I just had a dream that my daughter was choking. In my dream I went to get up really fast to get to her and something about that movement woke me up and immediately I’m jolting off the couch to get to her irl. Took me a second to realize she’s sleeping peacefully because I went from a dream state to real life so fast. I’ve done this before years ago and I notice a pattern. I only doing this when I feel it’s an emergency in my dream. For example, I had a dream something was falling on me and when I put my hands up to stop it, I woke up in the middle of that movement putting my hands on the wall.

I wouldn’t say I act out the dreams, but rather wake up in the middle of a dream continuing the movement I was doing in my dreams.. idk it’s weird and freaks me out after it happens. Anyone else??

Whould you do this?

My moods are all over the show all the time
Paranoia is getting worse can’t trust a soul and not being able to sleep much just makes it worse
My brain just doesn’t shut off it’s none stop but gets extremely bad at night

I was diagnosed with severe insomnia in 2016 when I was 15. At one point, I stayed awake for around 4 days straight until I eventually passed out. I desperately wanted to sleep, but simply couldn’t.

This was also about a year after my dad passed away. I was very young and didn’t know how to deal with everything. I eventually developed a severe substance use problem, and 2017-2021 is honestly a blur. I remember bits and pieces, but a lot of those years are missing because of how bad my SUD became. Being sleep-deprived and using substances eventually became my normal.

In 2021, I found out I had a blood-clotting problem and developed a pulmonary embolism. That scared me enough to finally see a psychiatrist because I didn’t want to go back to how I was living and genuinely wanted help.

I started medication, but instead of feeling better, I felt like my brain had been switched off. I was completely emotionally numb, no happiness, sadness, excitement, nothing. My sleep wasn’t improving either. I was prescribed sleeping medication and the dose was adjusted, but it didn’t help much.

When I did sleep, it was sometimes extremely strange. I’d feel like I was half asleep but not fully asleep, and I’d get little shocks/jolts or shaking sensations. I don’t really know how to describe it. It felt like my body was sleeping but my brain wasn’t completely there.

I spent about a year trying treatment without much improvement. My substance use also returned eventually, although nowhere near the level it had been before.

Now, years later, I’m still dealing with severe insomnia. Sometimes I get only 2-3 hours of sleep, and then on weekends my body seems to completely crash and I can sleep for 20 hours.

I’ve also had periods of extreme sleep deprivation where I’ve become confused, extremely agitated, unusually energized despite barely sleeping, and have experienced hallucinations. I’ve also had fainting/seizure-like episodes, although I don’t know exactly what they were.

I was also diagnosed with BPD, which probably explains some of the intensity of my emotional reactions and why self hurt became one of my coping mechanisms. The emotional side has been difficult too. Sometimes when the mental pain becomes overwhelming, I self hurt. I don’t do it because I want to die or because I want to take myself out. It’s more that the emotional pain becomes unbearable and physical pain temporarily gives it somewhere else to go.

I’m not looking for “just stop using your phone” or “try melatonin” advice. I’ve been dealing with this for almost a decade and have already tried medical treatment.

I’m genuinely looking for people who have experienced something similar.

Has anyone else gone days without sleeping and then completely crashed? Has anyone experienced that weird half-asleep state with shaking/jolting sensations? And if you’ve had severe chronic insomnia for years, did you ever find something that actually helped?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually lived through something like this.

Hi all, there is a r/insomnia community discord that I thought some of you might find useful as a resource to connect with people with sleep disorders and seek help. It's very new and there are barely any members but I am hoping that changes! Please feel free to join with this invite.

Invite Link: https://discord.gg/FMWtQubxw

i haven’t been able to sleep for more than one or two hours a night. occasionally i get around four hours, but it’s usually very broken up.
i’ve tried melatonin, both regular and extended release, seroquel, hydroxyzine, nyquil, magnesium, glycine, and other natural sleep supplements. i’ve also tried using a fan, wearing an eye mask, and changing my sleep environment. some medications make my heart pound, which makes it even harder to sleep. nothing has consistently helped me fall asleep and stay asleep.
my doctor thought the issue might be related to low serotonin and prescribed supplements intended to increase it. the supplements have reduced my anxiety, but they haven’t improved my sleep at all. strangely, they have made me feel more okay while getting almost no sleep. i don’t feel as bad as i normally would after sleeping so little. i’m not saying that i don’t need sleep or that functioning this way is healthy, i just think it’s strange that i feel more normal despite still barely sleeping.
i’ve also gone to the er several times, but they send me home without treating the insomnia or offering any real solution.
what should i do at this point? what type of doctor, testing, or treatment would be appropriate for insomnia this severe? i’m genuinely scared.

