[HN Gopher] Some people with insomnia think they're awake when t...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Some people with insomnia think they're awake when they're asleep
        
       Author : sabrina_ramonov
       Score  : 201 points
       Date   : 2024-06-11 14:32 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
        
       | cut3 wrote:
       | The article is blocked unless I pay so I can't read it.
        
         | JohnMakin wrote:
         | https://archive.is/cs1fW
        
         | Luc wrote:
         | Prepend the URL with archive.is/
         | 
         | Curiously, it's free for me in France, even in an private
         | window.
        
         | sabrina_ramonov wrote:
         | my bad, I was able to access it for free without paying so
         | didn't realize
        
       | MarkusWandel wrote:
       | Great, just great. I went relatively low-tech and outfitted the
       | mattress I sleep on with an Angel Care sensor pad, connected to
       | some custom homemade datalogging stuff. This is to convince me
       | that what felt like a restless night actually did have
       | significant sleep spells. So I'm just imagining feeling tired and
       | having been awake most of the night, right? Have some coffee and
       | get on with things. And now they're saying that sleep was, in
       | fact, no good?
       | 
       | "Significant sleep spells" - sometimes the data, sampled in
       | 1-minute binning intervals, is a flat line - no difference,
       | minute-to-minute, in motion (however significantly above baseline
       | of an unoccupied mattress - I guess that's what the angel care
       | sensors monitor - just the motion energy of breathing. Other
       | times the data is really, really noisy. Is that different sleep
       | or just different body position? Never figured it out. But
       | "awake" is clearly visible - that's noise that never goes down to
       | the "just breathing" baseline at all.
        
         | throwway120385 wrote:
         | If its based on heart rate and breath rate you could probably
         | do that sonically or ultrasonically. If it's using ultrasound,
         | it's probable that it's just because of your sleeping position.
         | The maternal/infant monitors that the hospital my wife gave
         | birth in used were very sensitive to positioning to the degree
         | that they would stop measuring my son's heartbeat whenever she
         | changed positions whereupon the nurse would come in and
         | reposition the sensor.
        
       | l33tman wrote:
       | "The researchers exposed people to a distressing emotional
       | experience for three days in a row: they had to listen to a
       | recording of themselves singing--often out of tune--to karaoke,
       | which aroused shame." Heh.. The researchers have been pretty
       | creative :)
       | 
       | But yeah, I've experienced the same thing, you think you haven't
       | slept a second during the night but you probably have
        
       | kunalgupta wrote:
       | yeah i have this. didnt officially verify but i noticed that
       | theres a direct correlation between hours i am in bed and how
       | rested i feel, even if i feel like i spent the time awake. So i
       | stopped specifically worrying about whether i'm asleep or awake
       | and instead focus on enjoying the break
        
         | xkcd-sucks wrote:
         | In consideration of the placebo effect and sleep architecture,
         | I have started trying to think of deep half-awake time as
         | "stage zero sleep"
        
       | EPWN3D wrote:
       | I've definitely experienced this. It used to happen weekly. My
       | wife would often "wake me up" and say I was snoring, but to me, I
       | was still lying awake trying to fall asleep. It was incredibly
       | confusing, but I just trusted that she wasn't making things up.
       | 
       | I've begun taking a small amount of CBD in the form of an edible
       | a few hours before going to bed (a quarter of a 5 mg gummy), and
       | I have minimal sleep issues now.
        
         | xcskier56 wrote:
         | I have this EXACT same experience with my GF but on the other
         | side of things. She'll be snoring so I'll poke her and she'll
         | say she was awake... but was definitely snoring asleep
        
           | wil421 wrote:
           | Don't try to prove she's snoring by showing her evidence of
           | the snoring. Let me make that mistake for you.
        
             | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
             | > Don't try to prove she's snoring by showing her evidence
             | of the snoring.
             | 
             | For my spouse I highlighted the cracked windows and the
             | house shifted on it's foundation. I tried using circles
             | under everyone's eyes but she insisted those were from food
             | allergies.
        
               | doubled112 wrote:
               | This is all circumstantial at best!
        
         | ramesh31 wrote:
         | >I've begun taking a small amount of CBD in the form of an
         | edible a few hours before going to bed (a quarter of a 5 mg
         | gummy), and I have minimal sleep issues now.
         | 
         | A 1.25mg dose of CBD is essentially homeopathic levels. Either
         | you're confused on the dosage or experiencing a placebo effect.
        
           | wafflemaker wrote:
           | Active doses vary wildly between people. And spectrum folks
           | (which 30% of hners are) tend to need less of most drugs.
        
             | newzisforsukas wrote:
             | > (which 30% of hners are)
             | 
             | Where is this number from?
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Behind the pelvis
        
               | wil421 wrote:
               | >need less of most drugs.
               | 
               | This one too.
        
               | wafflemaker wrote:
               | Sorry, got that from one of Thomas D. Brown's books on
               | ADHD. Thought it's a common knowledge, but I struggle to
               | find anything on it on the internet. Source should be in
               | the book tho. Drop me a message at ntgiem2q0rc@opayq.com
               | and I'll reply when\if I find it. Can't ATM.
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | Thomas D. Brown did a study on HN users and published his
               | findings in a book?
        
