Be Excellent To Each Other

That, really. Due to the heat, my hayfever, and my worried troublin' mind, sleep is hard to come by at the moment.

Options appear to be prescription drugs, which I'm not fond of for sleeping, as they don't make my mind a better place generally. Illegal drugs, eg weed, but there's the expense and the rather ironical factoid that I don't want to be smoking anything right now, as my nose and chest are being raped by nasty pollen.

Then I could try not getting worked up about stuff, but as I'm the sort of person who could start a 3 way argument in an empty room, that's not going to happen.

Bah.

Procrastinating mixed with work means I'm up at all hours, so I know your pain.

It's course advice, and I do apologise for lowering the tone, but an orgasm is supposed to release a flood chemicals that are conclusive for sleep... specifically in men.

I'm not sure how much of that is true though, and how much of it is down to just having done some physical activity in bed but still...

hello people (erm 2 of yous), erm im not insomniac, well not at the moment here for the same reason as Lave, uni work and a wonderful desire for not working at all despite being a bit tired has got me up at daft o clock, anyway Im probably up all night, so Ill be company to anyone.

Will you keep me company runcle?

what you up late for?

... not in the mood for sleeping. Working from home tomorrow. Trying to find anything worth watching that I haven't already seen 200 times. It's fun here on the Heart of Gold.

yawn yawn yawn, what a lovely morning oh wait i didnt go to sleep. and its cloudy as hell, I can see me being a grumpy dickhead all day, least I got one of my essays done, just need one more done before I go to ATP, tomorrow, argh.
I should get a blog, just so you dont have to read this shit.

I often suffer bouts of insomnia. I think mine is mostly a mental thing as it's something I only suffer in London, and usually when I m going through some kind of creative period, so it is just thoughts whirring in my head and I find it hard to switch off.

I always find a cool shower sometimes helps. I know it is supposed to make you more alert and awake, but I find it helps to cool me down and relax me. I've been offered prescription drugs, too, but I don't take them because I can't see how they'll do me any good, and I certainly don't want to find myself unable to sleep at all without them.

I often end up watching some program about a school in Africa at 3am if I can't get to sleep at all. I usually suffer insomnia in bouts of 5-10 days weeks, and then it goes of again.

Sorry to hear that you are suffering at the moment. We are supposed to be due a few cooler nights over the next few days, hopefully that will help with at least one of the things that is keeping you awake and yo can find a way of turning off that 'too alert' mind of yours.

I suffered it recently. It was a combination of stress and drinking far too much caffeine throughout the day. After cutting out caffeine (and reducing stress) I now sleep much better.

I did get some over the counter sleeping pills which seemed to work, to be honest I think they were mainly a placebo but they could be worth a shot. They're organic, or something. I'll dig the bottle out when I'm home later

when i have insomnia i read a book until my eyes are sore and my head completely tired. Also it's a good idea to avoid playing video games at night (or at least keep with some more laid back types).

yeah picross before bed is good.

I was always told specifically not to read before bedtime by my doctor. Reading, unlike TV, prompts you to form pictures, situations and emotions from your imagination, whereas TV just lays all of those things out in front of you. By prompting you to imagine the scenes of a book it stimulates the part of your brain that makes you consider different situations, etc (according to my doctor, anyway) which is not a good idea if you have things on your mind.

it always worked for me. In fact, i can only sleep properly after reading.

I always need the TV to fall asleep (on News 24 normally). It's not that I have insomnia as such, it's just without something to listen to I get bored before falling asleep, and then I can't sleep.

I cant wait to go to sleep, but Ive got things to do before ATP, mainly print out route planners.

Re: activities before sleep, pretty much anything is harmful. Mimi is right that reading (being quite an imaginative activity) can wake you back up too far, games are too bright for your eyes and too stimulating, and TV is hard to escape (as the volume is always there even when you shut your eyes). Condition can overcome this though; I've read for 20 minutes or so almost every night since I was about 10, so lying down in a dark room with a book engages sleepytime mechanisms in my head through sheer rote learning. I've read studies that say the routine and habits are the most critical part of getting to sleep.

As for coping with stress, I got very very good at this in the closing months of my PhD, which were unimaginably stressful -- I was miles behind with my work, putting in a 40 hour week in work plus another 30 hours a week into my thesis and still facing the very real risk that I wouldn't be able to pull my thesis together. If that happened I would have left, after three years full time work and a year part time on top, with nothing (not likely but it does happen). Naturally, this was a very tough time, and the fifteen minutes between putting down my current novel and falling asleep were murder. My brain was lurching, semi-panicked, from considering one barely-started task after another. So, I learned to cope.