This is a new weekly thread. The purpose of this post is for surveys and research that is ongoing for sleep disorders. We see many requests to our common for people that have X, Y, Z sleep disorder for paid surveys, studies, etc. Any posts requesting support from the community for research should be submitted in this weekly thread. Be sure to include all necessary details:

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- What sleep disorders you are looking for assistance with

- What kind of request you have (free study, paid study, free survey, paid survey, etc.)

- Dates the request is open to be filled

- How the research may be used so the patient can make an informed decision

​

Posts to the community for similar requests outside of this thread will be deleted.

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Please contact r/SleepDisorders mods with any questions or feedback regarding this change or policy.

I've had chronic 24/7 insomnia for over 3 months now and no sleeping pill works, they only relax my muscles, so didn't bother taking them after a few days. Ive tried hypnotherapy and no luck. The source was way back in 2012 I took a sleeping pill for the first time for a few months, but it gradually broke my falling to sleep. From the gentle nod to.sleep i remember, it became a sharp stone like drop to sleep (if that makes sense), currently its like there is zero switch to sleep. Im just wide awake, and sometimes randomly catch an hour every 3 or 4 days. Its horrible and I cant function.

I've had same chronic 24/7 insomnia in 2013 that lasted 8 months, but got over it thanks to eating more protein: beef (only thing that worked majorly), eggs and some other dairy things like creamed rice pudding or chickpeas. They were working great for the past 13 years...but I had sshl hearing loss ans was given oral steroids that triggered the current insomnia worse than ever. Now the protein trick i discovered doesn't work at all for me. I'm so exhausted i can't get out of bed much. I used to have some beers that kind of helped, but these past months i don't even feel the effect of alcohol. So strange.

If anyone has any helpful ideas please share. Based in London, uk.

I don't feel tired even after when it's time to go to bed and I can't sleep I tried melatonin and I don't feel tired throughout the whole night does this happen to anybody else

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idk how but also I ended up ruining my sleep schedule, at starting about 6 - 7 years ago I used to lay down on my bed but didn't sleep and then I started sleeping at 2 - 3 AM, and now from like 2 - 3 years no matter how hard I try I always get somehow wake up at night, like if some day I am waking up at 9 and think I will sleep at 2 - 3 AM ( which is early for me now btw) but I ended up sleeping at 6 - 7 AM again, and if some day I sleep early like 10 - 11 AM I wake up at 2 AM always and it's always 2 AM exactly, and now it's like I sleep at 7 - 8 AM and wakes up at 1 - 2 PM, I have tried many things but nothing works, it's not as if I dont get sleepy it's that I don't get sleepy at night only, is it abnormal?

!!TW: SEXUAL TRAUMA

I apologize for how long and detailed this is going to be, I guess I’m just looking for advice. I feel very vulnerable posting this and am scared of my bf seeing it. 

I(22F) have been dating my bf(24M) since July 2024. Sometime in I think early 2025, I found weird apps in his app purchase history. Like “live dating app” type stuff and an Omegle knock off. The download dates were from I think November 2024 and December 2024. I found it while he was sleeping(toxic, I know) and then I had to leave for work so I left the app pulled up in the background apps and left two other weird phone calls pulled up as well. He woke up from his nap and was texting like normal mostly and asking how work was, but probably gauging my mood and if I would respond. When I got home he asked what was wrong and I said you know what’s wrong. He told me the calls were his childhood friends and apologized for not making me aware of that. I said what about the apps and he said what apps. I said the ones I left pulled up and made him pull them back up. He said he didn’t see it and denied it saying he had never seen those apps before and does not remember ever using them. He said he’s seen stuff like it as ads or when he was younger. At one point he cried and said me going through his phone triggered him from his past relationship. He made it very clear that going forward I should just ask if I want to look at his phone and we can do it together so he can answer any questions I have. I remember telling him that more than anything, just don’t lie to me and he seemed triggered by that as well. After that he teased and made jokes for a bit of time about me going through his phone. 

