I've got it anyone else with me? Had it since I was about 12. Right now I'm up listening to music after a GOW 2 session. I'll probably hit the sack in about 30 mins. Sweet, Arsis's Hopeless Truth just came on my itunes... its a good night.

There are too many false insomniacs (not saying you are) but there are plenty of people who proudly claim insomniac status when they go to bed at like 2am sometimes and keep a normal schedule. I haven't been asleep before 4 am in years. Posers.

Edit: This is not something I'm actually proud of.

Some people think its cool to have conditions.

I don't think I'll ever have insomnia. It doesn't sound pleasant, and I love sleep too much and am never stressed/have things on my mind enough for it. Maybe once I start having some level of responsibility, I'll find myself sleeping less, however I just can't see myself being an insomniac.

To the OP, you've had it since you were 12? I'll assume it's several years since being diagnosed...doesn't it fuck up your day-to-day life to the point of not being able to function properly? Surely you've taken some kind of medication for it?

I'm not OP obviously, but have answers to your questions that relate. My day to day life suffers greatly, I have been set back massively in school, and lost jobs because I am so fucking drained by having to get up early when I can never get enough sleep the night before. Luckily I do ok enough in poker to avoid functioning in the real world for now.

I can imagine. Getting so little sleep constantly would just kill me. I get up at 4am 6 days a week anyway, so if I can't sleep, then it's all over. I can understand it would affect your employment opportunities. Have you taken any medication or tried other remedies to cure it? You can't live that way.

I sleep so easily that I sometimes think Insomnia is one of those sort of fake/often exaggerated conditions, like Aspergers.

Reminds me of my mother. She half-believes that allergies and asthma are fake, just because she doesn't have them, even though my brother and I have been hospitalized for them.

I've had much trouble in the past year or so of college due to insomnia and just being sick in general. I've tried exercising more (I was up to running and/orwalking, whichever I felt like, up to ten miles each night) but that actually makes me more wide-awake, so I just turned to drugs, lol... No, I try not to take too many sleeping pills. Sometimes if I have trouble sleeping I will take some benadryl but not too much if I can help it. Tried melatonin and several other things without any huge success.

It may be a symptom of anxiety or depression, I've always had a hard time sleeping unless I was under the influence of some type of drug, recently I came to be told I had an anxiety disorder (there are many other symptoms but irregular sleeping patterns is definitely one of them) and have been on some antidepressants and ant-anxiety medication and it makes this element of my life a lot easier. If it's getting to the point where you want to do something about it go and see your local doctor.

Insomnia is such a hipster term, it's lost all meaning. My circadian rhythm is fucked up; I never sleep before 3-4am. It doesn't mean I have a fucking chemical imbalance, though.

I have it. Sometimes I can lie awake in bed for a few hours and not fall asleep. It can be excabated by stress. For instance: the day before my maths test (maths is my weakest subject and it was an extremly important test) I only got about 3 hours sleep. It was a 3 hour test to.
Needless to say after it was I very tired and I fell asleep very quickly that night. So when I'm really tired, it isnt really a problem but generally every other night it is.

Why do you get insomnia in the first place?

I'm not a insomniac, but I am nocturnal. I struggle to sleep at night for many reasons and generally hate being up during the day when its light outside. So much so I've scheduled my life around the evening/night. I go to Uni from 6:30pm-9pm and am looking for night work. I also arrange my social life around darkness. My sleeping habits have been messed up for years. I can only keep the same sleeping routine for a maximum of two days. I normally go to bed around 4-7am.

I wouldn't call myself an insomniac by any stretch, because I often get a full nights sleep, I can't function without it. It just so happens that I can rarely sleep before 2-4am and it has cost me employment in the past, since now especially, I can't wake up before 1-2pm.

I remember Fungicide has it, and he went on a 5-nights-without-sleep binge here once because he absolutely can't sleep without medication. Is it really like that for sufferers of the condition? I really can't imagine not getting my decent amount of sleep, I genuinely feel paranoid and sick until I've had a proper, healthy amount of sleep.

Yes, that is how I felt about it too. That was until I became a victim of the disorder myself. The issue here is multi-faceted - inability to sleep on time, sleep not being deep enough to provide rest, number of hours of sleep is limited, failure for sleep cycle to fall into regular pattern.


I occasionally sleep very well and yet, the next day I feel too tired and drowsy to do anything that requires focus and concentration. There are other times when I wake up realizing how poor my sleep had been. And I find it most annoying when I feel sleepy and retire to bed, but am unable to fall off to sleep for the next several hours. It is bothersome since I am not in a mindset to do anything worthwhile then but at the same time, I cannot get the peaceful rest that my body seems to require.

I go through periods of insomnia. It can be really frustrating especially when I am feeling very tired but not sleepy and end up lying in bed for hours, occasionally all night. The worst I have ever experienced was not sleeping at all for two nights in a row. People tend not to understand that there is a difference between being a night owl and not being able to get to sleep even when you want too. Given my family history of addiction I am very reluctant to start taking sleeping pills but it seems to getting worse all the time (started in my teens) so eventually I may have to start.

