Published on 12, July, 2020
I suffer from the dual evil of nightmares and insomnia and need help.
For example, today I woke at 4am from a nightmare and I cannot fall asleep (insomnia). I am also afraid to go back to sleep because in the past I have had nightmares following nightmares when I fall asleep after a short break.
With inadequate sleep I get up tired. With nightmarish sleep I get up tired.
I don't have sleeping tablets at home as a precaution. Because in my recent past I've attempted suicide by overdosing with tablets.
So I sit in bed. Either reading , worrying or on the internet.
Any Help or advice is much appreciated!
Today's nightmare, very simple.
A knocking on my wooden door by naked knuckles.
A woke up immediately.
I'm 99.99% certain the knocking was in my head and not real.
Previous similar nightmares is being woken up by loud buzzers or ringing sounds. Again not real.
Sounds a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome Robert?
I've had it for years, when I have it waking up it's usually weird electronic buzzing for me (occasional and almost always accompanying sleep paralysis) or if I get it when I'm falling asleep rather than waking up (much more usual) it's gunshot/explosion sounds or voices shouting my name.
I've always had Exploding Head Syndrome (though didn't know what it was for most of that time.) It's incredible just how startling it can be, especially when most of my brain is already half asleep. It's usually just a very loud "bang" for me, as if the extreme loudness of it prevents me from identifying it as any particular kind of sound.
I get auditory hallucinations when I'm awake sometimes, too. Never anything particularly coherent, like voices talking to me, more like a memory of a very specific sound leaks through into my consciousness. It's not unusual that I go to answer the front-door or to check a new text-message only to find that I imagined the sound.
Emma said:Then when I'm very tired, I hear little snippets of piano music (not any tune I know, it seems random but sounds pleasant, I wish I could remember it enough to write it down) or occasionally snatches of (mundane and/or nonsensical) conversation.
I get this a little bit when I'm extremely sleep deprived, but it's very indistinct; a bit like hearing it from under a duvet or through a wall, or bursts of electrical noise. I think it's a little bit like the visual snow and migraine auras I sometimes get; my perception "recognises" things in my brain's background noise, a bit like seeing faces and objects in random clouds and rocks.
Emma said:I had quite the reputation for sleeping anywhere at university, because anywhere includes 'in crowded nightclubs', 'sitting on other people's kitchen worktops' and 'before it gets back round to my turn in a board game'.
That's interesting; I was known for that kind of thing, too. I've realised since my diagnosis that these were quite likely autistic shut-downs rather than just nodding off. Of course, lack of sleep and alcohol most likely played their part, by making me more sensitive to over-stimulation; but I very rarely nod off when there are just a few people around me, it was always pubs, nightclubs, parties etc. that made me zonk out completely. I was known for being impossible to wake, too, and it was sometimes mistaken for me being black-out drunk. Shut-downs and melt-downs always do make me sleep deeply afterwards, whereas the smallest disturbances can rouse me easily if I'm just trying to have a quick nap.