Possible Progress? odd sleep

[mikewashere]

Ive recently wrote about my GIANT lack of sleep and what little progress I've been making. Honestly, I've been becoming hopeless..depressed..despondent. BUT there may be a glimmer of progress..and I truly hope so.

The past two nights I tried melatonin and an OTC sleep aid...and for the past two nights I achieved some level of sleep. Though, this was a very very odd kind of sleep...Extremely shallow and not the kind of sleep you slowly nod off to, but felt as if i forcibly had to make my self sleep. But ill take it. Other thing was I would wake almost every hour or so from an extremely vivid dream, and then have to "force" myself back to sleep where i would return to the same exact dream. It was very lucid where i could control most of what i was doing....and many of the places, people, circumstances were related to my past stressors/truamas. Though these weren't nightmares, they had instances where i would feel anxiety..and there was the feeling of trying to "fix" something or complete an objective...some kind of ultimate goal. Some parts of the dreams were also cool or fun and many of my friends were there.

Like I said, compared to past sleep and the few scattered nights where i would nod off to a deeper sleep and feel physically and mentally restored to whatever degree, this kind of sleep was extraordinarily shallow, and when i got up i felt completely unrestored physically but felt verry slightly restored mentally..just alittle clearer and little less depressed. So it was little disappointing, but ill take it.

I read that if you repress REM sleep(where dreams occur), you will have rebound REM sleep spending more time in REM sleep.

My hope is that this is my mind processing whatever it needs to process....also hoping that this stress sleep will lead to my body/mind allowing itself to eventually fall into a deeper state because there defiantly is some fear preventing myself from that drop off...anytime I've come close to "dropping off" I'm jerked awake....anyway, I'm hoping this is a sign of progress none the less and I'm praying for i start to make some headway and catch some real deeper sleep soon.

[Nathalie99 Partner]

That's a good sign, even shallow sleep is better than no sleep at all.

I take melatonin too, it helps me.

Hope it improves further but glad to hear that there is some progress!

[mikewashere in reply to Nathalie99]

i hope so! yeah ill take what i can get at this point..and thank! i hope there is more progress to come

[Nathalie99 Partner in reply to mikewashere]

I just remembered that I found melatonin time release which helps to stay asleep so it works slower.

I use this one. When I really can't sleep I take a bit more of the regular one.

Hope you find what helps....

[Hidden in reply to Nathalie99]

Time release is very important. Too much melatonin at once can trigger a sharper than normal rise in either adrenaline or cortisol (can't remember which). After that, all bets are off.

[Hidden]

Sleep has been an issue for me for years - sometimes I'd be tired and yet snap wide awake at 11 PM. I have had the best results with melatonin, but I had to adjust the dosage to what would work for me.

I hope you find some relief! Sleeplessness is awful!

[mikewashere in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for the insight. I definitely have to find out what will work for me and begin to tackle this issue.

[Hidden in reply to mikewashere]

It took me some juggling, both with when I took the melatonin - my sister the nurse took it just before bedtime, but I needed to take it earlier. She took a lower dose, and I found a little higher does worked best.

Honestly, it sounds like what's keeping you awake is like what I experience with flashbacks, or like feeling memories. The dreams might be very informative. I had one that pointed right to an incident with my Dad that my mind had repressed. It does sound like your mind is processing, and that's what it has been for me as well.

I got in touch with one source of my PTSD, and the sleeplessness went away for 17 years. I'm now working on another source of my PTSD, and the sleeplessness has recurred, but I do believe it will ease once my mind/body processes what happened.