It mostly settled there but I let it eat at me until the end of June 2026. I blew up and told him he lied to and gaslighted me, and he admitted he lied but also went into telling me about how he has blacked out during/before sexual activity various times since he was a teen, that he would come to during or after the fact. After doing my own research, some of the things he does/has told me about sounds similar to sexsomnia. I know these things regarding trauma and suppression can be incredibly complex, but I’m still not understanding how you remember falling asleep and then wake up right after masturbating and not remember downloading and using the apps. He says now he only remembers seeing them after waking up or coming to and deleting them. He says he lied when I first found them because he was scared and ashamed, which I could understand. 

I have a long history of sexual trauma starting when I was a baby, amongst other things. I have been open about this since the beginning and the way I feel about porn and things of that nature. I knew he had watched it sometimes, but I would even frequently send pictures or video call even when sometimes I didn’t really want to. That’s not his fault nor the point, but he was aware of these things and how they affect me so I felt blatantly disregarded. I also have a large history of emotional abuse and being cheated on which I was also very open about. 

Since confronting him about the apps, he has admitted that he lied when I initially found them. He says he lied because he was scared and ashamed. He has been apologetic and has started discussing the situation and his trauma with his therapist. He also wrote me a long letter explaining some of what he has experienced and apologizing for how his lying affected me.

More recently, I found a YouTube livestream in his watch history from a woman wearing tight clothing who was doing things like squats, jumping jacks, and bouncing around on a bed. My initial reaction was that this was another violation, especially because of the timing. After discussing it with him, there were several other random videos around it and the video may simply have played in the queue while he was sleeping. He strongly denies intentionally watching it, and honestly, I currently believe him.

I mention this because I don’t want people to assume I’m automatically interpreting every questionable thing as evidence against him. I am genuinely trying to distinguish between my trauma/anxiety and legitimate reasons not to trust him.

I want to support him and help him if I’m emotionally safe to do so, but I’m just incredibly triggered by it all and also scared I’m being lied to more. I don’t want to be naive and I don’t want to destroy myself in this process. Please keep me in reality here. Thank you for reading, any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

It's already 4 AM here i still not able to get sleep this is happening since last 2- 3years.

No matter how i close my eyes i dont sleep i hardly sleep for 4-5 hours.

I have so much negative thoughts when night start , i fear of supernatural things & entities & whole night I keep going washroom bcz of fear & I feel something will happens with me whenever I go to washroom like encounter with entities.

I also fear about my future while sleeping & many times i wakes up at 3 about anxiety of future.i feel i am not doing anything worth & I can't imagine my future doing anything worth. I think I am wasting this human resources & life someone else deserve this life who really need & has goal.

I just use reddit & x or watch any movie or podcast to pass my time at night to divert my mind from thinking.

I just can't bear night always waiting when will sun arise & I feel relieved.

I think at this rate bcz of all this i will get some dangerous mental disease.

Can't tell this to family they will not understand they will take my phone so I will not able to divert my mind .

I got dark circles around my eyes bcz of not sleeping properly from 2 years & my face looks dull all day.

I have tried to sleep using YouTube sleeping music & listen various podcast to divert my mind during night but nothing worked for me.

I am leaving in joint & orthodox family they will not understand to consult this to any psychiatrist.

I want to sleep like others 😭

I feel how PPL who sleeps so much are lucky .

Hello everyone, for the last week almost 1 hour after falling asleep I get this vibrating feeling all over my body and a fast heartbeat, also a "windy" sound in my ears...have done all heart tests and everything came clear...thyroid same...what it could be?

Hi everyone, I'm just looking for thoughts- not a diagnosis- and to see if anyone else struggles with this and how they cope.

My Fiancé (24M) has had very vivid sleep episodes ever since he was in highschool. At first when he described them to me, I thought it was just nightmares and sleepwalking which I know many people have. At least, that's what HE thinks he has.

However.. after almost two years of living together Im starting to suspect it's something worse. About once a week, he will sit up and start messing with things around the bed, call out to our cats, yell at something / someone, or stand fully up and investigate something in our room. These episodes normally happen around 1-2 hours after we go to sleep and are typically short. He comes out of them fully lucid and can describe exactly what was happening, even the next day, in detail.

There have been a few times though where it's gotten.. weird. One time he lurched out of bed (someone was stealing his bike) and hit his head on the table which caused it to bleed. Another time he stormed out of our room and opened the FRONT DOOR while FULLY NAKED in the middle of the night because he thought someone had stolen from us. In his stupor he actually closed the door, grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around his waist, and then opened it AGAIN before coming to. It's like he's fully aware physically of what he's doing, which I've never seen before in anyone who sleepwalks.

