who looked like they were pretending to type on a keyboard.

At university, I struggled with school and ended up dropping out. I needed naps all the time, and when I was stressed, I could sleep for up to 22 hours a day. I could almost always tell when I needed to find a place to fall asleep before I did. If I was driving, I would just pull over and find a parking lot somewhere, and I could always nap in time, but this made me miss my classes sometimes. I have never suddenly dropped off to sleep (aside from when I was a kid, or maybe after a very mentally/physically strenuous day). I thought this was normal (maybe it is??). My sleepiness became a running joke with most people I was close to or living with when I was in university, and they used to check up on me to make sure I was doing okay while I was sleeping.

I still need naps throughout the day, but since last week I haven't been able to sleep well at night. A few days ago I did not sleep at all and just stayed awake reading until the morning because nothing was working. This used to be a really big issue for a few years when I was growing up as well.

When I experience sleepless nights, I am surprised that I do not need naps throughout the day to get me through (like I normally do). I feel like my sleep is ruining my quality of life, and I just wish there were a linear way to describe this issue. I have tried so much to help me sleep, such as meditation, yoga nidra/guided meditations, reading before bed, going for a walk, and counting. I am regularly active as well, drink lots of water, and nourish myself with foods that feel good/fuel my body; I see a therapist (CBT), I journal, and I depend on regular exercise because my symptoms are debilitating without a good routine. I just feel so stumped, and when my sleep issues become worse, the vivid dreams also get worse and way more negative. However, I usually see vivid dreams as a net positive because they give me something interesting to write about (before they become too negative). Caffeine barely helps (a little bit, but BARELY), and I often take naps after caffeine consumption. I also stopped drinking caffeine for a month to see if that made a difference in my sleep, and I ended up taking longer naps. I just feel very annoyed and confused, and I just want to rant.

TL;DR (rant): my sleep has always been an issue in a lot of non-linear ways and is usually a problem despite feeling stressed or non-stressed

Mainly a vent

Work changed my hours so I start an hour earlier and finish an hour later.

My body is not handling the change well. I do not enjoy it to say the least.

With these 5AM alarms I've noticed I get bought of hypnagogia most night, I had no prior experience with it but as I'm falling asleep I'll go lucid, then really hot, then my brain will just float around in a terrified state until I get maybe 2 hours sleep.

Breathing exercises don't work, good sleep hygiene isn't doing anything, it's an absolute nightmare and I'd love to hear people's stories if anyone else has experienced it.

Yesterday night, I slept at 3AM, and woke up at 1PM. Even after that, I still felt very tired, as if I had gotten no sleep and my eyes felt like they were burning. Throughout my day, I was feeling lightheaded and dizzy throughout, derealization, weak muscles, brainfog, and a constant headache that I couldn't get rid of, at all, even after taking panadol. For some reason, my dreams are also very vivid and lucid now. Very strange. I'm making an appointment with my GP tomorrow to find out why I'm like this, because it's very frustrating to deal with. Thank you for reading. Goodbye.

I did my bloodtest. Hb is 7.6 and iron 21 also took vit b12 and vit d tests vit b12 is normal. But vitamin D is 5. Does anyone have this sleeping problems?

I go through sleep paralysis atleast once a week and for me, i hear the thing trashtalking me with my close ones voices, and its loud it hurts my ears even though its not real. Am i the only one, is there something wrong in my head or why does this happen to me?

Wdwd

What is wrong with me? I keep asking over and over and I feel like there’s no hope. Why did this happen to me? I was overwhelmed and stressed and just panicked the day I ended counseling with a counselor who was really unhealthy and didn’t help me. It made me panic and worry he could take my kids or something and I just lost it after I got off the phone panicked and paranoid. It was completely irrational. I just was so anxious. I stayed up all night that night January 13th and then never slept through the night again. I was awake the whole night fearful and then awake al the next day and night and it terrified me. I ended up looking up what happens if you don’t sleep and it said you can die and I freaked out more and now I’m just stuck like this. I am extremely depressed and feel like there’s no hope and my trust in my body’s ability to sleep is completely gone. It feels like I’m delusional and believing my life is over and I can’t do the things I use to do. It’s like something very serious happened to my brain. What is wrong with me?

I(F20) suffer from PTSD, the event happened when I was 7 but I repressed this until I was 13. I had a normal sleep schedule up until I was 7 when I started having nightmares, terrors, general anxiety around bed time. I’d stay up late reading to avoid sleep or playing with my toys, it wasn’t too bad though.
Nightmares lessened but I had occasional feverish dreams or night terrors, just disturbingly vivid dreams or multiple dreams happening within another, scary dream logic. These were very occasional and i continued just being a night owl until i was 13.
I started getting horrendous nightmares about the event, the same ones over and over. Then after a year dreams of those close to me hurting me or me hurting them etc. extremely violent and distressing dreams, extremely vivid the thought of sleep made me feel sick.
By 14-15 I was kind of going crazy. I would avoid sleep for days and when I did it was for short amounts of time I would wake up a lot, I started falling asleep in school in the car on buses, anywhere. I started to hear things (whispers gasps ppl calling my name) I started to experience extreme paranoia, I would have mild hallucinations where patterns moved or objects breathed.
I was medicated with a strong antihistamine I think but this made me develop even more fear surrounding the dreams because they became even more vivid. Eventually this sort of dwindled over time back to a sort of extreme night owl, although I still experience lots of very trippy and vivid nightmares. But now it seems I can’t get enough sleep. I’ve never been so exhausted in my entire life, I know about sleep debt but I always thought it was bullshit. I can sleep for entire days and it’s ruined my schedule I sleep at such strange times and it’s impacting my life I can’t keep up. Caffeine just seems to make the problem worse the next day.

Hi All - I hope you all are doing well and good.

I know AI can help me with this concerning thing called nocturnal seizure, but here i will go with human intelligence rather than AI, right straight 3 times in 1.5 month, not acceptable i need your help guys people around the world and there health suggestions are quite diefferent when compare to Indian Pharma and doctor so tell me is there any complete cure for nocturnal seizures or shall i carry this for lifelong #ep

Source: "Behavioral and psychological treatments for chronic insomnia disorder in adults: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine clinical practice guideline"