Poll: Sleep disorders

[ribonuge]

I am going to keep this quite basic because I have not been able to sleep in the last 23 hours, so if I ramble off please excuse me. Oh and I used the search-bar. There was only one other topic for remedies but that's not what I am after. I have accepted my fate as a mindless insomniac.

I am just curious to know if any of ye olde Escapians suffer from insomnia, sleep deprivation or any sleep disorder. If you do, what sorts of effects do you get when its been over 20 hours without the sleep? Right now I keep zoning out while listening to music for about 10 minutes at a time. But every attempt to sleep just seems to fail. My brain goes off on these insane tangents into the imagination and so over stimulation prevents sleepy time. I would blame video games, but you know I can't do that. I'm a gamer and that would be sacrilege.

It's getting bright now so I am pretty screwed for the whole of tomorrow. But enough rambling (you were forewarned). If you do suffer from a sleep disorder, how severe is it? Does it hinder you every night? If you do not have a sleep disorder you can contribute by stating some mad occurrences that happened to you in your sleep or while you were asleep.

[small]This took me about 25 minutes to write because I can't concentrate. Damn it[/small]

 

[vampirekid.13]

i have apnea, aka if i fall asleep on my back or shift in my sleep on my back i suffocate. and its really hard to wake up it feels like im dying in my sleep and i cant move because i have no control over my body, it happens in episodes where ill go crazy with apnea for a month or so every year or more. when it does happen i freak out i start shaking but i cant sit myself up because i dont have that much control of my body while being half asleep so unless someone sits me up or i fall out of the bed i dont know if id live through it.

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

i have Insomnia, in fact im still up cause of it

 

[Yossarian1507]

Sleep disorders? I would call it that way in my case. I just regularly screw up my biological clock during any break from school/uni I had in my life. I'm from Poland and it's 9:00 AM in here right now, I didn't sleep any second tonight, and I'm probably going to sleep until 2 PM.

 

[ultrachicken]

I don't know if I have a sleep disorder, if I do it's undiagnosed, but all throughout my childhood I've had trouble sleeping. I would literally fall asleep at three in the morning every day and be awake at 7 or 8.
It went away for a few years, but is making a return...

EDIT: my EARLY childhood, I mean.l

 

[Beartrucci]

Occasionally I cannot sleep but I don't suffer from any sleep disorders.

 

[delet]

I've learned recently that I appear to be the very definition for DSPS, Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I can't very well get to sleep at a 'normal' time, but I can get to sleep given I'm allowed to sleep and wake up on my own schedule. This means that on a school day I get an average of 3 hours of sleep a day.

I've learned a few things over the years.For one I can run perfectly fine throughout an entire day on 1-3 hours of sleep and secondly if I get anywhere between 4-7 hours of sleep I will be dead for the day.

After 20 hours of no sleep... I'm alive. 24 hours is golden for me and leaves me in a state of amazing happiness/insanity, especially if the sun is rising. I've found that I can stay up for as long as I'd like as long as I have food and something to preoccupy my time, preferably a videogame. Sadly, I can't watch anything after 24 hours or I'll fall asleep.

 

[aPod]

Insomnia, no... i dont think so atleast. It takes me anywhere from an 10 minutes to 3 hours to actually fall asleep sometimes though. Typically, it is due to something being on my mind.

However, there are times were i am in a half asleep half awake zone and i am paralyzed. Then it feels as if someones putting great amounts of pressure on my head or i am suffocating. So whatever that is, it basically creeps the shit out of me but it happens often enough were i've learned to just weather the storm. Oh and i have perfect clarity with my mind, i'm basically fully concious, just cant move my body.

 

[mattttherman3]

I take melatonin pills before I go to bed, but if I don't, like now for instance, I could very well be up all night long.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I am a strait up insomniac. My normal schedule has become sleeping every other night. 24 hours without sleep is usually the height of my alertness, so no effects there. At around 36 however I start getting double vision and sometimes my eyes/ears will play tricks on me. Nothing consistent, but I'll quickly look past something and it'll look like something else and then when I look back at it and it's normal. or I'll hear weird noises that aren't really there. most common is a high pitched ring, but sometimes it'll sound like weird obscure shit like someone scraping paint off a wall or something. I only fall asleep when I'm severely exhausted, and I've tried pills but they make me feel... I don't know if I would say "depressed" but more "unmotivated to live" and personally I would rather be tired and happy. It's bullshit either way though.

 

[Drundy]

I cant sleep only if I see a horror movie or something scary before I go to bed

 

[Yumi_and_Erea]

I actually have permanent purple discoloration of my eyelids and eyesockets because of my lack of sleep.
But it looks awesome so I don't mind.

 

[S.R.S.]

It's always a struggle to get to sleep for me which is a strange choice of words if you think about it. My friends think all I do is stay up and play PS3 or go on the Interent which is sometimes true but on somenights I just compose songs right off the top of my head. You'd be ammazed at how terrible/awesome my music is at 2 in the morning. Keeps the neighbours up mind.

You know what the worst part is I feel better having slept for one hour than a reguler '8', to me that's just not fair!

