For the past 3 weeks I have been not been able to sleep well at all. I actually get exactly what you described. Not getting any sleep or not much sleep at all, feeling drained all day, and then at 10:30 I'll be wide awake and ready to go!

It's rather annoying. As much as I love to be awake at night cos that's when my friends and I actually do stuff, I hate being tired and irratable at work, or too tired during the day to do anything productive when I don't have work.

I've been given so many hints about getting to sleep. Listen to music, don't listen to music (I do listen to music), excersise, eat well, don't go on the computer or read before bed, go to bed at the same time every night, stress less, don't drink before bed, do drink before bed. It all gets confusing sometimes.

I'm yet to find my anti-insomnia cure, but when I do I'll surely post it on here for you. Right now I'm excersising a *lot* so i'll let you know if that helps me at all. I'm also attempting to eat right, but that is so so so much more difficult than it sounds. McDonalds its just so damned convenient and it tastes so good!

Maybe I'll sue them ...

Don't worry it probably is just a sleeping phase. You will be sleeping normally soon. But it depends how long your lack of sleep last.

Because it have happen to me. Somedays I have a hard time falling asleep. And somedays I can't keep myself awake. But not all the time.

Lack of sleep can play on your mind, I didn't even lie down for 3 days or more 72 hours or more, not really sure, I began to hallucinate, but it wasn't a hallucination, it was more like I would start to dream while I was still awake, but then I would snap myself out of it.
It's about this time that it's almost impossible to stay awake, so I slept.

[edit on 29-2-2008 by _Phoenix_]

i]Originally posted by Buck Division

Six days? Wow! Were you trying to stay awake, or just suffering from a really really very bad case of insomnia?

nope not trying, just had a rough spell with sleeping, I wasn't even stressed out more than normal. It was horrible

I wonder if there are doors to perception (such as those described by Aldus Huxley) that get opened. Maybe the delusions and visions have some sort of deeper reality to them?

I took a Native American class in Bismarck that was geared to educate non-Native people. It was a great class and not condensending at all. They speak about seeking visions and your statement up top is almost how it was explained in non-Native language.

Sometimes, when I am thinking about stuff before I try to sleep, I can't sleep. Now a helpful hint to get to sleep better is to pick a song, like a song you grew up with, and sing that song in your head.
What that does is simplifies your thinking, so it is easier to drift off to dreamland, so your mind is not thinking about stuff.
Try it sometime, its what I found helpful to cure my insomnia, that I have.

for sure you see things, the longest i stayed up was like, three days, i have to note that it feels like a continuation, not days. for example like a day that has no end or time. it is a continuation- you will see things like shadows, voices, even notice things that hide out in different realms and realities that is not noticeable in normal settings. i could only image, the longer you stay up the more intense the experience is. the people of the past could have visions and identify extraterrestrials during these sessions, because they are different realms.

I just started reading this thread so I don't know if anyone's still on it but a few years ago I too saw a documentary about a man who for some physical reason that I don't remember could not fall asleep. He of course was hospitalized and slowly lost his cognitive abilities and his physical condition deteriorated as well. I seem to remember it took about a year for it to kill him and he had to be hospitalized the whole time. He was definitely too ill to work some night job for 20 years as I read in a previous post. But the point is that a total inabililty to sleep at all proved fatal in his case and I would think for anyone else as well. Most people who claim they don't fall asleep at all have been shown in sleep studies that they do actually fall asleep from time to time during the night but it clearly is not a restful restorative sleep, hence they feel and believe as though they haven't slept at all.

I think that it all depends on the person as to what effects lack of sleep has on people. I once could not sleep and at the worst point I had 4 hours sleep in about four days, 96 hours. My friend found me mumbling to myself although he could make out i was having a conversation, sitting in the corner of my room facing the wall, in pitch black, frightened the life out of him apparently, espically when he said my name and I turned round like nothing strange was happening. I also remember jumping at a wall over and over, just to see what would happen.

A little scary espically as compared to how long some people have gone for without sleep.

So I would say it all depends on the mind and circumstances, I was on my own for alot of my insomnia so that didn't help either I don't think

Also I occasionally take ephedra to lose weight and have been known to take too much of it for too long (for me it also has a cumulative effect and is not removed from my body as quickly as its going in hence the dosage builds up as well) and when this happens I find myself unable to sleep at all or at least not to sleep normally. Under these conditions I find when I close my eyes trying to sleep, I see all sorts of images and at times I felt as if I were "remote veiwing" scenes, including what I percieved to be angels or interdimensional beings. The pineal gland in the brain is a light sensitive gland that controls the release of melatonin (the "sleep hormone"). Some people believe it is the location of the "Third Eye" used to see visions or perhaps see into higher dimensions.Who knows. Personally though I LOVE sleep and am enormously fond of naps. Not getting enough sleep makes me gain weight because I try to get more energy by eating more. Food is no substitute for sleep though and it doesn't work.

you can hit yourself in the head with a forty of jim beam if your really tired.
i sleep like a baby(a drunk baby).

Originally posted by billybob
you can hit yourself in the head with a forty of jim beam if your really tired.
i sleep like a baby(a drunk baby).

Then again, you may not.

I know because I tried it many times, and it's never worked for me.

Maybe if I drank it...

(Or maybe a sledgehammer would do the trick.)















[edit on 29-2-2008 by Vanitas]

The so called sleep you get from excessive alcohol consumption is not a restorative sleep and you do not go through all the needed sleep cycles.

What? Has everyone gone to sleep on me? Ah, the irony.