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Mental Health Fear of Sleeping?

llama112

llama112

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Nov 26, 2010
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Just wondered if anyone else on here had a fear of sleeping?

I've had it for as long as I can remember. I'm just scared to go to sleep (something I do every night!) but I get super anxious and worried about sleeping and my mind is trying to convince my body to go to sleep but then it's also scared and convincing it to stay awake. Anyway, it's confusing, I probably didn't explain that very well.

I have anxiety but it's just moderate, not too severe, but I don't understand this sleeping thing. Not sure if anyone else might have it too? :S
 
For a while I had a fear of sleeping at night (day time sleeping like naps never effected me). It still comes over me occasionally. I have anxiety issues which I think manifest themselves for me more at night.

Do you suffer from nightmares or any other sleep disturbances like sleep paralysis that causes the fear? Or is it just a fear of the act itself? What I noticed for myself, and of course this is different for everyone, is that I felt helpless at night. Asleep, I'm losing time I could be spending doing other more "valuable" things, and then i also think worst case scenario about robbery etc. I have also found if I watch scary/thriller type movies then it's more difficult for me to fall asleep, but that's probably just me lol.

Does anything help you?
 
I don't get nightmares or sleep paralysis. I'm not even sure WHAT I'm scared of. Like WHY am I scared of falling asleep? I don't know.
And robberies and stuff, they used to scare me more but not as much anymore. Yeah, there is a little fear of that but it doesn't seem to be too substantial.

It does bother me that I am wasting time sleeping lol. Before, I'd be too paranoid about the things I need to do the next day so I write out my "to do list". That reduced why I was worrying at night but didn't help the actual being scared of falling asleep. It shouldn't be scary since everyone does it every night.
 
For me, sleep is about the only comfort! I don't know how one could deal with a fear of sleeping but taking some natural sleep-aids would at least speed up the process of getting there..
 
llama112 said:
Just wondered if anyone else on here had a fear of sleeping?

I've had it for as long as I can remember. I'm just scared to go to sleep (something I do every night!) but I get super anxious and worried about sleeping and my mind is trying to convince my body to go to sleep but then it's also scared and convincing it to stay awake. Anyway, it's confusing, I probably didn't explain that very well.

I have anxiety but it's just moderate, not too severe, but I don't understand this sleeping thing. Not sure if anyone else might have it too? :S
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I thought I was the only one!

I have a fear of actually laying down in my bed with the "declared" intention of sleeping. I fear the exact moment when my mind will go from consciousness to unconsciousness. My fear is not due to sleep paralysis or nightmares either (rarely have them).

However, I can also say that for some periods of time I sleep too much and I abuse sleep. How?

I lay down in my bed just to procrastinate a little, "rest my eyes" and then, BOOM, wake up hours later. Sometimes 12 hours later. No, there aren't any drugs involved. That happens when I'm stone sober ( I don't have alcoholism or drug addiction).

I have suffered from weird phobias, OCD, generalized anxiety, ADHD and many other forms of psychological problems ever since I was a small kid. This fear of sleeping is no exception. I have had that ever since I was a kid but there were long periods in my life that I just completely forgotten about that and other periods that it was in full intensity. Now it's at it's full intensity. I'm 23 years old.
 
I use melatonin during the week to "help". Benzos on the weekends. Even though benzos are for anxiety, they still make me anxious to sleep. And even then, I'm fighting with myself to sleep/not to sleep.

I just... hate sleep. I'm definitely bringing this up to my therapist next time I see her, but that's not for a few weeks, was hoping a post here would help.
 
You are definitely not alone here llama! I have had this fear since I was a child. I have definitely ALWAYS had to rely on some sort of chemical or medication to help me get to sleep. I am the opposite about hating sleep though.. I LOVE sleep. I just have to get myself to where I can relax enough in order to sleep.. but once I can get there, I love to sleep, and can sleep my ass off! This has gotten better over the years, and I had this odd thing where I was afraid to sleep around other people. Like, when I get in a new relationship, it takes me FOREVER to be able to stay the night and sleep next to them. Dudes think I'm mad weird because of this, but it is just how I am. It has taken me up to a year to actually be able to sleep next to a dude before.