               | monadINtop wrote:
               | it was revealed in a vision
        
           | itishappy wrote:
           | Edit: This was a garbage-tier comment. Leaving it up with
           | edits because I think the links are interesting.
           | 
           | 1/4 "serving size" (if you will) isn't homeopathic, ~~and
           | aligns pretty closely with the recommended dose of the only
           | FDA approved CBD medication~~ (see edit below):
           | 
           | > Increase in weekly increments of 5 mg/kg/day (2.5 mg/kg
           | twice daily).
           | 
           | Edit: _I 'm dumb and mixing mg and mg/kg._ This would be
           | 400mg/day for an average adult. Still not homeopathic.
           | 
           | https://www.epidiolexhcp.com/dosing/dosing-and-
           | administratio...
           | 
           | Though the ~~recommended dose~~ (again, see edit below) for
           | various activities does vary wildly:
           | 
           | > post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): 1.5 mg
           | 
           | > difficulty sleeping: 300 mg
           | 
           | Edit: Turns out that's just the dosage that was administered
           | during one of the studies, not necessarily the recommended
           | treatment dosage.
           | 
           | > Despite these early findings and data from two case reports
           | in which CBD improved sleep quality in a single pediatric
           | patient with PTSD and four patients with Parkinson's disease,
           | we identified only one randomized, double-blind, placebo-
           | controlled, study with sleep as the primary outcome measure.
           | In this trial, 27 healthy volunteers received either oral CBD
           | (300 mg dissolved in corn oil) or placebo. CBD did not alter
           | any sleep measures (e.g., self-rated sleep quality or
           | polysomnography examinations) relative to placebo.
           | 
           | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880228/
           | 
           | We really need better studies of this stuff...
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | Are you mixing mg/kg with straight mg? You know the average
             | patient weighs substantially more than 1kg, right?
        
               | itishappy wrote:
               | Yes. Damnit. Edited.
        
             | ryaneager wrote:
             | No, it doesn't. That says 5 mg per kilogram of bodyweight
             | per day. He's having 1.25 mg total per day.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > A 1.25mg dose of CBD is essentially homeopathic levels.
           | 
           | Homeopathic levels are a vanishingly small chance of their
           | being a single molecule of the notional ingredient in a dose.
           | 1.25mg is not even remotely "essentially homeopathic".
        
             | kjkjadksj wrote:
             | If you felt anything from so little I'd certainly call it
             | placebo
        
           | swatcoder wrote:
           | > experiencing a placebo effect
           | 
           | And if that effect were satisfactory, as it sounds, why would
           | that matter?
           | 
           | Would you even know if it was a psychogenic remedy to what
           | was probably a psychogenic malady in the first place, rather
           | than a peculiar, individual sensitivity that just hasn't been
           | identified in the sparse research on CBD? (You would not)
        
         | digging wrote:
         | This happens to both me and my partner, more often with me
         | though. I've literally been (from my perspective) lying there
         | awake when they say "you're snoring" and been able to
         | immediately respond "no I'm not" - which obviously makes no
         | sense.
         | 
         | I don't think either of us have insomnia. Both of us do have
         | other mostly-managed health issues that occasionally cause us
         | to stay up with racing thoughts, but the two phenomena aren't
         | really associated with each other. (Also, I think it happens to
         | my partner more because they use unfiltered screens late at
         | night. If I accidentally use a device without blue light
         | filtering it's much more likely for me to be unable to fall
         | asleep. So not "real" insomnia.)
        
         | werheisng wrote:
         | have you gotten checked for sleep apnea? Your situation sounds
         | similar to mine (except I never tried CBD). Getting treated for
         | sleep apnea was a game changer for me
        
           | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
           | > Getting treated for sleep apnea was a game changer for me
           | 
           | I'd like to but that much money doesn't live in my pocket.
           | It's on the list of stuff I hope for >62.
        
             | snapcaster wrote:
             | Hey man, obviously easy for me to say but really worth
             | trying to at least figure out some way to check for this
             | and get treated. It will literally kill you. Good luck
        
               | WarOnPrivacy wrote:
               | A major hurdle is the devices are typically DRM locked to
               | manufacturers and a Rx is required before any programming
               | can happen.
        
               | averageRoyalty wrote:
               | Not sure where in the world you are, but any country with
               | public healthcare (most of the first world) you can do a
               | sleep study free or low copayment. A basic CPAP you can
               | usually rent, and you can switch off call home functions
               | on all the ones I've seen.
        
             | fxtentacle wrote:
             | For hiking, you can buy a pulse oximeter for $200. Some of
             | them can record up to 24 hours and then later you can
             | review your "hike" on the PC to see if your blood oxygen
             | ever went down significantly.
        
         | newzisforsukas wrote:
         | Is there melatonin in the CBD gummy? That sounds like a very
         | low dose. It is common for cannabinoids to be marketed for
         | sleep with melatonin in them.
        
           | BossingAround wrote:
           | Melatonin won't improve the quality of your sleep. It might
           | induce sleep if your body doesn't naturally produce
           | melatonin, e.g. due to going to bed at very different times
           | throughout prolonged periods. But, outside of that, melatonin
           | isn't very useful as a sleep quality enhancer.
           | 
           | Similar to CBD, IIRC, one would have to take very large
           | amounts of CBD to produce any statistically significant
           | effect on one's sleep, and CBD gummies are not the most
           | bioavailable CBD there is.
           | 
           | My guess is it's placebo rather than anything else.
        
