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Sleep patterns

DogwoodTree

Still here...
Another thread mentioned getting into REM sleep quickly, but taking a long time to wake up. Is this an aspie thing at all?

I start dreaming long before I fully fall asleep. I know because when I rock my kids to sleep when they're babies, I can keep rocking and stay alert to what they need and keep them positioned correctly to fall asleep, but also be dreaming at the same time. I'm not fully asleep, but definitely dreaming strange dreams already.

And like was mentioned in the other thread, I take forever to wake up in the morning. I don't drink coffee, so it's not a gotta-have-caffeine kind of thing. I just can't get the gears moving in the morning.

Anyone else?
 
I am pretty much ready to roll upon waking within minutes. I have always went to sleep very quick as well.I was sent to a sleep study years ago after I had episodes of falling asleep standing.
 
Gears? I'm absolutely shiftless in the morning. I need to lay in bed for 20-30 minutes before getting up, then a hot bath or shower. Even then, I'm really slow for an hour or so, and even though the morning routine is pretty well established, still find myself wandering 'round lost much of the time.

I have no trouble falling asleep, regardless of accommodations or situations, and like Nitro, suspected narcolepsy at one time due to often having an unbearable need to nap.

Those times when I am unable to resist sleep, I will nod off and when I revive, I am aware that I had already started dreaming.
 
Takes me a dreadfully long time to go to sleep. I've counted more than an hour (based on attempts at naps, and times when I was trying to get to sleep but was interrupted by external stimuli). It can also take me a lot time to wake up, depending on how badly I need to sleep.
 
I do the dreaming before being fully asleep too. the sleep study I did recently showed clear REM brain activity but 60% conscious awareness as well. I guess all my jokes about having daymares aren't jokes after all. (Big joke with my band when stress and schedules keep me awake so long that I begin hallucinating - not hallucinations, daymares.)

Like I said in the other thread, it takes me a long time to be fully awake once I've been in a deep sleep. DJ, my Aspie bandmate is just as bad but he has problems getting to sleep in the first place. We are both unsociable terrors for the first hour or so after we wake up. neither of us can get our word straight and, we get frustrated and snappy if anyone dares ask us a question before we're fully awake.
 
I normally take a while to fall asleep, even though I go to bed late. In the morning, how easily I wake depends on how I wake; if I wake up once, at a reasonable time, I stay awake. If I wake up too early, then to go sleep, then wake up again, it's harder to wake up for the day and get out of that cycle. Unfortunately the latter happens too often due to PEOPLE making stupid noise early in the morning. (Curse the loudness of garbage trucks and planes. I hope that sometime in the 21st century they find ways to make them quieter.)
If ever possible, I'd love to live in the countryside someday. I'd gladly take a few hours to take my own garbage to the dump if it meant quality sleep.
 
It takes me ages to fall asleep, and it takes me a while to fully wake up and even when I do get up its my brain that needs an extra two hours to fully switch on again,so you can say I'm definitely not a morning person.
 
How easily I fall asleep depends on if the other members of my house are sleeping or if they want to stay up past midnight laughing. If things are quiet and dark and I'm sleepy then I'll very quickly start being half asleep, so half dreaming half reality, and then into full sleep. But I can wake up very easily. Like if someone comes into my room, I'll wake up right away and be wide awake. So basically I'm very lucky because I don't have any issues with sleeping other than needing not to be disturbed falling asleep.
 
Couple things it could be...

Sensory Processing Disorder (which kinda comes with autism, and/or ADHD) can involve internal regulation issues that make it hard to transition from sleep to wakefulness. I knew this from the "I often feel lethargic and slow in starting my day" item on an SPD symptom checklist, but this Q&A explains it a bit more in the case of a child who was also grumpy and sensitive in the mornings as a result.

I recently learned about Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. Apparently it is also "genetically linked to ADHD by findings of polymorphism in genes in common between those apparently involved in ADHD and those involved in the circadian rhythm[6][7] and a high proportion of DSPD among those with ADHD.[8]"

Makes me wonder about the role of ADHD here...
 
If ever possible, I'd love to live in the countryside someday. I'd gladly take a few hours to take my own garbage to the dump if it meant quality sleep.

Ah, but then you have the birds or nearby livestock to wake you up before dawn! It's amazing how far sound travels across open land.
 
I would have to buck trend here and say that I am unequivocally a morning person. I love the morning and the earlier I wake the better, within reason. I love to see the sun rise. I love the feeling that I've got a whole day ahead, full of potential. Morning light is the most beautiful and it fills me with hope. Once I'm awake, I want to get the show on the road. I love having the morning chores done before I take my son to school. If I have to go out for anything I always prefer to do it in the morning, get it out of the way.

