Unable to sleep without covering face

**Johnny87** · 11-05-2011 10:11 PM

So I've known for awhile that I have this weird tendency of being unable to sleep
if i don't cover my eyes. The way i do this is i sleep with my arm over my eyes, which
is virtually always on my side.

This pretty much started from when i was very young, and even now persists to the
point that if i DON'T cover my eyes, which makes me feel very vulnerable for some
reason, i get a nightmare pretty much guaranteed.

I basically never get nightmares EVER, on the very rare occurrence that if i do get one
and i manage to wake myself out of it, i see myself lying without my eyes covered.

Just now i was lying down looking at the wall, not sure why i wasn't in usual sleep
form but i wasn't, and in the middle of a dream i see my covers be ripped off myself
and a shadow standing over me. Of course it jolted a panic in me enough to cause
me to wake myself up.

I wake up in the exact same position looking at the wall but the covers are on, except
my eyes weren't covered.

So anyway with all this, does this sound like some sort of sleeping condition or something?
I know it does take a very long time for me to fall asleep outside of moving back and forth
50 times. Usually takes over an hour or longer of lying there to fall asleep, while everyone
in my family can fall asleep in the count of 5.

**Naiya** · 11-06-2011 01:36 AM

My advice is to just get a sleep mask. I use one all the time, although that's mainly to help me sleep better after the sun comes up. Anywho, I'm the same way as you except that I have to have my neck covered, and preferably my ears too. It started in my childhood, I'm sure there was some kind of traumatic scary movie or something that triggered it...oh well.

When it comes to having a hard time falling asleep, then yes you may have a mild sleep disorder. It's very common to have trouble getting to sleep, though, and most of the time it's due to things like stress and anxiety. You might try some things like meditating before bed, getting a white noise machine, etc. If you still have trouble, see a doctor about taking melatonin or something to help get you to sleep a little faster. Just be careful with some of those sleeping pills that you get over the counter because they can be habit-forming (in other words you'll end up needing them just to sleep at all if you take them too frequently).

**Johnny87** · 11-06-2011 03:01 AM

Originally Posted by Naiya

My advice is to just get a sleep mask. I use one all the time, although that's mainly to help me sleep better after the sun comes up. Anywho, I'm the same way as you except that I have to have my neck covered, and preferably my ears too. It started in my childhood, I'm sure there was some kind of traumatic scary movie or something that triggered it...oh well.

When it comes to having a hard time falling asleep, then yes you may have a mild sleep disorder. It's very common to have trouble getting to sleep, though, and most of the time it's due to things like stress and anxiety. You might try some things like meditating before bed, getting a white noise machine, etc. If you still have trouble, see a doctor about taking melatonin or something to help get you to sleep a little faster. Just be careful with some of those sleeping pills that you get over the counter because they can be habit-forming (in other words you'll end up needing them just to sleep at all if you take them too frequently).

Yeah when i was young like 2 years old or so i used to have nightmares of chucky
every single night for what seemed like years because i saw it on tv one night.

That might have caused it seems like.

**Naiya** · 11-06-2011 03:05 AM

Originally Posted by Johnny87

Yeah when i was young like 2 years old or so i used to have nightmares of chucky
every single night for what seemed like years because i saw it on tv one night.

That might have caused it seems like.

Aww, that's terrible. D:

I know how you feel, my sister made me watch Stephen King's IT and The Shining when I was 6 years old. .___.

**gan_naire** · 11-08-2011 05:51 AM

Damn, I was afraid of dreaming for a long time because of Nightmare on Elm Street. To this day, I still wonder about that, and then I find a group here that are Night Stalkers, that made me paranoid for a bit. But as for the eye thing, It's all good, I wouldn't look into it, it sounds more like just a comforting issue, nothing wrong with that. Hell, I feel comforted when I'm in somewhat of a tight space, so I sleep in a sleeping bag and on a couch so I can't move that much. Oddly enough, if I'm in a tight space, then I get paranoid.

Sometimes, when I want my eyes to be covered, I'll just have a pillow over them so that it's not heavy against my face like my arm is. The funniest thing I can think of that I did for a comfort level of sleeping, was I got the feeling that I wanted to be confined, or held, whatever, but I actually squeezed myself in between my matress and the box springs. It was hard to describe when my brother came in and saw me. But, I say do what makes you comfortable, no worries.