This is in addition to just generally not sleeping well and usually taking an hour or more to fall asleep.

I have it, but listening to music helps. If I don't have music, I usually lie around for many hours before falling asleep, if I fall asleep at all. Emperor's first album is a very good one, its sound almost always puts me asleep, though there have been exceptions when I was really fucked up. A guy I know (who's also manic depressive) have had insomnia since he was a baby though. I think he just sleeps a few hours, and apart from that he is always awake and never tired. Apparently, his parents had a really hard time when he was always awake as a kid.

I wouldn't say I have insomnia, the only times I have trouble sleeping is during end of term when I'm more stressed than usual, usually end of term or other stressful times. Then I'll toss and turn pretty much until sunrise and then for some reason I have an easier time sleeping during the day. But other than that I usually sleep fine, especially if I've gone to the gym later in the evening. Glad as hell I don't have insomnia on top of everything else, because those times when I can't sleep are fucking horrible.

I stay up a lot till 4am EST. It's been real bad cause I wake up rather late in the morning. I'm not saying I'm an insomniac or whatever, I think I know why I stay up late: as a graphic designer who predominantly stares at the computer screen daily, it's kind of hard to shut your eyes afterwards. I think I need seeing eye glasses for my graphic work.

I actually went to bed around 4:30 and even then I didn't sleep right away. I prefer to stay up when I actually have time to do stuff. The insomnia just kind of fell in with it.

I used to have it induced by stress. I would almost completely stop sleeping during finals when I was in law school.

I think almost everybody will experience insomnia at least once or twice in his or her lifetime. I, myself, almost always get a full night of sleep. However, sometimes, I can't shut my mind off and I'll be awake all night. I'll lay in bed and just constantly think. This is probably due to my hyper personality.

I have insomnia I guess. I've been having problems with sleep for probably 4-5 years. My condition is that my heart just starts beating unnaturally fast, that is when my sleeping schedule is fucked(which is most of the time). I don't feel bad before it starts, nor when it has started, but it still manages to screw my fun fun sleepytime up.

Sleep deprivation hasn't had a good effect on my life. I've spent the most part of the last 4-5 years sleep deprived and it has been going down the drain steadily the whole time. I've noticed that the few times I manage to keep a proper schedule, I feel tons better. Am more active, can think clearer, etc. But then it all falls apart when I stay awake past midnight for any reason. Basically, it's hard as shit to keep a proper sleeping schedule, but not sleeping properly for ONE night fucks everything up.

So, I take sleeping medicine. ALL of them have had a negative effect. Either I felt shitty the day after, or they work in the beginning but later on make me ill. The only thing that worked properly (that I can't use anymore) was cannabis, although I didn't get to use it enough to determine if there would be any negative effects in the long run.

I'm glad I don't have Insomnia...

...but I'm glad I have Insomnium.

Try going to sleep on a sugar rush. It can feel like that.

I a lot of people who claim to have insomnia probably have this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome

I personally suffer from bizarre sleeping patterns that shift around constantly and just can't sleep at all sometimes but that's about it. I'm fairly used to it but it's still gets irritating when you miss lectures or appointments because it took you until 5am to finally fall asleep.

If you can wake up at a different time, in a different place, can you wake up as a different person?

I sometimes find I can't fall asleep, though I'm still going with the normal "fucked up by puberty/stress/not having a girlfriend' answer over true insomnia for the moment. Generally things I've found to work are: moving where I sleep (Bed to couch to floor to fetal position in closet) which helps for some odd reason; the other one is I pray the entire Rosary. Don't knock it, because by the third Glorious Mystery your body is begging for sleep and by forcing myself to say 20 odd more prayers I just about pass out when I put away the beads. It also helps relieve a bit of the stress of the day I think.

ive got insomnia men, nothing to be proud about it... its most to live like a zombie, you are not awake, but also you are not sleep, an awful shit i must say... posers sucks

I'm not about to self-diagnose but I have had weird sleeping problems over the past few years. For quite a while, I couldn't fall asleep until very late at night and I'd find myself waking up early in the morning anyway, sometimes even before sunrise. I used to regularly function on 4 hours a night. I don't know that it had an exceptionally adverse effect on my life back then, I just didn't feel like I needed to sleep.

However, this past year was extremely emotionally stressful for me and adverse effects started to creep in. A few times, I've sat down on my couch only to wake up an hour later and realize I fell asleep almost as soon as I rested my head. To combat this bizarre narcolepsy, I've started forcing myself to stay in bed and at least doze and relax when I wake up in the morning. On particularly bad and restless nights, I'll pull out a copy of the local newspaper and force myself to read sections that usually bore me to death. And so far, it feels like it's working--I'm averaging between 6-8 hours these days.

Also, do any of you restless sleepers drink caffeine late in the day? Never know, it could be something as simple as that.

Pretty sure I've always had insomnia, or I guess I like to claim I have it. Throughout high school I only got probably 5-6 hours of sleep every night, but since I was constantly active going to school, working part time etc, it never really bothered me.