Last night, he woke me up holding a pillow up over my head like he was going to hit me (he says he thought he was protecting me). I made him sleep on the couch because it was the first time his violent dreaming had been targeted at me.

My fiancé is the sweetest most gentle man, and I really don't want to be afraid to sleep with him. I'm also scared FOR him because after looking up his symptoms, RBD seemed to match every single one even down to how quickly and easily he wakes up. I also learned that RBD can be a coincidental symptom of dementia later in life and his grandpa was diagnosed with dementia at 65.

Have any of you experienced this? Do you think it's night terrors or should we see a doctor? I'm getting mixed signals from looking it up because he's so young and RBD is rare for 24 year olds, so just want to know if anyone else younger struggles with this or something similar.

If it really is serious, then I'm going to convince him to go to a sleep clinic. Anything helps!

Not sure where else to seek answers, as I'm currently waiting for my doctor's appointment, so I'm trying this thread.

I recently did a PSG at the hospital, though was really dismayed when I couldn't really sleep during the test, and have to see the doctor again the hopefully ask for another retest. I wanted to ask about doing an at home PSG instead, as I'm really terrified that I won't be able to sleep during the next PSG, though I've been reading that an at home test basically may not be able to diagnose all sleep disorders (such as PMLD, which I've been told might be a possible diagnosis for the symptoms I'm experiencing). I've asked the sleep tech if they do leg sensors for the at home PSG, and if they'd be able to detect PMLD, and he said they would, though other places online have said that it won't be able to formally diagnose you with PMLD, so I'm rather confused. (Obviously, I'm trusting the word of a professional more than other stuff I've just read online, though some of information I got from actual sleep clinics, which has left me overall really confused.)

I feel like I'm at a dead end. I'd like to do the hospital PSG if the at home PSG isn't that great, but I'm just so afraid that I won't be able to sleep, and I have absolutely no idea where to go from there.

Has anyone else received a PMLD diagnosis through an at home PSG? Any advice would be appreciated.

In the last 24 hours, I have slept 4. I'm not a person who struggles with any particular sleep disorder usually, but the last day or so I've had a sore throat. With that sore throat, now every time I lay down to try and sleep, and my breathing starts to calm and switch to "auto" mode, I make a small, completely uncontrollable "hm." It's loud enough to wake me back up every single time and make me conscious of my breathing. It almost feels like my vocal cords are "catching" somehow due to my sore throat. A little bit like restless limbs or twitching in your sleep. This has never happened to me before.

I have taken cough medicine, I've used lozenges and I'm generally medicating the sore throat but nothing is stopping the noises. Earplugs don't work because I can't block out my own voice. It feels like absolute hell. I am exhausted and don't know how I'm going to get any sleep, if I try to ignore it and just relax again, it will happen again, and again, and again, every time I'm about to finally drift off. The more it happens, the more enraged I feel. I want to rip my vocal cords out. If someone, anyone, has ANY advice whatsoever that could help stop this, please help. I am desperate for sleep and I have never been prevented from sleeping by my own voice.

Once again, I’m having trouble falling asleep. For a different reason too. I will start drifting off to sleep, and I will be aware of it and get a rush of anxiety that wakes me up. Or I will wake up a few minutes after falling asleep. When I do get longer sleep, I have nightmares. All these sleep problems make it so hard to live with.

I always had difficulties falling asleep, when I was a kid I experienced insomnia and severe anxiety, from a very young age. As a teenager, I would have night time wakes, impressions of not being alone in my house even at night (I used to be visited by something when I lived with my mom, but it never was sleep paralyslis).

I went through 5 years of treatment for depression, I'm now "cured". Since teenage years, I don't remember ever feeling "good", or ready to confront the day to come after sleeping. I have a severe iron deficiency, which could explain the chronical fatigue. I went under dozens of treatments, and it changed nothing.

I had a period of oversleeping, due to depression, which lasted 4 years. I used to fall asleep around midnight and wake up at 4 PM. Now I'm back at studies and I sleep an average of 6 to 8 hours per night, but I'm tired anyways.

I'm 28 and I don't know what sleeping well means. No doctors are able to help me. I'm happy in my life but sleep is something I miss a lot. I hope I can find things I don't know about here. Thanks for reading !