             | scotty79 wrote:
             | Or there's a spectrum of reactions to CBD as with
             | everything and this guy just got lucky.
        
         | NoboruWataya wrote:
         | The snoring thing has definitely happened to me, though I
         | wouldn't say I have insomnia (I can find it difficult to get to
         | sleep but that's probably just too much coffee and screen
         | time). It's so weird because I can't hear the snoring at all.
        
         | samatman wrote:
         | In terms of cheap things to try, I'd like to recommend trying a
         | nasal stent. I don't snore because I side sleep, but do if I'm
         | on my back, and I suspected some minor apnea was taking place
         | regardless of position. The stent has noticeably improved my
         | sleep quality.
         | 
         | If it doesn't help, you're out twenty bucks, if it does it
         | could literally add years to your life.
        
           | throwanem wrote:
           | Can you recommend an example product? Everything I find in a
           | search for "nasal stent" appears to require surgical
           | placement.
        
             | thephyber wrote:
             | I bought something similar that was marketed like this:
             | 
             | > "Rhinomed Mute" Snore Stopper Nasal Dilator for Snore
             | Reduction
        
               | samatman wrote:
               | This happens to be the exact one I tried. I'll probably
               | try others in case there's one which happens to work
               | better or be more comfortable (irritation of the nostrils
               | at first was a real factor, took about a week to adjust),
               | but with a hydrogen peroxide bath every few days they can
               | last an arbitrarily long amount of time, so I haven't
               | felt the need.
        
           | QuercusMax wrote:
           | I've had good results with a nasal strip (like BreatheRight)
           | plus an anti-snoring appliance (like zQuiet). I had a
           | dentist-provided appliance that cost me $1000 out of pocket
           | and broke in less than a year (when I had moved out of
           | state); the zQuiet + nasal strip helps just as much and is an
           | order of magnitude cheaper.
        
           | lazyeye wrote:
           | Also worth getting a good quality air purifier for your
           | bedroom. This definitely improved my breathing and sleep.
        
         | op00to wrote:
         | This literally happened to me the other night. I was sitting in
         | my lay-z-boy and my wife was resting in the bed nearby. I
         | realized about an hour later that I had been asleep. I was 100%
         | sure I was awake and watching the show, and vividly remember
         | watching the show, but nope, I was asleep. Weeeeeird.
        
           | pillefitz wrote:
           | Do you remember any of the show's content?
        
             | op00to wrote:
             | Only about 20%. We rewatched it the following night. I
             | could have sworn I was awake, but obviously not!
        
         | gwbas1c wrote:
         | > My wife would often "wake me up" and say I was snoring, but
         | to me, I was still lying awake trying to fall asleep.
         | 
         | Have you ever been evaluated for sleep apnea? That's how it
         | used to feel to me: I would feel like it took me 45-minutes to
         | an hour to fall asleep.
         | 
         | Once I started using a CPAP, I fell asleep almost instantly.
        
         | j0hnyl wrote:
         | I'm very skeptical that 1.25mg of CBD alone could have any
         | impact on sleep outside of placebo.
        
           | RamRodification wrote:
           | Don't ruin their placebo by telling them!
        
             | reverius42 wrote:
             | One of the cool things about placebo effect is that it can
             | work even if you know it's a placebo!
        
           | flippyhead wrote:
           | I'm not; this also works for me better than anything else
           | I've tried.
        
           | Workaccount2 wrote:
           | At least for me and for some others I have met, we have an
           | immense sensitivity to cannabinoids. I will actually get a
           | decent buzz from CBD gummies that most people feel absolutely
           | nothing from, even if they eat the whole bag. I cannot smoke
           | any THC flower because it's all way to strong, and the only
           | way I can consume THC is cutting up gummies into small
           | pieces.
        
       | gmiller123456 wrote:
       | I actually often have dreams that I'm lying awake in bed.
       | Sometimes I wake up and am in a different position, which is the
       | only way I know it was a dream. I imagine there's a lot of times
       | I think I really was lying awake when I was really sleeping.
        
       | VyseofArcadia wrote:
       | Anecdata: I have observed that my migraines come in cycles with
       | the subjective experience of not having slept. I know I've slept,
       | because I have long stretches of unconsciousness as confirmed by
       | the clock on my nightstand. But I don't _feel_ like I 've slept.
       | Then I'll have a migraine and a few nights of really great
       | (subjectively) sleep before the cycle starts over again.
       | 
       | It's like there's something building up in my brain that's
       | blocking real REM sleep, and cleaning it out results in the
       | subjective experience of a migraine.
        
       | greentxt wrote:
       | If they are able to think, that means they are conscious no? My
       | favorite type of sleep is the sort that precludes conscious
       | mental activity, since I tend to think of work or other mentally
       | fatiguing subject matter and physical sensations like pain and
       | tension. I'd like my sleep to exclude that sort of suffering.
       | Maybe there should be more than one word for sleep. We could
       | distinguish certain aspects, maybe name them or something? Course
       | I'm probably asleep right now and dreaming I typed this.
        
         | appletrotter wrote:
         | Have you ever heard of lucid dreams?
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | Dream states are definitely not equivalent to normal/awake
           | consciousness. Try doing math in a dream!
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | I have done math in a dream before.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | Was it any good, though?
        
               | aidenn0 wrote:
               | Basic arithmetic seems to work fine. Antiderivatives,
               | much less so. OTOH doing aintiderivatives while awake
               | doesn't work that great for me either.
               | 
               | [edit]
               | 
               | Though I should clarify that in my dreams I usually
               | finish the antiderivative (wrongly) when awake I usually
               | just fail to finish the antiderivative.
        
             | withinboredom wrote:
             | I have been programming in my dreams, but I woke up and had
             | to retype it all!
        
             | SamPatt wrote:
             | When dreaming, if I try to do math or anything difficult,
             | my mind does a nifty trick where it just skips all the hard
             | steps and gives me a result.
             | 
             | I must usually accept these results, but occasionally, I
             | don't, and that's often when I realize I'm dreaming - I
             | literally cannot conjure up those steps at all, they simply
             | don't exist.
        
             | npongratz wrote:
             | I proved a topology theorem in a dream once.
             | 
             | Before I went to sleep, my inability to prove it had been
             | bugging me all day long, and I suspected it'd be featured
             | on the next morning's (way too early) final exam for my
             | university course. I solved it in my dream, woke up, wrote
             | on my whiteboard what I remembered and sure enough, it was
             | correct. I worked it a few more times to cram it into my
             | memory before running to my exam.
             | 
             | To my great delight, the ability to prove that theorem was
             | featured heavily in one of the exam's questions, and helped
             | me do quite well on the exam overall.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | I have definitely experienced this sometimes. Usually it's when
       | I've had too much to drink. Very restless sleep and sometimes
       | I'll tell my wife how I was awake all night counting the hours
       | and she'll tell me I was sleeping haha
        
       | seiferteric wrote:
       | Every now and then I will have a night where my brain feels
       | "wired" and I can't sleep and just have thoughts racing through
       | my head. It feels like a don't sleep or barely sleep and yet
       | hours go by pretty fast so I assume I must be sleeping more than
       | I think, but it is a different kind of sleep for sure.
        
         | coffeebeqn wrote:
         | I get this too. My mind is racing and I feel like I can't fall
         | asleep but then when I eventually get up to check the time,
         | multiple hours have passed
        
       | msarrel wrote:
       | This makes sense to me because for years I have felt like I'm
       | laying in bed awake yet I also feel like I got some sleep. I
       | described this as " I didn't sleep at all last night, but maybe I
       | did because I feel slightly rested even though I was awake."
       | Knowing my background, hyper vigilance and PTSD are probably at
       | play.
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | Mind awake and body asleep is nothing new.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
        
         | prophesi wrote:
         | Sleep paralysis is a frightening experience, and the one
         | suffering from it is both aware, and correct in their
         | awareness, that they're awake. Article is describing something
         | very different.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | It isn't always frightening. It only get scary when you try
           | to move and cannot. Many people suffer "paralysis" that ends
           | as soon as they try to move. Such people are awake but their
           | body is in sleep mode, often snoring. I've experienced it
           | myself when lying in bed wondering who is snoring beside me,
           | only to discover I am alone in bed listening to myself snore.
        
             | skeaker wrote:
             | Right, but the article describes a scenario where you
             | aren't actually awake.
        
               | kagakuninja wrote:
               | Previous guy misstated things. Sleep paralysis is a form
               | of lucid dreaming. You are _aware_ while asleep.
               | 
               | From my experience meditating, one can go through stages
               | of body paralysis, and then enter lucid dreaming states,
               | while maintaining awareness.
               | 
               | Some advanced meditators claim to be able to be aware at
               | all times, even in deep dreamless sleep.
        
       | namanyayg wrote:
       | Interesting to see this article and the comments here on how
       | everyone's experience varies.
       | 
       | This happens to me when I go to bed while thinking hard on a
       | specific problem, usually related to my startup.
       | 
       | It starts off awake with regular thinking, but then at some point
       | it becomes surreal and events that have no cause and effect or
       | basis in reality start occuring.
       | 
       | When I feel an "aha" moment where I become of the surreal nature
       | of my recent thoughts, my memories cease and I assume I
       | transition to real sleep.
       | 
       | In some cases, I wake up and when I check the time my 30 minutes
       | of "thinking" actually occured over ~3 hours.
       | 
       | I find it fun, and as part of my self sleep experiments I try to
       | even recreate it.
        
         | huevosabio wrote:
         | This happens to me fairly often, and find it amusing as well.
         | 
         | Its become my way of detecting that I'm falling asleep: "oh,
         | that is such a weird, ridiculous thought, I must be falling
         | asleep".
        
         | hadlock wrote:
         | This is at least a once a month occurrence, usually weekly+
         | when I'm working on a big new project. I'll feel like I spent
         | the whole night thinking about how to fix X and only got 3
         | hours of sleep, but in reality I got more than 6
        
       | elzbardico wrote:
       | Don't know if this is related, but I really enjoy the dreams when
       | I go back to sleep after my wife wakes up. They are really vivid
       | and imaginative, but at the same I am mostly aware I am dreaming,
       | as if I was partially awake.
       | 
       | Of course, this is me, I am a thoroughly weird person. I
       | understand that some other people may find it unsettling.
        
         | WalterSear wrote:
         | This was the standard practice for inducing lucid dreaming in
         | the class I took on it at Stanford.
        
