Very Weird Sleep Disorder Posted: 02-14-06 08:00am
If anyone has any idea what this is,
please reply to this post!
I have had this totally insane sleep
problem for about 4 years now. It seems
a bit like sleep paralysis but it's much
different.
Ok so I start dreaming the second I fall
asleep, maybe even before i'm fully
asleep. Suddenly it takes a twist to the
dark side. Either that or there's no
dream at all (usually the case). So I
get an overwhelming feeling of fear and
panic, and don't know where it comes from.
Eventually I realize i'm asleep (and
perhaps dreaming) so I try real hard to
wake myself up but can't move. At this
point I become aware of both my physical
body and my dream self. I usually have
some very realistic hallucinations, either
bright flashes or shadowy figures or other
scary stuff, often I just get this "6th
sense" feeling like something evil is
there but I don't know what (like my
limbic system just totally lost it) and
more panic because I can't move and I get
a lot of irrational thoughts even though I
know i'm sleeping. A few times I felt
like something was violently shaking me
(but I never figured out if I was really
shaking) and just at different times
different crazy stuff happens.
So I finally manage to snap myself out of
it, and when I do there is this intense
oscillation in my head (kind of like
spinning or pulsating, real weird) and
ringing in my ears, pulsing at about
3-4hz, and over the next few minutes it
slows down to about .1 hz while slowly
fading away. And sometimes the instant I
come out of my sleep state i'll have a
final, short hallucination (in some of
cases, a red light coming from around a
corner that quickly fades out) leaving me
wondering what the hell just happened and
if I really just saw that.
Often i'll remain be in a really neurotic,
paranoid state for the next 15 minutes if
I don't go back to sleep. Occasionally
after this happens, any noises I hear will
send a pulse of adrenaline through my
body, but I think that's just a sort of a
temporary shell-shock.
A final note, this has happened a total of
about 75 times over the last 4 years, but
usually happens in clusters (like 10-15 in
a month, then none for a few months).
Weird.
Ps I don't have bipolar or anything like
that, though I am a bit a.D.D.
|
ronb
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Chicago, IL
i get this every so often, sometimes it
will run for a few days straight, then
wont happen for a month. I did have a
sleep study but nothing happened on that
night. Here is what happens to me. I
will be just falling asleep and I will get
a very strange feeling over my entire
body, like a numbness. I feel a pulsating
in my head and very loud ringing in my
ears. It intensifies until I am fully
awakened. Then as I try to get back to
sleep it keeps happening a few more times,
some more intense, others less intense. I
do not sleep with anyone who can tell me
what is happening. I also get another
type of episode from time to time. As I
am just falling asleep I get violently
awoken where I jump up. It is as if I was
hit in the face with a baseball bat, or
fell off a building and hit the ground.
Its like boom, and I jump awake. Really
scary. I am going to start documenting
when I have these episodes to see if there
is any similarities in my activities, what
I ate etc.. Had one last night, but it's
been a few weeks since the last episodes.
Sometimes too as I lay down to sleep it
feels like someone is shaking the bed.
|
isayso
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 3
Some Similarities Posted: 02-14-06 23:49pm
Yeah that is the most similar description
i've seen so far as to what happens to me.
I've read about sleep paralysis
before and that just seems like one of the
symptoms I (and others) experience. I
could deal with just the paralysis it's
all the other crap that makes it
unbearable. One thing I have noticed
is that a few people on this forum have
similar reports but no one has any clue
what it is.
Anyway, a couple of pointers that might
help:
1) when it happens, don't try to go back
to sleep until your head clears, or you'll
probably go back into it. I usually
smoke a cigarette and that seems to help
my head clear.
2) this usually happens when I try to
sleep on my back. It almost never
happens in other positions, so I try to
avoid sleeping on back.
3) since i'm "aware" during these
episodes, i'm spending most of the time
trying to wake myself up so I can come out
of it. Once, I thought, maybe i'll
just try to ride it through, or to beat
it, or whatever, instead of trying to wake
up. Not a good idea. It just
kept getting worse. After a good 60
seconds it felt like I was convulsing
violently, although I don't know if I
really was or not. Also this has
never happened when I was sleeping next to
anyone, even in the same room, it is a
sneaky culprit.