On a similar note, I am afraid to shower if no one is home. This is a pain in the ass, because I don't have time to wait for someone to be at my house in order for me to shower. This is primarily the reason I shower at night time, before bed. This is when I am not alone usually.
 
^ I always attribute the shower fear in myself to having watched Hitchcock's Psycho as a very young child.8)
 
I have gotten this but usually it's been because i was afraid of waking up feeling even more miserable then i already was. This was usually caused by really awful bipolar depression in which sometimes i would have really emotional and depressing dreams that took a long time to shake off. Sometimes i was just afraid of waking up feeling even more depressed :| . Before i found out i was allergic to wheat and that's what was making my stomach pain so bad i would be afraid to go to sleep for fear of waking up in even more pain.
 
I thought i had somniphobia the fear of sleeping because I would have such bad nightmares that I became scared of sleeping.....I am just now coming to a place where I don't obsess on it as much but when it was bad it gave me great anxiety......
 
I've ALWAYS feared/hated sleeping. I'm not sure why. I hate it because it's boring, but not sure why I fear it. I don't like sleeping, but have to force myself to do it in order to function obviously.

If I HAVE to sleep, I prefer it during the day. That may be cuz I'm more of a night person though.

I always feel offended when anyone suggests that I might be tired or need to sleep, even if it's just an innocent comment from someone who has no clue that I hate sleeping.

I have extreme anxiety issues, but I feared/hated sleeping long before my anxiety issues.
 
The only time I ever had this was when I was camping and having sleep paralysis after going to bed after drinking alcohol.

llama and deltakappamu:Get into meditation it's way more effective than benzos are, and it's not physically or psychologically addictive like they are.
 
I only fear sleeping when i'm out of clonazepam. I fear my dreams, when I don't take my clonazepam, I have very vivid, frustrating dreams, and when wake up, I feel like I haven't slept at all and my anxiety is through the roof.
 
Freddie Tacos said:
I only fear sleeping when i'm out of clonazepam. I fear my dreams, when I don't take my clonazepam, I have very vivid, frustrating dreams, and when wake up, I feel like I haven't slept at all and my anxiety is through the roof.
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I went thru the same thing. That is the reason I don't run out anymore but on top of that it really doesn't matter because i still have nightmares.....Just when I'm out of klonopin my skin feels like it's on fire and Oh! the nightmares are terrible.
 
sometimes i get this fucked up thing where i'm semi-awake but can't move with my eyes open, as soon as i get out of that state i don't want to go back to sleep. i mostly only get this during drug withdrawal.
 
I had this but it went away after I finished high school. Every fucking night I used to jump up and out of bed just as I was about to fall asleep and feel like throwing up all of a sudden or just freak out for no reason.
 
I have this, in part because I don't get a very restful sleep (I frequently get nightmares or bizarre, unsettling dreams), and in part because I know that once I go to sleep, it'll soon be tomorrow, and tomorrow is full of all the responsibilities I was supposed to do today. Sigh.
 
I definitely experience this! I guess I always viewed the aversion to sleep and my generalized anxiety as separable evils, but this thread has gotten my considering that the two may be one in the same.

I think the partr I relate to the most is thinking that I could be spending my time engaging in activities that will ultimately make me more 'satisfied' than sleeping would... Though, admittedly, this never turns out yo be the case! I end up manic as hell and spending ridiculous amounts of money (for my income, at least...) online shopping, and just generally engaging in manic behavior. Whether or not I do this after only one night, or only after multiple nights, of no sleep is eluding me at the moment but one thing's for sure - this issue dominates my nocturnal life...
 
i was always afraid to go to sleep when i was younger because i was afraid of missing out. i still feel that way sometimes, but i self-medicate. that's obviously not the solution. i would definitely talk to your therapist about it, but keeping up with the to do list of things for tomorrow & the melatonin will help i think.
 
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