           | mtalantikite wrote:
           | Yeah, I've done some dream yoga [1] practice and this is a
           | common instruction in those texts for inducing lucid dreaming
           | as well.
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_yoga
        
       | sandoze wrote:
       | I experienced this chronically. It was so pervasive that I would
       | convince myself the next day that I was exhausted with only six
       | hours of sleep. I started tracking my sleep with an Apple Watch
       | and soon realized that, I may wake up, it's usually for minutes
       | and not nearly as often as I thought!
        
       | lxgr wrote:
       | I've experienced this a couple of times: Feeling like I've been
       | lying awake for at least half of the night, twisting and turning,
       | when my sleep tracker really only shows movement for maybe 2-3
       | stretches of 5 minutes each.
       | 
       | That realization has helped me stress out a lot less about "not
       | getting enough sleep" when there's an important even the next day
       | (which makes it easier to find sleep in turn).
        
         | josefresco wrote:
         | FWIW I had some insomnia a while back and thought "maybe if I
         | just lay here long enough" and so I did that for hours and my
         | smartwatch thought I was asleep. I'm 99% sure I was not
         | sleeping. Maybe my smartwatch sucks, but I don't think most can
         | handle "laying down and not moving but not sleeping".
        
           | withinboredom wrote:
           | I'd recommend getting a super cheap camera that can record
           | yourself sleeping. You might have actually been asleep
           | (according to this article).
        
           | drdeca wrote:
           | Not all that infrequently (though not in the last week iirc)
           | I find myself in a state which I think of as being, "half
           | asleep" (or (3/4) asleep, or whatever. Various degrees of
           | "asleep") and I'm still able to kind-of think about things,
           | but such that it is easier to accidentally forget what I was
           | thinking about, such that I'm not able to keep as much in
           | working memory, more distract-able by random thoughts, etc. .
           | (On rare occasion I find my breathing while in this state to
           | be concerning to I get scared and wake myself up. I'm pretty
           | sure it's been over a year since that last happened. I think
           | it was mostly when sleeping face down or something?)
           | 
           | I suspect the type of state I just described (not the
           | breathing part) is something most people sometimes
           | experience. I don't think it is unusual. Though I don't think
           | I've often heard people describe it in detail.
           | 
           | Does it seem plausible to you that you were perhaps, "20%
           | asleep, but 80% awake" during that time?
           | 
           | Edit: also, my understanding is that lying still and resting
           | _can_ work as a partial imperfect substitute for some amount
           | of sleep (though not like, in a way that can be sufficient
           | long-term)
        
             | riwsky wrote:
             | You appear to be describing
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
        
         | grugagag wrote:
         | I had the same experince in the past thinking I didn't sleep at
         | all while having some sleep amongs the twists and turns but of
         | low quality, shallow and REMless sleep which I found
         | unsatisfying. Luckily I get that much less these days though I
         | do sleep in chunks of a couple of hours and do wake up in
         | between. It's really a bad habit and probably having to do with
         | sleep apneea.
        
       | INTPenis wrote:
       | I sleep pretty well in general, but when I do sleep poorly I also
       | experience the same thing. I am so convinced that a dream is
       | reality that I wake up confused and have to take a minute to
       | orient myself mentally.
       | 
       | But this rarely happens because sleep is very important to me and
       | I worked hard on my habits to get good sleep. Good sleep for me
       | equals no memory of dreams.
        
       | boogieknite wrote:
       | I have the opposite where my entire life my parents or partners
       | would say they came to wake me up, i sit up, looked at them and
       | clearly say "ok im getting up" and then the return 10 minutes
       | later and im still asleep. When i actually wake up i have no
       | memory of anything.
       | 
       | Used to be a big problem when my dad would wake me up at 4am to
       | hunt as a kid. Sometimes people tell me we had conversations and
       | i was making eye contact. I have no option but to believe it bc
       | ive heard it so many times now
        
         | jwalton wrote:
         | In my late teens I would frequently be late for university
         | because I'd turn off my alarm or my gf would come wake me up
         | and I'd go straight back to sleep. One day I decided to move my
         | alarm clock to the other side of the room so I'd have to
         | physically get up to turn it off. The next morning I got up,
         | walked over to the alarm clock and turned it off, then I was
         | startled awake as I started to fall over standing in front of
         | the alarm clock.
         | 
         | I'd like to be able to blame this on some kind of medical
         | problem, but I think mostly I just stayed up late playing
         | Counterstrike too much. :P
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | In the apartment I live in, I don't have a distance large
           | enough I could put my alarm clock that I wouldn't be able to
           | cross to turn off the alarm, then cross it again to get back
           | to bed, and not even remember it later. Adding a lock or some
           | puzzles to solve only results in me either solving them and
           | not remembering, or continuing to sleep while the alarm wakes
           | up half the apartment building. Fun fact: turns out I'm
           | really good at mentally adding and multiplying 2 and 3-digit
           | numbers while unconscious.
        
             | noman-land wrote:
             | Hang the alarm clock from the ceiling :).
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | Even better, ceiling fan.
        
             | rrr_oh_man wrote:
             | It works: https://clocky.com/
        
               | Modified3019 wrote:
               | >Clocky leaps from your nightstand, and runs away beeping
               | 
               | This is a hilarious mental image
        
               | rrr_oh_man wrote:
               | It is hilarious, and infuriating at the same time.
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Yeah, I remember seeing that one; I thought of buying it,
               | but I'm sure it'll just trigger my "screw it, I'll stay
               | asleep while half of the neighborhood secretly hates me
               | for the morning noise" adaptation. I don't think I ever
               | experienced a noise I couldn't sleep through.
        
             | gknoy wrote:
             | Have you considered trying an alarm clock that will run
             | away from you? [0] I've never used it but I also have a
             | tendency to sleep through _the most annoying alarms_ so I
             | would consider it if I couldn't put my alarm out of easy
             | reach.
             | 
             | 0: https://clocky.com/
             | 
             | edit: rrr_oh_man beat me to it, that's what I get for re-
             | watching their video :D
        
               | ryandrake wrote:
               | I know this sounds kind of smug, but you could also
               | "simply" try going to sleep earlier such that you are not
               | as dependent on an alarm clock. I've found that when I am
               | still in deep sleep in the morning, my body has many ways
               | to avoid/ignore alarms, but if I get enough sleep such
               | that I'm already mostly awake by the time the alarm
               | sounds, I don't ignore it.
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | I won't say it's impossible for me, but there's a huge,
               | tangled mess of psychological, social, habitual and
               | lifestyle reasons that prevent it. Starting with, ever
               | since I finished high school and was no longer forced by
               | my parents to get up on time, my natural awake time is
               | between ~11:00 and 04:00. Any attempts to shift it to
               | what society considers normal tend to drift back to
               | baseline within a week. These days, Bao Fu Xing Ao Ye
               | (revenge bedtime procrastination) is a significant
               | factor, too.
               | 
               | (It's 00:15 here as I'm submitting this comment; I'm
               | fully wake and alert, as opposed to how I was 3-4 hours
               | ago.)
        
             | foobarian wrote:
             | After my last move I ended up in a bedroom with
             | excruciating amounts of windows letting in so much daylight
             | you'd probably get a sunburn if you didn't get up. I "fixed
             | the glitch" but I was thinking that it would make a great
             | alarm to set up a lot of overhead lighting (such great LED
             | fixtures these days) and ramp them up slowly to full power
             | over say a half hour. And leave no way to shut off :-)
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | I might do this one day. I'm upping the amount and power
               | of the LEDs in our house slowly, though I feel my wife
               | still isn't convinced that I really mean it when I say
               | that I. need MORE LIGHT to function.
               | 
               | (And none of the "warm light" crap, that just makes me
               | sleepy even if I'm awake. Neutral or cold only. I'd go
               | for high-CRI ones if I could find them in LED strip
               | format.)
        
             | gavmor wrote:
             | I've had some luck with an alarm clock that must be flipped
             | over to be silenced. Every night, I set a cup of water on
             | top of it, and every morning after I've silenced it, I'm
             | left holding a cup of water--with which I can't return to
             | bed!
             | 
             | I'll then drink the water, because it's easy, and if that's
             | not enough to get me on track, at least I'll have to pee
             | sooner.
        
               | pbhjpbhj wrote:
               | Do you have a model/brand for such an alarm clock?
        
               | alexdbird wrote:
               | We have ones made by Lexon. A non-radio-controlled
               | version of this: https://lexon-
               | design.com/en/product/flip-plus/
               | 
               | It's a nice concept, though the execution isn't perfect.
               | The biggest flaw, which may have been fixed since, is
               | that the power supply decoupling isn't good enough, such
               | that when the batteries get low and the alarm tries to
               | make a noise, the clock detects it as a touch, which
               | instantly snoozes the alarm. We haven't had it since the
               | original batteries though, which were ironically the ones
               | Lexon supplied.
               | 
               | N.B. These are only just big enough to put a glass of
               | water on top, and it might not play well with the touch
               | sensitivity.
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | Harness this power for good, put "P =? NP" on your alarm
             | clock.
        
             | sangnoir wrote:
             | > Fun fact: turns out I'm really good at mentally adding
             | and multiplying 2 and 3-digit numbers while unconscious.
             | 
             | You'll be fully conscious - you just don't retain the
             | memory. Its like driving on a route you've driven thousands
             | of times or tying your shoe laces - both activities require
             | conscious effort at the time, but no (detailed) memory is
             | retained about the effort afterwards.
        
           | lotsofpulp wrote:
           | I have picked up my toddler who fell off the bed twice in the
           | same night and woke up and had no memory of it, until I was
           | reminded by my wife.
        
             | jtbayly wrote:
             | I have had kids thump loudly onto the floor falling out of
             | bed in another room with the doors closed. Loud enough that
             | it woke me up. But _they_ didn't wake up. I check on them,
             | and they are sound asleep on the floor.
        
           | entangledqubit wrote:
           | I had a similar experience and was left wondering whether I
           | could add progressively larger units of work to the alarm
           | clock task to get things done while still "asleep". :)
        
             | brewdad wrote:
             | Add whatever challenges you are currently working on at
             | work or your side-hustle to your alarm. Soon, you will see
             | your productivity skyrocket all while getting a few more
             | minutes of much needed "sleep".
        
           | boogieknite wrote:
           | Same way i solved it as an adult who needs to wake himself up
           | for work.
           | 
           | Similar experiences where i wake up on the floor bc i must
           | have rolled out of bed over to my phone in my sleep.
        
           | Izkata wrote:
           | I also had the turn-off-the-alarm problem, what seems to have
           | solved it for me is building "snooze" into my schedule. My
           | alarm is always set 10-15 minutes before I actually needed to
           | get up, with a 5-minute snooze, and ever since I haven't had
           | issues getting up at the intended time.
           | 
           | Best guess is it helps with waking up slowly over 15 minutes
           | instead of being jolted awake when the alarm first goes off.
        
             | jsharpe wrote:
             | Those are rookie numbers. I have often set my alarm for 40+
             | minutes before I "need" to be awake because I know that I
             | will snooze the alarm several times before being conscious
             | enough to force myself out of bed.
        
           | jcul wrote:
           | I remember stuff like this when I was in university.
           | 
           | I remember getting apps that made you solve maths problems
           | before the alarm would go off.
           | 
           | Crazy to think.
           | 
           | Now I've got kids and it's the opposite, even if I'm away
           | from them I'll wake early. And I never have deep sleep like
           | that, I think I've been trained to come to attention quickly
           | from night time wake ups.
        
         | lanstin wrote:
         | My youngest child is like this. OMG, it was so stressful till
         | he graduated high school and I was like I'm never waking you
         | again. Wake yourself up or miss class or work, whatever.
        
           | genocidicbunny wrote:
           | Just to cover all the bases, have your child do a sleep
           | study. Especially if they're still on your insurance and it
           | covers such things, as it can be somewhat expensive otherwise
           | (in the US.)
           | 
           | Sleep disorders really compound other problems, and they'll
           | be pretty thankful later in life to have caught any disorders
           | early before they've done a lot of damage.
        
         | jvm___ wrote:
         | I was doing a community service project and stayed up all night
         | the final night. I fell asleep on a couch and woke up without
         | the keys to the building in my pocket. Apparently someone had
         | found me, I'd gotten up took the keys out of my pocket and
         | given them to them and fallen back asleep - I had no
         | recollection of doing so.
        
         | hnlmorg wrote:
         | I used to have conversations while asleep all the time. On one
         | occasion I even answered the phone and sleep chatted on there.
         | 
         | I've also had dreams where I've known it was a dream. Eg
         | something would happen in the dream I didn't like and I'd say
         | "it's my dream, so I'm changing it"
        
           | Karellen wrote:
           | > I've also had dreams where I've known it was a dream.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
        
         | ownagefool wrote:
         | I've heard this too, though not nearly as often anymore. ( I
         | suspect as I've aged, nobody is waking me up before I'd
         | normally rise )
        
         | extr wrote:
         | I do this too, it happens mostly if I went to bed extremely
         | tired or had a drink or two the night before. What works for me
         | is an alarm clock app that forces me to do some moderate math
         | problems before it turns off. I set it to 5 problems of the
         | type "32*5+84".
         | 
         | I can't claim it's 100% successful, I've been known to do the
         | math and go back to sleep. But when that happens I always
         | remember it, so at that point it's more of a laziness problem
         | :D
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | Similar experiences with one of my kids. Quite disconcerting. A
         | parent can be forgiven for suspecting a drug involvement even
         | in the absence of one.
        
         | empath75 wrote:
         | if you are woken up and go right back to sleep it's completely
         | normal not to remember it.
        
         | _0ffh wrote:
         | That kind of thing happened to me once when my mom came into my
         | room to call me to dinner while I has busy programming, and I
         | told her I'd be there in five minutes. I went to dinner an hour
         | late and asked why nobody had bothered to tell me.
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20240611151714/https://www.scien...
       | 
       | https://archive.ph/9yqQY
        
       | drewcon wrote:
       | Sample size of 1.
       | 
       | A disc herniation caused me pain all night until it eventually
       | destroyed my circadian rhythm. Even after it healed and the pain
       | went away I had terrible sleep disruption. Up every 90 minutes,
       | couldn't fall asleep until 4 am, waking up at 4 am. The works.
       | Going on a few months.
       | 
       | Then I found sleep restriction.
       | 
       | First two weeks were brutal, but then biology takes over. And
       | just like that, in a couple weeks, you rebuild you ability to
       | fall asleep naturally and you're back to normal.
       | 
       | And in retrospect, this is exactly the approach we took to sleep
       | training our young children. I swear by it.
        
         | e12e wrote:
         | > Then I found sleep restriction.
         | 
         | Get up when the alarm rings, no naps?
         | 
         | Ed: Ah, I see - mechanism is basically that - but the addition
         | of not going to bed "too early" (compared to when you plan to
         | get up):
         | 
         | > Some sleep-restriction methods involve shortening a person's
         | time in bed to the average amount that they actually sleep per
         | night. Other methods delay a person's bedtime." For example, If
         | a person objectively sleeps for 5.5 hours, the experts allow
         | the person to be in bed only for six hours. A preliminary lab
         | study in which participants delayed their regular bedtime by
         | two hours showed that such sleep restriction can reduce the
         | number of arousals during REM.
        
         | darajava wrote:
         | What's sleep restriction?
        
           | lazyeye wrote:
           | Its basically forcing you to stay awake on a very specific
           | schedule in order to reset your circadian clock.
           | 
           | If you can find a way to watch this doco it goes into the
           | topic in detail. (RIP Michael Mosley)
           | 
           | https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/australias-
           | sleep-r...
        
       | sqeaky wrote:
       | From the end of the article:
       | 
       | > For example, If a person objectively sleeps for 5.5 hours, the
       | experts allow the person to be in bed only for six hours. A
       | preliminary lab study in which participants delayed their regular
       | bedtime by two hours showed that such sleep restriction can
       | reduce the number of arousals during REM.
       | 
       | I Like how science and medicine are more frequently taking
       | account individual differences into account in a measured and
       | sensible way. That is as opposed to ignoring it or making
       | everything statistics.
        
       | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
       | I know for a fact that during some of my insomnia episodes, I
       | would fall asleep and dream of struggling to fall asleep. I would
       | know it because of false awakenings and sometimes getting the
       | dream to be lucid and noticing something wrong with the
       | environment.
       | 
       | This kind of sleep never felt restful by any means, though.
        
       | jerf wrote:
       | My favorite is when I roll out of bed in the morning absolutely
       | convinced I got no sleep. But then I review my night, yup,
       | tossed, turned, used the bathroom, tossed, turned, opened the
       | window, tossed, turned, rode a unicorn to work in the Thousandth
       | Broken Dimension, tossed, turned, fluffed my pillow... _record
       | scratching noise_ wait, what was that about the unicorn?
       | 
       | Guess I got some sleep after all.
        
       | vrc wrote:
       | I was in the ICU for an extended period of time, and as you can
       | imagine, with the pain, discomfort, noise, and constant
       | monitoring, I really "wasn't sleeping at all". I remember getting
       | frantic and trying to discharge AMA, and the attending came to
       | talk to me and listened to my principal complaint of not
       | sleeping. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "I'm a sleep
       | doctor who's been watching sleep studies for 30+ years now, and I
       | can assure you, outside of a very small number of patients with
       | serious, often hereditary sleep issues, everyone sleeps. You may
       | not feel like you slept, and can be convinced you were awake, but
       | the body forces you to sleep throughout. And sometimes, when you
       | think you fell asleep immediately, you actually didn't sleep for
       | a while but you stopped forming memories as you were drifting off
       | to sleep". It absolutely did nothing for me in that moment, but
       | it's given me a lot of peace of mind since around sleep. You
       | might still feel like crap, but you won't have anxiety on top of
       | it!
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | I am coming around to that idea myself, and I too was given a
         | similar come-to-Jesus lecture by a sleep specialist.
         | 
         | This is separate from the fact that ICUs are unforgivably noisy
         | and chaotic. We will look at this part of medical history with
         | horror. Yes, I do understand that making things appreciably
         | better for patients in ICU is a massive and complex
         | undertaking. I am not at all blaming the staff and docs.
        
         | groestl wrote:
         | I did a 24 hours blood pressure monitoring once. Every 30min it
         | would go off. I was worried I'd never fall asleep and blood
         | pressure would not show the normal rhythm, and it absolutely
         | felt that way, but the reading definitely showed I was asleep
         | at night.
        
         | konschubert wrote:
         | > outside of a very small number of patients with serious,
         | often hereditary sleep issues
         | 
         | He is likely referring to FFI. This is a genetic disorder. You
         | cannot "catch" it. Your anxiety won't cause this.
         | 
         | If you are the kind of person who "can't sleep because you
         | stress about not sleeping", then you can ignore this, your
         | sleep issues are due to anxiety.
         | 
         | And the good news for people who have sleep issues due to
         | anxiety: At some point, your body will win and force you to
         | sleep.
        
         | cj wrote:
         | I've long suspected marijuana has a similar effect, in that it
         | "helps" you fall asleep by making it harder to remember the
         | process of falling asleep. It's widely known that marijuana
         | inhibits short term memory formation. (I could be wildly off
         | base)
        
           | lobsterthief wrote:
           | Marijuana keeps me up unfortunately, since my brain becomes
           | more stimulated and I just want to get up and do things. But
           | I've had massive ADHD my entire life so that's not a
           | neurotypical response I suppose. I wish I could just smoke
           | weed and feel chill and calm or sleepy.
        
             | sureglymop wrote:
             | My ADHD meds (stimulants) also keep me up. Can be a real
             | struggle sometimes.
        
       | tootie wrote:
       | If you read tales of the taking MSLT on /r/narcolepsy, you'll see
       | it's a very common phenomenon. Obviously, a sample bias of people
       | with heavily disordered sleep, but man it was so confusing. They
       | turn off the lights, then turn them on and ask if you think you
       | slept and I just had no idea. I took 5 naps in 5 tries but didn't
       | know until I saw the results.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | Have you ever entered a room and forgot why you entered the room?
       | I think a similar thing happens in sleep. What happened in dream
       | doesn't carry over into waking memory. And maybe vice-versa.
       | 
       | It seems that memory splits when environment splits.
        
       | taeric wrote:
       | I actually thought this was well established? Largely, it isn't
       | just a complete lack of sleep that is the problem, it is lack of
       | functional rest. Usually leading to lack of functional waking
       | time, as well?
       | 
       | Specifically, my understanding was that a complete lack of
       | sleeping is rather fatal.
        
       | pedalpete wrote:
       | This is quite common for me. I am a chronic insomniac, but there
       | are also nights when I "feel" I'm awake, but somewhat know that
       | I'm not.
       | 
       | It's not quite lucid dreaming, though I think it isn't completely
       | different (I've experimented with that a bit, and I work in
       | neurotech/sleeptech).
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-06-11 23:01 UTC)