Insomnia?

[marcmagus]

As I understand it, and I know at least a few of you are in a position to comment, insomnia is typically characterized by lying in bed, with the lights off, unable to sleep, for hours at a time, sometimes with a period of giving up and deciding to make something of the time you can't sleep. Right?

What do you call it when you're pretty certain that if you were to lie down and close your eyes, you'd fall asleep within a few minutes, yet you can't actually bear to do so? You reach the point where you can tell that lack of sleep is affecting you: thinking slower, reflexes poorer, slight dizziness; and, yet, you keep finding ways to keep yourself occupied rather than sleep? Until, of course, you do eventually concede to physical need and go to sleep.

Comments

[ladymedb.livejournal.com]

ocd.


:(

huh...

[mosephine.livejournal.com]

is that what it is? this happens to me, as well... i've always just called it insomnia. but magus is right - it's certainly different.

Re: huh...

[marcmagus]

I thought your insomnia was of the lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, close your eyes and toss around, but not be able to actually fall asleep because you couldn't shut your brain off variety.

Re: huh...

[mosephine.livejournal.com]

i have both... the generic kind where i lay down to go to bed, and toss and turn and can't sleep.

but the kind you're talking about happens sometimes, too. and in some ways, it troubles me more. without someone else around to suggest i go to sleep, i actively avoid going to bed - almost as if i'm afraid of insomnia. so i don't let myself go to bed... even though i'm exhausted.

[mneme]

Heh. Yes.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on why you're not letting yourself sleep, really.

I know that when I've been like that, it was generally fear of something -- missing out on what's going on while I'm sleeping, bad dreams, something.

I think that the root problem probably isn't that you're not sleeping, but rather whatever it is that's telling you that you shouldn't be sleeping. My boss is an insomniac, and from what he tells me, your description is accurate -- it's not an unwillingness to sleep, but rather a physical inability to do so.

[marcmagus]

I'm afraid of sleep. Not bad dreams, I don't dream all that often (or don't remember them, for those who are going to insist on that interpretation), and bad dreams are really very rare. Right now, it doesn't even seem to be missing out on what's going on (I've had that, I know what it feels like). I'm just afraid to be asleep.

[muppetk.livejournal.com]

Does the phrase "tired but wired" sound about right? 'cause that's a key symptom in chinese medicine which sounds like something you fit.

In chinese medicine, we tend to call that yin deficiency heat. heat that keeps you up at night and doing things because you have an inability to relax properly. (at whatever hour if you're tired, your body should be starting to relax and prepare for sleep. if it's not doing that, you're being agitated by something pathological.)

as to what to do about it: meditation/relaxation exercises. In the begining/middle of the day, on a daily basis, so that the agitation doesn't build up all day long. By the evening you're already too wound up for something like that to be effective short term (unless, as I said, you did so earlier in the day too). Or you let me (or someone else) stick you with pins.

and that's about as good (though horribly over generalized) an answer as you're going to get 'cause I just woke up and have had no caffeine yet.

as to your original definition or insomnia, it's incomplete :) but it's one definition.

[marcmagus]

Not exactly. That sounds more like me normally when I'm up longer than I ought to be. This is different. I'm physically pretty relaxed; as I said, if I put my head on a pillow and closed my eyes for a few minutes, I'd fall right asleep. There's just something mental preventing me from allowing myself to do that. And it's not really even that I'm in the middle of something I'm into and don't want to stop (that's normal); I'm actually finding things to do rather than sleep, when I could easily sleep if I tried.

[agiel.livejournal.com]

Oh my gawwwd, you just described my every night for the last 12 years. I dunno *why* it is, but goodness knows you're not alone!

[fadedpaladin.livejournal.com]

I'd call it a bummer...

[beyonder.livejournal.com]

I'd drop that into the same category as Type II Insomnia ^_^

Every night I'm left to my own devices, either at school or at home, is somewhat consumed by just what you speak of. I'm tired as all hell, but the Bed is way over there and I'm in the middle of something. Where do you think I find time to write music?

"it's not so much that he can't as that he _wont_. At the last minute he gets all sentimental" - Jeff (coupling)

[marcmagus]

The middle of something thing is pretty much normal for my life. It's when I start manufacturing things to do rather than sleep that I get concerned.

[mneme]

Well, -I- call it obsessive compulsion; others may call it other things.

Reunion

[dr-brundle.livejournal.com]

Hi Magus! I don't know your email so I'm posting this here. I was just listening to the tape I made of us and illogicalvulcan at reunion and I wanted to say that I enjoyed chatting with you and the only reason I used to think you were mean was that I only spent significant amounts of time with you (when I was sober...) when you were competitively game-playing or in NSO admin mode.

Now that I have known you more socially, I think you're very sweet! Just wanted to let you know. -Brundlefly