Does Anyone Else Feel Awake All Night Despite Actually Sleeping?
I’m looking for people who have experienced something similar to what I’m going through.
I have difficulty falling asleep in the first place. When I go to bed, my mind keeps running and I feel like I’m thinking continuously. It feels like I can’t switch my brain off and properly transition into sleep.
Eventually, I believe I fall asleep, but even then, I often feel like my mind is still active and I’m conscious throughout the night. When I wake up in the morning, it feels like I barely slept or sometimes like I didn’t sleep at all.
What makes this confusing is that I have already had a sleep study. I was told that I was actually asleep during the study, even though my subjective experience of sleep feels very different.
My sleep tracker also often reports poor sleep quality, which adds to my confusion.
So my experience is basically:
Difficulty falling asleep.
Constant thoughts or mental activity when trying to sleep.
Feeling conscious or mentally awake even after I seem to fall asleep.
Waking up feeling as if I barely slept.
A previous sleep study showed that I was actually sleeping.
My sleep tracker often reports poor sleep quality.
Has anyone experienced this exact combination?
I’m particularly interested in people who were diagnosed with paradoxical insomnia (sleep-state misperception), hyperarousal, insomnia, or frequent sleep arousals.
What did your sleep study show, and what eventually helped you? I would really appreciate hearing about your personal experiences, especially if you initially felt like your brain was “awake” all night despite objectively being asleep.