Insomnia - Can't sleep!

Ok I hope I can get some suggestions, I’m willing to try anything. My problem is that it often takes me 1 to 2 hours to fall asleep. This makes me really frustrated when I want to dream. When I get home from school I’m usually very tired, as if its 3 in the morning or something. I dont know why I’m so tired after school, I don’t do any physical activity or anything that tires me out and I don’t do crap at school. I usually take a nap for about an hour or so because I am so tire :grrr: d. Then when its time to go to bed (usually at 11:00) I close my eyes, I keep wanting to open them again. It becomes hard for me to keep my eyes closed. I have tried melatonin and it helps me alot but I seem to have the oppposite effect that most people have people with melatonin… It makes me not remember a single dream. When I stop taking the melatonin I get tons of LDs. I dont’t want to take any sort of sleep aid because this might reduce my ability to LD. Someone please help its SO frustrating to sit in bed for 2 hours before falling asleep.

If you get tons of LD’s simply let yourself relax in bed. Or try a completely different approach, uhm… Don’t go to bed until your tired, man! :smile:

If your still tired and go to bed but cant fall asleep try turning on the TV, if you have one in your room like me, and watching something interesting or uninteresting whatever makes you fall asleep faster until you finally get your sweet rest. On the other hand, if you don’t have a TV in your room, just get a good book, comic, newspaper or whatever you like and read it until you fall asleep.

The secret is to get yourself tired, you can’t just will yourself to go to sleep because it’ll never work. If you know you can’t fall asleep for another 2 hours just don’t try, it sums up to the same number of hours sleep since you fall asleep pretty quickly once your tired.

Good luck!

I have allways been like that also… it amazes me that some people actually can fall asleep in less than 30mins and sometimes even as little as 5mins :open_mouth:

Nuclei, you say you do not do any particular exercise - I think this may be part of the problem. Physical exercise is something that will help you relax more quickly when you do go to bed. It may also help you feel less tired! Could you try walking/cycling part of the way from school to home or something like that? I really think it would help you.

I too have trouble sleeping, sometimes I stay up for multiple days in a row. I have also started taking Melatonin with no dream effect except that now I havent remembered a dream for four days and I usually remember 1-2 a night…I’m starting to research self hypnosis to help me with sleep and other things, including lucid dreaming, if you care to look into hypnosis a good book to begin with is “How to hypnotize yourself and others” by Rachel Copelan. I wish you well.

You need to stay awake after school. It’s interfering with your ability to sleep later on.

I second the napping in the afternoon. If you can nap in the afternoon and still sleep at night good for you. If not. . .

Also if you can’t sleep, get outta bed and do something until you are tired. Hell, if you come and read this forum until you’re tired, it’ll increase your chances of lucidity too.

Reading and writing is my trick for sleepiness.

First I think it’s good to write all about what went on during the day, because most likely those recent day thoughts are what’ll keep you up. Youv’e got to get it out of you some way, and just thinking about it is the root to insomnia. And then, to cozy up with a dreamy book will give me an eye work out, and I think reading alot will help to induce REM< a whole lot faster. That’s my theory.
Plus, Kava tea is a miracle. You can get that at a place like SafeWay store or a place selling organic tea.

:user: + :read: = :sleep: Good Luck! :dream:

There was a time about a year ago when i was having a lot of trouble falling asleep. But i found that the secret for me was getting in a comfortable position, and letting my thoughts flow. I don’t focus on anything at all i just let them flow, and im usually unconscious in about 10 minutes on average.

-=JaSoN=-

i had trouble falling asleep until about 2 weeks ago… and then i started doing sensible things… going to bed a little earlier each night… eating and drinking a little something an hour or so before bed… when you are in bed read a nice book (i always read EWLD) under really low/brown light, that gets your eyes really tired and heavy and i fall asleep in no more than 20 minutes… also don’t move around while trying to fall asleep… find 1 comfotable position… moving to find another one only makes everything more uncomfortable and don’t think about your body or falling asleep too much, it keeps you awake for such a long time… sleep will happen you don’t have to think about it.

-p-Wes

Thanks alot guys. Jason I think I know what you mean about letting your thoughts flow, I tried this last night and I fell asleep fairly easy. I think my problem is when I try to go to sleep all i do is wonder to myself ‘when am i going to fall asleep’ and I guess the trick is not to think this way just let it come…

Tonight i did not take a nap and a ran about a mile so i will see if that helps tonight. And underjoyed, you had the same experience with melatonin as I did, you say it actually hindered your dream recall? Thats exactly what it did to me, which i find weird because almost everyone who posts on this forum says that melatonin gave them vivid dreams.

no problem i am glad to help. I have never tried Melatonin, do you guys think it is worth trying?

-=JaSoN=-

My friend feel asleep in 10 seconds! I was like try to go to bed and he was already tierd and bingo before you know it I was like hey hey omg no way.

yeah its worth buying considering it pretty cheap. I got a bottle for like 2 dollars.

Could be your age.
A lot of teenagers go through periods they have trouble sleeping, then grow out of it…
That’s what happened to me at least(tiredness all the time, unable to sleep) especially if you’re still growing… I used to be the same.
saddleback

It happened to me too this year… I solved it by not drinking tea before going to sleep. I tried drinking green tea for example.

Now I’m drinking mint tea…

yeah, drinking green tea (the Japanese kind) probably won’t knock you out. It’s got the highest caffeine content for a tea available :smile:

Try taking a shower before bed. That does it for me.

I notice that i can get to sleep quicker by having my window just beside my bed open. That way i can get lots of fresh oxygen so my body doesn’t have to worry about air too much.

i have that problem too

I used to have that problem, but now i just read until I can’t read anymore, like I read until my eyes cant stay focused, then when i want to I can fall asleep in about 1 min. Litterally, one min! It also might help that i get like 6-7 hours of sleep on the weekend :bored: