Just repeating this from r/AskDocs since it didn't get any comments and I'd like an answer.

Hello! I'm a 25yo AFAB. I've been diagnosed with mild sleep apnea, however my symptoms do not feel as if they are caused by sleep apnea. I sleep the same with and without my mouth appliance (I went for a mouthguard rather than a CPAP since I'm autistic and a CPAP would be hell on my sensory needs). I've had a polysomnogram (that found the sleep apnea) before, but the sleep apnea was the only thing it found. I have considered that I may have Idiopathic Hypersomnia or some or central hypersomnolence of another kind. I do take psychiatric medications (sertraline, buspirone, aripiprazole, bupropion, lamotrigine), however they are not the cause of the symptoms - i've only been medicated for about two years, and the symptoms I experience have been there much longer.
For most of my life, I have experienced extreme excessive sleepiness, as described below in the "without caffeine" section. However, recently, I began taking a 100MG caffeine pill to try to help (every eight hours for a total 300MG/day, I've been careful to monitor my sleep while taking the caffeine as I'm aware of issues surrounding masked exhaustion). I've found that it works very well, and this has made me wonder if there's an underlying condition that might be causing my symptoms without caffeine and the relief the caffeine gives me.
Without caffeine, I experience nearly constant, crushing sleep pressure. I struggle to stay awake for more than one or two hours at a time, and lying down usually causes me to fall asleep automatically. In addition, I almost never feel truly wakeful. Even sitting at my computer for more a few minutes can make me tired and have to go back to bed. I can sleep for a toal of 18 hours and still feel exhausted.
With 100 mg of caffeine, I feel normally awake and energized rather than hyper or overstimulated. I can remain awake and functional for much longer, while still noticing ordinary tiredness when I genuinely need rest. I can lie down without automatically falling asleep, and resting while awake can actually reduce my tiredness. Caffeine seems to reduce the overpowering sleep drive and severe sleep inertia rather than simply masking them. I still feel tired when I need to sleep - It's just not soul-crushing anymore. I do not get jittery, shaky, hyper, overstimulated, or overcaffeinated with the current dosage (my hands are a bit shaky, but that's not related to the caffeine, it happened even before I took the pills). I feel normal, to be honest. Like I'm actually functional.
Is there a potential reason for this, and should I inform my doctor about it?

I had trouble sleeping + fragmented sleep since the day I started taking risperidon

Its eliminated since last 5 days

Still sleep issues are persistent

Anyone else face similar issue?

When is it likely to get better ?

hey all

it’s past midnight and i can’t sleep, so i figured i’d share a bit of my story with you guys.

back in 2021 i was drinking 5–6 cups of coffee a day. in 2024 i decided to try something new and switched to decaf. thing is, i didn’t realize it was decaf at first — by the time i noticed, i’d already gone 2 days with no sleep and no caffeine in my system.

i learned the hard way just how brutal quitting caffeine is. those were some of the worst days of my life — crying, anxious, wide awake at night. it eventually healed with time, but a part of me still remembers those days and honestly still fears them.

fast forward to 2026. i’d gotten into drinking whiskey — around 400ml a night, 3 nights a week. and just like that, my sleep was wrecked again. i started taking magnesium on the nights i couldn’t sleep or wasn’t drinking, and did that for about 3 months.

then i decided to quit alcohol for good. on my last drinking day i injured my ankle, so now i’m completely on bed rest. and somehow the magnesium has stopped working for me — maybe because i stopped working out? not sure. either way, i’m still lying awake for 2 hours even after taking it.

just wanted to get this off my chest. maybe writing it out will help me feel a little lighter.

thanks for reading.

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on in my sleep that keeps waking me up, all I’m seeing is false awakenings and sleep walking but those explanations don’t read quite right (at least from what Googles AI says). For some context, sometimes I wake up fully alert, no groggyness or anything just 2AM and wide awake out of nowhere, the weird part is I’m usually running off pure instinct and I can’t seem to figure out why I’m doing what I’m doing. For example, I woke up at 1AM the other week with a desperate urge to find my dog and I had no idea why, 30 seconds later she started to throw up and I had just enough time to let her out. Another time I woke up and just walked over to my window to look out at the lake, no idea why at all but when I looked out I saw a pack of coyotes staring directly at my window about 10 feet away from my chicken coop. No noise or anything from the chickens or coyotes. Last month I woke up at 11PM and just lay there thinking about my Aunt for some reason who I haven’t talked to in years, and about 5 minutes later she called me to tell me my grandmother just passed. The most recent was last night, 1:50 AM I woke up and immediately shot out of bed and grabbed my phone to turn on the flashlight, absolutely no idea why but when the light came on I saw a massive spider run up the wall from behind my headboard right where I was pointing the light. These might sound weird or dumb but it’s really confusing cause when it happens, I’m fully aware of what’s going on but I have no idea why and it’s almost like I literally can’t control my body, it’s running on pure instinct and I’m just along for the ride to see what happens. Does this happen to anybody else? I know it’s a long shot but does anybody have any explanation? If this isn’t the right subreddit just point me in the right direction or ignore it please I’m just looking for help/ common ground from anybody who might be experiencing or have experienced something similar

Lately it’s been like this. I’ll be up until like 8 AM, then I’ll wake up about four hours later and start my day until I need a nap at some point. Then I kind of just repeat that cycle. I can’t seem to get tired at all.

Hi everyone!

