Since starting university (which i've now finished) i've had a screwed up sleep cycle, I go to sleep every night between 2 and 4am, it still takes at least half an hour for me to get to sleep because my mind is always really active. But once I am asleep I can't wake up until about 2pm, which means 10-12 hours of sleep per night. I don't actually need this much sleep, i just can't wake up. No amount of alarms works, if I set an alarm i'll just stand up (sometimes before it even goes off), walk across my room and set it for several hours later (all without opening my eyes), I just can't wake up, I can sleep through fire alarms, conversations outside my room, I can answer the door sign for some parcel then i'm straight back to sleep.

Help me wake up

Put thumb tacs on the floor between you and the alarm clock.

Have you tried skipping one night of sleep so you're really sleepy the next day? That way, you should be able to hit the sack at a reasonable hour such as 10PM. Then get a trusted associate to hit you in the shoulder really hard until you wake up around, oh, say, 6:30 am.

We have exactly the same problem. I've been thinking about seeing the doctor.

Right now, I'm dealing with it by letting my girlfriend wake me up at the same time every day. But sometimes I talk back in my sleep, and give perfectly adequate answers to what she's saying. Then she thinks I'm awake, but I'm not. And I wake up without being able to remember anything about the conversation. I can sleep through anything. At the moment I'm using two alarmclocks, one of which is on the other side of the room at full volume, so I can't turn it off in my sleep.

In summer it's even worse. I open my eyes, but I'm like comatose, not even able to move an arm. So totally devoid of energy.... So I just lay there for 20 minutes or so, trying to gather the strength to get up. Often I fall back asleep. I've been having this problem all my life, as long as I can remember.

Hooray! I'm not the only one!

i have many problems with insomnia as well as narcolepsy (sp? *don't care). anyways, i have to fix my sleep schedule often and this is a good way to do it:

stay up for a few days. at least 36 hours provided you don't have to do anything huge that could be dangerouse. get a friend to poke the hell out of you so you won't go to sleep until about 10 or 11pm and then go to sleep. excersize a lot the afternoon before hand (but not too soon before you're supose to goto sleep). drinking a little will help you sleep too. just enough to get tipsy (like a pint), getting **** faced and puking will undo the process. then drink about 2 or so pints of water before you goto bed. you'l probly wake up about 6 or 7 hours later with either a strong erge to pee or really wet sheets. either outcome should make you get up.

Don't do anything active before going to sleep. This includes anything on your computer and IRC. Try reading.

Or maybe see a doctor.

I tend to read for about an hour before going to sleep, every night.

And I can sleep through the urge to pee for several hours without any issues with wet sheets, on the other hand I can't go to sleep in the first place if I need to go...

You just need more self-discipline.

where can I buy some?

I take melatonin tablets to help me sleep because I have a hard time making melatonin (the hormone that lets you sleep) on my own. You can buy them over-the-counter as a dietary supplement.

I suggest that you try it.

Yea, i was beginning to think there was something wrong with me.

I personally have myself trained to the sound of my watch alarm clock. I can set any other alarm clock as loud as it can go, hide it somewhere else in the room, and still manage to turn it off and go back to sleep. But with my watch alarm, no matter how deep I am sleeping, it will always wake me up.

You might want to try training yourself in a similar way. Just chose an alarm clock with a very distinct alarm that you want to use as your primary alarm. Then start by just lying down in the middle of the day with your eyes closed (but not sleeping) and the alarm set to go off in 5 min or so. When the alarm goes off, get up and go on with your day. Repeat.

After a while you can start taking short naps (if you the sort of person who actually can take naps), starting with shorts naps and set your alarm to go off when you need to get up(again, 5 min is good) and get progressively longer. Finally, once you have trained yourself to respond to your "special" alarm, you can start trying to use it to wake up in the mornings.

Again, Personally I still use two alarms, the first is a regular clock/radio alarm that i usually turn off in my sleep, but then I set my watch to go off a little bit after the clock radio. I don’t know why this works better, but I have no problem getting up in the morning (if I want to get up that is). Plus, I can take naps pretty much anywhere (like in-between classes, in the car when I am early to work...) and use my watch to make sure I don’t sleep to long. Of course Your Mileage may very.

tofu is right.

You guys are undisciplined, limp-wristed, panty-waisted girly men (and I use the term in only the strictest, anatomical sense).