My technique goes like this. I imagine a pleasurable situation -- my usual one is a lottery win or some other unlikely method of acquiring huge sums of cash. I concentrate on how secure and safe that would make me feel (in contrast to the panicky feelings I am trying to quell). Then I think about my house. I consider that I would love to build a house and design it to my specifications. I start making a list of rooms and their contents, and colours and decor, and how many TVs and gadgets I'd have, and how the ethernet network would be fitted together. I consider how ace it would be to build a gated community of a dozen identical houses and move all my mates into it, so we could all have a laugh together, and I'd put in a sort of community centre with a cinema and a swimming pool and a really nice bar area with a patio and a barbeque. I consider exactly how the central building would be laid out, in a 3d plan exploded view, trying to picture every detail I can. Would the pool be twice the size of the bar? What about a basement loaded out with some old consoles and coin-ops and huge projector screens? I'd have to have a four-seat sit-down Daytona, then, and probably the classics like Pac-Man because everyone would expect them.

This is actually a form of weak self-hypnosis, I think; I create a calmer mental state with the fantasy scenario and then build layer after layer of detail into it so I can sink deeper and deeper in the fantasy. Generally, I fall asleep pretty quickly.

YES! Except mine is being adrift in an ocean of breasts

Would you be floating on a lilo shaped like a twenty foot inflatable cock-and-balls?

Nah, face down and drowning.

I'm getting an image, now.

Does anyone remember the opening sequence of the cartoon 'Duck Tales*'? Well, the bit where Uncle Scrooge dives into the big pile of coins, yes? Swims along a bit, and spits a load of coins out?

That. But with Dimrill. And thousands of glistenng, wobbletastic mammaries. Myself, CUS and Myoptika are Huey, Dewey and Louie, looking on with mingled disgust and admiration.

MY EYES. THEY BURN. THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING.

*or possibly Talespin. Did that have Scrooge McDuck in? I think it did. I recall sitting through it on saturday mornings while waiting for Animaniacs.

It was Duck Tales.

Darkwing Duck was miles better, though.

When there's trouble you, call DW.

Fsssh. I scorn he.

Bucky, captain Bucky O'Hare. He went where no ordinary rabbit would dare.

That's strange. My mum always advised me to create stories in my head if I had trouble sleeping.

And then you find out you've accidently conjured up a 1980's generic J G Ballard womb-like gated-community socio-psychological murder/suicide-mystery plotline. B'oh!

It's also one of the main techniques for encouraging & inducing lucid dreaming.

I find myself in lucid dreams so often, it's become a little dull. I don't bother flying, or having sex with Katie Jane Garside, or blowing stuff up anymore, I just sort of potter about a bit and then try to wake myself up.

Some of you may be familiar with my various sleep disorders, but get this: I had a dream about sleep paralysis. Yup, I dreamed that I had gone to sleep, woken up, and couldn't move. In a dream.

Believe or not, but dreaming of sleep paralysis is quite common - I've done it a couple of times myself. Much the same as dreaming of waking up normally.

I've had sleep paralysis twice in my life. I remember my mate John telling me about it once before as well, before I suffered it. It's really weird, and quite unnerving as you worry about being trapped inside your body. You just have to focus on moving a finger or something first, and then working on the rest of your body.

Fun!

I get it at least once a week, and it never becomes any less terrifying. I panic, and try to shout or scream, and usually snap out of it flailing and making a really odd 'murrrr!' noise which seems to come from far away to my befuddled mind and scares the shit out of me even more.

I didn't know dreaming of paralysis was common; it's the first time that's happened to me. I thought I was being all cool and post-modern. I get visions, and really bad hypnagogic jerks, and exploding head syndrome... Great fun.

Ooo, lucky you, darling.

Hey! I do exactly the same thing - (having lots of money, designing my own house with little nearby houses for people I know.) I have curly tube slides going from one floor to the next that go outside and are see-through. I'd like you all to come and visit my imaginary house because it's great.

I've been thinking this for years, the house is quite detailed now.

When I have exams (like right now) in the early morning, I tend to stay up the whole night before, do some light cramming, and just go to bed straight after the exam. I am generally in a better state of mind after being awake the whole night than after just waking up.

I read an article about a year ago about how incredible property prices in London have forced wealthy people to extend their houses downward, with some townhouses now apparantly being as big underground as they are above ground. One guy had a tube slide installed next to his bed -- no fooling -- that went down five stories to his basement swimming pool. He just jumped in it immediately after waking up.

