Somniphobia

[PoulencR]

It sounds like some of you may suffer from Somniphobia - aka. the fear of sleep. It seems like a good idea as to why some people can't sleep, when you sleep you are bascially entering the unknown - the uncontroled darkness, and is actually a very scary thing to some people.

[Guest]

Many of us after living with insomnia are afraid of NOT sleeping. That fear creates anxiety which in turn drives our insomnia. I for one, love to sleep but am always afraid I will lay there for hours unable to sleep.

[1ucas]

In case anyone is not sure what type of sleepdisorder you have check out http://SleepDisorder.us

[Guest]

what many people dont know is that their not alone.....2 days before i got married my soon to be wife told me that she had night terrors. what she didnt know is that i have them too. so always remember, you are not alone!

[sleepless-in-SA]

Hi

I think that sleep problems may often start out as fear of sleep. Or more just contempt for sleep, and thus putting it off as often as we can- as there alswys is something more interesting to do. The our systems adapt, we sleep less, then we can't sleep when we need to, and we end up with fear of not sleeping, and desperation to sleep!

I have just finished reading an interesting book about insomnia, and the core issues surrounding many sleep problems are: worry, fear and stress (and any other negative emotions).These in themselves are bad when related to anything, but when connected to sleep, you have the perfect recipe for insomnia. It becomes a vicious cycle of worry and not sleeping. So if we are always worried about not sleeping, because we are probably worried about other things in our lives aswell (like performance, etc) then it makes sense that our bodies almost fight the worry paradoxically, until we learn to focus and slow down, and recognise the sponsoring worries that resulted in the insomnia.

I do think that worrying about not sleeping is the worst thing to do, yet it is difficult to not do!