Drifting in and out of a frustrating sleep

[sl1ckm4n]

Hi, My name is Shaun, I'm from the UK, I have experienced Lucid dreaming many times before and can often fully control myself in dreams. However, I am getting increasingly worried of late because of the uncomfortable feeling of my normal sleep, although I am not lucid dreaming right now my dreams are just random letters or numbers and never make sense. I always often feel like I have a headache right through the night and spend my time constantly tossing and turning and drifting in and out of sleep. In the mornings I often feel paralysed as if I can't wake up properly, or if I can it will take a lot of effort. And while trying to wake up I will often drift back in and out of dreams every few minutes. I wake up frustrated in the night and in the morning because of this, I am getting my sleep but the sleep I am getting is really uncomfortable, I just want to go back to normal sleeping and dreaming with a relaxed feeling without the constant drifting in and out of sleep like this with such frustration. If anyone has experienced any of this before and would have tips for me that would be fantastic. I was thinking of seeing a doctor but I don't want pills as I am still getting to sleep, the sleep I am having is just not great and always interrupted. thanks in advance, Shaun

[joncarico]

I have had multiple consecutive nights where the vision in my dream is sporadic. My guess is my body is sensing my Rapid Eye Movement, and translating that into my dream vision. It is terribly frustrating, and would continually wake me up during the dream stages of sleep. The technique I tried was drinking a cup (8oz) warmed milk with a tsp. of honey before sleep, and while in bed practicing Anapana meditation on my breathing, instead of my normal Vipassana (for body sensations). Since then it has stopped, and I have not continued with ingesting the warm milk. So that would leave it to Anapana practice that keeps my REM from interfering with my dreams. Here is a link for learning more about Anapana Sati (I cannot post in a proper forum format, because I have not yet been a member for seven days), just scroll down to "The Eight Steps" subsection: accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyadhamma/bl115.html Hope this helps.

[sl1ckm4n]

This helped actually, the things you describe do make sense to me, relaxation and a hot drink really help. My mind is always totally full and I am mentally stressed often. If I drink alcohol before sleeping in large quantities this can make it even worse too! Thanks again for the help