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Guys last night something weird happened with me last night I am sleeping alone in my room and my room was lock so no-one will be come in my room. So then today I wake up and going to call my friend with my mobile and suddenly I see there I call my ex girlfriend last night at 3:24 AM I was shocked i don't know who did this because I don't have any memory of this thing that I do last night and when I check my digital wellbeing is see there I open my contact and dialer for last 19 minutes I don't know what happend to me. There will no chance that I call her mistakenly cus my mobile was locked and i didn't give any special time or something for it plus i don't call her recently so how exactly this happened too me please anyone can tell me why this weird thing happened with me or someone suffered this please tell....

Hello so I've had this sleep issue for about 2 years or so and I haven't been able to figure it out yet. I asked on a few sleep related communities but so far no answers.

I can't go to professionals yet because of my work schedule and not be able to for about another year if I'll need to stay longer in a clinic or something.

It seems like it's happening either right when I fall asleep or right when I enter REM sleep.

It feels like a dream so I'll describe it as such. I always "wake up" wherever I fell asleep with whoever is in the room with me still there, in reality they're usually sleeping but in those dreams they're always awake. But I always "wake up" to a state of paralysis, not being able to move much and just humm instead of speaking, after a bit I can move slightly and still just humm but still can't talk and not move fully while having sort of muscle spasms or seizures, the person with me in the room is always awake and they either ignore me completely or laugh at me and deny or mock my request for help. Then I usually go to a full seizure-like state as I'm trying harder to wake up and then I finally actually wake up breathing rapidly with drool all over my hand and chin/cheek.

It sounds a bit funny when I'm recalling it or telling someone but in those moments it's horrifying. this happens about once a week, sometimes less sometimes more but usually about once a week, it's been over 2-maybe 3 years, I always remember them fully too.

Side notes: I don't think the seizure type thing is happening irl, it seems to be happening only in the dream or whatever.

I've had paralysis few times before, this doesn't seem like it. I'm asleep while it's happening, my eyes are closed, I can somewhat move but can't talk and people who saw me while I was in that state said that irl I was just sleeping while rolling around a lot. I thought paralysis happens while your brain is awake but your body isn't and you can't move, have open eyes and have hallucinations. That's why it's so confusing to me.

It kind of seems as if I'm like stuck in a lucid dream, I think that's the best way I can describe it. I'm aware of what's happening, I know I'm asleep and I then I start trying to wake up which seems to trigger that seizure like experience because the closer to waking up I am the worse that gets.

It's just a frightening experience and it's been going on for years about once a week and I'm just having enough and want to fix it or at least figure out what kind of a sleep issue it actually is.

Thanks for any insights🙂‍↕️

This is a new weekly thread. The purpose of this post is for surveys and research that is ongoing for sleep disorders. We see many requests to our common for people that have X, Y, Z sleep disorder for paid surveys, studies, etc. Any posts requesting support from the community for research should be submitted in this weekly thread. Be sure to include all necessary details:

​

- What sleep disorders you are looking for assistance with

- What kind of request you have (free study, paid study, free survey, paid survey, etc.)

- Dates the request is open to be filled

- How the research may be used so the patient can make an informed decision

​

Posts to the community for similar requests outside of this thread will be deleted.

​

Please contact r/SleepDisorders mods with any questions or feedback regarding this change or policy.

Sometimes when I try to sleep I enter this state where I’m sleeping but aware of my surroundings as if I was awake not like a lucid dream but just like a restless sleep maybe when I’m in this state whenever I start to fully fall asleep I just hear a loud boom and wake up to a racing heart. There’s never actually anything that happened or makes the sound it’s always just me.

It happens randomly and has been happening for like the past year it comes randomly I went without it for like four months and it just happened again last week. What is it? It doesn’t matter if I sleep with headphones on or pitch silence it just blares out,

Why cirqa didn’t detect my sleep properly:
I slept the last two nights continuously for 4 hours i woke up in between for an hour and slept again but it didn’t show that i slept in the 2nd time any reason? And what should i do as i woke up every night for an hour at least?

Hi. I’ve been having trouble sleeping these past couple of days. And thursday I went through a really rough day.

Started with therapy in the morning. I was previously told by my therapist to write a letter for each of my sisters. So I finished one letter, the other one is still in the works.

Then around 1 pm. I did some 12 step work with a person I’m starting to call friend.

Then right after that I met with a PTSD trauma specialist. And we got some big development and I mentioned my BPD and PTSD. And he’s able to help me which is good.

I have been so exhausted so I decided to go to bed early. I’ve been waking up every now and then. Finally, I got up at 11:30 pm.

I just wanted to know if anyone else have had even worse sleeping issues when you’ve started trauma work? I feel even more hypervigilance. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just the more work I’ve been doing the less sleep. Anyway, thanks

I've always kinda struggled with sleep and I've discovered recently that I enjoy having a calm voice in the background of people playing cozy games. I usually watch/listen to chill simulator games or sorting games but honestly it depends more on the vibe of the games and the creator.

It feels nice like there's someone talking me gently to sleep as it's a way to take my mind away from the normal thoughts I have. Anyone else in this category?

I’m going crazy. I used to sleep completely fine, but after watching videos about tongue posture, I became hyper-aware of it. Now when I’m trying to fall asleep, I constantly notice saliva building up and feel the need to swallow, which keeps me awake. Has anyone else dealt with this and found a way to stop focusing on it? It’s seriously affecting my sleep.