If I wake too late I feel an instant low mood, because I feel I've missed out on the most beautiful part of the day. There's a sense of playing catch up, of having to do more in less time. That mood persists all day. My ex husband, a rock musician, and I were polar opposites regarding sleeping styles... He would stay up all night making music in his studio and then would wake at 2pm the next day... By the time we got dressed and went out the shops were getting ready to close! I hated that period of my life and was utterly depressed.

As I wrote in the other thread, since having ME/CFS I have been finding it harder to wake and get up as early as I'd like.
 
Just to continue my above post... I've been thinking about why I switch on mentally so soon after waking. My conclusion is that it's an anxiety thing, too. Particularly if there is any kind of social event on my calendar for that day; I will be dreading it immediately and be unable to get back to sleep.
 
Just to continue my above post... I've been thinking about why I switch on mentally so soon after waking. My conclusion is that it's an anxiety thing, too. Particularly if there is any kind of social event on my calendar for that day; I will be dreading it immediately and be unable to get back to sleep.

Before I was effectively treating anxiety, that is how about half of my mornings started, waking 2 hours too early in a highly agitated state. It was getting pretty bad, so I went to a psychologist who specialized in sleep issues. That started the long road to being diagnosed with HFA. I now sleep better than I can remember ever sleeping, but I do take a long time to become fully alert.
 
Well, back to the sleep lab for me DSPD seems very likely for me. I know I do not have a 24 hour circadian rhythm, it's more of a rotating one.

Say I go to sleep tonight at 10 pm, that will hold for 2-3 days, then it's midnight for a few days, then 1 am, then it jumps back to 9 pm for a few days, and I repeat the cycle. I can take melatonin and force an immediate change but, if I don't then, that's when I sleep. I always wake between 7 am and 8 am though, no matter what time I go to bed, no alarm needed.

So some variation of DSPD maybe, that or just me being weird again, as usual for me.
 
I think a lot of this has to do with what your natural biological schedule is v/s your actual schedule as very few people have the luxury of being able to go to bed whenever they feel like & get out of bed whenever their body tells them that it's time to get up: sans-alarm / sans-schedule / sans-timeclock every single day of their life.....

Case in point: I once had a contract job where I could make my own hours and thru natural trial & error, I found that going to bed at 3am I would naturally wake up at 9:30am (and be wide awake & fully rejuvenated from the second my eyes opened), make it into work by 11am, work solid & productive till 7:30pm, go home and start the process all over again. I'm currently however on the '9-5 schedule' which alters my 'biological schedule' by only 2 hours but that stupid 2 hour shift screws me up beyond belief and is something I've never been able to adapt to. On this schedule it takes me 45 mins (sometimes) to smack the snooze button & get out of bed, I require caffeine to get going, I need sugar to keep me motivated and then alcohol to decompress when I hit 5:30..... But alas, in the environment in which I currently work: Should I try to shift my work schedule to coincide with my most productive 8 hour time period, I'd be called 'lazy' or a 'slacker' for not showing up at work first thing in the morning,like everyone else. -God Bless the status quo !
 
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I do have that luxury for a bit longer. Not so much once we head out on tour, gigs to make, flights to catch, check out times to abide by plus, changing time zones, and crossing the international date line twice in one week does a number on any hope of a regular sleeping pattern.

I'm enjoying being able to sleep at will while I can. By this fall, you'll see a tour crazed version of me around here, and on the video feeds. I'm fine that way, just no middle ground, either wired to the hilt or asleep on my feet with my eyes still open - depends how close to show time it is.

Yes I take melatonin to help compensate for jet lag but, two dates and nine hours changed in the space of what should be 24 hours, nothing helps that much. The hop across the pond and onto GMT, no big deal but, Japan, then the UK 36 hours later - oof.
 
I find that I have no difficulty getting to sleep, I think because I have a set routine at night that I stick to - and if for some reason I break the routine, I find it hard to sleep. I often wake up at odd times during the night, or early in the morning. If I don't black out the windows, the morning sun will wake me up. I sleep a lot better in winter, under my heavy thick winter duvet. For me, the worse thing is being woken by an alarm clock, or being woken while in REM. I feel tired the whole day when that happens. It normally takes at least an hour in the morning before I feel ready to face the world, until that happens, I don't want to talk to anyone.
 
One thing that contributes to my difficulty in rousing in the morning is my dreams. I have very long, highly detailed, and realistic dreams, and the effect the most realistic have on me can last days. By realistic, I mean they are very much like real life, nothing particularly crazy or wild happens, but it is as if I am leading a second life while asleep, and often it is better than my real life.
 

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