(sorry about the long post)
I’m not sure what kind of sleep disorder this is, but I’m almost positive I have one. Every day, it’s just simply impossible for me to fall asleep until sometime between 2-4 a.m. Even if I’m extremely tired and go to bed at 11 p.m., I still find myself lying in bed for hours. This has happend to me for as long as I can remember, but I’ve found it got worse over the years. When I was in elementary school, everyone I knew had a bed time of 8-10 p.m. or so, and I had a bed time of 12 a.m. That time gradually got later over the years, and unfortunately the time you have to wake up for school gets earlier. The current time I have to get up is 6 a.m., 6:30 at the latest. Falling asleep at 2 every day and getting up at 6 is hardly enough sleep to even keep me functioning. I can’t ever do anything in the morning on weekends because I really need to catch up on sleep and end up sleeping in until 2 p.m.
I’m not sure if this is relevent, but it’s odd how I actually stay awake. I lay there for an hour or so (regardless of what time I go to bed) and I start to see HI, vivid dream scenes, hearing voices, etc., but when I’m on the verge of entering the dream and finally falling asleep, the logical part of my brain turns back on and it makes me realize what I’m seeing, which causes me to wake up. Many people have trouble doing WILD because they cannot keep focused as they fall asleep, but for me it’s quite the opposite. I can lay there for hours without moving or even trying to stay awake, and I won’t fall asleep, but the problem is that it takes forever to enter SP. One time I was sitting there trying WILD for atleast 2 hours and nothing happend. I just decided to give up and let myself fall asleep. I had to fall asleep three times before I was able to stay asleep. The first time I entered a dream in a couple minutes. It made absolutely no sense and within 10 seconds I realized it was a dream and woke up. The second time it happend again, so on the third time I actually used MILD to tell myself to not realize it’s a dream so I could finally just sleep.
Has anyone ever heard of something like this before or had any experiences? It doesn’t really sound like insomnia since I have little trouble falling asleep if I can pick my own sleep schedual. Any ideas?