[Amanda Wolf]

This week has been the longest period of sleepless nights I have experienced thus far (7 nights). It has also been the week my doctor started working a “trail-and-error” process of finding a sleep aide that works for me (3 different ones I’ve tried thus far). I have been noticing that I haven’t felt like I have fallen asleep at all, even though my partner reports that they noticed my deep breathing and thought finally I had slept! Is this normal? I report on my sleep diary that I have never fallen asleep this week because I never felt myself fall asleep. But is it actually the case that I have somehow consciously slept? Has anyone experienced this?

[Damien]

I believe that our body drops into micro sleeps to keep us going. I also think we sometimes fall asleep for short periods, but feel like we have been awake all night.

I often feel that in the morning, where I try to sleep a little more, and it feels like I was awake the entire time, but it makes no sense to me that the amount of time that passed, actually could have.

[Martin Reed]

Hello Amanda, and welcome to the forum.

It would be extremely unusual to go for seven days and get absolutely no sleep at all. So, I suspect it’s quite likely that you are getting a bit more sleep than you think you are — especially when we consider that your partner has reported seeing you sleep!

So, at the very least, this should serve as some reassurance.

From what you’ve described, it sounds as though you may be experiencing paradoxical insomnia.

Here’s a good description of paradoxical insomnia from a patient’s perspective.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques can be helpful for paradoxical insomnia since they include sleep education — and this can really help address any incorrect and/or inappropriate thoughts and beliefs that surround sleep.

Furthermore, when you combine sleep education with other CBT-I techniques such as sleep restriction and stimulus control, sleep often becomes more consolidated and this improves sleep quality, helping you feel better during the day and this can often help you more accurately recognize/evaluate the amount (and quality) of sleep you are getting.

I hope this helps.

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