A few tips, they really do work, i had problems like these too

1. Never have a viewable clock around...
-----I can't sleep, why can't i sleep, wait, what time is it, oh...okay i can't sleep, this way youre mind keeps active thinking about the time

2. Do not get behind a computer, do schoolwork or anything like that 0,5 hour before sleeping
-----Youre mind was very active when converting light to images to information

3. Do not drink or eat any products with lots of Calories, caffeine or fruit with natural sugar's, because they make you (hyper)active

4. Sleep in the dark (don't tease him ), because otherwise you can see alot in your room/house/appartment

5. Do not read a book before sleeping

6. If you have some music that you find relaxing (no death metal for example, but some people like jungle sounds, bird sounds etc.) put it on!

They worked with me, good luck with your problem

That is called waking up in *sorry cant translate* your lightest stasis of sleep, this means you are almost awake but wake up earliyer, this means your mind still thinks you are sleeping while you can't move your body, some people even halucinate while this happens, this is the worst form of this kind of error-of-your-body... You think a witch bewitched you, or you are being obducted by aliens! Sounds crazy, but it is true, try to go to sleep a bit later then normal...

Why i know so much about sleeping, my mom has something to do with it

[QUOTE=need help]6. If you have some music that you find relaxing (no death metal for example, but some people like jungle sounds, bird sounds etc.) put it on![/QUOTE]
I actually like listening to death metal when attempting to go to sleep.

i have my alarm set to total volume pure white static.

i lie in bed with it blasting for about 10 minutes, it either lulls you into a terror filled snooze or it shatters your brain and forces you out of bed.

I can't help with the problem at hand. Only make you feel bad because I have an uncanny ability to wake up ten minutes before my alarm goes off.

That's what I do, so I always take the opportunity to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep :p

[QUOTE=need help]
Why i know so much about sleeping, my mom has something to do with it :P[/QUOTE]

I hope I am misreading that...

Any how, I suffer from almost all those problems... so... help me please?

oh, you just need the pure yellow sun of the USA rather than the red sun of mexico.

Or perhaps the problem is that its been raining for the last week, thats about when the symptons intensified.

EDIT: On a side note, some times when I wake up, my left hand is all curled up tightly and I can't move it for like 3-5 minutes, and when I touch it I don't feel it. What is this?

It's called your hand being numb from having slept on it.

try standing up and spinning around, see if you can get your arm to slam into you hard enough to cause actual pain.

Yeah, but I can't even move it, as if I had lost that extremity. But I truly doubt you've ever woken up and not have been able to move either of your arms. I've had that... not nice.

it's perfectly normal, don't worry about it.

Well I wasn't worried till I heard it could be a sign of heart disease, like my grandfather on my mothers side died of :(.

It could be a sign of poor circulation and therefore a heart condition, or more likely you've just slept on your arm cutting off circulation to it.

Either way, I think I'll check it out.

yeah sometimes i wake up with a dead arm after sleeping funny.

then it feels horrid in a way thats hard to describe for about a minute, then tingly for a bit and before i know it, the arm is no longer at risk of dropping off.

Sometimes I sleep in such a way that either one of my arms will be numb when I wake up. That's all it is.

From me.

$10000 and I will teach you self discipline.

Are you doing it the painful way, tofu?

Haha, that reminds me, one time I woke up because my cold, totally numb sleeping hand slapped me in the face when I rolled over on my other side. I had to pick it up with my other hand and drag the cold, 'dead' piece of flesh off my cheek. It was so gross... haha. It's pretty amazing how heavy an arm and a hand weigh, when you're not able to control them. And after that I almost panicked out because it took pretty long before I could feel the tingling starting. Just like Spe said.

it's freaky, and it happens often too. it's fun though when you're half awake, the phone rings, and your left arm is just not responding properly and you think the phone bell is in your dream!

You should most likely be asking a doctor instead of a Massassian, but here are a few helpful, common-sense tips.

• Don't drink caffiene more than 2 hours after you wake up in the morning and don't drink more than 1-2 cups per day. Doing otherwise has been proven to cause sleep problems.
• Stay away from sweets, chips, and other foods loaded with sugar and starch. A good diet is helpful.
• Try and maintain a consistent sleeping schedule and make sure that you're getting the amount of sleep that you need each night. Some people need 7 hours, others may need 9 or even 10.
• Exercise on a regular basis. I tend to exercise in the morning right before I eat breakfast. Many doctors recommend not exercising before sleep as it can cause sleeping problems, but some studies show that this isn't entirely true.
• Take a nap in the afternoon, but make sure that there is at least 8 hours between the time you wake from your nap and the time you go to bed at night. Make sure that your nap is no longer than 1 hour.

You and your "truth" in this matter...

(Personally, I do feel it isn't just self-disipline, but that self-disipline could fix my problem. I just suck in this matter. I need to sign up for Bad Sleeper's Annonymous. <_< )