I emailed a copy of the previous posting
to this guy:
http://sleepdisor
ders.About.Com/b/a/228638.Htm (if you
want to look at it you have to make the h
in htm lowercase or it won't work, the
forum program capitalizes it cause it's
stupid)
idonno if that will ever amount to
anything though...
|
ronb
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Chicago, IL
Another Thing Posted: 02-16-06 16:59pm
Hi, I also get this allot. In the morning
I wake up, allways hours before i'm
supposed to. If I want to get up at 6:30,
I start waking up at 4 am. After the
first awake at 4 I never really seem to
fall back asleep. It is like I am in a
half awake half sleep mode. During this I
experience very vivid dreams. I like when
its time to get up because I hate laying
there in that half sleep mode. But the
thing is very very vivid real like dreams.
|
isayso
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 3
Yeah Posted: 02-20-06 23:52pm
Yeah sometimes I just lay there all night
and can't sleep... Or just wake up at any
random point in the night and then can't
go back to sleep. I can deal with that,
it's the stupid sleep attacks (as I have
come to call them) that piss me off.
It's funny, it never started till I was
19, except this one time when I was 16, my
doctor prescribed me amitryptalin (i think
I spelled that wrong) because I couldn't
sleep well. This is the same stuff as
elavil, which I think is an antidepressant
(my doctor was an fool) the first time I
took it, I slept great and then in the
morning I woke up but my body was still
asleep and I felt like I was suffocating
and then freaked out, and eventually woke
up. Well like an fool I took it agian
the next night and, you guessed it, it
happened again. So I didn't take any
more of them. Sometimes I wonder if that
stuff like messed something in my brain
up, although that solution just doesn't
seem to make any sense. I wanted to go
to a sleep clinic for a while, but they
"sleep attacks" are so unpredictable I
never know when they will strike. I
still haven't heard back from that guy,
either (the one who was doing research on
strange sleep problems or whatever)
|
smellycat
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 4
Re: Very Weird Sleep Disorder Posted: 05-08-06 22:20pm
isayso
wrote:
if anyone has any idea what
this is, please reply to this post!
So I get an overwhelming feeling of fear
and panic, and don't know where it comes
from. Eventually I realize i'm asleep
(and perhaps dreaming) so I try real hard
to wake myself up but can't move. At
this point I become aware of both my
physical body and my dream self.
So I finally manage to snap myself out of
it, and when I do there is this intense
oscillation in my head (kind of like
spinning or pulsating, real weird) and
ringing in my ears, pulsing at about
3-4hz, and over the next few minutes it
slows down to about .1 hz while slowly
fading away.
i have had the exact same experiences.
Strangely enough in that order too.
I go to bed and can't sleep, will toss and
turn. Then i'm suddenly aware I can't
move. I then realise I am dreaming, so
try to call out to the sleeping me to wake
up. I can almost float above the second
me and then view her. It's almost like a
case of watching myself, watching myself.
The original me in bed, the me in the
dream unable to move and the me observing
this. When I try to shout out I can't.
Then when the original me wakes up in bed
there is this thing I can only describe as
a ball of noise (memory perhaps?) that
sort of buzzes in and out towards me, the
closer it gets the louder it is. And
whatever it is, it is truly terrifying and
I want to get away.
isayso
wrote:
it's funny, it never
started till I was 19, except this one
time when I was 16, my doctor prescribed
me amitryptalin (i think I spelled that
wrong) because I couldn't sleep well.
This is the same stuff as elavil, which I
think is an antidepressant (my doctor was
an fool) the first time I took it, I slept
great and then in the morning I woke up
but my body was still asleep and I felt
like I was suffocating and then freaked
out, and eventually woke up.
interesting because I have been taking
amitriptyline for several years.
|
chuawa
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 32
Posted: 05-10-06 03:14am
Yoz,
seems like a lot of people actually have
this problem atleast once in their life.
I have been having such episodes since i'm
a kid.
For me, it more of a lifestyle issue. If
during periods when I am spending too much
energy staying up late and constant
staring at computer screens playing my fav
game, I will get such problems.
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