Thread: insomnia

If you're worried about blurring the lines between reality and your dreams you should do reality checks throughout the days.

As for getting to sleep you may want to try some more "new-age" techniques for a while. If the mind has nothing to think about then it will likely fall asleep and rest, so trying this method for completely clearing your mind of thought.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. The Sleep and Health forum is where to ask about sleep specifically.

to DV and I hope you do hang out here

I've been looking up ways to fix my insomnia for 5+years. I've tried such techniques and made up my own. Which is what led to forcing dreams. It stopped me from thinking about anything else that might keep me awake and often times I could reach a point where I could make the character I was pretending to be fall asleep or lose consciousness and then I'd stay asleep for awhile. It doesn't matter how relaxed I am, how tired I am, or how empty my mind is I do not fall asleep without meds. For up to a week. To the point I start having severe physical problems. I also seem to sometimes get stuck in REM, or something close to it. When that happens I wake up 2-4hours later than I normally would and dreams seem to drag on and on and on without ending or letting me wake up. The sleep part of my brain is seriously broken and noone knows why. My insurance ran out and I'm temporarily on free state insurance so I can't have any more sleep studies or blood tests done for now.

Hmm... should I make a political argument for socialize medicine? Nah.

What kind of sleep aids are you on that are expensive enough to require insurance? Are you so bad that you need prescription barbiturates? Try things like Melatonin, GABA, Diphenhydramine...

You want a med/supplement summary? I take around 900mcg of melatonin a night. More than that actually interferes with deeper sleep. By itself it doesn't do much. I had sleep paralysis and kind of halucinations when I took only melatonin and then it took 6mg to do anything. I spent most of the night awake but unable to move or do much beyond stare at the inside of my own eyelids and the next day I felt as if I hadn't slept at all. I just used up some phenibut, tried GABA for several months (6?) with no noticeable results, various herbal mixes that honestly I forget all the ingredients and names.... I can probably hunt a few down again if you really want. They add to the prescription meds but on their own they do pretty much nothing. I've choked down lots of teas and various concoctions. I just bought another tea mix claiming to help sleep with Eleuthero, peppermint, cinnamon, ginger, chamomile, lemongrass, licorice, catnip, tilia flowers (how many things can you put in one tea?). I hate tea with a passion. Went on several different diets. Vitamin and mineral supplements. Adding b vitamins specifically caused worse insomnia after a week so now I take a multivitamin daily, b vitamin complex once a week, and flaxseed oil. Tried excercising various amounts. I'm actually very active and in good shape although frequently tired. I do martial arts, ride horses, go on day long hikes... Talked to an accupuncturist and herbalist. Have seen 6 different psychiatrists and therapists. 2 sleep clinics. 3 general practitioners. MRI's, blood tests, endless prescriptions for antidepressents, antianxiety, and antipsychotics from doctors thinking it was a psychological disorder since they couldn't find a cause.

For prescription meds currently I take 150mg of seroquel a night which is $200 for a prescription for 1 month and that is the cheapest thing I have. I take 3mg of lunesta most nights and occasionally switch it out for 5-10mg of ambien but ambien doesn't let me get as deep of sleep and gives me headaches after 4-5nights. Unfortunately sleep aids don't work long term so I have to take breaks from lunesta or it steadily declines in effectiveness. I get those through free drug programs and samples. I quit rozerem because all it really does is make you more sensitive to melatonin and I react fine to melatonin so pointless when I can just take otc melatonin. All the otc herbal stuff was costing me around $90/month and I have stopped most of those for now. Right now I'm only taking the melatonin and doing further research on other things before experimenting with anything else.

Your discription is me...

I have been on medication for over 2 years, before that I was just a wreck. I have prothiadin and zopiclone evry night, cypralex and valium during the day. When I sleep I CONSTANTLY lucid dream. I am completely aware of what is going on and think to myself that I am dreamimg. I try to mopen my eyes and know when I am not. I know this sounds strahge, but I find it so distressing. The content of my dreams would make great books and I never forget them. They are usually very sci-fi, which is strange as I have not interest there at all. I wake up in the morning feeling I have never slept. It totally controls my whole life, I think about it all the time.

I had that problem when I was using antidepressents for sleep. I'd have endless very vivid lucid dreams and then still feel exhausted the next day. I don't think I was actually getting REM sleep but it was better than no sleep. I sleep much better, with better dreams, and feel rested using meds targetted for sleep like lunesta and ambien instead of antidepressents and hypnotics. If you also need an antidepressent seroquel is a good one. It's an antipsyhotic/antidepressent that is heavily sedating. Lots of people on the anxiety boards use it for sleep. It doesn't seem to interfere with rem sleep like other antidepressents I've taken. However the recommended dose is usually way too much for most people and so they quit taking it. Doctors try to get you on 200mg where I started with half a 25mg pill and over the past 2years slowly went up to 150mg. That's almost too much for me and makes it hard to wake up sometimes. You will sleep if you take enough seroquel but too much will make you feel out of it all the next day and just want to constantly take naps.