Has anyone had this before?

Hi, I made an account just to ask this question.

When I “go to bed”, everytime I start to feel myself start to feel tired and fall asleep, I snap out of it and get a rush of adrenaline that completely makes me unsleepy because my heart is beating fast. What makes it worse is that I know what will lead me to that point and so it starts earlier and earlier because my brain knows it will lead me to falling asleep from when I used to fall asleep no problem. It’s kind of like a reflex. My question is, has anyone experienced this? I’ve tried to search for people who have my symptoms but it’s always not similar enough to where I can say, “Yup, sounds like me”. By the way I take 7.5 mg of melatonin on days where I want to actually try to overcome it but in the end it doesn’t help and I spend hours in bed and typically go to sleep at around 3-4 and “ideally” around 2. The worst part is, is that I have to wake up at around 7:30 for school now so it’s kind of starting to piss me off.

Yep, I am experiencing the same thing. Unfortunately I do not know the solution to this is, and my internet research isn't producing much.

For me, there are two variants of this that I experience - I have no idea if they are different in kind, or if they are simply different in intensity. In the first variant, I start to fall asleep and enter what I believe scientists call the 'hypnagogic state' - ie. the sleep-wake transition phase. I know this is happening because I start seeing dream like images and I feel quite pleasant; My mind is sort of wandering in an uncontrolled and relaxed way. Very quickly (all this is probably a matter of seconds), my conscious mind notices this and I am alert.

In the second variant, the same thing happens, although I am a lot deeper into the hypnagogic state, but at some point my body jerks awake - an actual physiological jolt usually happens, either my arm or my lower back or my abdominal muscles. It's quite unpleasant.

In between these two variants, I sometimes also feel a rush of butterflies in the stomach as I am drifting off to sleep, which obviously wakes me up.

My own internet research and thinking about this topic leads me to believe the phenomenon has something to do with your body being unable to pass through the sleep-wake transition stage/hypnagogic stage successfully. Something about one part of your brain being more ready for sleep than the other, so there is a mis-alignment. Imagine going down an escalator but the railing is going down slower than the stairs, and your arm is attached to the railing. At some point the railing snatches you back off the stairs. Obviously just my uneducated hunch.

I have tried all forms of supplements - magnesium, melatonin, 5 htp, magnolia bark extract, lemon balm. These all help give me better sleep when i don't experience this sleep-wake transition insomnia, but they do nothing when I do experience it. The only thing that works is ambien - I have a 10mg prescription but I usually cut the pill in half or quarters and try to take somewhere between a quarter to a half. It definitely works, but ambien comes with a whole host of problems - research indicates it doesn't give you the quality of sleep you need, it can cause addiction and rebound insomnia, and the long term health consequences are poor. Not to mention that crazy ambien sleep walking/eating/driving stories you hear. Plus, even when I do take ambien, it only lasts for about 5 hours, after which I wake from my REM cycle and have the same issue falling asleep again.

The bad news is I have no idea how to solve this. I don't think many doctors know much about this either. All of the articles I read seem to equate this to 'hypnic jerks', but they all claim that is benign and nothing to worry about. Well, not so benign if it keeps you up all night!

you might want to have your oxygen level tested while your sleeping. these might be signs of sleep apnea.
if you have a local sleep center near by, your doctor may be able to order an in-home test to see how many times you stop breathing during your sleep.

Hi there,

I am a bit late to the game but happened upon this in my research and it so closely matches what I am experiencing.

For the past year or more, I go through bouts of insomnia similar to what is described in the other posts here. I am exhausted, but the moment I lay in bed, my body loses its "tired". My heart races faster than it should, I cannot get comfortable, I feel itchy, and all around my body just feels awake while my mind is exhausted. I lay in bed for hours before I finally am able to get to sleep, and then feel like crap the next day. Sometimes I find that relocating to the couch helps, other times it does not. This typically happens for three or four days, each day I feel worse than the others. Even though I am physically exhausted, it seems like there is something in me that just will not let me body shut off. After the three or four days, my body finally snaps out of it and allows me to sleep.

Similarly, other times I feel myself enter that "just before sleep" phase where my mind is wandering and I can feel sleep coming, I fall asleep, only to wake up minutes later to be awake all night long.

I have tried melatonin, which does not help, and tends to leave me more tired the next day as I was not able to sleep it off. I am fine after I get through the odd few days of sleeplessness, but during it, I feel so tired that I am sick, dizzy, etc. It effects my ability to function as a human. Any other similar experiences or advice?

I know what you are talking about. I was having the same type of insomnia problem. Have you tried sleeping in a different place ? I was experiencing that type of insomnia for a long period of time and what I aint ever thought about was if there was something in the environment causing it. It was only happening in one room I slept in and I aint ever realized that until one night I was having real bad allergies from the dust in my room so I decided to go outside and sleep in my truck and wait till the following day to clean the dust out of my room. That night I passed out sleeping with no problems and stayed asleep through the whole night with no problems. What I mean "problems" is the type of insomnia your talking about. In the morning I was amazed and went back to my room to clean up. After doing so I tried to go to sleep in the room and the insomnia started again. So later that night I went to my truck and slept in there again and again no insomnia problems. I ended up going back and forth, to my room and back to my truck. Only to find that the insomnia only was happening in my room. I ended up moving to a different place and that insomnia problems your talking about doesnt happen. Something in the environment was causing the insomnia.

just to clarify this.. the dust i had real bad allergy to had nothing to do with the insomnia. im allergic to lime dust and every once in a while the lime dust seeps through the cmu wall and starts burning my eyes etc.. and i have to clean it out then i am fine.
i went through everything looking for the cause of this insomnia and i found it.