I didn't know that -- that's interesting. I don't ever remember my dreams though. Once or twice a year I wake up with a vague recollection but it always fades within a few minutes of waking up. Apart from that rare event, I never remember anything at all.

To the Accusing Parlour!

I'm always fascinated by dream discussion. I've been lucid dreaming for years (in fact when I was younger I didn't realise that not everyone could do it). I also suffer from sleep paralysis and always know when I'm dreaming, making it easier to control them (there's no risks involved as I know I'm not awake).

Lucid dreaming isn't the same as recollection though, sir. It's the awareness whilst dreaming, of being in a dream.

I've spent many nights tossing and turning, trying to perfect my lucid dream masturbation, I can tell you.

Oh yeah, I know that -- what I was saying was, if I am lucid dreaming, I don't ever remember it when I wake up as I never remember any of my dreams. I don't even know that I do dream for sure (although I am assured everyone dreams and it must just be that I don't know it).

That sounds ace! But I'd need a wee first...

/old

What's a swimming pool for if it's not for peeing in

Do they actually have that stuff in swimming pools that is supposed to turn red/blue/purple if you pee in the water, or is that just an urban myth?

I don't think you understand how rich these people are. He probably has someone to do that for him. I'm trying to find the article but I can't now, sadly.

*Puts on another monocle*

A pair of monocles?

We poor folks call them spectacles.

And while you're doing that, the rest of us mock you for not watching enough Futurama.

That would be FANTASTIC! Esp for those cold winter mornings when you're all warm and comfy in bed but nature calls.

hello not insomnia as such but again I have an essay for tomorrow and I will be up all night no doubt despite being fucking knackered now. If you hear any news of some fool driving down the road eating toblerones in his bare feet, it will probably be steve coogan who im holding hostage to recreate my favourite partridge moments. This will be my 3rd nigth without sleep in an 8 day period im sure thats pretty fucked up.

Tubing. That's the answer. B&Q probably have a factsheet.

Insomnia is indeed rubbish. I generally get to the point where I'm one hour away from the time I need to wake up anyway, make a decision to just get up and watch telly or something, then promptly fall asleep. And then wake up in a massive panic ninety minutes later. And that's before getting onto the fun of falling into a tissue-thin level of sleep, only to be woken up three minutes later by the sound of a sparrow farting three miles away.

While it probably won't work for everyone, I recommend the half-a-bottle-of-wine method, combined with listening to relaxing music in bed on my iPod. Over-counter sleep remedies like Nytol are rubbish, I've taken double the advised dose before now, and even then not even felt remotely drowsy.

On the subject of alarming dreams, has anyone else had the 'tremendously realistic feeling of being violently shaken awake by someone, even though you're the only person in the house, and no-one is there after all, but it seemed so realistic' one?

I've not heard that before but it sort of makes sense.

I love a good read at bedtime, but I do find that a really gripping novel can be counterpoductive, as you can find yourself sitting up until 4am, determined to get to the end.

For this reason I now favour difficult works of philosophy, especially those by Imannuel Kant and Friedrich Hegel.
These quickly send me to sleep(that other Friedrich -Nietzsche- is far too racy for bedtime).

Agh, I had great difficulty in getting to sleep last night, which isn't normal for me. Worse yet, I had the most appalling nightmare. I dreamt I was watching a sort of midnight festival procession of friends and family, and I clambered into a bunkbed in the grassy amphitheatre I was watching from. I curled up under the blankets, popped my head out and there was a terrifying thin and tall white-faced thing with an Andy Pandy hat staring back at me, frowning and then grinning, grinning and then frowning, maniaclly. Then there was a bright sort of nuclear light, and a hot roar of wind and a shockwave of raw, primal evil came flying over a lake from the hills and when it struck me I experienced the most profound terror and horror, all the while this creature nodding and grinning and frowning.

I actually woke up to find I was biting my forearm. I stayed curled up under the quilt and couldn't think about anything else, couldn't think of my day or tomorrow or anything but that awful wretched horrible feeling of evil. I eventually drifted off into a calmer sleep, but I guess I only got about four hours at most.

Consequently I feel completely wretched today.

that sounds awesome, oh if you look at the time on my post saying blah blah blah im not going to sleep ill be crackers in the morning, you may have not seen me on the news because i went to kip 10 minutes after posting it. I have been up since 5am though in hope of finding 5 minutes of work amongst the over 55 mins every hour of looking on here.