Insomnia - Can't sleep!

Hello out there.

I kinda have a problem. I cant sleep. Or at least not verry much.
I go to bed about 00:00 - 01:00 and fall asleep around 03:00-04:30. And then i sleep like crap waking upp like very hour and when my mother screams at me at about 13:00 i usualy gett out of bed.

Its sucks gangsta ass. Since i cant sleep a normal amount of time. I cant have normal REM sessions and i therfor have serious problems with having more LDs and i like have crappy dream recall.

Does anny body know anny tricks to fall asleep.

Please help me :bambi:

Drink some good hot milk before going to bed :smile: It must be hot because cold milk doesn’t work (because in hot milk there’s far more tryptophan, a precursor to some important brain chemicals involved with sleep). It appears to help for a lot of people, so hopefully you’re one of them :smile:

Well there is one catch. I dont dare to drink hot milk. :razz: Since the last like 5 times i have done that i have experiensed extreeeeeeem stomache pain… So i dont know realy. But preahaps :razz: Its worth a shot

Edit: And btw how hot does the milk have to be for it to be efective

Well if it causes you to have stomach pains, then you shouldn’t drink it. I don’t know if there’s an optimal temperature… it’s probably not boiling temperature, but more like when you drink tea: let it boil for a minute, wait a few minutes and then drink it. Only guessing here though…

Hmm I wouldnt boil it (yuck), but thats personal preference… perhaps it needs to be boiled for more effectiveness?

Could be… As far as I understand it, warming up the milk causes a chemical reaction whereby a great amount of tryptophan is released. So yeah, boiling it might enhance its effects.

If you don’t like hot milk, there are other foods you can try. As long as they contain a large amount of tryptophan or other sleep-related chemicals. For instance:

You can also make your own sleep potion:

If that doesn’t help, you can always massage the sole of your feet with mustard oil (do this at bedtime). Seems to help too :smile:

Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter active during waking life consciousness, which we strive to reach during LD’s. So perhaps you should not avoid these foods after all? Increase of norepinephrine might perhaps lead to more dream awareness?

Might be, but what’s the point of increased dream awareness if you can’t fall asleep due to the stimulated brain activity? :wink:

Yeah it’s probably a fine line, but one worth exploring, because I think with a little experience one can fall asleep anyway with a slightly stimulated brain. First of all it might depend on the person, and second of all on the dosage. The bald man btw is going to experiment with this kind of stuff anytime soon, so im quite exited to see results :smile:.

Guess you’re right… Heh yeah I’m also pretty excited about it :smile: But he’s confident he’ll get some awesome results.

Some people cannot digest milk. That’s rather curious: you live in Sweden, and nordic people generally can disgest milk (it’s quite their only D vitamine source, as there is not a lot of sun).

Ahhh! Nothing is working tonight! I’ve tried everything! Reading, milk, expressing myself through some bad poetry…Even doubled up on the trazadone! Dry mouth big time but no sleep! WTF! Anybody got a hammer or a bat? Just knock me out already!

Perhaps if you’re really tired now, you might easily fall asleep the next evening :smile:

A friend of mine is suffering from some really bad sleeping problems. She tried almost every thing, especially herbal teas and pills. She can’t bear large amounts of vitamins or valerian for instance… Some time ago she even tried meditation and breathing exercises, but she failed to relax. Because of her sometimes-very-hysterical mind, she had to take sedatives, and those were the only means by which she was able to have a good night. She claims that once you’ve taken these synthetic drugs, all the natural, herbal cures won’t have any effect anymore… Unfortunately her situation is getting really worse these days, so hopefully she won’t get addicted to these sedatives. Therefore, does anyone perhaps know of another thing she might try, which might help her to get a decent night of sleep?

I found this out last night; a small glass of red wine helps, but don’t drink so much you’ll get drunk, because that’ll inhibit your REM sleep.

If you start w/ stuff like red wine and seditatives though your tolerence will go up. Some quicker than others.
Mystic, if your friend is taking benzo’s on a regular basis to help her sleep then she needs to be tapered off before she tries anything else. Her central nervous system has to get used to her not having them in her system and if she cuts them off entirely she will just go into WD.

Luckily I am only befallen by insomnia rarely :smile:, but yeah, its only a short term solution.

Mystic, perhaps the fact that one is so extremely preoccupied with wanting to sleep so badly, makes it inpossible to do so witout medicines? The only thing that ever worked for me was an attitude change into not caring, but perhaps that’s a bit too much asked from someone who is suffering badly from insomnia.

However it also creates REM rebound later during sleep, so you have more chances on LD’s then :razz: … personally I had some good experience on moderate alcohol consumption …

Yeah you might be right… Still, it must be hard for her not to use sedatives ever again I think. If she doesn’t take them, she’ll have very bad nights, and so she takes them just to have some rest. I don’t think she’s in for an attitude change… If I see her again, I’ll suggest it though :smile:

This site has good relaxation techniques.
swamij.com/index-yoga-meditation-practices.htm
Sometimes when I can’t fall asleep I just do something similar to 61 ponits (instead of doing each part individualy I do the body as a whole) several times until my body feels like a lump of dead meat. (very relaxing!) It becomeas easeir to fall asleep.

i found this article with helpful tips. Hope it is of help to anyone.
selfgrowth.com/articles/Turo-Shields8.html