 

[ultrachicken]

Oh and i have perfect clarity with my mind, i'm basically fully concious, just cant move my body.

That is literally my personal hell.

 

[Stoic raptor]

Nope, I have no sleep disorders. At least, I dont think so.

 

[delet]

snip

Everything you said sounds...pretty much exactly the same as myself. I still want to see a doctor for a proper diagnosis though. Too many people jump the gun and call themselves insomniacs just because they have trouble sleeping for a few nights.

Heh, yea I used to call myself an insomniac because I didn't know what else to call it. I'd also like to get a proper diagnoses for myself but I know I've had sleeping problems for... well, over half my life.

 

[Amberella]

I'm one huge insomniac! xD The only thing that actually makes me tired and sleep good is drinking a glass of wine before bed. But I don't do it often.

 

[Loves2spooge]

Insomnia, no... i dont think so atleast. It takes me anywhere from an 10 minutes to 3 hours to actually fall asleep sometimes though. Typically, it is due to something being on my mind.

However, there are times were i am in a half asleep half awake zone and i am paralyzed. Then it feels as if someones putting great amounts of pressure on my head or i am suffocating. So whatever that is, it basically creeps the shit out of me but it happens often enough were i've learned to just weather the storm. Oh and i have perfect clarity with my mind, i'm basically fully concious, just cant move my body.

That's quite a common condition called 'sleep paralysis', and it affects roughly a quarter of all people at least once in their life.

It's basically when the person regains consciousness in the midst of an REM cycle, and experiences the inability to move.

It is frightening, but it's nothing that will harm you in the long run. There's surprisingly little known about the phenomena, other than it usually occurs when one changes their sleep patterns dramatically, or is suffering from stress.

OT: I've had insomnia most of my life, rarely do I get to sleep without some form of aid, whether it's over the counter or prescribed sleeping pills, even oxycodone, but I've always had terrible anxiety too; like I've never been able to turn my brain off, so I feel your pain.

On two seperate occasions I've not been able to sleep for six days straight and five days straight. It was hell, especially since I had to work during those periods in unrelenting retail jobs, but on the plus side, I got a lot of stuff done.

 

[Delock]

I have experienced every single type of insomnia in the last few months (no sleep, interrupted sleep, trouble waking up from sleep, difficulty starting sleep, etc.). I refuse to go in to get any diagnosis because I don't want to sign a check for way too much cash just for someone to tell me: "Yep, you've got insomnia, here's some drugs", or "Nope, you've got nothing. Now please pay." I'm not going to get over the counter drugs either since I'm not sure if I'll be able to wake up (a piece of advice to insomnaics, if you need to wake up a 6am for classes/work/etc. you need to rethink having that class/job/etc.).

As for functioning, I've worked out that I can get about 1-4 hours of sleep every weekday but sleep till noon on weekends (though I barely am able to think on Fridays).

 

[ribonuge]

Insomnia, no... i dont think so atleast. It takes me anywhere from an 10 minutes to 3 hours to actually fall asleep sometimes though. Typically, it is due to something being on my mind.

However, there are times were i am in a half asleep half awake zone and i am paralyzed. Then it feels as if someones putting great amounts of pressure on my head or i am suffocating. So whatever that is, it basically creeps the shit out of me but it happens often enough were i've learned to just weather the storm. Oh and i have perfect clarity with my mind, i'm basically fully concious, just cant move my body.

That's quite a common condition called 'sleep paralysis', and it affects roughly a quarter of all people at least once in their life.

It's basically when the person regains consciousness in the midst of an REM cycle, and experiences the inability to move.

It is frightening, but it's nothing that will harm you in the long run. There's surprisingly little known about the phenomena, other than it usually occurs when one changes their sleep patterns dramatically, or is suffering from stress.

OT: I've had insomnia most of my life, rarely do I get to sleep without some form of aid, whether it's over the counter or prescribed sleeping pills, even oxycodone, but I've always had terrible anxiety too; like I've never been able to turn my brain off, so I feel your pain.

On two seperate occasions I've not been able to sleep for six days straight and five days straight. It was hell, especially since I had to work during those periods in unrelenting retail jobs, but on the plus side, I got a lot of stuff done.

I get chronic anxiety as well. I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder about a year back and it really gets in the way of day to day activities. I can deal with it now but sometimes it is frustrating to the point where I just don't want to go outside. It's usually in open spaces with a lot of people where it affects me the worst.

As for the insomnia, those who think that I am being a typical teenager and jumping on the boat of having some sort of mental ailment, are incorrect. I hadn't actually heard of Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome which fits what happens to me a lot better than staple insomnia. I can sleep, but only at around 4 am or later. Sometimes (like last night) it is much worse and I can't sleep at all until nine in the morning. When I do fall asleep though, I sleep for about five to six hours or if I am lucky I get about eight. This has been occurring for roughly a month and a half at it's current severity. I am much more alert at night and in the evening as opposed to the morning where I am literally brainless and don't act on any sort of pre-emptive thinking. I am awake now so I am able to describe it a little better than just "insomnia" like in the OP.