Falling Asleep
 

i'm always beat, so i usually fall asleep within 3 or 4 minutes of lying down in bed. I remember lying there for a while as a kid though. I have a technique that always works for me now....I just......


meh....I'm too sleepy to write a whole big long post. wanna talk about how you fall asleep?

b.... zzz....

I remember being awake for hours as a kid staring out of the window or listening to crappy radio, but now I am sleepy most of the time, when I actually put my head on the pillow it's usually only a couple of minutes.

I concentrate on a pleasant fantasy, of which I have many. I don't mean a sexual fantasy, either, usually. Something like, picking your stable of dream cars. Right now I'm picturing an imaginary country where they have a service program for teens. Yeah, I know--sounds pretty boring, but it works for me.

I DON'T think about my problems, my day, the next day, or anything like that. That's the surest way to keep yourself up.

If I'm awake long enough to be conscious of the fact I haven't fallen asleep, I get up.

I used to stay up for hours as a kid playing with my matchbox cars in the closet. Now I fall dead asleep within minutes.. though no part of my body can be touching any other part or else I won't fall asleep. Like feet touching each other, etc. No skin to skin with myself ha. Weird I know.

on average about 5 - 10 minutes after hititn the mattress
or i just rub one out and im out too, lets be honest...

Sleeping pills mostly, trying to wean myself off them though.

I have to read or watch tv/dvd until I am sleepy, otherwise my mind goes into warp speed and I cant turn off.

As a teenager, I had trouble falling asleep. I'd lie awake worrying about stupid stuff, staring at the ceiling.

Now, I'm asleep in 10 minutes or less. I think the main reason is that I have a routine now that doesn't vary much, even on the weekends. As a teenager and even 20 something, I'd sometimes sleep past noon on the weekend. That would mess everything else up.

Ambien CR

Brain chemistry. Before I altered, I mean corrected mine, I could have insomnia all night dwelling on shit. Now I hit a wall and I'm out in 5.

I've had trouble sleeping since I was a child.
I have years of experience!

I have specific sleep fantasies. I use my mind to fool my body and brain into a state of exhaustion. This comes most easily in periods following extreme physical/ mental/ emotional exertion, or when the mind is so overloaded it shuts down in order to cope with what is to come. So that's what I mentally recreate. I didn't make my sleep fantasies up because I believe this - I believe this because I know which ones work!

In the winter, I usually picture myself in one of my favourite books - The Worst Journey in the World i.e. on Scott's fatal race to the South Pole. I am riding out a blizzard in a two man tent with hardly any supplies and it might blow for another two days. All I can do is revel in the warmth and sleep until it blows itself out. Sometimes I imagine I am homeless and have crawled into a basement only to find a furnace and a blanket - an ideal night away from cold and danger.

In the summer I have to add the physical discomfort of the heat to my usual sleeping problems. Often I will imagine I am at a loud and raucous party, I am exhausted and I have found a small room at the top of the house which has a lockable door. That way I feel comfortable with any noise that filters through my earplugs and I luxuriate in being able to sleep naked (HM has to step inside my door to see my bed and he knows better, so I can easily pretend I am in a locked room).

There are many variations - one being that I am a secret agaent on the verge of a dangerous mission and all I can do until I get confirmation is sleep. Another that I am a stowaway on a spaceship that has managed to find a mattress & duvet and may as well while away the hours by sleeping.

Meh. They sound lame when I write them, but other than tablets or getting drunk they are the best means I've had since I started developing them (albeit with different stories) as a child. I tricked myself into it then and I do now.

Sleep? Whats that - been havin issues for a long time - years. Now I'm takin trazdone, and it helps a lot, but I have to take it by 9:00 or i'll be groggy all morning too.

Listening to music or reading a book does it.

I'm usually asleep before I'm ready. I'll read, and then realize at some point that I am not actually reading like I thought I was, I am sleeping, and need to turn my light off.

Either that, or I hit the pillow and I am out in a couple of seconds flat.

I know people that stay up and worry all night like I used to. I came to the conclusion that nothing is worth getting in between me and my sleep......nothing. I know people battle with their conscience right before they go to bed. That's the good part about time management. You should learn to deal with that stuff during the day and let it go by nightfall. It's just not the time to be thinking (obssessing) about what Mary or whoever meant by that unorthodox statement about your looks or something. By then I do not care and am over it.

Since I've become a day person I'm not usually that amped at night anymore anyway. Just being up at night used to be thrilling and I didn't know why. Now it's no big deal.

does no one think of really nasty sex fantasies? coz right before the ambien kicks in, I do. (think of sex fantasies, I mean. I don't literally KICK.)

Maybe if I weren't such a bore. That sounds better than the dry books I have been reading! I'll give that a try next time.

When I was working, going to school, and driving big miles I was too stressed out / wired to sleep. Eventually I got so I could identify and acknowlege what was eating me and I could sleep after clearing my mind and meditating on the nuthin'. Now I do the same thing as a nightly ritual after reading for a few minutes.

I used to take forever to fall asleep, usually not worrying about anything specific, just thinking about nothing in particular. Also, I have always been a very very light sleeper and I'd wake up every couple of hours at least. Once I went on a medication with a side effect of putting me into a very deep sleep, and I would wake up in the morning completely disoriented and confused because the last thing I remembered was laying down and now the whole night had passed.

Then I had babies. Now I can fall asleep anytime, anywhere that I am given the precious opportunity.

so...no one thinks of nasty sex fantasies...

it's just me, is it?

