Insomnia - Can't 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

I would not recomend taking anything that will metabolize into norepinephrine as that is also released by the brain in responce to such drugs as amphetamine and substituted amphetamine salts although I would imagine in much greater amounts. So don’t try because you would not want any tweakish chemicals in your brain when trying to sleep. Also I think that LD awarness comes from frontal lobe activity and is much less centered on nerochemicals. The lucid part I think is simply the most self aware part of the brain observing and controling the more base aspects.

Of course Im no nerochemist so YMMV but bacon before bed seems wrong no matter what :neutral:

Mystic I hope your friend doesn’t get used to those damned things… For her sake.

I’ve been suffering from some insomnia lately. But I’m sure it’ll pass. It has to.

I have been having a really strange sleeping problem lately.
I’m a newbie and I have been reading about LD for a couple of weeks now. I’m very very motivated (maybe too much) and also interested.

When I go to bed at night, I start thinkin about LD almost immediately when I close my eyes and then my pulse rises suddenly and my heart beats fast. It’s because I get too exited about dreaming :tongue: . I have been lying in bed hours after hours and have tried thousands of tricks to point my thought somewhere else but dreaming without any success. Of course I can stay up until I can’t direct my thoughts anywhere, but this means staying up for 2 days and I can’t remember my dreams for the night if I do that. Anyway, I have been doing that over an week now :cry: . 2 days up-sleep-2days up-sleep etc.

This is drivin’ me nuts!

How about using Brainwave generator or another Binaural beat program or Cd.Walmart sells a Cd called “Sleep” that works
pretty well for me.
Or did someone suggest this already and I missed it.

Araknida seems you should take a break from thinking too much about LD’s, when you go to sleep just sleep and dont push yourself wanting LD’s too much. If I were to advise a technique you could try without too much effort it would be MILD. Do that for let’s say 10 minutes and then quit and go to sleep.

EDIT: Apparently I posted this on the wrong board, sorry mods, I’m really groggy

I went to sleep today at 9:30.

I slept for 60 minutes it was great, and then my mother came home, she turned off my fan, turned on the lights, and started watching television… right when I’m sleeping right next to her.

I had a feeling that I slept for much longer then 60 minutes which is a very good sign, but I can’t get to sleep now.

Well, I asked her to take it into her room and she did, but now I’ve been laying in bed for 90 minutes not being able to get to sleep.

What can I do?

I tried doing the relaxation techniques and it didn’t work.

I have suffered from periodic insomnia for a long time, and have found out that there is little use in trying hard to fall asleep. What works best for me, is to make the time in bed less boring by for example imagining interesting scenes. They have to be far from real life, to not start distracting trains of thought. More often than not, I fall asleep in the middle of that.

Something else that works for me is to pay attention to the feeling of lying in bed, how comfortable it is, and how hard it would be if i had to get up now.

It seems like 90 minutes is the “magic” time…it usually takes about that time for me to fall asleep again if i wake up at an unwanted time. It might have something to do with the length of the sleep cycle?

Probably… Often when I wake up for WBTB I only fall asleep after around 90 minutes!

Those returning periods of insomnia still bother me. Usually I miss a few hours of sleep but when I’m in a stressful period of life (like now) I will have no sleep at all. I usually know this early in the night, and I go do something else when I feel such a night coming. And then I just survive the day without too much complaining :tongue:

lol nuclei i have that as well if i cant get to sleep with in an hour, i useually try and wear my self down by thinking of alot of different stuff at the same time, it works now and then or i trya self bondage technique were i jsut lay face up in my bed face up for ages and dont move any part of my body after a while i feel like im apart of the bed and like sunk into it even tho im not lol, well that helps me sleep.

First: sometimes you think you’re awake for several hours, but in fact you sleep sometimes for a very short period without noticing it.

And advices? Besides not taking any drugs like ritalin (yeah of course you can’t sleep after taking that super speed thingie) or whatever, having a bit of excercise during the day, not sleeping in the afternoon, I suggest not to worry.
It will pass, I had it myself some years ago. But now, I close my eyes and I sleep. I can’t even do WILD because I feel like sinking a bit away (say 15% sleeping) and the next thing that happens is that I awake during the night or day.
But if you can’t sleep, just stay calm. If you get nervous, you won’t be able to sleep at all. Just stay calm, you’re awake, so what? Just rest a bit, and sooner or later you will sleep. You HAVE to stay calm if you can’t get asleep. Do some relaxation excercises to stay relaxed at that moment.

But I have also a question: I get asleep very fast, I sleep deeply, but I always wake up very early. Yesterday, I got in my bed at 2:00. And I woke up this morning at 7:00. And when it would be 4:00, then maybe I’ll wake up at 8:00 or so. And that’s really: to wake up. I didn’t snooze anymore or so, I was completely awake. Relaxation doesn’t help, I felt like I just don’t need any sleep at that moment. But when it’s 15:00 or so, I get very tired. Please, is there a way to continue sleeping in the morning?

I just can’t seem to get to sleep. It takes me ages, and that’s especially bad at the momnet because it is my exam week. Does anyone know of anything that will get me to sleep quickly? Preferably something that doesn’t require lots of time to train the body.

check this topic :sleeping: :yawn:

(incidently, this post will be merged into it)

Try reading something that is really boring to you at the time. If you are not technical, look at the instruction manual to the microwave or something. If you hate spiritual stuff then try to read some boring scriptures that you do not want to understand. The logic here is it has to be uninteresting.