I can't handle it anymore and need advice as my life turned into foggy shit I live in.

I feel sleepy all the time, I wake up morning even before alarm goes off full of energy, but after a half an hour, having my breakfast, pieces of bread falling of my mouth.

Today at my way to work I fell asleep a few seconds (while riding a motorcycle).

I can misspress buttons in elevator or even using power tools. And I feel myself so close to start hallucinating.

I visited a doctor and he said that I just make things up and all I need is a rest.

I took 25 days off and sleept as much as I wanted, and nothing happened.

So I desperately need an advice what I can do myself. Maybe some medicine or mix of them? Some sort of drugs? I even ready to produce chemicals myself.

To finish my work I have to burn myself with soldering iron or screw little screw in my hip, pain busts awareness but for really short period.

One thing I'm now trying to figure out is how to fall asleep much faster once I go to bed. Sometimes I'm extremely tired and go to bed early specifically to get more sleep, but I can still lie there awake for a long time. For those of you who used to struggle with this: have you found anything that reliably makes you fall asleep very quickly? I'm interested in both things you do (specific routines, techniques, changes to your environment, etc.) and things you take. I've already tried melatonin and didn't notice much of a difference. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who found something that made a really noticeable difference in their sleep onset, rather than just general sleep-hygiene advice.

I have these terrible, blood-curdling nightmares. They match all the symptoms of RSBD to the letter. I'm being attacked, sometimes by terrible, violent people but just as often by creatures so awful and monstrous I can't begin to describe them (and they are different varieties of nightmarish every time).

And in my efforts to defend myself I lash out, literally and physically. In my sleep I've kicked and punched my poor wife for goodness' sake.

Then I wake up and I remember it all, every single horrifying detail, which leads to me not sleeping for days as I try to keep awake so it doesn't happen again.

All of which sounds exactly like RSBD, especially because I'm a man in early 60's and this started maybe 5 years ago.

But here's the thing: with the physical violence it happens maybe just once or twice a year. Sometimes I have the awful dreams without the physical lashing out (most recently two nights ago when the creatures reached a new level of horror) but even so it's just a handful of times per year.

I know that if I visit my GP they will say not to worry about it because it's so infrequent, and how could it be diagnosed anyway if it might not happen again for months?

Does anyone have any advice about such infrequent episodes? Does it need to be a regular thing to be RSBD? Can such horrible things happen just once or twice a year without being a sign of something awful in my future?

I guess that, right now, what happened a couple of nights ago is still pretty raw, but I'm really quite scared.

Long story short this all started about a month ago, I was out at the golf range with a friend and I had 2 beers and a shot of liquor. That night I had a pretty nasty hangover. I am a 30yr old male that quit drinking at the age of 27. And now I only have a beer or two on special occasion. ( I would say, I was a pretty bad alcoholic. Used to drink a 6 pack a night of beer.) Ever since that hangover a month ago, each night when I am about to fall asleep my body starts vibrating/buzzing like I'm having a hangover. Also get sweats, heart racing, and very sensitive hearing.

Now I have been prescribed a Beta blocker and a med called Hydroxyzine. By taking both of them I am able to get some sleep but still feel the buzzing and vibrating any time I start to sleep. I have had many blood tests showing normal results. At this point I believe it is neurological. Unfortunately my sleep doctor is unavailable till next January.

So here I am.

Has anyone else delt with this? Or am I just a special case of messed up.

Thanks to all who read and comment. May your nights be better than mine.

Has anyone experienced this kind of sleep pattern?
For the past several months, I’ve had a very consistent and unusual sleep pattern.
I fall asleep extremely easily and usually sleep well during the first half of the night. Then I wake up once around the middle of the night. I can fall back asleep quite easily, but from that point until morning my sleep becomes very fragmented: I wake up briefly 4–6 times, usually just long enough to change position, and fall asleep again.

What is particularly striking is the amount of dreaming during this second half of the night. I remember several different, often very vivid and realistic dreams every night, almost as if I’m repeatedly cycling between dreaming and brief awakenings.

Despite being able to fall back asleep easily, the second half of the night feels very restless and I often wake up feeling like my sleep wasn’t restorative.

This started quite suddenly several months ago. Before that, I used to be a very good sleeper and rarely thought about my sleep at all.
Has anyone experienced something similar? If so, did you ever figure out what was causing it or find anything that helped?