Sorry, chick.
Nasty sex fantasies keep me awake. And have a lousy habit of turning into stories which involve my current problems, unless I'm actually turned on.

"Knocking one out" is a great sleep promoter. Sadly on seroxat it's not a given.

In the face of sounding incredibly stupid: what is seroxat?

Paxil/ paroxetine?
Anti depressant - has different names.

Has an effect on many users sex drive. Inc mine - it just surfaces in my dreams!

When my body goes flat for the night my brain tears loose and my imagination parties in the wonderful world of hypnagogia. No worries or list-making, it's just a time of free association and random bursts of creative silliness. I enjoy it. But sometimes I wish I could turn it off and sleep well. Just once every other month or so would be nice.

I tried it a couple times, but the thought police kept trying to arrest me. It just wasn't worth it. (Besides, my wife got tired of hearing it.)
What are you reading?

When ever I have trouble getting right to sleep, I picture a marble on a table. the marble rolls off the table. then it rolls past something. sometimes i continue to watch the marble roll along, sometimes i take the tangent. the key is to take a passive roll in a visualization. works like a charm.

Sort of like that Honda commercial?

I'm an insomniac, you insensitive clod!

Well there's a list:
Boethius, "The Consolation of Philosophy" (3rd reading, love it)
Hannah Arendt, "The Life of the Mind" (3rd reading, love it)
Steven Pressfield, "The Tides of War"
William Faulkner, "Absalom, Absalom"
Susan Sonatg, "The Volcano Lover"
Sebastian Barry, "A Long Long Way"
Matthew Pearl, "The Dante Club" (love it so far)

I am going to highlight the books I don't like so far, in red. I am disappointed in Susan Sontag's attempt at fiction because I think all of her non-fiction is so wonderful and precise, but her fiction, not so much, so far.
:D
I am having trouble reading fiction from the young male perspective and attaching any worth or value to it. So Absalom Absalom may not be great for me, but someone else might love it, like the friend that I got it from.

The point being, none of these would make me sexual fantasy prone. In fact I'm the most into the detective story, Dante Club, but there is so much talk of maggots and the disposition of the dead body that, well...sometimes I fall asleep with an image of the body as it is in the story. I had a hope with the Volcano Lover, but again, I might give up on it forever. The clipped, internal dialouge, that is supposed to set a quick pace, annoys me instead, and so far is just too stupid for me to try and read.

is this a quote from some movie? i can't imagine you calling anyone an insensitive clod.

I believe what Pie meant to say was:

I'll have you know I am very sensitive. :(

x, you sensitive clod! is a Slashdot meme.

is it 'insensitive' or 'sensitive'?

insensitive, i blew it

Well, I can't sleep while I :corn:, so I don't :corn:. It's pretty easy for me to conk out lying in bed reading. It varies -- either a "time to turn the light off now" or more slowly, discovering that I'm seriously not taking in the paragraph I just read two or three times. Okay, that's it for tonight.

When King Alfred (the Great), with the aid of Asser, launched his programme to return learning to England and promote vernacular writing, one of the texts chosen to be translated into anglo-saxon was The Consolation of Philosophy. The preface is thought to have been written by Alfred himself (no way to know for certain). The text has been altered and bits of it rewritten to iron out the paganism....but what a wonderful book to choose. All that time creating what was effectively a resistance force, then fighting to establish himself as king, holed up in his marshland fort, in a country overrun with viking forces. What book did he read during those long candle lit evenings? The Consolation of Philosophy.

It's the complete lack of consulation that is troublesome.
:D

No noise. Light doesn't bother me. If there is noise I need a fan or the a/c on to mask it.

I start on my right side, legs curled up. I then must turn over and bake on the other side. Then I turn over on my stomach with one leg jutted out and bent, my head turned in that direction. Then I pull that leg back and repeat in the other direction. Then I slobber for a while.

It's all about symmetry.

I wish I could work out how to get this webcam to record continuously. Or get the motion censor webcam to work.

I'd love to see (and hear) exactly how restless my sleep is. And also hear myself snore! I know it's only occasional, but I'd like to compare it to other snores I've known!

It would be gratifying to have to fast forward through 8 completely motionless hours. Although realistically it could only be about 5, as Diz comes to greet me with playful claws and nose-biting some time after dawn.

Reading a tw or a Radar works for me if it's a no beer night..... but only if it's way past bedtime -otherwise there is a danger of "the second wind".....

the second wind: A giant blast of ass gass that you release after making sure there is not much flavor with a tester. Switching to a high fiber diet should be done gradually. At least your pants fit better after.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pie (Post 456901) I became an insomniac on 9/11, you insensitive clod!

Wow, it's like you read my mind!
(I am an insomniac; I've been know to ask people to hit me on the head with a baseball bat to put me out of my misery. So far, no one has taken me up on it.) :headshake

i've been up since 2 pm and now its 713 am the next day
all these methods don't work!

Insomnia sucks. I get occassional bouts of it. Usually a few weeks at a time.

I also occassionally get sleep apnia (if my asthma's playing up) or something very like it. Waking up to force a breath is a shitty scary way to wake I tells ya.

@Dana. People do research on sleep apnia and try and treat it for free. You should look that up Dana, it isn't the most safe condition to be living with. I was surprised to find that a local hospital in my area had a ward for sleep disorders, and that was a specific thing they were studying and treating. I was surprised because I was in a provincial town and a treatment center was about 3 blocks away in the hospital.