This year it's been pretty fucked up since I haven't worked in awhile. There was probably a good month or two where I was falling asleep on average between 6-9 AM and then waking up between 4-6 PM. I fucking hated it, but I blame myself a lot for not doing a lot to fix it. I've been on and off anti-depressants this year too and it's pretty weird how much they can change things, one drug makes me get ~10 hours of sleep every night, another prevents me from getting more than 5 (and these are drugs you take for weeks). I've pretty much been in a restless state this entire year, it really sucks. I can't remember the last time I didn't have that "baggy eyes" feeling.

My main issue is that it just takes me forever to fall asleep. Maybe it's anxiety, but I don't know. It's been an issue probably when I started going to Jr. High or so, ~7-8 years ago or whatever. I can lay there for hours on some nights and now since I'm not working... it just puts me in a bad mood and sometimes I'll say "fuck it" and just stay up until I'm at the point of passing out pretty much. Not healthy at all I'm sure. When I finally fall alseep though, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. I pretty much always have a hard time waking up though, motivation and a good shower can fix that though.

At least my sleeping schedule is a lot better now. Since I've been busier and closer to getting jobs and all that junk. At the latest I only wake up around noon now, which isn't bad when like noted above, I was waking up around 4-6 PM for awhile. It's still a miracle if I get to bed before 2-3 AM though. I know if I get a full time job here soon it'll kick my ass for awhile, but I'll deal with it. I know night shifts are out there ... but I really am kind of sick of living like this. Having a normal schedule again would be nice.

I can't be entirely sure about now, but I'm fairly sure I had insomnia over the summer, I wasn't going to bed until about 4am every morning, I just couldn't sleep

I wish I could share some of my sleeping habits with you guys
I can sleep for over 12 hours if I can, but I would still be tired when I wake up. It is annoying to be tired all the time, I wouldn't mind to be more hyperactive and get like 2 hours less sleep really.

Yeah it sucks, either you get too little sleep, or too much. I'm not sure what's worse.

I don't know (or care really) whether I officially have insomnia, but I find it impossibly hard to get to sleep pretty much every night. I can go to bed at, say, ten O clock, feeling absolutely knackered, and I'll still be lying there awake at about three in the morning which is a bit gay as apart from Sunday I have to get up before seven every day of the week so I'm usually pretty much barely functional at school and work and stuff hahaha. I do suffer from depression so I don't know whether that has any effect on it, I've had problems sleeping for years though long before that so I don't know.

As far as I know, I've had insomnia for a while. Ever since I've been in Grade 1 or 2, I've been just lying in bed until 1 AM waiting to fall asleep constantly. It's become a lot more controlling, recently, some nights, I go to bed around 11:30 or 12, feeling heavy eyed, and just lay there for an hour, and then I decide 'fuck this', I'm going upstairs, or watching a movie. After the movie, I start feeling heavy-eyed again, lay my head down again and repeat. Some nights I don't sleep at all.

Nah, I don't have insomnia. Sometimes I can't get to sleep for a while, but I think that happens to everyone every now and again.

I'm a pretty laid back person, so if insomnia is stress induced, I reckon I'm unlikely to get it.


Oh yeah. My friend in primary school always used to try and make me jealous because he had asthma, while I only had hayfever...

I would describe myself as more of a pseudo-insomniac as I generally start to loose alot of sleep towards the end of school semesters (I generally only get about 4-5 hours of sleep every night that I dont sleep in ...which is not often in my case). At the moment I normally go to bed around 4am and wake up around 11am. I am looking forward to the holidays as I will be able to generate a normal sleeping pattern again.

I usually can't go to sleep at any time before about 12 at night, or sometimes like 1 or 2 in the morning. I don't know ehy this is, but no matter how tired I am, I just can't go to sleep before late at night. If I go to bed earlier, I just lie awake, sometimes for the entire night.

It's fucking 3 am here right now and it doesn't feel like I can go to sleep in a little while yet. As a result of this, I sleep to 1, 2 or 3 in the afternoon as soon as I have the option to do so, and I spend most of the weekdays totally exhausted since I still can't go to sleep until quite late even if I have to go up at about 6 or 7 in the morning.

I have no idea what's causing this, but smoking weed or drinking alcohol seems to help me sleep, so sometimes I try to get to sleep a little earlier by drinking a beer or smoking a joint before I hit the sack.

But yeah, I suppose you could say I've got some type of insomnia, reducing a normal night's sleep to 4-5 hours or 6 hours at most. Hell, a lot of nights I get about 2 or 3 hours of sleep quite a lot of times, and a bunch of nights I don't sleep at all

I have no idea what's causing this, but it's close to driving me crazy.

That sounds more like your circadian rhythms are out of whack rather than insomnia. Try going to bed maybe a half hour earlier at a time, and see how that goes.

Alcohol doesn't help - alcohol actually makes it worse, because your body is still trying to digest and process all the toxins you've consumed. I know this, believe me - I've tried drinking myself to sleep, it doesn't work.

Dope on the other hand.... best nights sleep I ever had