I have a fear of going to sleep. Does anyone have the same problem and can anyone help me ?

[norras]

I have seen a lot of people with the same or similar question, but i’ve never really found anyone who has the same problem as i do.

I’m a young teenager living in Estonia and i have a huge fear of going asleep. The fear doesn’t come from being asleep itself nor the nightmares or anything like that, it’s just comes from the randomness of going asleep. By that i mean that when i’m laying in my bed tired and my eyes shut, the thing that scares me is that i can go unconscious at any given time at that moment. My thoughts are cut off at a completely random moment. I know it’s a bit hard to understand, so imagine this: you are just being still, your eyes shut and thinking about random things and then……… It just cuts off and you are asleep. And that’s the thing that scares me the most. If i had the power to go asleep at the flick of a switch then i wouldn’t be scared because it’s not random.

I’ve even had a panic attack when i was thinking about it in bed. It became hard breathe, my body felt really light for some reason, my ears started ringing, i got dizzy and was just super scared.

I’ve had this problem for about a month now. I’m really scared to go to asleep everyday and it makes me really depressed, since i used to enjoy sleeping, now it’s just a task that i’m scared to do. It all started randomly.

[Jeff1943]

Norras, as you probably know deep down you are making yourself anxious for no good reason. Falling asleep randomly as you describe is not a problem: it can't affect your physical health and it can't send you crazy.

Lots of people have 'strange thoughts' and believe me when I say they can't hurt or harm you in any way. So just accept the strange thoughts for the moment, accept them without adding more fear to your nervous system. So when you go to bed think of sleep as a good friend who has come to refresh your mind and body and would never do you harm.

When you can truly accept the strange thoughts without fear you will eventually recover and no longer give any further thought to falling asleep randomly. I also think you should talk this over with your parents or a trusted adult member of your family. In time this problem will pass, it is not anything serious rest assured.